šķ |－ ºº::：-： ， ~~ ~~ ſaes∞ √≠√∞ §§§§§ “¿??¿?， º.ſ. ：） ſººs ſãº: º， B 3 9015 OO230 … -（*-a -º ??（.*）?（.* º ºgº. Fº º: ºf **-* **** * * bºº ¿E £vſae ķ ĢģĶķ i: | | | #1 ... ......… . 400 7 University of Michigan – BU HR * * * * ~ * ~ * ! lº &zāſāść” º N2. ... Tº # 7"º wº *** * . . . ..º. ğiſillſ|| ºn ". ... :New SNyrº. **a*. =: RITIIITITIIIHIIITIII ºf IIIIIHIIIHF: Eºrºrºccº Flºriº f C A S S E L L 'S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. - *- SHORTER WORKS IN E N G L IS H P R O SE S E L E CTE D E DITE /) A W D A E R A N G E 7) EY HENRY MORLEY PROFESSOR of EN GLISH LITERATURE AT UNIVERSITY Col. LE GE LoN Don. “THE RIGHT USE BOTH OF MIATTER AND MANNER: WHERETO OUR LANGUAGE GIVETH US GREAT OCCASION, BEING, INDEED, CAPABLE OF ANY EXCELLENT ExERCISING OF IT.”—Sir Philip Sidney. W I T H ( L. L. U S T R A T ( O N S , CASSEL L., PETTER, GAL PIN & CO.: LONDON, PARIS 3 NEW YORK. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] ©,? O3, \ ^2C3 N.A.- **śſº From MS. of the Saaron Chronicle. Cottom. MSS. Tiberius, B. 1 CHAPTER I. BEFoRE THE USE of PRINTING.—A.D. 1356 To A.D. 1474 CHAPTER II. EROM WILLIAM CAxTon To RogFR ASCHAM.—A.D. 1474. To A.D. 1558 CHAPTER III. IN THE REIGN of ELIZABETH.-A.D. 1558 To A.D. 1603 CHAPTER IV. IN THE REIGN of JAMES I.-A.D. 1603 To A.D. 1625 CHAPTER V. UNDER CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONWEALTH.—A.D. 1625 To A.D. 1660. CHAPTER WI. TJNDER THE LATER STUARTs.—A.D. 1660 To A.D. 1688 CHAPTER VII. TJNDER WILLIAM III. AND QUEEN ANNE.—A.D. 1689 To A.D. 1714 CHAPTER VIII. UNDER GEORGE I. AND GEORGE II.-A.D. 1714 To A.D. 1760 CHAPTER IX. FROM THE ACCESSION of GEORGE III. To THE FRENCH REvolution.—A.D. § º - O N T E N T S . sy - ŽR PAGFS 1—10 10–39 40–93 94–127 127–161 161–195 196—247 248–299 1760. To A.D. 1789 299–346 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. FROM THE FRENCH REvoluTION To THE BATTLE OF WATERLoo.—A.D. 1789 To A.D. 1815 CHAPTER XI. FROM THE BATTLE OF WATERLoo To THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA.—A.D. CHAPTER XII. UNDER WICTORIA © e º º tº & º tº º INDEXEs:— I.—QUOTED WRITERS AND Works . s o o & e II.-NoTES {- & e & e & º º & III.-SPECIMENs of ENGLISH . o {} º 6. & º 5|VIRTys's oſºvº W|RETV NDIT ISTA M *º- TIME Mowing. (From Title-page of “Donatus,” 1549.) PAGES 346–397 398–410 410—432 433 438 440 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONs. Initial “C.” (From a MS. of the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Cotton. Tib. B. 1, 11th Century) Tailpiece—Time Mowing. (From the Title-page to an Edition of “Donatus,” 1549) * & © e Ornament—Brought by the Graces to Wisdom. (Designed for Elizabeth Elstob’s “Anglo-Saxon Grammar,” 1715) e e º º e Old Books. (From Sir W. Gell’s “Pompeiana.”) Initial from a Cotton. MS. of Mandeville's Travels Paston Hall and Church. (From Sir John Fenn) A Paston Letter of the Reign of Henry VI. Sir John Fenn) . A Printing Press of 1498. a book of that year) Evil Merodach's Cruelty. and Play of the Chess” The Finder of the Play of Chess. “Game and Play of the Chess”) The First Chess-Players. (From “Caxton”) Sir Thomas More. (From an Enamel after Holbein). John Rogers. (From his Portrait in H. Holland's “Heroologia”) . e º e g e Bishop Fox. (From Queen Mary's Prayer Book) Out of the Depths. (From Queen Mary's Psalter) An Elizabethan Country House. (From Britton's “Antiquities”) . Christ Covered. 1581) . e tº s e º e e The Groundwork of Coney-catching. (From Title- page of Greene's Book, 1591) . e e º The Counterfeit Crank. (From Greene’s “Coney- catching,” 1591) . Town and Country. (From (From the Frontispiece to (From Caxton's “Game (From Caxton's (From Stephen Bateman’s “Doom,” (From Greene’s “Quip for an Upstart Courtier”) g º e e g Greene Raised from the Grave. (From J. Dickenson's “Greene in Conceipt,” 1598) An Elizabethan Shilling The Old Front of Wilton House Initial from Hakluyt's “Voyages,” 1589 º Sir Francis Drake taking a Spanish Galleon. (From John Pine's Plates of the Tapestry Hangings in the House of Lords) º e s º A Portuguese Carack. (From the Title-page to Linschoten's “Discours of Voyages,” 1598) Tailpiece from Hakluyt's “Voyages,” 1589 Achmat, Emperor. (From Knolles's “Historie of the Turkes,” 1610) –0-C-e—- PAGE PAGE The Gotham Cuckoo. (From the “Merry Tales of y Gotham,” 1630) . e * @ 103 Abbey Church of St. Albans . º e e . 111 Vi Engraved Title-page of Bacon’s “Sylva Sylvarum” (1629) . . . . . 116 John Milton, aged Twenty-one . º © . 127 viii The Parliament of England. (From the Great Seal 1 of the Commonwealth) . . . 132 1. John Selden. (From the Engraving in his “Janus”) 138 7 Lambeth Palace. (From an Engraving by Hollar, 1647) . ge tº 144 8 Autograph of John Milton. º º e . 149 Jeremy Taylor. (Frontispiece to his “Holy Dying”) 150 10 Initial from Lord Orrery's “Parthenissa” e . 161 A Sailing Chariot. (From John Wilkins's “Mathe- 11 matical Magic”). e º e . . 163 A Chariot on the Windmill Principle. (From the 12 same) . * * © º * º . 163 12 Robert Boyle. (From the Frontispiece to one of his 14 Books, 1670) 166 Cowley’s House at Chertsey t & e . 168 33 Aphra Behn. (From the Portrait prefixed to her 37 Novels) º * e te e ve e 175 39 Ornament from the “Life of Clarendon,” 1667. 196 Sir William Temple. (From Sir Peter Lely's 40 Portrait, 1679) . e o e e º . 200 Daniel Defoe. (From the “True Collection” of his 44 Writings, 1703) . e º e e e . 207 Jonathan Swift. (From the Portrait engraved for 49 Lord Orrery) -> • & e º . 212 Joseph Addison. (From Portrait by Kneller, 1716) . 220 49 Sir Richard Steele. (From a French Translation of his Political Works, 1715) . g e * . 222 65 William King. (From the Title-page of his Collected Works) e e º e sº e . 229 66 Richard Steele, aet. 46. (From Nichols's Editions of 66 his Letters, &c.) . e e e e e . 234 69 Frontispiece to the First Volume of Steele's “Ladies' 87 Library,” 1714 i- e e e . 246 Ornaments from the First Edition of “The Beggar's Opera" • * g e * 247, 248 88 Olympian Walpole. (Frontispiece to Bolingbroke's “Dissertation upon Parties”) 256 89 Lord Chesterfield e 260 93 Glastonbury . & º º g e 263 Woodcut from Fielding’s “Miscellanies” . º 263 97 Henry Fielding. (From the Portrait by Hogarth) 272 viii IIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Tobias Smollett. (From the Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds) . º g º º e e º Shenstone Favoured by Apollo. (From the Edition of his Works published in 1764) º s Lady Bradshaigh. (From Mrs. Barbauld’s “Corre- spondence of Samuel Richardson’’) tº * Samuel Richardson. (From the Engraving circulated by himself among his Friends) & g g Richardson Reading the MS. of “Sir Charles Grandison.” (From a Sketch made at the time by one of the Party) * e º * The Infant Johnson. (By Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1761) Laurence Sterne. (From the Portrait before Vol. I. of his “Sermons,” 1765) . * Samuel Johnson. (From the Portrait before “The Lives of the Poets,” 1781) . e - s Sir Joshua Reynolds. (From his Portrait of himself) The Old Royal Academy, Pall Mall . g & º Rooms of the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House Edmund Burke. (From the Portrait before his “Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful,” ed. 1798) Allegorical Design from Campbell’s “Pleasures of Hope” º & s ſº * * e tº Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (From an Early Portrait, 1796, in Joseph Cottle’s “Recollections”) . º Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. (From the Portrait before Godwin's Memoir of her, 1798). * Robert Southey (1796). (From Cottle’s “Early Recol- lections”) 290 296 299 346 364 367 369 William Wordsworth (1798). Recollections”) Charles Lamb (1798). William Hazlitt. º e o º e Leigh Hunt (1797). (From a Portrait by Samuel Laurence) (From Cottle's “Early (From the same) Entrance to Hougoumont. (From Southey’s “Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo,” 1816) . Ruins of Hougoumont John Wilson - Thomas De Quincey . º - * & & Charles Lamb. (From a Portrait by William Haz- litt) (From the same). Craigenputtoch - - - • Thomas Carlyle's House at Craigenputtoch Charles Dickens © º - º º - William Makepeace Thackeray (1862). (From a Drawing by Samuel Laurence) John Ruskin • - - º - º * Thomas Carlyle (1875). (From a Medallion designed by Boehm) . - * º g Ornament from Jeremy Taylor's “Opuscula,” 1678 . A Modern Printing Machine - º e Initial “I.” (From Bacon’s “Henry the Seventh,” 1629) . - - e t - º Ornament from Johann Friedrich Eckhard’s “Nach- richten von Einigen Seltenen Büchern,” 1775 Ornament from Jeremy Taylor's “Great Exemplar,” 1649 BROUGHT BY THE GRACES TO WISDOM. (From Elizabeth Elstob’s “Anglo-Saa.on. Grammar,” 1715.) PAGE 378 379 379 390 397 397 399 402 404 409 410 421 422 429 431 432 433 433 437 440 CASSELLS LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. &=> }: ſº § š § >- $sº; OLD BOOKs.1 (From Sir William Gell’s “Pompeiana.”) IV. S. H. O. R T E R P R O S E W O R. K.S. CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE USE of PRINTING.—A.D. 1356 To A.D. 1474. – ºr ‘HYTHM is associated with the first utterances de- /S & º §§ signed for frequent repeti- ---ºff º - ~ * tion and continued life. & 2: The praise of chiefs, the ºS cherished memories or º beliefs of a people, formed * into musical sequences of words with alliteration, or other device to secure for each important word both emphasis and good help to its recollection, make the substance of that early literature which lives on the lips of its authors and in the memories of those who learn it from them and diffuse it pleasantly in cadenced chant among the people. Prose was not written when few read sº and literature lay between the reciters and a world of listeners. When there ń were more readers, cultivated men and women, with the written page before them, could recite at will for pleasure of their friends. Still, they were sup- plied chiefly with verse; but the good stories current among daily talk could * be collected and written in the manner of those who told them well in the direct phrase of common speech. Such tales in prose Boccaccio told again for the Italians in his “Decameron,” about the middle of the fourteenth century. But when Chaucer and Gower followed the example of his story-telling, their English tales were still in verse, except that Chaucer included two prose pieces in his Canterbury Tales—a moral story from the French, and a homily for his Parson.” The direct preaching of Wiclif, and his urging of reform upon the Church and people, are represented also by English prose tracts and sermons, which are thoroughly simple and straightforward, as it is the nature of right prose to be. The word “Prose” means straightforward. It is derived from the Latin prorsus, and so was the name of a Roman goddess, Prorsa, called also Prosa, who presided over ordinary births with the head foremost. Prose signifies, there- fore, the direct manner of common speech without twists or unusual ways of presentation. Coleridge said that he wished our clever young poets would remember his “homely definition of prose and poetry—that is, prose is words in their best order; poetry, the best words in the best order.” The definition may be homely, but it is not true. No writer of prose would wish to use second-best words. Setting aside the difference that lies deep in the nature of the thought, there remains only the mechanical distinction that verse is a contrivance for Initial from MS. of Mande- wille’s Travels. (Cotton.) 1. Next to the case containing six books rolled and labelled, are tables, hinged and wax-covered, for writing. Below are a reed pen or calamus and an ink-stand. Behind is another kind of table hanging from a metal pen or style, here used as a pin. To the right of that is a thick book of tables. In front are a style and a group of single volumes in cases or unrolled, with their titles attached, sometimes to the papyrus, sometimes to the wood in the centre. * Part of this homily—on Anger—is quoted on pages 103-106 of the volume of this Library illustrating English Religion. In the same volume, on pages 71-73, will be found specimens of Wiclif's prose. 177 2 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1356. obtaining by fixed places of frequently recurring pause and elevation of the voice, by rhyme and other devices, a large number of places of fixed emphasis, that cause stress to be laid on every important word, while they set thought to music. Whatever will bear this continuous enforcement is fit matter for verse; but the customary thought of men, though put into words that fit it perfectly, and are there- fore the best, is less intense, and therefore is best expressed in the straightforward method of our customary speech. Much of our early English prose is translation, cramped by some transference of foreign idiom, and with the choice of words sometimes determined rather by a foreign text than by the familiar association between word and thought. But it is always un- affected. Thus, Sir John Mandeville's account of his travels, written, as it appears from the texts, first in French, and then translated into Latin, was translated also into English, and that version is ascribed in the Introduction to some copies of it to Sir John himself. As there are errors of trans- lation into which the original author of the book could not have fallen, because they imply gross ignorance of his meaning, the English version of the Travels must have been from another hand; but it represents prose of the fourteenth century. Sir John Mandeville was born at St. Albans, and was old enough in 1322 to set out upon his travels. He was absent thirty years, and when he came back, troubled with rheumatic gout, he busied himself with his pen. The English version of his Travels is said to have been made in 1356. The chief aim of Mandeville's Travels was to describe routes to Jerusalem ; he adapted his record of travel to this view of the chief object of travel. He says that he and his men served in a war the Sultan of Babylon, and were for fifteen months with the Great Khan of the Tartars of Cathay. Although Mandeville travelled far and saw much, there can be little doubt that in his desire to gain a lively and full view of the travellers' world he worked into his narrative some records of other men's adventures. In other respects he tells honestly what he has seen, and shows only the good appetite of his time for marvels that he heard. The fabulous Prester John, whose country is described in the section here given from Mandeville's Travels, was first heard of at Rome in 1145 as a Nestorian priest who claimed to be descended from the Magi. He had taken Ecbatana, and was going to Jerusalem, after the example of his ancestors the Magi, but taking with him all his force, when he was stopped by the Tigris, went north, where he hoped to cross at the winter freezing of the river, waited some years, found no ice, and went back. Fables thenceforth spread rapidly concerning Prester John as a great Christian emperor of the East. Travellers to the far East were inquisitive upon this subject, and this is the account given by Sir John Mandeville of THE LAND OF PRESTER JOHN. This emperor, Prester John, possesses very extensive territory, and has many very noble cities and good towns in his realm, and many great and large isles.” For all the country of India is divided into isles, by the great floods that come from Paradise, that separate all the land into many parts. And also in the sea he has full many isles. And the best city in the isle of Penthexoire is Nyse, a very royal city, noble and very rich. This Prester John has under him many kings and many isles, and many divers people of divers con- ditions. And this land is full good and rich, but not so rich as the land of the Great Khan. For the merchants come not thither so commonly to buy merchandise, as they do in the land of the Great Khan, for it is too far. And on the other side, in the isle of Cathay,” men find all things needful to man, cloths of gold, of silk, and spicery. And therefore, although men have them cheap in the isle of Prester John, they dread the long way and the great perils in the sea. For in many places of the sea are great rocks of stone of adamant (loadstone), which of its nature draws iron to it; and therefore there pass no ships that, have either bonds or nails of iron in them ; and if they do, anon the rocks of adamant draw them to them, that they may never go thence. I myself have seen afar in that sea, as though it had been a great isle full of trees and bushes, full of thorns and briers, in great plenty; and the shipmen told us that all that was of ships that were drawn thither by the adamants, for the iron that was in them. And of the rottenness and other things that were within the ships, grew such bushes, and thorns, and briers, and green grass, and such kinds of things; and of the masts and of the sail-yards, it seemed a great wood or a grove. And such rocks are in many places there about. And therefore merchants dare not pass there, except they know well the passages, or unless they have good pilots. And also they dread the long way, and, therefore, they go to Cathay, because it is nearer; and yet it is not so nigh but men must travel by sea and land eleven or twelve months, from Genoa or from Venice, to Cathay. And yet is the land of Prester John more far, by many dreadful days’ journey. And the merchants pass by the kingdom of Persia, and go to a city called Hermes, because Hermes the philosopher founded it. And after that they pass an arm of the Sea, and then they go to another city called Golbache; and there they find mer- chandise, and as great abundance of parrots as men find here of geese. In that country is but little wheat or barley, and therefore they eat rice and honey, milk, cheese, and fruit. This emperor, Prester John, takes always to wife the daughter of the Great Khan;” and the Great Khan also in the same wise the daughter of Prester John. For they two are the greatest lords under the firmament. In the Land of Prester John are many divers things and many precious stones, so great and so large, that men make of them plates, dishes, cups, &c. And many other marvels are there, that it were too long to put in a book. But I will tell you of his principal isles, and of his estate, and of his law. This emperor Prester John is a Christian, and a great part of his country also ; but they have not all the articles of our faith. They believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and they are very devout and true to one another. And he has under him seventy-two provinces, and in every province is a king, all which kings are tributary to Prester John. And in his lordships are many great marvels, for in his country is the sea called the Gravelly Sea, which is all 1 Great and large isles. Colonel Yule observes that Mandeville makes islands of nearly all the Eastern regions. He ascribes this old practice partly to the loose use by the Arabs of the word Jazireh, but asks also, Was the word used for a place reached by Sea P 2 Cathay was the mediaeval name of China. 3 The Great Khan was the Emperor of China in Cambalu or Pekin (Khan-bálig, the Khan’s City). A.D. 1356.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. ‘s 3 gravel and sand, without a drop of water; and it ebbs and flows in great waves, as other seas do, and it is never still. And no man can pass that sea with ships, and, therefore, no man knows what land is beyond that sea. And although it has no water, men find therein, and on the banks, very good fish, of different nature and shape from what is found in any other sea; and they are of very good taste and delicious to eat. Three days from that Sea are great mountains, out of which runs a great river which comes from Paradise, and it is full of precious stones, without a drop of water, and it runs through the desert, on one side, so that it makes the Gravelly Sea where it ends. And that river runs only three days in the week, and brings with it great stones and the rocks also there with, and that in great plenty. And when they are entered into the Gravelly Sea they are seen no more. And in those three days that that river runneth, no man dare enter into it, but in the other days men dare enter well enough. Beyond that river, more up towards the deserts, is a great plain all gravelly between the mountains; and in that plain, every day at sun-rise, small trees begin to grow, and they grow till mid-day, bearing fruit; but no man dare take of that fruit, for it is a thing of faerie. And after mid-day they decrease and enter again into the earth, so that at sun-set they appear no more; and so they do every day. In that desert are many wild men, hideous to look on, and horned ; and they speak nought, but grunt like pigs. And there is also great plenty of wild dogs. And there are many parrots, which speak of their own nature, and Salute men that go through the deserts, and speak to them as plainly as though it were a man. And they that speak well have a large tongue, and have five toes upon each foot. And there are also others which have but three toes upon each foot, and they speak but little. This emperor Prester John, when he goes to battle against any other lord, has no banners borne before him; but he has three large crosses of gold full of precious stones ; and each cross is set in a chariot full richly arrayed. And to keep each cross are appointed ten thousand men of arms, and more than one hundred thousand footmen. And this number of people is independent of the chief army. And when he has no war, but rides with a private company, he has before him but one plain cross of wood, in remembrance that Jesus Christ suffered death upon a wooden cross. And they carry before him also a platter of gold full of earth, in token that his nobleness, and his might, and his flesh, shall turn to earth. And he has borne before him also a vessel of silver, full of noble jewels of gold and precious stones, in token of his lordship, nobility, and power. He dwells commonly in the city of Susa, and there is his principal palace, which is so rich and noble that no man can conceive it without seeing it. And above the chief tower of the palace are two round pommels of gold, in each of which are two large carbuncles, which shine bright in the night. And the principal gates of his palace are of the precious stones called Sardonyx; and the borders and bars are of ivory; and the windows of the halls and chambers are of crystal; and the tables, on which men eat, some are of emeralds, some of amethyst, and some of gold, full of precious stones, and the pillars that support the tables are of the same precious stones. Of the steps approaching his throne, where he sits at meat, one is of onyx, another crystal, another green jasper, another amethyst, an- other sardonyx, another cornelian, and the seventh, on which he sets his feet, is of chrysolite. All these steps are bordered with fine gold, with the other precious stones, set with great orient pearls. The sides of the seat of his throne are of emeralds, and bordered full nobly with gold, and dubbed with other precious stones and great pearls. All the pillars in his chamber are of fine gold with precious stones, and with many carbuncles, which give great light by night to all people. And although the carbuncle gives light enough, nevertheless at all times a vessel of crystal, full of balm, is burning to give good smell and odour to the emperor, and to expel all wicked airs and corruptions. The frame of his bed is of fine Sapphires blended with gold, to make him sleep well. e He hath also a very fair and noble palace in the city of Nice, where he dwells when he likes; but the air is not so temperate as it is at the city of Susa. And you shall understand that in his country, and in the countries surrounding, men eat but once in the day, as they do in the court of the Great Khan. And more than thirty thousand persons eat every day in his court, besides goers and comers, but these thirty thousand persons spend not so much as twelve thousand of our country. This emperor Prester John has evermore seven kings with him, to serve him, who share their service by certain months; and with these kings serve always seventy-two dukes and three hun- dred and sixty earls. And all the days of the year, twelve archbishops and twenty bishops eat in his household and in his court. And the patriarch of St. Thomas is there what the pope is here. And the archbishops, and the bishops, and the abbots in that country, are all kings. And each of these great lords knows well the attendance of his service. One is master of his household, another is his chamberlain, another serveth him with a dish, another with a cup, another is steward, another is marshal, another is prince of his arms; and thus is he full nobly and royally served. And his land extends in extreme breadth four months' journey, and in length out of measure, including all the isles under earth, that we suppose to be under us. Near the isle of Penthexoire, which is the land of Prester John, is a great isle, long and broad, called Milsterak," which is in the lordship of Prester John. That isle is very rich. There was dwelling not long since a rich man, named Gatho- lonabes, who was full of tricks and subtle deceits. He had a fair and strong castle in a mountain,” so strong and noble that no man could devise a fairer or a stronger. And he had caused the mountain to be all walled about with a strong and fair wall, within which walls he had the fairest garden that might be imagined; and therein were trees bearing all manner of fruits, all kinds of herbs of virtue and of good smell, and all other herbs also that bear fair flowers. And he had also in that garden many fair wells, and by them he had made fair halls and fair chambers, painted all with gold and azure, representing many divers things and many divers stories. There were also beasts and birds which sung full delectably, and moved by craft, that it seemed that they were alive. And he had also in his garden all kinds of birds and beasts, that men might have play or sport to behold them. And he had also in that place the fairest damsels that might 1 Milsterak, the Millestorte of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, from whom Mandeville seems to have borrowed much in this part of his book. Odoric of Pordenone, in Friuli, was born about the year 1286, became early in life a Franciscam friar at Udine, and was famous for sanctity before he started on his travels in the year 1316, 1317, or 1318. He had for companion Friar James, an Irishman. He was in Western India, soon after 1321, spent between 1322 and 1328 three years in Northern China, and returned in 1330. In May of that year he dictated his story to a brother of his order, William of Solagna, who took it down in Latin. Odoric died in January, 1331. His travels, with valuable introductory information and notes, are translated into English in Colonel Yule's “Cathay and the Way Thither,” a most interesting collection, in two volumes, of mediaeval notices of China, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1866. 2 This Eastern tradition of an Old Man of the Mountains was also told to Marco Polo and Odoric, and is given by them. 4 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1856. be found under the age of fifteen years, and the fairest young striplings that men might get at that same age ; and they were all clothed full richly in clothes of gold; and he said they were angels. And he had also caused to be made three fair and noble wells, all surrounded with stone of jasper and Crystal, diapered with gold, and set with precious stones and great orient pearls. And he had made a conduit under the earth, so that the three wells, at his will, should run one with milk, another with wine, and another with honey. And that place he called Paradise. And when any good knight, who was hardy and noble, came to see this royalty, he would lead him into Paradise, and show him these wonderful things, for his sport, and the marvellous and delicious song of divers birds, and the fair damsels, and the fair wells of milk, wine, and honey, running plentifully. There he would let divers instruments of music sound in a high tower, so merrily that it was joy to hear, and no man should see the craft thereof; and those he said were angels of God, and that place was Paradise, that God had promised to his friends, saying “I will give you a land flowing with milk and honey.” And then he would make them drink of certain drink, whereof anon they should be drunk; after which they seemed to have greater delight than they had before. And then would he say to them, that if they would die for him and for his love, after their death they should come to his paradise; and they should be of the age of the damsels, and they should play with them and yet they would remain maidens. And after that he would put them in a fairer paradise, where they should see the God of Nature visibly, in His majesty and bliss. And then would he show them his intent, and tell them, if they would go and slay such a lord or such a man who was his enemy, or disobedient to his will, they should not fear to do it, or to be slain themselves in doing it; for after their death he would put them into another paradise that was a hundred fold fairer than any of the others; and there should they dwell with the fairest damsels that might be, and play with them evermore. And thus went many divers lusty bachelors to slay great lords in divers countries, that were his enemies, in hopes to have that paradise. And thus he was often revenged of his enemies by his subtle deceits and false tricks. But when the worthy men of the country had perceived this subtle falsehood of this Gatho- lonabes, they assembled with force, and assailed his castle, and slew him, and destroyed all the fair places of that paradise. The place of the wells and of the walls and of many other things are yet clearly to be seen, but the riches are clean gone. And it is not long ago since that place was destroyed. Near that isle of Milsterak, upon the left side, nigh to the river of Pison, is a marvellous thing. There is a vale be- tween the mountains which extends nearly four miles; and Some call it the Enchanted Vale, some call it the Vale of Devils, and some the Perilous Vale." In that Vale men hear oftentimes great tempests and thunders, and great murmurs and noises, day and night; and great noise, as it were, of tabors, and nakers,” and trumpets, as though it were of a great feast. This vale is all full of devils, and has been always ; and men say there that it is one of the entrances of hell. In that vale is great plenty of gold and silver; where- fore many misbelieving men, and many Christians also, often times go in, to have of the treasure; but few return, * The account of the Perilous Vale seems to be taken from Odoric, though Mandeville joins it to his own experiences. The first eight years of Mandeville's travels correspond to the eight last of Odoric's, and as both certainly went to the far East, they may have met; the “two friars minors of Lombardy’ being Odoric and James. * Nakers, kettle-drums an ; Arabic word. especially of the misbelieving men, for they are anon strangled by the devils. And in the centre of that vale, under a rock, is a head and the visage of a devil bodily, full horrible and dreadful to see, and it shows but the head to the shoulders.” But there is no man in the world so bold, Christian or other, but he would be in dread to behold it, and he would feel almost dead with fear, so hideous is it to behold. For he looks at every man so sharply with dreadful eyes, that are ever moving and sparkling like fire, and changes and stirs so often in divers manners, with so horrible a countenance, that no man dare approach towards him. And from him issues smoke, and stink, and fire, and so much abomination that scarce any man may endure there. But the good Christians, that are stable, in their faith, enter without peril; for they will first shrive them, and mark them with the sign of the holy cross, so that the fiends have no power over them. But although they are without peril, yet they are not without dread when they see the devils visibly and bodily all about them, that make full many divers assaults and menaces, in air and on earth, and terrify them with strokes of thunder blasts and of tempests. And the greatest fear is that God will take vengeance then of that which men have misdone against His will. And you shall understand that when my fellows and I were in this vale, we were in great thought whether we durst put our bodies in aventure, to go in or not, in the protection of God; and some of our fellows agreed to enter, and some not. So there were with us two worthy men, friars minors of Lombardy, who said that if any man would enter they would go in with us; and when they had said so, upon the gracious trust of God and of them, we heard mass, and every man was shriven and housled; and then we entered, fourteen persons, but at our going out we were but nine. And so we never knew whether our fellows were lost, or had turned back for fear; but we never saw them after. They were two men of Greece, and three of Spain. And our other fellows, that would not go in with us, went by another road to be before us; and so they were. And thus we passed that Perilous Vale, and found therein gold and silver, and precious stones, and rich jewels, in great plenty, both here and there, as it seemed; but whether it was as it seemed I know not, for I touched none; because the devils are so subtle to make a thing to seem otherwise than it is, to deceive mankind; and therefore I touched none; and also because that I would not be put out of my devotion, for I was more devout then than ever I was before or after, and all for the dread of fiends that I saw in divers figures; and also for the great multitude of dead bodies that I saw there lying by the way, in all the vale, as though there had been a battle between two kings, and the mightiest of the country, and that the greater party had been discomfited and slain. And I believe that hardly should any country have so many people in it as lay slain in that vale, as it seemed to us, which was a hideous sight to see. And I marvelled much that there were so many, and the bodies all whole, without rotting; but I believe that fiends made them seem to be so fresh, without rotting. And many of them were in habits of Christian men; but I believe they were such as went in for covetousness of the treasure that was there, and had overmuch feebleness in faith; so that their hearts might not endure in the belief for dread. And therefore we were the more devout a great deal; and yet we were cast down and beaten down many times to the hard earth by winds and thunders, and tempests; but evermore God of His grace 3 Arock sculpture may have been thus amplified by tradition. Noises heard in deep mountain gorges have more than once been compared in sober narrative to sound of kettle-drums. A.D. 1356.1 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 5 helped us. And so we passed that perilous vale without peril and without encumbrance, thanked be almighty God After this, beyond the vale, is a great isle, the inhabitants of which are great giants of twenty-eight or thirty feet long, with no clothing but skins of beasts, that they hang upon them ; and they eat nothing but raw flesh, and drink milk of beasts. They have no houses to lie in. And they eat more gladly man’s flesh than any other flesh. Into that isle dare no man enter; and if they see a ship, and men therein, anon they enter into the Sea to take them. And men told us that in an isle beyond that were giants of greater stature, some of forty-five or fifty feet long, and even, as some men say, of fifty cubits long; but I saw none of those, for I had no lust to go to those parts, because that no man comes either into that isle or into the other but he will be devoured anon. And among those giants are sheep as great as oxen here, which bear great rough wool. Of the sheep I have seen many times. And men have said many times those giants take men, in the sea, out of their ships, and bring them to land, two in one hand and two in the other, eating them going, all raw and alive. In another isle, towards the north, in the Sea of Ocean, are very evil women, who have precious stones in their eyes; and if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him with the look. After that is another isle, where women make great sorrow when their children are born; and when they die, they make great feasts, and great joy and revel, and then they cast them into a great burning fire. And those that love well their husbands, if their husbands die, they cast themselves also into the fire, with their children, and burn them. In that isle they make their king always by election; and they choose him not for nobleness or riches, but such a one as is of good manners and condition, and therewithal just ; and also that he be of great age, and that he have no children. In that isle men are very just, and they do just judgments in every cause, both of rich and poor, small and great, according to their trespasses. And the king may not judge a man to death without assent of his barons and other wise men of council, and unless all the court agree thereto. And if the king himself do any homicide or crime, as to slay a man, or any such case, he shall die for it; but he shall not be slain as another man; but they forbid, on pain of death, that any man be so bold as to make him company or to speak with him, or give or sell him meat or drink; and so shall he die disgracefully. They spare no man that has trespassed, either for love, or favour, or riches, or nobility; but that he shall have according to what he has done. Beyond that isle is another, where is a great multitude of people, who will not eat flesh of hares, hens, or geese; and yet they breed them in abundance, to see and behold them only, but they eat flesh of all other beasts, and drink milk. In that country they take their daughters or their sisters to wife, and their other kinswomen. . . . In that country, and in all India, are great plenty of cockodrills, a sort of long serpent, as I have said before ; and in the night they dwell in the water, and in the day upon the land, in rocks and caves; and they eat no meat in winter, but lie as in a dream, as do serpents. These serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping; and when they eat, they move the upper jaw, and not the lower jaw ; and they have no tongue. In that country, and in many others beyond, and also in many on this side, men sow the seed of cotton; and they sow it every year, and then it grows to small trees, which bear cotton. And so do men every year, so that there is plenty of cotton at all times. In this isle also, and in many others, there is a manner of wood, hard and strong; and whoever covers the coals of that wood under the ashes thereof, the coals will remain alive a year or more. And among other trees there are nut trees, that bear nuts as great as a man's head. There are also animals called orafes, which are called, in Arabia, gerfauntz." They are spotted, and a little higher than a horse, with a neck twenty cubits long; and the croup and tail are like those of a hart; and one of them may look over a high house. And there are also in that country many cameleons; and there are very great serpents, some one hundred and twenty feet long, of divers colours, as rayed, red, green and yellow, blue and black, and all speckled. And there are others that have crests upon their heads; and they go upon their feet upright. And there are also wild swine of many colours, as great as oxen in our country, all spotted like young fawns. And there are also hedgehogs, as great as wild swine, which we call porcupines. And there are many other extraordinary animals. And beyond that isle is another isle, great and rich, where are good and true people, and of good living after their belief, and of good faith. And although they are not christened, yet by natural law they are full of all virtue, and eschew all vices; for they are not proud, nor covetous, nor envious, nor wrathful, nor gluttonous, Inor lecherous; nor do they to any man otherwise than they would that other men did to them ; and in this point they fulfil the ten command- ments of God. And they care not for possessions or riches; and they lie not, nor do they swear, but say simply yea and nay; for they say he that sweareth will deceive his neigh- bour; and therefore all that they do, they do it without oath. And that isle is called the isle of Bragman, and some men call it the Land of Faith; and through it runs a great river called Thebe. And in general all the men of those isles, and of all the borders thereabout, are truer than in any country there- about, and more just than others in all things. In that isle is no thief, no murderer, no common woman, no poor beggar, and no man was ever slain in that country. And they be as chaste, and lead as good a life, as though they were monks; and they fast all days. And because they are so true, and so just, and so full of all good conditions, they are never grieved with tempests, nor with thunder and lightning, nor with hail, nor with pestilence, nor with war, nor with famine, nor with any other tribulation, as we are many times amongst us for our sins; wherefore it appeares evident that God loveth them for their good deeds. They believe well in God that made all things, and worship Him; and they prize no earthly riches; and they live full orderly, and so soberly in meat and drink, that they live right long. And the most part of them die without sickness, when nature faileth them for old age. And it befell, in king Alexander's time, that he purposed to conquer that isle ; but when they of the country heard it, they sent messengers to him with letters, that said thus:— “What may we be now to that man to whom all the world is insufficient P Thou shalt find nothing in us to cause thee to war against us; for we have no riches, nor do we desire any; and all the goods of our country are in common. Our meat, with which we sustain our bodies, is our riches; and instead of treasure of gold and silver, we make our treasure of acorns and pease, and to love one another. And to apparel our bodies we use a simple cloth to wrap our carcase. Our wives are not arrayed to make any man pleased. When men labour to array the body, to make it seem fairer than God made it, they do great sin ; for man should not devise nor ask greater beauty than God hath ordained him to have at his birth. The earth ministereth to us two things; our livelihood, that cometh of the earth that we live by, and our sepulchre after our death. We have been in perpetual peace 1 Gerfauntz, giraffes. 6 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1356 till now that thou art come to disinherit us; and also we have a king. Not to do justice to every man, for he shall find no forfeit among us; but to keep nobleness, and to show that we are obedient, we have a king. For justice has among us no place; for we do to no man otherwise than we desire that men do to us, so that righteousness or vengeance have nought to do among us; so that thou mayest take nothing from us but our good peace, that always hath endured among us.” And when king Alexander had read these letters, he thought that he should do great sin to trouble them. There is another isle called Oxidrate, and another called Gymnosophe, where there are also good people, and full of good faith; and they hold, for the most part, the same good conditions and customs, and good manners, as men of the country above mentioned; but they all go naked. Into that isle entered king Alexander, to see the customs; and when he saw their great faith, and the truth that was amongst them, he said that he would not grieve them, and bade them ask of him what they would have of him, riches or any thing else, and they should have it with good will. And they answered that he was rich enough that had meat and drink to sustain the body with ; for the riches of this world, that is transitory, are of no worth; but if it were in his power to make them immortal, thereof would they pray him, and thank him. And Alexander answered them that it was not in his power to do it, because he was mortal, as they were. And then they asked him why he was so proud, and so fierce, and so busy to put all the world under his subjection, “right as thou wert a God, and hast no term of this life, neither day nor hour; and covetest to have all the world at thy command, that shall leave thee without fail, or thou leave it. And right as it hath been to other men before thee, right so it shall be to others after thee, and from hence shalt thou carry nothing; but as thou wert born naked, right so all naked shall thy body be turned into earth, that thou wert made of. Wherefore thou shouldst think, and impress it on thy mind, that nothing is immortal but only God, that made all things.” By which answer Alexander was greatly astonished and abashed, and all confused departed from them. Many other isles there are in the Land of Prester John, and many great marvels, that were too long to tell, both of his riches and of his nobleness, and of the great plenty also of precious stones that he has. I think that you know well now, and have heard say, why this emperor is called Prester John. There was some time an emperor there, who was a worthy and a full noble prince, that had Christian knights in his company, as he has that now is. So it befell that he had great desire to see the service in the church among Chris- tians; and then Christendom extended beyond the sea, in- cluding all Turkey, Syria, Tartary, Jerusalem, Palestine, Arabia, Aleppo, and all the land of Egypt. So it befell that this emperor came, with a Christian knight with him, into a church in Egypt; and it was the Saturday in Whitsuntide. And the bishop was conferring orders; and he beheld and listened to the service full attentively; and he asked the Christian knight what men of degree they should be that the prelate had before him ; and the knight answered and said that they were priests. And then the emperor said that he would no longer be called King nor Emperor, but Priest; and that he would have the name of the first priest that went out of the church ; and his name was John. And so, evermore since, he is called Prester John. Towards the east of Prester John's land is a good and great isle called Taprobane," and it is very fruitful; and the king thereof is rich, and is under the obeisance of Prester John. 1 Taprobane, Ceylon. And there they always make their king by election. In that isle are two summers and two winters; and men harvest the corn twice a year; and in all seasons of the year the gardens are in flower. There dwell good people, and reasonable; and many Christian men among them, who are so rich that they know not what to do with their goods. Of old time, when men passed from the land of Prester John unto that isle, men made ordinance to pass by ship in twenty-three days or more; but now men pass by ship in seven days. And men may see the bottom of the sea in many places; for it is not very deep. Beside that isle, towards the east, are two other isles, one called Orille, the other Argyte, of which all the land is mines of gold and silver. And those isles are just where the Red Sea separates from the Ocean Sea. And in those isles men See no stars so clearly as in other places; for there appears only one clear star called Canopus. And there the moon is not seen in all the lunation, except in the second quarter. In the isle, also, of this Taprobane are great hills of gold, that ants keep full diligently. And beyond the land, and isles, and deserts of Prester John's lordship, in going straight towards the east, men find nothing but mountains and great rocks; and there is the dark region, where no man may see, neither by day nor night, as they of the country say. And that desert, and that place of darkness, lasts from this coast unto Terrestrial Paradise, where Adam, our first father, and Eve were put, who dwelt there but a little while; and that is towards the east, at the beginning of the earth. But this is not that east that we call our east, on this half, where the sun rises to us; for when the sun is east in those parts towards Terrestrial Paradise, it is then midnight in our parts on this half, on account of the roundness of the earth, of which I have told you before; for our Lord God made the earth all round, in the middle of the firmament. And there have mountains and hills been, and valleys, which arose only from Noah's flood, that wasted the soft and tender ground, and fell down into valleys; and the hard earth and the rock remain mountains, when the soft and tender earth was worn away by the water, and fell, and became valleys. Of Paradise I cannot speak properly, for I was not there. It is far beyond; and I repent not going there, but I was not worthy. But as I have heard say of wise men beyond, I shall tell you with good will. Terrestrial Paradise, as wise men say, is the highest place of the earth; and it is so high that it nearly touches the circle of the moon there, as the moon makes her turn. For it is so high that the flood of Noah might not come to it, that would have covered all the earth of the world all about, and above and beneath, except Paradise. And this Paradise is inclosed all about with a wall, and men know not whereof it is ; for the wall is covered all over with moss, as it seems; and it seems not that the wall is natural stone. And that wall stretches from the south to the north; and it has but one entry, which is closed with burning fire, so that no man that is mortal dare enter. And in the highest place of Paradise, exactly in the middle, is a well that casts out the four streams, which run by divers lands, of which the first is called Pison, or Ganges, that runs throughout India, or Emlak, in which river are many precious stones, and much lignum aloes, and much sand of gold. And the other river is called Nile, or Gyson, which goes through Ethiopia, and after through Egypt. And the other is called Tigris, which runs by Assyria, and by Armenia the Great. And the other is called Euphrates, which runs through Media, Armenia, and Persia. And men there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the world, above and beneath, take their beginning from the well of Paradise; and out of that well all waters come to A.D. 1449.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 7 and go. The first river is called Pison, that is, in our language, Assembly; for many other rivers meet there, and go into that river. And some call it Ganges, from an Indian king, called Gangeres, because it ran through his land. And its water is in some places clear, and in some places troubled; in some places hot, and in some places cold. The second river is called Nile, or Gyson, for it is always troubled; and Gyson, in the language of Ethiopia, is to say Trouble, and in the language of Egypt also. The third river, called Tigris, is as much as to say, Fast Running ; for it runs faster than any of the others. The fourth river is called Euphrates, that is to say, Well Bearing; for there grow upon that river corn, fruit, and other goods, in great plenty. And you shall understand that no man that is mortal may approach to that Paradise; for by land no man may go for wild beasts, that are in the deserts, and for the high mountains, and great huge rocks, that no man may pass by for the dark places that are there; and by the rivers may no man go, for the water runs so roughly and so sharply, because it comes down so outrageously from the high places above, that it runs in so great waves that no ship may row or sail against it; and the water roars so, and makes so huge a noise, and so great a tempest, that no man may hear another in the ship, though he cried with all the might he could. Many great lords have assayed with great will, many times, to pass by those rivers towards Paradise, with full great companies; but they might not speed in their voyage ; and many died for weariness of rowing against the strong waves; and many of them became blind, and many deaf, for the noise of the water; and some perished and were lost in the waves; so that no mortal man may approach to that place without special grace of God; so that of that place I can tell you no more. - Our literature includes a series of family letters," written between the years 1422 and 1509. They were written by and to members of the Paston family, which derived its name from a Norfolk ===== === == T. E - -- # ==-TT - TE---> <= == — — —— º #: --—- -- z – - jºcºsº gº "if º |l. º |º # jº tº #. § º i. | º ſ G } -- a º - º H Fº É ºf Bº PASTON HALL AND CHURCH. From Sir John Fenn’s “Original Letters.” village where they lived near the sea at Paston Hall, about a mile from Bromholm Priory; famed for possession of a piece of the true Cross. In the reign of Henry VI., William Paston, well educated by a frugal father who had no worldly posi- tion, rose in the law, till he became in 1429 a judge of the Common Pleas. He married Agnes, heiress of Sir Edmund Berry, of Hertfordshire. They had a son John, also bred to the law, who was twenty-four years old when his father died in 1444, a son Edmund, who also was a lawyer, a son William, and a daughter Elizabeth. Before the judge died he had made for his son a good marriage with Margaret, heiress of John Mauteby. John Paston's wife was found for him, according to the fashion of the time, but proved, as Margaret Paston, a good wife to her “right reverent and worshipful husband,” for six-and- twenty years. She managed his affairs in Norfolk when he was up in London during term time, and when she heard of him ill in London wrote, “I would ye were at home, if it were for your ease (and your sore might be as well looked to here as it is there ye be), now, liever than a gown, though it were of scarlet.” The following letter addressed to this John Paston, by a kindly intervening lady, treats of a marriage project for his young sister Elizabeth, and of the home discipline of Agnes Paston, about the year 1449. * OF MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE. Trusty and well beloved Cousin, I commend me to you, desiring to hear of your welfare and good speed in your matter, the which I pray God send you, to His pleasaunce and to your heart’s ease. - Cousin, I let you wete that Scrope hath be in this country to see my cousin your sister, and he hath spoken with my cousin your mother, and she desireth of him that he should show you the indentures made between the knight that hath his daughter and him, whether that Scrope, if he were 1 The Paston Letters were first made known to the public in 1787 by John Fenn, of East Dereham, in Norfolk,who possessed the autographs from which he then published two folio volumes of letters by various persons of rank and consequence during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. They were dedicated to the King, and the first edition was sold in a week. The King wishing to see the original letters, they were presented to the Royal Library, and as re- payment for the gift John Fenn was knighted. Thus encouraged, Sir John Fenn issued, in 1789, a third and fourth volume of these letters, and had a fifth volume ready at his death in 1794. It was published by his nephew, Mr. Sergeant Frere, in 1823. Meanwhile the original MSS. had been lost. The originals of Fenn’s first two volumes, bound into three MS. vols. for the King, have disappeared from the Royal Library. The original MSS., published in Fenn's third and fourth volumes also disappeared; the MSS. used for the fifth volume were also lost until 1865, when they were discovered by the late Mr. Philip Frere in his house at Dungate, in Cambridgeshire, along with a large mass of additional MSS. belonging to the same collection. Single letters from the collection have been scattered about from time to time. Twenty are in the Bodleian, two volumes of Fastolf and Paston papers were bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps for his library at Cheltenham. In 1875 the MSS. used by Sir John Fenn for his third and fourth volumes were at last found, among the papers of another member of the Frere family, at Roydon Hall. But the two volumes presented to the Royal Library, and last seen in the hands of Queen Charlotte, who is supposed to have lent them to one of her ladies in attendance, have yet to be found. Mr. James Gairdner, of the Record Office, long known as the chief special student of the period of history which these letters illustrate, has applied his exact know- ledge to a careful chronological arrangement of the letters, doubled in number by recent discoveries, and published them in three volumes with full historical introduction, and with notes to the successive letters, that make their contents clear to all readers. As publishers will not recognise a sufficient public for such books, Mr. Edward Arber has added to his many services to good literature by taking upon himself to issue Mr. Gairdner’s edition—now the standard edition —of the Paston Letters, in three seven-shilling volumes, which are to be had through the post by direct application to Edward Arber, F.S.A., Southgate, London, N. It is the only work issued by Mr. Arber that is not edited as well as published by himself. 8 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1449. married and fortuned to have children, if the children should inherit his land, or his daughter the which is married. Cousin, for this cause take good heed to his indentures, for he is glad to show you them, or whom ye will assign with you; and he saith to me he is the last in the tail of his life- lode, the which is cocL mark and better, as Watkin Shipdam Saith, for he hath take account of his lifelode divers times; and Scrope saith to me if he be married, and have a son an heir, his daughter that is married shall have of his lifelode L mark and no more; and therefore, cousin, me seemeth he were good for my cousin your sister, without that ye might get her a better. And if ye can get a better, I would avise you to labour in it as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so great sorrow as she is nowadays, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, ne not may she ne speak with my man, ne with servants of her mother's but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth. And she hath be since Easter the most part be beaten once in the week or twice, and some time twice on one day, and her head broken in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by Friar Newton in great counsel, and prayeth me that I would send to you a letter of her heaviness, and pray Showing the Directed and Sealed Sides, with the Mammer of Folding. you to be her good brother, as her trust is in you ; and she saith, if ye may see by his evidences that his children and hers may inherit, and she to have reasonable jointure, she hath heard so much of his birth and his conditions that, an ye will, she will have him whether that her mother will or will not, notwithstanding it is told her his person is simple, for she saith men shall have the more deyntee of her if she rule her to him as she ought to do. Cousin, it is told me there is a goodly man in your Inn, of the which the father died lately, and if ye think that he were better for her than Scrope, it would be laboured; and give Scrope a goodly answer that he be not put off till ye be sure of a better, for he said when he was with me, but if he have some comfortable answer of you, he will no more labour in this matter, because he might not see my cousin your sister, and he said he might 'a see her, an she had be better than she is; and that causeth him to demur that her mother was not well willing, and so have I sent my cousin your mother word. Wherefore, cousin, think on this matter, for sorrow oftentime causeth women to beset them otherwise than they should do, and if she were in that case, I wot well ye would be sorry. Cousin, I pray you burn this letter, that your men ne none other man see it; for an my cousin your mother knew that I had sent you this letter, she should never love me. No more I write to you at this time, but Holy Ghost have you in keeping. Written in haste, on St. Peter's Day, by candle light. By your Cousin, ELIZABETH CLARE. When the Duke of Suffolk was accused by the Commons of High Treason, and Henry VI., in 1450, banished him for five years, hoping thereby to save his life, after he left the English shore he was followed and murdered at sea. . Before his departure the ruined party chief wrote a letter to his eight-year-old son, of which a copy was preserved among the letters of the Paston family. THE DUKE OF SUFFolk To HIS SON; APRIL 30, 1450. My dear and only well beloved son, I beseech our Lord in Heaven, the Maker of all the world, to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love Him and to dread Him; to the which, as far as father may charge his child, I both charge you and pray you to set all spirits and wits to do and to know His holy laws and commandments, by the which ye shall, with His great mercy, pass all the great tempests and troubles of this wretched world. And that also wittingly ye do nothing for love nor dread of any earthly creature that should dis- please Him. An there is any frailty maketh you to fall, beseecheth His mercy soon to call you to Him again with repentance, satisfaction, and contrition of your heart, never more in will to offend Him. A PASTON LETTER OF THE REIGN OF HENRY WI., (From Sir John Fenn’s “Original Letters.”) Secondly, next Him, above all earthly thing to be true liegeman in heart, in will, in thought, in deed, unto the king, our aldermost high and dread sovereign lord, to whom both ye and I been so much bound to ; charging you, as father can and may, rather to die than to be the contrary, or to know anything that were against the welfare or prosperity of his most royal person, but that as far as your body and life may stretch, ye live and die to defend it, and to let his high- ness have knowledge of it in all the haste ye can. Thirdly, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, alway, as ye be bounden by the commandment of God to do, to love, to worship your lady and mother, and also that ye obey alway her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in all your works, the which dreadeth not but shall be best and truest to you. And if any other body would stir you to the contrary, to flee the counsel in any wise, for ye shall find it nought and evil. Fourthly," as far as father may and can, I charge you in any wise to flee the company and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and of flattering men, the more especially and mightily to withstand them, and not to draw nor to meddle with them, with all your might and power. And to draw to you and to your comp [any good] and virtuous men, and such as ben of good conversation and of truth, and by them ye shall never be deceived, nor repent you of. [Moreover never follow] your own wit in no wise, but in all your works, of such folks as I write of above, axeth your advice aſnd counsell; and doing thus, with the mercy of God, ye shall do right well, 1 In the MS. “forthe ” with added letters illegible, Mr. Gairdner reads “forthemore.” The brackets in this letter enclose words supplied by Mr. Gairdner where the original has become illegible. To A.D. 1463.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 9 and live in right much worship and great heart's rest and ease. And I will be to you as good lord and father as my heart can think. And last of all, as heartily and as lovingly as ever father blessed his child on earth, I give you the blessing of our Lord and of me, which of His infinite mercy increase you in all virtue and good living. And that your blood may by His grace from kindred to kindred multiply in this earth to His service, in such wise as after the depart- ing from this wretched world here, ye and they may glorify Him eternally amongst the angels in Heaven. Written of my hand, The day of my departing from this land. Your true and loving father, SUFFolk. The Scrope who made suit for Elizabeth Paston was Philip, son of Sir John Fastolf's wife by a former husband. Fastolf, whose name was borrowed for Shakespeare's Falstaff, was among the friends of the Pastons, and here is a letter from him, written in February, 1455. SIR JOHN FASTOLF TO JOHN PASTON. To my right trusty and well beloved cousin, John Paston, in goodly haste. Right trusty and well beloved cousin, I commend me to you. And please you to wit that I am advertised that at a dinner in Norwich, whereas ye and other gentlemen were present, that there were certain persons, gentlemen, which uttered scornful language of me, as in this wise, with more, saying, “Ware thee, gosune,' ware, and go we to dinner; go we where 2 To Sir John Fastolf, and there we shall well pay therefore.” What their meaning was I know well, to no-good intent to meward : wherefore, cousin, I pray you, as my trust is in you, that ye give me knowledge by writing what gentlemen they be that had this report with more, and what mo” gentlemen were present, as ye would I should and were my duty to do for you in semblable wise. And I shall keep your information in this matter secret, and in God’s grace so purvey for them as they shall not be all well pleased. At such a time a man may know his friends and his foes asunder &c. Jesu preserve and keep you. Written at Caister the vii. day of February, anno xxxiii. R. H. WIth. JoHN FASToI.F., Knight. Sir John Fastolf dated from Caister, near Yar- mouth, where he had, at much cost of money and time, just completed the turning of his house into a strong castle that covered six acres of ground. He was akin to John Paston's wife Margaret, and when he died, in 1459, John Paston was his executor. A servant of his own, speaking of him in one of these letters, says “cruel and vengeable he hath been ever, and for the most part without pity and mercy.” His steward also complains of stingy usage. There must have been small cheer in a dinner with the real historical Jack Fastolf. He sold the wardship of his stepson, Stephen Scrope, and bought it back again for his own advantage; as the stepson himself said, “He bought me and sold me as a beast, against all right and law, to mine hurt more than 1,000 marks.” His stepfather's stinginess obliged Scrope to sell part of his inheritance and take service with the Duke of Gloucester in France. When he came back Fastolf required him to pay for his meat and drink. Need of money drove him to hasty marriage, and Fastolf then brought an action that deprived his stepson of what property the wife brought him. The wife died, leaving Scrope with a little daughter, and afterwards he says, “For very need I was fain to sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should have done by possibility.” Elizabeth Paston did not become the second wife of Stephen Scrope. She married about New Year's Day, 1459, Robert Poynings, who had been an ally of Jack Cade's in 1450. Fastolf's friend, John Paston, died in 1466, and left a large family. His two eldest sons were both named John, and each became a knight. A motherly letter from Margaret Paston to one of these sons, who, in November, 1463, had left home clandestinely, and gone, apparently, to wait upon King Edward IV., at Pomfret, will enable us to part kindly from the Paston family. The original spelling shall be left. MOTHER TO SON, To my wellbelovyd son, Sir John Paston, be this deliveryd in hast. - I gret you welle, and send yow Godds blissyng and myn latyng yow wet * that I have recey'ved a letter from you, the wyche ye deliveryd to Master Roger at Lynne, wherby I conseyve thar ye thynke ye ded not well that ye departyd hens withowt my knowlage. Wherfor I late you wett I was ryght evyll payed with you. Your fader thowght, and thynkyth yet, that I was asentyd to your departyng, and that hathe causyd me to have gret hevinesse. I hope he wolle be your good fader hereafter, if ye demene you “well and do as ye owe to do to hym; and I charge you upon my blyssyng that in any thyng towchyng your fader that shuld be hys worchep, profyte, or avayle, that ye do your devoyr and dyligent labor to the fortherans therin, as ye wulle have my good wille, and that shall cause your fader to be better fader to you. It was told me ye sent hym a letter to London. What the entent therof was I wot not, but thowge he take it but lyghtly, I wold ye shuld not spar to write to hym ageyn as lowly as ye cane, besechyng hym to be your good fader; and send hym suche tydings as be in the contre thir ye bethe in, and that ye war" of your expence bettyr and ye have be befor thys tyme, and be your owne purse berer, I trowe ye shall fynd yt most profytable to you. I wold ye shuld send me word howghe ye doo, and howghe ye have schevyfte" for yourself syn ye departyd hens, be? some trosty man, and that your fader have no knowlage therof. I durste not late hym knowe of the laste letter that ye wrot to me, because he was so sor dyspleasyd with me at that tyme. Item. I wold ye shuld speke with Wekis 8 and knowe his dysposysion to Jane Walsham. She hathe Sayd, syn he departyd hens, but she myght have hym she wold never * Gosume may be gossome, godson; but more probably is of the origin ascribed to the Irish gossoon, garçon, boy; the phrase meaning, “Be on your guard, my boy.” s * Mo, First English “ma,” more. * Latyng you wet, letting you know. From First English “witan,” to know. * If ye dememe you. Observe throughout the original use, also re- tained in the modernised letters, of ye (ge) as a nominative and you (eow) as a dative or accusative. 5 War, be on guard. 6 Schevyfte, shifted. 8 Wekis. John Wykes, usher of the king’s chamber. 7 Be, by. 178 10 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1463. maryd, hyr hert ys sor set on hym; she told me that he seyd to hyr that ther was no woman in the world he lovyd so welle. I wold not that he shuld jape hyr, for she menythe good feythe ; and yſ he wolle not have hyr, late me wete in hast, and I shall purvey for hyr in othyr wysse. As for your harneys’ and ger that ye left here, it ys in Daubeneys kepyng; it was never remevyd syn your depart- yng, be cause that he had not the keyes. I trowe it shall apeyer” but if it be take hed hate 3 be tymys. Your fader knowythe not wher it is. I sent your grey hors to Ruston to the ferror,” and he seythe he shull never be nowght to rood, nowthyr ryght good to plowe nor to carte; he seyth he was splayyd, and hys shulder rent from the body. I wot not what to do with hym. Your grandam wold fayne here sum tydyngs from you. It wer welle do that ye sent a letter to her howe ye do, as astely as ye may. And God have you in Hys kepyng, and make you a good man, and 3if yow grace to do as well as I would ye should do. Wretyn at Caster, ye Tewisday next befor Seynt Edmund the Kynge. Your Moder, - M. PASTON. I wold ye shuld make mech of the parson Fylby, the berer herof, and make hym good cher yf ye may. There is, in decayed MS., an inventory—made in the reign of Edward IV., but not otherwise dated— of books belonging to one of the John Pastons. His library consisted of twelve manuscripts, with one piece of print, Caxton's earliest : “Item, a booke in preente off the Pleye off the [Chess].” The books representing the library.of a gentleman at the close of the fifteenth century—one MS. volume contain- ing several works—consisted of some romances, some poems of Chaucer, Occleve's “De Regimine Prin- cipum,” a few religious and moral pieces, three pieces of Cicero, a “Book of Blazonings of Arms,” and a “Book of Knighthood.” CHAPTER II. FROM WILLIAM CAxton To Roger AschAM. A.D. 1474. To A.D. 1558. WILLIAM CAxTon, born about 1422, was bred to commerce, and loved literature in the days when the art of printing by movable types was introduced into Europe. He saw the commercial as well as the intellectual gain to be secured by learning the art and bringing it to England. In 1468, Caxton was in the service of Edward IV.'s sister Margaret at Bruges. At that time, Caxton was translating from Raoul le Fevre a “Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,” and afterwards he says that he learnt the art of printing. His first printed book was “The Game and Play of the Chess,” of which there were two editions, the first of them finished in March, 1474. It is supposed to have been the first book printed in England, though the clear statement, “Imprynted by me, William Caxton, at West- minstre,” first appears in 1477, after his edition of a translation from the French, by Antony Wood- ville, Lord Rivers, of “The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers.” “The Game and Play of the Chess” ºSSSSSSS.S.S. S. #|T|TN assº & - § IT | Pyglū;\icăſamû |F M *Nº | § vº º º Tº ºt. “º º W ſ \\ s:== º-º-º: s § § * || º * à- º *N § § Ezº.wº V º º Fº R Nº.5: §º. N E E. § #. Eº N E. E. w ſ N E" Er: ; º § ÉS TÉ, ; § º - N ºnnºrutºnºtºngunguºrºº §% §§ ſº §NN º § |THIſāī ſº lillºlºlºš - §§ § - ñº N º \ º| º N W w § Fº § º § A PRINTING PREss of 1498. From the Frontispiece to a Book printed in that Year by Iodocus Badius Ascensianus, figured in Charles Knight’s “Life of Caatom.” is a moral treatise translated by Caxton from the French, divided into tractates, each completing a division of the subject, and illustrated by Caxton with woodcuts, of which I give those which belong to the first tractate of THE ORIGIN OF CHESS. The first chapter of the first tractate sheweth under what king the play of the Chess was founden and made. Capitulo primo. Among all the evil conditions and signs that may be in a man, the first and greatest is, when he feareth not ne dreadeth to displease and make wroth God by sin, and the people by living disordinately; when he retcheth" not nor taketh heed unto them that repreve him and his vices, but sleeth them, in such wise as did the Emperor Nero, which did do slee" his master Seneque, for as much as he might not suffer to be repreved and taught of him. In like wise was sometime a king in Babylon that was named Evilmerodach, a jolly man without justice, and so cruel that he did do hew his father's body in three hundred pieces, and gave it to eat and devour to three hundred birds that men call vultures, and was of such condition as was Nero, and right well resembled and was like undo his father Nabugodonosor, which on a time would do slee all the sage and wise men of Babylon, for as much as they could not tell him his dream that he had dreamed 1 Harneys, armour ; ger, gear. 2 Apeyer, become worse, suffer damage. 3 Take hed, hate, taken heed at, looked to. 4 Ferror, farrier. 5 Rctcheth, recketh, from “récan,” to reck, care for. One spelling represents pronunciation with a soft c, the other with a hard c. Between the two weak vowels, e e, there was a matural tendency to softening of the c; so from “feccan " fetcheth. 6 Do slee, cause to be slain; do hew, cause to be hewed. To A.D. 1474.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. I l’ on a night, and had forgotten it, like as it is written in the Bible, in the book of Daniel. Under this king then, Evil- merodach, was this game and play of the chess founden. True it is that some men ween that this play was founden in the time of the battles and siege of Troy; but that is not so, for this play came to the plays of the Chaldees, as Diomedes the Greek saith and rehearseth, that was the most renomed, play among all other plays, and after that, came this playin the time of Alexander the Great into Egypt, and so unto all the parties toward the South. And the cause wherefore this play was so renomed, shall be said in the iij chapter. This chapter of the first tractate sheweth who found first the play of the Chess. Capitulo ij. The play found a philosopher of the Orient which was named in Chaldee Exerses, or in Greek Philematos, which is for as much as they dare not say to thee the truth, for to do justice righteously; of myself I make no force 3 whether I die on the land or on the water or otherwise. As who said he retched not to die for justice. In like wise as Democreon, the philosopher, put out his own eyen by cause he would not see that no good might come to the evil and vicious people without right. And also Defortes the philosopher as he went towards his death, his wife that followed after him said that he was damned to death wrongfully, then he answered and said to her, Hold thy peace and be still, it is better and more mere- torye to die by a wrong and unrightful judgment than that I had deserved to die.” The third chapter of the first tractate treateth wherefore the play was founded and made. Capitulo iij. The causes wherefore this play was founden, ben iij. The s à § EVILMERODACH'S CRUELTY. as much to say in English as he that loveth justice and mea- sure. And this philosopher was renomed greatly among the Greeks and them of Athens which were good clerks and philosophers also renomed of their cunning. This philosopher was so just and true that he had liever die than to live long and be a false flatterer wtih the said king. For when he beheld the sinful life of the king, and that no man durst blame him, for by his great cruelty he put them all to death that displeased him, he put himself in peril of death and loved and chose rather to die than longer to live. The evil life and disfamed of a king is the life of a cruel beast, and ought not long to be sustained, for he destroyeth him that displeaseth him. And therefore rehearseth Valerius that there was a wise man named Theodore Cereni” whom his king did do hang on the cross for as much as he repreved him of his evil and foul life, and alway as he was in the torment he said to the king, “Upon thy councillors and them that ben clad in thy clothing and robes were more reason that this torment should come, * Remomed, “renommé,” renowned. * Theodorus Cyrenaeus, in Valerius Maximus’ “Dictorumque Fac- torumque Memorabilium,” lib. vi., cap. 2. first was for to correct and repreve the king, for when this king Evilmerodach saw this play, and the barons, knights and gentlemen of his court play with the philosopher, he marvelled greatly of the beauty and novelty of the play, and desired to play against the philosopher. The philosopher answered and said to him that it might not be done but if “he first learned the play. The king said it was reason, and that he would put him to the pain to learn it. Then the philoso- pher began to teach him and to shew him the manner of the table of the chess board and the chess men. And also the manners and the conditions of a king, of the nobles, and of the common people, and of their offices, and how they should be touched and drawn; and how he should amend himself and become virtuous. When this king heard that he repreved him, he demanded him upon pain of death to tell him where- fore he had founden and made this play, and he answered, “My right dear lord and king, the greatest and most thing that I desire is that thou have in thyself a glorious and virtuous life. And that may I not see but if thou be endoctrined and well mannered, and that had, so mayst thou be beloved of thy * No force, no consequence. * But if, unless. 12 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGT,ISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 147 Thus then I desire that thou have other government than thou hast had, and that thou have upon thyself first Seignory and mastery such as thou hast upon other by force people. tyranny and vicious living, for all kings ought specially to hear their corrigiours or correctors and their corrections to hold and keep in mind.” In like wise as Valerius rehearseth ºzzzzzzza Ø- § Nº. s *-*-*. -- s \ºv-v ºv - º N CA. s >\\\ tºº.º. f i THE FINDER OF THE PLAY OF CHESS. and not by right. Certainly it is not right that a man be master that the king Alexander had a noble and renomed knight that over other and commander when he cannot rule nor may rule said in repreving of Alexander that he was too much covetous, himself, and that his virtues domine above his vices; for Seig- and especially of the honours of the world, and said to him, THE FIRST CHESS PLAYERS. nory by force and will may not long endure. Then thus may “If the gods had made thy body as great is thy heart, all the thou see one of the causes why and wherefore I have founden world could not hold thee, for thou holdest in thy right hand and made this play, which is to correct and repreve thee of thy all the orient, and in thy left hand the occident; sith then it To A.D. 1485.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 13 is so, or thou art a God, or a man, or nought. If thou be God, do thou well and good to the people as God doth, and take not from them that they ought to have and is theirs; if thou be a man think that thou shalt die, and then thou shalt do none evil if thou by nought forget thyself. There is nothing so strong and firm but that sometime a feeble thing casteth down and overthrow it. How well that the lion be the strongest beast, yet some time a little bird eateth him up.” The second cause wherefore this play was founden and made, was for to keep him from idleness, whereof Seneque Saith unto Lucille, Idleness without any occupation is sepul- ture of a man living, and Cato saith in his sentences that in like wise as men go, not for to go, the same wise the life is not not given for to live, but for to do well and good, and therefore, secondly, the Philosopher found this play for to keep the people from idleness; for there is much people, when so is that they be fortunate in worldly goods that they draw them to ease and idleness, whereof cometh oft times many evils and great sins; and by this idleness the heart is quenched, whereof cometh good desperation. The third cause is that every man naturally desireth to know and hear novelties and tidings; for this cause they of Athens studied, as we read, and for as the corporal or bodily sight empessheth" and letteth otherwhile the knowledge of subtle things. Therefore we read that Democrite the philosopher put out his own eyen for as much as he might have the better entendement and understanding. Many have been made blind that were great clerks in like wise as was Didymus bishop of Alexandria, that how well that he saw not yet he was so great a clerk, that Gregory Nazaz 2 and saint Jerome that were clerks and masters to other, came for to be his scholars and learned of him; and saint Anthony, the great hermit, came for to see him on a time, and among all other things he demanded him if he were not greatly displeased that he was blind and saw not, and he answered that he was greatly abashed for that he supposed not that he was not displeased in that he had lost his sight, and saint Anthony answered to him, I marvel much that it displeaseth thee that thou has lost that thing which is common between thee and beasts, and thou knowest well that thou hast not lost that thing which is common between thee and the angels. And for - these causes foresaid, the Philosopher entended to put away all pensiveness and thoughts, and to think only on this play as shall be said and appear in this book after. Here ended the first tractate. The second tractate then indicated the constitution of a state in its rulers, in five chapters upon the superior chessmen, king, queen, alphyn (judge), knight and rook (vicar or legate of the king); the third tractate set forth the places of the other members of the commonwealth in eight chapters on the pawns, each pawn standing for a class, one for the labourers, one for the Smiths, one for the merchants and changers, &c. A fourth tractate moralised the chess-board and the moves of the several pieces, and all ended with an “Epilogation and Recapitulation,” giving a summary of the whole book in its three last pages. Another of Caxton's good services was the securing of an original prose history, derived from the chief poems forming the cycle of Arthurian romance, which had been finished by Sir Thomas Malory in the ninth 1 Empessheth: French, “empêche,” hindereth. The French original is followed at times too literally in phrases as well as words. * Gregory Nazaz, Gregory Nazianzen. year of Edward IV., and was first printed by Caxton at Westminster in 1485. This is, in its original spelling, CAXTON's PREFACE TO LA MoRT D'ARTHUR. After that I had accomplysshed and fynysshed dyvers hystoryes, as well of contemplacyon as of other hystoryal and worldly actes of grete conquerours and prynces, and also certeyn bookes of ensaumples and doctryne, many noble and dyvers gentylmen of thys royame of Englond camen and demaunded me many and oftymes wherfore that I have not do make and enprynte the noble hystorye of the saynt greal, and of the moost renomed crysten kyng, fyrst and chyef of the thre best crysten and worthy, kyng Arthur, whyche ought moost to be remembred emonge us Englysshe men tofore al other crysten kynges. For it is notoyrly knowen thorugh the unyversal world that there been ix. worthy and the best that ever were, that is to wete, thre paynyms, thre Jewes, and thre crysten men. As for the paynyms, they were tofore the incarnacyon of Cryst, whiche were named, the fyrst Hector of Troye, of whome thystorye is comen bothe in balade and in prose; the second Alysaunder the grete; and the thyrd Julyus Cezar, emperour of Rome, of whome thystoryes ben wel kno and had. And as for the thre Jewes, whyche also were tofore thyncarnacyon of our Lord, of whome the fyrst was duc Josue, whyche brought the chyldren of Israhel into the londe of byheste; the second Davyd kyng of Jherusalem; and the thyrd Judas Machabeus; of these thre the Byble reherceth al theyr noble hystoryes and actes. And sythe the sayd incarnacyon have ben thre noble crysten men stalled and admytted thorugh the uny- versal world' into the nombre of the ix. beste and worthy, of whome was fyrst the noble Arthur, whos noble actes I purpose to wryte in thys present book here folow.yng; the second was Charlemayn, or Charles the grete, of whome thystorye is had in many places bothe in Frensshe and Englysshe ; and the thyrd and last was Godefray of Boloyn, of whos actes and lyf I made a book unto thexcellent prynce and kyng of noble memorye kyng Edward the fourth. The said noble jentylmen instantly requyred me temprynte thystorye of the sayd noble kyng and conquerour kyng Arthur, and of his knyghtes, with thystorye of the saynt greal, and of the deth and endyng of the sayd Arthur; affermyng that I ougt rather tenprynte his actes and noble feates, than of Godefroye of Boloyne, or ony of the other eyght, consyderyng that he was a man borne wythin this royame, and kyng and emperour of the same. - And that there ben in Frensshe dyvers and many noble volumes of his actes, and also of his knyghtes. To whom I answerd, that dyvers men holde oppynyon that there was no suche Arthur, and that alle suche bookes as been maad of hym, ben but fayned and fables, bycause that somme cronycles make of hym no mencyon ne remembre hym noo thynge ne of his knyghtes. Wherto they answerd, and one in specyal sayd, that in hym that shold say or thymke that there was never suche a kyng callyd Arthur, myght wel be aretted grete folye and blyndenesse; for he sayd that there were many evydences of the contrarye. Fyrst ye may see his sepulture in the monasterye of Glastyngburye, and also in Polycronycon,” in the v book the syzte chap- pytre, and in the seventh book the xxiii chappytre, where his body was buryed and after founden and translated into the sayd monasterye. Ye shal se also in thystorye of Bochas in his book de casu principum, parte of his noble * Ralph Higden's “Polychronicon.” 14 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. 1485 ENGLISH LITERATURE. actes and also of his falle. Also Galfrydus, in his Brutysshe book, recounteth his lyf. And in divers places of Englond many remembraunces ben yet of hym and shall remayne perpetuelly, and also of his knyghtes. Fyrst, in the abbay of Westmestre at saynt Edwardes shryne remayneth the prynte of his seal in reed waxe closed in beryll, in whych is wryton Patricius Arthurus, Britannie, Gallie, Germanie, JDacie, imperator. Item, in the castel of Dover ye may see Gauwayns skulle, and Cradoks mantel; at Wynchester, the rounde table; in other places, Launcelottes Swerde, and many other thynges. Thenne al these thynges consydered, there can no man resonably gaynsaye but there was a kyng of thys lande named Arthur. For in al places crysten and hethen he is reputed and taken for one of the ix. worthy, and the fyrst of the thre crysten men. And also he is more spoken of beyonde the see, moo bookes made of his noble actes, than there be in Englond, as wel in Duche, Ytalyen, Spanysshe, and Grekysshe, as in Frensshe. And yet of record remayne in wytnesse of hym in Wales, in the toune of Camelot, the grete stones and mervayllous werkys of yron lyeing under the grounde, and ryal vautes, which dyvers now lyvyng hath seen. Wherfor it is a mervayl why he is no more renomed in his owne contreye, Sauf onelye it accordeth to the word of God, whyche sayth that no man is accept for a prophete in his owne contreye. Thenne al these thynges forsayd aledged, I coude not wel denye but that there was suche a noble kyng named Arthur, and reputed one of the ix worthy, and fyrst and chyef of the cristen men, and many noble volumes be made of hym and of his noble kny3tes in Frensshe, which I have seen and redde beyonde the see, which been not had in our maternal tongue, but in Walsshe ben many, and also in Frensshe, and somme in Englysshe, but no wher nygh alle. Wherfore suche as have late ben drawen oute bryefly into Englysshe, I have after the symple connyng that God hath sente to me, under the favour and correctyon of al noble lordes and gentylmen, enprysed to emprynte a book of the noble hystoryes of the Sayd kynge Arthur, and of certeyn of his knyghtes, after a copye unto me delyvered, whyche copye syr Thomas Malorye dyd take oute of certeyn bookes of Frensshe and reduced it into Englysshe. And I, accordyng to my copye, have doon sette it in emprynte, to the entente that noblemen may see and lerne the noble acts of chyvalrye, the jenty] and vertuous dedes, that somme knyghtes used in tho dayes, by whyche they came to honour, and how they that were vycious were punysshed and often put to shame and rebuke, humbly by sechying al noble lordes and ladyes, wyth al other estates, of what estate or degree they been of, that shal see and rede in this Sayd book and werke, that they take the good and honest actes in their remembraunce, and to folowe the same. Wherin they shalle fynde many joyous and playsaunt hystoryes and noble and renomed acts of humanyte, gentylnesse, and chyvalryes. For herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, Curtosye, humanyte, frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, synne. Doo after the good, and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renommee. And for to passe the tyme, this book shal be plesaunte to rede in, but for to gyve fayth and byleve that al is trewe that is con- tayned herin, ye be at your lyberte; but al is wryton for our doctryne, and for to beware that we falle not to vyce ne synne, but texercyse and folowe vertu, by whyche we may come and atteyne to good fame and renomme in thys lyf, and after thys shorte and transytorye lyf to come unto ever- lastyng blysse in heven, the whyche he graunt us that reygneth in heven the blessyd Trynyte. Amen. 2 Galfrydus, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of British Kings, Sir Thomas More, who was about seven years old when Malory's “History of King Arthur” was first printed by Caxton, entered as a youth into the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who became his friend and patron. Cardinal Morton had taken active part in the public life of the days illustrated by the later Paston Letters. He was Bishop of Ely at the time of the murder of the Princes in the Tower, the same Bishop of Ely whom the Protector—Richard—sent to the Tower, and who became afterwards a friend to the Earl of Richmond, and, after the Battle of Bosworth, to Henry VII. From information derived from this patron, there is reason to think, sometimes even from his dictation,-More wrote his “History of SIR THOMAS MORE. (From an Emamel after Holbcin.) the Life and Death of Edward V., and of the Usurpation of Richard III.,” and it is supposed to have been written in 1513, at a time when More was Under-Sheriff of London. The latter part of the History, though it accords in style with the rest, has been ascribed to another hand, and is found also in Hall's Chronicle. From the part unquestionably written by Thomas More from Morton's recollections, I take the complete narrative of one incident— THE MURDER OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER. For this present matter I shall rehearse to you the dolorous end of these two babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after that way that I have so heard by such men and such means, as I think it to be hard but it should be true. King Richard, after his coronation, taking his way to Gloucester to visit in his new honour the town of which he bare the name of old, devised as he rode to fulfil that thing which he before had intended. And forasmuch as his mind gave him that, his nephews living, men would not reckon that he could have right to the realm; he thought, therefore, without delay to rid them, as though the killing of his kins- men might end his cause and make him kindly king. Where- upon he sent John Greene, whom he specially trusted, unto To A.D. 1513.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 15 Sir Robert Brakenbury, Constable of the Tower, with a letter and credence also, that the same Sir Robert in any wise should put the two children to death. This John Greene did his errand to Brakenbury, kneeling before our Lady in the Tower, who plainly answered that he would never put them to death to die therefore. With the which answer Greene returned, recounting the same to King Richard at Warwick, yet on his journey, wherewith he took such dis- pleasure and thought, that the same night he said to a secret page of his, “Ah, whom shall a man trust? they that I have brought up myself, they that I thought would have most surely served me, even those fail me, and at my command- ment will do nothing for me.” “Sir,” quoth the page, “there lieth one in the pallet chamber without, that I dare say will do your Grace pleasure: the thing were right hard that he would refuse”—meaning by this James Tyrell, which was a man of a goodly personage, and for the gifts of nature worthy to have served a much better prince, if he had well served God, and by grace obtained to have as much truth and goodwill as he had strength and wit. The man had an high heart and sore longed upward, not rising yet so fast as he had hoped, being hindered and kept under by Sir Richard Rat- cliffe and Sir William Catesby, which, longing for no more partners of the prince's favour—namely, not for him, whose pride they knew would bear no peer—kept him by secret drifts out of all secret trust, which thing this page had well marked and knew ; wherefore this occasion offered, of very special friendship, spied his time to set him forward, and in such wise to do him good, that all the enemies that he had (except the devil) could never have done him so much hurt and shame: for upon the page's words King Richard arose (for this communication had he sitting on a draft, a convenient carpet for such a council), and came out into the pallet chamber, where he did find in bed the said James Tyrell and Sir Thomas Tyrell, of person like, and brethren of blood, but nothing of kin in conditions. Then said the king merrily, “What, sirs, be you in bed so soon P” and called up James Tyrell, and brake to him secretly his mind in this mischievous matter, in the which he found him nothing strange. Wherefore on the morrow he sent him to Brakenbury with a letter, by the which he was commanded to deliver to the said James all the keys of the Tower for a night, to the end that he might there accomplish the king's pleasure in such things as he there had given him in com- mandment. After which letter delivered, and the keys re- ceived, James appointed the next night ensuing to destroy them, devising before and preparing the means. The prince, as soon as the protector took upon him to be king and left the name of protector, was thereof advertised and showed that he should not reign, but his uncle should have the crown. At which word the prince, sore abashed, began to sigh and say, “Alas, I would mine uncle would let me have my life, although I leese my kingdom.” Then he that told him the tale used him with good words, and put him in the best comfort that he could ; but forthwith he and his brother were both shut up, and all other removed from them, one called Black Will, or William Slaughter, only except, which were set to serve them, and four other to see them sure. After which the prince never tied his points, nor anything regarded himself, but with that young babe his brother lingered in thought and heaviness, till this traitorous deed delivered them of that wretchedness. For James Tyrell devised that they should be murdered in their beds, and no blood shed: to the execution whereof he appointed Miles Forest, one of the four that before kept them, a fellow flesh-bred in murder before time, and to him he joined one John Dighton, his own horsekeeper, a big, broad, square, and strong knave. Then all the other being removed from them, this Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight, the silly children lying in their beds, came into the chamber, and suddenly lapped them up amongst the clothes, and so be-wrapped them, keeping down by force the feather-bed and pillows hard under their mouths, that within a while they smothered and stifled them, and their breaths fail- ing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of heaven, leaving to the tormentors their bodies dead in the bed, which after the wretches perceived (first by the struggling with the pang of death, and after long lying still) to be thorough dead, they laid the bodies out upon the bed, and fetched James Tyrell to see them, which, when he saw them perfectly dead, he caused the murderers to bury them at the stair-foot, meetly deep in the ground, under a heap of stones. Then rode James Tyrrell in great haste to King Richard, and showed him all the manner of the murder, who gave him thanks, and, as men say, there made him knight; but he allowed not their burial in so vile a corner, saying that he would have them buried in a better place, because they were a king's Sons. Lo the honourable courage of a king, for he would recompense a detestable murder with a solemn obsequie. Whereupon a priest of Sir Robert Brakenbury's took them up and buried them in such a place secretly as by the occasion of his death (which was shortly after) which only knew it, the very truth could never yet be very well and perfectly known: for some say that King Richard caused the priest to take them up and close them in lead, and to put them in a coffin full of holes, hooked at the ends with two hooks of iron, and so to cast them into a place called the “Black Deeps” at the Thames' mouth, so that they should never rise up nor be seen again. This was the very truth unknown, by reason that the said priest died so shortly, and disclosed it never to any person that would utter it. And for a truth, when Sir James Tyrell was in the Tower for treason committed to King Henry VII., both he and Dighton were examined together of this point, and both they confessed the murder to be done in the same manner as you have heard; but whither the bodies were removed they both affirmed they never knew. And thus, as I have learned of them that knew much, and little cause had they to lie, were these two noble princes—these innocent tender children, born of the most royal blood, and brought up in great wealth, likely long to live, to reign and rule in the realm—by traitorous tyranny taken and deprived of their estate, shortly shut up in prison, and privily slain and mur- dered by the cruel ambition of their unnatural uncle and his dispiteous tormentors. Which things, on every part well pondered, God gave this world never a more notable example, either in what unsurety standeth this world’s weal, or what mischief worketh the proud enterprise of an high heart, or, finally, what wretched end ensueth such dispiteous cruelty. For, first to begin with the ministers, Miles Forest, at St. Martin's-le-Grand, by piece-meals miserably rotted away; John Dighton lived at Calais long after, no less disdained and hated than pointed at, and there died in great misery; but Sir James Tyrell was beheaded on the Tower Hill for treason; and King Richard himself was slain in the field, hacked and hewn by his enemies' hands, hurried on a horse- back, naked, being dead, he is here in despite torn and tugged like a cur dog. And the mischief that he took within less than three years, of the mischief that he died in three months, be not comparable, and yet all the meantime spent in much trouble and pain outward, and much fear, dread, and anguish within. For I have heard, by credible report of such as were secret with his chambers, that after this abominable deed done he never was quiet in his mind, he never thought him- self sure where he went abroad, his body privily fainted, his 16 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1513 eye whirled about, his hand ever on his dagger, his coun- tenance and manner like always to strike again, he took ill rest on nights, lay long waking and musing, for wearied with care and watch, rather slumbered than slept, troubled with fearful dreams, suddenly sometimes start up, leap out of his bed, and look about the chamber. So was his restless heart continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression and stormy remembrance of his abominable murder and execrable tyranny. Ring Richard, by this abominable mischief and Scelerous act, thinking himself well relieved both of fear and thought, would not have it kept counsel, but within a few days caused it to run in a common rumour that the two children were suddenly dead, and to this intent, as it is to be deemed, that now no heir male being alive of King Edward's body lawfully begotten, the people would be content with the more patient heart and quiet mind to obey him and suffer his rule and governance; but when the fame of this detestable fact was revealed and divulged through the whole realm, there fell generally such a dolour and inward sorrow into the hearts of all the people, that, all fear of his cruelty set aside, they in every town, street, and place openly wept and piteously Sobbed. And when their sorrow was somewhat mitigated, their inward grudge could not refrain but cry out in places public and also private, furiously saying, “What creature of all creatures is so malicious and so obstinate an enemy either to God, or to Christian religion, or to human nature, which would not have abhorred, or at the least abstained from, so miserable a murder of so execrable a tyranny ? To murder a man is much odious; to kill a woman is in manner un- natural; but to slay and destroy innocent babes and young infants the whole world abhorreth, and the blood from the earth crieth to Almighty God for vengeance.” If the common people cried out, I assure you the friends of the queen and her children made no less exclamation and complaint with loud voice, lamentably crying and saying, “Alas, what will he do to others, that thus shamefully murdereth his own blood without cause or desert? Whom will he save, when he slayeth the poor lambs committed to him in trust? Now we See and behold that the most cruel tyranny hath invaded the commonwealth ; now we see that in him is neither hope of justice nor trust of mercy, but abundance of cruelty and thirst of innocent blood.” But when this news was first brought to the unfortunate mother of the dead children, yet being in sanctuary, no doubt but it struck to her heart like the sharp dart of death; for when she was first informed of the murder of her two sons, she was suddenly amazed with the greatness of the cruelty, that for fear she swooned and fell down to the ground, and there lay in a great agony like to a dead corpse. And after that she came to her memory and was revived again, she wept and sobbed, and with pitiful screeches she replenished the whole mansion, her breast she struck, her fair hair she tore and pulled in pieces, and being overcome with sorrow and pensiveness, rather desired death than life, calling by name divers times her sweet babes, accounting herself more than mad, that she, deluded by wily and fraudulent promises, delivered her younger son out of the sanctuary to his enemy to be put to death, thinking that next the oath made to God broken, and the duty of allegiance toward her children violated, she of all creatures in that point was most seduced and deceived. After long lamentation, when she saw no hope of revenging otherwise, she kneeled down and cried on God to take vengeance for the deceitful perjury, as who said she nothing mistrusted but once He would remember it. What is he living, that if he remember and behold these two noble infants without deserving so shamefully murdered, that will not abhore the fact, yea, and be moved and tor- mented with pity and mercy P And yet the world is so frail, and our nature so blind, that few be stirred with such examples, obviously forgetting and little considering that oftentimes for the offences by the parents perpetrated and committed, that sin is punished in their line and posterity. This chance might so happen to these innocent children, because King Edward their father and parent offended in staining his conscience: he made his solemn oath before the gate of the city of York (as you have heard before), and promised and sware one thing by his word, thinking clean contrary in his heart, as after did appear. And afterward, by the death of the Duke of Clarence his brother, he incurred (of likelihood) the great displeasure toward God. The book from which Signor Benedick accused Beatrice of stealing her wit—the “Hundred Merry Tales”—was first printed by John Rastell in the year 1526. The only perfect copy of it known is in the Royal Library of the University of Göttingen. There is one other copy, imperfect, and that is in England." Each of the Merry Tales has a short added moral, and the usual butts of their wit are women and Welshmen; but there is considerable variety of matter, and a vein of earnestness often distinct enough, that gives some worth to the collection, which was followed by many more—few better, and some worse—of a like kind. Let us take FIVE OF THE HUNDRED MERRY TALES. Of the Welshman that shrove him for breaking his fast on the Friday. A Welshman dwelling in a wild place of Wales came to his Curate in the time of Lent and was confessed; and when his confession was in manner at the end, the Curate asked him whether he had any other thing to say that grieved his con- science, which, sore abashed, answered no word a great while. At last, by exhortation of his ghostly father, he said that there was one thing in his mind that greatly grieved his con- science, which he was ashamed to utter, for it was so grievous that he trowed God would never forgive him. To whom the Curate answered and said, that God's mercy was above all, and bade him not despair in the mercy of God, for, whatso- ever it was, if he were repentant, God would forgive him. And so, by long exhortation, at the last he showed it, and said thus: “Sir, it happened once, that as my wife was making a cheese on a Friday I would have said whether it had been salt or fresh, and took a little of the whey in my hand and put it in my mouth, and, or” I was ware, part of it went down my throat against my will, and so I brake my fast.” To whom the Curate said, “If there be none other thing, I warrant God shall forgive thee.” So when he had well comforted him with the mercy of God, the Curate prayed him to answer a question and to tell him truth. The Curate said that there were robberies and murders done nigh the place where he dwelt, and divers men found slain, and asked him whether he were consenting to any of them. To whom he answered and said, “Yes; ” and said he was party. to many of them, and did help to rob and to slay divers of them. Then the Curate asked him why he did not confess 1 The Göttingen copy was reprinted in 1866 with Introduction and Notes by Dr. Herman Oesterley; the other copy was edited in 1815 by Mr. S. W. Singer, and in 1864 by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt. 2 Or, ere. To A.D. 1531.T SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 17 him thereof. The Welshman answered and said, he took it for no sin, for it was a custom among them that when any booty came of any rich merchant riding it was but a good neighbour's deed one to help another when one called another, and so they took that but for good fellowship and neighbourhood. | Here ye may see that some have remorse of conscience of small venial sins, and fear not to do great offences without shame of the world or dread of God: and as the common proverb is, they stumble at a straw and leap over a block. Of the Boy that bare the Friar his master's money. A certain Friar had a boy that ever was wont to bear this Friar's money, and on a time, when the boy was far behind his master, as they two walked together by the way there met a man the Friar which knew that the boy bare the Friar's money, and said, “How, Master Friar, shall I bid thy boy hie him apace after thee ?” “Yea,” quoth the Friar. Then went the man to the boy and said, “Sirrah, thy master biddeth thee give me forty pence.” “I will not,” quoth the boy. Then called the man with a high voice to the Friar, and said, “Sir, he saith he will not.” Then quoth the Friar, “Beat him.” And when the boy heard his master say so, he gave the man forty pence. * By this ye may see it is folly for a man to Say Yea or Nay to a matter except he know surely what the matter is. Of the Man who would have the Pot stand there as he would. A young man late married to a wife thought it was good policy to get the mastery of her in the beginning. Came to her, the pot seething over the fire, although the meat therein was not enough," suddenly commanded her to take the pot from the fire. Which answered and said, that the meat was not ready to eat. And he said again, “I will have it taken off, for my pleasure.” This good woman loth yet to offend him, set the pot beside the fire as he bade. And anon” after he commanded her to set the pot behind the door, and she said thereto again, “Ye be not wise therein.” But he precisely said, it should be so as he bade. And she gently again did his commandment. This man, yet not satisfied, commanded her to set the pot ahigh upon the henroost. “What ſ’’ quoth the wife again. “I trow ye be mad.” And he fiercely then commanded her to set it there, or else, he said, she should repent. She, somewhat afeared to move his patience, took a ladder and set it to the roost, and went herself up the ladder, and took the pot in her hand, praying her husband then to hold the ladder fast, for sliding; which so did. And when the husband looked up and saw the pot stand there on height he said thus, “So now standeth the pot there as I would have it.” This wife, hearing that, suddenly poured the hot pottage on his head, and said thus, “And now ben the pottage there as I would have them.” *I By this tale men may see that it is no wisdom for a man to attempt a meek woman’s patience too far, lest it turn to his own hurt and damage. Of the Courtier that did cast the Friar over the Boat. A Courtier and a Friar happened to meet together in a ferryboat, and in a communication between them fell at 1 Not enough. Not done enough ; not perfectly cooked. In another of these tales a Welshman stole an Englishman's cock and put it in his pot to boil. The Englishman went to ask for it. Said the Welsh- man, “There it is, and if the cock's yours you shall have your share of it.” “It is not enough,” said the Englishman. “Well,” said the Welshman, “if it's not enough it soon will be, for there's a good fire under it.” * Amon, immediately; the implication of delay came later. words, angry and displeased each with other, and fought and struggled together so that at the last the Courtier cast the Friar over the boat; so was the Friar drowned. The Ferry- man, which had been a man of war the most part of his life before, and seeing the Friar was so drowned and gone, said thus to the Courtier, “I beshrew thy heart! Thou shouldest have tarried and fought with him a land, for now thou hast caused me to lose an halfpenny for my fare.” * By this tale a man may see that he that is accustomed in vicious and cruel company shall lose that noble virtue, to have pity and compassion upon his neighbour. Of Master Whittington's Dream. Soon after one Master Whittington had builded a College, on a night as he slept he dreamed that he sat in his church, and many folks there also; and further he dreamed that he saw Our Lady in the same church with a glass of goodly ointment in her hand, going to one asking him what he had done for her sake; which said, that he had said Our Lady's Psalter every day, wherefore she gave him a little of the oil. And anon she went to another, asking him what he had done for her sake; which said, that he had said two Lady’s Psalters every day, wherefore Our Lady gave him more of the ointment than she gave the other. This master Whittington then thought that when Our Lady should come to him she would give him all the whole glass, because he had builded such a great College, and was very glad in his mind. But when Our Lady came to him, she asked him what he had suffered for her sake. Which words made him greatly abashed, because he had nothing to say for himself. And so he dreamed that, for all the great deed of building of the said College, he had no part of that goodly ointment. * By this ye may see that to suffer for God’s sake is-more meritorious than to give great goods. In 1531 Sir Thomas Elyot published, with a dedi- cation to King Henry VIII., a book called “The Governour,” described by himself as an “endeavour to describe in our vulgar tongue the form of a juste publike weale, which matter I have gathered, as wel of the sayinges of most noble authors (Grekes and Latines) as by mine owne experience: I being con- tinually trained in some daylye affayres of the publike weale of this your most noble realm, almost from my childhood, which attemptate is not of pre- sumption to teach anye person, I myself having most nede of teaching : But only to the intent that menne which will be studious about the weale publike, may finde the thing thereto expedient, compendiouslye written. And for as much, as this presente booke treateth of the education of them, that here after may be deemed worthy to be gouernours of the publike weale under your hyghnesse (which Plato affyrmeth to bee the first and chiefe parte of a publike weale : Salomon saying also, where gouer- nours be not, the people shall fall into ruine) I therefore have named it the Gouernour, and doe nowe dedicate it unto your hyghnesse, as the first fruites of my study.” Sir Thomas Elyot was son to Sir Richard Elyot, Once attorney-general to Elizabeth, queen of Henry VII., and afterwards a Justice of the Common Pleas. He was educated in Jesus College, Cambridge, and 179 18 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1531. took his degree of M.A. in 1507. After his father's death, in 1520, he succeeded unexpectedly to an estate at Carlton in Cambridgeshire, which had belonged to his second cousin, and successfully defended his right in a Chancery suit. In 1523, by the influence of Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Elyot was appointed Clerk of the Star Chamber, which office he lost when Wolsey fell from power. But Elyot was then knighted and employed by the king in various services. In 1530 he was one of a com- mission to inquire into Wolsey's possessions in Cambridgeshire. In 1531 he published “The Governour,” and in the following year Henry VIII. sent him as an envoy to Rome to treat of the king's divorce. In the same year, 1532, he was appointed Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. In 1536 he was sent as an embassy to the Emperor. In 1545 he was a second time sheriff of his county, and in 1546 he died at Carlton. He was married and had three sons who died before him. Besides “The Governour,” published in 1531, Sir Thomas Elyot wrote a book “Of the Knowledge which maketh a Wise Man,” and “The Castle of Health,” “The Banquet of Sapience,” “Pasquil the Plain,” a Dictionary, several translations from the Greek of writings illustrating the wisdom of life, including Plutarch on the Education of Children, also “The Defence or Apologye of Good Women,” and in 1545, the year before he died, “A Preser- vative agaynste Deth.” The translation, by Sir Thomas Elyot, of Plutarch on the Education of Children doubtless came into the hands of John Lyly; for in that part of his “Euphues,” published in 1579, which treats of education under the title “Euphues and his Euphebus,” it is evident that Lyly had been fastening with sympathy on Plutarch as well as on Ascham. The twelfth chapter of the second book of Sir Thomas Elyot's “Governour” is a piece complete in itself. THE WONDERFUL HISTORY OF TITUs AND GISIPPUS, And whereby is fully declared the figure of perfect amity. But now in the midst of my labour, as it were, to pause and take breath, and also to recreate the readers, which, fatigued with long precepts, desire variety of matter, or some new pleasant fable of history, I will rehearse a right goodly example of friendship, which example, studiously read, shall minister to the reader's singular pleasure, and also incredible comfort to practise amity. There was in the city of Rome a noble senator, named Fulvius, who sent his son, called Titus, being a child, to the city of Athens, in Greece (which was the fountain of all manner of doctrine), there to learn good letters: and caused him to be hosted with a worshipful man of that city, called Chremes. This Chremes happened to have also a son named Gisippus, who not only was equal to the said young Titus in years, but also in stature, proportion of body, favour, and colour of visage, countenance and speech. The two children were so like, that without much difficulty it could not be dis- cerned of their proper parents, which was Titus from Gisip- pus, or Gisippus from Titus. These two young gentlemen, as they seemed to be one in form and personage, so shortly after acquaintance, the same nature wrought in their hearts such a mutual affection, and their wills and appetites daily more and more so confederated themselves, that it seemed none other, when their names were declared, but that they had only changed their places, issuing (as I might say) out of the one body, and entering into the other. They together, and at one time went to their learning and study, at one time to their meals and refection, they delighted both in one doctrine, and profited equally therein; finally, they together increased in doctrine, that within a few years few within Athens might be compared unto them. At the last died Chremes, which was not only to his son, but also to Titus cause of much sorrow and heaviness. Gisippus, by the goods of his father, was known to be a man of great substance : wherefore there were offered to him great and rich marriages. And he then being of ripe years, and of an able and goodly personage, his friends, kin, and allies exhorted him busily to take a wife, to the intent he might increase his lineage and progeny. But the young man, having his heart already wedded to his friend Titus, and his mind fixed to the study of philosophy, fearing that marriage should be the occasion to sever him both from the one and the other, refused of long time to be persuaded, until at the last, partly by the impor- tunate calling on of his kinsmen, partly by the consent and advice of his dear friend Titus, thereto by other desired, he assented to marry such a one as should like him. What shall need any words P. His friends found a young gentlewoman, which in equality of years, virtuous conditions, nobility of blood, beauty, and sufficient riches, they thought was for such a young man apt and convenient. And when they and her friends upon the covenants of marriage were thoroughly accorded, they counselled Gisippus to repair unto the maiden, and to behold how her person contented him ; and he so doing found her in every form and condition according to his ex- pectation and appetite, whereat he much rejoiced, and became of her amorous, insomuch as many and oftentimes leaving Titus at his study, he secretly repaired unto her. Notwith- standing, the fervent love that he had to his friend Titus at the last surmounted his shamefacedness, wherefore he dis- closed to him his secret journeys, and what delectation he took in beholding the excellent beauty of her whom he in- tended to marry, and how with her good manners and sweet entertainment, she had constrained him to be her lover. And on a time he, having with him his friend Titus, went to his lady, of whom he was received most joyously. But Titus forthwith as he beheld so heavenly a personage, adorned with beauty inexplicable, in whose visage was a most amiable countenance, mixed with maidenly shamefacedness, and the rare and sober words and well couched, which issued out of her pretty mouth, Titus was thereat abashed, and had the heart through pierced with the fiery dart of blind Cupid, of the which wound the anguish was so exceeding and vehement, that neither the study of philosophy, neither the remembrance of his dear friend Gisippus, who so much loved and trusted him, could anything withdraw him from that unkind appetite, but that of force he must love inordinately that lady, whom his said friend had determined to marry. Albeit with incredible pains he kept his thoughts secret until that he and Gisippus were returned unto their lodgings. Then the miserable Titus, withdrawing him as it were to his study, all tormented and oppressed with love, threw himself on a bed, and there rebuking his own most despiteful unkind- ness, which by the sudden sight of a maiden, he had con- spired against his most dear friend Gisippus, against all humanity and reason, cursed his fate or constellation, and wished that he had never come to Athens. And therewith he sent out from the bottom of his heart deep and cold sighs, in such plenty, that it lacked but little that his heart was not riven in pieces. In dolour and anguish tossed he himself by A.D. 1531.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 19 a certain space, but to no man would he discover it. But at the last, the pain became so intolerable, that would he or no, he was enforced to keep his bed, being for lack of sleep and other natural sustenance, brought in such feebleness, that his legs might not sustain his body. Gisippus missing his dear friend Titus, was much abashed, and hearing that he lay sick in his bed, had forthwith his heart pierced with heaviness, and with all speed came to him, where he lay. And behold- ing the rosial colour, which was wont to be in his visage, turned into Sallow, the residue pale, his ruddy lips wan, and his eyen leaden and hollow, might unneth' keep himself from weeping : but to the intent he would not discomfort his friend Titus, dissimulated his heaviness, and with a comfort- able countenance demanded of Titus, what was the cause of his disease, blaming him of unkindness, that he so long had sustained it, without giving him knowledge, that he might for him have provided some remedy, if any might have been got, though it were with the dispensing of all his substance. With which words the mortal sighs renewed in Titus, and the Salt tears burst out of his eyen in such abundance, as it had been a land flood running down of a mountain after a storm. That beholding Gisippus, and being also resolved into tears, most heartily desired him, and (as I might say) conjured him, for the fervent and entire love that had been, and yet was between them, that he would no longer hide from him his grief, and that there was nothing to him so dear and precious (although it were his own life) that might restore Titus to health, but that he would gladly, and without grudging employ it, with which words, obtestations, and tears of Gisippus, Titus constrained, all blushing and ashamed, holding down his head, brought forth with great difficulty his words in this wise. “My dear and most loving friend, withdraw your friendly offers, cease of” your courtesy, refrain your tears and regret- tings, take rather your knife, and slay me here where I lie, or otherwise take vengeance on me, most miserable and false traitor unto you, and of all other most worthy to suffer shameful death. For where as God of nature, like as He hath given to us similitude in all the parts of our body, so hath He conjoined our wills, studies, and appetites together in one, so that between men was never like concord and love, as I suppose. And now notwithstanding, only with the look of a woman, those bonds of love be dissolved, reason op- pressed, friendship is excluded, there availeth no wisdom, no doctrine, no fidelity or trust: yea, your trust is the cause that I have conspired against you this treason. Alas! Gisip- pus, what envious spirit moved you to bring me to her, whom you have chosen to be your wife, where I received this poison P I say, Gisippus, where was then your wisdom, that ye remembered not the fragility of our common nature ? what need ye to call me for a witness of your private de- lights? why would ye have me see that, which you yourself could not behold without ravishing of mind and carnal appe- tite P Alas, why forgot ye, that our minds and appetites were ever one P and that also what so ye liked was ever to me in like degree pleasant. What will ye more ? Gisippus, I say your trust is the cause that I am entrapped. The rays or beams issuing from the eyen of her whom ye have chosen, with the remembrance of her incomparable virtues, hath thrilled throughout the midst of my heart, and in such wise burneth it, that above all things I desire to be out of this wretched and most unkind life, which is not worthy the company of so noble and loving a friend as ye be.” And therewith Titus concluded his confession, with so pro- 1 Unmeth, First English, “uneath,” not easily. * Cease of, cease from ; once a common combination. found and bitter a sigh, received with tears, that it seemed that all his body should be dissolved and relented into salt drops. But Gisippus, as he were therewith nothing astonished or discontented, with an assured countenance, and merry regard, embracing Titus, and kissing him, answered in this wise: “Why, Titus, is this your only sickness and grief that ye so uncourteously have so long concealed, and with much more unkindness kept from me, than ye have conceived it 2 I ac- knowledge my folly wherewith ye have with good right upbraided me, that in showing to you her whom I loved, I remembered not the common estate of our nature, neither the agreeableness, or (as I might say) the unity of our two appetites. Surely that default can be by no reason excused, wherefore it is only I that have offended. For who may by right prove that ye have trespassed, that by the inevitable stroke of Cupid’s dart are thus bitterly wounded ? Think ye me such a fool or ignorant person, that I know not the power of Venus, where she liketh to show her importable violence P Have not ye well resisted against such a goddess, that for my sake have striven with her almost to the death P What more loyalty or truth can I require of you ? Am I of that virtue, that I may resist against celestial influence, pre- ordinate by providence divine P If I so thought, what were my wits P where were my study so long time spent in noble philosophy P I confess to you, Titus, I love that maiden as much as any wise man might possible : and took in her com- pany more delight and pleasure than of all the treasure and lands that my father left me, which ye know was right abundant. But now I perceive that the affection of love toward her surmounteth in you above measure, what, shall I think it of a wanton lust, or sudden appetite in you, whom I have ever known of grave and sad disposition, inclined alway to honest doctrine, flying all vain dalliance and dishonest pastime P Shall I imagine to be in you any malice or fraud, since from the tender time of our childhood, I have alway found in you, my sweet friend Titus, such a conformity with all my manners, appetites, and desires, that never was seen between us any manner of contention ? May God forbid, that in the friendship of Gisippus and Titus should happen any suspicion: or that any fantasy should pierce my head whereby that honourable love between us should be the mountenance of a crumbº perished. Nay, nay, Titus, it is as I said, the only providence of God : she was by Him from the beginning prepared to be your lady and wife. For such fervent love entereth not into the heart of a wise man and virtuous, but by a divine disposition: whereat if I should be discontented or grudge, I should not only be unjust to you, withholding that from you which is undoubtedly yours, but also obstinate and repugnant against the determination of God, which shall never be found in Gisippus. “Therefore, gentle friend Titus, dismay you not at the chance of love, but receive it joyously with me, that am with you nothing discontented, but marvellous glad, since it is my hap to find for you such a lady, with whom ye shall live in felicity, and receive fruit to the honour and comfort of all your lineage. Here I renounce to you clearly all my title and interest, that I now have or might have in the fair maiden. Call to your pristinate courage, wash clean your visage and eyes thus bewept, and abandon all heaviness. The day appointed for our marriage approacheth : let us consult how, without difficulty, ye may wholly attain your desires. Take heed this mine advice : ye know well that we two be so like, that being apart, and in one apparel, few men do know * Importable, unbearable. * The mountenance of a crumb, to the amount of a crumb. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1531. us. Also ye do remember that the custom is that, notwith- standing any ceremony done at the time of the espousals, the marriage, notwithstanding, is not confirmed until at night that the husband putteth a ring on the finger of his wife, and unlooseth her girdle. Therefore, I myself will be present with my friends, and perform all the parts of a bridegroom. And ye shall abide in a place secret, where I shall appoint you, until it be night. And then shall ye quickly convey yourself into the maiden's chamber, and for the similitude of our personages, and of our apparel, ye shall not be espied of the women, which have none of us any acquaintance, and shortly get you to bed, and put your own ring on the maiden's finger, and undo the girdle of virginity, and do all other thing that shall be to your pleasure. Be now of good cheer, Titus, and comfort yourself with good reflections and solace, that this wan and pale colour, and your cheeks meagre and lean, be not the cause of your discovering. I know well that, ye having your purpose, I shall be in obloquy and derision of all men, and so hated of all my kindred, that they shall seek occasion to expulse me out of this city, thinking me to be a notable reproach to all my family. But let God therein work, I force not! what pain that I abide, so that ye, my friend Titus, may be safe, and pleasantly enjoy your desires, to the increasing of your felicity.” With these words Titus began to move, as it were, out of a dream, and doubting whether he heard Gisippus speak, or else saw but a vision, lay still as a man abashed. But when he beheld the tears trickling down by the face of Gisippus, he then recomforted him, and thanking him for his incom- parable kindness, refused the benefit that he offered, saying that it were better that a hundred such unkind wretches as he was should perish, than so noble a man as was Gisippus should sustain reproach or damage. But Gisippus eftesoones com- forted Titus, and therewith sware and protested, that with free and glad will he would that this thing should be in form aforesaid accomplished, and therewith embraced and sweetly kissed Titus. Who perceiving the matter sure, and not feigned, as a man not sick, but only awaked out of his sleep, set himself up in his bed; the quick blood somewhat resorted unto his visage, and after a little good meats and drinks taken, he was shortly, and in a few days, restored into his old fashion and figure. To make the tale short : the day of marriage was come. Gisippus, accompanied with his allies and friends, came to the house of the damosell, where they were honourably and joyously feasted. And between him and the maiden was a sweet entertainment, which to behold, all that were present, took much pleasure and comfort, prais- ing the beauty, goodliness, virtue, and courtesy, which in this couple were excellent above all other that they had ever seen. What shall I say more ? The covenants were read and sealed, the dower appointed, and all other bargains con- cluded, and the friends of either part took their leave and departed: the bride with a few women (as was the custom) brought into her chamber; then, as it was before agreed, Titus conveyed himself, after Gisippus returned to his house, or perchance to the chamber appointed for Titus, nothing sorrowful, although that he heartily loved the maiden, but with a glad heart and countenance that he had so recovered his friend from death, and so well brought him to the effect of his desire. . . The morrow is come. Gisippus, thinking it expedient that the truth should be discovered, assembled all the nobility of the city at his own house, where also by appointment was Titus, who among them had these words that do follow :- “My friends, Athenians, there is at this time showed 1 I force not, I do not care. So “no force”=no matter. among you an example, almost incredible, of the divine power of honourable love, to the perpetual renown and commenda- tion of this noble city of Athens, whereof he ought to take excellent comfort, and therefore give due thanks to God, if there remain among you any token of the ancient wisdom of your most noble progenitors. For what more praise may be given to people than benevolence, faithfulness, and constancy? without whom all countries and cities be brought unto desola- tion and ruin, like as by them they become prosperous and in most high felicity. What, shall I long tarry you in conjec- turing mine intent and meaning 2 Ye all know from whence I came unto this city, that of adventure I found in the house of Chremes his son Gisippus, of mine own age, and in every- thing so like to me that neither his father, nor any other man could discern of us the one from the other, but by our own insignment or showing: in so much as there were put about our necks laces of Sundry colours to declare our personages. What mutual agreement and love have been alway between us during the eight years that we have been together, ye all be witnesses, that have been beholders and wonderers of our most sweet conversation and consent of appetites, wherein was never any discord or variance. And, as for my part, after the decease of my father, notwithstanding that there was descended and happened unto me great possessions, fair houses, with abundance of riches; also I being called home by the desirous and importunate letters of mine allies and friends, which be of the most noble of all the senators, offered the advancement to the highest dignities in the public weal, I will not remember the lamentations of my most natural mother, expressed in her tender letters, all besprent and blotted with abundance of tears, wherein she accuseth me of unkindness, for my long tarrying, and especially now in her most discomfort. But all this could not remove me the breadth of my nail from my dear friend, Gisippus. And but by force could not I, nor yet may be drawn from his sweet company, but if he thereto will consent. I choosing rather to live with him as his companion and fellow, yea, and as his servant rather than to be Consul of Rome. Thus my kindness hath been well acquitted (or as I might say), redoubled, delivering me from the death, yea from the most cruel and painful death of all other. I perceive ye wonder hereat, noble Athenians, and no marvel. For what person should be so hardy to attempt any such thing against me, being a Roman, and of the noble blood of the Romans ? Or who should be thought so malicious to slay me, who (as all ye be my judges) never trespassed against any person within this city. Nay, nay, my friends, I have none of you all therein suspected. I perceive you desire and hearken to know, what he was, that presumed to do so cruel and great an enterprise. It was love, noble Athenians, the same love, which as your poets do remember, did wound the more part of all the gods, that ye do honour, that constrained Jupiter to transform himself in a swan, a bull, and divers other likenesses: the same love that caused Hercules, the vanquisher and destroyer of monsters and giants, to spin on a rock, sitting among maidens in a woman's apparel: the same love that caused to assemble all the noble princes of Asia and Greece in the fields of Troy: the same love, I say, against whose assaults may be found no defence or resistance, hath suddenly and unaware stricken me unto the heart with such vehemence and might, that I had in short space died with most fervent torments had not the incomparable friendship of Gisippus holpen me. I see you would fain know who she is that I loved. I will no longer delay you, noble Athenians. It is Sophronia, the lady whom Gisippus had chosen to have to his wife, and whom he most entirely loved. But when his most gentle heart perceived that my love was in a much higher degree A.D. 1531.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 21 than his toward that lady, and that it proceeded neither of wantonness; neither of long conversation, nor of any other corrupt desire or fantasy, but in an instant, by the only look, and with such fervence, that immediately I was so cruciate, that I desired, and in all that I mought provoked death to take me. He by his wisdom soon perceived (as I doubt not but that ye do) that it was the very provision of God, that she should be my wife and not his : whereto he giving place, and more esteeming true friendship than the love of a woman, whereunto he was induced by his friends and not by violence of Cupid constrained, as I am, hath willingly granted to me the interest that he had in the damosel. And it is I, Titus, that have verily wedded her, I have put the ring on her finger, I have undone the girdle of her shamefacedness: what will ye more ?' I have lain with her, and confirmed the matrimony, and made her a wife.” At these words all they that were present began to murmur, and to cast a disdainous and grievous look upon Gisippus. Then spake again Titus:— “Leave your grudgings and menacing countenance towards Gisippus; he hath done to you all honour, and no need of reproach. I tell you he hath accomplished all the parts of a friend: that love, which was most certain, hath he continued. He knew he might find in Greece another maiden, and fair and as rich as this that he had chosen, and one, perchance, that he mought love better. But such a friend as I was, having respect to our similitude, the long approved concord, also mine estate and condition, he was sure to find never none. Also the damosel suffereth no disparagement in her blood, or hindrance in her marriage, but is much rather advanced (no dispraise to my dear friend Gisippus). Also consider, noble Athenians, that I took her not my father living, when ye mought have suspected that as well her riches as her beauty should have thereto allured me: but soon after my father's decease, when I far exceeded her in possessions and substance, when the most notable men of Rome and of Italy desired mine alliance; ye have therefore all cause to rejoice and thank Gisippus, and not to be angry, and also to extol his wonderful kindness toward me, whereby he hath won me and all my blood, such friends to you and your city, that ye may be assured, to be by us defended against all the world: which being considered, Gisippus hath well deserved a statue or image of gold, to be set on a pillar, in the midst of your city, for an honourable monument, in the remembrance of our in- comparable friendship, and of the good that thereby may come to your city. But if this persuasion cannot satisfy you, but that ye will imagine anything to the damage of my dear friend Gisippus after my departing, I make my vow unto God, creator of all thing, that as I shall have knowledge thereof, I shall forthwith resort hither, with the invincible power of the Romans, and revenge him in such wise against his enemies that all Greece shall speak of it to their perpetual dishonour, shame, and reproach.” And therewith Titus and Gisippus rose, but the other for fear of Titus dissembleth their malice, making semblant as they had been with all thing contented. Soon after, Titus, being sent for by the authority of the Senate and people of Rome, prepared to depart out of Athens, and would fain have had Gisippus to have gone with him, offering to divide with him all his substance and fortune. But Gisippus, considering how necessary his counsel should be to the city of Athens, would not depart out of his country. Notwithstanding that above all earthly things, he most desired the company of Titus: which abode also, for the said consideration, Titus approved. Titus with his lady is departed towards the city of Rome, where, at their coming, they were of the mother of Titus, his night. plenished with sorrow, and also the naked knife by him, kinsmen, and of all the Senate and people joyously received. And there lived Titus with his lady in joy inexplicable, and had by her many fair children: and for his wisdom and learning was so highly esteemed, that there was no dignity or honourable office within the city, that he had not with much favour and praise achieved and occupied. But now let us resort to Gisippus, who immediately upon the departing of Titus, was so maligned at, as well by his own kinsmen, as by the friends of the lady that he, to their seeming, shamefully abandoned, leaving her to Titus, that they spared not daily to vex him with all kinds of reproach, that they could devise or imagine : and first they excluded him out of their council, and prohibited him from all honest Company. And yet not being therewith satisfied, finally they adjudged him unworthy to enjoy any possessions or goods, left to him by his parents, whom he (as they supposed) by his indiscreet friendship had so distained. Wherefore they despoiled him of all things, and almost naked, expelled him out of the city. Thus is Gisippus, late wealthy, and one of the most noble men of Athens, for his kind heart, banished his country for ever, and as a man dismayed, wandering hither and thither, finding no man that would succour him. At the last remembering in what pleasure his friend Titus lived with his lady, for whom he suffered these damages, concluded to go to Rome, and declare his infortune to his said friend Titus. What shall need a long tale P In conclusion, with much pain, cold, hunger, and thirst, he is come to the city of Rome, and dili- gently enquiring for the house of Titus, at the last he came to it: but beholding it so beautiful, large, and princely, he was ashamed to approach nigh to it, being in so simple estate and unclad, but standeth by, that in case Titus came forth out of his house, he might present himself to him. He being in this thought, Titus, holding his lady by the hand, issued out from his door, and taking their horses to Solace them- selves, beheld Gisippus, and beholding his vile apparel, regarded him not, but passed forth on their way, wherewith Gisippus was so wounded to the heart, thinking Titus had contemned his fortune, that oppressed with mortal heaviness, fell in a sownde, but being recovered by some that stood by, thinking him to be sick, forthwith departed, intending not to abide any longer, but as a wild beast to wander abroad in the world. But for weariness he was constrained to enter into an old barn, without the city; where he, casting himself on the bare ground with weeping and dolorous crying, bewaileth his fortune; but most of all accusing the ingratitude of Titus, for whom he suffered all that misery, the remembrance whereof was so intolerable, that he determined no longer to live in that anguish and dolour. And therewith drew his knife, purposing to have slain himself. But ever wisdom (which he by the study of philosophy had attained) withdrew him from that desperate act. And in this contention between wisdom and will, fatigued with long journeys in watch, or as God would have it, he fell into a deep sleep. His knife (wherewith he would have slain himself) falling down by him. In the meantime, a common and notable ruffian or thief, which had robbed and slain a man, was entered into the barn where Gisippus lay, to the intent to sojourn there all that And seeing Gisippus bewept, and his visage re- perceived well that he was a man desperate, and surprised with heaviness of heart, was weary of his life: which the said ruffian taking for a good occasion to escape, took the knife of Gisippus, and putting it in the wound of him that was slain, 1 Sowmde, swoon. 2 2. ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1531. CASSELL's LIBRARY OF put it all bloody in the hand of Gisippus, being fast asleep, and so departed. - Soon after, the dead man being found, the officers made diligent search for the murderer: at the last they entering into the barn, and finding Gisippus asleep, with the bloody knife in his hand, awaked him; wherewith he entered again into his old sorrows, complaining his evil fortune. But when the officers laid unto him the death of the man, and the having of the bloody knife, thereat rejoiced, thanking God that such occasion was happened, whereby he should suffer death by the laws, and escape the violence of his own hands. Wherefore he denied nothing that was laid to his charge, desiring the officers to make haste that he Inight be shortly out of his life. Whereat they marvelled. Anon, report came to the Senate, that a man was slain, and that a stranger, and a Greek born, was found in such form as is before-mentioned. They forthwith commanded him to be brought unto their presence, sitting there at that time, Titus being then Consul, or in other like dignity. The miserable Gisippus was brought to the bar, with bills and staves like a felon, of whom it was demanded if he slew the man that was founden dead. He nothing denied, but in most sorrowful manner cursed his fortune, naming himself of all other most miserable. At the last one demanding him of what country he was, he confessed to be an Athenian, and therewith he cast his 'sorrowful eyen upon Titus with much indignation, and burst out into sighs and tears abundantly. That beholding Titus, and espying by a little sign in his visage, which he knew, that it was his dear friend Gisippus, and anon considering that he was brought into despair by some misadventure, rose out of his place where he sat, and falling on his knees before the judges, said that he had slain the man for old. malice that he bare toward him, and that Gisippus, being a stranger, was guiltless, and all men mought perceive that the other was a desperate person. Wherefore to abbreviate his sorrows, he confessed the act whereof he was innocent, to the intent that he would finish his sorrows with death, wherefore Titus desired the judges to give sentence on him according to his merits. But Gisippus, perceiving his friend Titus (contrary to his expectation) to offer himself to the death for his safeguard, more importunately cried to the Senate to proceed in their judgment on him, that was the very offender. Titus denied, and affirmed with reasons and arguments that he was the murderer, and not Gisippus. Thus they of long time, with abundance of tears, contended which of them should die for the other, whereat all the Senate and people were wonderfully abashed, not knowing what it meant. The murderer in deed happened to be in the preace" at that time, who, perceiving the marvellous contention of these two per- sons, which were both innocent, and that it proceeded of an incomparable friendship, was vehemently provoked to discover the truth. Wherefore he brake through the preace, and coming before the Senate, spake in this wise:– “Noble fathers, I am such a person, whom ye know have been a common barrator” and thief by a long space of years: ye know also, that Titus is of a noble blood, and is approved to be alway a man of excellent virtue and wisdom, and never was malicious. This other stranger seemeth to be a man full of simplicity, and that more is desperate for some grievous sorrow that he hath taken, as it is to you evident. I say to you, fathers, they both be innocent; I am that person that 1 Prease, press, crowd. * Barrator, exciter of strife. Old French, “barat,” discord, con- fusion, fraud. - slew him that is founden dead by the barn, and robbed him of his money. And when I found in the barn this stranger lying asleep, having by him a naked knife, I, the better to hide mine offence, did put the knife into the wound of the dead man, and so all bloody laid it again by this stranger. This was my mischievous desire to escape your judgment. Whereunto now I remit me wholly, rather than this noble man Titus, or this innocent stranger, should unworthily die.” Hereat all the Senate and people took comfort, and the noise of rejoicing hearts filled all the court. And when it was further examined, Gisippus was discovered; the friend- ship between him and Titus was throughout the city pub- lished, extolled, and magnified. Wherefore the Senate con- sulted of this matter, and finally, at the instance of Titus and the people, discharged the felon. Titus recognised his negli- gence in forgetting Gisippus. And Titus, being advertised of the exile of Gisippus, and the despiteful cruelty of his kindred, was therewith wonderful wroth, and having Gisippus home to his house (where he was with incredible joy received of the lady, whom some time he should have wedded) honour- ably apparelled him; and there Titus offered to him, to use all his goods and possessions at his own pleasure and appetite. But Gisippus, desiring to be again in his proper country, Titus, by the consent of the Senate and people, assembled a great army, and went with Gisippus unto Athens, where he, having delivered to him all those which were causers of banishing and despoiling of his friend Gisippus, did on them sharp execution ; and restoring to Gisippus his lands and substance, stablished him in perpetual quietness, and so returned to Rome. This example in the effects of friendship expresseth (if I be not deceived) the description of friendship, engendered by the similitude of age and personage, augmented by the con- formity of manners and studies, and confirmed by the long continuance of company. It would be remembered, that friendship is between good men only, and is engendered of an opinion of virtue. Then may we reason in this form : A good man is so named, because all that he willeth or doth is only good; in good can be none evil, therefore nothing that a good man willeth or doth can be evil. Likewise virtue is the affection of a good man, which neither willeth nor doth anything that is evil. And vice is contrary unto virtue, for in the opinion of virtue is neither evil nor vice. And very amity is virtue. Wherefore nothing evil or vicious may happen in friendship. Therefore in the first election of friends resteth all the importance : wherefore it would not be without a long deliberation and proof, and, as Aristotle Saith, in as long time as by them both, being to- gether conversant, a whole bushel of salt mought be eaten. For oftentimes with fortune (as I late said) is changed, or at the least minished, the ferventness of that affection, according as the sweet poet Ovid affirmeth, saying in this sentence— “Whiles Fortune thee favoureth, friends thou hast plenty. The time being troublous, thou art all alone. Thou seest culvers haunt houses made white and dainty; To the ruinous tower almost cometh none, Of emmets innumerable unethe thou find'st one. In empty barnes, and where faileth substànce, Hapneth no friend in whom is assuránce.” But if any happeneth in every fortune to be constant in friendship, he is to be made of above all things that may come unto man, and above any other that be of blood or kindred, as Tully saith; for from kindred may be taken benevolence, from friendship it can never be severed. Where- fore benevolence taken from kindred, yet the name of kins- To A.D. 1538.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 23 man remaineth; take it from friendship, and the name of friendship is utterly perished. But since this liberty of speech is now usurped by flatterers, where they perceive that assentation and praises be abhorred, I am therefore not well assured how a man nowadays shall know or discern such admonition from flattery, but by one only means: that is to say, to remember that friendship may not be but between good men. Then consider if he that doth admonish thee be himself voluptuous, ambitious, covetous, arrogant, or dissolute, refuse not his admonitions; but by the example of the Emperor Antonine, thankfully take it, and amend such default as thou perceivest doth give occasion of obloquy, in such manner as the reporter also by thine example may be corrected. But for that admonition only, account him not immediately to be thy friend, until thou have of him a long and sure experience. For undoubtedly it is wonderful difficult to find a man very ambitious or cove- tous to be assured in friendship. For where findest thou (Saith Tully) that will not prefer honours, great offices, rule, authority, and richesse before friendship P Therefore (saith he) it is very hard to find friendship in them that be occupied in acquiring honour, or about the affairs of the public weal; which saying is proved by daily experience. For disdain and contempt be companions with ambition, like as envy and hatred be also her fellows. On the 6th of July, 1535, Sir Thomas More was executed for his conscientious dissent from Henry the Eighth's claim to be the Pope of England. In 1539, Hugh Latimer was deprived of his bishopric of Worcester, for conscientious dissent from the Ring's Act for abolishing Diversity of Opinion, by enforcing with penalties against his subjects Roman Catholic opinion upon six points in dispute between the churches. In the same year, Sir Thomas Wyatt, thirty-six years old, returned from an embassy to Charles W. in Spain. Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey were the most accomplished poets among many nobles of that time who wrote good verse. He had been sent to Spain in 1537, the year of the birth of Edward, afterwards King Edward VT., and from Spain he addressed these letters to his only son, that Thomas Wyatt the younger, who was executed in 1554, for rebellion against the marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain. SIR THOMAS WYATT FROM ouT OF SPAIN, To HIS SON WHEN SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD. LETTER I. In as much as now ye are come to some years of under- standing, and that ye should gather within yourself some frame of honesty; I thought that I should not lesel my labour wholly if now I did something advertise you to take the sure foundations, and stablished opinions that leadeth? to honesty. And here, I call not honesty that men commonly call honesty, as reputation for riches, for authority, or some like thing; but that honesty, that I dare well say your grand- father (whose soul God pardon) had rather left to me than all the lands he did leave me; that was, wisdom, gentleness, * First English, “leo'san,” passed into the two forms lese and lose. * Leadeth, the old southern plural in ath. soberness, desire to do good, friendliness to get the love of many, and truth above all the rest. . A great part to have all these things, is to desire to have them. And although glory and honest name are not the very ends wherefore these things are to be followed, yet surely they must needs follow them as light followeth fire, though it were kindled for warmth. Out of these things the chiefest and infallible ground is the dread and reverence of God, whereupon shall ensue the eschewing of the contraries of these said virtues; that is to say, ignorance, unkindness, rashness, desire of harm, unquiet enmity, hatred, many and crafty falsehoods, the very root of all shame and dishonesty. I say, the only dread and reverence of God that seeth all things, is the defence of the creeping in of all these mischiefs into you. And for my part, although I do well say there is no man that would his son better than I, yet on my faith I had rather have you lifeless, than subject to these vices. - Think and imagine always that ye are in presence of some homest man that ye know; as Sir John Russell, your father- in-law, your Uncle Parson, or some other such, and ye shall, if at any time ye find a pleasure in naughty touches, re- member what shame it were afore these men to do naughtily. And sure this imagination shall cause you remember, that the pleasure of a naughty deed is soon past, and the rebuke, shame, and the note thereof shall remain ever. Then, if these things ye take for vain imaginations, yet remember that it is certain, and no imagination, that ye are alway in the presence, and sight of God; and though ye see Him not, so much is the reverence the more to be had for that He seeth, and is not seen. Men punish with shame as greatest punishment on earth; yea, greater than death. But His punishment is: first, the withdrawing of His favour, and grace, and, in leaving His hand to rule the stern, to let the ship run without guide to its own destruction; and suffereth so the man that He forsaketh to run headlong as subject to all mishaps, and at last with shameful end to everlasting shame and death. Ye may see continual examples both of the one sort, and of the other; and the better, if ye mark them well that your- self are come of; and consider well your good grandfather,” what things there were in him, and his end. And they that knew him noted him thus, First, and chiefly to have a great reverence of God and good opinion of godly things. Next, that there was no man more pitiful; no man more true of his word; no man faster to his friend; no man diligenter nor more circumspect, which thing, both the Kings his masters noted in him greatly. And if these things, and specially the grace of God that the fear of God alway kept with him, had not been, the chances of this troublesome world that he was in had long ago overwhelmed him. This preserved him in prison from the hands of the tyrant that could find in his heart to see him racked; from two years and more prisonment in Scotland in irons and stocks; from the danger of sudden changes and commotions divers, till that well beloved of many, hated of none, in his fair age, and good reputation, godly and christianly he went to Him that loved him, for that he always had Him in reverence. And of myself, I may be a near example unto you of my folly and unthriftiness, that hath, as I well deserved, brought me into a thousand dangers and hazards, enmities, hatreds, prisonments, despites, and indignations; but that God hath of his goodness chastiscd me, and not cast me clean out of His favour; which thing I can impute to nothing but to the 3 Sir Henry Wyatt. The grandfather on the mother's side was | John Skinner, of Reigate. 24 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1538 goodness of my good father, that, I dare well say purchased with continual request of God His grace towards me more than I regarded, or considered myself; and a little part to the small fear that I had of God in the most of my rage, and the little delight that I had in mischief. You therefore if you be sure, and have God in your sleeve to call you to His grace at last, venture hardily by mine example upon naughty unthriftiness, in trust of his goodness, and besides the shame, I dare lay ten to one ye shall perish in the adventure. For trust me, that my wish or desire of God for you shall not stand you in as much effect, as I think my father's did for me: we are not all accepted of Him. Begin, therefore, betimes. Make God and goodness your foundations. Make your examples of wise and honest men: shoot at that mark: be no mocker, mocks follow them that delight therein. He shall be sure of shame that feeleth no grief in other men's shames. Have your friends in a re- verence; and think unkindness to be the greatest offence, and least punished among men; but so much the more to be dread, for God is justicer upon that alone. Love well, and agree with your wife; for where is noise and debate in the house there is unquiet dwelling; and much more, where it is in one bed. Frame well yourself to love and rule well and honestly your wife as your fellow, and she shall love and reverence you as her head. Such as you are unto her, such shall she be unto you. Obey and reverence your father-in-law, as you would me; and remember that long life followeth them that reverence their fathers and elders; and the blessing of God for good agreement between the wife and husband is fruit of many children. Read oft this my letter, and it shall be as though I had often written to you; and think that I have herein printed a fatherly affection to you. If I may see that I have not lost my pain, mine shall be the contentation, and yours the profit. And, upon condition that you follow my advertise- ment, I send you God’s blessing and mine, and as well to come to honesty, as to increase of years. LETTER II. I doubt not but long ere this time my letters are come to you. I remember I wrote to you in them, that if ye read them often it shall be as though I had written often to you. For all that, I cannot so content me but still to call upon you with my letters. I would not for all that, that if any thing be well warned in the other that ye should leave to remem- ber it because of this new. For it is not like with advertise- ments as it is with apparel, that with long wearing a man casteth away when he hath new. Honest teachings never wear; unless they wear out of his remembrance that should keep and follow them, to the shame and hurt of himself. Think not also that I have any new or change of advertise- ments to send you; but still it is one that I would. I have nothing to cry and call upon you for but honesty, honesty. It may be diversely named, but alway it tendeth to one end. And as I wrote to you last, I mean not that honesty that the common sort calleth an honest man. Trust me, that honest man is as common a name as the name of a good fellow; that is to say, a drunkard, a tavern haunter, a rioter, a gamer, a waster. So are among the common sort of all men honest men that are not known for manifest naughty knaves. Seek not I pray thee, my son, that honesty which ap- peareth, and is not indeed. Be well assured it is no common thing, nor no common man's judgment to judge well of honesty; nor it is no common thing to come by ; but so much it is the more goodly, for that it is so rare and strange. Follow not therefore the common reputation of honesty. If ye will seem honest, be honest; or else seem as ye are. Seek not the name without the thing; nor let not the name be the only mark ye shoot at. That will follow though ye regard it not ; yea, the more you regard it, the less. I mean not by regard it not, esteem it not ; for well I wot honest name is goodly. But he that hunteth only for that, is like him that had rather seem warm than be warm, and edgeth a single coat about with a fur. Honest name is to be kept, preserved, and defended, and not to employ all a man's wit about the study of it; for that smelleth of a glorious and ambitious fool. I say, as I wrote unto you in my last letters, get the thing, and the other must of necessity follow; as the shadow followeth the thing that it is of. And even so much is the very honesty better than the name, as the thing is 'better than the shadow. - The coming to this point that I would so fain have you have, is to consider a man's own self what he is, and where- fore he is. And herein let him think verily that so goodly a work as man is, for whom all other things were wrought, was not wrought but for goodly things. After a man hath gotten a will and desire to them, is first to avoid evil, and learn that point alone: “Never to do that, that within yourself ye find a certain grudging against.” No doubt in any thing ye do, if ye ask yourself, or examine the thing in yourself afore ye do it, ye shall find, if it be evil, a repining against it. My Son, for our Lord's love keep well that repining; suffer it not to be darked and cor- rupted by naughty example, as though anything were to you excusable because other men do the same. That same repining, if it did punish as he doth judge, there were no such justicer. And of truth, so doth it punish; but not so apparently. Here however it is no small grief, of a con- science that condemneth itself; but be well assured, after this life it is a continual gnawing. When there is a custom gotten of avoiding to do evil, then cometh a gentle courage. Be content to be idle, and to rest without doing any thing. Then too had ye need to gather an heap of good opinions and to get them perfectly, as it were on your fingers' ends. Rest not greatly upon the approving of them; take them as already approved, because they were of honest men's leavings. Of them of God, there is no question. And it is no small help to them, the good opinion of moral philosophers: among whom I would Seneca your study; and Epictetus, because it is little, to be ever in bosom. These things shall lead you to know goodly [guides]; which when a man knoweth and taketh pleasure in them, he is a beast that followeth not them : no, nor he cannot but follow them. But take this for conclusion and sum of all; that if God and His grace be not the foundation, neither can ye avoid evil, nor judge well, nor do any goodly thing. Let Him be foundation of all. Will these things; desire them earnestly, and seek them at his hands, and knowledge* them to come of Him, and questionless He will both give you the use and pleasure in using them, and also reward you for them that come of Him ; so liberal and good is He. I would fain see that my letters might work to frame you honest. And think that without that, I esteem nothing of you: no, not that you are my son. For I reckon it no small dishonesty to myself to have an unhonest taught child; but the fault shall not be in me. I shall do the part of a father: and if ye answer not to that I look for at your hands, I shall as well study with that that I shall leave, to make such [serve an) honest man, as you. I Knowledge, acknowledge. ...twº- To A.D. 1545.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 25 . The model of style in these letters seems to have been Seneca; but the most genuine application of scholarship in those days to the writing of English prose, is to be found in the works of Roger Ascham. Ascham was a Yorkshireman, born near North- allerton, about the year 1515. He was one of the five children of a house-steward, in the family of Lord Scrope, and went to St. John's College, Cam- bridge, with small means for his support, but acquired high distinction as a scholar. He took his B.A. degree at the age of nineteen, and fastened upon Greek, which two young scholars, Thomas Smith and John Cheke, were then introducing into Cambridge. Cheke and Smith were both of the same age, and only about a year older than Ascham. Ascham caught his enthusiasm for Greek from Cheke, obtained a fellowship from his College, and in 1537, when about twenty-two years old, received a stipend from the University for teaching Greek. He remained at Cambridge, became not less famous for his Latin scholarship, and as he wrote also a beautiful hand, was made, in course of time, tutor and secretary to Henry VIII.'s children, serving successively Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, who liked him, and left his opinions free. He did not disguise his Protestantism. In course of time, also, he was chosen Public Orator, and represented the scholarship of his University in all its correspondence. Henry VIII. was encouraging shooting at the butts, that he might have a people apt for military service, and Ascham first became known to the king, when his age was about thirty, by presenting to him an English book—“Toxophilus.” —which advocated use of the bow. It was published in 1545, and its preface contains the plea of a fine classical scholar, for the use of a true scholarship by educated men in writing their mother tongue. Ascham practised what he preached. In “Toxo- philus” and in his later book, “The Schoolmaster,” his English is clear, pure, and idiomatic. He does not corrupt it with Greek or Latin idiom ; for he might as well spoil writing in Latin or Greek with Angli- cisms. But he says in apt words, well fitted together, just what he has to say. We see very well in Ascham that a scholarly prose style is the reverse of formal or pedantic. This is, in its old spelling, Ascham's Preface to “Toxophilus”: TO ALL THE GENTLEMEN AND YOMEN OF ENGLANDE. Bias the wyse man came to Cresus the riche Kinge, on a time, when he was makinge newe shippes, purposinge to have subdued by water the out isles lying betwixte Grece and Asia Minor. “What newes nowe in Grece 2" sayth the Kinge to Bias. “None other newes but these,” sayth Bias : “that the isles of Grece have prepared a wonderful company of horsemen to over-run Lydia withal.” “There is nothing under heaven, sayth the Kinge, that I would so soone wish, as that they durst be so bolde, to meete us on the land with horse.” “And thinke you,” sayth Bias, “that there is any thinge which they would sooner wishe, then that you should be so fonde, to meete them on the water with shippes P” And so Cresus, hearing not the true newes, but perceyving the Wyse mannes minde and counsell, both gave then over mak- inge of his shippes, and left also behinde him a wonderful example for al common wealthes to followe: that is, evermore to regarde and set most by that thinge wherunto nature hath made them most apt, and use hath made them most fitte. By this matter I meane the shooting in the longe bow, for Englishemen : which thinge, with al my hart I do wishe, and if I were of authority, I would counsell al the gentlemen and yomen of Englande, not to chaunge it with any other thinge, howe good soever it seeme to be, but that stil, according to the olde wont of Englande, youth should use it for the most honest pastime in peace, that men might handle it as a most sure weapon in warre. Other stronge weapons, which both experience doth prove to be good, and the wise.dome of the Ringes Majesty and his counsel provides to be had, are not ordayned to take awaye shooting: but that both, not com- pared together, whether should be better than the other, but so joymed together, that the one should be alwayes an ayde and helpe for the other, might so strengthen the realme on all sides, that no kinde of enemye, in any kinde of weapon, might passe and go beyonde us. For this purpose I, partlye provoked by the counsell of some gentlemen, partlye moved by the love which I have alwayes borne towards shootinge, have written this litle treatise; wherein, if I have not satisfyed any man, I trust he will the rather be content with my doinge, because I am (I suppose) the first, which hath said any thinge in this matter, (and fewe beginninges be perfect, sayth wyse men :) and also because, if I have saide amisse, I am content that any man amende it; or, if I had said to litle, any man that will to adde what him pleaseth to it. My minde is, in profiting and pleasing every man, to hurt or displease no man, intending none other purpose, but that youth might be stirred to labour, honest pastime, and vertue, and as much as laye in me, plucked from ydlenes, un- thrifty games, and vice : which thinge I have laboured onlye in this booke, shewinge howe fit shootinge is for all kindes of men; howe honest a pastime for the minde; howe holsome an exercise for the bodye; not vile for great men to use, not costly for poore men to sustayne, not lurking in holes and corners for ill men at their pleasure to misuse it, but abydinge in the open sighte and face of the worlde, for good men, if it fault, by theyr wysedome to correct it. And here I would desire al gentlemen and yomen to use this pastime in such a meane, that the outragiousness of great gaminge should not hurt the honestye of shootinge, which, of his owne nature, is alwayes joyned with honestye : yet for mennes faultes oftentimes blamed unworthelye, as all good thinges have bene, and evermore shal be. If any man would blame me, eyther for takinge such a matter in hande, or els for wrytinge it in the Englishe tongue, this aunswere I may make him, that when the best of the realme thincke it honest for them to use, I, one of the mean- est sorte, ought not to suppose it vile for me to wryte: and thoughe to have written it in another tongue, had bene both more profitable for my study, and also more honest for my name, yet I can thinke my laboure well bestowed, if with a little hindrance of my profite and name, may come any furtherance to the pleasure or commodity of the gentlemen and yomen of Englande, for whose sake I toke this matter in hand. And as for the Latine or Greeke tongue, everye thinge is so excellentlye done in them, that none can do better: In the Englishe tongue, contrary, everye thinge in a manner so meanlye both for the matter and handelinge, that no man can do worse. For therein the least learned, for the most part, have bene alwayes most readye to write. And they which had least hope in Latine have bene most bould in Eng- łishe: when surelye everye man that is most readye to talke, is not most able to write. He that will write well in any 180 26 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. tº sº tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speake as the comon people do, to thinke as wyse men do: as so shoulde everye man understand him, and the judgement of wyse men alowe him. Manye Englishe writers have not done so, but usinge straunge wordes, as Latine, Frenche, and Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde. Ones I communed with a man which reasoned the Englishe tongue to be enriched and encreased thereby, sayinge: “Who will not prayse that feast where a man shall drincke at a dinner both wyne, ale and beere P” “Truly (quoth I) they be al good, everye one taken by himselfe alone, but if you put malvesye and sacke, redde wyne and white, ale and beere, and al in one pot, you shall make a drincke not easye to be knowen, nor yet holsome for the bodye.” Cicero, in following Isocrates, Plato and Demos- thenes, encreased the Latine tongue after another sort. This way, because divers men that wryte, do not know, they can neyther folow it, because of theyr ignoraunce, nor yet will prayse it for over arrogancye, two faultes, seldome the one out of the others companye. Englishe writers, by diversity of time, have taken dyvers matters in hand. In our fathers time no thinge was read but bookes of fayned chevalrie, wherin a man by readinge should be lead to none other ende, but onely to manslaughter and baudrye. If anye man sup- pose they were good enough to passe the time with all, he is deceived. For surely vaine wordes do worke no small thinge in vaine, ignorant, and young mindes, especially if they be geven any thinge thereunto of their owne nature. These bookes (as I have heard say) were made the most part in abbayes and monasteries, a very likely and fit fruite of such an ydle and blind kind of lyving. In our tyme now, when every man is geven to know, much rather than to live wel, very many do write, but after such a fashion as very many do shoote. Some shooters take in hande stronger bowes, than they be able to maintaine. This thinge maketh them some time to over shoote the marke, some time to shoote far wyde, and perchaunce hurt some that looke on. Other that never learned to shoote, nor yet knoweth good shaft nor bow, wil be as busy as the best, but suche one commonlye plucketh down a side, and crafty archers which be against him, will be both glad of him, and also ever redye to lay and bet with him : It were better for such one to sit down than shote. Other there be, which have very good bow and shafts, and good knowledge in shootinge, but they have been brought up in such evill favoured shootinge, that they can neither shoote fayre nor yet mere. If any man will applye these thinges together, shal not se the one far differ from the other. And I also, amonges all other, in wryting this litle treatise, have folowed some yong shooters, which both wil begin to shote, for a litle money, and also wil use to shoote ones or twise about the marke for nought, afore they begin a good. And therefore dyd I take this litle matter in hand, to assay myselfe, and hereafter, by the grace of God, if iudgement of wyse men, that loke on, thinke that I can do anye good, I may perchance cast my shaft among other, for better game. Yet in writing this booke, some man wil marveile perchance, why that I beyng an unperfect shooter, should take in hand to write of makyng a perfect archer: the same man, per-adventure, wil marveile howe a whetstone, whiche is blunt, can make the edge of a knife sharpe: I would the same man should consider also, that in going about any matter, there be four things to be considered, doing, saying, thincking, and perfectness: First, there is no man that doth so well, but he can say better, or els some men, whiche be now starke nought, should be too good: Again, no man can utter with his tongue, so wel as he is able to imagine with his minde, and yet perfectnes itselfe is far above al thinkinge. Then, Seyng that saying is one stepnerer perfectnes than doing, let every man leave marveyl- - noughtye wares as they would utter. —r- ing why my worde shal rather expresse, than my dede shall perfourme, perfect shootinge. - I trust no man will be offended with this litle booke, ex- cepte it be some fletchers and bowyers, thinkinge hereby that many that love shootinge shall be taught to refuse such Honest fletchers and bowyers do not so, and they that be unhonest, ought rather to amende themselves for doing ill, than be angrye with me for saying well. A fletcher hath even as good a quarell to be angrye with an archer that refuseth an ill shaft, as a blade- Smith hath to a fletcher that forsaketh to bye of him a noughtye knyfe; for as an archer must be content that a fletcher knowe a good shafte in every pointe for the perfecter makyng of it; so an honest fletcher will also be content that a shooter know a good shafte in everye pointe, for the per- fecter usinge of it ; because the one knowth like a fletcher howe to make it, the other knoweth like an archer how to use it. And Seinge the knowledge is one in them both, yet the ende divers; surely that fletcher is an enemy to archers and artillery, which cannot be content that an archer knowe a shafte, as well for his use in shootinge, as he him- selfe should knowe a shafte, for his advantage in sellinge. And the rather, because shaftes be not made so much to be sold, but chieflye to be used. And Seinge that use and ocupyinge is the ende why a shafte is made, the makyng, as it were, a meane for ocupyinge, surelye the knowledge in every point of a good shafte, is more to be required in a shooter than a fletcher. Yet, as I Sayde before, no honest fletcher will be angrye with me, Seing I do not teache howe to make a shafte, which belongeth onlye to a good fletcher, but to knowe and handle a shafte, which belongeth to an archer. And this litle booke, I trust, shall please and profit both parties: for good bowes and shaftes shall be better knowen to the commodity of all shooters, and good shootinge may, perchaunce, be more oc- cupyed to the profit of all bowyers and fletchers. And thus I praye God that all fletchers, getting their lyving truly, and all archers, usinge shootinge honestlye, and all manner of men that favour artillerye, maye live continuallye in healthe and merinesse, obeying theyr Prince as they shoulde, and loving God as they oughte: to whome, for all thinges, be all honour and glorye for ever. Amen. RogFR ASCHAM. Sir Thomas More's “History of Richard III.” was not published until 1641. The latter part of it had then already appeared in the Chronicle, pub- lished as a history of “the Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke,” by Edward Hall, who became one of the judges of the Sheriff's Court, in the reign of Henry VIII. Hall's chronicle ended with the year 1532, and was published in 1548, after its author's death. Its narrative of the closing incidents of Richard's life has some likeness to the undoubted work of More in the earlier part of his history, but the authorship is so far uncertain, that I give as from Hall's chronicle the account which is to be found in More's History: THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH FIELD: When both the armies were ordered, and all men ready to set forward, King Richard called his chieftains together, and to them said, “Most faithful and assured fellows, most trusty and well-beloved friends and elected captains, by whose wis- dom and policy I have obtained the crown and type of this famous realm and noble region, by whose puissance and To A.D. 1548.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 27 valiantness I have enjoyed and possessed the state royal and dignity of the same, maugre the ill-will and seditious at- tempts of all my cankered enemies and insidious adversaries, by whose prudent and politic counsel I have so governed my realm, people, and subjects, that I have omitted nothing appertaining to the office of a just prince, nor you have pre- termitted nothing belonging to the duty of wise and Sage counsellors. So that I may say and truly affirm that your approved fidelity and tried constancy maketh me to believe firmly and think that I am an undoubted king and an in- dubiate prince. And although in the adeption and obtaining of the garland I, being seduced and provoked by sinister counsel and diabolical temptation, did commit a facinorous and detestable act, yet I have with strict penance and Salt tears (as I trust) expiated and clearly purged the same offence; which abominable crime I require you of friendship as clearly to forget as I daily do remember to deplore and lament the same. If you will now diligently call to remembrance in what case and perplexity we now stand, and in what doubt- ful peril we be now intricked, I doubt not but you in heart will think, and with mouth confess, that if ever amity and faith prevailed between prince and subjects, or between sub- ject and subject, or if ever bond of allegiance obliged the vassal to love and serve his natural sovereign lord, or if any obligation of duty bound any prince to aid and defend his subjects, all these loves, bonds, and duties of necessity are this day to be experimented, showed, and put in experience. For if wise men say true, there is some policy in getting, but much more in keeping: the one being but fortune's chance, and the other high wit and policy; for which cause I with you and you with me must needs this day take labour and pain to keep and defend with force that pre-eminence and possession which by your prudent devices I have gotten and obtained. I doubt not but you know how the devil, con- tinual enemy to human nature, disturber of concord, and Sower of sedition, hath entered into the heart of an unknown Welshman (whose father I never knew, nor him personally saw), exciting him to aspire and covet our realm, crown, and dignity, and thereof clearly to deprive and spoil us and our posterity; ye see, further, how a company of traitors, thieves, outlaws, and runagates of our own nation be aiders and par- takers of his feat and enterprise, ready at hand to overcome and oppress us; you see, also, what a number of beggarly Britaines and faint-hearted Frenchmen be with him arrived to destroy us, our wives, and children: which imminent mis- chiefs and apparent inconveniences, if we will withstand, we must live together like brethren, fight together like lions, and fear not to die together like men. And observing and keep- ing this rule and precept, believe me, the fearful hare never fled faster before the greedy greyhound, nor the silly lark before the sparrow-hawk, nor the simple sheep before the ravenous wolf, than yonder proud bragging adversaries, astonished and amazed with the only sight of your manly visages, will fly, run, and skir out of the field. For if you consider and wisely ponder all things in your mind, you shall perceive that we have manifest causes and apparent tokens of victory. And to begin with the Earl of Richmond, captain of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milk-sop, a man of small courage and of less experience in martial acts and feats of war, brought up by my brother's means and mine, like a captive in a close cage, in the court of Francis, Duke of Britaine, and never saw army, nor was exercised in martial affairs, by reason whereof he neither can nor is able on his own wit and experience to guide an host; for in the wit and policy of the captain consisteth the chief adeption of the victory and overture of the enemies. Secondly, fear not and put away all doubts, for when the traitors and runagates of our realm shall see us with banner displayed come against them, remembering their oath, promise, and fidelity made unto us, as to their sovereign lord and anointed king, they shall be so pricked and stimulated in the bottom of their Scrupulous consciences, that they for very remorse and dread of the divine plague will either shamefully fly or humbly submit themselves to our grace and mercy. And as for the Frenchmen and Britaines, their valiantness is such, that our Inoble progenitors and your noble parents have them oftener vanquished and overcome in one month than they in the be- ginning imagined possible to compass and finish in a whole year. What will you make of them, braggers without audacity, drunkards without discretion, ribauds without reason, cowards without resisting, and in conclusion the most effeminate and lascivious people that ever showed themselves in front of battle, ten times more courageous to fly and escape than once to assault the breast of our strong and populous army P Wherefore, considering all these advantages, expel out of your thoughts all doubts, and avoid out of your minds all fear, and like valiant champions advance forth your standards, and assay whether your enemies can decide and try the title of battle. by dint of Sword. Advance, I say, again forward, my cap. tains, in whom lacketh neither policy, wisdom, nor puissance. Every one give but one sure stripe, and surely the journey is ours. What prevaileth a handful to a whole realm ? desiring you for the love that you bear to me, and the affection that you have to your native and natural country, and to the safeguard of your prince and yourself, that you will this day take to your accustomed courage and courageous spirits, for the defence and safeguard of us all. And as for me, I assure you this day I will triumph by glorious victory, or suffer death for immortal fame. For they be contemned, and out of the palace of fame degraded, dying without renown, which do not as much prefer and exalt the perpetual honour of their native country as their own mortal and transitory life. Now, Saint George to borrow, let us set forward, and remem- ber well that I am he which shall with high advancements reward and prefer the valiant and hardy champions, and punish and torment the shameful cowards and dreadful dastards.” This exhortation encouraged all such as favoured him, but such as were present more for dread than love kissed them openly whom they inwardly hated; others sware outwardly to take part with such whose death they secretly compassed and inwardly imagined; others promised to invade the king's enemies which fled and fought with fierce courage against the king; others stood still and looked on, intending to take part with the victors and overcomers. So was his people to him unsure and unfaithful at his end, as he was to his nephews untrue and unnatural in his beginning. - When the Earl of Richmond knew by his fore-riders that the king was so near embattled, he rode about his army, from rank to rank, from wing to wing, giving comfortable words to all men; and that finished (being armed at all pieces, saving his helmet), mounted on a little hill, so that all his people might see and behold him perfectly, to their great re- joicing. For he was a man of no great stature, but so formed and decorated with all gifts and lineaments of nature, that he seemed more an angelical creature than terrestrial personage. His countenance and aspect was cheerful and courageous, his hair yellow like burnished gold, his eyes grey, shining, and quick, prompt and ready in answering, but of such sobriety that it could never be judged whether he were more dull than quick in speaking, such was his temperance. And when he had over-looked his army over every side he paused awhile, and after with a loud voice and bold spirit spake to his companions these or like the words following :— 28 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1548. “If ever God gave victory to men fighting in a just quarrel —or if He ever aided such as made war for the wealth and tuition of their own natural and nutritive country—or if He ever succoured them which adventured their lives for the relief of innocents, suppressing of malefactors and apparent offenders—no doubt, my fellows and friends, but He of His bountiful goodness will this day send us triumphant victory and a lucky journey over our proud enemies and arrogant adversaries. For if you remember and consider the very cause of our just quarrel, you shall apparently perceive the same to be true, godly, and virtuous: in the which I doubt not but God will rather aid us (yea, and fight for us) than see us vanquished and profligate by such as neither fear Him nor His laws, nor yet regard justice or honesty. Our cause is so just that no enterprise can be of more virtue, both by the laws divine and civil: for what can be a more honest, goodly, or godly quarrel than to fight against a captain being a homicide and murderer of his own blood and progeny, an extreme destroyer of his nobility, to his and our country, and , the poor subjects of the same, a deadly mall, a firebrand, and burden intolerable P Besides him, consider who be of his band and company—such as by murder and untruth committed against their own kindred and lineage (yea, against their prince and sovereign lord) have disinherited me and you, and hath wrongfully detained and usurped our lawful patrimony and lineal inheritance. For he that calleth himself king keepeth from me the crown and regiment of this noble realm and country, contrary to all justice and equity. Likewise, his mates and friends occupy your lands, cut down your woods, and destroy your manors, letting your wives and children range abroad for their living; which persons, for their penance and punishment, I doubt not but God of His goodness will either deliver into our hands as a great gain and booty, or cause them, being grieved and compuncted with the prick of their corrupt consciences, cowardly to fly and not abide the battle. Besides this, I assure you that there be yonder in that great battle men brought thither for fear and not for love, soldiers by force compelled, and not with goodwill assembled, persons which desire rather the destruction than the salvation of their master and captain; and, finally, a multitude, whereof the most part will be our friends, and the least part our enemies. For truly I doubt which is greater, the malice of the soldiers towards their captain, or the fear of him conceived of his people. For surely this rule is infallible, that as ill men daily covet to destroy the good, so God appointeth the good to confound the ill; and of all worldly goods the greater is to suppress tyrants and relieve innocents, whereof the one is ever as much hated as the other is beloved. If this be true, as clerks preach, who will spare yonder tyrant, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, untruly calling himself king, considering that he hath violated and broken both the law of God and man 2 what virtue is in him which was the confusion of his brother, and murderer of his nephews? what mercy is in him that flieth his trusty friends as well as his extreme enemies P who can have confidence in him which putteth diffidence in all men P If you have not read, I have heard clerks say, that Tarquin the proud for the vice of the body lost the kingdom of Rome, and the name of Tarquin banished from the city for ever ; yet was not his fault so detestable as the fact of cruel Nero, which slew his own mother, and opened her entrails to behold the place of his conception. Behold yonder Richard, which is both Tarquin and Nero, yea, a tyrant more than Nero, for he hath not only murdered his nephew being his king and sovereign lord, bastarded his noble brethren, and defamed the womb of his virtuous and womanly mother, but also compassed all the means and ways that he could invent how to stuprate and carnally know his niece, under the pretence of a cloaked matrimony, which lady I have sworn and promised to take and make my wife, as you all know and be- lieve. If this cause be not just, and this quarrel godly, let God the giver of victory judge and determine. We have (thanks be given to Christ) escaped the secret treasons in Britaine, and avoided the subtle snares of our fraudulent enemies there, passed the troublous seas in good and quiet safeguard, and without resistance have penetrated the ample region and large country of Wales, and are now come to the place which we so much desired: for long we have sought the furious boar, and now we have found him. Wherefore, let us not fear to enter into the toil where we may surely slay him, for God knoweth that we have lived in the vales of misery, tossing our ships in dangerous storms; let us not now dread to set up our sails in fair weather, having with us both Him and good fortune. If we had come to conquer Wales, and had achieved it, our praise had been great and our gain more; but if we win this battle the whole realm of England, with the lords and rulers of the same, shall be ours, the profit shall be ours, and the honour shall be ours. Therefore labour for your gain, and sweat for your right. While we were in Britaine we had small livings and little plenty of wealth or welfare ; now is the time come to get abundance of riches and copie of profit, which is the reward of your service and merit of your pain. And this remember with your- selves, that before us be our enemies, and on either side of us be such as I neither surely trust nor greatly believe; back- ward we cannot fly : so that here we stand like sheep in a fold, circumsepted and compassed between our enemies and our doubtful friends. Therefore, let all fear be set aside, and like sworn brethren let us join in one, for this day shall be the end of our travail and the gain of our labour, either by honourable death or famous victory; and, as I trust, the battle shall not be so sour as the profit shall be sweet. Re- member that victory is not gotten with multitude of men, but with the courage of hearts and valiantness of minds. The smaller that our number is, the more glory is to us if we vanquish: if we be overcome, yet no laud is to be attributed to the victors, considering that ten men fought against one; and if we die so glorious a death in so good a quarrel, neither fretting time nor cankering oblivion shall be able to obfuscate or raze out of the book of fame either our names or our godly attempt. And this one thing I assure you, that in so just and good a cause, and so notable a quarrel, you shall find me this day rather a dead carrion upon the cool ground than a free prisoner on a carpet in a lady's chamber. Let us there- fore fight like invincible giants, and set on our enemies like untimorous tigers, and banish all fear like ramping lions. And advance forward true men against traitors, pitiful per- sons against murderers, true inheritors against usurpers, the scourges of God against tyrants, display my banner with a good courage, march forth like strong and robustious cham- pions, and begin the battle like hardy conquerors. The battle is at hand, and the victory approacheth, and if we shamefull yrecoil or cowardly fly, we and all ours shall be destroyed and dishonoured for ever. This is the day of gain, and this is the time of loss; get this day victory and be conquerors, and lose this day's battle and be villains, and therefore in the name of God let every man courageously advance forth with his standard.” - These cheerful words he set forth with such gesture of body and smiling countenance, as though already he had vanquished his enemies and gotten the spoil. He had scantly finished his saying but the one army espied the other. Lord! how hastily the soldiers buckled their helms, how quickly the archers bent their bows and frushed A.D. 1548.] SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. 29 their feathers, how readily the billmen shook their bills and proved their staves, ready to approach and join when the terrible trumpet shall sound the bloody blast to victory or death. Between both armies there was a great marsh which the Earl of Richmond left on his right hand for this intent, that it should be on that side a defence for his part, and in so doing he had the sun at his back and in the faces of his €IlêIIlleS. When King Richard saw the earl’s company was past the marsh, he commanded with all haste to set upon them. Then the trumpeters blew and soldiers shouted, and the king's archers courageously let fly their arrows; the earl’s bowmen stood not still, but paid them home again. The terrible shot Once past, the armies joined and came to hand-strokes, where neither sword nor bill was spared, at which encounter the Lord Stanley joined with the earl. The Earl of Oxford in the mean season, fearing lest while his company was fighting they should be compassed and circumvented with the multitude of his enemies, gave commandment in every rank that no man should be so hardy as to go above ten foot from the standard; which commandment once known, they knit themselves together, and ceased a little from fighting. The adversaries, suddenly abashed at the matter, and mistrust- ing some fraud or deceit, began also to pause, and left striking, and not against the will of many which had rather have had the king destroyed than saved, and therefore they fought very faintly or stood still. his band together on the one part, set on his enemies afresh; again the adversaries, perceiving that, placed their men slender and thin before and thick and broad behind, beginning again hardily the battle. While the two forwards thus mortally fought, each intending to vanquish and convince the other, King Richard was admonished by his explorators and espials that the Earl of Richmond, accompanied with a small number of men-of-arms, was not far off; and as he approached and marched towards him, he perfectly knew his personage by certain demonstrations and tokens which he had learned and known of others. And being inflamed with ire, and vexed with outrageous malice, he put his spurs to his horse, and rode out of the side of the range of his battle, leaving the avantguards fighting, and like a hungry lion ran with spear and rest toward him. The Earl of Richmond perceived well the king furiously came toward him, and, because the whole hope of his wealth and purpose was to be determined by battle, he gladly proffered to encounter with him, body to body and man to man. King Richard set on so sharply at the first brunt that he overthrew the earl's standard, and slew Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer (which was father to Sir Charles Brandon, by King Henry VIII. created Duke of Suffolk), and matched hand to hand with Sir John Chieny, a man of great force and strength which would have resisted him; and the said John was by him manfully overthrown, and so, he making open passage by dint of sword as he went forward, the Earl of Richmond withstood his violence, and kept him at the sword's point without advantage longer than his companions either thought or judged, which being almost in despair of victory were suddenly re-comforted by Sir William Stanley, which came to succour them with three thousand tall men, at which very instant King Richard's men were driven back and fled, and he himself, manfully fighting in the middle of his enemies, was slain and brought to his death, as he worthily had deserved. In the mean season the Earl of Oxford, with the aid of the Lord Stanley, after no long fight discomfited the forward of King Richard, whereof a great number were slain in the flight; but the greatest number which (compelled by fear of The Earl of Oxford, bringing all the king, and not of their mere valiant motion) came to the field gave never a stroke, and having no harm nor damage, safely departed, which came not thither in hope to see the king prosper and prevail, but to hear that he should be shamefully confounded and brought to ruin. In this battle died few above the number of a thousand persons; and of the nobility were slain John, Duke of Nor- folk, which was warned by divers to refrain the field, inso- much that the night before he should set forward toward the king one wrote on his gate— :“Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.” Yet all this notwithstanding, he regarding more his oath, his honour, and promise made to King Richard, like a gentle- man and a faithful subject to his prince, absented not him- self from his master, but as he faithfully lived under him, so he manfully died with him, to his great fame and laud. There were slain beside him Walter, Lord Ferrers, of Chartley, Sir Richard Radcliffe, and Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, and not many gentlemen more. Sir William Catesby, learned in the laws of the realm, and one of the chief coun- cillors of the late king, with divers others were two days after beheaded at Leicester. Amongst them that ran away were Sir Francis, Wiscount Lovell, and Humphrey Stafford, and Thomas Stafford, his brother, which took sanctuary at St. John's at Gloucester. Of captives and prisoners there was a great number, for after the death of King Richard was known and published, every man in manner unarming himself, and casting away his habiliment of war, meekly submitted them- selves to the obeisance and rule of the Earl of Richmond: of the which the more part had gladly so done in the beginning, if they might have conveniently escaped from King Richard's espials, which, having as clear eyes as lynxes, and as open ears as Midas, ranged and searched in every quarter. Amongst these was Henry, the fourth Earl of Northumberland, which, whether it was by the commandment of King Richard putting diffidence in him, or he did it for the love and favour that he bare unto the earl, stood still with a great company, and intermitted not in the battle, which was incontinently re- ceived into favour, and made of the council. But Thomas |Howard, Earl of Surrey, which submitted himself there, was not taken to grace, because his father was chief councillor, and he was familiar with King Richard, but committed to the Tower of London, where he long remained, and in conclusion delivered, and for his truth and fidelity after promoted to high honours and dignities. On the Earl of Richmond's part were slain scarce one hundred persons, amongst whom the principal was Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer. This battle was fought at Bosworth, in Leicestershire, the two-and-twentieth day of August, in the year one thousand four hundred and eighty-six; the whole conflict endured little above two hours. King Richard, as the fame went, might have escaped and gotten safeguard by flying. For when they which were next about his person saw and perceived at the first joining of the battle the soldiers faintly and no- thing courageously to set on their enemies, and not only that, but also that some withdrew themselves privily out of the press and departed, they began to suspect fraud and smell treason, and not only exhorted, but determinately advised him to save himself by flight; and when the loss of the battle was imminent and apparent, they brought to him a swift and a light horse to convey him away. He, which was not igno- rant of the grudge and ill-will that the common people bare towards him, casting away all hope of fortunate success and happy chance to come, answered (as men say) he would make an end of all battles, or else there finish his life. Such a 30 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1548 great audacity and such a stout stomach reigned in his body; for surely he knew that to be the day in the which it should be decided and determined whether he should peaceably ob- tain and enjoy his kingdom during his life, or else utterly forego and be deprived of the same. With which too much hardiness he being overcome, hastily closed his helmet, and entered fiercely into the hard battle, to the intent to obtain that day a quiet reign, or else to finish there his unquiet life and unfortunate governance. And so this miser at the same very point had like chance and fortune as happeneth to such which, in place of right justice and honesty, following their sensual appetite, love, use, and embrace mischief, tyranny, and unthriftiness. Surely these be examples of more vehe- mency than man's tongue can express to fear and astound such evil persons as will not live one hour vacant from doing and exercising cruelty, mischief, or outrageous living. When the earl had thus obtained victory, and slain his mortal enemy, he kneeled down and rendered to Almighty God his hearty thanks with devout and godly orisons, be- seeching His goodness to send him grace to advance and defend the Catholic faith, and to maintain justice and concord amongst his subjects and people, by God now to his govern- ance committed and assigned. Which prayer finished, he, replenished with incomparable gladness, ascended up to the top of a little mountain, where he not only praised and lauded his valiant soldiers, but also gave unto them his hearty thanks, with promise of condign recompense for their fidelity and valiant facts, willing and commanding all the hurt and wounded persons to be cured, and the dead carcases to be delivered to the sepulture. Then the people rejoiced and clapped hands, crying up to heaven, “King Henry ! King Henry I’” When the Lord Stanley saw the goodwill and gratuity of the people, he took the crown of King Richard, which was found amongst the spoil in the field, and set it on the earl's head, as though he had been elected king by the voice of the people, as in ancient times past in divers realms it hath been accustomed; and this was the first sign and token of his good luck and felicity. I must put you here in remembrance how that King Richard, putting some diffidence in the Lord Stanley, which had with him as an hostage the Lord Strange's eldest son, which Lord Stanley, as you have heard before, joined not at the first with his son-in-law's army, for fear that King Richard would have slain the Lord Strange's heir. When King Richard was come to Bosworth, he sent a pursuivant to the Lord Stanley, commanding him to advance forward with his company, and to come to his presence; which thing if he refused to do, he swore by Christ's passion that he would strike off his son's head before he dined. The Lord Stanley answered the pursuivant, that if the king did so, he had more sons alive, and to come to him he was not then so determined. When King Richard heard this answer, he commanded the Lord Strange incontinent to be beheaded, which was at that very same season when poth the armies had sight each of the other. The councillors of King Richard, pondering the time and the cause, knowing also the Lord Strange to be innocent of his father's offence, persuaded the king that it was now time to fight, and not time to execution, advising him to keep the Lord Strange as a prisoner till the battle was ended, and then at leisure his pleasure might be accomplished. So as God would, King Richard infringed his holy oath, and the lord was delivered to the keepers of the king's tent to be kept as a prisoner: which, when the field was done, and their master slain, and proclamation made to know where the child was, they submitted themselves as prisoners to the Lord Strange, and he gently received them and brought them to the new proclaimed king, where of him and of his father he was received with great joy and gladness. After this the whole camp removed with bag and baggage, and the same night in the evening King Henry with great pomp came to the town of Leicester, where, as well for the refreshing of his people and soldiers as for preparing all things necessary for his journey toward London, he rested and reposed himself two days. In the mean season the dead corpse of King Richard was as shamefully carried to the town of Leicester as he gorgeously the day before with pomp and pride departed out of the same town. For his body was naked and despoiled to the skin, and nothing left about him, not so much as a clout to cover his privy members, and was trussed behind a pursuivant-of-arms called Blaunche Senglier, or White Boar, like a hog or a calf, the head and arms hanging on the one side of the horse, and the legs on the other side, and all besprinkled with mire and blood, was brought to the Grey Friars' Church within the town, and there laid like a miserable spectacle. But surely, considering his mischievous acts and facinorous doings, men may worthily wonder at such a caitiff; and in the said church he was with no less funerał pomp and solemnity interred than he would to be done at the burying of his innocent nephews, whom he caused cruelly to be murdered and unnaturally to be quelled. When his death was known, few lamented and many re- joiced, the proud bragging white boar (which was his badge) was violently razed and plucked down from every sign and place where it might be espied: so ill was his life, that men wished the memory of him to be buried with his carrion corpse. He reigned two years, two months, and one day. As he was small and little of stature, so was he of body greatly deformed, the one shoulder higher than the other; his face Small, but his countenance was cruel, and such that a man at the first aspect would judge it to savour and smell of malice, fraud, and deceit. When he stood musing, he would bite and chew beastly his nether lip, as who said that his fierce nature in his cruel body always chafed, stirred, and was ever unquiet. Besides that, the dagger that he wore he would, when he studied, with his hand pluck up and down in the sheath to the midst, never drawing it fully out. His wit was pregnant, quick, and ready, wily to feign and apt to dis- semble; he had a proud mind and an arrogant stomach, the which accompanied him to his death, which he rather desired to suffer by dint of sword than, being forsaken and destitute of his untrue companions, would by coward flight preserve and save his uncertain life, which by malice, sickness, or condigm punishment might chance shortly after to come to confusion. Thus ended this prince's mortal life with infamy and dis- honour, which never preferred fame or honesty before am- bition, tyranny, and mischief. And if he had continued still protector, and suffered his nephews to have lived and reigned, no doubt but the realm had prospered, and he as much praised and beloved as he is now abhorred and vilipended; but to God, which knew his interior cogitations at the hour of his death, I commit the punishment of his offences committed in his life. The note of war is still about us if we turn from sword to crozier, and these are days—under Henry VIII., Edward, and Mary—when brute force finds its way into the spiritual battle-field. John Skelton, who had poured earnest thought into a homely jest- ing strain that would pass current among the people, and defied the wrath of Wolsey in denouncing spiritual pride, died within the sanctuary of West- minster in 1529. His name had become so popular T 3 A.D. 1558.] SEIORTER, PROSE WORKS. - - 31 that jokes of the day were fathered upon him, and a collection of these was published thirty or forty years after his death. There are only three of them with which Skelton's name might reasonably have been connected. One, more lively than witty, is a satire on war from the poor man's point of view : HOW THE COBBLER TOLD MASTER SKELTON, IT Is GOOD SLEEPING IN A WHOLE SHOIN. In the parish of Diss, whereas Skelton was parson, there dwelt a cobbler, being half a souter, which was a tall man and a great sloven, otherwise named a slouch. The king's majesty having wars beyond the sea, Skelton said to this . aforesaid doughty man, “Neighbour, you be a tall man and in the king's wars you must bear a standard.” “A standard P.” said the cobbler, “what a thing is that ?” Skelton said, “It is a great banner, such a one as thou dost use to bear in Ro- gation week; and a lord's, or a knight's, or a gentleman’s arms shall be upon it; and the soldiers that be under the aforesaid person shall be fighting under thy banner.” “Fight- ing !” said the cobbler. “I can no skill in fighting.” “No,” said Skelton, “thou shalt not fight, but hold up and advance the banner.” “By my fay,” said the cobbler, “I can no skill in the matter.” “Well,” said Skelton, “there is no remedy but thou shalt forth to do the king's service in his wars: for in all this country there is not a more likelier man to do such a feat as thou art.” “Sir,” said the cobbler, “I will give you a fat capon that I might be at home.” “No,” said Skelton, “I will not have none of thy capons, for thou shalt do the king service in his wars.” “Why,” said the cobbler, “what should I do P Will you have me to go in the king's wars and to be killed for my labour P Then I shall be well at ease, for I shall have my mends in mine own hands.” “What, knave,” said Skelton, “art thou a coward, having so great bones P” “No,” said the cobbler, “I am not afeard; it is good to sleep in a whole skin.” “Why,” said Skelton, “thou shalt be harnessed to keep away the strokes from thy skin.” my fay,” said the cobbler, “if I must needs forth I will see how I shall be ordered.” Skelton did harness” the doughty squirrel, and did put an helmet on his head; and when the helmet was on the cobbler's head, the cobbler said, “What shall those holes serve for P” Skelton said, “Holes to look out to see thy enemies.” “Yea,” said the cobbler, “then am I in worser case than ever I was: for then one may come and thrust a mail into one of the holes and pick out mine eye; therefore,” said the cobbler to Master Skelton, “I will not go to war. My wife shall go in my stead, for she can fight and play the devil with her distaff and with stool, staff, cup, or candlestick; for by my fay Icham sick, Ichill go home to bed; I think I shall die.” - Another story adds to the number of jests against the limitours, whose encroachment on the functions of the parish priests, and shameless frauds on the people, Chaucer and Langland had satirised in the fourteenth century. O HOW THE FRIAR ASKED LEAVE OF SKELTON TO PREACH AT DISS, WHICH SKELTON would NOT GRANT. There was a friar the which did come to Skelton to have licence to preach at Diss. “What would you preach there P” said Skelton. “Do not youthink that I am sufficient to preach there in mine own curé P” “Sir,” said the friar, “I am the Limitour of Norwich, and once a year one of our place doth “By use to preach with you to take the devotion of the people; and if I may have your good will so be it, or else I will come and preach against your will, by the authority of the Bishop of Rome: for I have his bulls to preach in every place, and therefore I will be there on Sunday next coming.” “Come not there, friar, I do counsel thee,” said Skelton. The Sunday next following, Skelton laid watch for the coming of the friar; and as soon as Skelton had knowledge of the friar, he went into the pulpit to preach. At last the friar did come into the church with the Bishop of Rome's bulls in his hand. Skelton then said to all his parish, “See see l’’ and pointed to the friar. All the parish gazed on the friar. Then said Skelton, “Masters, here is as wonderful a thing as ever was seen. You all do know that it is a thing daily seen, a bull doth beget a calf; but here, contrary to all nature, a calf hath gotten a bull; for this friar, being a calf, hath gotten a bull of the Bishop of Rome.” The friar, being ashamed, would never after that time presume to preach at Diss. The third tale has its significance increased by the fact that when Skelton died in sanctuary, to which he had withdrawn for refuge from the wrath of Wolsey supreme in power, Wolsey was within four months of the utter ruin that preceded his own death. HOW THE CARDINAL DESIRED SKELTON TO MAKE AN EPITAPH UPON HIS GRAVE. Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal and Archbishop of York, had made a regal tomb to lie in after he was dead; and he desired Master Skelton to make for his tomb an epitaph, which is a memorial to show the life with the acts of a noble man. Skelton said: “If it do like your grace, I cannot make an epitaph unless that I do see your tomb.” The cardinal said: “I do pray you to meet with me to-morrow at the West Monastery, and there shall you see my tomb amaking.” The pointment was kept, and Skelton, seeing the sumptuous cost, more pertaining for an emperor or a maxi- mious king than for such a man as he was (although cardinals will compare with kings): “Well,” said Skelton, “if it like your grace to creep into this tomb whiles you be alive, I can make an epitaph ; for I am sure that when you be dead you shall never have it.” The which was verified of a truth. Although Wolsey and Skelton had been good friends before Wolsey's ambition made him, in Skelton's eyes, a type of lordly corruption in the Church, it is certain that after Wolsey had risen to power Skelton would have been the last man whom he would have asked to write his epitaph. - Latimer's direct and homely English prose, with other utterances of the long day of religious strife before Elizabeth's accession, will be found represented in another volume of this library.” Here let it be enough to represent the fierceness of the trial by SOD16, LETTERS OF MARTYRS UNIDER MARY. Lawrence Saunders to his Wife. Grace and comfort, &c. Wife, you shall do best not to come often unto the grating where the porter may see you. Put not yourself in danger where it needs not ; you shall, I think, shortly come far enough into danger by keeping faith and a good conscience, which, dear wife, I trust you do not slack to make reckoning and account upon, by exer- cising your inward man in meditation of God's most holy 1 Did harness, caused to be cased in armour. * Illustrations of English Religion, pages 150-158. 32 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1555. . word, being the sustenance of the soul, and also by giving yourself to humble prayer; for these two things are the very means how to be made members of our Christ, meet to inherit His kingdom. Do this, dear wife, in earnest, and not leaving off; and so we two shall with our Christ and all His chosen children enjoy the world of happiness in that everlasting immor- tality; whereas, here will nothing else be found but extreme misery, even of those who most greedily seek this worldly wealth ; and so, if we two continue God's children, graffed in our Christ, the same God’s blessing which we receive shall also settle upon our Samuel; though we do shortly depart hence, and leave the poor infant, to our seeming, at all adventures; yet shall he have our gracious God to be his God; for so He hath said, and He cannot lie; I will be thy God, said He, and the God of thy seed ; yea, if you leave him in the wild wilderness destitute of all help, being called of God to do His will, either to die for the confession of Christ, or any work of obdience, that God who heard the cry of the poor infant of Hagar, Sarah's hand-maiden, and did succour it, will do the like to the child of you or any other, fearing Him and putting your trust in Him. And if we lack faith, as we do indeed many times, let us call for it, and we shall have the increase both of it and also of any other good grace needful for us, and rejoice in God, in whom also I am very joyful. O Lord, what great cause of rejoicing have we to think upon that kingdom, which He vouchsafes for His Christ's sake freely to give us, forsaking ourselves and following Him I Dear wife, this is truly to follow Him, even to take up our cross and follow Him; and then, as we suffer with Him, so shall we reign with Him everlastingly. Amen. Shortly, shortly. Amen. My dear friends, Master Harrington and Master Hurland, pray, pray, and be joyful in God; and I beseech you as you may, let the good brethren abroad be put in mind of our dear tried brethren and sisters, who have, the Lord be praised, made known their constancy in confessing the truth to the glory of God, and comfort, I doubt not, of His church abroad. Thus have they sown spiritual things, confessing Christ. I trust they will not be forgetful that they may reap of those who are of ability and at liberty, their carnal things. Hereof I speak now because of my tender desire towards these dear brethren here now in bonds, and in other places, and also that I doubt whether I may have wherewith to write here- after. The keeper Saith he must needs see that we write not at all. The devil roareth, but be of good cheer; he will shortly be trodden under foot, and the rather by the blood of martyrs. Salute, in my most hearty manner, good Mistress Harrington, and my good lady F.; I am theirs as long as I live; and pray for them. Desire them to do like- wise for me, and for all us sheep appointed to the slaughter. A prisoner in the Lord, LAWRENCE SAUNDERs. John Careless to his Wife. As by the great mercy of God, at the time of His good will and providence appointed, my dearly beloved wife, you and I were joined together in the holy and Christian state of godly matrimony, as well to our great joy and comfort in Christ, as also to the increase of His blessed church and faithful con- gregation, by having lawful children, whom God of His mercy hath blessed us with, praised be His name therefore. Even so now by His merciful will and divine ordinance, the time is come, so far as I can perceive, wherein He will, for His glory and our eternal comfort, dissolve the same, and separate us asunder again for a time. Wherefore I thought it good, yea, and my bounden duty, by this simple letter, to provoke, stir, and admonish you to behave yourself in all your doings, say- ings, and thoughts, most thankfully unto our good God for the same. And therefore, my dear wife, as you have heartily rejoiced in the Lord, and oftentimes given God thanks for His goodness in bringing us together in His holy ordinance, even so now I desire you, when the time of our separation shall come, to rejoice with me in the Lord, and to give Him most hearty thanks, that He hath, to His glory and our endless advantage, separated us again for a little time, and hath mercifully taken me unto Himself, forth of this miserable world, into His celestial kingdom; believing and hoping also assuredly that God of His goodness, for His Son Christ's sake, will shortly bring you and your dear children thither to me, that we may most joyfully together sing praises unto His glorious name for ever. And yet once again. I desire you for the love of God, and as ever you loved me, to rejoice with me, and to give God continual thanks for doing His most merciful will upon me. I hear say that you oftentimes repeat this godly saying: “The Lord's will be fulfilled.” Doubtless it rejoices my poor heart to hear that report of you, and for the Lord's sake use that godly prayer continually, and teach your children and family to say the same day and night. And not only say it with your tongues, but also with your heart and mind, and joyfully submit your will to God's will in very deed, knowing and believing assuredly that nothing shall come to you or any of yours, otherwise than it shall be His almighty and fatherly good will and pleasure, and for your eternal comfort and commodity. Which thing to be most true and certain, Christ testifies in His holy gospel, saying, “Are not two little sparrows sold for a farthing P and yet not one of them shall perish without the will of your heavenly Father.” And he concludeth, saying, “Fear not ye therefore, for ye are better than many sparrows” (Matt. x.). As though He should have said, “If God have such respect and care for a poor sparrow, which is not worth one farthing, that it shall not be taken in the lime-twig, net, nor pitfall, until it be His good will and pleasure, you may be well assured that not one of you, whom He so dearly loveth that He hath given His only dear Son for you, shall perish or depart forth of this miserable life without His almighty good will and pleasure.” Therefore, dear wife, put your trust and confidence wholly and only in Him, and ever pray that His will be fulfilled, and not yours, except it be agreeing to His will; the which I pray God it may ever be. Amen. And as for worldly things, take you no care, but be you well assured the Lord your dear God and Father will not see you nor yours lack if you continue in His love and childlike fear, and keep a conscience clear from all kinds of idolatry, superstition, and wickedness, as my trust is that you will do, although it be with the loss and danger of this temporal life. And, good Margaret, fear not them that can but kill the body, and yet can they not do that until God give them leave; but fear to displease Him that can kill both body and soul, and cast them into hell fire. Let not the remembrance of your children keep you from God. The Lord Himself will be a father and a mother, better than ever you or I could have been unto them. He Himself will do all things necessary for them; yea, as much as rock the cradle, if need be. He hath given His holy angels charge over them, therefore commit them unto Him. But if you may live with a clear conscience (for else I would not have you to live), and see the bringing up of your children yourself, look that you nurture them in the fear of God, and keep them far from idolatry, superstition, and all other kind of wickedness. And help them to some learning if it be possible, that they may increase in virtue and godly knowledge, which shall be a A.D. 1555.]] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - . 33 *- better dowry to marry them than any worldly substance; and when they come to age, provide them such husbands as fear God and love His holy word. I charge you take heed that you match them with no papists; and if you live, and marry again yourself—which I would wish you to do if need require, or else not—good wife, take heed how you bestow yourself, that you and my poor children be not compelled to wickedness. But if you shall be able well to live God's true widow, I would counsel you so to live still, for the more quietness of yourself and your poor ehildren. Take heed, Margaret, and play the wise woman’s part. You have warn- ing by others, if you will take an example. And thus I commit you and my sweet children unto God’s most merciful defence. The blessing of God be with you, and God send us a joyful meeting together in heaven. Farewell in Christ, farewell mine own dear hearts all. Pray, pray. John Rogers, the first of the martyrs under Mary, was born at Deritend, a village near Birmingham, which has become part of the town. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, graduated in 1525, was ordained, became for a time rector of a city church, acted as chaplain at Antwerp to the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and there, having turned Protestant, came to know Tyndale, with whom he associated himself as a translator of the Bible into English. Tyndale's martyrdom at Antwerp in 1536 ended the earthly part of a friend- ship that had then been very short. Rogers next disregarded the Church interdict upon marriage From his Portrait in Henry Holland’s “Heroologia.” of priests, and took an Antwerp lady, Adriana de Weyden, as his wife. He went then to Wittenberg, and took charge of a congregation there. After the issue of Coverdale's Bible—the first complete trans- lation—two printers, Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, bought the sheets of a translation by John Rogers, designed to complete Tyndale's work, and undertook the issue of the whole, which ap- peared in 1537 as “Translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew,” and was known, therefore, as Matthew’s Bible. For this reason, the Reformer was afterwards proceeded against as John Rogers alias Matthew. Under Edward VI., Rogers came home to England, and became, in 1550, at the same time vicar of St. Sepulchre's and rector of St. Mar- garet Moyses, in Friday Street. Next year, a prebend in St. Paul's Cathedral was added to these preferments, with the attached rectory of Chigwell, in Essex, which at that time produced no income. The duties at St. Paul's obliged Rogers to give up his rectory of St. Margaret's. After Edward's death and the arrival of Queen Mary in London, Rogers preached a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, which led promptly to his imprisonment, with deprival of his living, and subsequently to his trial and condemna- tion as a heretic. He was burnt in Smithfield on the 4th of February, 1555. Here is John Rogers's own account of his trial and condemnation. THE EXAMINATION AND ANSWER OF JOHN ROGERS, Made to the Lord Chancellor, and to the rest of the Council, the 22nd of January, 1555; penned by himself. The Lord Chancellor (Bishop Gardiner). First, the lord Chancellor said unto me thus: Sir, ye have heard of the state of the realm in which it standeth now. - * Rogers. No, my lord, I have been kept in close prison, and except there have been some general things said at the table, when I was at dinner or supper, I have heard nothing ; and there have I heard nothing whereupon any special thing might be grounded. - - • L. C. Then said the lord Chancellor, General things, general things! mockingly; Ye have heard of my lord Car- dinal’s coming, and that the parliament hath received his blessing, not one resisting unto it, but one man who did speak against it.” Such a unity, and such a miracle, has not been seen. One that was by, whose name I know not, said, And all they, of whom there are eight score in one house, have with one assent and consent received pardon of their offences, for the schism that we had in England in refusing the Holy Father of Rome to be head of the Catholic Church. How say ye, are ye content to unite, and knit yourself to the faith of the Catholic Church, with us, in the state in which it is now in England: will ye do that ? - R. The Catholic Church I never did nor will dissent from. L. C. Nay; but I speak of the state of the Catholic Church in that wise in which we stand now in England, having re- ceived the Pope to be supreme head. R. I know none other head but Christ of his Catholic Church, neither will I acknowledge the bishop of Rome to have any more authority than any other bishop hath, by the Word of God, and by the doctrine of the old and pure Catholic Church four hundred years after Christ. L. C. Why didst thou then acknowledge King Henry the Eighth to be supreme head of the Church, if Christ be the only head? P. I never granted him to have any supremacy in spiritual things, as the forgiveness of sins, giving of the Holy Ghost, and authority to be a judge above the Word of God. 1 My lord Cardinal was Reginald Pole, who had come as legate from the Pope in November, 1554. King, Queen, and both Houses of Parliament had knelt to the Pope’s legate for pardon and absolution, only one member of the House of Commons—a faithful Abdiel-Sir Ralph Bagenhall, refusing submission. Mr. Tennyson has made noble use of this incident in his drama of “Queen Mary” (Act III. sc. 3). - - . . . . . . . . . . , - - 181 34. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. tº sº. I. C. Yea, said he, and Tonstal, bishop of Durham, and the bishop of Worcester.—If thou hadst said so in his days (and they nodded the head at me with laughter), thou hadst not been alive now. I denied, and would have told how he was said and meant to be supreme head. But they looked and laughed one upon another, and made such a business, that I was constrained to let it pass. There lies also no great weight thereupon ; for all the world knows what the meaning was. The lord Chan- cellor also said to the lord William Howard, that there was no inconvenience therein, to have Christ to be supreme head and the bishop of Rome also; and when I was ready to have answered that there could not be two heads of one church, and to have more plainly declared the vanity of that his reason, the lord Chancellor said, What Sayest thou? Make us a direct answer whether thou wilt be one of this Catholic Church, or not, with us, in that state in which we now are. R. My lord, without fail I cannot believe that ye your- selves do think in your hearts that he is supreme head in forgiving of sin, &c. Seeing you and all the bishops of the realm have now twenty years long preached, and some of you also written to the contrary, and the parliament has So long ago consented unto it.—And there he interrupted me thus: L. C. Tush, that parliament was with most great cruelty constrained to abolish and put away the primacy from the bishop of Rome. R. With cruelty Why then I perceive that you take a wrong way, with cruelty to persuade men's consciences. For it should appear by your doings now, that the cruelty then used has not persuaded your consciences. How would you then have our consciences persuaded with cruelty P L. C. I talk to thee of no cruelty—but that they were so often and so cruelly called upon in that parliament to let the act go forward; yea, and even with force driven thereunto : whereas in this parliament it was so uniformly received, as is aforesaid. Here my lord Paget told me more plainly, what my lord Chancellor meant. Unto whom I answered: R. My lord, what will you conclude thereby ? that the first parliament was of less authority, because but few consented unto it: and this last parliament of greater authority, be- cause more consented unto it? It goes not, my lord, by the more or lesser part, but by the wiser, truer, and godlier part. —And I would have said more, but the lord Chancellor inter- rupted me with his question, willing me once again to answer him. “ For,” said he, “we have more to speak with than thou, who must come in after thee.”—And so indeed there were ten persons more out of Newgate, besides two that were not called. Of which ten, one was a citizen of London, who yielded unto them, and nine were contrary; all of whom came to prison again, and refused the cardinal's blessing, and the authority of his Holy Father's church, saving that one of these nine was not asked the question, otherwise than thus: Whether he would be an honest man, as his father was before him f and he answered, Yea; so he was discharged by the friendship of my lord William Howard, as I have understood. —He bade me tell him what I would do; whether I would enter into the one church with the whole realm as it is now, or not ? No, said I, I will first see it proved by the Scrip- tures. Let me have pen, ink, books, &c., and I will take upon me plainly to set out the matter, so that the contrary shall be proved to be true; and let any man that will, confer with me by writing. L. C. Nay, that shall not be permitted thee. Thou shalt never have so much proffered thee as thou hast now, if thou refuse it, and wilt not now consent and agree to the Catholic Church. Here are two things, mercy and justice: if thou lefuse the Queen's mercy now, then shalt thou have justice. ministered unto thee. R. I never offended nor was disobedient unto her grace, and yet I will not refuse her mercy. But if this shall be denied me, to confer by writing, and to try out the truth, then it is not well, but too far out of the way. Ye your- selves, all the bishops of the realm, brought me to abjure the pretended primacy of the bishop of Rome, when I was a young man, twenty years past: and will ye now, without collation, have me to say and do the contrary P I cannot be So persuaded. L. C. If thou wilt not receive the bishop of Rome to be supreme head of the Catholic Church, then thou shalt never have her mercy, thou mayest be sure. And as touching conferring and trial, I am forbidden by the Scriptures to use any conferring and trial with thee. For St. Paul teaches me that I should shun and eschew a heretic after one or two monitions, knowing that such a one is overthrown and is faulty, insomuch as he is condemned by his own judgment. R. My lord, I deny that I am a heretic; prove ye that first, and then allege the aforesaid text.—But still the lord Chancellor played on one string, saying, L. C. If thou wilt enter into one church with us, &c., tell us that ; or else thou shalt never have so much proffered thee again, as thou hast now. R. I will find it first in the Scripture, and see it tried thereby, before I receive him to be supreme head. Worcester. Why, doye not know what is in your creed, “I believe the holy Catholic Church P” R. I find not the bishop of Rome there. For “catholic " signifies not the Romish church; it signifies the consent of all true teaching churches of all times, and of all ages. But how should the bishop of Rome's church be one of them, which teaches so many doctrines that are plainly and directly against the Word of God? Can that bishop be the true head of the Catholic Church that does so P. That is not possible. L. C. Show me one of them; one; let me hear one. I remembered myself, that among so many I were best to show one, and said, I will show you one. L. C. Let me hear that, let me hear that. R. The bishop of Rome and his church say, read, and sing all that they do in their congregations in Latin ; which is directly and plainly against the first to the Corinthians, the fourteenth chapter.” L. C. I deny that, I deny that that is against the Word of God. Let me see you prove that; how prove you that ? Then I began to say the text from the beginning of the chapter; To speak with tongues, said I, is to speak with a strange tongue, as Latin or Greek, &c., and so to speak is not to speak unto men, but unto God (meaning God only at the most). But ye speak in Latin, which is a strange tongue, wherefore ye speak not unto men, but unto God. This be granted, that they speak not unto men, but unto God. L. C. Well, then, is it vain unto men? 1 1 Corinthians xiv. 2–33: “For he that speaketh in an un- known tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him ; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. ge is a . Greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret that the Church may receive edifying. . . . And even things without life giving Sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the Sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped P For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle P. So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be under- stood, how shall it be known what is spoken P for ye shall speak into the air,” &c. A.D. 1555.] SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. 35 R. No, not in vain. For one man speaketh in one tongue, and another in another tongue, and all well. L. C. Nay, I will prove then that he speaks neither unto God nor unto man, but unto the wind.” I was willing to have declared how these two texts do agree, for they must agree, they both are the sayings of the Holy Ghost, spoken by the apostle Paul, as, To speak not to men, but unto God, and To speak unto the wind; and so I would have gone forward with the proof of my matter begun, but here arose a noise and a confusion. Then said the lord Chancellor, L. C. To speak unto God, and not unto God, were im- possible. R. I will prove them possible. Nay, saith my lord William Howard to my lord Chancellor, now will I bear you witness that he is out of the way. For he grants first, that they which speak in a strange speech speak unto God; and now he saith the contrary, that they speak neither to God nor to man. R. (turning to my lord Howard.) I have not granted or said as you report. I have alleged the one text, and now I am come to the other; they must agree, and I can make them to agree. But as for you, you understand not the matter. L. H. I understand so much, that it is not possible. This is a point of sophistry, quoth secretary Bourn. Then the lord Chancellor began to tell the lord Howard, that when he was in Germany, they at Halle, which had before prayed and used their service in German, began then to turn part into Latin, and part into German. W. Yea, and at Wittemberg too. R. Yea (but I could not be heard for their noise), in a TJniversity, where men for the most part understood the Latin—and yet not all in Latin. And I would have told the order, and have gone forward both to have answered my lord, and to have proved the thing that I had taken in hand; but perceiving their talk and noise to be too noisome, I was fain to think this in my heart, suffering them in the mean- while to talk one of them one thing, and another another. Alas! neither will these men hear me if I speak, neither yet will they suffer me to write. There is no remedy but let them alone, and commit the matter to God. Yet I began to go forward, and said, that I would make the texts to agree and to prove my purpose well enough. L. C. No, no, thou canst prove nothing by the Scripture. The Scripture is dead; it must have a lively expositor. R. No, the Scripture is alive. But let me go forward with my purpose. . W. All heretics have alleged the Scriptures for them, and therefore we must have a lively expositor for them. R. Yea, all heretics have alleged the Scriptures for them; but they were confuted by the Scriptures, and by no other expositor. -. W. But they would not confess that they were overcome by the Scriptures; I am sure of that. R. I believe that ; and yet were they overcome by them, and in all the Councils they were disputed with and over- thrown by the Scriptures. And here I would have declared how they ought to proceed in these days, and so have come again to my purpose, but it was impossible ; for one asked one thing, another said another, so that I was fain to hold my peace, and let them talk. And even when I would have taken hold of my proof, the lord Chancellor bade to prison with me again; and, Away, away, said he, we have more to talk withal: if I would not be reformed, so he termed it, away, away ! Then up I stood, for I had kneeled all the while. 1 “For ye shall speak into the air.” Then sir Richard Southwell, who stood by in a window, said to me, Thou wilt not burn in this gear” when it comes to the purpose, I know well that. B. Sir, I cannot tell, but I trust to my Lord God, yes”— lifting up mine eyes unto heaven. Then my lord of Ely told me much of the Queen's Majesty's pleasure and meaning, and set it out with large words, saying, that she took them that would not receive the bishop of Rome's supremacy, to be unworthy to have her mercy, &c. I said I would not refuse her mercy, and yet I never offended her in all my life; and that I besought her grace and all their honours to be good to me, reserving my con- science. Several spake at once. No 2 said they then (a great sort * of them, and specially secretary Bourn), a married priest, and have not offended the law P Isaid, I had not broken the Queen's law, nor yet any point of the law of the realm therein, for I married where it was lawful. Several at once, Where was that ? said they; thinking that to be unlawful in all places. JR. In Germany. And if ye had not here in England made an open law that priests might have had wives, I would never have come home again; for I brought a wife and eight children with me; which ye might be sure that I would not have done, if the laws of the realm had not permitted it before. Then there was a great noise, some saying, that I was come too soon with such a sort ; * that I should find a sour coming of it; and some one thing and some another: and one, I could not well perceive who, said, that there was never a catholic man or country that ever granted that a priest might have a wife. I said, that the Catholic Church never denied marriage to priests, nor yet to any other man; and therewith was I going 2 In this gear, in this business. So Spenser, in the “Faerie Queene,” “Thus go they both together to their gear.” The more common sense of the word (from First English “gearwa,” provision; “gearo,” ready) is anything prepared, goods, clothing, household stuff, machinery; and in the same sense it passed less frequently, as here, to the arrangements of business. 3 Yes. Observe that the word “yes” is here used with the old restriction as following a negative proposition, otherwise throughout this passage the form is “yea.” Sir Thomas More, in his “Confuta- tion” of Tyndale’s Answer to his “Dialogue,” made an amusing attack on Tyndale for neglecting the distinction between use of Nay and No, and of Yea and Yes. “I would here note by the way,” he said, “that Tyndale here translateth no for nay, for it is but a trifle and mistaking of the English word; saving that ye should see that he which in two so plain English words, and so common as is may and mo, cannot tell when he should take the tone and when the tother, is not for translating into English a man very meet. For the use of those two words, in answering to a question, is this: No answereth the question framed by the affirmative; as, for example, if a man should ask Tyndale himself, ‘Is an heretic meet to translate Holy Scripture into English P’ Lo, to this question, if he will answer true English, he must answer mo, and not may. And a like difference is there between these two adverbs, Yea and Yes. For if the question be framed unto Tyndale by the affirmative, in this fashion: ‘If an heretic falsely translate the New Testament into English, to make his false heresies seem the Word of God, be his books worthy to be burned?” To this question, asked in this wise, if he will answer true English, he must answer Yea, and not Yes. But now, if the question be asked of him thus, lo, by the negative : ‘If an heretic falsely translate the New Testament into English, to make his false heresies seem the Word of God, be not his books well worthy to be burned?" To this question, in this fashion framed, if he will answer true English, he may not answer, Yea; but he must answer Yes, and say, ‘Yes, marry, be they, both the translation and the translator and all that will hold them.’” * Sort, company. A word often used in the sense of a collection of people. So in Marlowe's “Edward II.,” Young Mortimer asks the king, “Who loves thee but a sort of flatterers ?” 36 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1555. out of the chamber, the sergeant who brought me thither having me by the arm. - Then the bishop of Worcester turned his face towards me, and said that I wist not where that church was or is. I said, yes, that I could tell where it was—but therewith went the sergeant with me out of the door. This was the very true effect of all that was spoken unto me, and of all that I answered thereunto. And here would I gladly make a more perfect answer to all the former objections, as also a due proof of that which I ſhad taken in hand; but at this present I was informed that I should to-morrow come to further answer. Wherefore I am compelled to leave out that which I would most gladly ‘have done, desiring here the hearty and unfeigned help of the prayers of all Christ's true members, the true sons of the unfeigned Catholic Church, that the Lord God of all con- solation will now be my comfort, aid, strength, buckler, and shield; as also of all my brethren that are in the same case and distress, that I and they all may despise all manner of threats and cruelty, and even the bitter burning fire, and the dreadful dart of death, and stick like true soldiers to our dear and-loving captain, Christ, our only Redeemer and Saviour, and also the true head of the Church; that doeth all in us all, which is the very property of a head, and is a thing that all the bishops of Rome cannot do; and that we do not traitorously run out of his tents, or rather out of the plain field from him, into the most jeopardy of the battle; but that we may per- severe in the fight, if he will not otherwise deliver us, till we be most cruelly slain of his enemies. For this I most heartily, and at this present with weeping tears, most instantly and earnestly desire, and beseech you all to pray; and also, if I die, to be good to my poor and most honest wife, being a poor stranger, and all my little souls, hers and my children; whom with all the whole faithful and true catholic con- gregation of Christ, the Lord of life and death, save, keep, and defend in all the troubles and assaults of this vain world, and bring at the last to everlasting salvation, the true and sure inheritance of all crossed Christians. Amen. Amen. The 27th day of January, at night. JoHN RogFRs. THE SECOND CONFESSION of John RogFRs, Made, and that should have been made, if I might have been . heard, the 28th and 29th days of January, 1555. First, Being asked again by the lord Chancellor, Whether I would come into one church with the bishops and whole realm, as now was concluded by parliament, in the which all the realm was converted to the Catholic Church of Rome, and so receive the mercy before proffered me, arising again with the whole realm out of the schism and error in which we had long been, with recantation of my errors—I answered, that before I could not tell what his mercy meant, but now I understand that it was a mercy of the Anti- christian Church of Rome, which I utterly refused, and that the rising, which he spake of, was a very fall into error, and false doctrine. Also that I had and would be able, by God's grace, to prove that all the doctrine which I had ever taught was true and catholic, and that by the Scriptures, and the authority of the fathers who lived four hundred years after Christ's death. He answered, that should not, might not, and ought not to be granted me; for I was but a private man, and might not be heard against the deter- mination of the whole realm. Should, quoth he, when a parliament hath concluded a thing, one or any private person have authority to discuss, whether they have done right or wrong P - No, that may not be. - I answered shortly, that all the laws of men might not, neither could, rule the Word of God; but that they all must be discussed and judged thereby, and obey thereunto ; and neither my conscience, nor any Christian man's, could be satisfied with such laws as disagreed from that Word. And so was willing to have said much more, but the lord Chan- cellor began a long tale to very small purpose, concerning mine answer, to have debased me, that there was nothing in me wherefore I should be heard, but arrogancy, pride, and vain- glory. I also granted mine ignorance to be greater than I could express, or than he took it; but yet that I feared not, by God’s assistance and strength, to be able by writing to perform my word; neither was I, I thanked God, so utterly ignorant as he would make me, but all was of God, to whom be thanks rendered therefore ; proud man was I never, nor yet vain-glorious. All the world knew well, where and on what side, pride, arrogancy, and vain-glory was. It was a poor pride that was or is in us, God knoweth it. Then he said, that I at the first dash condemned the Queen and the whole realm to be of the church of Antichrist, and he burdened me highly therewithal. I answered, that the Queen’s Majesty, God save her grace, would have done well enough, if it had not been for his counsel. He said, the Queen went before him, and it was her own motion. I said without fail, I neither could, nor would I ever believe it. Then said doctor Aldrich, the bishop of Carlisle, that they the bishops would bear them witness. Yea, quoth I, that I believe well; and with that the people laughed: for that day there were many, but on the morrow they kept the doors shut, and would let none in but the bishops' adherents, and servants in a manner, yea, and the first day the thousandth man came not in. Then master Comptroller and secretary Bourn would have stood up also to bear witness and did so. I said it was no great matter; and to say the truth, I thought that they were good helpers thereto themselves; but I ceased to say any more therein, knowing that they were too strong and mighty of power, and that they would be believed before me, yea, and before our Saviour Christ, and all his prophets, and apostles too, in these days. Then after many words he asked me what I thought concerning the blessed sacrament, and stood up, and put off his cap, and all his fellow-bishops, of which there were a great sort,” new men, of whom I knew few, whether I believed the sacrament to be the very body and blood of our Saviour Christ, that was born of the Virgin Mary, and hanged on the cross, really and substantially. - I answered, I had often told him that it was a matter in which I was no meddler, and therefore was suspected of my brethren to be of a contrary opinion. Notwithstanding, even as the most part of your doctrine in other parts is false, and the defence thereof only by force and cruelty: so in this matter I think it to be as false as the rest. For I cannot understand, “really and substantially,” to signify otherwise than corporeally; but corporeally Christ is only in heaven, and so cannot Christ be corporeally also in your sacrament. And here I somewhat set out his charity after this sort. My lord, quoth I, ye have dealt with me most cruelly; for ye have put me in prison without law, and kept me there now almost a year and a half; for I was almost half a year in my house, where I was obedient to you, God knows, and spake with no man. And now have I been a full year in Newgate, at great cost and charges, having a wife and ten children to find, and I had never a penny of my livings; which was against the law. - He answered, that Dr. Ridley, who had given them me, 1 Sort, company. A.D. 1555.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. . - 37 was a usurper, and therefore I was the unjust possessor of them. Was the king then an usurper, quoth I, who gave Dr. Ridley the bishopric P Yea," quoth he, and began to set out the wrongs that the king had done to the bishop of London, and to himself also. But yet I do misuse my terms, quoth he, to call the king usurper.—But the word was gone out of the abundance of the heart before; and I think that he was not very sorry for it in heart. I might have said more concerning that matter, but I do not. I asked him wherefore he put me in prison 2 He said, because I preached against the Queen. I answered, that it was not true; and I would be bound to prove it, and to stand to the trial of the law, that no man should be able to prove it, and thereupon would set my life. I preached, quoth I, a sermon at the cross, after the Queen came to the Tower; but therein was nothing said against the Queen, I take witness of all the audience, which was not small. I alleged also that he had, after examination, let me go at liberty after the preaching of that sermon. Yea, but thou didst read thy lectures after, quoth he, against the commandment of the Council. That did I not, quoth I; let that be proved, and let me die for it. Thus have you now against the law of God and man handled me, and never sent for me, never conferred with me, never spoken of any learning, till now that ye have gotten a whip to whip me with, and a sword” to cut off my neck, if I will not condescend to your mind. This charity doth all the world understand. I might and would have added, if I could have been suffered to speak, that it had been time enough to take away men's livings, and thereto to have imprisoned them, after they had offended the laws: for they are good citizens that break not laws, and worthy of praise and not of punishment. But their purpose is to keep men in prison, until they may catch them in their laws, and so kill them. I could and would have added the example of Daniel, who by a crafty-devised law was cast into the lion's den. Also, I might have declared, that I most humbly desired to be set at liberty, sending my wife to him (Gardiner) with a supplication, being great with child, and with her eight honest Women, or thereabout, to Richmond, at Christmas was a twelvemonth, while I was yet in my house. Also, I wrote two supplications to him out of Newgate, and sent my wife many times to him. Master Gosnold also, that worthy man, who is now departed in the Lord, laboured for me, and so did divers other worthy men also take pains in the matter. These things declare my lord Chancellor’s Antichristian charity, which is, that he hath and doth seek my blood, and the destruction of my poor wife and my ten children. This is a short sum of the words which were spoken on the 28th day of January at afternoon, after that master Hooper had been the first, and master Cardmaker* the second, ! Yea, in answer to an affirmative question. (See note 3, page 35.) * Till ye have gotten a whip . ... and a sword. The laws of Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry W. against heretics had been repealed, but were revived by an Act which was brought into the House of Com- mons on the 12th of December, 1554, and was passed by the Lords six weeks afterwards, that is to say, about six weeks before the date of Togers’s reference to it. * John Hooper, Bishop of Worcester, had been brought before Gar- diner at his house in Southwark on the 22nd of January, refused to acknowledge the Pope's supremacy, and was recommitted to the Fleet. On the 28th he had been summoned again before the Commissioners in the Church of St. Mary Overies, Southwark, then committed, like Rogers, to the Counter in Southwark till next morning, the 29th, in examination before me. The Lord grant us grace to stand together, fighting lawfully in his cause till we be smitten down together, if the Lord's will be so to permit it: for there shall not a hair of our heads perish against His will, but with His will. Whereunto the Lord grant us to be obedient unto the end, and in the end. Amen. Sweet, mighty, and merciful Lord Jesus, the Son of David and of God. Amen, Amen, let every true Christian say and pray. Then the clock being, as I guessed, about four, the lord Chancellor said that he and the church must yet use charity with me ; what manner of charity it is, all true Christians do well understand, namely, the same that the fox does with fºsteº- . BISHOP Fox. (From Queen Mary's Prayer Book; British Museum.) - the chickens, and the wolf with the lambs, and he gave me respite till to-morrow, to see whether I would remember myself well to-morrow, and whether I would return to the Catholic Church, for so he called his Antichristian false church again, and repent, and they would receive me to mercy. - I said, that I was never out of the true Catholic Church, nor would be: but into his church would I by God’s grace Ile Ver COIſle. - - Well, quoth he, then is our church false and Antichristian P Yes," quoth I. - And what is the doctrine of the sacrament P False, quoth, I; and cast my hands abroad. Then said one, that I was a player. To whom I answered not; for I passed not upon his mock. Come again, quoth the lord Chancellor, to-morrow, between nine and ten. - I am ready to come again, whensoever ye call, quoth I. And thus was I brought by the sheriffs to the compter in Southwark, master Hooper going before me, and a great multitude of people being present, so that we had much to do to go in the streets. - Thus much was done the 28th day of January. The second day, which was the 29th of January, we were sent for in the morning, about nine of the clock, and by the sheriffs fetched from the compter in Southwark to the church again, where we were the day before in the afternoon. And when master Hooper was condemned, as I understood after- wards, then sent they for me. Then the lord Chancellor said unto me : Rogers, here thou wast yesterday, and we gave thee liberty to remember thyself this night, whether thou the second day also of this second examination of John Rogers. Both cases were then disposed of, by excommunication and delivery to the secular arm. Rogers was burnt at Smithfield on the 4th of the next February, Hooper at Gloucester on the 9th, and Cardmaker, who had been prebendary of Wells, was burnt in Smithfield on the 30th of May. * Yes. Replying to the negative proposition, not true and no Christian. -- 38 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1555. wouldest come to the holy Catholic Church of Christ again, or not. Tell us now, what thou hast determined, whether thou wilt be repentant and sorry, and wilt return again and take mercy. My lord, quoth I, I have remembered myself right well, what you yesterday said to me, and desire you to give me leave to declare my mind, what I have to say thereunto ; and that done, I shall answer you to your demanded question. When I yesterday desired that I might be suffered by the Scriptures, and authority of the first, best, and purest Church, to defend my doctrine by writing, meaning not only of the primacy, but also of all the doctrine that ever I had preached, ye answered me, that it might not, and ought not to be granted me, for I was a private person; and that the parlia- ment was above the authority of all private persons, and therefore the sentence thereof might not be found faulty and valueless by me, being only a private person. And yet, my lord, quoth I, I am able to show examples, that one man hath come into a General Council, and after the whole had determined and agreed upon an act or article, some one man coming in afterwards, hath by the Word of God, declared so pithily that the Council had erred in decreeing the said article, that he caused the whole Council to change, and alter their act or article before determined. And of these examples, I am able to show two. I can also show the authority of Augustine; that when he disputed with a heretic, he would neither himself nor yet have the heretic to lean unto the determination of the two former Councils, of the which the one made for him, and the other for the heretic that disputed against him ; but said that he would have the Scriptures to be their judge, which were common and indifferently for them both, and not proper to either of them. Also, I could show, said I, the authority of a learned lawyer (Panormitanus), who saith, that unto a simple lay- man who brings the Word of God with him, there ought more credit to be given, than to a whole Council gathered together. By these things will I prove that I ought not to be denied to say my mind, and to be heard against a whole parliament, bringing the Word of God for me and the authority of the old Church four hundred years after Christ, albeit that every man in the parliament had willingly and without respect of fear and favour agreed thereunto, which I doubt not a little of ; especially seeing the like had been permitted in that old Church, even in general Councils, yea, and that in one of the chiefest Councils that ever was, unto which neither any acts of this parliament, nor yet any of the late general Councils of the bishops of Rome, ought to be compared. For, said I, if Henry the Eighth were alive, and should call a parliament, and begin to determine a thing (and here I would have alleged the example of the act of making the Queen a bastard, and of making himself the superior head; but I could not, being interrupted by one whom God forgive), then will ye (pointing to my lord Chan- cellor), and ye, and ye, and so ye all (pointing to the rest of the bishops), say Amen; yea, and if it like your grace, it is meet that it be so enacted. Here my lord Chancellor would suffer me to speak no more, but bade me sit down, mockingly saying, that I was sent 1 Panormitamus. Antonio Beccadelli, of Palermo, lawyer, orator, and poet, died in 1471. When serving Alfonso of Arragon, King of Naples, he was sent in 1451 on a mission to Venice to obtain an arm- bone of Livy, in which negotiation he succeeded. He is said also to have sold an estate that he might buy for himself a discovered text of Livy, for to be instructed of them, and I would take upon me to be their instructor. My lord, quoth I, I stand and sit not—shall I not be suffered to speak for my life P Shall we suffer thee to tell a tale, and to prate P quoth he. —And with that he stood up, and began to face me, after his old arrogant proud fashion; for he perceived that I was in a way to have touched them somewhat, which he thought to hinder by dashing me out of my tale, and so he did. For I could never be suffered to come to my tale again, no, not to one word of it; but he had much like communication with me, as he had the day before, and as his manner is, taunt upon taunt, and check upon check. For in that case, being God’s cause, I told him he should not make me afraid to speak. See, what a spirit this fellow hath, said he ; finding fault at mine accustomed earnestness, and hearty manner of speaking. I have a true spirit, quoth I, agreeing and obeying the Word of God; and would further have said, that I was never the worse, but the better, to be earnest in a just and true cause, and in my Master Christ's matters; but I could not be heard. And at length he proceeded towards his excommunication and condemnation, after that I had told him that his Church of Rome was the Church of Antichrist, meaning the false doctrine and tyrannical laws, with the maintenance thereof by cruel persecutions used by the bishops of the said church, of which the bishop of Winchester and the rest of his fellow- bishops that are now in England are the chief members: of the laws I mean, quoth I, and not all the men and women which are in the Pope's Church. Likewise, when I was said to have denied their sacrament, whereof he made his wonted reverent mention, more to maintain his kingdom thereby than for the true reverence of Christ's institution ; more for his own and his popish generation's sake, than for religion or God's sake—I told him after what order I did speak of it ; for the manner of his speaking was not agreeing to my words, which are before recited in the communication that we had on the 28th of January; wherewith he was not contented, but he asked the audience whether I had not simply denied the Sacrament. They would have said and done what he listed, for the most of them were of his own servants at that day; the 29th of January I mean. At the last I said, I will never deny what I said, which is, That your doctrine of the sacrament is false; but yet I tell you after what order I said it. To be short, he read my condemnation before me, par- ticularly mentioning therein but two articles; first, that I affirmed the Romish Catholic Church to be the Church of Antichrist; and that I denied the reality of their Sacraments. He caused me to be degraded and condemned, and put into the hands of the laity, and so he gave me over into the sheriffs' hands, which were much better than his. [Rogers here adds in Latin, and I give in English, with omission of a central lump of verbiage,J The Sentence. In the name of God, Amen. We, Stephen, by the per- mission of God, bishop of Winchester, lawfully and rightly proceeding, with all godly favour, by authority and virtue of our office, against thee, John Rogers, priest, alias called Mathew, before us personally here present, being accused and detected, and notoriously slandered of heresy; having heard, seen, and understood, and with all diligent delibera- tion, weighed, discussed, and considered the merits of the A.D. 1555.1 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 39. cause, all things being observed, which by us in this behalf in order of law ought to be observed, sitting in our judgment- seat, the name of Christ being first called upon, and having God only before our eyes: Because, by the acts enacted, propounded, and exhibited in this matter, and by thine own confession, judicially made before us, we do find that thou hast taught, holden, and affirmed, and obstinately defended, divers errors, heresies, and damnable opinions, contrary to the doctrine and determination of the holy church; as, namely, these, that the Catholic Church of Rome is the Church of Antichrist; also, that in the sacrament of the altar there is not, substantially nor really, the natural body and blood of Christ. . . . We therefore, albeit, following the example of Christ, which would not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should convert and live, we have gone about oftentimes to correct thee, and by all lawful means that we could, and all wholesome admonitions that we did know, to reduce thee again unto the true faith and unity of the Universal Catholic Church, notwithstanding have found thee obstinate and stiff-necked, willingly continuing in thy damnable opinions and heresies, and refusing to return again unto the true faith and unity of the holy mother church; and as the child of wickedness and darkness thou hast so hardened thy heart, that thou wilt not understand the voice of thy shepherd, which with a fatherly affection doth seek after thee, nor will be allured with his fatherly and godly admonitions.—We, therefore, Stephen, the bishop aforesaid, not willing that thou, which art wicked, shouldst now become more wicked, and infect the Lord's flock with thy heresy, which we are greatly afraid of, with sorrow of mind and bitterness of heart do judge thee, and definitively condemn thee, the said John Rogers, otherwise called Mathew, thy demerits and defaults being aggravated through thy damnable obstinacy, as guilty of most detestable heresies, and as an obstinate impenitent sinner, refusing penitently to return to the lap and unity of the holy mother church, and that thou hast been and art by law excommu- nicate, and do pronounce and declare thee to be an excom- municated person. Also we pronounce and declare thee, being a heretic, to be cast out from the church, and left unto the judgment of the secular power, and now presently do leave thee as an obstinate heretic, and a person wrapped in the sentence of the great curse, to be degraded worthily for thy demerits (requiring them, notwithstanding, in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, that this execution and punishment worthily to be done upon thee, may so be moderated, that the rigour thereof be not too extreme, nor yet the gentleness too much mitigated, but that it may be to the Salvation of thy soul, to the extirpation, terror, and conversion of the heretics, to the unity of the catholic faith), by this our sentence definitive, which we here lay upon and against thee, and do with sorrow of heart promulgate in this form aforesaid. After this sentence being read, he sent us, master Hooper, I mean, and me, to the Clink, there to remain till night; and when it was dark they carried us, master Hooper going before with the one sheriff, and I coming after with the other, with bills and weapons enough, out of the Clink, and led us through the bishop’s house, and so through St. Mary's churchyard, and so into Southwark, and over the bridge, in procession to Newgate, through the city. But I must show you this also, that when he had read the condemnation, he declared that I was in the great curse, and what a vengeable dangerous matter it was to eat and drink with us that were accursed, or to give us any thing; for all that did so, should be partakers of the same great curse. Well, my lord, quoth I, here I stand before God and you, and all this honourable audience, and take Him to witness, that I never wittingly or willingly taught any false doctrine; and therefore have I a good conscience before God and all good men. I am sure that you and I shall come before a Judge that is righteous, before whom I shall be as good a man as you; and I nothing doubt but that I shall be found there a true member of the true Catholic Church of Christ, and everlastingly saved. And as for your false church, you need not excommunicate me forth of it. I have not been in it these twenty years, the Lord be thanked therefore But now ye have done what you can, my lord, I pray you yet grant me one thing. What is that ? quoth he. That my poor wife, being a stranger, may come and speak with me so long as I live. For she hath ten children that are hers and mine; and somewhat I would counsel her what were best for her to do. No, quoth he ; she is not thy wife. Yes, my lord, quoth I, and hath been these eighteen years. Should I grant her to be thy wife? quoth he. Choose you, quoth I, whether you will or not, she shall be so, nevertheless. She shall not come at thee, quoth he. Then I have tried out all your charity, said I. You make yourself highly displeased with the matrimony of priests, but —. Thereto he answered not, but looked, as it were, a-squint at it; and thus I departed, and saw him for the last time. - * Here follows a plain statement of what stood in place of marriage among many of the clergy. º W r sº *… wº º A : w * & - sº l º tº º - - ''' lºš ſ º, º ‘... "..." v . . º *\º * \\\\ º e---> - OUT OF THE DEPTHs. (From Queen Mary's Psalter; British Museum.) 40 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGTISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1558 AN ELIZABETHAN Cous TRY House (MORETON HALL, CHESHIRE). From Britton’s “Architectural Antiquities.” CHAPTER III. IN THE REIGN of ELIZABETH.-A.D. 1558 To A.D. 1603. THE chief strength of our literature was still in its verse during Elizabeth's reign, but the growing energies of the country, spent abundantly on thought that touched men to the quick, added their own beauty and force also to English prose. A fashion spread from Italy through Europe which caused nearly all writing to be overlaid with ingenuities of thought and style; but in England the fresh life of the time gave dignity to any dress. Men slit their clothes for ornament, and padded them into deformity; they caught from abroad arts of false dignity, but had at home the true; no art, but a possession native to the soil and time. In literature, and in many of the outward forms of life, our fashions in Elizabeth's time came from Italy. Roger Ascham, who remained under Elizabeth still Latin Secretary, died in 1568, aged fifty-three. His widow two years after his death published his chief prose work, “The School- master.” It was begun in 1563, for a reason which is thus told by his own preface to the book: Roger Asch AM's PREFACE TO “THE SCHOOLMASTER.” When the great plague was at London, the year 1563, the queen's majesty, Queen Elizabeth, lay at her castle of Windsor, where, upon the tenth day of December, it fortuned, that in Sir William Cecil's chamber, her highness’s prin- cipal secretary, there dined together these personages : Mr. Secretary himself, Sir William Petre, Sir J. Mason, D. Wotton, Sir Richard Sackville, treasurer of the exchequer, Sir Walter Mildmay, chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Haddon, master of requests, Mr. John Astley, master of the jewel-house, Mr. Bernard Hampton, Mr. Nicasius, and I. Of which number the most part were of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, and the rest serving her in very good place. I was glad, then, and do rejoice yet to remember, that my chance was so happy to be there that day, in the company of so many wise and good men together, as hardly then could have been picked out again out of all England beside. Mr. Secretary I hath this accustomed manner; though his head be never so full of most weighty affairs of the realm, yet at dinner-time he doth seem to lay them always aside ; and findeth ever fit occasion to talk pleasantly of other matters, but most gladly of some matter of learning, wherein he will courteously hear the mind of the meanest at his table. Not long after our sitting down, “I have strange news brought me,” saith Mr. Secretary, “this morning, that divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating.” Whereupon, Mr. Secretary took occasion to wish that some more discretion were in many schoolmasters in using correction, than commonly there is; who many times punish rather the weakness of nature than the fault of the scholar; whereby many scholars, that might else prove well, be driven to hate learning before they know what learning meaneth; and so are made willing to forsake their book, and be glad to be put to any other kind of living. Mr. Petre,” as one somewhat severe of nature, said plainly, 1 Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, was 43 years old in 1563. Born in Lincolnshire, and educated at Cambridge, he began life with the study of law, but made his way at Court and became a Secretary of State under Edward VI. Though he held no office under Mary, he escaped persecution. Elizabeth, upon her accession, took him for her chief political adviser, as Secretary of State and Privy Councillor, and firmly trusted him until his death, in 1598. 2 Sir William Petre was about 60 in 1563. He was William Petre, son of a rich tanner, of Tor-Bryan, in Devonshire, entered to Exeter College, Oxford, but became Fellow of All Souls in 1523. He afterwards became successively Principal of Peckwater's Inn, one of the Visitors of Religious Houses when they were being dissolved, Master of the Requests and a Knight, Secretary and one of the Privy Council to To A.D. 1563.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 41 That the rod only was the sword, that must keep the school in obedience, and the scholar in good order. Mr. Wotton," a man mild of nature, with soft voice and few words, inclined to Mr. Secretary's judgment, and said, “In mine opinion, the school-house should be in deed, as it is called by name, the house of play and pleasure, and not of fear and bondage; and, as I do remember, so saith Socrates in one place of Plato. And therefore, if the rod carry the fear of a sword, it is no marvel if those that be fearful of nature, choose rather to forsake the play, than to stand always within the fear of a sword in a fond” man's handling.” Mr. Mason,” after his manner, was very merry with both parties, pleasantly playing both with the shrewd touches of many curst” boys, and with the small discretion of many lewd schoolmasters. . Mr. Haddon" was fully of Mr. Petre’s opinion, and said that the best schoolmaster of our time was the greatest beater, and named the person. “Though,” quoth I, “it was his good fortune to send from his school unto the University one of the best scholars indeed of all our time, yet wise men do think, that that came so to pass, rather by the great towardness of the scholar, than by the great beating of the master: and whether this be true or no, you yourself are best witness.”* I said somewhat farther in the matter, how, and why young children were sooner allured by love than driven by beating, to attain good learning; wherein I was the bolder to say my mind, because Mr. Secretary courteously provoked me thereunto; or else in such a company, and namely in his presence, my Ring Henry VIII, and Edward VI. ; Sub-treasurer and afterwards Treasurer of the First Fruits and Tenths to Edward VI., Secretary of the Privy Council to Queen Mary and Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, and finally Privy Councillor under Elizabeth. He was in high re- pute for learning, and often sent on foreign embassies. He died in 1571. 1 Mr. Wotton may have been Henry, son of Edward Wotton, who had been physician to Henry VIII., and was very famous in his pro- fession. Dr. Edward Wotton died in 1555. His son Henry, Greek Reader and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, served as Proctor to his University, afterwards (in 1567) proceeded in the Faculty of Physic, and also acquired a high place in his profession. 8 Fund, foolish. . * Sir John Mason was born at Abingdom, Berks, the son of a cowherd who had married the sister of a monk. His uncle, the monk, finding John Mason apt to learn, had him well educated and sent him to Oxford, where he became a Fellow of All Souls. His ability attracted notice, and, by advice of Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII. sent him to continue his studies at the University of Paris, and, after his return, not only knighted him and employed him on embassies, but made him a Privy Councillor. Under Edward VI. he was still Privy Councillor, and held church preferments, including the Deanery of Winchester. In 1552 he became Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and held that office until 1556, when he resigned it in favour of Cardinal Pole. He had given up his deanery of Winchester in the first year of Mary’s reign, and remained in the Privy Council under Mary and Elizabeth. In 1559 he was again elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and when at the dimmer of which Ascham tells, not only held that office, but was also Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber. He died in 1566. * Curst, ill-natured. . - 5 Walter Haddon was educated at Eton, and went to Cambridge, where he had a scholarship at King’s College. He became Professor of Civil Law in his University, acquired great fame for learning, and as he was an earnest reformer, he was made, in Edward VI.'s reign, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, but only held that office for a year. He avoided notice during Mary's reign, but was employed on embassies by Elizabeth, and made one of her Masters of Requests. He wrote several books, and among them (published in 1567) was volume of Latin Poems. He died in 1571. * ° Walter Haddon left Eton just before the time of Nicholas Udall, who was head master there from 1534 to 1541. But Udall kept up the customs of his predecessor in this respect. It is of Udall that Tusser wrote :- “From Paul's I went to Eton sent, to learn straightways the Latin phrase, - Where fifty-three stripes given to me at once I had. For fault but small, or none at all, it came to pass thus beat I was: See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee to me poor lad.” wont is, to be more willing to use mine ears than to occupy my tongue. Sir Walter Mildmay, Mr. Astley, and the rest, said very little; only Sir Richard Sackville 7 said nothing at all. After dinner, I went up to read with the queen's Majesty. We read then together in the Greek tongue, as I well remember, that noble oration of Demosthenes against Æschines, for his false dealing in his embassage to king Philip of Mace- donia. Sir Richard Sackville came up soon after, and finding me in her Majesty’s privy-chamber, he took me by the hand, and carrying me to a window, said: “Mr. Ascham, I would not for a good deal of money have been this day absent from dinner. Where, though I said nothing, yet I gave as good ear, and do consider as well the talk that passed, as any one did there. Mr. Secretary said very wisely, and most truly, that many young wits be driven to hate learning, before they know what learning is. I can be good witness to this myself; for a fond schoolmaster, before I was fully fourteen years old, drave me so with fear of beating from all love of learning, as now, when I know what difference it is, to have learning, and to have little or none at all, I feel it my greatest grief, and find it my greatest hurt that ever came to me, that it was my so ill chance to light upon so lewd a schoolmaster. But seeing it is but in vain to lament things past, and also wisdom to look to things to come, Surely, God willing, if God lend me life, I will make this my mishap some occasion of good hap to little Robert Sackville, my son's son. For whose bringing up, I would gladly, if it so please you, use especially your good advice. I hear say you have a son much of his age; we will thus deal together: point you out a schoolmaster, who by your order shall teach my son and yours, and for all the rest I will provide, yea though they three do cost me a couple of hundred pounds by year; and beside, you shall find me as fast a friend to you and yours, as perchance any you have.” Which promise the worthy gentleman surely kept with me until his dying day. We had then farther talk together of bringing up of children, of the nature of quick and hard wits, of the right choice of a good wit, of fear and love in teaching children. We passed from children and came to young men, namelys gentlemen: we talked of their too much liberty to live as they lust; of their letting loose too soon to overmuch experience of ill, contrary to the good order of many good old commonwealths of the Persians and Greeks; of wit gathered, and good fortune gotten by some, only by experi- ence without learning. And, lastly, he required of me very earnestly to show what I thought of the common going of Englishmen into Italy. “But,” saith he, “because this place, and this time will not suffer so long talk, as these good matters require, therefore I pray you, at my request, and at your leisure, put in some order of writing the chief points of this our talk, concerning the right order of teaching, and honesty of living, for the good bringing up of children and young men; and surely, beside contenting me, you shall 7 Richard Sackville, eldest son of John Sackville and Anne, daughter of Sir William Boleyn, had left Cambridge without taking a degree, then studied law in Gray’s Inn, was called to the bar, and became Treasurer of the Army under Henry VIII., from whom he had large grants of Abbey lands. He was knighted in 1548, and held various lucrative offices. Although he was Roman Catholic, Queen Elizabeth, whose first cousin he was, had made him a Privy Councillor. He died in 1566, after a career of successful money-getting that had won for him the name of “Fill-sack.” His son Thomas, born in 1536, became famous as poet and statesman, and was the Thomas Sackville, after- wards Lord Buckhurst, who in 1563 had lately written the best part of the first English tragedy. Sir Richard’s interest is in the education of the poet's son. - - * Namely, especially. - * - - 182 42 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1563 both please and profit very many others.” I made some excuse by lack of ability and weakness of body. “Well,” saith he, “I am not now to learn what you can do; our dear friend, good Mr. Goodricke, whose judgment I could well believe, did once for all satisfy me fully therein. Again, I heard you say, not long ago, that you may thank Sir John Cheke for all the learning you have ; and I know very well myself, that you did teach the queen. And therefore, seeing God did so bless you, to make you the scholar of the best master, and also the schoolmaster of the best scholar, that ever were in our time; surely, you should please God, benefit your country, and honest your own name, if you would take the pains to impart to others what you learned of such a master, and how ye taught such a scholar. And in uttering the stuff ye received of the one, in declaring the order ye took with the other, ye shall never lack neither matter nor manner, what to write, nor how to write, in this kind of argument.” I beginning some farther excuse, suddenly was called to come to the queen. The night following, I slept little ; my head was so full of this our former talk, and I so mindful somewhat to satisfy the honest request of so dear a friend. I thought to prepare some little treatise for a new-year's gift that Christmas; but, as it chanceth to busy builders, so, in building this my poor school-house (the rather because the form of it is somewhat new, and differing from others), the work rose daily higher and wider, than I thought it would at the beginning. And though it appear now, and be in very deed, but a small cottage, poor for the stuff and rude for the workman- ship; yet, in going forward, I found the site so good, as I was loth to give it over; but the making so costly, out- reaching my ability, as many times I wished that some one of those three, my dear friends with full purses, Sir Thomas Smith," Mr. Haddon,” or Mr. Watson,” had had the doing of it. Yet, nevertheless, I myself spending gladly that little that I got at home by good Sir John Cheke, and that that I borrowed abroad of my friend Sturmius,” beside somewhat that was left me in reversion by my old masters Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, I have at last patched it up, as I could, and as you see. If the matter be mean, and meanly handled, I pray you bear both with me and it ; for never work went up in worse weather, with more lets and stops, than this poor school-house of mine. Westminster Hall can bear some witness, beside much weakness of body, but more trouble of mind, by some such sores as grieve me to touch them myself: and therefore I purpose not to open them to others. And in the midst of outward injuries and inward cares, to increase them withal, good Sir Richard Sackville dieth, that worthy gentleman; that earnest favourer and furtherer of God’s true religion; that faithful servitor to his prince and country; a lover of learning and all learned men : wise in all doings; courteous to all persons, showing spite to none, doing good to many; and as I well found, to me so fast a friend, as I never lost the like before. When he was gone, my heart was dead; there was not one that wore a black gown for him who carried a heavier heart for him than I: when he was gone, I cast this book away ; I could not look upon it but with weeping eyes, in remembering him who was the only setter on to do it; and would have been not only a glad commender of it, but also a sure and certain comfort to me and mine for it. Almost two years together this book lay scattered and neglected, and had been quite given over of me, if the goodness of one” had not given me some life and spirit again. God, the mover of goodness, prosper always him and his, as he hath many times comforted me and mine, and, I trust to God, shall comfort more and more. Of whom most justly I may say, and very oft, and always gladly I am wont to say, that sweet verse of Sophocles, spoken by CEdipus to worthy Theseus:" éxa yūp &^xa 51& gé, koik &AAov 8potóv. 1 Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir John Cheke, who is named below, were the two scholars who had been most active in introducing Greek studies into the University of Cambridge. Both were born in the year 1514, and they were only about a year older than Ascham. Smith, born at Saffrom Walden, was of Queen's College, Cambridge; Cheke, born at Cambridge, of St. John’s, which also was Ascham's College. Ascham was one of the first to be touched by Cheke's enthusiasm, and himself became Greek lecturer in his College, in 1537. Smith became Provost of Eton on the accession of Edward VI., and was knighted in 1548. Cheke also was knighted by Edward VI., under whom both Smith and Cheke prospered, and became Secretaries of State. Cheke suffered much under Mary, and died in 1557, before the accession of Elizabeth. Sir Thomas Smith was deprived of his offices, but had a pension of £100 a year for his learning. Under Elizabeth he rose to high favour, became Secretary of State, and Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. He died in 1579. * Mr. Haddon, see note 5, page 41. - * Mr. Watson is spoken of in “The Schoolmaster” itself as “one of the best scholars that ever St. John’s College bred, Mr. Watson, mine old friend, sometime Bishop of Lincoln.” He was about a year younger than Ascham. He became Dean of his College and one of its preachers. In 1545 he became domestic chaplain to Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who gave him two livings. His tendency of mind was not friendly to the Reformation, and under Mary he became Master of St. John's (September, 1553, but resigned in the following May), Dean of Durham (November, 1553), and in December, M556, Bishop of Lincoln, but was not consecrated till the following August. He had been one of those who took part in the proceedings against Hooper, Rogers, and Cardmaker. His extreme zeal caused him to take part in the condemnation of John Rough as a pestilent heretic, though when Watson preached Catholicism in the north of England in King Edward’s days, Rough had saved him from an arrest for treason. Under Elizabeth, Bishop Watson is said to have talked of excommunicating the queen ; in April, 1559, he was sent to the Tower; in June he was deprived of his bishopric and released. He was afterwards watched, and occasionally imprisoned, and he died a prisoner under the Bishop of Ely's custody in Wisbech Castle in 1584. He had credit in his day as Orator and poet, as well as theologian, and deserves honour for being staunch to his convictions when suffering under Elizabeth for conscience' sake. It is also evidence of the kindliness of Ascham, who dared remain a reformer under Mary, and did so without losing the queen's goodwill, that under Elizabeth he delights to honour his old fellow-scholar of St. John's, who is suspected by the government, and from whose opinions in church matters Ascham totally dissents. In Ascham, scholarship had done its proper work in deepening thought, and suffering the mind to grow to its full breadth. He was the more free to think his own thoughts, because he could not and did not insult other men for thinking theirs. * My friend Sturmius. “At home” with Sir John Cheke, means in England. Ascham’s friend John Sturm was born in 1507 at Schleiden, in Rhenish Prussia. He gave himself with great enthusiasm to the study of the ancient classics, and set up a printing press for the diffusion of Greek texts, being, like most of the early students of Greek, a reformer. After teaching Greek, Latin, and logic in Paris, he left for Strasburg to avoid religious persecution. At Strasburg a civic magnate, highly honoured in his town, which he had served substantially on embassies, and also named John Sturm, was about the same time founding a High School, and he made his learned namesake its first rector. Ascham's love of Greek had probably first drawn him into correspondence with Sturmius, and a hearty friendship between the two scholars was established by the pen. When Ascham went with the embassy to Germany, in Edward VI.'s time, he looked for Sturm at Louvain, but he happened to be away from home, and the friends never saw each other. Sturm lived until 1589. 5 Sir William Cecil. 6 In GEdipus at Colonus, line 1129, after Theseus has restored to GEdipus his daughters seized by Creon, “For what I have, I have through thee, and no other among mortals;” or, as it reads with the context in Prof. E. H. Plumptre's translation of Sophocles— “Now these, beyond my hopes, Appear again; for well I know this joy Has come to me from no one else but thee; To A.D. 1579.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 43 This hope hath helped me to end this book; which, if he allow, I shall think my labours well employed, and shall not much esteem the misliking of any others. And I trust he shall think the better of it, because he shall find the best part thereof to come out of his school, whom he of all men loved and liked best. Yet, some men, friendly enough of nature, but of small judgment in learning, do think I take too much pains, and spend too much time, in setting forth these children's affairs. But those good men were never brought up in Socrates's school, who saith plainly,” “That no man goeth about a more godly purpose, than he that is mindful of the good bringing up both of his own and other men's children.” Therefore, I trust, good and wise men will think well of this my doing. And of other, that think otherwise, I will think myself, they are but men to be pardoned for their folly, and pitied for their ignorance. In writing this book, I have had earnest respect to three special points; troth of religion, honesty in living, right order in learning. In which three ways, I pray God my poor children may diligently walk; for whose sake, as nature moved, and reason required, and necessity also somewhat compelled, I was the willinger to take these pains. For, seeing at my death I am not like to leave them any great store of living, therefore in my life-time I thought good to bequeath unto them, in this little book, as in my will and testament, the right way to good learning ; which if they follow, with the fear of God, they shall very well come to sufficiency of living. I wish also, with all my heart, that young Mr. Robert Sackville may take that fruct of this labour that his worthy grandfather purposed he should have done: and if any other do take either profit or pleasure hereby, they have cause to thank Mr. Robert Sackville, for whom especially this my Schoolmaster was provided. And one thing I would have the reader consider in reading this book, that, because no schoolmaster hath charge of any child before he enter into his school, therefore, I leaving all former care of their good bringing up to wise and good parents, as a matter not belonging to the schoolmaster, I do appoint this my Schoolmaster then and there to begin, where his office and charge beginneth. Which charge lasteth not long, but until the scholar be made able to go to the university, to proceed in logic, rhetoric, and other kinds of learning. Yet, if my Schoolmaster, for love he beareth to his scholar, shall teach him somewhat for his furtherance and better judgment in learning, that may serve him seven year after in the university, he doth his scholar no more wrong, nor. deserveth no worse name thereby, than he doth in London, who, selling silk or cloth unto his friend, doth give him better measure than either his promise or bargain was. - JFarewell in Christ. Queen Elizabeth exclaimed, when she heard of Ascham's death, that “she would rather have cast ten thousand pounds into the sea than have lost her For thou hast saved them, thou, and only thou; And may the gods grant all that I could wish To thee and to thy land. For I have found Here only among men the fear of God, The righteous purpose, and the truthful word; And knowing this I pay it back with thanks; For tchat I have, I have through thee alone. And now, O prince, I pray thee, give thy hand That I may grasp it; and, if that may be, Kiss thy dear brow.” 1 In Plato's “Theages.” Ascham.” There are the clearest testimonies to his gentleness of character, and among the best scholars of Elizabeth's reign, Ascham's English style was hardly in less repute than his Latin. Gabriel Harvey wrote that “the finest wits prefer the loosest period in M. Ascham or Sir Philip Sidney before the tricksiest page in “Euphues' or Pap Hatchet.” John Lyly's “Euphues,” which gave its name to the style in fashion at the time of its appearance and for the rest of the years of Elizabeth's reign, seems partly to have been inspired by a reading of Ascham's “Schoolmaster.” Lyly's age was about twenty-six in 1579, when “Euphues” was published. He was a Kentish man, who speaks of himself as “scarce born" in Queen Mary's reign. He became a student of Magdalene College, Oxford, in 1569, took his B.A. degree in 1573, was in 1574 seeking, without success, a fellowship through the help of Cecil, then Lord Burleigh, who became after this time his friend, and found him some employment in his service. In 1575, Lyly commenced M.A., and in the winter of 1578 he wrote “Euphues,” which was published early in the spring. The fashion of ingenious talk had been brought home to England by the young men travelling in Italy to finish their education. In Italy it had arisen during the decay of liberty and rise of petty tyrannies within the old republics. The Medici at Florence, and other little supreme beings elsewhere, had encouraged talk about literature as a substitute for less convenient talk about politics, had set up as patrons of literature and art, enjoying both to a certain extent, and coming into the inheritance that was the produce of a freer life, they lived in a fruit time, ate and enjoyed the fruit, dis- cussed its flavour with critical elegance, and killed the tree. The fine gentlemen at the little courts of Italy affected wit and talked daintily. Whatever they said must display wit or culture, both at once if possible. An allusion that showed reading, with a turn of thought to it that showed wit, and turns of alliteration and neat balances of word with word that showed in the mere phrase-making a more than vulgar ingenuity, was aimed at even in speaking, and much more in writing. The fashion spread from Italy through Western Europe, and affected literature in England, Spain, and France, but especially in England and Spain, for French literature was then wanting in energy. The fashion having become established by 1579, and Italian love-tales written in this daintily conceited fashion being in high favour with the courtiers, John Lyly thought it not amiss to put into the heads of courtiers some of the good doctrine he found in Ascham’s “Schoolmaster,” but framing it after their own dainty manner in the shape of an Italian novel. Ascham had condemned the corruption of manners introduced by the much going of young Englishmen to Italy, and had dwelt on the deep need of gentleness and earnestness in training of the young. Those fathers who most needed the lesson were men who would not read a book with “Schoolmaster” for its title, but who might be caught by the bait of a fashionable love- story. Its hero had a name taken—through Ascham— from Plato, representing simply a youth apt by nature * * 44. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1579 —-sº w— to be influenced by all impressions from without. Ascham had represented in “The Schoolmaster,” from Plato's “Republic,” the “seven plain notes to choose a good wit for a child in learning. He should be : 1. Euphues, that is to say, by nature well con- stituted to receive impressions through each of his senses, with a full use of all powers of the body, and to pass knowledge on to others with help of a ready wit, clear voice and goodly presence. 2. Good of memory. 3. Given to love learning. 4. Having a will to take pains. 5. Glad to hear and learn of another. 6. Bold to ask questions. 7. Loving praise at his father's or master's hand for well-doing. Lyly took “Euphues” from this list as the name for his %2% Øſ/º. % º/2. & CHRIST CovKRED.1 (From Stephen Bateman’s “Doom,” 1581.) hero, and with a profoundly earnest purpose under- lying a quick wit, wrote after the fashion of the day with such complete success that the style of his book was taken as a standard of the form of writing he adopted, which was thence called in Elizabeth's day Euphuism. The name is retained in the study of English literature as a convenient term for the style | Christ Covered. Below are the pierced feet of Christ, supported by Queen Elizabeth’s badges. All else is Covered with a Gorgon’s head of ceremonial, thus formed:—A church bell is the helmet, inlaid with Crosses made of Swords and fire-brands; its plume is the smoke of a censer; its ornaments are a mitred wolf devouring sheep, an ass with a book, a goose with a rosary in its bill, and a hog in a square cap, devouring. Of the Gorgon's face, paten and flagon make cheek, mouth, and chin; chalice and holy wafer make the eye; a vesica piscis the nose (this was a fish-shaped box used to contain a small image of Christ or of a saint, because the initials of Greek words for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour,” when put together, made the Greek for fish). A papal bull and its dependent seal form the curl of hair and the ear. In the shoulders, among Church ornaments, are a pyx and a closed Bible with Pope's mitre and keys upon its cover. abounding in ingenious conceits of fancy and tricks of phrase, which represent the outward dress of much good English thought under Elizabeth. In- genuity of the same kind was tried with the pencil as with the pen. Thus a writer illustrated his comment on the overlaying of pure Christianity with ceremonials of Rome with an ingenious puzzle picture of Christ covered. There was in such a style among weak writers a not less obvious overlaying of the first simplicities of truth. But the times bred vigour, and in Eliza- beth's days many a good wit could clothe living breathing thought in a rich robe of conceits that graced its free movement, and heightened rather than obscured every charm. The first part of “Euphues” is the complete work. The second and longer part, “Euphues and his England,” published in 1580, was apparently designed to mitigate some of the severity of the first, and in- directly deprecate in courtly fashion an interpretation of the author's meaning that might lead to the star- vation of his family. In the first part, Lyly satisfied his conscience; in the second part, but still without dishonesty, he satisfied the country and the court. In the dedication of his first part to Lord de la Warre, Lyly suggests that there may be found in it “more speeches which for gravity will mislike the foolish, than unseemly terms which for vanity may offend the wise.” He anticipates some little dis- favour from the “fine wits of the day;” and his allusions to “the dainty ear of the curious sifter,” to the use of “superfluous eloquence,” to the search after “ those which sift the finest meal and bear the whitest mouths,” sufficiently show that his own manner was formed upon a previously existing taste. Here it is that a censure occurs which is very significant : “It is a world to see how Englishmen desire to hear finer speech than their language will allow, to eat finer bread than is made of wheat, or wear finer cloth than is made of wool; but I let pass their fineness, which can no way excuse my folly.” Euphues was a young gentleman of great patri- mony, who dwelt in Athens, and who corresponded in his readiness of wit and perfectness of body to the quality called Euphues by Plato. Disdaining counsel, the youth left his own country, and happened to arrive at Naples. “This Naples was a place of more pleasure than profit, and yet of more profit than piety, the very walls and windows whereof showed it rather to be the tabernacle of Venus than the temple of Vesta ; a court more meet for an atheist than for one of Athens.” Here the youth determined to make his abode, and wanted no com- panions. He welcomed all, but trusted none; and showed so pregnant a wit, that Eubulus, an old gentleman of Naples, as one lamenting his wantonness and loving his wittiness, warned him against the dangers of a city where he might see drunken Sots wallowing in every house, in every chamber, yea, in every channel. The speech of good counsel (which occupies four pages) closed with the solemn admonition, “Serve God, love God, fear God, and God will so bless thee as either heart can wish or thy friends desire.” Euphues, who was not at this stage of his journey To A.D. 1580.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - - 45 through life also pixákoos—glad to learn of another— accused the old gentleman of churlishness, and proved to him by many similitudes that men's natures are not alike. The sun doth harden the dirt and melt the wax ; fire maketh the gold to shine and the straw to smother; perfumes refresh the dove and kill the beetle. Black will take no other colour. The stone asbestos being once made hot will never be made cold. Fire cannot be forced downward. How can age counsel us who are young, when we are contraries? I am not smothered, says the young man, by your smoky arguments, “but as the chameleon, though he have most guts draweth least breath, or as the elder tree, though he be fullest of pith, is farthest from strength ; so though your reasons seem inwardly to yourself somewhat sub- stantial, and your persuasions pithy in your own conceit, yet they are nought.” Here, says Lyly, ye may behold, gentlemen, how lewdly wit standeth in his own light ; and he attacks in his own person the censoriousness of men of sharp capacity, who for the most part “esteem of themselves as most proper.” If one be hard in conceiving, they pronounce him a dolt ; if given to study, they proclaim him a dunce ; if merry, a jester; if sad, a saint ; if full of words, a sot; if without speech, a cipher. If one argue with them boldly, then is he impudent ; if coldly, an innocent; if there be reasoning of divinity they cry, Quae supra nos nihil ad mos; if of humanity, Senter- tias loquitur carnifeſc. But of himself he confesses, “I have ever thought so superstitiously of wit, that I fear I have committed idolatry against wisdom.” After a two months' sojourn in Naples, Euphues found a friend in a young and wealthy town-born gentleman named Philautus. Euphues and Philautus used not only one board, but one bed, one book, if so be it they thought not one too many. Philautus had crept into credit with Don Ferardo, one of the chief governors of the city, who although he had a courtly crew of gentlewomen sojourning in his palace, yet his daughter Lucilla stained the beauty of them all. Unto her had Philautus access, who won her by right of love, and should have worn her by right of law, had not Euphues, by strange destiny, broken the bonds of marriage, and forbidden the banns of matrimony. It happened that Don Ferardo had occasion to go to Venice about certain of his own affairs, leaving his daughter the only steward of his household. Her father being gone, she sent for her friend to supper, who came not alone, but with his friend Euphues, to whom the lady gave cold welcome. When they all sat down, Euphues fed of one dish, which ever stood before him, the beauty of Lucilla. Supper being ended, “the order was in Naples that the gentle- women would desire to hear some discourse, either concerning love or learning; and although Philautus was requested, yet he posted it over to Euphues, whom he knew most fit for that purpose.” Then follows one of the discourses characteristic of what in Elizabeth's day passed for the lighter portions of this work. Euphues spoke to the question whether qualities of mind or body most awaken love ; declared for mind; and said to the gentlewomen, If you would be tasted for old wine, be in the mouth a pleasant grape. He passed to the inquiry whether men or women be most constant ; and, accounting it invidious to choose his own side in that argument, undertook to maintain the contrary to whatever opinion might be given by Lucilla. Lucilla, willing to hear from him praises of her sex, declared that women are to be won with every wind. Euphues, therefore, began the praise of woman's constancy, but ended abruptly, “neither,” he said, “for want of good will or lack of proof, but that I feel in myself such alteration that I can scarcely utter one word.” Ah, Euphues, Euphues | The gentlewomen were struck into such a quandary with this sudden change, that they all changed colour. But Euphues, taking Philautus by the hand, and giving the gentlewomen thanks for their patience and his repast, bade them all farewell, and went immediately to his chamber. Lucilla, who now began to fry in the flames of love, all the company being departed to their lodgings, entered into these terms and contrarieties. Her soliloquy is three pages and a half long, and with its pros and cons of ingenious illustration curiously artificial. Euphues, immediately afterwards, has four pages and a half of mental conflict to work out in similitudes. When he had talked with himself, Philautus entered the chamber, and offering comfort to his mourning friend, was deluded with a tale about the charms of Livia, Lucilla's friend. From Philautus the false friend sought help in gaining frequent access to the lady. Philautus and Euphues therefore repaired together to the house of Ferardo, where they found Mistress Iucilla and Livia, accompanied with other gentle- women, neither being idle nor well employed, but playing at cards. Euphues was called upon to re- sume his former discourse upon the fervency of love in women. But whilst he was yet speaking, Ferardo entered, and departed again within an hour, carrying away Philautus, and craving the gentleman, his friend, to supply his room. Philautus knew well the cause of this sudden departure, which was to redeem certain lands that were mortgaged in his father's time to the use of Ferardo, who, on that condition, had beforetime promised him his daughter in marriage. Euphues was surprised with such incredible joy at this strange event, that he had almost swooned; for, seeing his co-rival to be departed, and Ferardo to give him so friendly entertainment, he doubted not in time to get the good will of Lucilla. Ten pages of love-talk, unusually rich in similitudes, do in fact bring Euphues and Lucilla to a secret understanding. But “as Ferardo went in post, so he returned in haste; ” and before there was a second meeting of the lovers, the young lady's father had, in a speech of a page long, containing no similitudes, proposed her imme- diate marriage to Philautus. Lucilla replied artfully; disclaimed more than a playful acquaintance with Philautus; and declared her love for Euphues, to whom therefore Philautus, after a long soliloquy in his own lodgings, wrote a letter. Having received a gibing answer, he disdained all further intercourse with the false friend. Euphues having absented himself from the house of Ferardo, while Ferardo himself was at home, longed sore to see Lucilla, which now opportunity offered 46 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1579 unto him, Ferardo being gone again to Venice with Philautus. But in this his absence, one Curio, a gentleman of Naples, of little wealth and less wit, haunted Lucilla, and so enchanted her, that Euphues was also cast off with Philautus. His next conversation with the fickle lady ended therefore thus:–“Farewell, Lucilla, the most inconstant that ever was nursed in Naples; farewell Naples, the most cursed town in all Italy; and women all, farewell.” Euphues talked much to himself when he reached home, lamenting his rejection of the fatherly counsel of Eubulus, and his spending of life in the laps of ladies, of his lands in maintenance of bravery, and of his wit in the vanities of idle sonnets. The greatest wickedness, he found, is drawn out of the greatest wit, if it be abused by will, or entangled with the world, or inveigled by women. He will endeavour himself to amend all that is past, and be a mirror of godliness thereafter, rather choosing to die in his study amidst his books, than to court it in Italy in the company of ladies. The story is at an end, although the volume is not, and Lyly's idle readers, who have caught at his bait of a fashionably conceited tale, may now begin to feel the hook with which he angles. Ferardo, after vain expostulation with his daughter, died of inward grief, leaving her the only heir of his lands, and Curio to possess them. Long afterwards we are incidentally told of the shamelessness of her subsequent life and of her wretched end. Philautus and Euphues renewed their friendship. Philautus was earnest to have Euphues tarry in Naples, and Euphues desirous to have Philautus to Athens; but the one was so addicted to the court, the other to the university, that each refused the offer of the other ; yet this they agreed between themselves, that though their bodies were by distance of place severed, yet the communication of their minds was to continue. The first bit of his mind communicated by the experienced Euphues is entitled “A Cooling Card for Philautus and all fond Lovers.” He is ashamed to have himself been, by reason of an idle love, not much unlike those abbey lubbers in his life (though far unlike them in belief) which laboured till they were cold, ate till they sweat, and lay in bed till their bones ached; urges that the sharpest wit inclineth only to wickedness, if it be not exercised; and warns against immoderate sleep, immodest play, unsatiable swilling of wine. He bids Philautus study physic or law—Galen giveth goods, Justinian honours—or confer all his study, all his time, all his treasure, to the attaining of the sacred and sincere knowledge of divinity. If this be not for him, let him employ himself in jousts and tourneys, rather than loiter in love, and spend his life in the laps of ladies. When danger is near, let him go into the country, look to his grounds, yoke his oxen, follow his plough, “and reckon not with thyself how many miles thou hast gone—that showeth weariness; but how many thou hast to go—that proveth manliness.” Of woman's enticing ornaments, says Euphues, “I loathe almost to think on their ointments and apothecary drugs, the sleeking of their faces, and all their slibber sauces which bring queasiness to the stomach and disquiet to the mind. Take from them their periwigs, their paintings, their jewels, their rolls, their bolsterings, and thou shalt soon perceive that a woman is the least part of herself.” And Philautus also he admonishes—“Be not too curious to curl thy hair, nor careful to be neat in thine apparel; be not prodigal of thy gold, nor precise in thy going ; be not like the Englishman, which pre- ferreth every strange fashion to the use of his own country.” The “Cooling Card” is followed by a letter “to the grave Matrons and honest Maidens of Italy,” in the spirit of one who, as he writes, “may love the clear conduit water, though he loathe the muddy ditch. Ulysses, though he detested Calypso with her sugared voice, yet he embraced Penelope with her rude distaff.” It should no more grieve the true woman to hear censure of woman's folly “than the mintmaster to see the coiner hanged.” Increasing in gravity as he proceeds, Euphues founds on the recollection of his misspent youth “a caveat to all parents, how they might bring their children up in virtue, and a commandment to all youth how they should frame themselves to their father's instructions.” This part of Euphues is, in fact, under the title of “Euphues and his Ephebus,” a systematic essay upon education, sound as Ascham's in its doctrine ; dealing with the management of children from their birth, and advancing to the ideal of a university. Having reasoned that philosophy—one, in its teachings, with religion—should be the scholar's chief object of desire, Euphues delivers home-thrusts at the University of Athens, for the license of the scholars, the unseemly fashions of their dress, their newly-imported silks and velvets, their courtiers' ways, and their schisms. “I would to God,” he says, “they did not imitate all other nations in the vice of the mind as they do in the attire of their body; for certainly, as there is no nation whose fashion in apparel they do not use, so there is no wickedness published in any place that they do not practise. . . . Be there not many in Athens which think there is no God, no redemption, no resurrection ?” The common people, seeing the licentious lives of students, say that they will rather send their children to the cart than to the university ; “and until I see better reformation in Athens,” Euphues adds, “my young Ephebus shall not be nurtured in Athens.” An address to the gentlemen-scholars of Oxford, prefixed to a subsequent edition of the book, proves to us that in these passages of Euphues it was believed that Oxford was “too much defaced or defamed : ”— “If any fault be committed,” Lyly writes, “impute it to Euphues, who knew you not; not to Lyly, who hates you not. Yet may I of all the rest most condemn Oxford of unkindness, of vice I cannot, who seemed to wean me before she brought me forth, and to give me bones to gnaw before I could get the teat to suck. Wherein she played the nice mother, in sending me into the country to nurse, where I tired at a dry breast three years, and was at the last forced to wean myself.” To A.D. 1550.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 47 Lyly, who was a Master of Arts, had passed from the University of Oxford into that of Cambridge, but under what circumstances we are unable to say. It was suggested that Euphues, on his arrival in England, was to visit Oxford, “when he will either recant his sayings or renew his complaints.” But he did not get farther than London. Of the rest of the treatise on education, forming so prominent a part of “Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit,” the main doctrines are such as these :-No youth is to be taught with stripes. Ascham and Lyly were alone in maintaining this doctrine against the strongest contrary opinion. Life is divided into remission and study. As there is watching, so is there sleep ; ease is the sauce of labour ; holiday the other half of work. Children should exercise a discreet silence: “ let them also be admonished, that, when they shall speak, they speak nothing but truth; to lie is a vice most detestable, not to be suffered in a slave, much less in a son.” Fathers should study to maintain by love and by example influence over their sons as they advance to manhood; “let them with mildness forgive light offences, and re- member that they themselves have been young. . . . . Some light faults let them dissemble as though they knew them not, and seeing them let them not seem to see them, and hearing them let them not seem to hear. We can easily forget the offences of our friends, be they never so great, and shall we not forgive the escapes of our children, be they never so small 1 '' Let the body be kept in its pure strength by honest exercise, and let the mind, adds Lyly, falling again into the track of censure followed by all satirists of the day, “not be carried away with vain delights, as with travelling into far and strange countries, where you shall see more wickedness than learn virtue and wit. Neither with costly attire of the new cut, the Dutch hat, the French hose, the Spanish rapier, the Italian hilt, and I know not what.” There is nothing, he reminds youth, swifter than time, and nothing sweeter. We have not, as Seneca saith, little time to live, but we lose much ; neither have we a short life by nature, but we make it shorter by naughtiness; our life is long if we know how to use it. The greatest commodity that we can yield unto our country, is with wisdom to bestow that talent which by grace was given us. Here Euphues repeats the closing sentences of the wise counsel of Eubulus, scorned by him in the days of his folly, and then passes to a direct exhortation to the study of the Bible. “Oh l’’ he exclaims, “I would gentlemen would sometimes sequester themselves from their own delights, and employ their wits in searching these heavenly divine mysteries.” Advancing still in earnestness as he presents his Euphues growing in wisdom and now wholly devoting himself to the study of the highest truth, a letter to the gentlemen-scholars in Athens prefaces a dialogue between Euphues and Atheos, which is an argument against the infidelity that had crept in from Italy. It is as earnest as if Latimer himself had preached it to the courtiers of King Edward. Euphues appeals solemnly to Scripture and the voice within our- selves. In citation from the sacred text consist almost his only illustrations; in this he abounds. Whole pages contain nothing but the words of Scripture. At a time when fanciful and mythological adornment was so common to literature that the very Bible Lyly read—the Bishops' Bible—contained wood-cut initials upon subjects drawn from Ovid's “Metamorphoses,” and opened the Epistle to the Hebrews with a sketch of Leda and the Swan, Lyly, in the book which has been for so many years condemned unread, does not once mingle false ornament with reasoning on sacred things. He refers to the ancients only at the outset of his argu- ment to show that the heathen had acknowledged a Creator; mentions Plato but to say that he recognised one whom we call Lord God omnipotent, glorious, immortal, unto whose similitude we that creep here on earth have our souls framed ; and Aristotle, only to tell how, when he could not find out by the secrecy of nature the cause of the ebbing and the flowing of the sea, he cried, with a loud voice, “O Thing of Things, have mercy upon me !” In twenty black- letter pages there are but three illustrations drawn from supposed properties of things. The single anecdote from profane history I will here quote from a discourse that introduces nearly all the texts in- corporated in our Liturgy:- “I have read of Themistocles, which having offended Philip, the King of Macedonia, and could no way appease his anger, meeting his young son Alexander, took him in his arms, and met Philip in the face. Philip, seeing the smiling countenance of the child, was well pleased with Themistocles. Even so, if through thy manifold sins and heinous offences thou provoke the heavy displeasure of thy God, insomuch as thou shalt tremble for horror, take his only begotten and well-beloved Son Jesus in thine arms, and then he neither can nor will be angry with thee. If thou have denied thy God, yet if thou go out with Peter and weep bitterly, God will not deny thee. Though with the prodigal son thou wallow in thine own wilfulness, yet if thou return again sorrowful thou shalt be received. If thou be a grievous offender, yet if thou come unto Christ with the woman in Luke, and wash his feet with thy tears, thou shalt obtain remission.” " Lyly's “Euphues” closes with “Certain letters writ by Euphues to his friends,” of which I take two as pieces complete in themselves which may serve as patterns of Euphuism from Lyly's hand. They are reproduced in the original spelling. LETTERS OF EU PHUES. Euphues and Eubulus. I salute thee in the Lord, &c. Although I was not so wittie to follow thy graue aduice when I first knew thee: yet doe I not lacke grace to giue thee thanks since I tryed thee. And if I were as able to perswade thee to patience, as thou wert desirous to exhort me to pietie, or as wise to comfort thee in thine age, as thou willing to instruct me in my youth, thou shouldest nowe with lesse griefe endure thy late losse, and with little care leade thy aged life. Thou 1 The preceding sketch of “Euphues” is reprinted, by permission of Mr. Murray, from an article of mine on “Euphuism,” in the “Quarterly Review” for April, 1861. 48 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH T.ITERATURE. [A.D. 1579 weepest for the death of thy daughter, and I laugh at the folly of the father, for greater vanitie is there in the minde of the mourner, then bitternesse in the death of the deceased. But shee was amiable, but yet sinful, but she was young and might haue liued, but she was mortall and must haued dyed. I* but hir youth made thee often merry, Ibut thine age shold once make thee wise. I but hir greene yeares wer vnfit for death, I but thy hoary haires should dispyse life. Knowest thou not Eubulus that life is the gift of God, death the due of Nature, as we receiue the one as a benefite, so must we abide the other of necessitie. Wise men haue found that by learn- ing which old men should know by experience, that in life ther is nothing sweete, in death nothing Sowre. The Philoso- phers accompted it ye chiefest felicitie neuer to be borne, the second soone to dye. And what hath death in it so hard yat * we should take it so heauily is it straunge to see yat cut off, which by nature is made to be cut P or that melten, which is fit to be melted ? or that burnt which is apt to be burnt, or man to passe that is born to perish P But thougrauntest that she should haue dyed, and yet art thou griued that she is dead. Is the death the better if ye life be longer ? no truely. For as neither he yat singeth most, or praieth longest, or ruleth the sterne oftenest, but he yat doth it best deserueth greatest praise, so he, not yat hath most yeares but many vertues, nor he that hath graiest haires but greatest goodnes lyueth longest. The chiefe beauty of life consisteth not in the numbring of many dayes, but in the vsing of vertuous dooings. Amongst plants those be best estemed that in shortest time bring foorth much fruite. Be not the fairest flowers gathered when they be freshest ? the youngest beasts killed for sacrifice bicause they be finest ? The measure of life is not length, but honestie, neither do we enter into life to the ende we should set downe ye day of our death, but therfore do we liue, that we may obey him yat made vs, and be willing to dye when he shal cal vs. But I will aske thee this question, whether thou wayle the losse of thy daughter for thine owne sake or hirs, if for thine own sake, bicause thou didst hope in thine age to recouer comfort, then is thy loue to hir but for thy commoditie, and therein thou art but an vnkinde father, if for hirs, then dost thou mistrust her saluation, and therein thou shewest thy vinconstant faith. Thou shouldst not weepe that she hath runne fast, but that thou hast gone so slow, neither ought it to grieue thee that shee is gone to hir home with a few yeares, but that thou art to go with many. But why goe I about to vse a long processe to a lyttle purpose ? The bud is blasted as soone as the blowne Rose, the winde shaketh off the blossome, as well as ye fruit. Death spareth neither ye golden locks nor the hoary head. I meane not to make a treatise in the praise of Death, but to note the necessitie, neither to write what ioyes they receiue that dye, but to shew what paines they endure that liue. And thou which art euen in the wane of thy life, whom nature hath nourished so long, that now she beginneth to nod, maist wel know what griefes, what labours, what paines are in age, and yet wouldst thou be either young to endure many, or elder to bide more. But thou thinkest it honourable to go to the graue with a gray head, but I deeme it more glorious to be buried with an honest name. Age saist thou is the blessing of God, yet the messenger of death. Descend therefore into thine owne conscience, consider the goodnesse that commeth by the ende, and the badnesse which was by the beginning, take the death of thy daughter patiently, and looke for thine 1 I, ay; here and in following phrases. 2 Yat, that. The use of “y” for “th ” in “that ” and “the ” arose accidentally from the resemblance of the obsolete single letter for “th,” cal.ed “thorn,” when hurriedly written, to an old written y. own speedely, so shalt thou performe both the office of an honest man, and the honor of an aged father, and so farewell. Jºuphues to Botonio, to take his exile patiently. If I were as wise to giue thee counsaile, as I am willing to do thee good, or as able to set thee at libertie as desirous to haue thee free, thou shouldest neither want good aduice to guide thee, nor sufficient help to restore thee. Thou takest it heauily that thou shouldest be accused without colour, and exiled without cause: and I thinke thee happy to be so well rid of the court and bee so voyde of crime. Thou sayst banishment is bitter to the free born, and I deeme it the better if thou bee without blame. There bee manye meates which are sower in the mouth and sharpe in the Mawe, but if thou mingle them with sweete sawces, they yeelde both a pleasaunt tast and wholesome nourishment. Diuers coulours offende the eyes, yet hauing greene among them, whette the sight. I speake this to this ende, that though thy exile seeme grieuous to thee, yet guiding thy selfe with the rules of Philosophie it shal bee more tollerable, hee that is colde doth not couer himselfe with care but with clothes, he that is washed in the rayne, dryeth himselfe by the fire, not by his fancie, and thou which art banished oughtest not with teares to bewayle thy hap, but with wisdome to heale thy hurt. Nature hath giuen no man a country, no more then she hath a house or lands, or liuings. Socrates wold neither cal himself an Athenian, neither a Graecian but a citizen of ye world. Plato would neuer accompt him banished yat had ye Sun, Fire, Aire, Water and Earth, that he had before, where he felt the Winters blast and the Summers blaze, where ye same Sun, and the same Moone shined, whereby he noted that euery place was a country to a wise man, and al parts a pallace to a quiet mind. But thou art driuen out of Naples 2 yat is nothing. All the Athenians dwel not in Colliton, nor euery Corinthian in Graecia, nor al the Lacedemonians in Pitania. How can any part of the world be distant farre from the other, when as the Mathematicians set down that the earth is but a point being compared to ye heauens. Learne of ye Bee as wel to gather Hunny of ye weede as the flowre, and out of farre countryes to line, as wel as in thine own. He is to be laughed at which thincketh ye Moone better at Athens then at Corinth, or the Hunny of the Bee sweeter that is gathered in Hybla, then that which is made in Mantua 2 when it was cast in Diogenes teeth, yat the Sinopometes had banished him Pontus, yea said he, I them of Diogenes. I may say to thee as Straconicus said to his guest, who demaunded what fault was punished with exile, and he aunswering false hoode, why then said Straconicus dost not thou practise deceit to the ende thou maist auoyd the misciefes that flow in thy country. And surely if conscience be the cause thou art banished ye court, I accompt thee wise in being so precise yat by the vsing of vertue, thou maist be exciled the place of vice. Better it is for thee to line with honesty in ye country then with honor in the court, and greater wil thy praise bee in flying vanitie, then thy pleasure in followinge traines. Choose that place for thy pallace which is most quyet, custome will make it thy countrey, and an honest life will cause it a pleasaunt lyuing. Philip falling in the dust, and seeing the figure of his shape perfect in shew. Good God, said he, we desire ye whole earth, and see howe little serueth P Zeno hearing that this onely barke wherin all his wealth was shipped to haue perished, cryed out, Thou hast done wel Fortune to thrust mee into my gowne againe to embrace Philosophye. Thou hast therfore in my minde great cause to reioyce, that God by punishment hath compelled thee to strictnesse of life, which by lybertie might haue ben growen to lewdnesse. When thou hast not one place assigned To A.D. 1588.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 49 thee wherein to liue, but one forbidden thee which thou must leaue, then thou being denied but one, that excepted thou maist choose any. Moreouer this dispute with thy selfe, I beare no office wherby I should either for feare please the noble, or for gaine oppresse the needy. I am no arbiterer in doubtful cases wherby I should either peruerte Iustice, or incurre displeasure. I am free from the iniuries of the stronge, and malice of the weak. I am out of the broyles of the seditious, and haue escaped the threates of the ambitious. But as hee that hauing a faire Orchard, seeing one tree blasted, recomteth the discommoditie of that, and passeth ouer in silence the fruitefulnesse of the other. So hee that is banyshed doth alwayes lament the losse of his house, and the shame of his exile, not reioysing at the liberty, quietnes and pleasure that he enioyeth by that sweete punishment. The kings of Persia were deemed happy in that they passed their "Winter in Babylon : in Media their Summer, and their Spring in Susis : and certeinly the Exile in this may be as happy as any king in Persia, for he may at his leasure being at his owne pleasure, lead his Winter in Athens, his Summer in Naples, his Spring in Argos. But if he haue any busines in hand, he may study without trouble, sleepe without care, and wake at his wil without controlment. Aristotle must dine when it pleaseth Philip, Diogenes when it listeth Diogenes ; the courtier suppeth when the king is satisfied, but Botonio may now eat when Botonio is an hungred. But thou saist that banishment is shamefull. No truely, no more then pouertie to the content, or graye haires to the aged. It is the 'cause that maketh thee shame, if thou wert banished vpon scholer, greater is thy credit in susteining wrong, then thy enuyes in committing iniury, and lesse shame is it to thee to be oppressed by might, then theirs that wrought it formalice. But thou fearest thou shalt not thriue in a straunge nation, certeinly thou art more afraide then hurte. The Pine tree groweth as soone in Pharo as in Ida, ye Nightingale singeth as sweetly in the desearts, as in ye woods of Crete. The wise man liueth as wel in a far country as in his owne home. It is not the nature of the place but the disposition of the person, that maketh the lyfe pleasant. Seing therfore Botonio, that al the sea is apt for any fish, yat it is a bad ground where-no flower wil grow, that to a wise man all lands are as fertile as his owne enheritance, I desire thee to temper the sharpnes of thy banishment with the sweetenes of the cause, and to measure the cleerenes of thyne owne conscience, with the spite of thy enimies quarrel, so shalt thou reuenge their malyce with patience, and endure thy banishment with pleasure. Robert Greene, the dramatist, was also a novelist, and as novelist the most popular imitator of John Lyly's style. He was born at Norwich, was a dra- matist two or three years older than Shakespeare, and one of those who had possession of the stage when Shakespeare came to London. Greene was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He followed the fashion of his day by travelling, immediately after graduation, in Italy and Spain. He commenced M.A. in 1583, and published in 1584 three prose love pamphlets. In 1585 or 1586 he married, and becoming more and more known as an ingenious writer, joined in tavern life among the wits, came into contact with worse company, yielded to temptation, and brought his life to a sad close in 1592. There are strains of repentance and self. reproach among his writings, with abundant evidence of a fine nature, and in his books and plays he was true to the higher aims of life. There was a demand in his time for books exposing the tricks of the sharpers or coney-catchers, which arose from the success of Thomas Harman’s “Caveat for Common THE GROUNDwork OF CONEY-CATCHING. (From the Title-page. to Greene's Book so called, 1591.) Cursitors,” first published in 1567. Among the books of this kind written by Robert Greene, “The 'Groundwork of Coney-catching ” consists partly of a re-issue of Harman’s “Caveat,” with some additions. It includes descriptions of the customary tricks of G THE CounterFEIT CRANK. (From Greene’s “The Groundwork of Coney-catching,” 1591.) different rogues, as the Abraham man (sham lunatic), prigger of prancers (horse stealer), raffler, visiter, counterfeit orank. Of the counterfeit crank, who 183 50 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1580 affects to be subject to epileptic fits, there is a figure given. And this is the description of A SHIFTER, A shifter not long since, going ordinarily booted, got leave of a carrier to ride on his own hackney a little way from London, who, coming to the inn where the carrier that night should lodge, honestly set by the horse, and entered the hall, where were at one table some three-and-thirty clothiers, all return- ing to their several countries. Using as he could his courtesy, and being gentleman-like attired, he was at all their instance placed at the upper end by the hostess. After he had awhile eaten, he fell to discourse with such pleasaunce that all the table were greatly delighted therewith. In the midst of supper enters a noise of musicians, who with their instru- ments added a double delight. For them he requested his hostess to lay a shoulder of mutton and a couple of capons to the fire, for which he would pay, and then moved in their behalf to gather. Among them a noble was made, which he fingering was well blessed, for before he had not a cross; yet he promised to make it die an angel. To be short, in comes the reckoning, which, by reason of the free fare and excess of wine, amounted to each man's half-crown. Then he re- quested his hostess to provide so many possets of sack as would furnish the table, which he would bestow on the gentlemen to requite their extraordinary cost, and jestingly asked her if she would make him her deputy to gather the reckoning. She granted, and he did so, and on a sudden, feigning to hasten his hostess with the possets, he took his cloak, and finding fit time, he slipt out of doors, leaving the guests with their hostess to a new reckoning, and the musicians to a good supper, but they paid for the sauce. Among Greene's novels—the Elizabethan novel being a short love story formed on the Italian pattern, and developed euphuistically—the most popular in its time was that upon which Shakespeare founded his play of “The Winter's Tale.” It was first published in 1588, under the several titles of “The Pleasant and Delightful History of Dorastus and Faunia,” and “Pandosto; or, the Triumph of Time.” PANDOSTO ; OR, THE TRIUMPH of TIME. Among all the passions wherewith human minds are perplexed, there is none that so galleth with restless despite, as the infectious sore of jealousy: for all other griefs are either to be appeased with sensible persuasions, to be cured with wholesome counsel, to be relieved in want, or by tract of time to be worn out, jealousy only excepted, which is so sauced with suspicious doubts and pinching mistrust, that whoso seeks by friendly counsel to rase out this hellish passion, is forthwith suspected that he giveth this advice to cover his own guiltiness. Yea, whoso is pained with this restless torment doubteth all, distrusteth himself, is always frozen with fear, and fired with suspicion, having that wherein consisteth all his joy to be the breeder of his misery. Yea, it is such a heavy enemy to that holy estate of matri- mony, sowing between the married couples such deadly seeds of secret hatred, as love being once rased out by spiteful distrust, there oft ensueth bloody revenge, as this ensuing history manifestly proveth; wherein Pandosto, furiously incensed by causeless jealousy, procured the death of his most loving and loyal wife, and his own endless sorrow and misery. s" In the country of Bohemia there reigned a king called -- Pandosto, whose fortunate success in wars against his foes, and bountiful courtesy towards his friends in peace, made him to be greatly feared and loved of all men. This Pandosto had to wife a lady called Bellaria, by birth royal, learned by education, fair by nature, by virtues famous, so that it was hard to judge whether her beauty, fortune, or virtue won the greatest commendations. These two, linked together in perfect love, led their lives with such fortunate contént, that their subjects greatly rejoiced to see their quiet disposition. They had not been married long, but Fortune, willing to increase their happiness, lent them a son, so adorned with the gifts of nature, as the perfection of the child greatly augmented the love of the parents, and the joys of their commons; in so much that the Bohemians, to show their inward joys by outward actions, made bonfires and triumphs throughout all the kingdom, appointing jousts and tourneys for the honour of their young prince; whither resorted not only his nobles, but also divers kings and princes which were his neighbours, willing to show their friendship they ought” to Pandosto, and to win fame and glory by their prowess and valour. Pandosto, whose mind was fraught with princely liberality, entertained the kings, princes, and noble- men with such submiss courtesy and magnifical bounty, that they all saw how willing he was to gratify their good wills, making a feast for subjects, which continued by the space of twenty days; all which time the jousts and tourneys were kept to the great content both of the lords and ladies there present. This solemn triumph being once ended, the assembly, taking their leave of Pandosto and Bellaria : the young son (who was called Garinter) was nursed up in the house to the great joy and content of the parents. Fortune, envious of such happy success, willing to show some sign of her inconstancy, turned her wheel, and darkened their bright sun of prosperity, with the misty clouds of mishap and misery. For it so happened that Egistus, King of Sicilia, who in his youth had been brought up with Pandosto, desirous to show that neither tract of time nor distance of place could diminish their former friendship, provided a navy of ships, and sailed into Bohemia” to visit his old friend and companion, who, hearing of his arrival, went himself in person, and his wife Bellaria, accompanied with a great train of lords and ladies, to meet Egistus; and espying him, alighted from his horse, embraced him very lovingly, protesting that nothing in the world could have happened more acceptable to him than his coming, wishing his wife to welcome his old friend and acquaintance: who (to show how she liked him whom her husband loved) entertained him with such familiar courtesy, as Egistus perceived himself to be very well welcome. After they had thus Saluted and embraced each other, they mounted again on horseback and rode towards the city, devising” and recounting how, being children, they had passed their youth in friendly pastimes: where, by the means of the citizens, Egistus was received with triumphs and shows in such sort, that he marvelled how on so small a warning they could make such preparation. Passing the streets thus with such rare sights, they rode on to the palace, where Pandosto entertained Egistus and his Sicilians with such banqueting and sumptuous cheer, so royally, as they all had cause to commend his princely liberality; yea, the very basest slave that was known to come from Sicilia was used with such courtesy, that Egistus might I Ought, owned, owed. The first meaning of the word, from First English “agan,” to own or owe; past “’áhte.” “Owe” is used now in a derived sense from own. The words are the same. 2 Shakespeare followed the novel in giving a coast to Bohemia. 8 Devising, narrating. Chaucer used the word in the same sense “As I will you devise.” . . . . . . . ~ – To A.D. 1588.] 5T SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. * easily perceive how both he and his were honoured for his friend’s sake. Bellaria, who in her time was the flower of courtesy, willing to show how unfeignedly she loved her husband by his friend's entertainment, used him likewise so familiarly that her countenance betrayed how her mind was affected towards him : oftentimes coming herself into his bedchamber, to see that nothing should be amiss to mislike him. This honest familiarity increased daily more and more betwixt them; for Bellaria, noting in Egistus a princely and bountiful mind, adorned with sundry and excellent qualities, and Egistus, finding in her a virtuous and courteous disposi- tion, there grew such a secret uniting of their affections, that the one could not well be without the company of the other: in so much that when Pandosto was busied with such urgent affairs, that he could not be present with his friend Egistus, Bellaria would walk with him into the garden, where they two in private and pleasant devices would pass away the time to both their contents. This custom still continuing betwixt them, a certain melancholy passion entering the mind of Pandosto drove him into sundry and doubtful thoughts. First he called to mind the beauty of his wife Bellaria, the comeliness and bravery of his friend Egistus, thinking that love was above all laws and therefore to be stayed with no law; that it was hard to put fire and flax together without burning ; that their open pleasures might breed his secret displeasures. He considered with himself that Egistus was a man, and must needs love; that his wife was a woman, and therefore subject unto love, and that where fancy forced, friendship was of no force. These and such like doubtful thoughts a long time smother- ing in his stomach, began at last to kindle in his mind a secret mistrust which, increased by suspicion, grew at last to be a flaming jealousy that so tormented him as he could take no rest. He then began to measure all their actions, and to misconstrue of their too private familiarity, judging that it was not for honest affection but for disordinate fancy, so that he began to watch them more narrowly to see if he could get any true or certain proof to confirm his doubtful suspicion. While thus he noted their looks and gestures, and suspected their thoughts and meanings, they two seely 1 souls who doubted nothing of this his treacherous intent, frequented daily each other's company, which drove him into such a frantic passion, that he began to bear a secret hate to Egistus, and a lowering countenance to Bellaria, who, mar- velling at such unaccustomed frowns, began to cast beyond the moon, and to enter into a thousand sundry thoughts, which way she should offend her husband: but finding in herself a clear conscience, ceased to muse, until such time as she might find fit opportunity to demand the cause of his dumps. In the meantime Pandosto's mind was so far charged with jealousy, that he did no longer doubt, but was assured (as he thought) that his friend Egistus had entered a wrong point in his tables, and so had played him false play; where- upon desirous to revenge so great an injury, he thought best to dissemble the grudge with a fair and friendly countenance: and so under the shape of a friend, to show him the trick of a foe. Devising with himself a long time how he might best put away Egistus without suspicion of treacherous murder, he concluded at last to poison him which opinion, pleasing his humour, he became resolute in his determination, and the better to bring the matter to pass he called unto him his cup- bearer, with whom in secret he brake the matter: promising to him for the performance thereof to give him a thousand 1 Seely, simple, innocent ; now spelt silly. From First English “sal,” prosperity, blessedness. “Salig’’ was the adjective which has taken its modern sense, because a “blessed innocent” is full of faith and easily deceived by liars. i crowns of yearly revenues. His cupbearer, either being of a good conscience, or willing for fashion sake, to deny such a bloody request, began with great reasons to persuade Pandosto from his determinate mischief; showing him what an offence murder was to the gods: how such unnatural actions did more displease the heavens, than men, and that causeless cruelty did seldom or never escape without revenge: he laid before his face, that Egistus was his friend, a king, and one that was come into his kingdom to confirm a league of perpetual amity betwixt them; that he had, and did show him a most friendly countenance : how Egistus was not only honoured of his own people by obedience, but also loved of the Bohemians for his courtesy. And that if he now should, without any just or manifest cause, poison him, it would not only be a great dishonour to his majesty, and a means to sow perpetual enmity between the Sicilians and the Bohemians, but also his own subjects would repine at such treacherous cruelty. These and such like persuasions of Franion (for so was his cupbearer called) could no whit prevail to dissuade him from his devilish enterprise: but remaining resolute in his determination, his fury so fired with rage, as it could not be appeased with reason, he began with bitter taunts to take up his man, and to lay before him two baits—preferment and death: saying that if he would poison Egistus, he would advance him to high dignities; if he refused to do it of an obstinate mind, no torture should be too great to requite his disobedience. Franion, seeing that to persuade Pandosto any more, was but to strive against the stream, consented, as soon as an opportunity would give him leave, to despatch Egistus: wherewith Pandosto remained somewhat satisfied, hoping now he should be fully revenged of such mistrusted injuries, intending also as soon as Egistus was dead, to give his wife a sop of the same sauce, and so be rid of those which were the cause of his restless sorrow. While thus he lived in this hope, Franion being secret in his chamber, began to meditate with himself in these terms: “Ah, Franion, treason is loved of many, but the traitor hated of all: unjust offences may for a time escape without danger, but never without revenge. Thou art servant to a king, and must obey at command; yet, Franion, against law and conscience, it is not good to resist a tyrant with arms, nor to please an unjust king with obedience. What shalt thou do? Folly refused gold, and frenzy preferment: wisdom seeketh after dignity, and counsel keepeth for gain. Egistus is a stranger to thee, and Pandosto thy sovereign: thou hast little cause to respect the One, and oughtest to have great care to obey the other. Think this, Franion, that a pound of gold is worth a ton of lead, great gifts are little gods: and preferment to a mean man is a whetstone to courage; there is nothing sweeter than promotion, nor lighter than report : care not then though most count thee a traitor, so all call thee rich. Dignity, Franion, advanceth thy posterity, and evil report can but hurt thyself. Know this, where eagles build, falcons may prey; where lions haunt, foxes may steal. Kings are known to command, servants are blameless to consent: fear not thou then to lift at Egistus, Pandosto shall bear the burden. Yea, but, Franion, conscience is a worm that ever biteth, but never ceaseth : that which is rubbed with the stone Galactites will never be hot. Flesh dipped in the sea AEgeum will never be sweet: the herb Trigion being once bit with an aspis, never groweth, and conscience once stained with innocent blood, is always tied to a guilty re- morse. Prefer thy content before riches, and a clear mind before dignity; so, being poor, thou shalt have rich peace; or else rich, thou shalt enjoy disquiet.” Franion having muttered out these or such like words, seeing either he must die with a clear mind, or live with a 52 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ' [A.D. 1588. spotted conscience, he was so cumbered with divers cogitations that he could take no rest: until at last he determined to break the matter to Egistus; but fearing that the king should either suspect or hear of such matters, he concealed the device till opportunity would permit him to reveal it. Lingering thus in doubtful fear, in an evening he went to Egistus' lodging, and desirous to break with him of certain affairs that touched the king, after all were commanded out of the chamber, Franion made manifest the whole conspiracy which Pandosto had devised against him, desiring Egistus not to account him a traitor for betraying his master's counsel, but to think that he did it for conscience: hoping that although his master inflamed with rage, or incensed by some sinister reports, or slanderous speeches, had imagined such causeless mischief, yet when time should pacify his anger, and try those talebearers but flattering parasites, then he would count him as a faithful servant that with such care had kept his master's credit. Egistus had not fully heard Franion tell forth his tale, but a quaking fear possessed all his limbs, thinking that there was some treason wrought, and that Franion did but shadow his craft with these false colours: wherefore he began to wax in choler, and said that he doubted not Pandosto, since he was his friend, and there had never as yet been any breach of amity : he had not sought to invade his lands, to conspire with his enemies, to dissuade his subjects from their allegiance; but in word and thought he rested his at all times: he knew not therefore any cause that should move Pandosto to seek his death, but suspected it to be a compacted knavery of the Bohemians to bring the king and him to odds. Franion staying him the midst of his talk, told him, that to dally with princes was with the swans to sing against their death, and that if the Bohemians had intended any such mischief, it might have been better brought to pass than by revealing the conspiracy; therefore his majesty did ill to misconstrue of his good meaning, since his intent was to hinder treason, not to become a traitor; and to confirm his promises, if it pleased his majesty to fly into Sicilia for the safeguard of his life, he would go with him, and if then he found not such a practice to be pretended,” let his imagined treachery be repaid with most monstrous torments. Egistus, hearing the solemn protestation of Franion, began to con- sider, that in love and kingdoms neither faith nor law is to be respected: doubting that Pandosto thought by his death to destroy his men, and with speedy war to invade Sicilia. These and such doubts thoroughly weighed, he gave great thanks to Franion, promising if he might with life return to Syracusa, that he would create him a duke in Sicilia: craving his counsel how he might escape out of the country. Franion, who having some small skill in naviga- tion, was well acquainted with the ports and havens, and knew every danger in the sea, joining in counsel with the master of Egistus' navy, rigged all their ships, and setting them afloat, let them lie at anchor, to be in the more readiness, when time and wind should serve. Fortune, although blind, yet by chance favouring this just cause, sent them within six days a good gale of wind; which Franion seeing fit for their purpose, to put Pandosto out of suspicion, the night before they should sail, he went to him and promised, that the next day he would put the device in practice, for he had got such a forcible poison, as the very smell thereof would procure sudden death. Pandosto was joyful to hear this good news, and thought every hour a day, till he might be glutted with bloody revenge; but his suit had but ill success. For Egistus fearing that delay 1 Pretended, stretched forward, put forth. might breed danger, and willing that the grass should not be cut from under his feet, taking bag and baggage, by the help of Franion, conveyed himself and his men out of a postern gate of the city so secretly and speedily, that without any suspicion they got to the sea shore; where, with many a bitter curse taking their leave of Bohemia, they went aboard. Weighing their anchors and hoisting sail, they passed as fast as wind and sea would permit towards Sicilia: Egistus being a joyful man that he had safely passed such treacherous perils. But as they were quietly floating on the sea, so Pandosto and his citizens were in an uproar; for seeing that the Sicilians without taking their leave, were fled away by night, the Bohemians feared some treason, and the king thought that without question his suspicion was true, seeing the cupbearer had betrayed the sum of his secret pretence. Whereupon he began to imagine that Franion and his wife Bellaria had conspired with Egistus, and that the fervent affection she bare him, was the only means of his secret departure; in so much that, incensed with rage, he com- manded that his wife should be carried straight to prison, until they heard further of his pleasure. The guard, un- willing to lay their hands on such a virtuous princess, and yet fearing the king's fury, went very sorrowful to fulfil their charge: coming to the queen's lodging, they found her playing with her young son Garinter: unto whom with tears doing the message, Bellaria astonished at such a hard censure, and finding her clear conscience a sure advocate to plead in her cause, went to the prison most willingly : where with sighs and tears she passed away the time, till she might come to her trial. But Pandosto, whose reason was suppressed with rage, and whose unbridled folly was incensed with fury, seeing Franion had betrayed his secrets, and that Egistus might well be railed on, but not revenged; determined to wreak all his wrath on poor Bellaria. He therefore caused a general proclamation to be made through all his realm, that the queen and Egistus had, by the help of Franion, not only committed most incestuous adultery, but also had conspired the king's death; whereupon the traitor Franion was fled away with Egistus, and Bellaria was most justly imprisoned. This proclamation being once blazed through the country, although the virtuous disposition of the queen did half dis- credit the contents, yet the sudden and speedy passage of Egistus, and the secret departure of Franion, induced them, the circumstances thoroughly considered, to think that both the proclamation was true, and the king greatly injured: yet they pitied her case, as sorrowful that so good a lady should be crossed with such adverse fortune. But the king, whose restless rage would remit no pity, thought that although he might sufficiently requite his wife's falsehood with the bitter plague of pinching penury, yet his mind should never be glutted with revenge, till he might have fit time and opportunity to repay the treachery of Egistus with a total injury. But a curst cow hath oftentimes short horns, and a willing mind but a weak arm. For Pandosto although he felt that revenge was a spur to war, and that envy always proffereth steel, yet he saw, that Egistus was not only of great puissance and prowess to withstand him, but had also many kings of his alliance to aid him, if need should serve: for he married the Emperor's daughter of Russia. These and the like considerations something daunted Pandosto his courage, so that he was content rather to put up a manifest injury with peace, than hunt after revenge, dishonour, and loss; determining since Egistus had escaped scot-free, that Bellaria should pay for all at an unreasonable price. Remaining thus resolute in his determination, Bellaria | continuing still in prison and hearing the contents of the A.D. 1588.] -- SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 53 proclamation, knowing that her mind was never touched with such affection, nor that Egistus had ever offered her such discourtesy, would gladly have come to her answer, that both she might have known her just accusers and cleared herself of that guiltless crime. But Pandosto was so inflamed with rage and infected with jealousy as he would not vouchsafe to hear her, nor admit any just excuse; so that she was fain to make a virtue of her need and with patience to bear those heavy injuries. As thus she lay crossed with calamities, a great cause to increase her grief, she found herself quick with child: which as soon as she felt stir in her body, she burst forth into bitter tears, ex- claiming against Fortune in these terms: “Alas, Bellaria, how unfortunate art thou, because fortunate: better thou hadst been born a beggar, than a princess, so shouldest thou have bridled Fortune with want, where now she sporteth herself with thy plenty. Ah, happy life, where poor thoughts and mean desires live in secure content, not fearing Fortune because too low for Fortune. Thou seest now, Bellaria, that care is a companion to honour, not to poverty; that high cedars are crushed with tempests, when low shrubs are not touched with the wind; precious diamonds are cut with the file, when despised pebbles lie safe in the sand. Delphos is sought to by princes, not beggars: and Fortune's altars smoke with kings' presents, not with poor men's gifts. Happy are such, Bellaria, that curse fortune for contempt, not fear: and may wish they were, not sorrow they have been. Thou art a princess, Bellaria, and yet a prisoner; born to the one by descent, assigned to the other by despite : accused without cause, and therefore oughtest to die without care: for patience is a shield against Fortune, and a guiltless mind yieldeth not to sorrow. Ah, but infamy galleth unto death, and liveth after death ; report is plumed with Time’s feathers, and envy oftentimes soundeth Fame's trumpet: the suspected adultery shall fly in the air, and thy known virtues shall lie hid in the earth ; one mole staineth a whole face: and what is once spotted with infamy can hardly be worn out with time. Die then, Bellaria; Bellaria, die : for if the gods should say thou art guiltless, yet envy would hear the gods, but never believe the gods. Ah, hapless wretch, cease these terms: desperate thoughts are fit for them that fear shame, not for such as hope for credit. Pandosto hath darkened thy fame, but shall never discredit thy virtues. Suspicion may enter a false action, but proof shall never put in his plea : care not then for envy, since report hath a blister on her tongue: and let Sorrow bait them which offend, not touch thee that art faultless. But alas, poor soul, how canst thou but sorrow P Thou art with child, and by him that instead of kind pity pincheth thee in cold prison.” And with that, such gasping sighs so stopping her breath that she could not utter more words, but wringing her hands and gushing forth streams of tears, she passed away the time with bitter complaints. The jailor pitying those her heavy passions, thinking that if the king knew she were with child, he would somewhat appease his fury and release her from prison, went in all haste, and certified Pandosto what the effect of Bellaria's complaint was ; who no sooner heard the jailor say she was with child, but as one possessed with a phrensy, he rose up in a rage, swearing that she and the bastard brat she was withal should die, if the gods them- selves said no ; thinking that surely by computation of time, that Egistus and not he, was father to the child. This suspicious thought galled afresh this half-healed sore, inso- much as he could take no rest, until he might mitigate his choler with a just revenge, which happened presently after. For Bellaria was brought to bed of a fair and beautiful daughter: which no sooner Pandosto heard, but he deter- mined that both Bellaria and the young infant should be burnt with fire. His nobles, hearing of the king's cruel sentence, sought by persuasions to divert him from his bloody determina- tion: laying before his face the innocency of the child, and virtuous disposition of his wife, how she had continually loved and honoured him so tenderly, that without due proof he could not, nor ought not to, appeach her of that crime. And if she had faulted, yet it were more honourable to pardon with mercy than to punish with extremity; and more kingly to be commended of pity than accused of rigour: and as for, the child, if he should punish it for the mother's offence, it were to strive against nature and justice; and that unnatural actions do more offend the gods than men : how causeless cruelty nor innocent blood never scapes without revenge. These and such like reasons could not appease his rage, but he rested resolute in this, that he would not suffer that such an infamous brat should call him father. Yet at last, seeing his noblemen were importunate upon him, he was content to spare the child's life, and yet to put it to a worse death. For he found out this device, that seeing (as he thought) it came by Fortune, so he would commit it to the charge of Fortune, and therefore caused a little cock-boat to be provided, wherein he meant to put the babe, and then send it to the mercies of the seas and the destinies. From this his peers in no wise could persuade him, but that he sent presently two of his guard to fetch the child: who being come to the prison, and with weeping tears recounting their master's message, Bellaria no sooner heard the rigorous resolution of her merciless husband, but she fell down in a swoon, so that all thought she had been dead; yet at last being come to herself, she cried and screeched out in this wise : “Alas, sweet unfortunate babe, scarce born before envied by Fortune, would the day of thy birth had been the term of thy life : then shouldst thou have made an end to care and pre- vented thy father's rigour. Thy faults cannot yet deserve such hateful revenge, thy days are too short for so sharp a doom, but thy untimely death must pay thy mother's debts, and her guiltless crime must be thy ghastly curse. And shalt thou, sweet babe, be committed to Fortune, when thou art already spited by Fortune? shall the seas be thy harbour, and the hard boat thy cradle? Shall thy tender mouth, instead of sweet kisses, be nipped with bitter storms ? Shalt thou have the whistling winds for thy lullaby, and the salt sea foam in- stead of sweet milk P Alas, what destinies would assign such hard hap? What father would be so cruel ? or what gods will not revenge such rigour P Let me kiss thy lips, sweet infant, and wet thy tender cheeks with my tears, and put this chain about thy neck, that if Fortune save thee, it may help to succour thee. Thus, since thou must go to surge in the gastfull seas, with a sorrowful kiss I bid thee farewell, and I pray the gods thou mayest fare well. Such, and so great was her grief, that her vital spirits being suppressed with sorrow, she fell again down into a trance, having her senses so sotted with care, that after she was reyived yet she lost her memory, and lay for a great time without moving, as one in a trance. The guard left her in this perplexity, and carried the child to the king, who, quite devoid of pity, commanded that without delay it should be put in the boat, having neither sail nor rudder to guide it, and so to be carried into the midst of the sea, and there left to the wind and wave as the destinies please to appoint. The very shipmen, seeing the sweet countenance of the young babe, began to accuse the king of rigour, and to pity the child’s hard fortune: but fear constrained them to that which their to frighten, make aghast. 1 Gastful, frightful, ghastly. To gast was used as a verb, meaning sº 54 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF . ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1588. nature did abhor; so that they placed it in one of the ends of the boat, and with a few green boughs made a homely cabin to shroud it as they could from wind and weather. Having thus trimmed the boat they tied it to a ship, and so haled it into the main sea, and then cut in sunder the cord, which they had no sooner done, but there arose a mighty tempest, which tossed the little boat so vehemently in the waves, that the shipmen thought it could not long continue without sinking, yea the storm grew so great, that with much labour and peril they got to the shore. But leaving the child to her fortunes, again to Pandosto, who not yet glutted with sufficient revenge, devised which way he should best increase his wife's calamity. But first assembling his nobles and counsellors, he called her for the more reproach into open court, where it was objected against her, that she had committed adultery with Egistus, and con- spired with Franion to poison Pandosto her husband, but their pretence being partly spied, she counselled them to fly away by night for their better safety. Bellaria, who, standing like a prisoner at the bar, feeling in herself a clear conscience to withstand her false accusers, seeing that no less than death could pacify her husband's wrath, waxed bold, and desired that she might have law and justice, for mercy she neither craved nor hoped for; and that those perjured wretches, which had falsely accused her to the king, might be brought before her face, to give in evidence. But Pandosto, whose rage and jealousy was such, no reason nor equity could ap- pease, told her, that for her accusers they were of such credit, as their words were sufficient witness, and that the sudden and secret flight of Egistus and Franion confirmed that which they had confessed: and as for her, it was her part to deny such a monstrous crime, and to be impudent in forswearing the fact, since she had passed all shame in committing the fault: but her stale countenance should stand for no coin, for as the bastard which she bare was served, so she should with some cruel death be requited. Bellaria, no whit dismayed with this rough reply, told her husband Pandosto, that he spake upon choler, and not conscience: for her virtuous life had been ever such as no spot of suspicion could ever stain. And if she had borne a friendly countenance to Egistus, it was in respect he was his friend, and not for any lusting affection: therefore if she were condemned without any further proof, it was rigour, and not law. The noblemen which sat in judgment said that Bellaria spake reason, and entreated the king that the accusers might be openly examined, and sworn, and if then the evidence were such as the jury might find her guilty (for seeing she was a princess she ought to be tried by her peers), then let her have such punishment as the extremity of the law will assign to such malefactors. The king presently made answer, that in this case he might and would dispense with the law, and that the jury being once panelled, they should take his word for sufficient evidence, otherwise he would make the proudest of them repent it. The noblemen seeing the king in choler were all whist," but Bellaria, whose life then hung in the balance, fearing more perpetual infamy than momentary death, told the king, if his fury might stand for a law that it were vain to have the jury yield their verdict; and therefore she fell down upon her knees, and desired the king that for the love he bare to his young son Garinter, whom she brought into the world, that he would grant her a request, which was * Whist, silent, from an interjectional sound like “hist” and “hush,” that was used, like hush, as a verb. So the Earl of Surrey began his version of the second book of the AEmeid, “They whisted all, with fixéd face intent.” A game of cards is named “whist” from the silence required for its proper conduct by players, of whom also it ought to be said, “They whisted all, with fixéd face intent.” this, that it would please his majesty to send six of his noble- men whom he best trusted, to the Isle of Delphos, there to inquire of the Oracle of Apollo, whether she had committed adultery with Egistus, or conspired to poison with Franion: and if the god Apollo, who by his divine essence knew all secrets, gave answer that she was guilty, she were content to suffer any torment, were it never so terrible. The request' was so reasonable, that Pandosto could not for shame deny it, unless he would be counted of all his subjects more wilful than wise, he therefore agreed, that with as much speed as might be there should be certain Ambassadors dispatched to the Isle of Delphos; and in the mean season he commanded that his wife should be kept in close prison. Bellaria having obtained this grant was now more careful for her little babe that floated on the seas, than sorrowful for her own Inishap. For of that she doubted: of herself she was assured, knowing if Apollo should give oracle according to the thoughts of the heart, yet the sentence should go on her side, such was the clearness of her mind in this case. But Pandosto (whose suspicious head still remained in one song) chose out six of his mobility, whom he knew were scarce in- different” men in the queen's behalf, and providing all things fit for their journey, sent them to Delphos. They willing to fulfil the king's command, and desirous to see the situation and custom of the island, dispatched their affairs with as much speed as might be, and embarked themselves to this voyage, which (the wind and weather serving fit for their purpose) was soon ended. For within three weeks they arrived at Delphos, where they were no sooner set on land, but with great devotion they went to the Temple of Apollo, and there offering sacrifice to the god, and gifts to the priest, as the custom was, they humbly craved an answer of their demand. They had not long kneeled at the altar, but Apollo with a loud voice said: “Bohemians, what you find behind the altar take and depart.” They forthwith obeying the oracle, found a scroll of parchment, wherein was written these words in letters of gold: THE ORACLE. Suspicion is no proof: Jealousy is an unequal judge : Bellaria is chaste; Egistus blameless : Franion a true subject ; Pan- dosto treacherous : His babe an innocent, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found. As soon as they had taken out this scroll, the priest of the god commanded them that they should not presume to read it, before they came in the presence of Pandosto : unless they would incur the displeasure of Apollo. The Bohemian lords carefully obeying his command, taking their leave of the priest, with great reverence departed out of the temple, and went to their ships, and as soon as wind would permit them, sailed towards Bohemia, whither in short time they safely arrived, and with great triumph issuing out of their ships went to the king's palace, whom they found in his chamber accompanied with other noblemen. Pandosto no sooner saw them, but with a merry countenance he welcomed them home, asking what news. They told his majesty that they had received an answer of the god written in a scroll, but with this charge, that they should not read the contents before they came in the presence of the king, and with that they delivered him the parchment: but his noblemen entreated him that since therein was contained either the safety of his wife's life and honesty, or her death and perpetual infamy, that he would have his nobles and commons assembled in the judgment 2 Indifferent, impartial. As when we pray in the Church Service that our judges may “truly and indifferently administer justice.” A.D. 1588.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. '55 hall, where the queen, brought in as a prisoner, should hear the contents: if she were found guilty by the Oracle of the god, then all should have cause to think his rigour proceeded of due desert: if her grace were found faultless, then she should be cleared before all, since she had been accused openly. This pleased the king so, that he appointed the day, and as- sembled all his Lords and Commons, and caused the queen to be brought in before the judgment seat, commanding that the indictment should be read, wherein she was accused of adultery with Egistus, and of conspiracy with Franion: Bel- laria hearing the contents, was no whit astonished, but made this cheerful answer: “If the divine powers be privy to human actions (as no doubt they are), I hope my patience shall make Fortune blush, and my unspotted life shall stain spiteful discredit. For although lying report hath sought to appeach mine honour, and suspicion hath intended to soil my credit with infamy : yet where virtue keepeth the fort, report and suspicion may assail, but never sack: how I have led my life before Egistus' coming, I appeal, Pandosto, to the gods and to thy conscience. What hath passed between him and me, the gods only know, and I hope will presently reveal. That I loved Egistus I cannot deny : that I honoured him I shame not to confess: to the one I was forced by his virtues, to the other for his dignities. But as touching lascivious lust, I say Egistus is honest, and hope myself to be found without spot: for Franion, I can neither accuse him nor excuse him, for I was not privy to his departure, and that this is true which I have here rehearsed, I refer myself to the divine oracle.” Bellaria had no sooner said, but the king commanded that one of his dukes should read the contents of the scroll; which after the commons had heard, they gave a great shout, rejoicing and clapping their hands that the queen was clear of that false accusation. But the king whose conscience was a witness against him of his witless fury, and false suspected jealousy, was so ashamed of his rash folly, that he entreated his nobles to persuade Bellaria to forgive and forget these injuries: promising not only to show himself a loyal and loving husband, but also to reconcile himself to Egistus and Tranion : revealing then before them all the cause of their secret flight, and how treacherously he thought to have practised his death, if the good mind of his cupbearer had not prevented his purpose. As thus he was relating the whole matter, there was word brought him that his young son Garinter was suddenly dead, which news so soon as Bellaria heard, surcharged before with extreme joy, and now sup- pressed with heavy sorrow, her vital spirits were so stopped, that she fell down presently dead, and could never be revived. This sudden sight so appalled the king's senses, that he sank from his seat in a sound," so as he was fain to be carried by his nobles to his palace, where he lay by the space of three days without speech: his commons were as men in despair, so diversely distressed: there was nothing but mourning and lamentation to be heard throughout all Bohemia: their young prince dead, their virtuous queen bereaved of her life, and their king and sovereign in great hazard: this tragical dis- course of Fortune so daunted them, as they went like shadows, not men; yet somewhat to comfort their heavy hearts, they heard that Pandosto was come to himself, and had recovered his speech, who as in a fury brayed out these bitter speeches: “O miserable Pandosto, what surer witness than conscience? what thoughts more sour than suspicion? What plague more bad than jealousy P Unnatural actions offend the gods more than men, and causeless cruelty never scapes without -" * Sound, Swound, swoon. First English “aswunan,” to fail in intellect, to faint. revenge: I have committed a bloody fact, as repent I may, but recall I cannot. Ah, jealousy, a hell to the mind, and a horror to the conscience, suppressing reason, and inciting rage; a worse passion than phrensy, a greater plague than madness. Are the gods just 2 Then let them revenge such brutish cruelty 1 My innocent babe I have drowned in the seas; my loving wife I have slain with slanderous suspicion; my trusty friend I have sought to betray, and yet the gods are slack to plague such offences. Ah, unjust Apollo, Pan- dosto is the man that hath committed the fault: why should Garinter, seely” child, abide the pain P. Well, since the gods mean to prolong my days, to increase my dolour, I will offer my guilty blood a sacrifice to those sackless” souls, whose lives are lost by my rigorous folly.” And with that he reached at a rapier, to have murdered himself, but his peers being present, stayed him from such a bloody act: persuading him to think, that the commonwealth consisted on his safety, and that those sheep could not but perish that wanted a shepherd; wishing that if he would not live for himself, yet he should have care of his subjects, and to put such fancies out of his mind, since in sores past help, Salves do not heal, but hurt; and in things past cure, care is a corrosive. With these and such like persuasions the king was overcome, and began somewhat to quiet his mind: so that as soon as he could go abroad, he caused his wife to be em- balmed, and wrapped in lead with her young son Garinter; erecting a rich and famous sepulchre, wherein he entombed them both, making such solemn obsequies at her funeral, as all Bohemia might perceive he did greatly repent him of his forepassed folly: causing this epitaph to be engraven on her tomb in letters of gold : ‘I THE EPITAPH. IIere lies entombed Bellaria fair, Falsely accused to be unchaste: Cleared by Apollo’s sacred doom, Yet slain by jealousy at last. Whate'er thou be that passest by, Curse him that caused this Queen to die. This epitaph being engraven, Pandosto would once a day repair to the tomb, and there with watery plaints bewail his misfortume; coveting no other companion but sorrow, nor no other harmony but repentance. But leaving him to his dolorous passions, at last let us come to show the tragical discourse of the young infant. Who being tossed with wind and wave, floated two whole days without succour, ready at every puff to be drowned in the sea, till at last the tempest ceased, and the little boat was driven with the tide into the coast of Sicilia, where, sticking upon the sands, it rested. Fortune, minding to be wanton, willing to show that as she hath wrinkles on her brows, so she hath dimples in her cheeks; thought after so many sour looks, to lend a feigned smile, and after a puffing storm, to bring a pretty calm; she began thus to dally. It fortuned a poor mercenary shepherd, that dwelled in Sicilia, who got his living by other men's flocks, missed one of his sheep, and thinking it had strayed into the covert, that was hard by, sought very diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either that the wolves or eagles had undone him, for he was so poor, as a sheep was half his substance, wandered down towards the sea cliffs, to see if perchance the sheep was browsing on the sea ivy, whereon they greatly do feed, but * Seely, innocent. See Note 1, p. 51. 3 Sackless, innocent, peaceable. From First English “sacleás,” frees from “sacu,” strife. - - 56 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1588. not finding her there, as he was ready to return to his flock, he heard a child cry: but knowing there was no house near, he thought he had mistaken the sound, and that it was the bleating of his sheep. Wherefore looking more narrowly, as he cast his eye to the sea, he spied a little boat, from whence as he attentively listened, he might hear the cry to come. Standing a good while in amazement, at last he went to the shore, and wading to the boat, as he looked in, he saw the little babe lying all alone, ready to die for hunger and cold, wrapped in a mantle of scarlet, richly embroidered with gold, and having a chain about the neck. The shepherd, who before had never seen so fair a babe, nor so rich jewels, thought assuredly, that it was some little god, and began with great devotion to knock on his breast. The babe, who writhed with the head, to seek for the pap, began again to cry afresh, whereby the poor man knew that it was a child, which by some sinister means was driven thither by distress of weather; marvelling how such a seely infant, which, by the mantle and the chain, could not be but born of noble parentage, should be so hardly crossed with deadly mishap. The poor shepherd perplexed thus with divers thoughts, took pity of the child, and determined with himself to carry it to the king, that there it might be brought up according to the worthiness of birth ; for his ability could not afford to foster it, though his good mind was willing to further it. Taking therefore the child in his arms, as he folded the mantle together, the better to defend it from cold, there fell down at his foot a very fair and rich purse, wherein he found a great sum of gold: which sight so revived the shepherd's spirits, as he was greatly ravished with joy, and daunted with fear; joyful to see such a sum in his power, and fearful if it should be known, that it might breed his further danger. Necessity wished him at the least to retain the gold, though he would not keep the child: the simplicity of his conscience scared him from such deceitful bribery. Thus was the poor man perplexed with a doubtful dilemma, until at last the covetousness of the coin overcame him: for what will not the greedy desire of gold cause a man to do P. So that he was resolved in himself to foster the child, and with the sum to relieve his want. Resting thus resolute in this point he left seeking of his sheep, and as covertly and secretly as he could, went by a bye way to his house, lest any of his neighbours should perceive his carriage. As soon as he was got home, entering in at the door, the child began to cry, which his wife hearing, and seeing her husband with a young babe in his arms, began to be somewhat jealous, yet marvelling that her husband should be so wanton abroad, since he was so quiet at home : but as women are naturally given to believe the worst, so his wife thinking it was some bastard: began to crow against her good man, and taking up a cudgel (for the most master went breechless) swore solemnly that she would make clubs trumps, if he brought any bastard brat within her doors. The good man, seeing his wife in her majesty with her mace in her hand, thought it was time to bow for fear of blows, and desired her to be quiet, for there was none such matter; but if she could hold her peace, they were made for ever. And with that he told her the whole matter, how he had found the child in a little boat, without any succour, wrapped in that costly mantle, and having that rich chain about the neck: but at last when he shewed her the purse full of gold, she began to simper something sweetly, and taking her husband about the neck, kissed him after her homely fashion: saying that she hoped God had seen their want, and now meant to relieve their poverty, and seeing they could get no children, had sent them this little babe to be their heir. “Take heed in any case,” Quoth the shepherd, “that you be secret, and blab it not out . when you meet with your gossips, for if you do, we are like not only to lose the gold and jewels, but our other goods and lives.” “Tush,” quoth his wife, “profit is a good hatch before the door: fear not, I have other things to talk of than of this; but I pray you let us lay up the money surely, and the jewels, least by any mishap it be spied.” After that they had set all things in order, the shepherd went to his sheep with a merry note, and the good wife learned to sing lullaby at home with her young babe, wrapping it in a homely blanket instead of a rich mantle; nourishing it so cleanly and carefully as it began to be a jolly girl, in so much that they began both of them to be very fond of it, seeing, as it waxed in age, so it increased in beauty. The shepherd, every night at his coming home, would sing and dance it on his knee, and prattle, that in a short time it began to speak, and call him dad, and her mam. At last when it grew to ripe years, that it was about seven years old, the shepherd left keeping of other men's sheep, and with the money he found in the purse, he bought him the lease of a pretty farm, and got a small flock of sheep, which when Fawnia (for so they named the child) came to the age of ten years, he set her to keep, and she with such diligence performed her charge as the sheep prospered marvellously under her hand. Fawnia thought Porrus had been her father, and Mopsa her mother (for so was the shepherd and his wife called), honoured and obeyed them with such reverence, that all the neighbours praised the dutiful obedience of the child. Porrus grew in a short time to be a man of some wealth and credit; for Fortune so favoured him in having no charge but Fawnia, that he began to purchase land, intending after his death to give it to his daughter; so that divers rich farmers' sons came as wooers to his house: for Fawnia was something cleanly attired, being of such singular beauty and excellent wit, that whosoever saw her, would have thought she had been some heavenly nymph, and not a mortal creature : in so much, that when she came to the age of sixteen years, she so increased with exquisite perfection both of body and mind, as her natural disposition did betray that she was born of some high parentage. But the people thinking she was daughter to the shepherd Porrus, rested only amazed at her beauty and wit; yea, she won such favour and commendations in every man’s eye, as her beauty was not only praised in the country, but also spoken of in the court: yet such was her submissive modesty, that although her praise daily increased, her mind was no whit puffed up with pride, but humbled herself as became a country maid and the daughter of a poor shepherd. Every day she went”forth with her sheep to the field, keeping them with such care and diligence, as all men thought she was very painful, defending her face from the heat of the sun with no other veil, but with a garland made of boughs and flowers; which attire became her so gallantly, as she seemed to be the goddess Flora herself for beauty. Fortune, who all this while had showed a friendly face, began now to turn her back, and to show a lowering countenance, intending as she had given Fawnia a slender check, so she would give her a harder mate: * to bring which to pass, she laid her train on this wise. Egistus had but one only son called Dorastus, about the age of twenty years: a prince so decked and adorned with the gifts of nature: so fraught with beauty and virtuous qualities, as not only his father joyed to have so good a son, and all his commons rejoiced that God had lent them such a noble prince to succeed in the kingdom. Egistus placing all his joy in the perfection of his son : seeing that he was now marriageable, sent ambassadors to the King of Denmark, to entreat a -º-º- * Check . . . mate, terms from chess-playing. 4.D. 1588.] * SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 57 marriage between him and his daughter, who willingly con- senting, made answer, that the next spring, if it please Egistus with his son to come into Denmark, he doubted not but they should agree upon reasonable conditions. Egistus resting satisfied with this friendly answer, thought convenient in the meantime to break with his son: finding therefore on a day fit opportunity, he spake to him in these fatherly terms: “Dorastus, thy youth warneth me to prevent the worst, and mine age to provide the best. Opportunities neglected, are signs of folly: actions measured by time, are seldom bitten with repentance: thou art young, and I old : age hath taught me that which thy youth cannot yet conceive. I therefore will counsel thee as a father, hoping thou wilt obey as a child. Thou seest my white hairs are blossoms for the grave, and thy fresh colour fruit for time and fortune, so that it behoveth me to think how to die, and for thee to care how to live. My crown I must leave by death, and thou enjoy my kingdom by succession, wherein I hope thy virtue and prowess shall be such, as though my subjects want my person, yet they shall see in thee my perfection. That nothing either may fail to satisfy thy mind, or increase thy dignities: the only care I have is to see thee well married before I die, and thou become old.” Dorastus, who from his infancy, delighted rather to die with Mars in the Field than to dally with Venus in the Chamber, fearing to displease his father, and yet not willing to be wed, made him this reverent answer: “Sir, there is no greater bond than duty, nor no straighter law than nature: disobedience in youth is often galled with despite in age. The command of the father ought to be a constraint to the child; so parents' wills are laws, so they qass not all laws: may it please your grace therefore to appoint whom I shall love. Rather than by denial I should The appeached of disobedience, I rest content to love, though it be the only thing I hate.” Egistus, hearing his son to fly so far from the mark, began 'to be somewhat choleric, and therefore made him this hasty a ſlSW6T : “What, Dorastus, canst thou not love? Cometh this cynical passion of prone desires or peevish frowardness? What, durst thou think thyself too good for all, or none good enough for thee? I tell thee, Dorastus, there is nothing sweeter than youth, nor swifter decreasing while it is in- creasing. Time past with folly may be repented, but not recalled. If thou marry in age, thy wife's fresh colours will breed in thee dead thoughts and suspicion, and thy white hairs her loathsomeness and sorrow. For Venus' affections are not fed with kingdoms, or treasures, but with youthful conceits and sweet amours. Vulcan was allotted to shake the tree, but Mars allowed to reap the fruit. Yield, Dorastus, to thy father's persuasions, which may prevent thy perils. I have chosen thee a wife, fair by nature, royal by birth, by virtues famous, learned by education and rich by possessions, so that it is hard to judge whether her bounty, or fortune, her beauty, or virtue be of greater force: I mean, Dorastus, Euphrania, daughter and heir to the King of Denmark.” Egistus pausing here awhile, looking when his son should make him answer, and seeing that he stood still as one in a trance, he shook him up thus sharply : “Well, Dorastus, take heed, the tree Alpya wasteth not with fire, but withereth with the dew: that which love nourisheth not, perisheth with hate. If thou like Euphrania, thou breedest my content, and in loving her thou shalt have my Rove, otherwise”—and with that he flung from his son in a rage, leaving him a sorrowful man, in that he had by denial displeased his father, and half angry with himself that he could not yield to that passion, whereto both reason and his father persuaded him. But see how fortune is plumed with time's feathers, and how she can minister strange causes to breed strange effects. It happened not long after this that there was a meeting of all the farmers' daughters in Sicilia, whither Fawnia was also bidden as the mistress of the feast, who having attired herself in her best garments, went among the rest of her companions to the merry meeting: there spending the day in such homely pastimes as shepherds used. As the evening grew on, and their sports ceased, each taking their leave at other, Fawnia, desiring one of her companions to bear her company, went home by the flock, to see if they were well folded; and as they returned, it fortuned that Dorastus (who all that day had been hawking, and killed store of game) encountered by the way these two maids, and casting his eye suddenly on Fawnia, he was half afraid, fearing that with Actaeon he had seen Diana; for he thought such exquisite perfection could not be found in any mortal creature. As thus he stood in a maze, one of his pages told him, that the maid with the garland on her head was Fawnia, the fair shepherd, whose beauty was so much talked of in the court. Dorastus, desirous to see if nature had adorned her mind with any inward qualities, as she had decked her body with out- ward shape, began to question with her whose daughter she was, of what age and how she had been trained up; who answered him with such modest reverence and sharpness of wit, that Dorastus thought her outward beauty was but a counterfeit to darken her inward qualities, wondering how so courtly behaviour could be found in so simple a cottage, and cursing fortune that had shadowed wit and beauty with such hard fortune. As thus he held her a long while with chat, beauty seeing him at discovert, thought not to lose the advantage, but struck him so deeply with an envenomed shaft, as he wholly lost his liberty, and became a slave to love, which before contemned love, glad now to gaze on a poor shepherd, who before refused the offer of a rich princess; for the perfection of Fawnia had so fired his fancy as he felt his mind greatly changed, and his affections altered, cursing love that had wrought such a change, and blaming the base- ness of his mind, that would make such a choice. But think- ing these were but passionate tones that might be thrust out at pleasure, to avoid the syren that enchanted him, he put spurs to his horse, and bade this fair shepherd farewell. *. Fawnia, who all this while had marked the princely gesture of Dorastus, seeing his face so well featured, and each limb so perfectly framed, began greatly to praise his perfection, commending him so long, till she found herself faulty, and perceived if she waded but a little further she might slip over her shoes. She therefore, seeking to quench that fire which never was put out, went home, and feigning herself not well at ease, got her to bed, where, casting a thousand thoughts in her head, she could take no rest: for if she waked, she began to call to mind his beauty, and think- ing to beguile such thoughts with sleep, she then dreamed of his perfection : pestered thus with these unacquainted passions, she passed the night as she could in short slumbers. Dorastus, who all this while rode with a flea in his ear, could not by any means forget the sweet favour of Fawnia, but rested so bewitched with her wit and beauty, as he could take no rest. He felt fancy to give the assault, and his wounded mind ready to yield as vanquished: yet he began with divers considerations to suppress this frantic affection, calling to mind, that Fawnia was a shepherd, one not worthy to be looked at of a prince, much less to be loved of such a potentate ; thinking what a discredit it were to himself, and what a grief it would be to his father; blaming Fortune and 184 58 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. {A. r. 1588, accusing his own folly, that should be so fond as but once to cast a glance at such a country slut. As thus he was raging against himself, Love, fearing if she dallied long to lose her champion, stepped more nigh, and gave him such a fresh wound as it pierced him at the heart, that he was fain to yield, maugre his face,” and to forsake the company and get him to his chamber: where being solemnly set, he burst into these passionate terms: “Ah, Dorastus, art thou alone? No, not alone, while thou art tired with these unacquainted passions. Yield to fancy thou canst not by thy father's counsel, but in a frenzy thou art by just destinies. Thy father were content if thou couldst love, and thou therefore discontent because thou dost love. O divine Love, feared of men because honoured of the gods, not to be suppressed by wisdom, because not to be comprehended by reason: without law, and therefore above all law. How now, Dorastus, why dost thou blaze that with praises, which thou hast cause to blaspheme with curses? Yet why should they curse Love that are in love? Blush, Dorastus, at thy fortune, thy choice, thy love: thy thoughts cannot be uttered without shame, northy affections without discredit. Ah, Fawnia, sweet Fawnia, thy beauty Fawnial Shamest not thou, Dorastus, to name one unfit for thy birth, thy dignities, thy kingdoms ? Die, Dorastus, Dorastus, die! Better hadst thou perish with high desires, than live in base thoughts. Yea, but beauty must be obeyed, because it is beauty, yet framed of the gods to feed the eye, not to fetter the heart. Ah, but he that striveth against Love, shooteth with them of Scyrum against the wind, and with the cockatrice pecketh against the steel. I will there- fore obey, because I must obey. Fawnia, yea Fawnia shall be my fortune, in spite of fortune. The gods above disdain not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Sybilla, Jupiter Io, and why not I then Fawnia P one something inferior to these in birth, but far superior to them in beauty, born to be a shepherd, but worthy to be a goddess. Ah, Dorastus, wilt thou so forget thyself as to suffer affection to suppress wisdom, and love to violate thine honour P. How sour will thy choice be to thy father, sorrowful to thy subjects, to thy friends a grief, most gladsome to thy foes! Subdue, then, thy affections, and cease to love her whom thou couldst not love, unless blinded with too much love. Tush, I talk to the wind, and in seeking to prevent the causes, I further the effects. I will yet praise Fawnia; honour, yea, and love Fawnia, and at this day follow content, not counsel. Do, Dorastus, thou canst but repent: " And with that his page came into the chamber, whereupon he ceased from his com- plaints, hoping that time would wear out that which fortune had wrought. As thus he was pained, so poor Fawnia was diversely perplexed: for the next morning, getting up very early, she went to her sheep, thinking with hard labours to pass away her new conceived amours, beginning very busily to drive them to the field, and then to shift the folds. At last, Wearied with toil, she sat her down, where, poor soul, she was more tried with fond affections: for love began to assault her, il.somuch that as she sat upon the side of a hill, she began to accuse her own folly in these terms: “Unfortunate Fawnia, and therefore unfortunate because, Fawnia, thy shepherd's hook showeth thy poor state, thy proud desires an aspiring mind: the one declareth thy want, the other thy pride. No bastard hawk must soar so high as the hobby,” no fowl gaze against the sun but the eagle; 1 Maugre his face, though his face was set against it. Old French “maugré ; ” Latin “male gratum ” * Hobby, French “hobereau,” Falco subbuteo. The hobby in “hobby- horse’’ and the phrase “riding one’s hobby” are related to a Danish word meaning a mare. - - - - actions wrought against nature reap despite, and thoughts above fortune disdain. Fawnia, thou art a shepherd, daughter to poor Porrus: if thou rest content with this, thou art like to stand, if thou climb thou art sure to fall. The herb anita growing higher than six inches becometh a weed. Nilus flowing more than twelve cubits procureth a dearth. Daring affections that pass measure, are cut short by time or fortune: suppress then, Fawnia, those thoughts which thou mayest shame to express. But ah, Fawnia, love is a lord, who will command by power, and constrain by force. Dorastus, ah, Dorastus is the man I love, the worse is thy hap, and the less cause hast thou to hope. Will eagles catch at flies, will cedars stoop to brambles, or mighty princes look at such homely trulls? No, no, think this, Dorastus' disdain is greater than thy desire: he is a prince respecting his honour, thou a beggar's brat forgetting thy calling. Cease, then, not only to say, but to think to love Dorastus, and dissemble thy love, Fawnia, for better it were to die with grief, than to live with shame : yet in despite of love I will sigh, to see if I can sigh out love.” Fawnia, somewhat appeasing her griefs with these pithy persuasions, began after her wonted manner to walk about her sheep, and to keep them from straying into the corn, suppressing her affection with the due consideration of her base estate, and with the impossibilities of her love, thinking it were frenzy, not fancy, to covet that which the very des- tinies did deny her to obtain. But Dorastus was more impatient in his passions; for love so fiercely assailed him, that neither company nor music could mitigate his martyrdom, but did rather far the more increase his malady: shame would not let him crave counsel in this case, nor fear of his father's displeasure reveal it to any secret friend; but he was fain to make a secretary of himself, and to participate his thoughts with his own troubled mind. Lingering thus awhile in doubtful suspense, at last stealing secretly from the court without either men or page, he went to see if he could espy Fawnia walking abroad in the field; but as one having a great deal more skill to retrieve the partridge with his spaniels than to hunt after such a strange prey, he sought, but was little the better: which cross luck drove him into a great choler, that he began to accuse Love and Fortune. But as he was ready to retire, he saw Fawnia sitting all alone under the side of a hill, making a garland of such homely flowers as the fields did afford. This sight so revived his spirits that he drew nigh, with more judgment to take a view of her singular perfection, which he found to be such as in that country attire she stained all the courtly dames of Sicilia. While thus he stood gazing with piercing looks on her surpassing beauty, Fawnia cast her eyes aside, and spied Dorastus, which sudden sight made the poor girl to blush, and to dye her crystal cheeks with a vermilion red; which gave her such a grace, as she seemed far more beautiful. And with that she rose up, saluting the prince with such modest curtseys, as he wondered how a country maid could afford such courtly behaviour. Dorastus, repaying her curtsey with a smiling countenance, began to parley with her in this manner: “Fair maid,” quoth he, “either your want is great, or a shepherd's life very sweet, that your delight is in such country labours. I cannot conceive what pleasure you should take, unless you mean to imitate the nymphs, being yourself so like a nymph. To put me out of this doubt, show me what is to be commended in a shepherd's life, and what pleasures you have to countervail these drudging labours.” Fawnia with blushing face made him this ready answer: “Sir, what richer state than content, or what sweeter life than quiet P We shepherds are not born to honour, nor [A.D. 1588. SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 59 beholding unto beauty, the less care we have to fear fame or fortune: we count our attire brave enough if warm enough, and our food dainty, if to suffice nature. Our greatest enemy is the wolf; our only care in safe keeping our flock: instead of courtly ditties, we spend the days with country songs: our amorous conceits are homely thoughts; delighting as much to talk of Pan and his country pranks, as ladies to tell of Venus and her wanton toys. Our toil is in shifting the folds, and looking to the lambs, easy labours: oft singing and telling tales, homely pleasures; our greatest wealth not to covet, our honour not to climb, our quiet not to care. Envy looketh not so low as shepherds: shepherds gaze not so high as ambition. We are rich in that we are poor with content, and proud only in this, that we have no cause to be proud.” This witty answer of Fawnia so inflamed Dorastus’ fancy, as he commended himself for making so good a choice, think- ing, if her birth were answerable to her wit and beauty, that she were a fit mate for the most famous prince in the world. He therefore began to sift her more narrowly in this Ina IłIler - - - . “Fawnia, I see thou art content with country labours, because thou knowest not courtly pleasures: I commend thy wit, and pity thy want: but wilt thou leave thy father's cottage, and serve a courtly mistress P” “Sir,” quoth she, “beggars ought not to strive against fortune, nor to gaze after honour, lest either their fall be greater, or they become blind. I am born to toil for the court, not in the court, my nature unfit for their nurture: better live then in mean degree, than in high disdain.” . “Well said, Fawnia,” quoth Dorastus, “I guess at thy thoughts; thou art in love with some country shepherd.” “No, sir,” quoth she, “shepherds cannot love, that are so simple, and maids may not love that are so young.” “Nay, therefore,” quoth Dorastus, “maids must love, because they are young, for Cupid is a child, and Venus, though old, is painted with fresh colours.” “I grant,” quoth she, “age may be painted with new shadows, and youth may have imperfect affections; but what art concealeth in one, ignorance revealeth in the other.” Dorastus, seeing Fawnia held him so hard, thought it was vain so long to beat about the bush : therefore he thought to have given her a fresh charge; but he was prevented by certain of his men, who, missing their master, came posting to seek him, seeing that he was gone forth all alone; yet before they drew so nigh that they might hear their talk, he used these speeches: “Why, Fawnia, perhaps I love thee, and then thou must needs yield, for thou knowest I can command and constrain.” “Truth, sir,” quoth she, “but not to love; for constrained love is force, not love: and know this, sir, mine honesty is such, as I had rather die than be a concubine even to a king, and my birth is so base as I am unfit to be a wife to a poor farmer.” Dorastus.” “Yes,” said Fawnia, “when Dorastus becomes a shepherd.” And with that the presence of his men broke off their parley, so that he went with them to the palace, and left Fawnia sitting still on the hillside, who, seeing that the night drew on, shifted her folds, and busied herself about other work to drive away such fond fancies as began to trouble her brain. But all this could not prevail; for the beauty of Dorastus had made such a deep impression in her heart, as it could not be worn out without cracking, so that she was forced to blame her own folly in this wise: “Ah, Fawnia, why dost thou gaze against the sun, or catch at the wind 2 stars are to be looked at with the eye, not “Why, then,” quoth he, “thou canst not love. fortunes, not by desires: falls come not by sitting low, but by climbing too high : what, then, shall all fear to fall, because some hap to fall 2 No luck cometh by lot, and Fortune windeth those threads which the Destinies spin. Thou art favoured, Fawnia, of a prince, and yet thou art so fond to reject desired favours: thou hast denial at thy tongue's end, and desire at thy heart’s bottom ; a woman’s fault, to spurn at that with her foot, which she greedily catcheth at with her hand. Thou lovest Dorastus, Fawnia, and yet seemest to lour. Take heed, if he retire thou wilt repent ; for unless he love, thou canst but die. Die then, Fawnia, for Dorastus doth but jest: the lion never preyed on the mouse, nor falcons stoop not to dead stales." Sit down, then, in sorrow, cease to love, and content thyself, that Dorastus will vouchsafe to flatter Fawnia, though not to fancy Fawnia. Heigh ho! Ah, fool, it were seemlier for thee to whistle as a shepherd, than to sigh as a lover.” And with that she ceased from these perplexed passions, folding her sheep, and hieing home to her poor cottage. But such was the incessant sorrow of Dorastus to think on the wit and beauty of Fawnia, and to see how fond he was being a prince, and how froward she was being a beggar, that he began to lose his wonted appetite, to look pale and wan; instead of mirth, to feed on melancholy; for courtly dances, to use cold dumps; insomuch that not only his own men, but his father and all the court began to marvel at his sudden change, thinking that some lingering sickness had brought him into this state: wherefore he caused physicians to come, but Dorastus neither would let them minister, nor so much as suffer them to see his urine ;” but remained still so oppressed with these passions, as he feared in himself a farther inconvenience. His Honour wished him to cease from such folly, but Love forced him to follow fancy: yea, and in despite of honour, Love won the conquest, so that his hot desires caused him to find new devices, for he presently made himself a shepherd's coat, that he might go unknown and with the less suspicion to prattle with Fawnia, and con- veyed it secretly into a thick grove hard joining to the palace, whither, finding fit time and opportunity, he went all alone, and putting off his princely apparel, got on those shepherd's robes, and taking a great hook in his hand (which he had also gotten), he went very anciently * to find out the mistress of his affection. But as he went by the way, seeing himself clad in such unseemly rags, he began to Smile at his own folly, and to reprove his fondness in these terms: “Well,” said Dorastus, “thou keepest a right decorum, base desires and homely attires; thy thoughts are fit for none. but a shepherd, and thy apparel such as only become a shepherd. A strange change from a prince to a peasant What is it? thy wretched fortune or thy wilful folly? Is it. thy cursed destinies, or thy crooked desires, that appointeth thee this penance P. Ah, Dorastus, thou canst but love, and unless thou love, thou art like to perish for love. Yet fond fool, choose flowers, not weeds; diamonds, not pebbles; ladies which may honour thee, not shepherds which may disgrace thee. Venus is painted in silks, not in rags; and Cupid treadeth on disdain, when he reacheth at dignity. And yet, 1 Stales, decoy birds, from Old French “estaler,” to expose in a fixed place. Allied to German “stellen,” to place, and English “Stall.” - * This was once looked upon as an aid to the diagnosis of disease not less sure than the feeling of the pulse, and the belief enabled many practitioners to do a large business with patients whom they . Inever Sø, W. * Anciently is perhaps used here by a transference of thought to “ancient” from “antique,” the word “antic” being derived from the reached at with the hand: thoughts are to be measured by | grotesqueness of ancient architectural figures. 60 [A.D. 1588. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Dorastus, shame not at thy shepherd's weed. The heavenly gods have sometimes earthly thoughts: Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bull, Apollo a shepherd: they gods, and yet in love; and thou a man appointed to love.” Devising thus with himself, he drew nigh to the place where Fawnia was keeping her sheep, who casting her eye aside, and seeing such a mannerly shepherd, perfectly limned, and coming with so good a pace, she began half to forget Dorastus, and to favour this pretty shepherd, whom she thought she might both love and obtain : but as she was in these thoughts, she perceived then, that it was the young prince Dorastus, wherefore she rose up and reverently saluted him. Dorastus, taking her by the hand, repaid her curtsey with a sweet kiss, and praying her to sit down by him, he began thus to Jay the battery: “If thou marvel, Fawnia, at my strange attire, thou, wouldst more muse at my unaccustomed thoughts: the one. disgraceth but my outward shape, the other disturbeth my I love Fawnia, and therefore what love. inward senses. liketh I cannot mislike. Fawnia, thou hast promised to love, and I hope thou wilt perform no less: I have fulfilled thy request, and now thou canst but grant my desire. Thou. wert content to love Dorastus when he ceased to be a prince and become a shepherd, and see I have made the change, and therefore not to miss of my choice.” “Truth,” quoth Fawnia ; “but all that wear cowls are not monks: painted eagles are pictures, not eagles. Zeuxis’ grapes were like grapes, yet shadows: rich clothing make not princes, nor homely attire beggars: shepherds are not called shepherds, because they wear hooks and bags, but that they are born poor, and live to keep sheep : so this attire hath not made Dorastus a shepherd, but to seem like a shepherd.” “Well, Fawnia,” answered Dorastus, “were Ia shepherd, I could not but like thee, and being a prince I am forced to love thee. Take heed, Fawnia, be not proud of Beauty's paint- ing, for it is a flower that fadeth in the blossom. Those which disdain in youth are despised in age : Beauty's shadows are tricked up with Time's colours, which being set to dry in the sun are stained with the sun, Scarce pleasing the sight ere they begin not to be worth the sight, not much unlike the herb ephemeron, which flourisheth in the morning and is withered before the sun setting. If my desire were against law, thou mightest justly deny me by reason ; but I love thee, Fawnia, not to misuse thee as a concubine, but to use thee as my wife: I can promise no more, and mean to per- form no less.” Fawnia, hearing this solemn protestation of Dorastus, could no longer withstand the assault, but yielded up the fort in these friendly terms: - “Ah, Dorastus, I shame to express that thou forcest me with thy sugared speech to confess: my base birth causeth the one, and thy high dignities the other. Beggars' thoughts ought not to reach so far as kings, and yet my desires reach as high as princes. I dare not say, Dorastus, I love thee, because I am a shepherd; but the gods know I have honoured Dorastus (pardon if I say amiss), yea and loved Dorastus with such dutiful affection as Fawnia can perform, or Dorastus desire: I yield, not overcome with prayers, but with love, resting Dorastus' handmaid ready to obey his will, if no prejudice at all to his honour, nor to my credit.” Dorastus, hearing this friendly conclusion of Fawnia, em- braced her in his arms, swearing that neither distance, time, nor adverse fortune should diminish his affection; but that in despite of the destinies he would remain loyal unto death. Having thus plight their troth to each other, seeing they could not have the full fruition of their love in Sicilia, for new despite. that Egistus' consent would never be granted to so mean a match, Dorastus determined, as soon as time and opportunity. would give them leave, to provide a great mass of money, and many rich and costly jewels, for the easier carriage, and then to transport themselves and their treasure into Italy, where they should lead a contented life, until such time as either he could be reconciled to his father, or else by succes- sion come to the kingdom. This device was greatly praised of Fawnia, for she feared if the king his father should but: hear of the contract, that his fury would be such as no less. than death would stand for payment: she therefore told him,' that delay bred danger: that many mishaps did fall out between the cup and the lip, and that to avoid danger, it: were best with as much speed as might be to pass out of Sicilia, lest Fortune might prevent their pretence with some! Dorastus, whom Love pricked forward with desire, promised to despatch his affairs with as great haste as: either time or opportunity would give him leave : and so: resting upon this point, after many embracings and sweet, kisses they departed. - •' - Dorastus, having taken his leave of his best beloved Fawnia, went to the grove where he had his rich apparel, and there uncasing himself as secretly as might be, hiding up hisí shepherd's attire, till occasion should serve again to use it, he went to the palace, showing by his merry countenance, that either the state of his body was amended, or the case of his mind greatly redressed. Fawnia, poor soul, was no less, joyful, that being a shepherd, Fortune had favoured her so, as to reward her with the love of a prince, hoping in time to. be advanced from the daughter of a poor farmer to be the wife of a rich king : so that she thought every hour a year, till by their departure they might prevent danger, not ceasing still to go every day to her sheep, not so much for the care of her flock, as for the desire she had to see her love and, lord Dorastus: who oftentimes, when opportunity would serve, repaired thither to feed his fancy with the sweet con- tent of Fawnia’s presence. And although he never went to; } visit her but in his shepherd's rags, yet his oft repair made him not only suspected, but known to divers of their neigh- bours: who for the good-will they bare to old Porrus, told: him secretly of the matter, wishing him to keep his daughter at home, lest she went so oft to the field that she brought. him home a young son : for they feared that Fawnia being. so beautiful, the young prince would allure her to folly. Porrus was stricken into a dump at these news, so that: thanking his neighbours for their good-will, he hied him. home to his wife, and calling her aside, wringing his hands, and shedding forth tears, he broke the matter to her in these terms: r “I am afraid, wife, that my daughter Fawnia hath made herself so fine, that she will buy repentance too dear. I hear news, which, if they be true, some will wish they had not proved. true. It is told me by my neighbours, that Dorastus, the king's son, begins to look at our daughter Fawnia; which, if it be so, I will not give her a halfpenny for her honesty at the year's end. I tell thee, wife, nowadays beauty is a great. stale to trap young men, and fair words and sweet promises are two great enemies to a maiden's honesty; and thou knowest. where poor men entreat, and cannot obtain, there princes may: command, and will obtain. Though kings' sons dance in nets, they may not be seen; but poor men's faults are spied at a little hole. Well, it is a hard case where kings' lusts are laws, and that they should bind poor men to that which they themselves wilfully break.” “Peace, husband,” quoth his wife, “take heed what you say; speak no more than you should, lest you hear what you: would not. Great streams are to be stopped by sleight, not: s A.D. 1588.J 61: SHORTER PROSE WORR.S. . by force; and princes to be persuaded by submission, not by rigour. Do what you can, but no more than you may, lest in saving Fawnia you lose your own head. Take heed, I say, it is ill jesting with edged tools, and bad sporting with kings. The wolf had his skin pulled over his ears for but looking into the lion's den.” “Tush, wife,” quoth he, “thou speakest like a fool; if the king should know, his fury would be such as no doubt we should both lose our goods and lives. Necessity, therefore, hath no law, and I will prevent this mischief with a new device that is come into my head, which shall neither offend the king, nor displease Dorastus. I mean to take the chain and the jewels that I found with Fawnia, and carry them to the king, letting him then to understand how she is none of my daughter, but that I found her beaten up with the water alone in a little boat, wrapped in a rich mantle, wherein was enclosed this treasure. By this means I hope the king will take Fawnia into his Service, and we, whatsoever chanceth, shall be blameless.” This device pleased the good wife very well, so that they determined, as soon as they might know the king at leisure, to make him privy to this case. In the meantime, Dorastus was not slack in his affairs, 'but applied his matters with such diligence that he provided all things fit for their journey. Treasure and jewels he had gotten great store, thinking there was no better friend than money in a strange country; rich attire he had provided for Fawnia, and, because he could not bring the matter to pass without the help and advice of some one, he made an old servant of his, called Capnio, who had served him from his childhood, privy to his affairs, who, seeing no persuasions could prevail to divert him from his settled determination, gave his consent, and dealt so secretly in the cause, that within short space he had gotten a ship ready for their passage. The mariners, seeing a fit gale of wind for their purpose, wished Capnio to make no delays, lest if they pretermitted this good weather they might stay long ere they had such a fair wind. Capnio, fearing that his negli- gence should hinder the journey, in the night-time conveyed the trunks full of treasure into the ship, and by secret means let Fawnia understand that the next morning they meant to depart. She, upon this news, slept very little that night, but got up very early, and went to her sheep, looking every minute when she should see Dorastus, who tarried not long, for fear delay might breed danger, but came as fast as he could gallop, and, without any great circumstance, took Fawnia up behind him, and rode to the haven, where the ship lay, which was not three-quarters of a mile distant from that place. He no sooner came there but the mariners were ready with their cock-boat to set them aboard, where, being couched together in a cabin, they passed away the time in recounting their old loves, till their man Capnio should come. Porrus, who had heard that this morning the king would go abroad to take the air, called in haste to his wife to bring him: his holiday hose and his best jacket, that he might go like an honest, substantial man to tell his tale. His wife, a good cleanly wench, brought him all things fit, and spunged him up very handsomely, giving him the chains and jewels in a little box, which Porrus, for the more safety, put in his bosom. Having thus all his trinkets in readiness, taking his staff in his hand, he bade his wife kiss him for good luck, and so he went towards the palace. But as he was going, Fortune (who meant to show him a little false play) prevented his purpose in this wise. - He met by chance in his way Capnio, who, trudging as fast as he could, with a little coffer under his arm, to the ship, and spying Porrus, whom he knew to be Fawnia's father, going towards the palace, being a wily fellow, began to doubt the worst, and therefore crossed him the way, and asked him: ' whither he was going so early this morning. Portus, who’ knew by his face that he was one of the court, meaning: simply, told him that the king's son Dorastus dealt hardly- with him; for he had but one daughter, who was a little, beautiful, and that his neighbours told him the young prince had allured her to folly: he went, therefore, now to complain to the king how greatly he was abused. Capnio, who straightway smelt the whole matter, began to soothe him in his talk, and said that Dorastus dealt not like a prince to spoil any poor man's daughter in that sort; he, therefore, would do the best for him he could, because her knew he was an honest man. “But,” quoth Capnio, “you lose your labour in going to the palace, for the king means this' day to take the air of the sea, and to go aboard of a ship that, lies in the haven. I am going before, you see, to provide all things in readiness, and if you will follow my counsel, turn' back with me to the haven, where I will set you in such a fit place as you may speak to the king at your pleasure.” Porrus, giving credit to Capnio's smooth tale, gave him a thousand, thanks for his friendly advice, and went with him to the haven, making all the way his complaints of Dorastus, yet. concealing secretly the chain and the jewels. As soon as they's were come to the sea-side, the mariners, seeing Capnio, came a-land with their cock-boat, who, still dissembling the matter,3 demanded of Porrus if he would go and see the ship, who, unwilling and fearing the worst, because he was not well, acquainted with Capnio, made his excuse that he could not brook the sea, therefore would not trouble him. Capnio, seeing that by fair means he could not get hims aboard, commanded the mariners that by violence they should carry him into the ship, who, like sturdy knaves, hoisted the poor shepherd on their backs, and, bearing him to the boat, launched from the land. 4% Porrus, seeing himself so cunningly betrayed, durst not cry out, for he saw it would not prevail, but began to entreat. Capnio and the mariners to be good to him, and to pity his estate : he was but a poor man that lived by his labour. They, laughing to see the shepherd so afraid, made as much haste as they could, and set him aboard. Porrus was no. sooner in the ship, but he saw Dorastus walking with Fawnia, yet he scarce knew her, for she had attired herself in rich. apparel, which so increased her beauty that she resembled rather an angel than a mortal creature. Dorastus and Fawnia were half astonished to see the old shepherd, marvelling greatly what wind had brought him thither, till Capnio told them all the whole discourse—how Porrus was going to make his complaint to the king, if by policy he had not prevented him ; and therefore now that he' was aboard, for the avoiding of further danger, it were best' to carry him into Italy. •º Dorastus praised greatly his man's device, and allowed of his counsel; but Fawnia, who still feared Porrus, as her father, began to blush for shame, that by her means he should: either incur danger or displeasure: .* The old shepherd hearing this hard sentence, that he should' on such a sudden be carried from his wife, his country, and kinsfolk, into a foreign land amongst strangers, began with bitter tears to make his complaint, and on his knees to entreat- Dorastus that, pardoning his unadvised folly, he would give him leave to go home, swearing that he would keep all things as secret as they could wish. But these protestations could not prevail, although Fawnia entreated Dorastus very ear- nestly; but the mariners, hoisting their main sails, weighed anchors, and sailed into the deep, where we leave them to the favour of the wind and seas, and return to Egistus. .* Who, having appointed this day to hunt in one of his 62 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.' [A.D. 1588, forests, called for his son Dorastus to go sport himself, because he saw that of late he began to lour; but his men made answer that he was gone abroad, none knew whither, except he were gone to the grove to walk all alone, as his oustom was to do every day. The king, willing to waken him out of his dumps, sent one of his men to go seek him, but in vain, for at last he returned, but find him he could not, so that the king went himself to go see the sport; where passing away the day, returning at night from hunting, he asked for his son, but he could not be heard of; which drove the king into a great choler, whereupon most of his noblemen and other courtiers posted abroad to seek him, but they could not hear of him through all Sicilia, only they missed Capnio his man, which again made the king suspect that he was not gone far. Two or three days being passed, and no news heard of Dorastus, Egistus began to fear that he was devoured with some wild beasts, and upon that made out a great troop of men to go seek him; who coasted through all the country, and searched in every dangerous and secret place, until at last they met with a fisherman that was sitting in a little covert hard by the sea-side, mending his nets, when Dorastus and Fawnia took shipping ; who, being examined if he either knew or heard where the king's son was, without any secrecy at all revealed the whole matter—how he was sailed two days past, and had in his company his man Capnio, Porrus, and his fair daughter Fawnia. This heavy news was presently carried to the king, who, half dead for sorrow, commanded Porrus's wife to be sent for. She being come to the palace, after due examination confessed that her neighbours had oft told her that the king's son was too familiar with Fawnia, her daughter; whereupon her husband, fearing the worst, about two days past, hearing the king should go a hunting, rose early in the morning, and went to make his complaint, but since she neither heard of him nor saw him. Egistus, perceiving the woman's unfeigned simplicity, let her depart without incurring further displeasure, conceiving such secret grief for his son's reckless folly that he had so forgotten his honour and parentage by so base a choice, to dishonour his father and discredit himself, that with very care and thought he fell into a quartan fever, which was so unfit for his aged years and complexion, that he became so weak, as the phy- sicians would grant him no life. But his son Dorastus little regarded either father, country, or kingdom in respect of his lady Fawnia; for Fortune smiling on this young novice, lent him so lucky a gale of wind for the space of a day and a night, that the mariners lay and slept upon the hatches. But on the next morning, about the break of the day, the air began to be overcast, the winds to rise, the seas to swell—yea, presently there arose such a fearful tempest, as the ship was in danger to be swallowed up with every sea. The mainmast with the violence of the wind was thrown overboard, the sails were torn, the tacklings went in sunder, the storm raging still so furiously that poor Fawnia was almost dead for fear, but that she was greatly comforted with the presence of Dorastus. The tempest continued three days, at which time the mariners every minute looked for death, and the air was so darkened with clouds that the master could not tell by his compass in what coast they were. But upon the fourth day, about ten of the clock, the wind began to cease, the sea to wax calm, and the sky to be clear, and the mariners descried the coast of Bohemia, shooting off their ordnance for joy that they had escaped such a fearful tempest. Dorastus, hearing that they were arrived at some harbour, sweetly kissed Fawnia, and bade her be of good cheer. When they told him that the port belonged unto the chief city of Bohemia, where Pandosto kept his court, Dorastus began to be sad, knowing that his father hated no man so much as Pandosto, and that the king himself had sought secretly to betray Egistus. This considered, he was half afraid to go on land, but that Capnio counselled him to change his name and his country, until such time as they could get some other bark to transport them into Italy. Dorastus, liking this device, made his case privy to the mariners, rewarding them bounti- fully for their pains, and charging them to say that he was a gentleman of Trapalonia, called Meleagrus. The shipmen, willing to show what friendship they could to Dorastus, promised to be as secret as they could, or he might wish; and upon this they landed in a little village, a mile distant from the city, where, after they had rested a day, thinking to make provision for their marriage, the fame of Fawnia's beauty was spread throughout all the city, so that it came to the ears of Pandosto; who then being about the age of fifty, had notwithstanding young and fresh affections, so that he desired greatly to see Fawnia; and to bring this matter the better to pass, hearing they had but one man, and how they rested at a very homely house, he caused them to be appre- hended as spies, and sent a dozen of his guard to take them, who, being come to their lodging, told them the king's mes- sage. Dorastus, no whit dismayed, accompanied with Fawnia and Capnio, went to the court (for they left Porrus to keep the stuff), who being admitted to the king's presence, Dorastus and Fawnia with humble obedience saluted his majesty. Pandosto, amazed at the singular perfection of Fawnia, stood half astonished, viewing her beauty, so that he had almost forgot himself what he had to do. At last, with stern countenance, he demanded their names, and of what country they were, and what caused them to land in Bohemia. “Sir,” quoth Dorastus, “know that my name is Meleagrus, a knight, born and brought up in Trapalonia, and this gentlewoman, whom I mean to take to my wife, is an Italian, born in Padua, from whence I have now brought her. The cause I have so small a train with me is for that her friends, unwilling to consent, I intended secretly to convey her into Trapalonia, whither as I was sailing, by distress of weather I was driven into these coasts. Thus have you heard my name, my country, and the cause of my voyage.” Pandosto, starting from his seat as one in choler, made this rough reply : “Meleagrus, I fear this smooth tale hath but small truth, and that thou coverest a foul skin with fair paintings. No doubt this lady, by her grace and beauty, is of her degree more meet for a mighty prince than for a simple knight, and thou, like a perjured traitor, hath bereft her of her parents, to their present grief, and her ensuing Sorrow. Till, therefore, I hear more of her parentage and of thy calling, I will stay you both here in Bohemia.” Dorastus, in whom rested nothing but kingly valour, was not able to suffer the reproaches of Pandosto, but that he made him this answer: “It is not meet for a king, without due proof, to appeach any man of ill-behaviour, nor upon suspicion to infer belief; strangers ought to be entertained with courtesy, not to be treated with cruelty, lest being forced by want to put up injuries, the gods avenge their cause with rigour.” Pandosto, hearing Dorastus utter these words, commanded that he should straight be committed to prison, until such time as they heard further of his pleasure; but as for Fawnia, he charged that she should be entertained in the court, with such courtesy as belonged to a stranger and her calling. The rest of the shipmen he put into the dungeon. Having thus hardly handled the supposed Trapalonians, Pandosto, contrary to his aged years, began to be somewhat tickled with the beauty of Fawnia, insomuch that he could A.D. 1588.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. #63 take no rest, but cast in his old head a thousand new devices. At last he fell into these thoughts: “How art thou pestered, Pandosto, with fresh affections, and unfit fancies, wishing to possess with an unwilling mind, and a hot desire troubled with a cold disdain? Shall thy mind yield in age to that thou hast resisted in youth P Peace, Pandosto, blab not out that which thou mayest be ashamed to reveal to thyself. Ah! Fawnia is beautiful, and it is not for thine honour (fond fool) to name her that is thy captive, and another man's concubine. Alas! I reach at that with my hand which my heart would fain refuse; playing like the bird ibis in Egypt, which hateth serpents, yet feedeth on their eggs. Tush, hot desires turn oftentimes to cold disdain. Love is brittle, where appetite, not reason, bears the sway. Kings' thoughts ought not to climb so high as the heavens, but to look no lower than honour; better it is to peck at the stars with the young eagles, then to prey on dead carcasses with the vulture. 'Tis more honourable for Pandosto to die by concealing love, than to enjoy such unfit love. Doth Pan- dosto, then, love 2 Yea: whom A maid unknown—yea, and perhaps immodest—straggled out of her own country; beautiful, but not therefore chaste; comely in body, but perhaps crooked in mind. Cease then, Pandosto, to look at Fawnia, much less to love her; be not overtaken with a woman's beauty, whose eyes are framed by art to enamour, whose heart is framed by nature to enchant, whose false tears know their true times, and whose sweet words pierce deeper than sharp swords.” Here Pandosto ceased from his talk, but not from his love; although he sought by reason and wisdom to suppress this frantic affection, yet he could take no rest, the beauty of Eawnia had made such a deep impression in his heart. But on a day, walking abroad into a park, which was hard adjoining to his house, he sent by one of his servants for Fawnia, unto whom he uttered these words: “Fawnia, I commend thy beauty and wit, and now pity thy distress and want; but if thou wilt forsake Sir Meleagrus, whose poverty, though a knight, is not able to maintain an estate answerable to thy beauty, and yield thy consent to Pandosto, I will both increase thee with dignities and riches.” “No, sir,” answered Fawnia: “Meleagrus is a knight that hath won me by love, and none but he shall wear me. His sinister mischance shall not diminish my affection, but rather increase my good-will. Think not, though your grace had imprisoned him without cause, that fear shall make me yield my consent. I had rather be Meleagrus's wife, and a beggar, than live in plenty, and be Pandosto's concubine.” Pandosto, hearing the assured answer of Fawnia, would, notwithstanding, prosecute his suit to the uttermost; seeking with fair words and great promises that if she would grant to his desire, Meleagrus should not only be set at liberty, but honoured in his court amongst his nobles. But these alluring baits could not entice her mind from the love of her new betrothed mate Melea- grus, which Pandosto seeing, he left her alone for that time to consider more of the demand. Fawnia, being alone by herself, began to enter into these solitary meditations: “Ah! unfortunate Fawnia, thou seest to desire above for- tune is to strive against the gods and fortune. Who gazeth at the sun weakeneth his sight: they which stare at the sky fall oft into deep pits. Hadst thou rested content to have been a shepherd, thou needest not to have feared mischance. Better had it been for thee, by sitting low, to have had quiet, than by climbing high to have fallen into misery. But, alas! I fear not mine own danger, but Dorastus' displeasure. Ah! sweet Dorastus, thou art a prince, but now a prisoner, by too much love procuring thine own loss. Hadst thou not loved Pawnia, thou hadst been fortunate. Shall I then be false * to him that hath forsaken kingdoms for my cause ? No, would my death might deliver him, so mine honour might be preserved.” With that, fetching a deep sigh, she ceased from her complaints, and went again to the palace, enjoying a liberty without content, and proffered pleasure with small joy. But poor Dorastus lay all this while in close prison, being pinched with a hard restraint, and pained with the burden of cold and heavy irons, sorrowing sometimes that his fond affection had procured him this mishap; that by the disobedience of his parents, he had wrought his own despite. Another while cursing the gods and fortune, that they should cross him with such sinister chance, uttering at last his passions in these words: “Ah! unfortunate wretch born to mishap, now thy folly hath his desert. Art thou not worthy for thy base mind to have bad fortune? Could the destinies favour thee, which hast forgot thine honour and dignities? Will not the gods plague him with despite that paineth his father with disobedience 2 O gods, if any favour or justice be left, plague me, but favour poor Fawnia, and shroud her from the tyrannies of wretched Pandosto, but let my death free her from mis- hap, and then welcome death.” Dorastus, pained with these heavy passions, sorrowed and sighed, but in vain, for which he used the more patience. But again to Pandosto, who, broiling at the heat of unlawful lust, could take no rest, but still felt his mind disquieted with his new love, so that his nobles and subjects marvelled greatly at this sudden alteration, not being able to conjecture the cause of this his continued care. Pandosto, thinking every hour a year till he had talked once again with Fawnia, sent for her secretly into his chamber, whither, though Fawnia unwil- lingly coming, Pandosto entertained her very courteously, using these familiar speeches, which Fawnia answered as shortly in this wise:– JPandosto. “Fawnia, are you become less wilful and more wise, to prefer the love of a king before the liking of a poor knight P I think ere this you think it is better to be favoured of a king than of a subject.” Fawnia. “Pandosto, the body is subject to victories, but the mind not to be subdued by conquest; honesty is to be preferred before honour, and a drachm of faith weigheth down a ton of gold. I have promised Meleagrus to love, and will perform no less.” I’andosto. “Fawnia, I know thou art not so unwise in thy choice as to refuse the offer of a king, nor so ungrateful as to despise a good turn. Thou art now in that place where I may com- mand, and yet thou Seest I entreat. My power is such as I may compel by force, and yet I sue by prayers. Yield, Fawnia, thy love to him which burnethin thy love. Meleagrus shall be set free, thy countrymen discharged, and thou both loved and honoured.” Pawnia. “I see, Pandosto, where lust ruleth it is a miserable thing to be a virgin ; but know this, that I will always prefer fame before life, and rather choose death than dishonour.” Pandosto, seeing that there was in Fawnia a determinate courage to love Meleagrus, and a resolution without fear to hate him, flung away from her in a rage, swearing if in short time she would not be won with reason, he would forget all courtesy, and compel her to grant by rigour; but these threatening words no whit dismayed Fawnia, but that she still both despited and despised Pandosto. While thus these two lovers strove, the one to win love, the other to live in hate, Egistus heard certain news by 64 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF; ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D.1588. fhe merchants of Bohemia, that his son Dorastus was im- prisoned by Pandosto, which made him fear greatly that his son should be but hardly entreated; yet considering that Bellaria and he were cleared by the oracle of Apollo from that crime wherewith Pandosto had unjustly charged him, he thought best to send with all speed to Pandosto, that he should set free his son Dorastus, and put to death Fawnia and her father Porrus. Finding this, by the advice of council, the speediest remedy to release his son, he caused presently two of his ships to be rigged and thoroughly furnished with provision of men and victuals, and sent diyers of his men and nobles ambassadors into Bohemia, who, willing to obey their king and relieve their young prince, made no delays for fear of danger, but xwith as much speed as might be, sailed towards Bohemia. The wind and seas favoured them greatly, which made them hope of some good hap, for within three days they were landed; which Pandosto no sooner heard of their arrival but he in person went to meet them, entreating them with such sumptuous and familiar courtesy, that they might well per- ceive how sorry he was for the former injuries he had offered to their king, and how willing, if it might be, to make amends. . - - - As Pandosto made report to them, how one Meleagrus, a Knight of Trapalonia, was lately arrived with a lady called Fawnia in his land, coming very suspiciously, accompanied only with one servant and an old shepherd, the ambassadors perceived by the half what the whole tale meant, and began to conjecture that it was Dorastus, who, for fear to be known, had changed his name. But dissembling the matter, they shortly arrived at the Court, where after they had been very solemnly and sumptuously feasted, the noblemen of Sicilia being gathered together, they made report of their embassage, where they certified Pandosto that Meleagrus was son and heir to the King Egistus, and that his name was Dorastus; how contrary to the king's mind he had privily conveyed away that Fawnia, intending to marry her, being but daughter to that poor shepherd Porrus; whereupon the king's request was that Capnio, Fawnia, and Porrus might be murdered and put to death, and that his son Dorastus might be sent home in safety. Pandosto having attentively and with great marvel heard their embassage, willing to reconcile himself to Egistus, and to show him how greatly he esteemed his favour, al- though love and fancy forbade him to hurt Fawnia, yet in despite of love he determined to execute Egistus' will without mercy; and therefore he presently sent for Dorastus out of prison, who, marvelling at this unlooked-for courtesy, found at his coming to the king's presence, that which he least doubted of, his father's ambassadors, who no sooner saw him but with great reverence they honoured him, and Pandosto embracing Dorastus, set him by him very lovingly in a chair of state. Dorastus, ashamed that his folly was betrayed, sat a long time as one in a muse, till Pandosto told him the sum of his father's embassage, which he no sooner heard but he was touched at the quick for the cruel sentence that was pro- nounced against Fawnia. But neither could his sorrow nor persuasions prevail, for Pandosto commanded that Fawnia, Porrus, and Capnio, should be brought to his presence; who were no sooner come, but Pandosto, having his former love turned to a disdainful hate, began to rage against Fawnia in these terms : - “Thou disdainful vassal, thou currish kite, assigned by the destinies to base fortune, and yet with an aspiring mind gazing after honour, how durst thou presume, being a beggar, to match with a prince P. By thy alluring looks to enchant the son of a king to leave his own country to fulfil thy dis. ordinate lusts? O despiteful mind, a proud heart in a beggar is not unlike to a great fire in a small cottage, which warmeth not the house but burneth it; assure thyself that thou shalt die. And thou, old doting fool, whose folly hath been such as to suffer thy daughter to reach above thy fortune, look for no other meed but the like punishment. But Capnio, thou. which hast betrayed the king, and hast consented to the un- lawful lust of thy lord and master, I know not how justly I may plague thee; death is too easy a punishment for thy falsehood, and to live, if not in extreme misery, were not to show thee equity. I therefore award that thou shalt have thine eyes put out, and continually while thou diest, grind in a mill like a brute beast.” The fear of death brought a sorrowful silence upon Fawnie and Capnio, but Porrus, seeing no hope of life, burst forth into these speeches: “Pandosto, and ye noble ambassadors of Sicilia, seeing without cause I am condemned to die; I am yet glad I have opportunity to disburden my conscience before my death; I will tell you as much as I know, and yet no more than is true. Whereas I am accused that I have been a supporter of Fawnia's pride, and she disdained as a vile beggar, so it is that I am neither father unto her, nor she daughter unto me. For so it happened that I being a poor shepherd in Sicily, living by keeping other men's flocks, one of my sheep straying down to the sea-side, as I went to seek her, I saw a little boat driven upon the shore, wherein I found a babe of six days old, wrapped in a mantle of scarlet, having about the neck this chain. I, pitying the child, and desirous of the treasure, carried it home to my wife, who with great care nursed it up, and set it to keep sheep. Here is the chain and the jewels, and this Fawnia is the child whom I found in the boat ; what she is, or of what parentage, I know not, but this I am assured that she is none of mine.” Pandosto would scarce suffer him to tell out his tale, but that he enquired the time of the year, the manner of the boat, and other circumstances, which when he found agreeing to his count, he suddenly leaped from his seat, and kissed Pawnia, wetting her tender cheeks with his tears, and crying; “My daughter Fawnia, ah, sweet Fawnia, I am thy father, Fawnia . " This sudden passion of the king drove them all into a maze, especially Fawnia and Dorastus, But when the king had breathed himself awhile in this new joy, he re- hearsed before the ambassadors the whole matter, how he had treated his wife Bellaria for jealousy, and that this was the child whom he sent to float in the seas. Fawnia was not more joyful that she had found such a father, than Dorastus was glad he should get such a wife. The ambassadors rejoiced that their young prince had made such a choice, that those kingdoms, which through enmity had long time been dissevered, should now through perpetual amity be united and reconciled. The citizens and subjects of Bohemia, hearing that the king had found again his daughter, which was supposed dead, joyful that there was an heir apparent to his kingdom, made bonfires and shows through- out the city. The courtiers and knights appointed jousts and tourneys to signify their willing minds in gratifying the king's hap. - - Eighteen days being passed in these princely sports, Pan- dosto, willing to recompense old Porrus, of a shepherd made him a knight; which done, providing a sufficient navy to receive him and his retinue, accompanied with Dorastus, Fawnia, and the Sicilian ambassadors, he sailed towards Sicily, where he was most princely entertained by Egistus, who, hearing this comical event, rejoiced greatly at his son's good hap, and without delay (to the perpetual joy of the two young lovers) celebrated the marriage. Which was no sooner ended, but Pandosto, calling to mind how first he betrayed his friend Egistus, how his jealousy was the cause of Bellaria's A.D. 1567.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 65 death, that he contrary to the law of nature had lusted after his own daughter, moved with these desperate thoughts, he fell into a melancholy fit, and to close up the comedy with a tragical stratagem, he slew himself. Whose death being many days bewailed of Fawnia, Dorastus, and his dear friend Egistus, Dorastus taking his leave of his father, went with his wife and the dead corpse into Bohemia, where after they were sumptuously entombed, Dorastus ended his days in contented quiet. Town and country were, no doubt, alike pleased with this daintily conceited love tale by one of the ſº., . 3. Rºſſ, 2.2 º gº) * >\ £º & º & \l z, TOWN AND COUNTRY. From Greene’s “Quip for an Upstart Courtier.” best dramatists of his day. But in town and country there were many who condemned the plays and players. Lyly's Euphues led us to Robert Greene as Euphuis- tic novelist ; but we must not advance to works of later date without a glance back at the book of “MeryTales, Wittie Questions and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant to readde,” which continued the line of the jest-books begun with the “Hundred Merry Tales,” and which appeared in 1567. There is evidence of culture in the variety of sources from which this little story- book is drawn. There are anecdotes and sayings of the Greeks and Romans from Plutarch, Livy, Vale- rius Maximus, and others; there are jests from Italy and jests from France; some traceable to the Arabs; and all put into homely English, with the lesson of life drawn from a tale now and then set forth in a pithy sentence or two at the close. This story is of an ancient type, derived originally from the East : OF KING LEWIS OF FRANCE AND THE HUSBANDMAN. What time King Lewis of France the XI. of that name, because of the trouble that was in the realm kept himself in Burgoyne,” he chanced, by occasion of hunting, to become * Burgoyne = French Bourgogne, Burgundy. acquainted with one Conon, a homely husbandman and a plain-meaning fellow, in which manner of men the high princes greatly delight them. To this man's house the king oft resorted from hunting, and with great pleasure he would eat radish roots with him. Within a while after, when Lewis was restored home and had the governance of France in his hand, this husbandman was counselled by his wife to take a goodly sort” of radish roots and to go and give them to the king, and put him in mind of the good cheer that he had made him at his house. Conon would not assent thereto. “What, foolish woman ” quoth he “the great princes re- member not such small pleasures.” But for all that she would not rest till Conon took out a great sight” of the fairest roots and took his journey toward the Court. But as he went by the way he ate up all the radishes save one of the greatest. Conon peaked” into the Court, and stood where the king should pass by : by and by" the king knew him and called him to him. Conon stepped to the king and presented his root with a glad cheer. And the king took it more gladly, and bade one that was nearest to him to lay it up among those jewels that he best loved; and then commanded Conon to dine with him. When dinner was done, he thanked Conon: and when the king saw that he would depart home, he com- manded to give him a thousand crowns of gold for his radish root. When this was known in the king's house, one of the Court gave the king a proper minion horse. The king per- ceiving that he did it because of the liberality showed unto Conon, with very glad cheer he took the gift, and counselled with his lords how and with what gift he might recompense the horse that was so goodly and fair. This meanwhile the pickthank" had a marvellous great hope, and thought in his mind thus: If he so well recompensed the radish root, that was given of a rustical man, how much more largely will he recompense such an horse, that is given of me that am of the Court P. When every man had said his mind as though the king had counselled about a great weighty matter, and that they had long fed the pickthank with vain hope, at last the king said: “I remember now what we shall give him ; ” and so he called one of his lords, and bade him in his ear go fetch him that that he found in his chamber (and told him the place where) featly folded up in silk. Anon he came and 2 Sort, collection. 3 Sight in the sense of quantity was common in old colloquial English, and is good vulgar English now, “a sight of money,” “a precious sight,” &c. It was never so used by Shakespeare, or in the best literature. Mr. Halliwell Phillipps quotes from John Palsgrave's “Acolastus” (1540), “Where is so great a strength of money, where is so huge a sight of money.” * Peaked. Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood in his Etymological Dic- tionary gives “To peak, Peaking, Peaking, puling, sickly, from the pipy tone of voice of a sick person. It. “pigolare,” to peep as a chicken, to whine or pule; Russ. “ pikat,” Esthon, “pikama,” “piiksuma,” to peep as a chicken; Sw. “pjaka,” “pjunka,” to pule. “The same connection,” Mr. Wedgwood adds, “between the utterance of a thin high note and the idea of looking narrowly, which is noticed under * Peep,” is exemplified in the present word, which was formerly used in the sense of peeping. “That one eye winks as though it were but blind, That other pries and peeks in every place.”—Gascoigne. “Why stand'st thou here then, Sneaking and peaking as though thou would'st steal linen P’” •. —Beaumont and Fletcher. 5 By and by, immediately. - * Pickthank is one who does a service for the sake of picking an occasion to obtain substantial return of thanks. “Fine heads,” wrote John Lyly, “will pick a quarrel with me if all be not curious, and a thank if anything be current.” So Shakespeare, in “Henry IV.,” Part I., Act iii. scene 2: 3. : “Of many tales devised— Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear— By smiling pickthanks,” 185 66 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1567. brought the radish root, and even as it was folded up the king gave it with his own hand to the courtier, saying: “We suppose your horse is well recompensed with this jewel, for it hath cost us a thousand crowns.” The courtier went his way never so glad, and when he had unfolded it, he found none other treasure but the radish root almost withered. S= t º- ſtudiº Sºº-ºº: *-iſ Sssſſſs- GREENE RAISED FROM THE GRAVE.1 From the title-page to John Dickenson’s “Gre2me in Conceipt,” 1598. This is, from the same collection, the ancient story that has passed into a proverb, of the appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober : OF THE WOMAN THAT APPEALED FROM KING PHILIP TO KING PHILIP. A woman which guiltless on a time was condemned by King Philip of Macedon when he was not sober, wherefore she said “I appeal:” “Whither ?” quoth the king: “To King Philip,” quoth she ; “but that is when he is more sober and better advised.” Which saying caused the king to look better on the matter, and to do her right. This writeth Val. Maximus. But Plutarch sayeth it was a man, and King Philip was half asleep when he gave sentence. And here, akin to the literature of “Coney- catching,” is one more story of a shifter : OF HIM THAT SOLD TWO LOADS OF HAY. In London dwelled a merry, pleasant man (which for his time we may call Makeshift), who being arrayed somewhat harvestlike, with a pitchfork on his neck, went forth in a morning and met with two load of hay coming to the city- ward, for the which he bargained with the owners to pay xxx * This cut, the only known approach to a portrait, if it can be called a portrait, of Greene, is from the title-page to a book entitled “Greene in Conceipt. New raised from his grave to write the Tra- gique Historie of faire Valeria of London, &c. Received and reported by I. D.” The only discovered copy of it is in the Bodleian. A fac- simile of its title-page is given by the Rev. Dr. Grosart in his privately printed volume of the Prose and Verse of John Dickenson, one of the most interesting of a peculiarly useful series of reprints of volumes that survive only in very few or single copies, each reprint being limited to fifty impressions, shillings. “Whither shall we bring them P’’ quoth they. “To the Swan in Long Lane by Smithfield,” quoth he, and so left them, and sped him thither the next? way. When he came to the good man of the Swan he asked if he would buy two good loads of hay? “Yes, marry,” said he, “Where be they f" “Even here they come,” quoth Makeshift. “What shall I pay ?” said the innholder. “Four nobles,” quoth he but at length they agreed for xx shilling. When the hay was come, Makeshift bade them unload. While they were doing so, he came to the innholder, and said: “Sir, I pray you let me have my money, for while my men be unloading I will go into the city to buy a little stuff to have home with The goodman was content and gave it him. me.” And so C AN ELIZABETHAN SHILLING.3 (From Speed's Historie of Britain, 1611.) he went his way. When the men had unloaded the hay they came and demanded their money ; to whom the innholder said, “I have paid your master.” “What master P” quoth they. “Marry,” quoth he, “the same man that made you bring the hay hither.” “We know him not,” quoth they. “No more do I,” quoth he “that same man bargained with me for the hay and him have I paid : Ineither bought nor sold with you.” “That is not enough for us,” quoth they ; and thus they strove together. But what end they made I know not. For I think Makeshift came not again to agree them. It is a little characteristic of the taste for in- genuity that this shifter is called, by a storyteller who aims at suggestions of practical wisdom, nothing worse than “a merry pleasant man.” The purpose of putting men upon their guard against the tricks of rogues was associated with a distinct pleasure in the telling and the reading of them. In what Lyly called the “idolatry of wit” there was a half friendly welcome even for the wit of thieves. Let us turn now to some wit shaken by an earth- quake out of a distinguished member of the University of Cambridge. It seemed wit to him, but to us it rather represents the good-humoured banter among 2 Neat, nearest. First English “neah,” nigh or near; “nearre,” nigher or nearer ; “nyhst,” or “néhst,” nighest or next. 3 An Elizabethan shilling is figured above from the heading to Elizabeth's reign in Speed's History (Edition of 1611). The silver shilling (of twelve pence) was divided into two parts, sixpences or testons (whence the vulgar English tester), and that was again sub- divided into pieces worth threepence. Five shillings made a crown, six-and eightpence a noble, two nobles or thirteen-and-fourpence were a mark. A crown under Elizabeth was a gold coin weighing one pennyweight and nineteen grains. The cross on the shilling and on other money was a common subject of allusion in literature and in daily life. So in Massinger’s “Bashful Lover,” “The devil sleeps in my pocket, I have no cross to drive him from it;” and of the same origin is the phrase of “crossing ” a fortune-teller's hand with silver. The “angel,” also often pumned upon, was figured on a gold noble, therefore known as the Angel Noble to distinguish it from the George Noble and the Old Noble. The amount of gold in the Old Noble was 4 dwts. 9% grs.; in the George Noble 3 dwts.; and in the Angel 3 dwts. 7+ grs. This was only about 7 grains less than the Elizabeth sovereign. The gold coin representing twenty shillings was known as the Great Sovereign, and weighed ten pennyweights, To A.D. 1580.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 67 friends that in 1580 and in 1880 is essentially the same, however its outward forms may vary. Gabriel Harvey was in 1580 about thirty years old. He was the eldest of four sons of a prosperous rope- maker, at Saffron Walden, who spent money very liberally in the education of his children. Gabriel had gone to Cambridge and distinguished himself there. He had lectured on rhetoric, had aspired to the post of Public Orator, had been employed by the Earl of Leicester upon confidential service, and his lively interest in literature had thus brought him into an acquaintance that became familiar friend- ship with Leicester's nephew, Sir Philip Sidney. When Edmund Spenser went to Cambridge he found Harvey there with a standing acquired by his abilities, and honour among students of the University as a young leader in matters of taste and criticism. Between Harvey and Spenser a strong friendship was established, and it was Harvey who, just before 1580, had found an opportunity of introducing his friend Spenser into Leicester's service and giving him his first start in the world. Gabriel Harvey had been strongly interested in the publication of Spenser's first book, “The Shepherd's Calendar,” in 1579—Spenser's age then being six-and-twenty, Harvey's perhaps twenty- eight or twenty-nine—and the introduction to Leicester had not only brought Spenser and Philip Sidney together, joining Spenser to the friendship between Sidney and Harvey and to their discussions about poetry, but led to Spenser's appointment as secretary to Earl Grey of Wilton, with whom he went to Ireland in 1580. While he was still in London, Spenser received from his friend Harvey a letter occasioned by the earthquake which happened in England on the evening of the 6th of April in that year. Harvey published this with two other letters between himself and Spenser, under the title of “Three proper and wittie familiar Letters lately passed betweene two University men, touching the Earth- quake in April last and our English reformed versi- fying, with the preface of a well-wisher to them both.” He had two purposes in the publication ; one was to recommend the notion, then much occupying his mind, of adopting Latin measures as the form of English verse; the other was to oppose the general tendency to look upon earthquakes as miracles portending calamity, or otherwise prophetic, and suggest that they had causes which were to be found among the usual operations of nature. His endeavour to find these causes was bounded by the knowledge of the time, but he was right in the way of his endeavour to abate a superstition based on ignorance. His letter to Spenser—addressed by his name as the new poet, Immerito—written on the morning after the earthquake, gives this lively sketch of familiar talk in an Elizabethan country house near Saffron Walden on the evening of the 6th of April, 1580: A PLEASANT AND PITHY FAMILIAR DISCOURSE OF THE EARTHQUAKE IN APRIL LAST. To my loving friend, M. Immerito. Signor Immerito, after as many gentle goodmorrows as yourself and your sweet heart listeth : May it please your Mastership to dispense with a poor Orator of yours for break- ing one principal grand rule of our old inviolable rules of rhetoric, in showing himself somewhattoo pleasurably disposed in a sad matter: Of purpose, to meet with a couple of shrewd witty new-married gentlewomen which were more inquisitive than capable of Nature's works, I will report you a pretty conceited discourse that I had with them no longer ago than yesternight, in a gentleman's house here in Essex. Where being in the company of certain courteous gentlemen, and those two gentlewomen, it was my chance to be well occupied, I warrant you, at cards (which I dare say I scarcely handled a whole twelvemonth before), at that very instant that the earth under us quaked and the house shaked above: besides the moving and rattling of the table and forms where we sat. Whereupon, the two gentlewomen having been continually wrangling with all the rest, and especially with myself, and even at that very same moment making a great loud noise and much ado, “Good Lord,” quoth I, “is it not wonderful strange that the delicate voices of two so proper fine gentle- women should make such a sudden terrible earthquake?” Imagining, in good faith, nothing in the world less than that it should be any earthquake indeed, and imputing that shaking to the sudden stirring and removing of some cum- brous thing or other in the upper chamber over our heads: which only in effect most of us noted, scarcely perceiving the rest, being so closely and eagerly set at our game, and some of us taking on as they did. But behold, all on the sudden there cometh tumbling into the parlour the gentleman of the house, somewhat strangely affrighted and in a manner all aghast, and telleth us, as well as his head and tongue would give him leave, what a wondrous violent motion and shaking there was of all things in his hall; sensibly and visibly seen, as well of his own self as of many of his servants and neigh- bours there. I straightways beginning to think somewhat more seriously of the matter: “Then I pray you, good sir,” quoth I, “send presently one of your servants into the town to enquire if the like hath happened there, as most likely is, and then must it needs be some earthquake.” Whereat the good fearful gentleman being a little recomforted (as mis- doubting and dreading before, I know not what in his own house, as many others did), and immediately dispatching his man into the town, we had by and by certain word that it was general over all the town, and within less than a quarter of an hour after, that the very like happened the next town too, being a far greater and goodlier town. The gentle- women's hearts, nothing acquainted with any such accidents, were marvellously daunted : and they that immediately before were so eagerly and greedily preying on us, began now, for- sooth, very demurely and devoutly to pray unto God, and the one especially, that was even now on the housetop, “I beseech you heartily,” quoth she, “let us leave off playing and fall a praying. By my truly, I was never so scared in my life. Methinks it is marvellous strange l’’ “What, good partner, cannot you pray to yourself,” quoth one of the gentlemen, “but all the house must hear you and sing “All In to our Lady's matins?' I see women are every way vehe- ment and affectionate. Yourself was liker even now to make a fray than to pray, and will you now needs in all haste be on both your knees? Let us, and you say it, first dispute the matter, what danger and terror it carrieth with it. God be praised it is already ceased, and here be some present that are able cunningly and clerkly to argue the case. I beseech you, master (or mistress) your zealous and devout passion awhile.” And with that, turning to me, and smiling a little at the first : “Now I pray you, Master H., what say you philosophers,” quoth he, “to this sudden earthquake P May there not be some sensible natural cause thereof in the con- cavities of the earth itself, as some forcible and violent 68 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1580. eruption of wind or the like f * “Yes, no doubt, sir, may there,” quoth I, “as well as an intelligible supernatural: and, peradventure, the great abundance and Superfluity of waters that fell shortly after Michaelmas last, being not as yet dried or drawn up with the heat of the sun, which hath not yet recovered his full attractive strength and power, might minister some occasion thereof, as might easily be discovered by Natural Philosophy in what sort the pores and vents and crannies of the earth being so stopped and filled up everywhere with moisture, that the windy exha- lations” and vapours pent up as it were in the bowels thereof could not otherwise get out and ascend to their natural original place. But the terms of art and very natures of things themselves so utterly unknown as they are to most here, it were a piece of work to lay open the reason to every one's capacity.” “I know well it is we you mean,” quoth one of the gentlewomen (whom for distinction sake, and because I imagine they would be loth to be named, I will hereafter call Mistress Inquisitiva, and the other Madame Incredula). “Now, I beseech you, learned sir, try our wits a little, and let us hear a piece of your deep University cunning.” “Seeing you gentlewomen will algates have it So, with a good will,” quoth I: and then, forsooth, very Solemnly pausing awhile, most gravely and doctorally pro- ceeded as followeth : “The earth, you know, is a mighty great huge body, and consisteth of many divers and contrary members and veins and arteries and concavities wherein, to avoid the absurdity of vacuum, must necessarily be great store of substantial matter, and Sundry accidental humours and fumes and spirits, either good, or bad, or mixed. Good they cannot possibly all be whereat is engendered so much bad, as namely so many poisonful and venomous herbs and beasts, besides a thousand infective and contagious things else. If they be bad, bad you must needs grant is subject to bad, and then can there not, I warrant you, want an object for bad to work upon. If mixed, which seemeth most probable, yet is it impossible that there should be such an equal and proportionable tem- perature, in all and singular respects, but sometime the evil (in the devil's name) will as it were interchangeably have his natural predominant course, and issue one way or other. Which evil working vehemently in the parts, and maliciously encountering the good, forcibly tosseth and cruelly disturbeth the whole: which conflict endureth so long, and is fostered with abundance of corrupt, putrefied humours, and ill- favoured gross infected matter, that it must needs (as well, or rather as ill, as in men's and women's bodies) burst out in the end into one perilous disease or other, and sometime, for want of natural voiding such feverous and flatuous spirits as lurk within, into such a violent chill shivering shaking ague as even now you see the earth have. Which ague, or rather every fit thereof, we scholars call grossly and homely Terrae ºnotºs, a moving or stirring of the earth, you gentlewomen, that be learned, somewhat more finely and daintily Terrae metus, a fear and agony of the earth: we being only moved and not terrified, you being only, in a manner, terrified, and scarcely moved, therewith. Now here, and it please you, lieth the point and quiddity of the controversy, whether our Motus or your Metus be the better and more eonsonant to the principles and maxims of philosophy: the one being manly and devoid of dread, the other womanish and most wofully quivering and shivering for very fear. In sooth, I use not to dissemble with gentlewomen: I am flatly of opinion the earth whereof man was immediately made and not woman, is in all proportions and similitudes liker us than you, and when * The word in the original is exhaltations. it fortuneth to be distempered and diseased, either in part or in whole, I am persuaded, and I believe reason and philosophy will bear me out in it, it only moveth with the very impulsive force of the malady, and not trembleth or quaketh for das- tardly fear. Now, I beseech you, what think ye, gentle- Women, by this reason?” “Reason : " quoth Madame Incre- dula. “I can neither pick out rhyme nor reason out of any thing I have heard yet. And yet, methinks, all should be Gospel that cometh from you Doctors of Cambridge. But I See well all is not gold that glisteneth.” “Indeed,” quoth Mistress Inquisitiva, “here is much ado, I trow, and little help. But it pleaseth Master H. (to delight himself and these gentlemen) to tell us a trim goodly tale of Robin Hood, I know not what; or sure, if this be Gospel I doubt I am not in good belief. Trust me truly, Sir, your eloquence far passeth my intelligence.” “Did I not tell you aforehand,” quoth I, “as much P And yet would you needs presume of your capacities in such profound mysteries of philosophy and privities of Nature as these be, the very thinking whereof (unless happily it be per ſidem implicitam, in believing as the learned believe and saying, It is so because it is so) is nigh enough to cast you both into a fit or two of a dangerous shaking fever unless you presently seek some remedy to pre- vent it. And in earnest, if ye will give me leave, upon that small skill I have in extrinsical and intrinsical physiognomy, and so forth, I will wager all the money in my poor purse to a pottle of hippocras, you shall both this night, within some- what less than two hours and a half, drcam of terrible strange agues and agonies, as well in your own pretty bodies as in the might great body of the earth.” “You are very merrily dis- posed, God be praised,” quoth Mistress Inquisitiva, “I am glad to see you so pleasurable. No doubt but you are mar- vellous privy to our dreams. But I pray you now in a little good earnest, do you scholars think that it is the very reason indeed that you spake of even now * * “There be many of us, good Mistress,” quoth I, “ of that opinion: wherein I am content to appeal to the knowledge of these learned gentle- men here. And some again of our finest conceited heads defend this position (a very strange paradox in my fancy): the earth having taken in too much to drink and, as it were, over lavish cups, as it hath sensibly done in a manner all this winter past, now staggereth, and reeleth, and tottereth, this way and that way, up and down, like a drunken man or woman when their alebench rhetoric comes upon them, and specially the moving pathetical figure Pottyposis, and there- fore, in this forcible sort you lately saw, paineth itself to vomit up again that so disordereth and disquieteth the whole body within. And, forsooth, a few contradictory fellows make no more of it but a certain vehement and passionate neesing, or sobbing, or coughing, wherewithal, they say, and as they say, say with great physical and natural reason, the earth, in some place or other ever lightly after any great and sudden alteration of weather or diet is exceedingly troubled and pained, as, Iramely, this very time of the year, after the extreme pinching cold of winter, and again in autumn, after the extreme parching heat of summer. But shall I tell you, Mistress Inquisi- tiva 2 The soundest philosophers indeed, and very deepest secretaries of Nature, hold, if it please you, another asser- tion, and maintain this for truth (which, at the leastwise, of all other seemeth marvellous reasonable, and is question- less farthest off from heresy): that as the earth upon it hath many stately and boisterous and fierce creatures, as namely, men and women and divers beasts, whereof some one is in manner continually at variance and feud with another, ever- more seeking to be revenged upon his enemy, which eftsoons breaketh forth into professed and open hostility, and then A.D. 1580.] 69 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. consequently follow set battles and mortal wars, wherein one party bendeth all the force of his ordnance and other martial furniture against the other: so likewise within it too it hath also some as vengibly and forwardly bent, as for example, worms, and moles, and conies, and such other valiantly highminded creatures, the sons and daughters of Mars and Bellona that nourish civil debate and contrary factions amongst themselves: which are seldom or never ended too without miserable bloodshed and deadly war : and then go me their guns lustily off, and the one dischargeth his piece courageously at the other: and there is such a general dub-a-dub amongst them, and such horrible thunder- ing on every side, and such a monstrous and cruel shaking of one another's forts and castles, that the whole earth again, or at least so much of the earth as is over or near them, is terribly hoised, and ”—. “No more ands or ifs, for God’s sake,” quoth the madame. “And this be your great Here follows “Master H.’s short but sharp and learned judgment of earthquakes,” seriously sug- gesting grounds for his opinion against the super- stitions of the day, that “an earthquake might as well be supposed a natural motion of the earth as a preternatural or supernatural ominous work of God.” By the interest of all this talk, playful and serious, upon the event of the evening, April 6th, 1580, supper was delayed an hour, and after the supper the ladies occasionally interrupted graver discourse with a “te-he" at the notion of earth sneezing." In the spring of 1580, at the time of the earth- Quake, Sir Philip Sidney was also staying at a country house, the mansion of the Earl of Pembroke, doctorly learning, we have even enough already for our money: and if you should go a little farther I fear me you would make us nigh as cunning as yourself: and that would be a great disgrace to the university.” “Not a whit, gentle Madame,” quoth I; “there be of us that have greater store in our budgets then we can well occupy ourselves, and there- fore we are glad, as you see, when by the favourable and gracious aspect of some blessed planet, and specially our Mercury or your Venus, it is our good fortune to light on such good friends as you and some other good gentlewomen be, that take pleasure and comfort in such good things.” Whereat Mistress Inquisitiva, laughing right out, and beginning to demand I know not what, methought she made as if it should have been some goodly plausible jest, whereat she is, and takes herself, prettily good. “Well, well, Master H.,” quoth the gentleman of the house, “now you have played your part so cunningly with the gentle- women, as I warrant you shall be remembered of Inquisitiva when you are gone and may haply forget her : which I hope Mistress Incredula will do sometime too, by her leave: I pray you in earnest let us men learn something of you too. And especially I would gladly hear your judgment and resolution whether you count of earthquakes as natural or supernatural motions. But the shorter all the better.” To whom I made answer, in effect, as followeth. at Wilton, near Salisbury. He had offended the Queen by presenting to her, in his zeal for England, a written argument against the supposed project of her marriage with the Duke of Anjou. For a time, therefore, he withdrew from Court in March, 1580, and went to stay at Wilton with his sister Mary, who in 1577 at the age of twenty had become the third wife of Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, an amiable and able man of forty. Sidney stayed at Wilton seven months; wrote there the greater part of his “Arcadia” for his sister's private entertain- ment, in good Euphuistic fashion, and may have begun there his “Apologie for Poetrie,” written in manly earnest, without any tricks of style. In the year 1579, a young dramatist, Stephen Gosson, who had come young from his University 1 In Isaac D'Israeli’s “Quarrels of Authors” there is an account of Gabriel Harvey, derived chiefly from the abuse of him by Thomas Nash, which gives curious evidence of the untrustworthiness of the haphazard way in which that compiler shot material upon his heaps of amusing literary anecdote. It can be shown that in this account of Gabriel Harvey the only sentences which do not contain one unwitting misrepresentation, expressed or implied, are those which contain two. 70 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581. three years before, when the first theatre was built, and joined the players at the “Curtain,” recanted all faith in his art, and in a pamphlet, called “The School of Abuse,” joined the harshest of the Puri- tans in condemnation of “Poets, pipers, players, jesters, and such-like caterpillars of a commonwealth.” With a curious clumsiness Gosson, an honest man, who became a faithful city clergyman, dedicated this indiscriminate attack upon all poets to Sir Philip Sidney. Sidney was at that time twenty-five years old, honoured and loved by Queen and Court, a poet and a friend of poets, but essentially a man of action, with a deeply religious nature. The Protes- tants of Europe looked forward to the day when a youth of such large promise among English heredi- tary statesmen, should be foremost, under the Sove- reign, in directing English policy. When Gosson's pamphlet appeared Spenser had not been long in London, employed by Sidney's uncle Leicester, and the friendship between Spenser and Sidney was then newly formed. It was the year in which Spenser published his first book, “The Shepherd's Calendar.” Gosson’s “School of Abuse " was only one example of much ignorant attack on poetry by dull, well-meaning men, and the dedication of such a book to him probably stirred Philip Sidney to write not long afterwards his “Apologie for Poetrie,” the first piece of true literary criticism in our English literature. It was written in 1581, although not pub- lished until 1595, nine years after its author's death. William Webbe's “Discourse of English Poetrie” had been printed in 1586, and George Puttenham's “Art of English Poetrie,” written later (about 1585), had been printed earlier, in 1589. But these books, though written after, and printed before, Sidney's “Apologie,” in no way enter into competition with it. They deal chiefly with the body, or the mecha- nism, of verse, but Philip Sidney looked entirely to its soul. AN APOLOGIE FOR POETRIE, Written by the Right Noble, Vertuous, and Learned Sir Philip Sidney, Knight. When the right virtuous Edward Wotton' and I were at the Emperor's court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of Gio. Pietro Pugliano; one that, with great commendation, had the place of an esquire in his stable; and he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his prae- tice, but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplation therein, which he thought most precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears were at any time more laden, than when (either angered with slow payment, or moved with our learner-like admiration) he exercised his speech in the praise of his faculty. He said, soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. He said, they were the masters of war and ornaments of peace, speedy goers, and strong abiders, triumphers both in camps and courts; nay, to so unbelieved a point he proceeded, as that no earthly thing 1 Edward Wotton, elder brother of Sir Henry Wotton. He was knighted by Elizabeth in 1592, and made Comptroller ef her House- hold. Observe the playfulness in Sidney’s opening and close of a treatise written throughout in plain, manly English without Euphuism, and strictly reasoned. bred such wonder to a prince, as to be a good horseman; skill of government was but a “pedanteria " in comparison. Then would he add certain praises by telling what a peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier, without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much, at least, with his no few words, he drove into me, that self love is better than any gilding, to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties. Wherein, if Pugliano's strong affection and weak argu- ments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who, I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation; which if I handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me, since the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his master. And yet I must say, that as I have more just cause to make a pitiful defence of poor poetry, which, from almost the highest estimation of learning, is fallen to be the laughing- stock of children; so have I need to bring some more avail- able proofs, since the former is by no man barred of his deserved credit, whereas the silly latter hath had even the names of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger of civil war among the Muses.” At first, truly, to all them that, professing learning, in- veigh against poetry, may justly be objected, that they go very near to ungratefulness to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges. And will you play the hedge-hog, that being received into the den, drove out his host : * or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents?” Let learned Greece, in any of her manifold Sciences, be able to show me one book before Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought that can say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named, who having been the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowledge to posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this priority (although in itself antiquity be venerable) but went before them as causes to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed, stony and beastly people, so among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius; so in the Italian language, the first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of science, were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer; after whom, encouraged and de- lighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother tongue, as well in the same kind as other arts. 5 This did so notably show itself that the philosophers of 2 Here the introduction ends, and the argument begins with its § 1. Poetry the first Light-giver. 3 A fable from the “Hetamythium ” of Lăurentius Abstemius, Professor of Belles Lettres at Urbino, and Librarian to Duke Guido Ubaldo under the Pontificate of Alexander VI. (1492–1503). 4 Pliny says (“Nat. Hist.”, lib. xi., cap. 62) that the young vipers, impatient to be born, break through the side of their mother, and so kill her. 5 § 2. Borrowed from by Philosophers. To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 71 Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but under the mask of poets; so Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their natural philosophy in verses; so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels; so did Tyrtaeus in war matters; and Solon in matters of policy; or rather they, being poets, did exercise their delightful vein in those points of highest knowledge, which before them lay hidden to the world; for that wise Solon was directly a poet it is manifest, having written in verse the notable fable of the Atlantic Island, which was continued by Plato." And, truly, even Plato, whosoever well considereth shall find that in the body of his work, though the inside and strength were philosophy, the skin, as it were, and beauty depended most of poetry. For all stands upon dialogues; wherein he feigns many honest burgesses of Athens speaking of such matters that if they had been set on the rack they would never have con- fessed them; besides, his poetical describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well-ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges’s Ring,” and others; which, who knows not to be flowers of poetry, did never walk into Apollo's garden. *And even historiographers, although their lips sound of things done, and verity be written in their foreheads, have been glad to borrow both fashion and, perchance, weight of the poets; so Herodotus entitled the books of his history by the names of the Nine Muses; and both he, and all the rest that followed him, either stole or usurped, of poetry, their passionate describing of passions, the many particularities of battles which no man could affirm; or, if that be denied me, long orations, put in the mouths of great kings and captains, which it is certain they never pronounced. So that, truly, neither philosopher nor historiographer could, at the first, have entered into the gates of popular judgments, if they had not taken a great disport of poetry; which in all nations, at this day, where learning flourisheth not, is plain to be seen ; in all which they have some feeling of poetry. In Turkey, besides their lawgiving divines they have no other writers but poets. In our neighbour-country Ireland, where, too, learning goes very bare, yet are their poets held in a devout reverence. Even among the most barbarous and simple Indians, where no writing is, yet have they their poets who make and sing songs, which they call “Arentos,” both of their ancestor's deeds and praises of their gods. A sufficient probability, that if ever learning comes among them, it must be by having their hard dull wits softened and sharpened with the sweet delight of poetry; for until they find a pleasure in the exercise of the mind, great promises of much knowledge will little persuade them that know not the fruits of knowledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient Britons, as there are good authorities to show the long time they had poets, which they called bards, so through all the conquests of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to ruin all memory of learning from among them, yet do their poets, even to this 1 Timaeus, the Pythagorean philosopher of Locri, and the Athenian Critias are represented by Plato as having listened to the discourse of Socrates on a Republic. Socrates calls on them to show such a state in action. Critias will tell of the rescue of Europe by the ancient citizens of Attica, 10,000 years before, from an inroad of countless in- vaders who came from the vast island of Atlantis, in the Western Ocean; a struggle of which record was preserved in the temple of Naith or Athené at Sais, in Egypt, and handed down, through Solon, by family tradition to Critias. But first Timaeus agrees to expound the structure of the universe; then Critias, in a piece left unfinished by Plato, proceeds to show an ideal society in action against pressure of a danger that seems irresistible. * Plato’s “Republic,” book ii. * $ 3. Borrowed from by Historians. day, last; so as it is not more notable in the soon beginning than in long-continuing. But since the authors of most of our Sciences were the Romans, and before them the Greeks, let us, a little, stand upon their authorities; but even so far, as to see what names they have given unto this now scorned skill.” Among the Romans a poet was called “vates,” which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words “vaticinium,” and “vaticinari,” is manifest; so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravish- ing knowledge And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the changeable hitting upon any such verses, great foretokens of their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of sortes Virgilianae; when, by sudden opening Virgil's book, they lighted upon some verse, as it is reported by many, whereof the histories of the Emperors' lives are full. As of Albinus, the governor of our island, who, in his childhood, met with this verse— Arma amens capio, mec Sat rationis in armis ; and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain and godless superstition; as also it was, to think spirits were commanded by such verses; whereupon this word charms, derived of “carmina,” cometh, so yet serveth it to show the great reverence those wits were held in ; and altogether not without ground, since both the Oracles of Delphi and the Sibyl's prophecies were wholly delivered in verses; for that same exquisite observing of number and measure in the words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet, did seem to have some divine force in it. *And may not I presume a little farther to show the reason- ableness of this word “vates,” and say, that the holy David's Psalms are a divine poem P If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned men, both ancient and modern. But even the name of Psalms will speak for me, which, being interpreted, is nothing but Songs; then, that is fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the rules be not yet fully found. Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the often and free changing of persons; his notable prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty; his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills leaping; but a heavenly poesy, wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty, to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith? But truly, now, having named him, I fear I seem to profane that holy name, applying it to poetry, which is, among us, thrown down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that, with quiet judgments, will look a little deeper into it, shall find the end and working of it such, as, being rightly applied, deserveth not to be scourged out of the church of God. *But now let us see how the Greeks have named it, and how they deemed of it. The Greeks named him troºm rhy, which name hath, as the most excellent, gone through other languages; it cometh of this word trouelv, which is to make ; wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we English- men have met with the Greeks in calling him “a maker,” which name, how high and incomparable a title it is, I had rather were known by marking the scope of other sciences, than by any partial allegation. There is no art delivered unto mankind that hath not the works of nature for his * $ 4. Honoured by the Romans as Sacred and Prophetic. * $ 5. And really sacred and prophetic in the Psalms of David. ° S 6. By the Greeks, Poets were homoured with the name of Makers. 72 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581. principal object, without which they could not consist, and on which they so depend as they become actors and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth." So doth the astronomer look upon the stars, and by that he seeth set down what order nature hath taken therein. So doth the geome- trician and arithmetician, in their diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in times, tell you which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his name ; and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, or passions of man; and follow nature, saith he, therein, and thou shalt not err. The lawyer saith what men have determined. The historian, what men have done. The gram- marian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhe- torician and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of man's body, and the nature of things helpful and hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature. Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature; in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or quite anew ; forms such as never were in nature, as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like ; so as he goeth hand in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit.” Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden. But let those things alone, and go to man;* for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed; and know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes; so constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as Orlando ; so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus; and so excellent a man every way as Virgil's AEneas P. Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one be essential, the other in imita- tion or fiction; for every understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea, or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea is manifest by delivering them forth in such excel- lency as he had imagined them; which delivering forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build castles in the air; but so far substantially it worketh not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done; but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to make many Cyruses; if they will learn aright, why, and how, that maker made him. Neither let it be deemed too: saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker, who hav- ing made man to His own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature; which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry; when, with the force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings, with no small arguments to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam; since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us i Poetry is the one creative art. Astronomers and others repeat what they find. * Poets improve Natwre. 8 And idealize man. from reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted; thus much I hope will be given me, that the Greeks, with some probability of reason, gave him the name above all names of learning. *Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though we get not so unmatched a praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very description, which no man will demy, shall not justly be barred from a principal commendation. *Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth it in the word pitumoris; that is to say, a represent- ing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight. "Of this have been three general kinds: the chief, both in antiquity and excellency, where they that did imitate the in- conceivable excellencies of God; such were David in the Psalms; Solomon in the Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their hymns; and the Writer of Job; which, beside others, the learned Emanuel Tremellius and Fr. Junius do entitle the poetical part of the scripture; against these none will speak that hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. In this kind, though in a wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion, Homer in his hymns, and many others, both Greeks and Romans. And this poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. Paul's counsel, in singing psalms when they are merry; and I know is used with the fruit of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness. *The second kind is of them that deal with matter philoso- phical; either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, Cato; or, natural, as Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius” and Pontanus; or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. But because this second sort is wrapped within the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not the free course of his own invention ; whether they properly be poets or no, let gram- marians dispute, and go to the third,” indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this question ariseth ; betwixt whom and these Second is such a kind of difference, as betwixt the meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only such faces as are set before them; and the more excellent, who having no law but wit, bestow that in colours upon you which is fittest for the eye to see; as the constant, though lamenting look of Lucretia, when she punished in herself another's fault ; wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he never saw, but painteth the outward beauty of such a virtue. For these three be they which most properly do imitate to teach and delight; and to imitate, borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range only, reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and should be. These be they, that, as the first and most noble sort, may justly be termed “vates; ” so these are waited on in the excellentest languages and best understandings, with the fore-described name of poets. For these, indeed, do merely make to imi- tate, and imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which, without de- light they would fly as from a stranger; and teach to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved; which 4 Here a Second Part of the Essay begins. 6 $ 2. Its kinds. a. Divine. 7 b. Philosophical, which is perhaps too imitative. 8 Marcus Manilius wrote under Tiberius a metrical treatise on Astronomy, of which five books on the fixed stars remain. 9 c. Poetry proper. . 5 § 1. Poetry defined. To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 73 being the noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to bark at them. *These be subdivided into sundry more special denomina- tions; the most notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satyric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain others; some of these being termed according to the matter they deal with ; some by the sort of verse they like best to write in ; for, indeed, the greatest part of poets have apparelled their poetical inventions in that numerous kind of writing which is called verse. Indeed, but apparelled verse, being but an ornament, and no cause to poetry, since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.” For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently as to give us effigiem justi imperii, the portraiture of a just empire, under the name of Cyrus, as Cicero saith of him, made therein an absolute heroical poem. So did Heliodorus,” in his sugared invention of that picture of love in Theagenes and Chariclea ; and yet both these wrote in prose; which I speak to show, that it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet (no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who, though he pleaded in armour should be an advocate and no soldier); but it is that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a poet by. Although, indeed, the senate of poets have chosen verse as their fittest raiment; meaning, as in matter they passed all in all, so in manner to go beyond them; not speaking table-talk fashion, or like men in a dream, words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but piecing each syllable of each word by just proportion, according to the dignity of the subject. * Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss, first, to weight this latter sort of poetry by his works, and then by his parts; and if in neither of these anatomies he be commendable, I hope we shall receive a more favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching, of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed; the final end is, to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings,” can be capable of. This, according to the inclination of man, bred many formed im- pressions; for some that thought this felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and no knowledge to be so high or heavenly as to be acquainted with the stars, gave themselves to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be demi-gods, if they knew the causes of things, became natural and super- natural philosophers. Some an admirable delight drew to music, and some the certainty of demonstrations to the mathe- matics; but all, one and other, having this scope to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence. But when, by the balance of experience, it was found that the astronomer, looking to the stars, might fall in a ditch; that the enquiring philosopher might be blind in himself; and the mathematician might draw forth a straight line with a crooked 1 § 3. Subdivisions of Poetry proper. * Its essence is in the thought, not in apparelling of verse. 3 Heliodorus was Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, and lived in the fourth century. His story of Theagenes and Chariclea, called the “AEthiopica,” was a romantic tale in Greek which was, in Elizabeth's reign, translated into English. * The Poet's Work and Parts. § I. WoRK: What Poetry does for us. * Their clay lodgings— “Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” (Shakespeare, “Merchant of Venice,” act v., sc. 1.) heart; then lo! did proof, the over-ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these are but serving sciences, which, as they have a private end in themselves, so yet are they all directed to the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called åpxtrekrovich, which stands, as I think, in the know- ledge of a man’s self; in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of well doing, and not of well knowing only; even as the saddler's next end is to make a good saddle, but his farther end to serve a nobler faculty, which is horsemanship ; so the horseman's to soldiery; and the soldier not only to have the skill, but to perform the prac- tice of a soldier. So that the ending end of all earthly learning being virtuous action, those skills that most serve to bring forth that have a most just title to be princes over all the rest; wherein, if we can show it rightly, the poet is worthy to have it before any other competitors." 7 Among whom principally to challenge it, step forth the moral philosophers; whom, methinks, I see coming toward me with a sullen gravity (as though they could not abide vice by daylight), rudely clothed, for to witness outwardly their contempt of outward things, with books in their hands against glory, whereto they set their names; sophistically speaking against subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they see the foul fault of anger. These men, casting largesses as they go, of definitions, divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful interrogative do soberly ask: Whether it be possible to find any path so ready to lead a man to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue is; and teacheth it not only by deliver- ing forth his very being, his causes and effects; but also by making known his enemy, vice, which must be destroyed; and his cumbersome servant, passion, which must be mastered, by showing the generalities that contain it, and the speciali- ties that are derived from it; lastly, by plain setting down how it extends itself out of the limits of a man’s own little world, to the government of families, and maintaining of public societies? The historian 8 scarcely gives leisure to the moralist to say so much, but that he (laden with old mouse-eaten records, authérizing” himself, for the most part, upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable founda- tion of hearsay, having much ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goes than how his own wit runs; curious for antiquities, and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder to young folks, and a tyrant in table-talk) denieth, in a great chafe, that any man for teaching of virtue and virtuous actions, is comparable to him. I am “Testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuncia vetustatis.” The philosopher, saith he, teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an active; his virtue is excellent in the dangerless academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth her honourable face in the battles of Marathon, Pharsalia, Poictiers, and Agincourt: he teacheth virtue by certain abstract considerations; but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have gone before you : old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine- witted philosopher; but I give the experience of many ages. Lastly, if he make the song book, I put the learner's hand to the lute; and if he be the guide, I am the light. Then would 6 Poetry best advances the end of all earthly learning, virtuous action. 7 Its advantage herein over Moral Philosophy. 8 Its advantage herein over History. 9 “All men make faults, and even I in this, . . . . Authérising thy trespass with compare.” Shakespeare, “Sonnet” 35. 10 “Witness of the times, light of truth, life of memory, mistress of life, messenger of antiquity.”—Cicero, “De Oratore.” 186 74 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581 he allege you innumerable examples, confirming story by stories, how much the wisest senators and princes have been directed by the credit of history, as Brutus, Alphonsus of Aragon (and who not P if need be). At length, the long line of their disputation makes a point in this, that the one giveth the precept, and the other the example. * Now whom shall we find, since the question standeth for the highest form in the school of learning, to be moderator P Truly, as me seemeth, the poet; and if not a moderator, even the man that ought to carry the title from them both, and much more from all other serving sciences. Therefore compare we the poet with the historian, and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can match him ; for as for the Divine, with all reverence, he is ever to be excepted, not only for having his scope as far beyond any of these, as eternity exceedeth a moment, but even for passing each of these in themselves; and for the lawyer, though “Jus” be the daughter of Justice, the chief of virtues, yet because he seeks to make men good rather “formidine poenae'' than “virtutis amore,” or, to say righter, doth not endeavour to make men good, but that their evil hurt not others, having no care, so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be : therefore, as our wickedness maketh him necessary, and necessity maketh him honourable, so is he not in the deepest truth to stand in rank with these, who all endeavour to take naughtiness away, and plant goodness even in the secretest cabinet of our souls. And these four are all that any way deal in the consideration of men's manners, which being the supreme knowledge, they that best breed it deserve the best commendation. The philosopher, therefore, and the historian are they which would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example; but both, not having both, do both halt. For the philosopher, setting down with thorny arguments the bare rule, is so hard of utterance, and so misty to be conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade in him until he be old, before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest. For his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy that can apply what he doth understand. On the other side the historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should be, but to what is; to the particular truth of things, and not to the general reason of things; that his example draweth no necessary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine. * Now doth the peerless poet perform both ; for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it, by some one by whom he pre-supposeth it was dome, so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I say; for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so much as that other doth. For as, in outward things, to a man that had never seen an elephant, or a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shape, colour, bigness, and par- ticular marks? or of a gorgeous palace, an architect, who, declaring the full beauties, might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were, by rote, all he had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceit, with being witness to itself of a true living knowledge; but the same man, as soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or that house well in 1 In what manner the Poet goes beyond Philosopher, Historian, and all others (bating comparison with the Divine). 2 He is beyond the Philosopher. model, should straightway grow, without need of any de- scription, to a judicial comprehending of them; so, no doubt, the philosopher, with his learned definitions, be it of virtue or vices, matters of public policy or private government, replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds of wisdom, which, notwithstanding, lie dark before the imagi- native and judging power, if they be not illuminated or figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy. Tully taketh much pains, and many times not without poetical help, to make us know the force love of our country hath in us. Let us but hear old Anchises, speaking in the midst of Troy's flames, or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from barren and beg- garly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness; let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing or whip- ping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus; and tell me, if you have not a more familiar insight into anger, than finding in the schoolmen his genus and difference P See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valour in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant man, carry not an apparent shining; and, contrarily, the remorse of conscience in CEdipus; the soon-repenting pride in Aga- memnon ; the self-devouring cruelty in his father Atreus; the violence of ambition in the two Theban brothers; the sour sweetness of revenge in Medea ; and, to fall lower, the Teren- tian Gnatho, and our Chaucer's Pandar, so expressed, that we now use their names to signify their trades; and finally, all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural states laid to the view, that we seem not to hear of them, but clearly to see through them P But even in the most excellent determination of goodness, what philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon P Or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as AEneas in Virgil P Or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's Utopia P I say the way, because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way of patterning a com- monwealth was most absolute, though he, perchance, hath not so absolutely performed it. For the question is, whether the feigned image of poetry, or the regular instruction of philo- sophy, hath the more force in teaching. Wherein, if the philosophers have more rightly showed themselves philoso- phers, than the poets have attained to the high top of their profession, (as in truth, Mediocribus esse poétis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnae,”) it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that art can be accomplished. Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have given the moral common-places * of uncharitableness and humbleness, as the divine narration of 8 Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” lines 372—3. But Horace wrote “Non homines, non Di’”—“Neither men, gods, nor lettered columns have admitted mediocrity in poets.” * The moral common-places. Common Place, “Locus communis,” was a term used in old rhetoric to represent testimonies or pithy sentences of good authors which might be used for strengthening or adorning a discourse; but said Keckermann, whose Rhetoric was a text-book in the days of James I. and Charles I., “Because it is impossible thus to read through all authors, there are books that give students of eloquence what they need in the succinct form of books of Common Places, like that collected by Stobaeus out of Cicero, Seneca, Terence, Aristotle; but especially the book entitled “Polyanthea,” provides short and effective sentences apt to any matter.” Frequent resort to the Polyanthea caused many a good quotation to be hacknied; the term of rhetoric, “a common-place,” came then to mean a good saying made familiar by incessant quoting, and then, in common speech, any trite saying, good or bad, but commonly without wit in it. To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 75 Dives and Lazarus; or of disobedience and mercy, as the heavenly discourse of the lost child and the gracious father; but that his thorough searching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment. Truly, for myself (me seems), I see before mine eyes the lost child's disdainful, prodigality turned to envy a swine's dinner; which, by the learned divines, are thought not historical acts, but instructing parables. For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him ; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs; the poet is, indeed, the right popular philosopher. Whereof AEsop's tales give good proof; whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from those dumb speakers. But now may it be alleged, that if this managing of matters be so fit for the imagination, then must the historian needs surpass, who brings you images of true matters, such as, indeed, were done, and not such as fantastically or falsely may be suggested to have been done. Truly, Aristotle him- self, in his Discourse of Poesy, plainly determineth this ques- tion, saying, that poetry is pixoa opdrepov kal atrovčaiórepov, that is to say, it is more philosophical and more ingenious than history. His reason is, because poesy dealeth with ka96Aov, that is to say, with the universal consideration, and the history ka0' ºrcaortov, the particular. “Now,” saith he, “the universal weighs what is fit to be said or done, either in likelihood or necessity; which the poesy considereth in his imposed names; and the particular only marks, whether Alci- biades did, or suffered, this or that:” thus far Aristotle." Which reason of his, as all his, is most full of reason. For, indeed, if the question were, whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely set down P there is no doubt which is to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have Vespasian's picture right as he was, or, at the painter's pleasure, nothing resembling? But if the question be, for your own use and learning, whether it be better to have it set down as it should be, or as it was 2 then, certainly, is more doctrinable the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon, than the true Cyrus in Justin;” and the feigned AEneas in Virgil, than the right AEneas in Dares Phrygius;* as to a lady that desired to fashion her countenance to the best grace, a painter should more benefit her, to portrait a most sweet face, writing Canidia upon it, than to paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth, was full ill-favoured. If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tantalus, Atreus, and such 1 Thus far Aristotle. The whole passage in the “Poetics” runs : “It is not by writing in verse or prose that the Historian and Poet are dis- tinguished. The work of Herodotus might be versified; but it would still be a species of History, no less with metre than without. They are distinguished by this, that the one relates what has been, the other what might be. On this account Poetry is more philosophical, and a more-excellent thing-than History, for Poetry is chiefly con- versant about general truth; History about particular. In what manner, for example, any person of a certain character would speak or act, probably or necessarily, this is general; and this is the object of Poetry, even while it makes use of particular names. But what Alcibiades did, or what happened to him, this is particular truth.” * Justinus, who lived in the second century, made an epitome of the history of the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires, from Trogus Pompeius, who lived in the time of Augustus. 3 Dares Phrygius was supposed to have been a priest of Vulcan, who was in Troy during the siege, and the Phrygian Iliad ascribed to him as early as the time of Ælian, A,D. 230, was supposed, therefore, to be older than Homer's. like, nothing that is not to be shunned; in Cyrus, AEneas, Ulysses, each thing to be followed; where the historian, bound to tell things as things were, cannot be liberal, without he will be poetical, of a perfect pattern; but, as in Alexander, or Scipio himself, show doings, some to be liked, some to be misliked; and then how will you discern what to follow, but by your own discretion, which you had, without reading Q. Curtius P* And whereas, a man may say, though in uni- versal consideration of doctrine, the poet prevaileth, yet that the history, in his saying such a thing was done, doth warrant a man more in that he shall follow ; the answer is manifest: that if he stand upon that was, as if he should argue, because it rained yesterday therefore it should rain to-day; then, indeed, hath it some advantage to a gross conceit. But if he know an example only enforms a conjectured likelihood, and so go by reason, the poet doth so far exceed him, as he is to frame his example to that which is most reasonable, be it in warlike, politic, or private matters; where the his- torian in his bare was hath many times that which we call fortune to overrule the best wisdom. Many times he must tell events whereof he can yield no cause; or if he do, it must be poetically. For, that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true example (for as for to move, it is clear, since the feigned may be tuned to the highest key of passion), let us take one example wherein an historian and a poet did concur. Herodotus and Justin do both testify, that Zopyrus, King Darius's faithful servant, seeing his master long resisted by the rebellious Babylonians, feigned himself in extreme disgrace of his King; for verifying of which he caused his own nose and ears to be cut off, and so flying to the Babylonians, was received; and, for his known valour, so far credited, that he did find means to deliver them over to Darius. Much-like matters doth Livy record of Tar- quinius and his son. Xenophon excellently feigned such another stratagem, performed by Abradatus in Cyrus's behalf. Now would I fain know, if occasion be presented unto you to serve your prince by such an honest dissimula- tion, why do you not as well learn it of Xenophon's fiction as of the other's verity ? and, truly, so much the better, as you shall save your nose by the bargain; for Abradatus did not counterfeit so far. So, then, the best of the historians is subject to the poet; for, whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation, make his own, beautifying it both for farther teaching, and more delighting, as it please him ; having all, from Dante's heaven to his hell, under the authority of his pen. Which if I be asked, What poets have done so P as I might well name some, so yet, say I, and say again, I speak of the art, and not of the artificer. Now, to that which commonly is attributed to the praise of history, in respect of the notable learning which is got |by marking the success, as though therein a man should see virtue exalted, and vice punished: truly, that commendation is peculiar to poetry, and far off from history; for, indeed, poetry ever sets virtue so out in her best colours, making fortune her well-waiting handmaid, that one must needs be enamoured of her. Well may you see Ulysses in a storm, and in other hard plights; but they are but exercises of patience and magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the near following prosperity. And, on the contrary part, if evil men come to the stage, they ever go out (as the tragedy * Quintus Curtius, a Roman historian of uncertain date, who wrote the history of Alexander the Great in ten books, of which two are lost and others defective. 76 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581 writer answered to one that misliked the show of such persons) so manacled, as they little animate folks to follow them. But history being captive to the truth of a foolish world, in many times a terror from well-doing, and an en- couragement to unbridled wickedness. For see we not valiant Miltiades rot in his fetters ? the just Phocion and the accomplished Socrates put to death like traitors? the cruel Severus live prosperously the excellent Severus miserably murdered? Sylla and Marius dying in their beds? Pompey and Cicero slain then when they would have thought exile a happiness 2 See we not virtuous Cato driven to kill him- self, and rebel Caesar so advanced, that his name yet, after sixteen hundred years, lasteth in the highest honour? And mark but even Caesar's own words of the forenamed Sylla, (who in that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest tyranny), “literas nescivit: ” as if want of learning caused him to do well. He meant it not by poetry, which, not content with earthly plagues, deviseth new punishment in hell for tyrants: nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth “occidentes esse: ” but, no doubt, by skill in history; for that, indeed, can afford you Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well enough in their abominable injustice of usurpation. I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward to that which deserves to be called and accounted good: which setting forward, and moving to well-doing, indeed, setteth the laurel crowns upon the poets as victorious ; not only of the historian, but over the philosopher, howso- ever, in teaching, it may be questionable. For suppose it be granted, that which I suppose, with great reason, may be denied, that the philosopher, in respect of his methodical proceeding, teach more perfectly than the poet, yet do I think, that no man is so much pixotbiXóoroqos, as to compare the philosopher in moving with the poet. And that moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it may by this appear, that it is well nigh both the cause and effect of teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught And what so much good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach. For, as Aristotle saith, it is not yuája is but tradišts must be the fruit: and how trpciºus can be, without being moved to practise, it is no hard matter to consider. The philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness of the way and of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you from your way; but this is to no man, but to him that will read him, , and read him with attentive, studious painfulness; which constant desire whosoever hath in him, hath already passed half the hardness of the way, and there- fore is beholden to the philosopher but for the other half. Nay, truly, learned men have learnedly thought, that where once reason hath so much over-mastered passion, as that the mind hath a free desire to do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself is as good as a philosopher's book: since in nature we know it is well to do well, and what is well and what is evil, although not in the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us; for out of natural conceit the philosophers drew it; but to be moved to do that which we know, or to be moved with desire to know, “hoc opus, hic labor est.” * Now, therein, of all Sciences (I speak still of human, and 1 Not knowledge but practice. .* The Poet Monarch of all Hwman Sciences, according to the human conceit), is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it; nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass farther. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness, but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner;” and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste; which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or rhubarbarum they should receive, would sooner take their physic at their ears than at their mouth ; so it is in men (most of them are childish in the best things, till they be cradled in their graves); glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, AEneas; and hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valour, and justice; which, if they had been barely (that is to say, philosophically) set out, they would swear they be brought to school again. That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to nature of all other; insomuch that, as Aristotle Saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made, in poetical imitation, delightful. Truly, I have known men, that even with read- ing Amadis de Gaule, which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a perfect poesy, have found their hearts moved to the exercise of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who readeth AEneas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune to perform so excellent an act 2 Whom doth not those words of Turnus move (the tale of Turnus having planted his image in the imagination) “—fugientem hac terra widebit P Usque adeone mori miserum est?” Where the philosophers (as they think) scorn to delight, so much they be content little to move, saving wrangling whether “virtus” be the chief or the only good; whether the contemplative or the active life do excel; which Plato and Boetius well knew ; and therefore made mistress Philo- sophy very often borrow the masking raiment of poesy. For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think virtue a school-name, and know no other good but “indulgere genio,” and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the philo- sopher, and feel not the inward reason they stand upon; yet will be content to be delighted, which is all the good-fellow poet seems to promise; and so steal to see the form of good- ness, which seen, they cannot but love, ere themselves be aware, as if they took a medicine of cherries. 3 In “Love's Labour's Lost” a resemblance has been fancied between this passage and Rosalind's description of Biron, and the jest:- “Which his fair tongue—conceit’s expositor- Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That agéd ears play truant at his tables, And younger hearings are quite ravishéd, So sweet and voluble is his discourse.” * Wirgil’s “AEneid,” Book xii. :— “And shall this ground fainthearted dastard Turnus flying view P Is it so vile a thing to die?”—(Phaer's Translation [1573].) To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 77 * Infinite proofs of the strange effects of this poetical in- vention might be alleged; only two shall serve, which are so often remembered, as, I think, all men know them. The one of Menenius Agrippa, who, when the whole people of Rome had resolutely divided theniselves from the Senate, with apparent show of utter ruin, though he were, for that time, an excellent orator, came not among them upon trust, either of figurative speeches, or cunning insinuations, and much less with far-fetched maxims of philosophy, which, especially if they were Platonic, they must have learned geometry before they could have conceived; but, forsooth, he behaveth himself like a homely and familiar poet. He telleth them a tale, that there was a time, when all the parts of the body made a mutinous conspiracy against the belly, which they thought devoured the fruits of each other's labour; they concluded they would let so unprofitable a spender starve. In the end, to be short (for the tale is notorious, and as notorious that it was a tale), with punishing the belly they plagued themselves. This, applied by him, wrought such effect in the people, as I never read that only words brought forth; but then so sudden, and so good an alteration, for upon reasonable conditions a perfect reconcile- ment ensued. The other is of Nathan the prophet, who, when the holy David had so far forsaken God, as to confirm adultery with murder, when he was to do the tenderest office of a friend, in laying his own shame before his eyes, being sent by God to call again so chosen a servant, how doth he it P but by telling of a man whose beloved lamb was ungratefully taken from his bosom. The application most divinely true, but the discourse itself feigned; which made David (I speak of the second and instrumental cause) as in a glass see his own filthiness, as that heavenly psalm of mercy well testifieth. By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest, that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a conclusion not unfitly ensues; that as virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make his end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent workman. But I am content not only to decipher him by his works (although works in commendation and dispraise must ever hold a high authority), but more narrowly will examine his parts; so that (as in a man) though all together may carry a presence full of majesty and beauty, perchance in some one defectuous” piece we may find blemish. *Now, in his parts, kinds, or species, as you list to term them, it is to be noted, that some poesies have coupled together two or three kinds; as the tragical and comical, whereupon is risen, the tragi-comical; some, in the manner, have mingled prose and verse, as Sannazaro and Boetius; Some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral; but that cometh all to one in this question; for, if severed they be good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful. Therefore, per- chance, forgetting some, and leaving some as needless to be remembered, it shall not be amiss, in a word, to cite the special kinds, to see what faults may be found in the right use of them. Is it then the pastoral poem which is misliked ** For, perchance, where the hedge is lowest, they will soonest leap 1 Instances of the power of the Poet's work. * Defectuous. This word, from the French “defectueux,” is used twice in the “Apologie for Poetrie.” $ $ II. The PARTs of Poetry. ~, * Can Pastoral be condemned? over. Is the poor pipe disdained, which sometimes, out of Melibaeus's mouth, can show the misery of people under hard lords and ravening soldiers? And again, by Tityrus, what blessedness is derived to them that lie lowest from the goodness of them that sit highest ? Sometimes under the pretty tales of wolves and sheep, can include the whole considerations of wrong doing and patience; sometimes show, that contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory ; where, perchance, a man may see, that even Alexander and Darius, when they strove who should be cock of this world's dunghill, the benefit they got was, that the after-livers may say, Haec memini, et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim. Exillo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis 5 Or is it the lamenting elegiac," which, in a kind heart, would move rather pity than blame; who bewaileth, with the great philosopher Heraclitus, the weakness of mankind, and the wretchedness of the world; who, surely, is to be praised, either for compassionately accompanying just causes of lamentations, or for rightly pointing out how weak be the passions of woefulness P Is it the bitter, but wholesome iambic,7 who rubs the galled mind, making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying out against naughtiness? Or, the satiric? who, Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico ; 8 who sportingly never leaveth, until he make a man laugh at folly, and, at length, ashamed to laugh at himself, which he cannot avoid without avoiding the folly; who, while “circum praecordia ludit,” giveth us to feel how many headaches a passionate life bringeth us to ; who when all is done, Est Ulubris, animus sinos non deficit apquus.” * The close of Virgil’s seventh Eclogue—Thyrsis was vanquished, and Corydon crowned with lasting glory. 6 Or Elegiac Ż 7 Oy Iambic 2 or Satiric f * From the first Satire of Persius, line 116, in a description of Homer’s satire : “Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum praecordia ludit,” &c. Shrewd Flaccus touches each vice in his laughing friend. Dryden thus translated the whole passage:– “ Unlike in method, with concealed design Did crafty Horace his low numbers join ; And, with a sly insinuating grace Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face : Would raise a blush where secret vice he found ; And tickle, while he gently probed the wound ; With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled, But made the desperate passes while he smiled.” 9 From the end of the eleventh of Horace's epistles (Lib. 1): “Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt, Strenua nos exercet inertia ; navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hic est, Est Ulubris, animus site non deficit aequus.” They change their skies but not their mind who run across the SeaS ; We toil in laboured idleness, and seek to live at ease With force of ships and four horse teams. That which you seek is here, At Ulubrae, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear. “At Ulubrae” was equivalent to saying in the dullest corner of the world, or anywhere. Ulubrae was a little town probably in Campania, a Roman Little Pedlington. Thomas Carlyle may have had this passage in mind when he gave to the same thought a grander form in Sartor Resartus: “May we not say that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even this? When your ideal world, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open, and you discover with . amazement enough, like the Lothario in Willielm Meister, that your W8 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581 No, perchance it is the comic; whom naughty play-makers and stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the arguments of abuse I will after answer; only thus much now is to be Said, that the comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be; so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one. Now, as in geometry, the oblique must be known as well as the right, and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in the actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so, in our private and domestical matters, as, with hearing it, we get, as it were, an experience of what is to be looked for, of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a vain-glorious Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be expected, but to know who be such, by the signifying badge given them by the comedian. And little reason hath any man to say, that men learn the evil by seeing it so set out ; since, as I said before, there is no man living, but by the force truth hath in nature, no sooner Seeth these men play their parts, but wisheth them in “pistrinum;” although perchance the Sack of his own faults lie so behind his back, that he seeth not himself to dance in the same measure, whereto yet nothing can more open his eyes than to see his own actions contemptibly set forth; so that the right use of comedy will, I think, by nobody be blamed. And much less of the high and excellent tragedy,” that openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue; that maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants to manifest their tyrannical humours; that with stirring the effects of admiration and commiseration, teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and upon how weak foundations gilded roofs are builded; that maketh us know, “qui sceptra Saevus duro imperio regit, timet timentes, metus in authorem redit.” But how much it can move, Plutarch yielded a notable testimony of the abominable tyrant Alexander Pheraeus; from whose eyes a tragedy, well made and represented, drew abundance of tears, who without all pity had murdered infinite numbers, and some of his own blood; So as he that was not ashamed to make matters for tragedies, yet could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy. And if it wrought no farther good in him, it was that he, in despite of himself, withdrew himself from hearkening to that which might mollify his hardened heart. But it is not the tragedy they do dislike, for it were too absurd to cast out so excellent a representation of whatsoever is most worthy to 'be learned. Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who with his tuned lyre and well accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous acts P who giveth moral precepts and natural problems ? who sometimes raiseth up his voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the lauds of the immortal God? Certainly, I must confess mine own barbarousness; I America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere, is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom, believe, live, and be free, Fool the Ideal is in thyself, theimpediment too is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of. What matter whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic P O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldst thou only see.” never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet;4 and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgous eloquence of Pindar? In Hungary I have seen it the manner at all feasts, and all other such-like meetings, to have songs of their ancestors' valour, which that right soldier-like nation think one of the chiefest kindlers of brave courage. The incomparable Lacedaemonians did not only carry that kind of music ever with them to the field, but even at home, as such songs were made, so were they all content to be singers of them; when the lusty men were to tell what they did, the old men what they had done, and the young what they would do. And where a man may say, that Pindar many times praiseth highly victories of small moment, rather matters of sport than virtue; as it may be answered, it was the fault of the poet, and not of the poetry, so, indeed, the chief fault was in the time and custom of the Greeks, who set those toys at so high a price, that Philip of Macedon reckoned a horse-race won at Olympus among his three fearful felicities. But as the inimitable Pindar often did, so is that kind most capable, and most fit, to awake the thoughts from the sleep of idleness, to embrace honourable enterprises. There rests the heroical,” whose very name, I think, should daunt all backbiters. For by what conceit can a tongue be directed to speak evil of that which draweth with him no less champions than Achilles, Cyrus, AEneas, Turus, Tydeus, Rinaldo P who doth not only teach and move to truth, but teacheth and moveth to the most high and excellent truth: who maketh magnanimity and justice shine through all misty fearfulness and foggy desires P who, if the saying of Plato and Tully be true, that who could see virtue, would be wonderfully ravished with the love of her beauty; this man setteth her out to make her more lovely, in her holiday apparel, to the eye of any that will deign not to disdain until they understand. But if any thing be already said in the defence of sweet poetry, all concurreth to the maintaining the heroical, which is not only a kind, but the best and most accomplished kind, of poetry. For, as the image of each action stirreth and instructeth the mind, so the lofty image of such worthies most inflameth the mind with desire to be worthy, and informs with counsel how to be worthy. Only let AEneas be worn in the tablet of your memory, how he governeth himself in the ruin of his country; in the preserv- ing his old father, and carrying away his religious ceremonies; in obeying God’s commandments, to leave Dido, though not only passionate kindness, but even the human consideration of virtuous gratefulness, would have craved other of him; how in storms, how in sports, how in war, how in peace, how a fugitive, how victorious, how besieged, how besieging, how to strangers, how to allies, how to enemies; how to his own, lastly, how in his inward self, and how in his outward government; and I think, in a mind most prejudiced with a prejudicating humour, he will be found in excellency fruitful. Yea, as Horace saith, “Melius Chrysippo et Crantore: ”6 but, truly, I imagine it falleth out with these poet-whippers as with some good women who often are sick, but in faith they cannot tell where. So the name of poetry is odious to them, but neither his cause nor effects, neither 1 Or Comic 2 * In pistrinum. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or asses). 3 Or Tragic f 4 The old song of Percy and Douglas,Chevy Chase in its first form. See the volume of “Shorter English Poems” in this Library, pp.102—104. 5 Or the Heroic f 6 Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the fir commentator upon Plato. * to A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE works. 79 the sum that contains him, nor the particularities descending from him, give any fast handle to their carping dispraise. Since, then," poetry is of all human learnings the most ancient, and of most fatherly antiquity, as from whence other learnings have taken their beginnings; since it is so universal that no learned nation doth despise it, nor barbarous nation is without it; since both Roman and Greek gave such divine names unto it, the one of prophesying, the other of making, and that indeed that name of making is fit for him, considering, that where all other arts retain themselves within their subject, and receive, as it were, their being from it, the poet only, only bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a conceit out of a matter, but maketh matter for a conceit ; since neither his description nor end containeth any evil, the thing described cannot be evil; since his effects be so good as to teach goodness, and delight the learners of it; since therein (namely, in moral doctrine, the chief of all knowledges) he doth not only far pass the historian, but, for instructing, is well nigh comparable to the philosopher; for moving, leaveth him behind him ; since the Holy Scripture (wherein there is no uncleanness) hath whole parts in it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; since all his kinds are not only in their united forms, but in their severed dissections fully commend- able; I think, and think I think rightly, the laurel crown appointed for triumphant captains, doth worthily, of all other learnings, honour the poet's triumph. *But because we have ears as well as tongues, and that the lightest reasons that may be, will seem to weigh greatly, if nothing be put in the counter-balance, let us hear, and, as well as we can, ponder what objections be made against this art, which may be worthy either of yielding or answering. First, truly, I note, not only in these utorouotaol, poet- haters, but in all that kind of people who seek a praise by dispraising others, that they do prodigally spend a great many wandering words in quips and scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing, which, by stirring the spleen, may stay the brain from a thorough beholding the worthiness of the subject. Those kind of objections, as they are full of a very idle uneasiness (since there is nothing of so sacred a majesty, but that an itching tongue may rub itself upon it), so deserve they no other answer, but, instead of laughing at the jest, to laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can praise the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness of being in debt, and the jolly commodities of being sick of the plague; so, of the contrary side, if we will turn Ovid's verse, |Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali, “That good lies hid in nearness of the evil,” Agrippa will be as merry in the showing the Vanity of Science, as Erasmus was in the commending of Folly; * neither shall any man or matter escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another foundation than the superficial part would promise. Marry, these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they confirm their own; I would have them only remember, that scoffing cometh not of wisdom; so as the best title in true English they get with their merriments, is to be called good fools; for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters. But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humour, is rhyming and versing.” It is already said, and, as I think, truly said, it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy; one may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry. But yet, presuppose it were inseparable, as indeed, it seemeth Scaliger judgeth truly, it were an insepar- able commendation; for if ‘‘ oratio” next to “ratio,” speech next to reason, be the greatest gift bestowed upon mortality, that cannot be praiseless which doth most polish that blessing of speech; which considereth each word, not only as a man may say by his forcible quality, but by his best measured quantity; carrying even in themselves a harmony; without, perchance, number, measure, order, proportion be in our time grown odious. But lay aside the just praise it hath, by being the only fit speech for music—music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses; thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish without remembering, memory being the only treasure of knowledge, those words which are fittest for memory, are likewise most convenient for knowledge. Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the memory, the reason is manifest : the words, besides their delight, which hath a great affinity to memory, being so set as one cannot be lost, but the whole work fails: which accusing itself, calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most strongly confirmeth it. Besides, one word so, as it were, begetting another, as, be it in rhyme or measured verse, by the former a man shall have a near guess to the follower. Lastly, even they that have taught the art of memory, have showed nothing so apt for it as a certain room divided into many places, well and thoroughly known; now that hath the verse in effect perfectly, every word having his natural seat, which seat must needs make the word remembered. But what needs more in a thing so known to all men º’ Who is it that ever was a scholar that doth not carry away some verses of Virgil, Horace, or Cato, which in his youth he learned, and even to his old age serve him for hourly lessons P as, Bercontatorem fugito : nam garrulus idem est. Dum sibi quisque placet credula turba Sumus.* But the fitness it hath for memory is notably proved by all delivery of arts, wherein, for the most part, from grammar to logic, mathematics, physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly necessary to be borne away are compiled in verses. So that verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being best for memory, the only handle of knowledge, it must be in jest that any man can speak against it. 6 Now then go we to the most important imputations laid to the poor poets; for aught I can yet learn, they are these. First, that there being many other more fruitful know- ledges, a man might better spend his time in them than in this. - Secondly, that it is the mother of lies. Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires, with a syren Sweetness, drawing the mind to the serpent's tail of sinful fancies; and herein especially, comedies give the largest field to ear, as Chaucer saith; how, both in other nations and ours, before poets did 1 Swmmary of the argument thus far. * Objections stated and met. 8 Cornelius Agrippa's book, “I)e Incertitudine et Vanitate Scien- tiarum et Artium ” was first published in 1532; Erasmus’s “Moriae Encomium ” was written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven editions. * The objection to rhyme and metre. 5 The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I., xviii. 69) : “Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler.” The second, “While each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd,” seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):— - “Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit: Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.” A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame, but towards vice we are a credulous crowd. 6 The chief objections. 80 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581 soften us, we were full of courage, given to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled asleep in shady idleness with poets' pastimes. And lastly and chiefly, they cry out with open mouth, as if they had overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them out of his commonwealth. Truly this is much, if there be much truth in it. 1 First, to the first, that a man might better spend his time, is a reason indeed; but it doth, as they say, but “petere principium.” 2 For if it be, as I affirm, that no learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach and move thereto So much as poesy, then is the conclusion manifest, that ink and paper cannot be to a more profitable purpose employed. And certainly, though a man should grant their first assumption, it should follow, methinks, very unwillingly, that good is not good because better is better. But I still and utterly deny that there is sprung out of earth a more fruitful knowledge. 3 To the second, therefore, that they should be the principal liars, I answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of all writers under the sun, the poet is the least liar; and though he would, as a poet, can scarcely be a liar. The astronomer, with his cousin the geometrician, can hardly escape when they take upon them to measure the height of the stars. How often, think you, do the physicians lie, when they aver things good for sicknesses, which afterwards send Charon a great number of Souls drowned in a potion before they come to his ferry. And no less of the rest which take upon them to affirm. Now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth; for, as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is false : so as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirmeth many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many lies: but the poet, as I said before, never affirmeth; the poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he writeth : he citeth not authorities of other histories, but even for his entry calleth the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention; in troth, not labouring to tell you what is or is not, but what should or should not be. And, therefore, though he recount things not true, yet because he telleth them not for true he lieth not; without we will say that Nathan lied in his speech, before alleged, to David; which, as a wicked man durst scarce say, so think I none so simple would say, that AEsop lied in the tales of his beasts; for who thinketh that Æsop wrote it for actually true, were well worthy to have his name chronicled among the beasts he writeth of. What child is there that cometh to a play, and seeing Thebes written in great letters upon an old door, doth believe that it is Thebes P. If then a man can arrive to the child's age, to know that the poet's persons and doings are but pictures what should be, and not stories what have been, they will never give the lie to things not affirmatively, but allegorically and figuratively written; and therefore, as in history, looking for truth, they may go away full fraught with falsehood, so in poesy, looking but for fiction, they shall use the narration but as an imaginative ground-plot of a profitable invention. But hereto is replied, that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case ? But that is easily answered, their naming of men is but to make their 1 That time might be better spent. * Beg the question. 3 That poetry is the mother of lies. picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless; we see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men: and yet, methinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop. The poet nameth Cyrus and Æneas no other way than to show what men of their fames, fortunes, and estates should do. *Their third is, how much it abuseth men's wit, training it to a wanton sinfulness and lustful love. For, indeed, that is the principal if not only abuse I can hear alleged. They say the comedies rather teach, than reprehend, amorous conceits; they say the lyric is larded with passionate sonnets; the elegiac weeps the want of his mistress; and that even to the heroical Cupid hath ambitiously climbed. Alas! Love, I would thou couldst as well defend thyself, as thou canst offend others! I would those on whom thou dost attend, could either put thee away or yield good reason why they keep thee! But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault, although it be very hard, since only man, and no beast, hath that gift to discern beauty; grant that lovely name of love to deserve all hateful reproaches, although even some of my masters the philosophers spent a good deal of their lamp-oil in setting forth the excellency of it; grant, I say, what they will have granted, that not only love, but lust, but vanity, but, if they list, scurrility, possess many leaves of the poets' books; yet, think I, when this is granted, they will find their sentence may, with good manners, put the last words foremost ; and not say that poetry abuseth man’s wit, but that man's wit abuseth poetry. For I will not deny but that man's wit may make poesy, which should be pparrukh, which some learned have defined, figuring forth good things, to be pavraortik), which doth contrariwise infect the fancy with unworthy objects; as the painter, who should give to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine picture fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example, as Abraham Sacrificing his son Isaac, Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Goliath, may leave those, and please an ill-pleased eye with wanton shows of better-hidden matters. But, what I shall the abuse of a thing make the right use odious P Nay, truly, though I yield that poesy may not only be abused, but that being abused, by the reason of his sweet charming force, it can do more hurt than any other army of words, yet shall it be so far from concluding, that the abuse shall give reproach to the abused, that, contrari- wise, it is a good reason, that whatsoever being abused, doth most harm, being rightly used (and upon the right use each thing receives his title) doth most good. Do we not see skill of physic, the best rampire" to our often-assaulted bodies, being abused, teach poison, the most violent destroyer P Doth not knowledge of law, whose end is to even and right all things, being abused, grow the crooked fosterer of horrible injuries? Doth not (to go in the highest) God's word abused breed heresy, and His name abused become blasphemy P Truly, a needle cannot do much hurt, and as truly (with leave of ladies be it spoken) it cannot do much good. With a sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword thou mayest defend thy prince and country; so that, as in their calling poets fathers of lies, they said nothing, so in this their argument of abuse, they prove the commendation. They allege herewith, that before poets began to be in * That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting w8 with teamton and pes- tilent desires. 5 Rampire, rampart, the Old French form of “rempart,” was “rem- par,” from “remparer,” to fortify. . To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. 81 price, our nation had set their heart's delight upon action, and not imagination; rather doing things worthy to be written, than writing things fit to be done. before time was, I think scarcely Sphynx can tell; since no memory is so ancient that gives not the precedence to poetry. And certain it is, that, in our plainest homeliness, yet never was the Albion nation without poetry. Marry, this argu- ment, though it be levelled against poetry, yet it is indeed a chain-shot against all learning or bookishness, as they commonly term it. Of such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is written, that having in the spoil of a famous city taken a fair library, one hangman, belike fit to execute the fruits of their wits, who had murdered a great number of bodies, would have set fire in it. “No,” said another, very gravely, “take heed what you do, for while they are busy about those toys, we shall with more leisure conquer their countries.” This, indeed, is the ordinary doctrine of igno- rance, and many words sometimes I have heard spent in it; but because this reason is generally against all learning, as well as poetry, or rather all learning but poetry; because it were too large a digression to handle it, or at least too superfluous, since it is manifest that all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering many knowledges, which is reading; I only say with Horace, to him that is of that opinion, Jubeo stultum esse libenter l for as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this objection, for poetry is the companion of camps. I dare undertake, Orlando Furioso, or honest King Arthur, will never displease a soldier: but the quiddity of “ens" and “prima materia '' will hardly agree with a corselet. And, therefore, as I said in the beginning, even Turks and Tartars are delighted with poets. Homer, a Greek, flourished before Greece flourished; and if to a slight conjecture a conjecture may be opposed, truly it may seem, that as by him their learned men took almost their first light of knowledge, so their active men receive their first notions of courage. Only Alexander's example may serve, who by Plutarch is accounted of such virtue, that fortune was not his guide but his footstool; whose acts speak for him, though Plutarch did not; indeed the phoenix of warlike princes. This Alexander left his school- master, living Aristotle, behind him, but took dead Homer with, him. He put the philosopher Callisthenes to death, for his seeming philosophical, indeed mutinous, stubbornness; but the chief thing he was ever heard to wish for was that Homer had been alive. He well found he received more bravery of mind by the pattern of Achilles than by hearing the definition of fortitude. And, therefore, if Cato misliked Fulvius for carrying Ennius with him to the field, it may be answered, that if Cato misliked it, the noble Fulvius liked it, or else he had not done it; for it was not the excellent Cato Uticensis, whose authority I would much more have reverenced; but it was the former, in truth a bitter punisher of faults, but else a man that had never sacrificed to the Graces. He misliked and cried out against all Greek learn- ing ; and yet, being fourscore years old, began to learn it, belike fearing that Pluto understood not Latin. Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldier's roll. And, therefore, though Cato misliked his unmustered person, he misliked not his work. And if he had, Scipio Nasica (judged by common consent the best Roman) loved him: both the other Scipio brothers, who had by their virtues no less surnames than of Asia and Afric, so loved him that they caused his body to 1 “I give him free leave to be foolish.” A variation from the line (Sat. I. i. 63), “Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter.” What that be buried in their sepulture. So, as Cato's authority being but against his person, and that answered with so far greater than himself, is herein of no validity. * But now, indeed, my burthen is great, that Plato's name is laid upon me, whom, I must confess, of all philosophers I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with good reason, since of all philosophers he is the most poetical; yet if he will defile the fountain out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what reason he did it. First, truly, a man might maliciously object, that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets. For, indeed, after the philosophers had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the right discerning of true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting it in method, and making a school of art of that which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not content to set up shop for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit their masters; which, by the force of delight being barred them, the less they could overthrow them, the more they hated them. For, indeed, they found for Homer seven cities strove who should have him for their citizen, where many cities banished philosophers as not fit members to live among them. For only repeating certain of Euripides' verses many Athenians had their lives saved of the Syracusans, where the Athenians themselves thought many of the philosophers unworthy to live. Certain poets, as Simonides and Pindar, had so pre- vailed with Hiero the First, that of a tyrant they made him a just king; where Plato could do so little with Dionysius, that he himself, of a philosopher, was made a slave. But who should do thus, I confess, should requite the objections raised against poets, with like cavillations against philosophers; as likewise one should do, that should bid one read Phaedrus or Symposium in Plato, or the discourse of Love in Plutarch, and see whether any poet do authorise abominable filthiness as they do. Again, a man might ask, out of what Commonwealth Plato doth banish them P In sooth, thence where he himself alloweth community of women. So, as belike this banish- ment grew not for effeminate wantonness, since little should poetical sonnets be hurtful, when a man might have what woman he listed. But I honour philosophical instructions, and bless the wits which bred them, so as they be not abused, which is likewise stretched to poetry. Saint Paul himself sets a watchword upon philosophy, indeed upon the abuse. So doth Plato upon the abuse, not upon poetry. Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled the world with wrong opinions of the gods, making light tales of that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the youth depraved with such opinions. Herein may much be said; let this suffice: the poets did not induce such opinions, but did imitate those opinions already induced. For all the Greek stories can well testify, that the very religion of that time stood upon many and many-fashioned gods; not taught so by poets, but followed according to their nature of imitation. Who list may read in Plutarch, the discourses of Isis and Osiris, of the cause why oracles ceased, of the Divine pro- vidence, and see whether the theology of that nation stood not upon such dreams, which the poets indeed superstitiously observed; and truly, since they had not the light of Christ, did much better in it than the philosophers, who, shaking off superstition, brought in atheism. Plato, therefore, whose authority I had much rather justly construe than unjustly resist, meant not in general of poets, * That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic. 187 - 82 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1581 in those words of which Julius Scaliger saith, “qua autho- ritate, barbari quidam atque insipidi, abutivelint ad poetase republică exigendos:” but only meant to drive out those wrong opinions of the Deity, whereof now, without farther law, Christianity hath taken away all the hurtful belief, per- chance as he thought, nourished by then esteemed poets. And a man need go no farther than to Plato himself to know his meaning; who, in his dialogue called Ion,” giveth high, and rightly, divine commendation unto poetry. So as Plato, banishing the abuse, not the thing, not banishing it, but giving due honour to it, shall be our patron, and not our ad- versary. For, indeed, I had much rather, since truly I may do it, show their mistaking of Plato, under whose lion's skin they would make an ass-like braying against poesy, than go about to overthrow his authority; whom, the wiser a man is, the more just cause he shall find to have in admiration; especially since he attributeth unto poesy more than myself do, namely, to be a very inspiring of a divine force, far above man's wit, as in the forenamed dialogue is apparent. Of the other side, who would show the honours have been by the best sort of judgments granted them, a whole sea of examples would present themselves ; Alexanders, Caesars, Scipios, all favourers of poets; Laelius, called the Roman Socrates, himself a poet; so as part of Heautontimeroumenos, in Terence, was supposed to be made by him. And even the Greek Socrates, whom Apollo confirmed to be the only wise man, is said to have spent part of his old time in putting AEsop's Fables into verse: and, therefore, full evil should it become his scholar Plato, to put such words in his master's mouth against poets. But what needs more ? Aristotle writes the Art of Poesy; and why, if it should not be written ? Plutarch teacheth the use to be gathered of them; and how, if they should not be read P And who reads Plutarch's either history or philosophy, shall find he trimmeth both their garments with guards” of poesy. But I list not to defend poesy with the help of his under- ling historiographer. Let it suffice to have showed, it is a fit soil for praise to dwell upon; and what dispraise may be set upon it, is either easily overcome, or transformed into just commendation. So, that since the excellencies of it may be so easily and so justly confirmed, and the low creeping ob- jections so soon trodden down; * it not being an art of lies, but of true doctrine; not of effeminateness, but of notable stirring of courage; not of abusing man's wit, but of strengthening man's wit; not banished, but honoured by Plato; let us rather plant more laurels for to ingarland the poets' heads (which honour of being laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains were, is a sufficient authority to show the price they ought to be held in) than suffer the ill- * Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state. * Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot under- stand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. “I can explain,” says Socrates; “your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. A poet is a light, airy, holy person, who cannot com- pose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him. The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse. . . Like prophets and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the god who speaks to us, and speaks through them.” George Grote, from whose volumes on Plato I quote this translation of the passage, placed “Ion” among the genuine dialogues of Plato. * Guards, trimmings or facings. * The Second Swmmary. own disgracefulness, disgrace the most graceful poesy. favoured breath of such wrong speakers once to blow upon the clear springs of poesy. * But since I have run so long a career in this matter, methinks, before I give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a little more lost time to enquire, why England, the mother of excellent minds, should be grown so hard a step-mother to poets, who certainly in wit ought to pass all others, since all only proceeds from their wit, being, indeed, makers of them- selves, not takers of others. How can I but exclaim, Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laºso P* Sweet poesy' that hath anciently had kings, emperors, Senators, great captains, such as, besides a thousand others, David, Adrian, Sophocles, Germanicus, not only to favour poets, but to be poets; and of our nearer times can present for her patrons, a Robert, King of Sicily; the great King Francis of France; King James of Scotland; such cardinals as Bembus and Bibiena; such famous preachers and teachers as Beza and Melancthon; so learned philosophers as Fracas- torius and Scaliger; so great orators as Pontanus and Muretus; so piercing wits as George Buchanan; so grave councillors as, besides many, but before all, that Hospital” of France, than whom, I think, that realm never brought forth a more accomplished judgment more firmly builded upon virtue ; I say, these, with numbers of others, not only to read others' poesies, but to poetise for others' reading: that poesy, thus embraced in all other places, should only find in our time a hard welcome in England, I think the very earth laments it, and therefore decks our soil with fewer laurels than it was accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England also flourished; and, which is to be noted, even in those times when the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest. And now, that an over-faint quietness should seem to strew the house for poets, they are almost in as good reputation as the mounte- banks at Venice. Truly, even that, as of the one side it giveth great praise to poesy, which, like Venus (but to better purpose), had rather be troubled in the net with Mars, than enjoy the homely quiet of Vulcan; so serveth it for a piece of a reason why they are less grateful to idle England, which now can scarce endure the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily followeth that base men with servile wits, under- take it, who think it enough if they can be rewarded of the printer; and so as Epaminondas is said, with the honour of his virtue, to have made an office by his exercising it, which before was contemptible, to become highly respected; so these men, no more but setting their names to it, by their For now, as if all the Muses were got with child, to bring forth bastard poets, without any commission, they do post over the banks of Helicon, until they make their readers more weary than post-horses; while, in the meantime, they, Queis meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan,8 are better content to suppress the outflowings of their wit, 5 Causes of Defect in English Poetry. * From the invocation at the opening of Virgil's AEmeid (line 12), “Muse, bring to my mind the causes of these things: what divinity was injured . ... that one famous for piety should suffer thus.” 7 The Chancellor, Michel de l'Hôpital, born in 1505, who joined to his great political services (which included the keeping of the Inqui- sition out of France, and long labour to repress civil war) great skill in verse. He died in 1573. 8 Whose heart-strings the Titan (Prometheus) fastened with a better clay. (Juvenal, Sat. xiv. 35). Dryden translated the line, with its context- “Some sons, indeed, some very few, we see Who keep themselves from this infection free, Whom gracious Heaven for nobler ends designed, Their looks erected, and their clay refined,” to A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 83 than by publishing them to be accounted knights of the same order. But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the dignity, am admitted into the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the very true cause of our wanting estimation, is want of desert, taking upon us to be poets in despite of Pallas. Now, wherein we want desert, were a thankworthy labour to express. But if I knew, I should have mended myself; but as I never desired the title, so have I neglected the means to come by it; only, overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy itself, should seek to know what they do ; and how they do, especially, look themselves in an unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable unto it. For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must be gently led, or rather it must lead ; which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it. And therefore is an old proverb, “Orator fit, poeta nascitur.” Yet confess I always, that as the fertilest ground must be manured, so must the highest flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him. That Daedalus, they say, both in this and in other, hath three wings to bear itself up into the air of due commendation; that is, art, imitation, and exercise. But these, neither artificial rules, nor imitative patterns, we much cumber ourselves withal. Exercise, indeed, we do, but that very forebackwardly; for where we should exercise to know, we exercise as having known; and so is our brain delivered of much matter, which never was begotten by knowledge. For there being two principal parts, matter to be expressed by words, and words to express the matter, in neither we use art or imitation rightly. Our matter is “quodlibet,”* indeed, although wrongly, performing Ovid's verse, Quicquid conabor dicere, versus erit; 3 never marshalling it into any assured rank, that almost the readers cannot tell where to find themselves. Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cressida; of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age go so stumblingly after him. Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverend antiquity. I account the Mirror of . Magistrates, meetly furnished of beautiful parts. And in the Earl of Surrey's Lyrics, many things tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble mind. The Shepherds' Kalendar hath much poesy in his eclogues, indeed, worthy the reading, if I be not deceived. That same framing of his “style to an old rustic language, I dare not allow; since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazaro in Italian, did affect it. Besides these, I do not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly) printed that have poetical sinews in them. For proof whereof, let but most of the verses be put in prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found that one verse did but beget another, without ordering at the first what should be at the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a tinkling sound of rhyme, barely accompanied with reason. 1 The orator is made, the poet born. ? What you will; the first that comes. s “Whatever I shall try to write will be verse.” Sidney quotes from memory, and adapts to his context, Tristium IV. x. 26. “Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat adaptOS, Et quod temptabam dicere, versus erat.” * His for “its” here as throughout ; the word “its” not being yet introduced into English writing. * Our tragedies and comedies, not without cause, are cried out against, observing rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry. Excepting Gorboducº (again I say of those that I have seen), which notwithstanding, as it is full of stately speeches, and well-sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality, which it does most delightfully teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy; yet, in truth, it is very defectuous in the cir- cumstances, which grieves me, because it might not remain as an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions. For where the stage should always represent but one place; and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by Aristotle's precept, and common reason, but one day; there is both many days and many places inartificially imagined. But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in all the rest? where you shall have Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so many other under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is,” or else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by, we hear news of ship- wreck in the same place, then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are bound to take it for a cave; while, in the meantime, two armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and then, what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field 2 Now of time they are much more liberal; for ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love; after many traverses she is got with child; delivered of a fair boy; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in love, and is ready to get another child; and all this in two hours' space; which, how absurd it is in sense, even sense may imagine; and art hath taught and all ancient examples justified, and at this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example of the Eunuch in Terence, that containeth matter of two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus have in one place done amiss, let us hit it with him, and not miss with him. But they will say, How then shall we set forth a story which contains both many places and many times? And do they not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history; not bound to follow the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical convenience? Again, many things may be told, which cannot be showed: if they know the difference betwixt report- ing and representing. As for example, I may speak, though I am here, of Peru, and in speech digress from that to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner the ancients took by some “Nuntius,”S to recount things done in former time, or other place. * Lastly, if they will represent an history, they must not, 5 Defects in the Drama. It should be remembered that this was written when the English drama was but twenty years old, and Shakespeare, aged about seventeen, had not yet come to London. The strongest of Shakespeare's precursors had not yet begun to write for the stage. Marlowe had not yet written; and the strength that was to come of the freedom of the English drama had yet to be shown. 6 See the volume of this Library illustrating “English Plays.” pages 47 to 64. - - 7 There was no scenery on the Elizabethan stag * Messenger. - 84 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1581 as Horace saith, begin “ab ovo,” but they must come to the principal point of that one action which they will repre- sent. By example this will be best expressed; I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered, for safety’s sake, with great riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor, King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after Some years, hear- ing of the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, murdereth the child; the body of the child is taken up; Hecuba, she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now, would one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the delivery of the child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of places. But where doth Euripides P Even with the finding of the body; leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged; the dullest wit may conceive it. But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majes- tical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one moment: and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears; or some extreme show of doltish- ness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight; as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration. But our comedians think there is no delight without laugh- ter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay, in themselves, they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature. Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either per- manent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example: we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter; we laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight; we delight in good chances; we laugh at mischances; we delight to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh: we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias,” in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of them, one shall be heartily sorrow he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not, but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander's picture well set out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh without delight: so in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in a woman's attire, spinning at Omphale's commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the representing of so strange a power in love, procures delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter. * From the egg. * Bias, slope; French “biais,” But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is, that they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly clown; or against the law of hospitality, to jest at strangers, because they speak not English so well as we do? what do we learn, since it is certain, Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, Quam quod ridiculos homimes facit P 3 But rather a busy loving courtier, and a heartless threatening Thraso; a self-wise seeming schoolmaster; a wry-transformed traveller: these, if we saw walk in stage names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter, and teaching delightfulness: as in the other, the tragedies of Buchananº do justly bring forth a divine admiration. But I have lavished out too many words of this play matter; I do it, because, as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused; which, like an unmannerly daughter, show- ing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy's honesty to be called in question. * Other sorts of poetry, almost, have wenone, but that lyrical kind of songs and Sonnets, which, if the Lord gave us so good minds, how well it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, both private and public, in singing the praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of that God, who giveth us hands to write, and wits to conceive; of which we might well want words, but never matter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we should ever have new budding occasions. But, truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of unresistible love, if I were a mistress, would never persuade me they were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather read lover's writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases, which hang together like a man that once told me, “the wind was at north-west and by south; ” because he would be sure to name winds enough; than that, in truth, they feel those passions, which easily, as I think, may be bewrayed by the same forcibleness, or “energia,” (as the Greeks call it) of the writer. But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we miss the right use of the material point of poesy. * Now for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may term it) diction, it is even well worse; so is that honey- flowing matron eloquence, apparelled, or rather disguised, in a courtezan-like painted affectation. One time with so far-fetched words, that many seem monsters, but most seem strangers to any poor Englishman: another time with coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the method of a dictionary: another time with figures and flowers, extremely winter-starved. 8 Juvenal, Sat. iii., lines 152—3. paraphrased in his “London:” “Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.” * George Buchanan (who died in 1582, aged seventy-six) had writ- ten in earlier life four Latin tragedies, when Professor of Humani- ties at Bordeaux, with Montaigne in his class. 5 Defects in Lyric Poetry. * Defects in Diction. This being written only a year or two after the publication of “Euphues,” represents that style of the day which was not created but represented by the book from which it took the name of “Euphuism,” Which Samuel Johnson finely To A.D. 1595.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 85 But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and had not as large possession among prose-printers: and, which is to be marvelled, among many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, among some preachers. Truly, I could wish (if at least I might be so bold to wish, in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity) the diligent imitators of Tully and Demosthenes, most worthy to be imitated, did not so much keep Nizolian paper-books" of their figures and phrases, as by attentive translation, as it were, devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs. For now they cast sugar and spice upon every dish that is served at the table: like those Indians, not con- tent to wear ear-rings at the fit and natural place of the ears, but they will thrust jewels through their nose and lips, because they will be sure to be fine. Tully, when he was to drive out Cataline, as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often useth the figure of repetition, as “vivit et vincit, imo in senatum venit, imo in senatum venit,” &c.” Indeed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words, as it were, double out of his mouth; and so do that artificially, which we see men in choler do naturally. And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them in sometimes to a familiar epistle, when it were too much choler to be choleric. How well, store of “similiter cadences” doth sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me think of the sophister, that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he may be counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming fineness, but persuade few, which should be the end of their fineness. Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all herbalists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible. For the force of a similitude not being to prove anything to a contrary disputer, but only to explain to a willing hearer; when that is done, the rest is a most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory from the purpose whereto they were applied, than any whit informing the judg- ment, already either satisfied, or by similitudes not to be satisfied. For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus, the great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence, the one (as Cicero testifieth of them) pretended not to know art, the other not to set by it, because with a plain sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears, which credit is the nearest step to persuasion (which persuasion is the chief mark of oratory); I do not doubt, I say, but that they used these knacks very sparingly; which who doth generally use, any man may see, doth dance to his own music; and so to be noted by the audience, more careful to speak curiously than truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I have found in divers small-learned courtiers a more sound style, than in some professors of learning; of which I can guess no other cause, but that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein (though 1 Nizolian paper-books are commonplace books of quotable passages (see note 4, page 74), so called because an Italian grammarian, Marius Nizolius, born at Bersello in the 15th century, and one of the scholars of the Renaissance in the 16th, was one of the first producers of such volumes. His contribution was an alphabetical folio dictionary of phrases from Cicero: “Thesaurus Ciceronianus, sive Apparatus Lingua Latinae e scriptis Tullii Ciceronis collectus.” * “He lives and wins, may, comes to the Senate, nay, comes to the Senate,” &c. he know it not) doth according to art, though not by art: where the other, using art to show art, and not hide art (as in these cases he should do), flieth from nature, and indeed abuseth art. But what methinks I deserve to be pounded” for straying from poetry to oratory: but both have such an affinity in the wordish considerations, that I think this digression will make my meaning receive the fuller understanding: which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should do, but only finding myself sick among the rest, to show some one or two spots of the common infection grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and manner: whereto our language giveth us great occasion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it.” I know some will Say, it is a mingled language : and why not so much the better, taking the best of both the other ? Another will say, it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise, that it wants not grammar; for grammar it might have, but needs it not ; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumber- Some differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses; which, I think, was a piece of the tower of Babylon's curse, that a man should be put to school to learn his mother tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world, and is particularly happy in compositions of two or three words together, near the Greek, far beyond the Latin ; which is one of the greatest beauties can be in a language. * Now, of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other modern ; the ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according to that framed his verse; the modern, observing only number, with some regard of the accent, the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words, which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the more excel- lent, would bear many speeches; the ancient, no doubt more fit for music, both words and time observing quantity; and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low or lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter, likewise, with his rhyme striketh a certain music to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight, though by another way, it obtaineth the same purpose; there being in either, sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts; for, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbered with elisions. The Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his whole language, hath not one word that hath his accent in the last syllable, saving two, called antepenultima; and little more hath the Spanish, and therefore very gracelessly may they use dactiles. The English is subject to none of these defects. Now for rhyme, though we do not observe quantity, we observe the accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely. That “caesura,” or breathing-place, in the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French and we never almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself the Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the masculine rhyme, but still in the next to the last, which the French call the female; or the next before that, which the Italian calls “sdrucciola :” the example of the former is, “buono,” “suomo; ” of the sdrucciola is, “femina,” “se- mina.” The French, of the other side, hath both the male, * Pounded. Put in the pound, when found astray. * Capacities of the English Language. 5 Metre and Rhyme. 86 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1577 as “bon,” “son,” and the female, as “plaise,” “taise;” but the “sdrucciola " he hath not ; where the English hath all three, as “due,” “true,” “father,” “rather,” “motion,” “potion; ” with much more which might be said, but that already I find the trifling of this discourse is much too much enlarged. 1 So that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England, is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honour poesy, and to be honoured by poesy; I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the Sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of “a rhymer; ” but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecians' divinity; to believe, with Bembus, that they were the first bringers in of all civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no philosopher's precepts can sooner make you an honest man, than the reading of Virgil; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly deity by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy natural and moral, and “quid non?” to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they write, proceeds of a divine fury. Lastly, to believe them- selves, when they tell you, they will make you immortal by their verses. Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers' shops: thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface: thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all: you shall dwell upon superlatives: thus doing, though you be “Libertino patre natus,” you shall suddenly grow “Herculea proles,” Si quid mea Carmina possunt : thus doing, your Soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchisis. But if (fie of such a but ) you be born so near the dull- making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot hear the planet- like music of poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a Mome, as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets; that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour, for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph. In Philip Sidney's life there was not less action than thought. He was a noble type of the young energy of England in his time. Such energy gave life even to the vain search for novelties of speech that sought to put into the daily bread of conversation finer bran than was made of wheat. In Europe there was the domination of Spain, high in wealth and power, to defy and overthrow ; a breach to be made * Last Swmmary and playful peroration. in the great barrier against civil and religious liberty. Far over the western seas there were new worlds to seek, and through the polar ice a bold short cut to be forced, if possible, for commerce with the East. There was a Corporation for the Discovery of New Trades chartered by the Queen. Humphrey Gilbert, as a member of it, urged that the Indies might be reached by Sailing to the north-west instead of the north-east. His “Discourse to prove a Passage by the North- west to Cathay and the East Indies,” was printed in 1577, by Richard Eden, in his “History of Travayle in the West and East Indies,” and again in Richard Hakluyt's record of “The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries made by the English Nation,” published in 1589, a noble record of English enterprise by sea, in the plain words of men who were telling their own stories, with the simple vigour that had carried them abroad on their adventures. In June, 1576, Martin Frobisher started northward with two barks, each of them twenty-five tons, the Gabriel and the Michael, and a ten-ton pinnace. He found Frobisher's Straits on his first voyage; sailed again in 1577, and made acquaintance with the people of Meta Incognita. On a third voyage, in 1578, he discovered the great inlet afterwards known as Hudson's Straits. Captain George Best, one of Frobisher's companions, thus describes the peril of an Arctic storm that broke upon them after one of their ships, the Denis, of 100 tons, had been wrecked by an iceberg and lost with its cargo, the crew being saved. AN ARCTIC STORM. The fleet being compassed on every side with ice, having left much behind them through which they passed, and finding more before them through which it was not possible to pass, there arose a sudden and terrible tempest, which, blowing from the main sea directly upon the place of the straits, brought together all the ice a-seaboard of us upon our backs, and thereby debarred us of returning back to recover sea-room again; so that, being thus compassed with danger on every side, sundry men with sundry devices sought the best way to save themselves. Some of the ships, where they could find.a. place more clear of ice, and get a little berth of sea-room, did take in their sails, and there lay adrift. Other some fastened and moored anchor upon a great island of ice, and rode under the lee thereof, supposing to be better guarded thereby from the outrageous winds and the danger of the lesser fleeting ice. And, again, some were so fast shut up and compassed in among an infinite number of great countries and islands of ice that they were fain to commit themselves and their ships to the mercy of the unmerciful ice, and strengthened the sides of their ships with junks of cable, beds, masts, planks, and such- like, which, being hanged overboard on the sides of their ships, might the better defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said ice. But as in greatest distress men of best valour are best to be discerned, so it is greatly worthy commen- dation and noting with what invincible mind every captain encouraged his company, and with what incredible labour the painful mariners and poor miners unacquainted with such extremities, to the everlasting renown of our nation, did overcome the brunt of these great and extreme dangers. For some even without board upon the ice, and some within board upon the sides of their ships, having poles, pikes, pieces of timber, and oars in their hands, stood almost day and night, without any rest, bearing off the force and breaking the sway To A.D. 1589.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 87 of the ice with such incredible pain and peril that it was wonderful to behold; which otherwise, no doubt, had stricken quite through and through the sides of their ships, notwith- standing our former provision; for planks of timber of more than three inches thick, and other things of greater force and bigness, by the surging of the sea and billows with the ice, were shivered and cut in Sunder at the sides of our ships. And amidst these extremes, whilst some laboured for the defence of the ships and sought to save their bodies, other some, of more mild spirit, sought to save their souls by devout prayer and meditation to the Almighty, thinking, indeed, by no other means possible than by a divine miracle to have their deliverance; so that there was none that were either idle or not well occupied ; and he that held himself in best security had, God knoweth, but only bare hope remaining for his Safety. Frobisher was preparing for a fourth attempt when Francis Drake returned in the Pelican, in November, 1580, from his adventurous voyage round the world. The Queen knighted him in 1581, and ordered the Pelican to be preserved. Sir Francis Drake was the son of a Devonshire sailor. He was born at Tavistock in 1545, the eldest of twelve sons, and educated at the expense of Sir John Hawkins. When eighteen years old he was purser of a ship trading to Biscay, at twenty he made a voyage to Guinea, and at twenty- two was captain of the Judith. He served under Sir John Hawkins against the Spaniards; came back poor, planned an attack on Spain in the West Indies that attracted volunteers, earned credit and wealth by other expeditions, and used his wealth in fitting out ships for the service of his country. With Sir Christopher Hatton for a patron, and Elizabeth for a friend, he left Plymouth, in 1577, with a little fleet, the Pelican, his own ship, of 100 tons, the Elizabeth of eighty tons, the Swan of fifty, the Marygold of thirty, and the Christopher of fifteen. He was bent on entering the South Sea through the Straits of Magellan. Before reaching the Straits he had to abandon two of his ships, having taken out the crews and provisions. After entering the great South Sea the Marygold was lost in a storm. The Elizabeth parted company and returned home through the Straits. Drake in the Pelican went boldly on, took gold and silver from ships of the Spaniards—from one ship at Valparaiso, from three ships in the port of Arica, from twelve ships at Lima—and after many adventures in his passage over the whole round of the globe, including the sticking of his own vessel for twenty-seven hours on a rock, when he had to throw overboard eight of his guns, Drake sailed again into Plymouth harbour on the 3rd of November, 1580. In 1585 Sir Francis Drake went as an Admiral with one-and-twenty ships to attack Spain in the West Indies. Two years afterwards, when the great Armada was being prepared by Spain against England, Sir Francis Drake set out with a Small squadron to interfere as much as he could with the preparation Spain was then making for the delivery of what was meant to be a crushing blow. Let us read the record of this expedition obtained by the Rev. Richard Hakluyt from one who took part in it, and given as received, with a few lines of his own at the close which are recognised at once both by their matter and by change from the first person into the third. Richard Hakluyt was about eight years younger than Drake. He was born in 1553, at Eyton, in Herefordshire, educated at Westminster School and at Christchurch, Oxford, was ordained and became, about the year 1584, Chaplain to the English Ambassador in Paris, and also Prebendary of Bristol. He took enthusiastic interest in voyages of adventure and discovery, and we owe to his zeal the transmission to after time of an admirable body of authentic records. He died in the same year as Shakespeare, 1616, and in his latter years, in the reign of James I., was a Prebendary of Westminster, and Rector of Wetheringset, five miles from Eye in Suffolk. A NOTABLE SERVICE PERFORMED BY SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. A brief relation of the notable service performed by Sir Francis Drake upon the Spanish Fleet prepared in the Road of Cadiz.: and of his destroying of 100 sail of barks; Passing from thence all along the coast to Cape Sacre, where also he took certain Forts: and so to the mouth of the River of Lisbon, and thence crossing over to the Isle of Sant Michael, surprised a mighty Carack called the Sant Philip coming out of the East India, which was the first of that kind that ever was seen in England: Per- formed in the year 1587. YTER Majesty being in- formed of a mighty pre- paration by sea begun in Spain for the invasion of England, by good advice of her grave and prudent =={ſ & N. S. ~ ſ z y , \s 'ſ, ſ čº #4%) sails to be rigged and furnished with all things necessary. Over that fleet she appointed Gene- ral Sir Francis Drake (of whose manifold former good services she had sufficient proof), to whom she caused 4 ships of her Navy royal to be delivered, to wit, the Bonaventure wherein himself went as General, the Lion under the conduct of Master William Borough, Controller of the Navy, the Dreadnought under the command of M. Thomas Wenner, and the Rainbow, captain whereof was M. Henry Bellingham: unto which 4 ships two of her pinnaces were appointed as handmaids. There were also added unto this fleet certain tall ships of the City of London, of whose especial good service the General made particular mention in his private letters directed to her Majesty. This fleet set sail from the sound of Plymouth in the month of April towards the coast of Spain. - The 16 of the said month we met in the latitude of 40 degrees with two ships of Middleborough which came from Cadiz; by which we understood that there was great store of warlike provision at Cadiz and thereabout ready to come for Lisbon. Upon this information our General with all speed possible, bending himself thither to cut off their said forces and provisions, upon the 19 of April entered with his fleet into the harbour of Cadiz.: where at our first entering We É is Council thought it ex- H % pedient to prevent the tº same. Whereupon she É H.1 caused a fleet of some 30 ſº- E º *- º Initial from Hakluyt's “Voyages” (1589). 88 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1589 were assailed over against the town by six galleys,' which not- withstanding in short time retired under their fortress. There were in the road 60 ships and divers other small vessels under the fortress: there fled about 20 French ships to Port Real, and some small Spanish vessels that might pass the shoals. At our first coming in we sunk with our shot a ship of Ragusa of a 1000 tons, furnished with forty pieces of brass and very richly laden. There came two galleys more from S. Mary port, and two from Porto Reale, which shot freely at us, but altogether in vain : for they went away with the blows well beaten for their pains. Before night we had taken 30 of the said ships, and become masters of the road, in despite of the galleys, which were glad to retire them under the fort: in the number of which ships there was one new ship of an extraordinary bigness, in burthen above 1200 tons, belonging to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, being at that instant high Admiral of Spain. Five of them were great ships of Biscay, whereof 4 we fired as they their continual shooting from the galleys, the fortresses, and from the shore: where continually at places convenient they planted new ordnance to offend us with : besides the incon- venience which we suffered from their ships which, when they could defend no longer, they set on fire to come among us. Whereupon when the flood came we were not a little troubled to defend us from their terrible fire, which never- theless was a pleasant sight for us to behold, because we were thereby eased of a great labour, which lay upon us day and night, in discharging the victuals and other provisions of the enemy. Thus by the assistance of the Almighty, and the invincible courage and industry of our General, this strange and happy enterprise was achieved in one day and two nights, to the great astonishment of the King of Spain; which bred such a corrosive in the heart of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, high Admiral of Spain, that he never enjoyed good day after, but within few months (as may justly be supposed) died of extreme grief and sorrow. SIR FRANCIs DRAKE TAKING A SPANISH GALLEON (July 22, 1588). From John Pine's Plates of the Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords. were taking in the King's provision of victuals for the fur- nishing of his fleet at Lisbon: the fifth being a ship of about 1000 tons in burthen, laden with iron spikes, nails, iron hoops, horse shoes, and other like necessaries bound for the West Indies, we fired in like manner. Also we took a ship of 250 tons laden with wines for the king's provision, which we carried out to sea with us, and there discharged the said wines for our own store, and afterward set her on fire. Moreover we took 3 fly boats of 300 tons a piece, laden with biscuit, whereof one was half unladen by us in the harbour, and there fired, and the other two we took in our company to the sea. Likewise there were fired by us ten other ships, which were laden with wine, raisins, figs, oils, wheat, and such like. To conclude, the whole number of ships and barks (as we suppose) then burnt, sunk, and brought away with us, amounted to 30 at the least, being (in our judgment) about 10,000 tons of shipping. There were in sight of us at Porto Real about 40 ships, besides those that fled from Cadiz. We found little ease during our abode there, by reason of 1 Galleys. The galley—old Spanish “galea,” later “galera,” Arabic “khaliyah "-a large ship, was low and flat-built, navigated with oars, and often rowed by slaves or prisoners. There is a Spanish galley, with its oars, on the right of t.e picture above, given from the Old Tapestries of the House of Lords. Thus having performed this notable service, we came out of the road of Cadiz on the Friday morning of the 21 of the said month of April, with very Small loss not worth men- tioning. After our departure ten of the galleys that were in the road came out, as it were in disdain of us, to make some pastime with their ordnance, at which time the wind scanted upon us, whereupon we cast about again and stood in with the shore and came to an anchor within a league of the town; where the said galleys, for all their former bragging, at length suffered us to ride quictly. We now have had experience of galley-fight: wherein I can assure you, that only these 4 of her Majesty’s ships will make no account of 20 galleys, if they may be alone, and not busied to guard others. There were never galleys that had better place and fitter opportunity for their advantage to fight with ships: but they were still forced to retire, we riding in a narrow gut, the place yielding no better, and driven to maintain the same until we had discharged and fired the ships, which could not conveniently be done but upon the flood, at which time they might drive clear of us. Thus being victualled with bread and wine at the enemy's cost for divers months (besides the provisions that we brought from home) our General despatched Captain Cross into England with his letters, giving him further in charge to declare unto A.D. 1589.] 89 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. her Majesty all the particularities of this our first enterprise. After whose departure we shipped our course toward Cape Sacre, and in the way thither we took at several times of ships, barks and caravels well near an hundred, laden with hoops, galley oars, pipe staves, and other provisions of the King of Spain for the furnishing of his forces intended against England, all which we burned, having dealt favourably with the men and sent them on shore. We also spoiled and consumed all the fisherboats and nets thereabouts to their great hindrance, and (as we suppose) to the utter overthrow of the rich fishing of their tunnies for the same year. At length we came to the aforesaid Cape Sacre, where we went on land; and the better to enjoy the benefit of the place, and to ride in harbour at our pleasure, we assailed the same castle and three other strongholds, which we took, some by force and some by surrender. Thence we came before the haven of Lisbon, anchoring near unto Cascaes,” where the Marquis of Santa Cruz was with his galleys, who, seeing us chase his ships ashore and take and carry away his barks and caravels, was content to suffer us there quietly to tarry, and likewise to depart, and never charged us with one cannon shot. And when our General sent him word that he was there ready to exchange certain bullets with him, the Marquis refused his challenge, sending him word that he was not then ready for him, nor had any such commission from his King. Our General thus refused by the Marquis, and seeing no more good to be done in this place, thought it convenient to spend no longer time upon this coast : and therefore, with consent of the chief of his company, he shaped his course towards the Isles of the Azores, and passing towards the Isle of Saint Michael, within 20 or 30 leagues thereof, it was his good fortune to meet with a Portugal carack 3 called Sant Philip, being the same ship which in the voyage outward had carried, the three princes of Japan that were in Europe into the Indies. This carack without any great resistance he took, bestowing the people thereof in certain vessels well furnished with victuals, and sending them courteously home into their country: and this was the first carack that ever was taken coming forth of the East Indies; which the Por- tugals took for an evil sign, because the ship bare the King's OWIl Ila Iſlē. The riches of this prize seemed so great unto the whole company (as in truth it was) that they assured themselves every man to have a sufficient reward for his travail; and thereupon they all resolved to return home for England: which they happily did, and arrived in Plymouth the same summer with their whole fleet and this rich booty, to their own profit, and our commendation, and to the great admira- tion of the whole kingdom. And here by the way it is to be noted, that the taking of this carack wrought two extraordinary effects in England: first that it taught others that caracks were no such bugs” but that they might be taken (as since indeed it hath fallen out in the taking of the Madre de Dios, and firing and sinking of 1 Caravels. French “caravelle,” Spanish “caraba,” Modern Greek “kapá6,” Gaelic “cairbh.” A light round ship, of not more than 100 tons, with a square poop ; used in trade. * Cascaes. A seaport town of Portugal, about fifteen miles west of Lisbon. * Carack. The great ship of burden used by the Portuguese for trade with the East Indies is said to have been called in Portuguese “carraca,” from “carra,” a wagon, because of the great load it bore. Others ascribe the name to a first use of it in trade with the Caraccas. * Bugs, causes of needless fear. Welsh “bwg,” hobgoblin, scare- Grow. So Shakespeare, in the “Winter’s Tale,” Act iii. sc. 2:— “Sir, spare your threats; This bug that you would fright me with, I seek.” others); and Secondly in acquainting the English Nation more generally with the particularities of the exceeding riches and wealth of the East Indies: whereby themselves and their neighbours of Holland have been encouraged, being men as skilful in navigation and of no less courage than the Portugals, to share with them in the East Indies, where their strength is nothing so great as heretofore hath been supposed. - †- - E::=>= +====E== A PORTUGUESE CARACK. From the title-page to Linschotem’s “Discow.rs of Voyages” (1598). The energies of life and thought that made Drake stand for Dragon in the eyes of Spain, and that bred in poetry a Shakespeare, gave also Bacon's genius in aid of the advancement of science. Francis Bacon, about three years older than Shakespeare, was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Reeper, and his mother, daughter of Sir Antony Cook, was sister to the wife of Elizabeth's chief statesman, Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Bur- leigh. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Francis Bacon had shown distaste for philosophical studies that train a man to live within the prison of his own mind, acutely introspective, arguing over its way of arguing, thinking about its way of thinking, and accounting himself to know enough of the outward world when he can invent patterns of words under the name of definitions to explain its facts without asking how they arose, what they actually mean, and what fruit they can bear for the well-being of society. His wish, even as a youth, was to lead men away from the vain labour of running round and round within the circle of their own minds, like the mice in a revolving cage, and urge them to use their brains in aid of human progress. The mice in the cage are wonderfully active, and develop muscle; the cage-work is full of exercise, no doubt ; but the workers never get an inch beyond their starting- point. So Bacon thought it was with much of the philosophical work he was asked to employ his mind upon. It became his wish to persuade philo- sophical thinkers that the outer world is the great 90 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1589 quarry in which we must hew ; that a man's brain is the tool with which he is to work that quarry, rich in the wisdom of God, which, when thus rightly won, becomes wisdom of man, and adds to the well-being of the human race. In this direction he did set thought working, and by so doing gave new life to science, for by the vigour of his genius he fixed attention on the only sound and fruitful method of search into the secrets of the physical world sur- rounding man; but this was not until after the death of Queen Elizabeth. In Elizabeth's reign he was battling for fortune. His father died suddenly when Francis Bacon was eighteen years old. There was a family by a former wife, and arrangements to provide for the two sons by a second wife were not completed. Bacon had to make law his profession instead of diplomacy, and seek to live by it. In 1584, when in his twenty-fifth year, he entered Parliament as member for Melcombe Regis, in Dorsetshire. In the Parliament that met in 1586 he sat for Taunton ; he was member next for Liver- pool. In 1589 he wrote—but did not print—a calm and earnest paper upon the unseemly spirit shown in the Marprelate and other Church contro- versies of the day." In October of that year he obtained the reversion of the office of Clerk of the Council in the Star Chamber, which was worth nearly two thousand a year; but it was in reversion only, and he had twenty years to wait before it became vacant. In 1593, when Bacon was member for Middlesex, he offended the Queen by opposition to her wish on a question of subsidy. Next year he hoped, though only a young barrister of thirty-three, to get the vacant office of Attorney-General. The Queen promoted to it the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Coke, who had high standing in his pro- fession, and was by nine years Bacon's senior. Bacon tried then to obtain the office of Solicitor- General, which Coke's promotion had left vacant. After long delay, the Queen gave that office, in November, 1595, to another of his seniors. The young Earl of Essex had been patron to Francis Bacon and his brother Antony. To make amends for Bacon's disappointment, the Earl of Essex gave Bacon “a piece of land”—Twickenham Park—which he afterwards sold for £1,800 (equal, say, to about £12,000 in present money). In 1597 Bacon was in debt, and thought to help himself by marrying a rich young widow. That prize was afterwards (in November, 1598) won also from him by Sir Edward Coke. It was at this period of his life, when he was thirty-six years old, in January, 1597, that Francis Bacon published the first edition of his “ Essays.” . This book was a very little one, containing only ten Essays, followed by twelve Sacred Meditations in Latin, and a third section of ten pieces, entitled “A Table of Colours; or, Appearances of Good and Evil.” Bacon’s “Essays” grew with his life. They represent his analytical spirit applied practically to man, with a view to the conduct of life, as in his philosophy it is applied to outward nature with a view to the material well-being of life and the * It is given in the volume of this Library illustrating English Religion, pages 183 to 190. increase of man's store of wisdom. Apart from unauthorised issues, there were three editions of Bacon’s “Essays,” which mark their development. The first edition, in 1597, contained ten essays; the author's second edition, in 1612, contained thirty- eight; in his third edition, published only a year before his death, the number of essays was increased to fifty-eight. Moreover, the successive editions show continued work upon the old essays as well as the addition of new. Bacon’s “Essays,” in fact, seem to have been part of the utterance of all his life after it had reached its meridian, to have been always at hand in his study for modification or addition when he was disposed to quiet contemplation of human affairs, and they remain to us as finally issued—the deliberate, well-weighed expression of his sum of worldly wisdom. The only essayist before Bacon was Michel Montaigne, and the first edition of Montaigne's essays had appeared in 1580; the second, much enlarged, in 1588; the third in 1595. The first English translation of Montaigne's essays was by John Florio, but that did not appear until 1603. A copy of that was in Shakespeare's library, for it remains with an undoubted autograph of Shakespeare, and there is shrewd use made of a passage from it in the second scene of the second act of the “Tempest.” But the pleasant talk of Mon- taigne's essays supplied to Bacon no pattern of essay-writing. To Bacon, the essay was—according to the strict meaning of the word, preserved still in its other form of “assay”—an attempt to reduce to its elements each relation of life that might be made a subject of analysis. In the first edition of ten essays, which shall be here given complete, the relation of life to religion is not yet included in the field of view, though the section of “Sacred Medita- tions” insures its being contained within the volume. Bacon begins with Study, Man alone with his thought ; passes then to intercourse with another man, Discourse; then to the common forms of such intercourse, in three divisions, Ceremonies and Respects, Followers and Friends, Suitors; then to a man's management of his life in the household, in Expense, in Regimen of Health; then for his management and advancement of life in the Outer world, at home and abroad, in the three remaining essays, of Honour and Reputation, of Faction, of Negotiating. BACON's ESSAYS-1597. Of Studies. Studies serve for pastimes, for ornaments, for abilities: their chief use for pastimes is in privateness and retiring: for ornaments, in discourse; and for ability in judgment: for expert men can execute, but learned men are more fit to judge and censure: to spend too much time in them is sloth: to use them too much for ornament is affectation: to make judgment only by their rules is the humour of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are themselves perfected by experi- ence : crafty men contemn them, wise men use them, simple men admire them; for they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that to a.o. 1597.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 91 1s, some are to be read only in parts, others to be read but curiously, and some few to be read wholly with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man: therefore, if a man write little he had need of a great memory; if he confer little, he had need of a present wit, and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not know.” Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathe- matics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Of Discourse. Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment in discerning what is true: as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought: some have certain commonplaces and themes, wherein they are good, and want variety: which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and now and then ridiculous: the honourablest part of talk is to give the occasion, and again to moderate, and pass to somewhat else. It is good to vary and mix speech of the present occasion with arguments; tales with reasons; asking of questions with telling of opinions; and jest with earnest: but some things are privileged from jest, namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, all mens' present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity. He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much, especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the party of whom he asketh : for he shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge : if sometimes you dissemble your know- ledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought another time to know that which you know not.” Speech of a man's self is not good often; and there is but one thing wherein a man may commend himself with goodgrace, and that is commending virtue in another; especially if it be such a virtue as whereunto himself pretendeth. Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or in good order; a good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, showeth slowness; and a good second speech without a good set speech showeth shallowness. To use too many circumstances ere one come to the matter is wearisome, and to use none at all is blunt. Of Ceremonies and Respects. He that is only real, needeth exceeding great parts of virtue, as the stone had need to be exceeding rich that is set without foil: but commonly it is in praise as it is in gain: for as the proverb is true that light gains make heavy purses, because they come thick; whereas the great come but now and then : so it is as true that small matters win great commendation, 1 Bacon suggests a touch of the same cunning, which many use who would be sorry to commend it, in the next essay. * You shall be thought to know that which you know not. There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond; And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit ; As who shall say, “I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!” O my Antonio, I do know of these, That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing ; when, I’m very sure, If they should speak, 'twould almost damn those ears Which hearing them, would call their brothers fools. (Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice,” Act i., sc. 1.) because they are continually in use, and in note, whereas the occasion of any great virtue cometh but on holidays. To attain good forms it sufficeth not to despise them, for so shall a man observe them in others, and let him trust himself with the rest: for if he care to express them he shall lose their grace, which is to be natural, and unaffected. Some men's behaviour is like a verse, wherein every syllable is measured; how can a man observe great matters that breaketh his mind too much in small observations? Not to use ceremonies at all is to teach others not to use them again, and so diminish his respect: especially they are not to be omitted to strangers, and strange natures. Among a man's equals a man shall be sure of familiarity, and therefore it is good a little to keep state ; among a man's inferiors a man shall be sure of rever- ence, and therefore it is good a little to be familiar: he that is too much in anything, so that he giveth another occasion of Satiety, maketh himself cheap; to apply oneself to others is good, so it be with demonstration that a man doth it upon regard and not upon facility: it is a good precept generally in seconding another, yet to add somewhat of his own; if you grant his opinion let it be with some distinction; if you will follow his motion let it be with condition; if you allow his counsel, let it be with alleging further reason. Of Followers and Friends. Costly followers are not to be liked, lest while a man maketh his train longer, he maketh his wings shorter. I reckon to be costly, not them alone which charge the purse, but which are wearisome and importunate in suits. Ordinary followers ought to challenge no higher conditions, than countenance, recommendation, and protection from wrong. Factious followers are worse to be liked which follow not upon affection to him with whom they range themselves, but upon some discontentment received against some others, whereupon commonly ensueth that ill intelligence, that many times we see between great personages. The following of certain states answerable to that which a great personage himself professeth : as of soldiers to him that hath been employed in the wars, and the like hath ever been a thing civil, and well taken even in monarchies, so it be without too much pomp, or popularity; but the most honourable kind of following is to be followed as one that intendeth to advance virtue and desert in all sorts of persons: and yet where there is no imminent odds in sufficiency, it is better to take with the more passable, than with the more able : in government of charge it is good to use men of one rank equally: for to countenance some extraordinarily is to make them insolent and the rest discontent, because they may claim a due : but in favours to use men with much difference and election is good, for it maketh the persons preferred more thankful, and the rest affectious, because all is of favour. It is good not to make too much of any man at first, because one cannot hold out that proportion. To be governed by one is not good, and to be distracted by many is worse; but to take advice of friends is ever honourable: for lookers on many times see more than gamesters, and the vale best discovereth the hill. There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals; that which is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may comprehend the one the other. Of Suitors. Many ill matters are undertaken, and many good matters with ill minds: some embrace suits which never mean to deal effectually in them, but if they see there may be life in the matter by some other mean, they will be content to win a thank, or take a second reward. Some take hold of suits only for an occasion to cross some others, or to make an 92 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1597 information, whereof they could not otherwise have apt pretext, without care of what become of the suit when that turn is served: nay, some undertake suits with a full purpose to let them fall, to the end to gratify the adverse party or competitor. Surely there is in sort a right in every suit, either a right of equity, if it be a suit of controversy; or a right of desert, if it be a suit of petition. If affection lead a man to favour the wrong side, in justice rather let him use his countenance to compound the matter than to carry it: if affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert, let him do without depraving or disabling the better deserver. In suits which a man doth not understand, it is good to refer them to some friend of his, of trust and judgment, that may report whether he may deal in them with honour. Suitors are so distasted with delays and abuses, that plain dealing in denying to deal in suits at first, and reporting the success barely, and in challenging no more thanks than one hath deserved, is grown not only honourable, but also gracious. In suits of favour the first coming ought to take but little place, so farfoorth consideration may be had of his trust, that if intelligence of the matter could not otherwise have been had but by him, advantage be not taken of the note. To be ignorant of the value of a suit is simplicity, as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof is want of conscience. Secrecy in suits is a great mean of obtaining : for voicing them to be in forwardness may discourage some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and awake others. But timing of suits is the principal: timing, I say, not only in respect of the person that should grant it, but in respect of those which are like to cross it. Nothing is thought so easy a request to a great man as his letter, and yet not in an ill cause, it is so much out of his reputation. Of Eaſpense. Riches are for spending, and spending for honour and good actions: therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion: for voluntary undoing may be as well for a man's country as for the kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass, and not subject to deceit, and abuse of servants, and ordered by the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate: some forbear it not of negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken : but wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate, had need both choose well those whom he employeth, and change them often, for new men are more timorous and less subtle. In clearing of a man's estate he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden, as in letting it run out too long; for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageable as interest. He that hath a state to repair may not despise small things: and commonly it is less dishonour to abridge petty charges, than to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin charges which begun must continue, but in matters that return not he may be more liberal. Of Regimen of Health. There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic; a man's own observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health, but it is a Safer conclusion to say, this agreeth well with me, therefore I will continue it: I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it: for strength of nature in youth passeth over many excesses, which are owing a man till his age. Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still: beware of any sudden change in any great point of diet, and if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it. To be freeminded and cheerfully disposed, at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is the best precept of long lasting. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strong for your body when you shall need it: if you make it too familiar it will work no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. Despise no new accident in the body, but ask opinion of it. In sickness principally respect health, and in health action, for those that put their bodies to endure in health, may in most sickness which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet, and good tending. Physicians are, some of them, so pleasing to the humours of the patient, that they press not the true cure of the disease ; and some others so regular in proceeding according to art for the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a mild temper, and forget not to call as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty. Of Honour and Reputation. The winning of honour is but the revealing of a man’s virtue and worth without disadvantage; for some in their actions do affect honour and reputation, which sort of men are much talked of, but inwardly little admired; and some darken their virtue in the show of it, so that they be under- valued in opinion. If a man perform that which hath not been attempted before, or attempted and given over, or hath been achieved, but not with so good circumstance, he shall purchase more honour than by effecting a matter of greater difficulty wherein he is but a follower. If a man so temper his actions, as in some of them he do content every faction, the music will be the fuller. A man is an ill husband of his honour that entereth into any action the failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying it through can honour him. Discreet followers help much to reputation. Envy, which is the canker of honour, is best extinguished by declar- ing a man's self in his ends, rather to seek merit than fame, and by attributing a man's success rather to providence, and felicity, than to his own virtue and policy. The true marshalling of the degrees of sovereign honour are these: in the first place, conditores,’ founders of states. In the second place are legislatores, lawgivers, which are also called second founders, or perpetui principes, because they govern by their ordinances after they are gone. In the third place are liberatores, such as compound the long miseries of civil wars, or deliver their country from the servitude of strangers or tyrants. In the fourth place are propagatores, or propugnatores imperii, such as in honourable wars enlarge their territories, or make noble defence against the invaders. And in the last place are patria patres,” which reign justly, and make the times good wherein they live. Degrees of honour in subjects are, first, participes curarum, those upon whom princes do discharge the greatest weight of their affairs, their right hands as we call them ; the next are duces belli, great leaders, such as are princes' lieutenants, and do them notable service in the wars; the third are gratiosi, favorites, such as exceed not this scantling to be solace to their sovereign and harmless to the people; and the fourth are called negotiis pares, such as have great places under princes, and execute their places with sufficiency. 1 Conditores, builders, Perpetui principes, perpetual chiefs. Bacon added in 1625 to conditores, the word imperiorum, builders of empires. Propagatores, enlargers. Propugmatores, combatants for. * Patria patres, fathers of their country. Participes curarum, sharers of cares. Duces belli, leaders of war. Negotiis pares, peers in public business, A.D. 1603.] SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. 93 Of Faction. Many have a new wisdom, otherwise called a fond opinion, that for a prince to govern his estate, or for a great person to govern his proceedings according to the respect of faction is the principal part of policy: whereas, contrariwise, the chiefest wisdom is either in ordering those things which are general, and wherein men of several factions do nevertheless agree ; or in dealing with corresponding persons one by one. But I say not that the consideration of factions is to be neglected: mean men must adhere, but great men that have strength in themselves were better to maintain themselves indifferent and neutral: yet even in beginners to adhere so moderately as he be a man of the one faction, which is passablest with the other, commonly giveth best way. The lower and weaker faction is the firmer in condition. When one of the faction is extinguished, the remaining subdivideth, which is good for a second. It is commonly seen that men once placed take in with the contrary faction to that by which they enter. The traitor in factions lightly goeth away with it, for when matters have stuck long in balancing, the winning of Some one man casteth them, and he getteth all the thanks. Of Negotiating. It is better generally to deal by speech than by letters, and by the mediation of a third than by oneself. Letters are good, when a man would draw an answer by letter back again, or when it may serve for a man's justification after- wards to produce his own letter. To deal in person is good, where a man's face breeds regard, as commonly with inferiors. In choice of instruments it is better to choose men of a plainer sort, that are likely to do that which is committed unto them, and to report back again faithfully the success; than they that are cunning to contrive out of other men's business somewhat to grace themselves, and will help the matter in report for satisfaction’s sake. It is better to sound a person with whom one dealeth, afar off, than to fall upon the point at first, except you mean to surprise him by some short question. It is better dealing with men of appetite than with those who are where they would be. If a man deal with another upon conditions, the start, or first perfor- mance is all, which a man cannot reasonably demand except either the nature of the thing be such which must go before, or else a man can persuade the other party that he shall need him in some other thing, or else that he be counted the homester man. All practice is to discover, or to make men discover themselves in trust, in passion, at unawares, and of necessity, where they would have somewhat done, and cannot find an apt pretext. If you would work any man, you must f º,º Š ğ. E.--- \ Øs § S. Sl § --> à º§: º >S § º # -# s # s ss º ---&ſº §§§ either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so win him ; or his weaknesses or disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons we must ever consider their ends, to interpret their speeches, and it is good to say little unto them, and that which they least look for. The worldly wisdom in these counsels is not every- where of the truest temper. In their whole tone we feel a habit of thought occupied upon the spirit of man with the same sort of analysis that may be applied justly to the outer works of nature. Life, in Bacon’s “Essays,” even at their maturest, shrewdly thoughtful as they are and enforced with a rare weight of expression, seems too much to consist of cool experiment towards material success. There is no place in his “Essays”—as there seems also to have been no place in his life—for the just play of emotion. When the young Earl of Essex, who had been his generous friend, was rashly imperilling himself, Bacon fell from him. When he had ruined himself, Bacon turned against him, accepted a brief against him at his trial, and endeavoured to win back Elizabeth's favour to himself by showing zeal against his former friend. It is true that Bacon had taken standing in 1596 as Queen's Counsel, and it might be argued either that he could not refuse the brief against one accused of treason, or that, if he could, he might have been both kind and wise in accepting it, because he would thus occupy the place of one who might have less wish to deal generously with the accused. But twice in the course of the trial Bacon, who was no leading counsel, volunteered speech for the purpose of bringing back the brunt of the battle from side questions favourable to the accused into the main line of attack upon his life; and in one of these uncalled-for exhibitions of prudential loyalty he compared Essex with Cain. Elizabeth, old as she was, had warmth of feeling beyond reach of Bacon's calculations. Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, was beheaded on the 25th of February, 1601; and although Bacon gave the force of his pen to the drawing up of an official “Declaration touching the Treason of the late Earl of Essex and his Complices,” which was sent to press on the 14th of April, he got nothing from Elizabeth during the time that re- mained before her death on the 24th of March, 1603. S NS §§ : From Hakluyt's “Voyages” (1589). 94 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603. CHAPTER IV. IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I.-A.D. 1603 To A.D. 1625. THE largest English prose work published in the first year of the reign of James the First, was a folio of more than 1,300 pages, Richard Knolles's “General Historie of the Turkes.” Appended to it was “A briefe discourse of the greatnesse of the Turkish Empire.” Richard Knolles's great book was in high repute in James's reign, and has in after years been saved from neglect by the praises of more than one man of genius." Its author, who was of the family of his name living at Cold Ashby, in Northamptonshire, graduated at Oxford in 1564, and then obtained a Fellowship at Lincoln College. At Oxford he was aspiring to serve God and his country with some large work of the pen, when he was invited to Sandwich by Sir Roger Manwood. Sandwich, in ancient days the most famous English port, though now the sea is two miles distant from it, had ceased to be a port, and then decayed so rapidly that in Edward the Sixth's time there were but two hundred houses where there had been nine hundred. But in Elizabeth's reign four hundred Protestant Walloons, driven from their own country by religious persecution, settled in Sandwich, bring- ing with them their industries as workers in serge baize and flannel, and turning waste ground into market gardens, that became famous especially for celery. In this reviving town Roger Manwood was born in 1525, a draper's son who made law his pro- fession. He was a Serjeant in 1567, a Justice of Com- mon Pleas in 1672, a knight and Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1578. He grew rich, and was liberal. He began to raise in his native town, as early as 1563, a high gabled building to be used as a school for the education of the children of townspeople, who were to be “freely taught without anything taken but of benevolence, at the end of every quarter, towards buying books for the common use of the scholars.” * Samuel Johnson in a paper of his Rambler (No. 122) on the writing of History, gave the first place among Englishmen as an historian to Richard Knolles. “None of our writers,” he said, “can, in my opinion, justly contest the superiority of Knolles, who in his History of the Turks has displayed all the excellencies that narrative can admit. His style, though somewhat obscured by time, and sometimes vitiated by false wit, is pure, nervous, elevated and clear, &c., &c. Nothing could have sunk this author in obscurity but the remoteness and barbarity of the people whose story he relates. It seldom happens that all circumstances concur to happiness or fame. The nation which produced this great historian, has the grief of seeing his genius employed upon a foreign and un- interesting subject; and that writer, who might have secured perpetuity to his name by a history of his own country, has exposed himself to the danger of oblivion, by recounting enterprizes and revolutions of which none desire to be informed.” Lord Byron had read Knolles, when he wrote “The Giaour,” and a few weeks before his death, he said at Missolonghi, “Old Knolles was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I believe it had much influence on my future wishes to visit the Levant, and gave, perhaps, the Oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry.” He gave his old friend a corner in the fifth canto of “Don Juan,” where it is said of a Sultan :- “He was as good a sovereign of the sort As any mentioned in the histories Of Cantemir or Knolles, where few shine Save Solyman, the glory of their line.” The foundation of the Free School was completed in 1566, and Roger Manwood himself drew up its rules. The books to be used were “the Dialogs of Castilio, the Exercises of Apthomius, Virgill's Eglog's, or some chaste poet, Tully, Caesar, and Livie.” To the head-mastership of this school, Richard Knolles was invited. He was the third who occupied that office, and the first who abided in it long. He spent the rest of his life among his boys and his books, with the hearty friendship and en- couragement of Sir Roger Manwood, whose chief house was at St. Stephen's, near Canterbury, and to whose munificence it is probable that the greatest of our dramatists before Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, son of a Canterbury shoemaker, owed his Cambridge education. After Sir Roger's death in 1592, his son Peter, who was knighted at the coronation of James I., remained Knolles's friend, and encouraged him to work at his great History. Richard Knolles was in repute as a schoolmaster who sent many well-trained youths to the University; he wrote a Compendium of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Grammar, in which attention was paid to the roots of words, and died in 1610, the year of the issue of the second edition of his “General Historie of the Turkes,” first published in 1603. When Knolles chose the subject for the main work of his life outside the schoolroom, there was danger to Christendom from the power of the Turk; the danger now is from his weakness, and the day has come to which Knolles looked forward for reading again, at least, his “ Brief Discourse of the greatness of the Turkish Empire’ written, as he said, for this among other reasons, “that they which come here- after, may, by comparing of that which is here written with the state that then shall be, see how much this great Empire in the meantime increaseth or diminisheth.” I will leave here the old spelling. A BRIEFE DISCOURSE OF THE GREATNESSE OF THE TURRISH EMPIRE : As also wherein the greatest strength thereof consisteth, and of what power the bordering Princes, as well Mahometanes as Christians, are in comparison of it. - The Historie of the Turks (being indeed nothing else but the true record of the wofull ruines of the greater part of the Christian commonweale) thus as before passed through, and at length brought to an end; and their empire (of all others now vpon earth farre the greatest) as a proud champion still standing vp as it were in defiance of the whole world: I thought it good for the conclusion of this my labour, to pro- pose vnto the view of the zealous Christian, the greatnesse thereof; and so neere as I could to set down the bounds and limits within the which it is (by the goodnesse of God) as yet contained, together with the strength and power thereof, as also in what regard it hath the neighbor princes bordering or confining vpon it, with some other particularities tending wnto the same purpose. All or most part whereof, although it be by the considerat well to be gathered out of the whole course of the Historie before going, yet shall it more plainely A.D. 1603.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 95 here together in the full thereof appeare, than by the long and particular consideration of the rising and encrease thereof be perceiued: not much vnlike the ouergrowne tree, at the greatnesse whereof euerie man wondereth, no man in the meane time either perceiuing or marking how by little and little in tract of time it grew vp to that bignesse, as now to ouertop all the rest of the wood. The imperiall seat of this so great and dreadfull an empire, is the most famous citie of CoNSTANTINopLE, sometime the glorie of the Greek empire, but now the place where Achmat the first of that name, and fourteenth of the Othoman emperours, acknowledging no man like vnto himselfe, triumpheth ouer many nations: a citie fatally founded to commaund, and by the great conquerour Tamerlan of all others thought to be the best seated for the empire of the world. In which citie (taken from the Christians by Mahomet the second, by the Turkes surnamed the Great, and the Greeke empire by him subuerted) as the 0thoman emperours haue euer since seated themselues, so haue they wonderfully euen to the astonishment of the world; out of the ruines of that so glorious a State encreased both their strength and empire, almost altogether fixed euen in the selfesame kingdomes, countries, and regions, as was sometimes that ; though not as yet (God be thanked) able to attaine to the vttermost bounds that that empire sometimes had, especially in Evrope; albeit that it haue oftentimes in pride thereof most mightily swolne, and in some few places thereof some- what also exceeded the same. Amongst the rest of the Othoman emperours, this great Monarch of whom we speake (namely Achmat the first, which now raigneth in that most stately and imperiall citie) hath at this present vnder his commaund and empire, the chiefe and most fruitfull parts of the three first knowne parts of the world: onely AMERICA {remaining free from him, not more happie with the rich mines thereof, than in that it is so farre from out of his reach. For in EvroPE he hath all the sea coast from the confines of EPIDAvRvs (the vttermost bound of his empire in EvroPE Westward) vnto the mouth of the riuer TANAIs, now called DoN, with whatsoeuer lieth betwixt BvDA in Hvng ARIE, and the imperial citie of CoNSTANTINoFLE: in which space is com- prehended the better part of HVNGARIE, all BosNA, SERVIA, BVLGARIA, with a great part of TJALMATIA, EPIRVs, MACE- DoNIA, GRECIA, PELOPoNESvs, THRACIA, the ARCHIPELAGO, with the rich islands contained therein. In AFRICA he possesseth all the sea coast from VELEz (or as some call it BELIS) DE GOMERA, or more truely to say, from the riuer Mvlv1A (the bounder of the kingdome of FEZ) euen vnto the ARABIAN gulfe or red sea Eastward, except some few places vpon the riuage of the sea, holden by the king of SPAINE, viz. MERSALCABIR, MELILLA, ORAN, and PENNoN : and from ALEXANDRIA Northward vnto the citie of ASNA, called of old SIENE, Southward: in which space are contained the famous kingdomes of TREMIZEN, ALGIERs, TVNEs, and Ægypt, with diuers other great cities and prouinces. In ASIA all is his from the straits of HELLESPONT vs Westward, vnto the great citie of TAVRIs Eastward: and from DERRENT neere vnto the Caspian sea Northward, vnto ADENA vpon the Gulfe of ARABIA Southward. The greatnesse of this his empire may the better be conceiued by the greatnesse of some parts thereof: the meere of MEoTIs, which is all at the Turkish emperours commaund, being in compasse a thousand miles; and the Euxine or Blacke sea in circuit two thousand and seuen hundred; and the Mediterranean coast which is subject wnto him, containing in compasse about eight thousand miles. But to speake of his whole territorie together, he goeth in his owne dominion from TAvRIs to BVDA, about three thousand two hundred miles. The like distance is from DERBENT wnto ADENA. From BALsERA vpon the Persian gulfe vnto and THRACIA * TREMISENA in BARBARIE, are accounted little lesse than four thousand miles. He hath also in the sea, the most noble islands of CYPRVs, EvpoeA, RHoDvs, SAMos, CHIos, LESBos, and others of the ARCHIPELAGo. In this so large and spacious an empire are contained many great and large countries, sometime most famous kingdomes, abounding with all man- ner of worldly blessings and natures store: for what kingdome or countrey is more fruitfull than AEGYPT, SYRIA, and a great part of ASIAF What countrey more wealthie or more plenti- full of all good things than was sometime Hvn GARIE, GRAECIA, In which countries he hath also many rich and famous cities, but especially foure, which be of greatest wealth and trade: namely CoNSTANTINOPLE, CAIRE, ALEPPo, and TAVRIs. ConstANTINoFLE for multitude of people exceedeth all the cities of EvroPE; wherein are deemed to be aboue seuen hundred thousand men: which if it be so, is almost equall to two such cities as PARIs in FRANCE. ALEPPo is the greatest citie of SYRIA, and as it were the centre where- unto all the merchandise of ASIA repaire. TAvRIs of late the roiall seat of the Persian kings, and one of the greatest cities of that kingdome, from whom it was in this our age taken by Amurath the third, hath in it aboue two hundred thousand men. CAIRE amongst all the cities of AFRICA is the chiefe, leauing all others farre behind it (although that some make the citie CANo equall vinto it in greatnesse) being as it were the storehouse not of ÆGYPT onely, and of a great part of AFRICA, but of INDIA also; the riches whereof being brought by the red sea to SVEs, and from thence vpon cammels to CAIRE, and so down the riuer NILvs to ALEXANDRIA, are thence dispersed into all these Westerne parts: albeit that this rich trade hath of late time been much impaired, and so like more to be, the Christians (especially the Portugals) trafficking into the East Indies, and by the vast Ocean transporting the rich commodities of those Easterne countries into the West, to the great hindrance of the Grand Seignior his customes in CAIRE. The Othoman gouernment in this his so great an empire, is altogether like the gouernment of the master ouer his slaue, and indeed meere tyrannical: for the great Sultan is so absolute a lord of all things within the compasse of his empire, that all his subjects and people, be they neuer so great, do call themselues his slaues, and not his subjects: neither hath any man power ouer himselfe, much lesse is he lord of the house wherein he dwelleth, or of the land which he tilleth, except some few families in CoNSTANTINopLE, vinto whom some few such things were by way of reward and vpon speciall fauour giuen by Mahomet the second, at such time as he woon the same. Neither is any man in that empire so great or yet so far in favour with the great Sultan, as that he can assure himselfe of his life, much lesse of his present fortune or state, longer than it pleaseth the grand seignior. In which so absolute a Soueraignty (by any free born people not to be endured) the tyrant preserueth himselfe by two most especial means: first, by taking of all armes from his naturall subjects; and then by putting the same and all things else concerning the state and the gouernment therof into the hands of the Apostata or renegate Christians, whom for most part euery third, fourth, or fift yere (or oftener if his need so require) he taketh in their childhood from their miserable parents, as his tenthes or tribute children. Whereby he gaineth two great commodities: first, for that in so doing he spoyleth the prouinces he most feareth, of the flower, sinewes, and strength of the people, choice being still made of the strongest youthes, and fittest for warre : then, for that with these as with his own creatures he armeth himselfe, and by them assureth his state: for they in their childhood taken from their parents laps, and deliuered in charge to one or other appointed to that 96 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603. purpose, quickly and before they be aware become Maho- metans; and so, no more acknowledging father or mother, depend wholly of the great Sultan, who to make vse of them, both feeds them and fosters them, at whose hands onely they looke for all things, and whom alone they thanke for all. Of which frie so taken from their Christian parents (the onely seminarie of his warres) some become horsemen, some foot- men, and so in time the greatest commaunders of his state and empire next vnto himselfe, the naturall Turkes in the meane time giuing themselues wholly vnto the trade of merchandise and other their mechanicall occupations: or else wnto the feeding of cattell, their most auntient and naturall vocation, not intermedling at all with matters of gouernment or state. So that if vnto these his souldiours, all of the Christian race, you joyne also his fleet and money, you haue as it were the whole strength of his empire: for in these foure, his horsemen, footmen, his fleet, and money, especially consisteth his great force and power: whereof to speake more particularly, and first concerning his money, it is commonly thought, that his ordinarie reuenew exceedeth not eight millions of gold. And albeit that it might seeme, that he might of so large an empire receiue a far greater reuenew, yet doth he not, for that both he and his men of warre (in whose power all things are) haue their greatest and almost onely care vpon arms, fitter by nature to wast and destroy countries, than to preserue and enrich them : insomuch, that for the preseruation of their armies, and furtherance of their expeditions (euerie yeare to doe) they most greuiously spoyle euen their owne people and prouinces whereby they passe, scarce leauing them necessaries wherewith to liue ; so that the subjects despairing to enjoy the fruits of the earth, much lesse the riches which by their industrie and labour they might get vnto themselues, doe now no further endeauour them- selues either to husbandrie or traffique than they must needs, yea than verie necessitie it selfe enforceth them: For to what end auaileth it to sow that another man must reap P or to reape that which another man is readie to deuour # Where- upon it commeth that in the territories of the Othoman empire, yea euen in the most fruitfull countries of MACEDoNIA and GREECE are scene great forests, all cuerie where wast, few cities well peopled, and the greatest part of those coun- tries lying desolate and desart; so that husbandrie (in all well ordered commonweales the princes greatest store) de- caying, the earth neither yeeldeth her encrease vnto the painfull husbandman, neither he matter vnto the artificer, neither the artificer wares to furnish the merchant with, all together with the plough running into ruine & decay. As for the trade of merchandise, it is almost all in the hands of the Iews, or the Christians of EviroPE, viz. the Ragusians, Venetians, Genowaies, French, or English; the naturall Turkes hauing therein the least to doe, holding in that their so large an empire no other famous cities for trade, more than the foure aboue named, viz. CoNSTANTINopLE, TAvRIs, ALEPPo, and CAIRE: whereunto may be added CAFFA and THESSALONICA in EvroPE, DAMAScvs, TRIPOLIs, and ADEN, in ASIA: ALEXANDRIA and ALGIERs in AFRICKE. In our countries here in this West part of Evrol’E, of the abundance of people oftentimes ariseth dearth; but in many parts of the Turks dominions, for want of men to manure the ground: most part of the poore countrey people drawne from their owne dwellings, being enforced with victuals and other necessaries to follow their great armies in their long expedi- tions, of whom Scarcely one of ten euer returne home to their dwellings againe, there by the way perishing, if not by the enemies sword, yet by the wants, the intemperatenesse of the aire, or immoderat paines taking. But to come neerer vnto our purpose, although the great Turks ordinary reuenewes be no greater than is aforesaid, yet are his extraordinarie escheats to be greatly accounted of, especially his confiscations, for- feitures, fines, amerciaments (which are right many) his tributes, customes, tithes and tenthes of all preyes taken by Sea or land, with diuers other such like, far exceeding his standing and certaine reuenew : his Bassaes and other his great officers, like rauening Harpies as it were sucking out the bloud of his poore subjects, & heaping vp inestimable treasures, which for the most part fall againe into the grand Seignior his coffers. Ibrahim the Visier Bassa (who lived not long since) is supposed to haue brought with him from CAIRE to the value of six millions: & Mahonet another of the Visiers was thought to haue had a far greater summe. His presents also amount vnto a great matter: for no embassadour can come before him without gifts, no man is to hope for any commodious office or preferment without money, no man may with emptie hands come vnto the presence of him so great a prince, either from the prouence he had the charge of, or from any great expedition he was sent vpon ; neither vnto so great and mighty a prince are trifles presented. The Way- uods of MoLDAVIA, WALACHIA, and TRANSYLVANIA (before their late reuolt) by gifts preserved themselues in their prin- cipalities, being almost daily changed, especially in WALACHIA and MoLDAVIA: for those honours were by the grand Seigniour still giuen to them that would giue most ; who to performe what they had offered, miserably oppressed the people, and brought their prouinces into great pouertie. In briefe, an easie thing it is for the great tyrant to find occasion for him at his pleasure to take away any maris life, together with his wealth, be it neuer so great : so that he cannot well be said to lacke money, so long as any of his subjects hath it. Neuer- thelesse, the late Persian warre so emptied the most couctous Sultan Amurath his coffers, and exhausted his treasures, that all ouer his empire the value of his gold was beyond all credit enhaunsed, insomuch, that a Checcine was twice so much worth as before: beside that, the mettall whereof his gold and siluer was made, was so embased, that it gaue occasion vnto the Ianizaries to set fire vpon the citie of CoNSTANTINoPLE, to the great terrour not of the vulgar sort onely, but of the grand Seignior himselfe also. And in the citie of ALEPro onely were in the name of the great Sultan 60000 Checcines taken vp in prest of the merchants there, which how well they were repaied, we leaue for them to report. Now albeit that the Turks reuenews be not so great as the largenesse of his empire and the fruitfulnesse of his countries might seeme to affoord, all the soile being his owne; yet hath he in his dominion a commoditie of greater value and vse than are the reuenewes themselues: which is the multitude of the Timariots, or pentioners, which are all horsemen, so called of Timaro, that is a stipend which they haue of the great Sultan, viz. the possession of certain villages and townes, which they hold during their life, and for which they stand bound for euery threescore duckats they haue of yearely reuenew to maintain one horseman, either with bow and arrowes, or els with targuet and launce; and that as well in time of peace as warre: for the Othoman emperours take wnto themselues all such lands as they by the Sword win from their enemies, as well Mahometanes as Christians, all which they diuide into Timars, or as we may call them Commen- dams, which they giue vnto their souldiors of good desert for tearme of life, vpon condition, that they shall (as is aforesaid) according to the proportion thereof keepe certaine men and horses fit for seruice alwaies readie whensoeuer they shall be called vpon. Wherein consisteth the greatest policie of the Turks, and the surest meane for the preseruation of their empire. For if by this meanes the care of manuring the ground were not committed vnto the souldiors, for the profit TO A.D. 1610.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 97 they hope thereof, but left in the hand of the plaine painefull husbandman, all would in that so warlike an empire lie wast and desolate; the Turks themselues commonly saying, That wheresoeuer the Grand Seignior his horse setteth his foot, the grasse will there no more grow : meaning, the destruction that their great armies bring in all places where they come. The institution of these Timariots, and the taking vp of the Azamoglans (for so they call those children which are taken vp from their Christian parents to be brought vp for Iani- . zaries) are the two chiefe pillars of the Turks empire, and the strength of their warres: both which seeme to be deuised vnto the imitation of the Romanes, as are diuers things moe in the Turkish gouernment; for the Romane emperours vsed their owne subjects in their warres, and of then consisted the Pretorian armie, which neuer departed from the emper- ours side, but were still to guard his person, as doe the Ianizaries the great Turke. And in the Romane empire lands were giuen vnto souldiors of good desert for them to take the profit of during their liues, in reward of their good seruice and valour, which were called Beneficia, and they which had them, Beneficiary, or as we tearme them, Benefices, and Bene- ficed men. Alexander Seuerus graunted vnto such souldiors heires that they might enjoy those lands and commendams, vpon condition also, that they themselues should serue as had their fathers, otherwise not. Constantine also the great gaue vnto his captaines that had well deserued of him, certaine lands for them to live vpon during the tearme of their life. The like fees in FRAvNCE, which they called Feuda, were of temporaries made perpetuities by these their late kings. These Timariot horsemen in the Turkish empire, serue to two great and most notable purposes: whereof the first is, that by them the Grand Seigniour, as with a bridle, keepeth the rest of his subjects in euerie part of his great empire in awe, so that they cannot so soone moue, but that they shall haue these his Timariots as faulcons in their neckes; for to that purpose they are dispersed all ouer his dominions and empire: The other vse of them (and no lesse profitable than the former) is, for that out of them he is alwaies able at his pleasure to draw into the field an hundred and fiftie thousand horsemen well furnished, readie to go whither soeuer he shall command them ; with all whom he is not at one farthing charge. Which so great a power of horsemen cannot be con- tinually maintained for lesse than 14 millions of duckats yearely. Wherefore it is to be maruelled, that some comparing the Turks reuenewes with the Christians, make no mention of this so great a part of the Othoman emperours wealth and strength, Seruing him first for the suppressing of all such tumults as might arise in his empire, and then as a most principall strength of his continual wars, alwaies readie to serue him in his greatest expeditions. The number of these Timariot horsemen is now growne verie great, taking encrease together with the Turks empire. It is reported, that Amurath the third, grandfather to Achmat that now raigneth, in his late warres against the Persian, subdued vnto himselfe so much territorie, as serued him to erect therein fortie thousand Timariots: and appointed at TAvRIs a new receit, which was yearely worth vnto him a million of gold. These Timariots are in all accounted to be seuen hundred and nineteen thou- sand fighting men : of whom 257000 haue their abode and dwelling in EvroPE ; and 462000 in Asia and AFRICKE. Beside these Timariots, the Grand Seignior hath a great number of other horsemen also, vinto whom he giueth pay, which are his Spahi, Vlufagi, and Carapici of his Court, being indeed the nurseries and seminaries of the great officers and gouernours of his empire: for from among them are ordinarily chosen the Sanzacks, which afterwards through their good deserts, or the Sultans great fauour, become Visiers, Begler- begs, and Bassaes, the chief rulers of that so mightie a Monarchie. Hee hath also still in his armies a great mul- titude of other horsemen called Acanzij, being indeed but rurall clownes, yet for certaine priuiledges which they haue are bound to goe vnto the wars, being euen of the Turks themselues accounted of small worth or value in comparison of the Timariots. Hee receiueth great aid also from the Tartars in his warres, as also from the Valachians and Mol- dauians (vntill that now of late by the example of the Tran- syluanians, they haue, to the great benefit of the rest of the Christian commonweale, reuolted from him : ) all which are to be accounted as the Romanes Auxiliarij, that is to say, such as come to aid and assist him. And thus much for his horsemen. |ffº º tº ºr ACHMAT, EMPEROR OF THE TURKS. From Knolles’ “General Historie of the Twrkes.” Another great part of his strength consisteth in his foot- men, and especially in his Ianizaries: in whom two things are to be considered, their Nation, and Dexteritie in armes. Concerning their Nation, such of the Azamoglans as are borne in Asia, are not ordinarily enrolled in the number of the Ianizaries, but such as are borne in EvroPE : for they of ASIA are accounted more effeminate, as they haue beene alwayes more readie to flie than to fight: wheras the people of EvroPE haue euen in the East beene accounted for better and more valiant souldiours, having there, to their immortall glorie, set vp the notable trophies of their most glorious victories. The souldiours of Asia be called Turkes, after the name of their nation, and not of their countrey (no countrey being indeed so properly called) and they of EvKOPE Rumi, that is to say, Romani, or Romans, as the country, especially about CoNSTANTINopLE, is called by the name of RVM-ILI, that is to say, the Romane country, as it was in antient time, of the notable Romane Colonies therein, knowne by the name of Roma NIA. Now as concerning their Dexteritie, such male children are culled out from the Christians, as in whom 189 98 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGTISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603 appeareth the greatest signes of strength, actiuitie and courage: for these three qualities are in a souldiour especially required. This choice is made euerie third yeare, except necessitie enforce it to be made sooner, as it happened in the late Persian warre : wherein not only oftner choice was made, but they were glad to vse the Azamoglans also, a thing neuer before by them done. For those youths, the children of Christian parents, being by them that haue taken them Vp brought to CoNSTANTINoPLE, are taken view of by the Aga of the Ianizaries, who causeth to be registred the name of the youth, with the name of his father and countrey wherein he was borne : which done, part of them are sent into the lesser ASIA (now called NATOLIA) and other prouinces, where learning the Turkish language and law, they are also infected with the vices and manners of them with whom they liue, and so in short time become right Mahometanes. Another part of them, and those of the most towardliest, is diuided into cloisters which the Grand Seigniour hath at CoNSTAN- TINopLE and PERA, of whom the fairest and most handsome are appointed for the Seraglio of the great Sultan himselfe. All the time that these youths, thus sent abroad, liue in the lesser Asſ A, or other the Turkes prouinces, they are not appointed to any certaine exercises, but still kept busied, some at husbandrie, some in gardening, some in building, some in other domesticall seruices, neuer suffered to be idle, but alwayes occupied in painfull labour; where after certaine yeares they haue beene thus enured to labour and paines taking, they are called thence into the cloisters of the Azamoglans (for so they are called all the time vntil they be enrolled into the number of the Ianizaries) and are there deliuered vnto certaine speciall gouernours appointed to take charge of them: who keepe them still exercised in painefull worke and labour, entreating them euillynough, as well in their diet, as in their apparell and lodging : they sleepe together in large roomes, like vnto the religious Dormitories, wherein are lampes still burning, and tutors attending, without whose leaue they may not stirre out of their places. There they learne to shoot both in the Bow and Peece," the use of the Scimitar, with many feats of actiuitie: and being well trained in those exercises, are enrolled amongst the Ianizaries or Spahi: of whom the Ianizaries receiue not lesse than fiue aspers, nor more than eight for their daily pay, and the Spahi ten. Being recorded among the Ianizaries, they are either sent away into the warres, or into some garrison, or else attend at the Court. These last haue for their dwelling three great places like vnto three monasteries in the citie of CoNSTANTINopLE: there they liue vndre their gouernours, to whom they are deputed, the younger with great obedience and silence seruing the elder in buying of things for them, in dressing of their meat, and such like services. They that be of one seat or calling liue together at one table, and sleepe in long walkes. If any of them vpon occasion chance to lye all night abroad without leaue, the next euening hee is notably beaten, with such nurture and discipline, that after his beating he like an Ape kisseth his Gouernours hands that so corrected him. These Ianizarieshaue many large priuiledges, are honoured, although they be most insolent, and are feared of all men, yea even of the great Sultan himselfe, who is still glad to make faire weather with them. In their expeditions or trauell they rob the poore Christians cottages and houses, who must not say one word to the contrarie. When they buy any thing, they giue for it but what they list themselues. They can bee judged by none but by their Aga: neither can they be executed without danger of an insurrection, and therfore such execution is seldome done, and that verie secretly. They i Peece, gun, as in “fowling-piece.” haue a thousand royalties: some of them are appointed to the keeping of embassadours sent from forrein princes: othersome of them are assigned to accompanie strangers, trauellers, especially them that be men of the better sort, to the intent they may safely passe in the Turkes dominions, for which Seruice they are commonly well rewarded. They haue made choice of their prince, namely of Selymus the first, his father Baiazet yet liuing; neither can any the Turkes Sultans account themselues fully inuested in their imperiall dignitie, or assured of their estate, vntil they be by them approoued and proclaimed. Euerie one of their Sultans at his first com- ming to the empire, doth giue them some great largesse; and sometime the better to please them, encreaseth also their pay. In euerie great expedition some of them goeth forth with their Aga, or his lieutenant, and are the last of all that fight. There is no office among the Turkes, that moe enuie at, than at the office of the Aga of the Ianizaries, for the greatnesse of his authoritie and commaund: onely he and the Beglerbeg of GRAECIA chuse not their owne lieutenant, but haue them nominated vnto them by the Grand Seignior. Vnto this great man the Aga of the Ianizaries, nothing can portend a more certaine destruction, than to be of them beloued, for then is he of the great Sultan straightway feared or mistrusted, and so occasion sought for to take him out of the way. The number of the Ianizaries of the Court is betwixt ten and foureteene thousand. This warlike order of souldiours is in these our dayes much embased : for now naturall Turks are taken in for Ianizaries, as are also the people of Asia; whereas in former times none were admitted into that order, but the Christians of EvroPE only; beside that, they marrie wiues also contrarie to their antient custome, which is not now forbidden them. And because of their long lying still at CoNSTANTINOPLE (a citie abounding with all manner of pleasure) they are become much more effeminate and slothful, but withall most insolent, or more truly to say intollerable. It is commonly reported the strength of the Turkish empire to consist in this order of the Ianizaries, which is not altogether so, for albeit that they be indeed the Turkes best footmen and surest gard of the great Sultans person, yet vndoubtedly the greatest strength of his state and empire resteth nothing so much in them, as in the great multitude of his horsemen, especially his Timariots. Beside these Tanizaries, the Turkish emperour hath a wonderful number of base footmen, whom the Turks call Asapi, better acquainted with the Spade than with the sword, Seruing rather to the wearying of their enemies with their multitude, than the vanquishing of them with their valour: with whose dead bodies the Ianizaries vse to fill vp the ditches of townes besieged, or to serue them for ladders to clime ouer the enemies wals vpon. But as the Romans had both their old Legionarie, and other vntrained souldiors, which they called Tirones; of whom the first were the chiefe strength of their warres, and the other but as it were an aid or supplie; euen so the Turke accounteth his Timariot horsemen the strength of his armie, and the Acanzij (which is another sort of base and common horsemen) but as an accessorie: and so amongst his footmen he esteemeth of his Ianizaries, as did the Romans of their Pretorian legions, but of his Asapi as of shadowes. The Ianizaries are by none to be commanded, more than by the great Sultan himselfe, and their Aga; as for the Bassaes, they much regard them not, but in their rage oftentimes foule entreat euen the greatest of them. The Asapi as they are but base and common soul- diours, so haue they also their ordinarie captaines and com- maunders, men of no great place or marke. The whole state of the great empire of the Turkes is commaunded by the great Sultan, by the graue advice and counsell of his Visier Bassaes, which were not wont to be in To A.D. 1610.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 99 number aboue foure, so prouiding for the secrecie of his high designes or important resolutions, hardly by a greater multi- tude to be concealed : howbeit that the Sultans of later times haue had sometimes moe, sometimes fewer, as their pleasure was. These men are of all others in that empire the greatest, and for their high places most honored: vnto them euen the greatest princes that haue any thing to doe in the Turkes Court, sue and send their honourable presents. By their aduice the great Sultan taketh his warres in hand, neither without them concludeth he any peace. They giue audience wnto the Embassadours of forraine princes, and from them receiue their dispatch. The greatest honors and preferments (which are many in that so great and large an empire) are all by their meanes to be obtained: which maketh them of all others to be sought vinto. Some one or other of them are still Generals ouer the great armies of the Turkes, especially in these their late warres, their three last emperours neuer them- selues going forth into the field (excepting once that Mahomet the third for the maintenance of his credit with his men of warre, came downe into HVNGARIE, and there woon the citie of AGRIA :) which leading of such mightie armies is still with great emulation and ambition of the Visier Bassaes amongst themselues sought after, as well for the great profit thereby vnto them arising, as for the honour thereof, which is of all other the greatest. But leauing these great ones, the chiefe counsellours for his state; the whole body of his so large and mightie an empire (all in the hands of martiall men) is gouerned by other great Bassaes, whom they by a most proud loarbarous name call Beglerbegs, that is to say Lords of Lords, euery one of them hauing vnder him certaine Begs or Sanzackes, who are lords and rulers also ouer some particular cities & countries, with the Timariots therein; yet all stil at the command & beck of their Beglerbeg. In antient time there was wont to be but two of these proud Beglerbegs in all the Turks empire : the one commanding ouer all the prouinces the Turke had in Evrope; & the other ouer all that he had in the lesser Asia, now of the Turks called NATOLIA. But the Turkish empire greatly augmented in ASIA by Selymus the first, & also afterwards much enlarged both in EvroPE and ASIA by Solyman his son, the number of the Beglerbegs were by him increased, and in some part also changed: who although that they be al Beglerbegs, and that one of them (especially in the time of peace) in the managing . of his souldiers and affaires of his countrey, is not subject to any other, but is onely at the commaund of the great Turke; yet notwithstanding in time of warre, where the Beglerbeg of RomanIA is, all are obedient vnto him, as the chiefest of the rest; insomuch, that none of them but only he and the Bassa of NAToIIA are called by the stately name of Begler- begs, the others being then only called the Bassaes of such and such places, as of BvDA, ALEPPo, and such like, although indeed they are in nature Beglerbegs, and so written in their records. For the more manifesting of which their gouern- ment, as also that they which come hereafter, may by com- paring of that which is here written, with the state that then shall be, see how much this great Empire in the meane time encreaseth or diminisheth, I haue thought good here briefely to set down all the said Beglerbegs with their Sanzacks and Timariots, and as neere as I could (either by reading, or the credible relation of others well trauelled in those countries) together, and as it were at one shew set forth the whole strength and power of this so mightie an Empire, as also in what countries and prouinces the same is especially placed. The Beglerbegs or great Commanders of the Turkes Empire in EvroPE. The first and chiefest of all the Beglerbegs in the Turkish Empire, is the Beglerbeg of RoMANIA or GRAECIA, called of the Turkes RVM-ILI (or as wee say, the Romane countrey) the principall residence of whose Beglerbegship, is at SoPHIA, a citie of BVLGARIA ; so appointed for the commodious situation thereof, for the better commaund of the rest of the prouinces of EvroPE: howbeit, that he for the most part or rather altogether abideth at the court, which the other Beglerbegs cannot doe, for that they are bound not to depart from the gouernment of their prouinces: in which charge they ordinarily continue but three yeares only, the great Sultan still changing and altering them at his pleasure. This Beg- lerbeg hath vnder his owne ensigne and commaund forty thousand Timariots alwaies ready at his call, vinder the con- duct of these one and twenty Sanzacks following, namely, the Sanzacke of . 11 Prisrem 12 Salonichi 13 Trichala 1 Sophia in Bulgaria. 2 Nicopolis. 3 Clisse or Quadraginta Ec- all in Thessalia. clesia. 14 Misitra, of old called 4 Vyza in Thracia. Sparta, in Morea. 5 Kirmen - 15 Palaeopatra, in the same 6 Silistria (all in Mace- prouince. 7 Giustandill donia. 16 Joannina in Aºtolia. 8 Bender, neere vnto the 17 Deluima * e Ruxine. 18 Elbassan }both in Achaia. 9 Acherman, in the confines 19 Auelona or Aulona in Al- of Moldavia. bania. 10 Vscopia. 20 Ducagin in Epirus. 21 Iscodra orScodrain Albania. The Beglerbeg of BvDA, who there resideth in the frontiers of the Turkish Empire, hauing vnder his charge 8,000 Timariots, beside 12000 other souldiors, which in continuall pay lye still readie in garrison in the confines of HVNGARIE, ChoATIA, STIRIA, and other places bordering Vpon the Christians, but especially the territories belonging to the house of AvstFIA. He had of late vnder his ensigne and commaund these fifteene Sanzackes, viz. the Sanzacke of 1 Nouigrad. 9 Simontorna. 2 Filek. 10 Copan. 3 Zetschen. 11 Muhatz. 4 Zolnock. 12 Zigeth or Saswar. 5 Gran or Strigonium. 13 Petschew or Quinque 6 Segedin. IEcclessa. 7 Alba Regalis. 14 Sirmium. 8 Seacard. 15 Semendria. Of which, FILEK, ZETschen, and STRIGONIVM are in these late warres woon from the Turks by the Imperials, and so yet by them holden; as was also ALBA REGALIS, which but of late was by the Turkes again recouered. The Beglerbeg of TEMEsvvAR in HVNGARIE, who there hath his abode, hauing vnder his commaund seuen thousand Timariots, with these eight Sanzackes, the Sanzacke of 1 Temeswar. 5 JWischitix'n?. 2 Mudaua. 6 Iswornick. 3 Vilaos war. 7 Vidin. 4 Tschimnad. 8 Lipa. The Beglerbeg of BosNA, who lieth at BAGNIALvcA, hath vnder him these Sanzackes, the Sanzacke of 1 Bugnialuca. 6 Sazeschna. 2 Poshega. 7 Giula. 3 Clissa. 8 Brisrem. 4 Hertzegovina. 9 Allatschia 5 Lika. chissar. The Beglerbeg of CoFFE or CAPHA, who there resideth in TAvRICA CHERsonEsvs, and beside the countrey thereabout, 100 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603 commaundeth ouer all the Sanzacks neere vnto the great riuer TANAIs, and the fennes of MEoTIs. It was at first but a Sanzackship, subject to the Beglerbeg of GRECIA, and is in truth rather a Beglerbegs place in name, than in strength and power. The Beglerbegs or great Commaunders of the Turkes Empire in ASIA. The Beglerbeg of- 1 Anatolia, who hath his resiance in Cutaie, the metro- politicall city of the greater Phriyia (called of auncient time Catyai) and hath vnder his ensigne and com- maund thirtie thousand of the Timariot horsemen, with twelue Sanzacks. 2 Caramania, who hath his abode at Caisaria (in auncient time called Caesaria) a citie of Cilicia, and hath Vnder him seuen Sanzackes, with twentie thousand Timariots. 3 Siuas, who hath his abiding at Sebastia, a citie of the lesser Armenia, and hath Vnder his gouernment ten thousand Timariots. 4 Tocatun, who resideth at Amasia, the metropolis of Capa- docia, and hath vnder him fiue Sanzackes. 5 Dulgadir, sometime part of the kingdome of Aladeules, and commandeth ouer foure Sanzackes. 6 Halºp, commonly called Aleppo, a citie of Syria, and one of the most famous marts of the East, who hath vnder his regiment fiue and twentie thousand Timariots. 7 Sham, otherwise called Damasco, a most famous citie of Syria, who commandeth ouer fortie thousand Timariots. 8 Tarapolos or Trapolos, commonly called Tripolis, another famous citie of Syria. 9 Maras, a citie vpon the great riuer Euphrates, betwixt Aleppo and Mesopotamia, who hath Vnder his commaund ten thousand Timariots. 10 Diarbekir, otherwise called Mesopotamia, who maketh his abode at the citie of Amida, or as the Turkes call it, Cara-hemid; who commaundeth over twelve Sanzackes, and thirtie thousand Timariots. 11 Bagdat (or new Babylon) where he resideth not farre from the ruines of old Babylon, who hath vnder him fortie thousand Timariots. Balsara, not farre from Bagdat vpon the Persian gulfe, who hath vnder his rule or gouernment fifteene thou- sand Timariots. 13 Lazca, towards Ormus, and neere vnto the Persian, hath vnder his regiment ten thousand Timariots. Gemen and Aden, two famous cities in Arabia Faelia, vpon the coast of the red sea, who hath vnder him thirtie thousand Timariots. Chebetz or Zebet, vpon the coast of the Arabian gulfe, neere vnto the kingdome of the great Æthyopian king Preianes, commonly (but corruptly) called Presbiter Iohn. Cyprus, who lyeth at Micosia or Famagusta, commaunding ouer all that great Island, sometime of it selfe a kingdome. Scheherezul in Assyria, bordering vpon the Persian, who hath vnder his gouernment ten thousand Timariots. h'an, a citie in the confines of the greater Armenia towards Media, who hath vnder him twelve thousand Timariots. 19 Artzerum or Erzerum, in the borders of Armenia towards Capadocia, about foure daies journey from Trapezonde, who commaundeth ouer twentie thousand Timariots. 20 Teflis, neere vnto the Georgians, erected by Mustapha Bassa, Generall of Amurath the third his armie against the Persian, in the yeare 1578. Siruan or Media, erected by the same Mustapha, and at the same time, commaundeth ouer all that great countrey, sometime a famous kingdome. 12 21 : : * : : : : : ; 22 Temir-Capi or Derbent, neere vnto the Caspian sea, taken by Osman Bassa the same yeare 1578, who hauing slaine Schehemet Chan his father in law, reduced that countrey into the forme of a Beglerbegship. 23 Cars, a citie of Armenia the greater, distant from Artzerum four daies journey, by Mustapha Bassa made a Beglerbeg- ship in the yeare 1579. 24 Tschilder or Tzilder in the confines of the Georgians, erected by the same Generall Mustapha in the same yeare 1579. 25 Fassa or Phasis in Mengrelia, neere vnto the Georgians, erected by Vluzales the Turks Admirall the same yeare 1579. 26 Sochum, in the borders of the Georgians, erected by the great Bassa Sinan in the yeare 1580. 27 Batin, there erected also by the same Sinan Bassa. 28 Reiuan, erected by Ferat Bassa, Generall of the Turkes armie, taken from Tocomac Chan the Persian in the yeare 1582, whereof Cicala Bassa was the first Beglerbeg. 29 Somachia, in the countrey of Media, erected by Osman Bassa in the yeare 1583. 30 Tauris, a most famous citie of Armenia the greater, some- time the regall seat of the Persian kings, but of late taken from them by Osman Bassa, and conuerted into a Beglerbegship in the same yeare 1583. But these late erected honours, namely, the Beglerbegships of TEFLIS, SIRVAN, TEMIR-CAPI, CARs, Tsch ILDER, FAssA, and the rest gained by Amurath from the Persians and the Georgians, although they containe a great territorie, are not of themselues any of them worthy of those proud titles, or yet able to maintaine the same, SIRVAN, REIVAN, and TAVRIs onely excepted; but were by the great Bassaes, Mustapha, Sinan, Ferat, and Osman, Amurath his lieutenants, for their owne greater honor, and the encouraging of them which were to defend those their new conquests, erected; being indeed nothing either in power or strength comparable with the other more auncient Beglerbegs either in Evrop E or ASIA. But hauing thus passed through the great kingdomes and pro- uinces by the Turkes holden in EvitoPE and ASIA, with their proud honours therein, let vs goe forward toward the South, to see what great kingdomes and territories they at this present hold in AFRICKE also. The Beglerbegs or great Commaunders of the Turkes Empire in AFRICKE. The Beglerbeg of- 1 Missir, who still making his abode at the great citie of Caire, hath vnder his commaund all the kingdome of Agipt, with sixteene Sanzackes, and an hundred thou- sand Timariots. 2 Cesair (in ancient time called Iulia Casaria) but now com- monly Algiers, where the Beglerbeg still residing, commandeth ouer all that kingdome, wherein are fortie thousand Timariots. 3 Tunis, where he still remaining as a Viceroy, commaundeth all that great and large kingdome. 4 Tripolis, the seat of his Beglerbegship, by Sinan Bassa taken from the knights of Malta in the yeare 1551. There are beside, these other two kingdomes in AFRICKE enrolled in the Turks records as their owne, although they be not as yet by them brought into the forme of Beglerbegships: namely, the kingdomes of FEs and MARoco, but are as yet holden by them as their tributaries and vassales. But hauing thus as it were taken view of the greatnesse and forces of this so mightie a Monarchs Empire by land, and so in some sort bounded it out, let vs consider also his power by sea. With the great Ocean he much medleth not, TO A.D. 1610.] 101 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. more than a little in the gulfes of PERSIA and ARABIA: most of his territories lying vpon the Mediterranean and Euxine seas, or else more inwardly into the heart of ASIA, neere vnto no sea. Now for these seas, no prince in the world hath greater or better means to set forth his fleets than hath he for the ouergrowne woods of EPIRVs and CILICIA ; and more than they, those of NICOMEDIA and TRAPEZONDE, are so great and so thicke, and so full of tall trees fit for the building of ships and gallies of all sorts, as is almost incredible. Neither wanteth he store of shipwrights and other carpenters for the framing of that so great store of timber, large pay drawing euen the Christian skilful carpenters and workmen into his Arsenals at CoNSTANTINoPLE, SINoFE, CALLIPOLIs, and others. For proofe whereof it is worth the noting, that Selymus the second in our fresh remembrance, the next yeare after that notable ouerthrow by him receiued at the ECHINADEs (com- monly called the battle of LEPANTo') rigged vp a fleet where- with Vluzales his admirall was not afraid to face the whole power of the confederat Christian princes at CERIGo. Neither hath the Turke euer wanted good store of expert seamen, after the maner of those seas: for beside those he hath in store at CALLIPOLIS and SINoPE, out of his gallies which he hath alwaies in readinesse in LESBos, CHIos, RHoDvs, CYPRys, and ALEXANDRIA, & from the pyrats which he continually receiueth into the ports of TVNIs, Bvg|IA, TRIPOLIs, & ALGIERs, he can & doth from them when need is chuse captaines, mariners, and rowers sufficient for the manning and storing of his fleet. What he is able to doe in those seas, was well seene in our time, by those fleets which he had at MALTA, CYPRVs, the ECHINADEs, and GVLETTA. He hath beside of all necessary and warlike prouision abundant store, & of great ordnance to furnish himselfe withall both by sea & land an infinit quantitie. Out of Hvng ARIE he hath carried away aboue 5000 great peeces, out of CYPR vs 500, and few lesse from GVLETTA, not to speake what he hath more got from the Christians in diuers other places also. What store he hath of shot and pouder, he shewed at MALTA, where he discharged aboue 60000 great shot; at FAMAGVSTA, where he bestowed 118000; & at GVLETTA, where in the space of 39 daies he by the furie of his great ordnance ouerthrew the fortifications which the Christians had been 40 yeares in building. So that to returne again vnto our purpose, the great Turke So well prouided of men, mony, shipping, and great Ordnance, and hauing done so great matters at sea as is before rehearsed, is not in reason otherwise to be accounted of than as of a most mighty and puissant prince, as wel by sea as land : which to be so, the greatnesse of his Denizi Beglerbeg or great Admirall (commonly called Capitan Bassa, of whom we haue not yet spoken) well declareth. This great man hauing charge of all the Grand Signior his strength at sea, is alwaies one of the Visier Bassaes, not bound still to follow the court, as the other Visier Bassaes be, but alwaies or for most part resiant at CoNSTANTINOPLE or CALLIPOLIS, so to be the neerer vnto his charge. He that now hath this honorable place, is called of the Turks Cigala Bassa, discended of an honorable family of that name in GENVA; who com- monly residing at CoNSTANTINopLE or CALLIPOLIS, hath vnder him 14 Sanzackes, all of them great commaunders and men of great place, namely, the Sanzacke of 5 Mitylene, or Lesbos. 6 Chios, or Sio. 7 Nearia, or Narus. 8 Negropont, or Euboea. 1 Gallipolis, or Callipolis. 2 Galata, or Pera. 3 Nicomedia. 4 Limnos, or Lemmus. 1 Lepanto. On the 7th of October, 1571, the fleets of Spain, Venice, Genoa, Malta, and the Pope, commanded by Don John of Austria, defeated the Turks in a great sea-fight off Lepanto, near Corinth. 9 Rhodus. 12 Lepanto, or Naupactus. 10 Cauala in the frontiers of 13 S. Maura. Macedonia. 14 Alexandria. 11 Napolidi Romania. The greatnesse, wealth, and strength of this so mightie an Empire, as well by sea as land, thus in some sort declared, let vs now see vpon what princes it also confineth, and of what power euery one of them is in comparison of it, so great and ouergrowne a State. The Turks toward the East border vpon the Persians, according to a right line, drawne by im- agination from TAVRIs to BALSARA : vpon the Portugals at . the Persian gulfe, and so there likewise toward the South : at the red sea, vpon the great Æthyopian king Preianes, commonly called Prester Iohn : towards the West, in AFRICKE vpon the king of MARoco : and in EvroPE vpon the kingdome of NAPLEs, with some part of the Venetian signorie: towards the North vpon the Polonians, and the territories of the house of Avst RIA. Now to begin with the Persian, the great Turke no doubt is in field too strong for him, as by proofe hath been oftentimes seene: For Mahomet the Great in plaine battaile ouercame the valiant Vsun-Cassanes : Selymus the first, and after him Solyman his son, put to flight the noble Hysmael and Tamas, the two great and famous Persian kings: and now of late in our time, Amurath the third by his lieutenants hath taken from the Persians all MEDIA, with the greater ARMENIA, both sometimes famous kingdomes, together with the regall citie of TAVRIS. That the Turke so preuaileth is by reason of his footmen, which the Persian wanteth ; and of his great ordnance, whereof the Persian hath neither store nor use: and although the Persians by valour of their horse- men hath sometime in open field foiled the Turke, yet haue they still lost some part of their countrey, Solyman taking from them MESOPOTAMIA, and Amwrath MEDIA and ARMENIA.” Neither did the Persians alone feele that harme, and loose their owne, but Vndid their confederats also ; Selymus the first spoiling the Mamalukes of ÆGYPT and SIRIA, and vtterly rooting them from off the face of the earth, and Amurath by his lieutenants hauing brought to a low ebbe the warlike Geor- gians, both of them the Persian kings friends and confederats. Now is not the Turke so much too strong at land for the Persian, but that he is as much too weake at sea for the Portugals ; in those seas I meane where their forces haue more than once to the Turks cost met together in the East Indies. The Portugals, hauing in those rich but remote countries many sure harbours and ports, yea faire countries and territories abounding with victuals and all prouision necessary for shipping, with some also of those great Easterne princes, their allies and confederats; whereas the Turke on the other side hath nothing in the Persian gulfe strong, beside BALSARA ; the sea-coast of ARABIA, which might stand him in best stead, hauing no more but foure townes, and those but weak and of small worth. So that there, as also in the red sea, it is a matter of exceeding charge and difficultie for him to set out any great fleet into those seas; for that those countries are vtterly destitute of wood fit to make ships of. For which cause, those few times that he prepared his fleets in the red sea (to haue cut off the Portugals trade into the East Indies) being not able to performe the same in the Persian gulfe, he was enforced to bring the timber for the building of his gallies out of the ports of BITHYNIA and CILICIA (out of another world as it were) vp the NILE winto CAIRE, and from thence vpon cammels by land to SVEs, where he hath his Arsenall, a thing almost incredible. And yet hauing done what he could, as oft as he hath made any * Thirty years after this was written, the Turks (in 1639) took Bagdad. 102 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF expedition against them, he neuer gained anything but losse and dishonour: as in the yeare 1538 at the citie of DIVM; and in the yeare 1552 at the Island of ARMv7 ; and after that at MoMBAZA, where foure of the Turkes gallies, with one galliot, which by the fauour of the king of MoMBAZA had thought to haue stayed in those seas, were by the Portugals taken : who still haue an especiall regard and care, that the Turkes settle not themselves in those seas; but as SOOne as they perceiue them to prepare any fleet, they forthwith set vpon them, and to that end oftentimes without resistance enter into the red sea. Prester Iohn, of whom although men speak much, yet is he nothing in strength to be compared vnto the Turke, but farre inferiour vnto him both for com- maunders and souldiors, as also for weapons and munition: for that great prince hath a great kingdome without fortifi- cation, and a multitude of souldiors without armes: as appeared by the ouerthrow of Barnagasso his lieutenant to- wards the red sea; who hauing lost all that sea coast vnto the Turkes, was brought to that extremitie, that to haue peace with them, he yeelded to pay vnto them a yearely tribute of a thousand ounces of gold. In AFRICKE the Turke hath moe territories than hath the king of MARoCo, otherwise called the Xerife: For he possesseth all that there lyeth betwixt the red sea and the kingdome of FEs ; but the Xerife hath the better part, the richer, stronger, and more vnited: yet dare neither of them well make warre vpon the other, for the neerenesse of the king of SPAINE, enemie vnto them both. Now then there remaineth the rest of the Christian princes bordering vpon the Turke; and first the king of Polon1A. What these two princes can do the one against the other, hath been seene in some former expeditions, wherein the Polonian had still the worse. Yet it should seeme that of later time the Turke hath not beene greatly desirous to mooue the Polonian too farre : For that being proudked by diuers occasions (namely, in the reigne of Henry the third, in the wars that John the Wayuod of WALACHIA had with the Turks, many Polonian horsemen serued the said Vayuod, though not indeed sent from the king : and in the time of Sigismund the third, the Polonian Cossackes haue with diuers incursions not a little troubled them : beside the late motions of Iohn Zamoschie the great Chancelor and Generall of the Polonian forces, for the staying of the Tartars by the Turke sent for) he hath beene content to comport the same, and not with his wonted pride sought to be thereof reuenged, as he hath for farre lesse vpon some other princes. And on the other side, the Polonians since the vnfortunate expedition of king Ladislaus, neuer tooke vpon them any warres against the Turks, neither gaue such aid as they should vnto the Valachians their confederats, but suffered to be taken from themselues, whatsoeuer they had towards the Euxine or Blacke sea : a thing imputed rather vnto the want of courage in their kings, than in the nobilitie of that kingdome. Sigis- mund the first being by Pope Leo the tenth inuited to the warres against the Turks, answered him in these few words: Set you the Christian princes at vnitie amongst themselues, and I for my part will not bee wanting. Sigismund the second so abhorred the warres, that he not onely declined the Turks, but prouoked by the Muscouites, neuer sought to reuenge the same. King Stephen (by the commendation of Amurath chosen king of PolonLA) an indifferent esteemer both of his enemies forces and his owne, thought it a most dangerous thing to join battaile with the Turke, and yet in priuate talke with his friends would oftentimes say, That with thirtie thousand foot joyned vnto his Polonian horsemen, he durst well to vndertake an expedition against the Turke; which he was supposed oftentimes to haue thought vpon. The Em- perour, with the rest of the princes of the house of AvsTRIA, are by a longer tract of ground joyned vnto this great Empire of the Turks, than any one other prince of the world, and bestow in fortifications and the maintenance of their garrisons (wherein they haue continually aboue twentie thousand horse and foot) the greatest part of their reuenues euen in the time of peace, much more in these their long warres; and with the Germane forces joymed vnto their owne, are more carefull how to defend that they yet haue left, than how to recouer that they haue already lost, or to enlarge their Empire. The Emperour Ferdinand with greater force than successe vnder- tooke the vnfortunate expeditions of BvDA and PossEGA: which so euill fell out, not for that his forces were not suffi- cient or strong enough; but for that they wanted agilitie and dexteritie. The truth is, those his armies were strong ynough, and sufficiently furnished with all things necessarie, but con- sisted for the most part of Germanes and Bohemians, slow and heauie people, Vnfit to encounter with the Turkes, a more readie and nimble kind of souldiors. The Venetians also confrontier the Turkes by many hundred miles both by sea and land, and defend themselues rather by peaceable policie than by force of armes: notably fortifying their strong holds vpon their frontiers, declining by all means the dangers and charges of warre, by embassages and rich presents; leauing nothing vnattempted (their libertie and State pre- serued) rather than to fall to warres. To say the truth of them, although they had both coyne and warlike prouision sufficient, yet want they men and victuals answerable to so great a war against so puissant an enemy. There remaineth only the king of SPAINE, of all other the great princes either Christians or Mahometanes (bordering vpon him) the best able to deale with him ; his yearely reuenewes so farre exceeding those of the Turkes, as that they are also probably thought to counteruaile the greatest part of his Timariots: and his great dominions in SPAINE, PoHTVGALL, NAPLEs, SICILIA, MILLAINE, SARDINIA, and the Low Countries (if they were with him at vnitie) able to affourd vnto him so great and powerfull a strength both by sea and land, as might make him dreadfull euen vnto the Great Turke when he swelleth in his greatest pride: But considering how his forces are distracted for the maintenance of his warres at once in diuers places; as also for the necessarie defence and keeping of his so large and dispersed territories, not all the best of themselues affected to the Spanish gouernment, he is not to be thought of himselfe strong ynough against the Vnited forces of the great Turke, whensoeuer they should chance to be imploied vpon him. So that by this we haue alreadie said, is easily to be gathered how much the Turke is too strong for any one the neighbour princes, either Mahome- tanes or Christians, bordering vpon him, and therefore to be of them the more feared. Yet least some mistaking me, might thinke, What, is then the Turke inuincible P Farre be that thought from me, to thinke any enemie of Christ Iesu (be his arme neuer so strong) to be able to withstand his power, either quite to deuour his little flocke, rage he neuer so much about it. As for the Turke, the most daungerous and professed enemie of the Christian commonweale, be his strength so great, yea and haply greater too than is before de- clared (the greatnesse of his dominions and empire considered) yet is he not to bee thought therefore either inuincible, or his power indeed so great as it in shew seemeth for to be: his Timariot horsemen (his greatest strength) dispersed ouer his whole empire, being neuer possibly the one halfe of them by him to be gathered into the bodie of one armie: neither if they so were, possible in such a multitude long to be kept to- gether, liuing vpon no pay of his, but vpon such store and prouision onely as they bring with them from their Timari, neuer sufficient long to maintaine them. Besides that, the To A.D. 1610.] 103 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. gº policie of his state hardly or neuer suffereth him to draw aboue a third part of his Timariots out of his countries where they dwell, for feare least the rest of the people by them still kept vnder, should in their absence take vp armes against him in defence of themselues and their auntient libertie: whereafter the greatest part of those poore oppressed soules, as well Mahometanes as Christians in euerie prouince of his empire awaiting but the opportunitie, most desirously longeth: so that more than two parts of them being alwayes to be left at home, for the necessarie defence of the spacious border of his so large an empire, as also for the keeping in obedience of so many discontented nations; it is a great matter, if hee euen in his greatest warres draw together of these kind of Soul- diours the full number of an hundred and fiftie thousand strong, making vp the rest of his huge multitude with his Acanzij, liuing of no pay of his, but vpon the spoile of the enemie onely, the fift part whereof they pay vnto him also. All which put together, what manner of men they be, of and what valour, not onely the small armies of the Christians vnder the leading of their worthie chiefetaines Humiades, Scanderbeg, king Matthias, and others, haue to their im- mortal glorie in former times made good proofe: but euen in this our age, and that as it were but the other day, the Transyluanian prince with diuers other valiant captaines and commaunders yet living, haue done the like also ; as wel witnesseth the late battell of AGRIA, wherein the Chris- tians, in number not halfe so many as the Turkes, by plaine valour draue the great Sultan Mahomet himselfe (with Ibrahim Bassa his lieutenant General) out of the field, and had of him had the most glorious victorie that euer was got against that enemie, had they not by too much carelesnesse and vntimely desire of spoile, themselues shamefully interrupted the same. But thvs to let his horsemen passe, the chiefe strength of his foot- men are his Ianizaries, neuer in number exceeding twelue or foureteene thousand, yea seldome times halfe so many, euen in his greatest armies, except he himselfe be there in person present in the middest of them: who beside the small number of them, in the time of these their late voluptuous and effeminate emperours, corrupted with the pleasures of CoNSTANTINoPLE, and for want of their woonted discipline, haue together with their auntient obedience and patience, lost also a great part of their former reputation and valour: all the rest of his footmen filling vp the bodie of his populous armie, being his Asapi, rather pioners than souldiours, men of small worth, and so accounted of, both of the Turks and their enemies also. So that all things well considered, his best soul- diours being the least part of his greatest armies, and they also farre vnlike their predecessors, the sterne followers of the former Othoman kings and emperours, but men now giuen to pleasure and delight: it is not otherwise to be thought, but that he bringeth into the field far moe men than good souldiours, more brauerie than true valour, more shew than worth, his multitude being his chiefest strength, his supposed greatnesse the terrour of his neighbour princes, and both to- gether the verie majestie of his empire. Which although it be indeed verie strong (for the reasons before alleadged), yet is it by many probably thought to be now vpon the declining hand, their late emperors in their owne persons far degenerating from their warlike progenitors, their souldiours generally giuing themselues to vnwonted pleasures, their auncient discipline of warre neglected, their superstition not with so much zeale as of old regarded, and rebellions in diuers parts of his Empire of late strangely raised, and mightily supported: all the signes of a declining state. Which were they not at all to be seene, as indeed they be very pregnant, yet the great- nesse of this Empire being such, as that it laboureth with nothing more than the weightinesse of it selfe, it must needs (after the manner of worldly things) of it selfe fall, and againe come to nought, no man knowing when or how so great a work shall be brought to passe, but he in whose deepe coun- sels all these great reuolutions of Empires and Kingdomes are from eternitie shut vp : who at his pleasure shall in due time by such meanes as he seeth best accomplish the same, to the wnspeakable comfort of his poore afflicted flock, in one place or other still in danger to be by this roaring Lyon deuoured. Which worke of so great wonder, he for his sonne our Sauiour Christ his sake, the glorie of his name, and comfort of many thousand oppressed Christians, fed with the bread of careful- nesse amidst the furnace of tribulation, in mercie hasten, that we with them, and they with vs, all as members of one bodie, may continually sing, Wnto him be all honour and praise world without end. Among the jest-books of the time of James I. and Charles I. is one that is said to have been first com- piled by Andrew Boorde, in the days of Henry VIII., the “Merry Tales of the Mad-men of Gottam.” An edition of it published in 1630 had on the title-page a wood-cut, here reproduced, showing how the men THE GOTHAM CUCKOO. Gotham is a parish now containing seven or eight hundred inhabitants, about seven miles from Nottingham. Hundreds of places in and out of England have obtained local celebrity of the same kind as that which the old jest-book has caused Gotham to obtain of Gotham hoped to fence in the cuckoo. in English Literature. I quote five of the twenty MERRY TALES OF THE MAD MEN OF GOTHAM. The Cuckoo. On a time, the men of Gotham would have pinned in the cuckoo, whereby she should sing all the year, and in the midst of the town they made a hedge round in compass, and they had got a cuckoo, and had put her into it, and said: “Sing here all the year, and thou shalt lack neither meat nor drink.” The cuckoo, as soon as she perceived herself encom- passed within the hedge, flew away. “A vengeance on her! said they; “we made not our hedge high enough.” 104 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1603 † Forethought. When that Good Friday was come, the men of Gotham did cast their heads together what to do with their white herring, their red herring, their sprats, and salt fish. One consulted with the other, and agreed that such fish should be cast into their pond or pool (the which was in the middle of the town), that it might increase against the next year; and every man that had any fish left, did cast them into the pool. The one said: “I have thus many white herrings;” another said: “I have thus many sprats; ” another said: “I have thus many red herrings;” and the other said: “I have thus many salt fishes. Let all go together into the pool or pond, and we shall fare like lords the next Lent.” At the beginning of the next Lent following, the men did draw the pond to have their fish, and there was nothing but a great eel. “Ah!” said they all, “a mischief on this eelſ for he hath eat up all our fish. What shall we do with him P” said the one to the other. “Rill him,” said the one of them. “Chop him all to pieces,” said another. “Nay, not so,” said the other, “let us drown him.” “Be it so,” said all. They went to another pool or pond by, and did cast in the eel into the water. “Lie there,” said they, “and shift for thy- self: for no help thou shalt have of us;” and there they left the eel to be drowned. The Lost Man. On a certain time, there were twelve men of Gotham, that did go a fishing, and some did wade in the water, and some stood upon dry land, and when that they went homeward, one said to the other: “We have ventured wonderful hard this day in wading ; I pray God that none of us that did come from home be drowned.” “Marry,” said the one to the other, “let us see that, for there did twelve of us come out;” and they told themselves, and every man did tell eleven, and the twelfth man did never tell himself. “Alas,” said the one to the other, “there is one of us drowned.” They went back to the brook, where that they had been fishing, and sought up and down for him that was drowned, and did make great lamentation. A courtier did come riding by, and he did ask what it was they did seek, and why they were so sorry. “Oh,” said they, “this day we went to fish in this brook, and there did come out twelve of us, and one is drowned.” “Why,” said the courtier, “tell how many be of you.” And the one told eleven, and he did not tell himself. “Well,” said the cour- tier, “what will you give me, and I will find out twelve men P” “Sir,” said they, “all the money that we have.” “Give me the money,” said the courtier: and he began with the first, and did give him a recombendibus over the shoulders that he groaned, and said: “There is one.” So he served all, that they groaned on the matter. When he did come to the last, he payed him a good, saying: “Here is the twelfth man.” “God’s blessing on your heart,” said all the company, “that you have found out our neighbour.” The Three Gossips. A man's wife of Gotham was brought to bed of a man-child; the father did bid the gossips, the which were children of eight or nine years of age. The eldest child’s name that should be godfather was named Gilbert ; the second child was named Humphrey ; and the godmother's name was Christabel. The friends of them did admonish them, saying, that divers times they must say after the priest. When all were come to the church door, the priest said: “Be you agreed of the name?” “Be you,” said Gilbert, “agreed of the name?” “Be you,” said Humphrey, “agreed of the name P” “Be you,” said Christabel, “agreed of the name?” The priest said: “Wherefore be you come hither P” Gilbert said: “Wherefore be you come hither?” Humphrey said: “Where- fore be you come hither ?” Christabel said: “Wherefore be you come hither?” The priest, being amazed, could not tell what to say, but whistled and said “Whew.” Gilbert whistled and said “Whew; ” Humphrey whistled and said “Whew,” and so did Christabel. The priest, being angry, said: “Go home, fools, go home.” “Go home, fools, go home,” said Gilbert. “Go home, fools, go home,” said Humphrey. “Go home, fools, go home,” said Christabel. The priest then provided new godfathers and godmothers. Here a man may see, that children can do nothing without good instructions. And they be not not wise that will regard children’s words. The Nine Good Wives. In old time, when these aforesaid jests (as men of the country reported) and such fantastical matters were done at Gotham, which I cannot tell half, the wives were gathered together in an alehouse, and the one said to the other, that they were profitable to their husbands. “Which way, good gossips?” said the Alewife. The first said: “I shall tell you all, good gossips. I can neither bake, brew, nor can I do no work, wherefore I do make every day holiday, and I go to the ale- house, because at all times I cannot go to the church ; and in the alehouse I pray to God to speed well my husband, and I do think my prayer shall do him much more good than my labour, if I should work.” Then said the second : “I am profit- able to my husband in saving of candles in winter: for I do cause my husband and all my household folks to go to bed by daylight, and to rise by daylight.” The third wife said: “And I am profitable to my husband in spending of bread, for I will eat but little : for to the drinking of a gallon or two of good ale, I care for no meat.” The fourth wife said: “I am loth to spend meat and drink at home in mine own house, wherefore I do go to the wine tavern at Nottingham, and so take wine and such things as God shall send me there.” The fifth wife said: “A man shall have ever more company in another man’s house than in his own, and most commonly in an alehouse is the best cheer in a town; and for sparing of meat and drink, and other necessaries, I go to the alehouse.” The sixth wife said: “My husband hath wool, and flax, and tow; and to spare it, I go to other men's houses to do other men’s work.” The seventh wife said: “I do spare my husband's wood and coal, and do sit talking all the day by other men's fires.” The eighth said: “Beef, and mutton, and pork is dear; wherefore I do spare it, and do take pig, goose, hen, chicken, coney, and capon, the which be of lower price.” The ninth said: “And I do spare my husband’s soap and lye : for when he should be washed once in a week, I do wash once in a quarter of a year.” Then said the Alewife: “And I do keep my husband’s ale, that I do brew, from souring : for, whereas I was wont to drink up all, now I do leave never a drop.” Character writing was among the forms of inge- nuity that came into fashion as our English style passed from the freshness of Elizabethan appetite for wit to the more jaded taste, the wit-hunger dependent upon artificial sauces of the later Euphuism. The first good examples of this kind of writing, and still the best, are in Ben Jonson’s “Every Man out of his Humour,” acted in the year 1599, and first printed in 1600, and in his “Cynthia's Revels,” printed in 1601. It is not only “The Character of the Persons” printed before “Every Man out of his Humour,” but the play itself in some degree, and “Cynthia's To A.D. 1608.] 105 SHORTER, PROSE works. Revels” throughout, is so written as to sparkle with elaborated little bits of Character writing. Thus, in “The Character of the Persons,” prefixed to “Every Man out of his Humour,” two are thus sketched;— CHARACTERS BY BEN JONSON : Carlo Buffone. A public, scurrilous, and profane jester, that, more swift than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into deformity. A good feast-hound, or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out a supper some three miles off, and swear to his patron, he came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that hath an extraor- dinary gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up more sack at a sitting than would make all the guard a posset. His religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry. They stand highest in his respect whom he studies most to reproach. JFastidious Brisk. A neat, spruce, affecting courtier; one that wears clothes well and in fashion; practises by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, notwithstanding his base viol and tobacco; swears tersely, and with variety ; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man’s horse to praise, and back him as his own. Or, for a need, on foot, can post himself into credit with his merchant only with the jingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand. From Ben Jonson's play of “Cynthia's Revels” these are two characters:– A Traveller. Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of forms, that himself is truly deformed. He walks most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth, he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are printed, his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is an Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. He is his own pro- moter in every place. The wife of the ordinary gives him his diet to maintain her table in discourse, which, indeed, is a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all the talk; ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter; once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceedingly well, out at a window. He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most clocks, for which he is right properly ac- commodated to the Whetstone, his page. Crites : a Man of Sound Judgment. A creature of a most perfect and divine temper; one in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric ; but is all so composed and ordered, as it is clear Nature went about some full work—she did more than make a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly learned that he affects not to show it. He will think and speak his thoughts both freely, but as distant from depraving another man's merit as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis such that he dares as little offer an injury as receive one. In sum, he hath a most ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and seasoned wit, a straight judgment, and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear—he hath too much reason to do either—and that commends all things to him. The fashion thus set at the close of Elizabeth's reign, spread in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Joseph Hall," who became a bishop under Charles I., published in 1608, when he was vicar of Waltham Holy Cross, “Characters of Virtues and Vices,” in two books, each with a proeme, one of eleven Vir- tues, and the other of fifteen Vices. Here is one of each — CHARACTERS BY JOSEPH HALL –An Honest Man. He looks not to what he might do, but what he should. Justice is his first guide, the second law of his actions is expedience. He had rather complain than offend, and hates sin more for the indignity of it than the danger. His simple uprightness works in him that confidence which ofttimes wrongs him and gives advantage to the subtle, when he rather pities their faithlessness than repents of his credulity. He hath but one heart, and that lies open to sight: and were it not for discretion he never thinks aught whereof he would avoid a witness. His word is his parchment, and his “yea” his oath, which he will not violate for fear or for loss. The mishaps of following events may cause him to blame his providence, can never cause him to eat his promise; neither saith he, “This I saw not ; ”? but, “This I said.” When he is made his friend’s executor, he defrays debts, pays legacies, and scorneth to gain by Orphans or to ransack graves, and therefore will be true to a dead friend because he sees him not. All his dealings are square, and above the board; he bewrays” the fault of what he sells, and restores the overseen gain of a false reckoning. He esteems a bribe venomous, though it come gilded over with the colour of gratuity. His cheeks are never stained with the blushes of recantation; neither doth his tongue falter to make good a lie with the secret glosses of double or reserved senses; and when his name is traduced his innocence bears him out with courage; then, lo! he goes on the plain way of truth, and will either triumph in his integrity or suffer with it. His conscience overrules his providence, so as in all things, good or ill, he respects the nature of the actions, not the sequel. If he see what he must do, let God see what shall follow. He never loadeth himself with burdens above his strength, beyond his will; and once bound, what he can he will do, neither doth he will but what he can do. His ear is the sanctuary of his absent friend's name, of his present friend's secret; neither of them can miscarry in his trust. He remembers the wrongs of his youth, and repays them with that usury which he himself would not take. He would rather want than borrow, and beg than not to pay. His fair conditions are above dissembling, and he loves I See “Shorter English Poems,” pp. 256, 257; “Illustrations of English Religion,” pp. 281–285. * i.e., did not foresee; making change of conditions an excuse for promise-breaking. 8 Bewrays, discloses; applied to a fault ; from First-English, “wrégan,” to accuse. “Betray ” is from Latin “tradere,” to deliver up, to give into the hands of an enemy. Bewrayal, therefore, may or may not involve betrayal. 190 T06 ..[A.D. 1608 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. actions above words. Finally, he hates falsehood worse than death; he is a faithful client of Truth; no man's enemy; and it is a question, whether more another man's friend or his own P And if there were no heaven, yet he would be virtuous. Of the Superstitious. Superstition is godless religion, devout impiety. The superstitious is fond in observation, fertile in fear, he wor- ships God but as he lists. He gives God what He asks not; more than He asks, and all but what he should give; and makes more sins than the Ten Commandments. This man dares not stir forth till his breast be crossed and his face sprinkled; if but an hare cross him the way he returns; or if his journey began unawares on the dismal day; or if he stumble at the threshold. If he see a snake unkilled, he fears a mischief; if the salt fall towards him, he looks pale and red, and is not quiet till one of the waiters have poured wine on his lap; and when he neezeth, thinks them not his friends that uncover not. In the morning he listens whether the crow crieth even or odd, and by that token presages of the weather. If he hear but a raven croak from the next roof, he makes his will, or if a bittour' fly over his head by night; but if his troubled fancy shall second his thoughts with the dream of a fair garden, or green rushes, or the salutation of a dead friend, he takes leave of the world, and says he cannot live. He will never set to sea but on a Sun- day; neither ever goes without an Erra Pater” in his pocket. St. Paul's Day, and St. Swithin's with the Twelve, are his oracles, which he dares believe against the almanac. When he lies sick on his death-bed, no sin troubles him so much as that he did once eat flesh on a Friday; no repentance can expiate that, the rest need none. There is no dream of his without an interpretation, without a prediction; and if the event answer not his exposition, he expounds it according to the event. Every dark grove and pictured wall strikes him with an awful but carnal devotion. Old wives and stars are his counsellors; his night-spell is his guard, and charms are his physicians. He wears Paracelsian characters for the toothache, and a little hallowed wax is his antidote for all evils. This man is strangely credulous, and calls impossible things miraculous; if he hear that some sacred block speaks, moves, weeps, smiles, his bare feet carry him thither with an offering; and if a danger miss him in the way, his Saint hath the thanks. Some ways he will not go, and some he dares not ; either there are bugs, or he feigneth them ; every lantern is a ghost, and every noise is of chains. He knows not why, but his custom is to go a little about, and to leave the cross still on the right hand. One event is enough to make a rule; out of these he concludes fashions proper to himself; and nothing can turn him out of his own course. If he have done his task he is safe, it matters not with what affection. Finally, if God would let him be the carver of his own obedience, He could not have a better subject; as he is, He eannot have a worse. Thomas Overbury, born at Ilmington, in Warwick- shire, in 1581, and educated at Queen's College, * Bittour, an old form of “bittern.” So in Chapman's translation of the “Odyssey”— “Where hawks, sea-owls, and long-tongued bittours bred.” * Erra Pater, a prophetic almanac. The original Erra Pater was said to have been a Jewish doctor in astronomy and physic, but the name had passed into use as a common term for either a prophetic almanac maker or a prophetic almanac. Butler said of Hudibras— “In mathematics he was greater Tlian Tycho Frahe or Erra Pater.” Oxford, entered the Inner Temple, and then became a courtier as the friend of Thomas Carr, the favourite of James I. Overbury was knighted in 1608, and all went well till he opposed Carr's project of mar- riage with the divorced Countess of Essex. The king then proposed to get Sir Thomas Overbury out of the way by sending him on an embassy to Russia; and, as he refused to go, he was sent to the Tower, where he was poisoned in September of the same year, 1613, in which Carr became Earl of Somerset, and his marriage had, at court, a stately celebration. In 1616 the Earl and Countess were found guilty of his murder, but they were pardoned in 1622. Sir Thomas Overbury, who was murdered at the age of thirty-two, had written, besides his poem of “The Wife,” which is given in another volume of this Library,” a collection of characters from which I take the following:— CHARACTERS BY SIR. THOMAS A Courtier To all men's thinking is a man, and to most men the finest; all things else are defined by the understanding, but this by the senses; but his surest mark is, that he is to be found only about princes. He smells, and putteth away much of his judgment about the situation of his clothes. He knows no man that is not generally known. His wit, like the marigold, openeth with the sun, and therefore he riseth not before ten of the clock. He puts more confidence in his words than meaning, and more in his pronunciation than his words. Occasion is his Cupid, and he hath but one receipt of making love. He follows nothing but inconstancy, admires nothing but beauty, honours nothing but fortune, loves nothing. The sustenance of his discourse is news, and his censure like a shot depends upon the charging. He is not, if he be out of court, but fish-like breathes destruction if out of his element. Neither his motion or aspect are regular, but he moves by the upper spheres, and is the reflection of higher substances. If you find him not here, you shall in Paul's, with a pick- tooth in his hat, a capecloak, and a long stocking. OVERBURY : An Ignorant Glory-hunter Is an insectum animal; for he is the maggot of opinion, his behaviour is another thing from himself, and is glued and but set on. He entertains men with repetitions, and returns them their own words. He is ignorant of nothing, no, not of those things where ignorance is the lesser shame. He gets the names of good wits, and utters them for his companions. He confesseth vices that he is guiltless of, if they be in fashion; and dares not salute a man in old clothes, or out of fashion. There is not a public assembly without him, and he will take any pains for an acquaintance there. In any show he will be one, though he be but a whiffler,” or a torch-bearer; and bears down strangers with the story of his actions. He handles nothing that is not rare, and defends his wardrobe, diet, and all customs, with entituling their beginnings from princes, great soldiers, and strange nations. He dares speak more than he understands, and adventures his words without the relief of any seconds. He relates battles and skirmishes, as from an eye-witness, when his eyes thievishly beguiled a ballad of them. In a word, to make sure of admiration, he will not let himself understand himself, but hopes fame and opinion will be the readers of his riddles. * Shorter English Poems, pp. 277,278. * Whiffler, fifer. TO A.D. 1618.] 107 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. An Affectate Traveller Is a speaking fashion; he hath taken pains to be ridiculous, and hath seen more than he hath perceived. His attire speaks French or Italian, and his gait cries, Behold me! He censures all things by countenances, and shrugs, and speaks his own language with shame and lisping : he will choke rather than confess beer good drink; and his pick-tooth is a main part of his behaviour. He chooseth rather to be counted a spy, than not a politician, and maintains his reputation by naming great men familiarly. He chooseth rather to tell lies than not wonders, and talks with men singly: his discourse sounds big, but means nothing : and his boy is bound to admire him howsoever. He comes still from great personages, but goes with mean. He takes occasion to show jewels given him in regard of his virtue, that were bought in St. Martin’s : and not long after having with a mountebank's method pro- nounced them worth thousands, impawneth them for a few shillings. Upon festival days he goes to court, and salutes without resaluting: at night in an ordinary he canvasseth the business in hand, and seems as conversant with all intents and plots as if he begot them. His extraordinary account of men is, first to tell them the ends of all matters of conse- quence, and then to borrow money of them; he offers courtesies, to show them rather than himself humble. He disdains all things above his reach, and preferreth all countries before his own. He imputeth his want and poverty to the ignorance of the time, not his own unworthiness: and con- cludes his discourse with half a period, or a word, and leaves the rest to imagination. In a word, his religion is fashion, and both body and Soul are governed by fame; he loves most voices above truth. A Wise Man Is the truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reasonable creature. His disposition alters, he alters not. He hides himself with the attire of the vulgar; and in indifferent things is content to be governed by them. He looks accord- ing to nature, so goes his behaviour. His mind enjoys a continual smoothness: so cometh it, that his consideration is always at home. He endures the faults of all men silently, except his friends, and to them he is the mirror of their actions; by this means his peace cometh not from Fortune, but himself. He is cunning in men, not to surprise, but keep his own, and beats off their ill-affected humours, no otherwise than if they were flies. He chooseth not friends by the subsidy book, and is not luxurious after acquaintance. He maintains the strength of his body, not by delicates, but temperance: and his mind by giving it pre-eminence over his body. He understands things, not by their form, but qualities; and his comparisons intend not to excuse but to provoke him higher. He is not subject to casualties; for fortune hath nothing to do with the mind, except those drowned in the body: but he hath divided his soul from the case of his soul, whose weakness he assists no otherwise than commiserately, not that it is his, but that it is. He is thus, and will be thus: and lives subject neither to time nor his frailties, the servant of virtue, and by virtue, the friend of the highest. A Fine Gentleman Is the cinnamon tree, whose bark is more worth than his body. He hath read the book of good manners, and by this time each of his limbs may read it. He alloweth of no judge but the eye; painting, bolstering, and bombasting are his orators: by these also he proves his industry: for he hath purchased legs, hair, beauty, and straightness, more than Nature left him. He . . . º speaks Euphues, not so gracefully as heartily. His discourse makes not his behaviour, but he buys it at court, as countrymen their clothes in Birchin Lane. He is somewhat like the Salamander, and lives in the flame of love, which pains he expresseth comically: and nothing grieves him so much as the want of a poet to make an issue in his love; yet he sighs sweetly and speaks lamentably: for his breath is perfumed and his words are wind. He is best in season at Christmas; for the boar's head and reveller come together; his hopes are laden in his quality: and lest fiddlers should take him unprovided, he wears pumps in his pocket: and lest he should take fiddlers unprovided, he whistles his own galliard. He is a calender of ten years, and marriage rusts him. Afterwards he maintains himself an implement of household, by carving and ushering. For all this, he is judicial only in tailors and barbers, but his opinion is ever ready, and ever idle. If you will know more of his acts, the broker's shop is the witness of his valour, where lies wounded, dead rent, and out of fashion, many a spruce suit, overthrown by his fantasticness. A Pedant. He treads in a rule, and one hand scans verses, and the other holds his sceptre. He dares not think a thought, that the nominative case governs not the verb ; and he never had meaning in his life, for he travelled only for words. His ambition is criticism, and his example Tully. He values phrases, and elects them by the sound, and the eight parts of speech are his servants. To be brief, he is a Heteroclite, for he wants the plural number, having only the single quality of words. A Good Wife Is a man's best movable, a scion * incorporate with the stock, bringing sweet fruit; one that to her husband is more than a friend, less than trouble: an equal with him in the yoke. Calamities and troubles she shares alike, nothing pleaseth her that doth not him. She is relative in all; and he without her but half himself. She is his absent hands, eyes, ears, and mouth : his present and absent all. She frames her nature unto his, howsoever: the hyacinth follows not the sun more willingly, stubbornness and obstimacy are herbs that grow not in her garden. She leaves tattling to the gossips of the town, and is more seen than heard. Her household is her charge; her care to that makes her seldom non-resident. Her pride is but to be cleanly, and her thrift not to be prodigal. By her discretion she hath children, not wantons; a husband without her is a misery to man's apparel: none but she hath an aged husband, to whom she is both a staff and a chair. To conclude, she is both wise and religious, which makes her all this. A Melancholy Man Is a strayer from the drove: one that Nature made a sociable, because she made him man, and a crazed disposition hath altered. Impleasing to all, as all to him; straggling thoughts are his content, they making him dream waking, there's his pleasure. His imagination is never idle, it keeps his mind in a continual motion as the poise the clock: he winds up his thoughts often, and as often unwinds them; Penelope's web thrives faster. He'll seldom be found without the shade of some grove, in whose bottom a river dwells. He carries a cloud in his face, never fair weather: his outside is framed to his inside, in that he keeps a decorum, both unseemly. Speak 1 Scion, an ingrafted cutting. Old Freach, “cion” and “scion,” from Latin “secare,” to cut. Also a young shoot from a plant. 108 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1613 to him ; he hears with his eyes; ears follow his mind, and that's not at leisure. He thinks business, but never does any: he is all contemplation, no action. He hews and fashions his thoughts, as if he meant them to some purpose; but they prove unprofitable, as a piece of wrought timber to no use. His spirits and the sun are enemies, the sun bright and warm, his humour black and cold. Variety of foolish apparitions people his head, they suffer him not to breathe, according to the necessities of nature; which makes him sup up a draught of as much air at once, as would serve at thrice. He denies Nature her due in sleep, and nothing pleaseth him long, but that which pleaseth his own fantasies: they are the consuming evils, and evil consumptions that consume him alive. Lastly, he is a man only in show, but comes short of the better part; a whole reasonable soul, which is man’s chief pre- eminence, and sole mark from creatures sensible. A Worthy Commander in the Wars Is one that accounts learning the nourishment of military virtue, and lays that as his first foundation. He never bloodies his sword but in heat of battle ; and had rather save one of his own soldiers, than kill ten of his enemies. He accounts it an idle, vain-glorious, and suspected bounty, to be full of good words ; his rewarding therefore of the deserver arrives so timely, that his liberality can never be said to be gouty-handed. He holds it next his creed, that no coward can be an honest man, and dare die in’t. He doth not think his body yields a more spreading shadow after a victory than before; and when he looks upon his enemy’s dead body, 'tis a kind of noble heaviness, no insultation; he is so honourably merciful to women in surprisal, that only that makes him an excellent courtier. He knows the hazard of battles, not the pomp of ceremonies, are soldiers' best theatres, and strives to gain reputation, not by the multitude, but by the greatness of his actions. He is the first in giving the charge, and the last in retiring his foot. Equal toil he endures with the common soldier: from his examples they all take fire, as one torch lights many. He understands in war, there is no mean to err twice; the first and last fault being sufficient to ruin an army: faults therefore he pardons none, they that are presidents of disorder or mutiny, repair it by being examples of his justice. Besiege him never so strictly, so long as the air is not cut from him, his heart faints not. He hath learned as well to make use of a victory, as to get it, and pursuing his enemies like a whirlwind carries all afore him; being assured, if ever a man will benefit himself upon his foe, then is the time when they have lost force, wisdom, courage, and reputation. The goodness of his cause is the special motive to his valour; never is he known to slight the weakest enemy that comes armed against him in the band of justice. Hasty and overmuch heat he accounts the stepdame to all great actions, that will not suffer them to drive: if he cannot over- come his enemy by force, he does it by time. If ever he shake hands with war, he can die more calmly than most courtiers, for his continual dangers have been as it were so many meditations of death; he thinks not out of his own calling, when he accounts life a continual warfare, and his prayers then best become him when armed cap-a-pie. He utters them like the great Hebrew General, on horse- back. He casts a smiling contempt upon calumny, it meets him as if glass should encounter adamant. He thinks war is never to be given o'er but on one of these three conditions: an assured peace, absolute victory, or an honest death. Lastly, when peace folds him up, his silver head should lean near the golden Sceptre, and die in his prince's bosom. - A Fair and Happy Milk-maid Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beau- tiful by Art, that one look of hers is able to put all face- physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The liming of her apparel (which is herself) is far better than outsides of tissue: for though she be not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long abed, spoil both her complexion and condi- tions; Nature hath taught her, too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises therefore with Chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes the lamb her curfew. In milking a cow, and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milkpress makes the milk the whiter or sweeter ; for never came almond glove or aromatic ointment on her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June, like a new- made haycock. She makes her hand hard with labour and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel) she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She bestows her year's wages at next fair, and in choosing her garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and bee-hive are all her physic and chirurgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone and unfold the sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none : yet to say truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with ensuing idle cogita- tions. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them: only a Friday's dream is all her superstition: that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is she may die in the springtime, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet. There were some lines written by Sir Henry Wotton on the imprisonment of Carr, Earl of Somerset, once dazzled with the height of place, which end with the stanzas— But if greatness be so blind As to trust in towers of air, Let it be with goodness lined, That at least the fall be fair. Then, though darkened, you shall say, When Friends fail, and Princes frown, Virtue is the roughest way, But at night a bed of down. " Henry Wotton was born in 1568, at the home of his forefathers, Boughton Hall, in Kent. His father, Thomas Wotton, was a cultivated and hospitable country gentleman, who declined a knighthood and court favours, offered him by Queen Elizabeth when visiting his house. But all his four sons were knighted ; Edward, the eldest, became, under James I., Lord Wotton, Baron of Merley, in Kent, and Lord Lieutenant of the county. Henry, the youngest, was To A.D. 1620.] 109 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. the only son by a second wife. He was educated at Westminster School, and New College, Oxford, passing from New College to Queen's at the age of eighteen. As a student of Queen's College he wrote a tragedy (“Tancredo”) for private acting. At twenty he proceeded Master of Arts, and gave three Latin lectures on the Eye. Soon afterwards his father died, and after staying two more years at Oxford, Henry Wotton went abroad, knew Beza (then an old man) at Geneva, and lodged in the same house with Isaac Casaubon. After a year in France and Geneva, Henry Wotton spent three years in Germany, and five years in Italy, before his return to England. He was then thirty years old, tall, graceful, witty, earnest, and highly educated. He became attached to the Earl of Essex, and upon the arrest of Essex for treason Wotton escaped to France, whence he passed on to Italy. At Florence, the Duke Ferdinand had intercepted letters discovering a design against the life of James VI. of Scotland. Sir Henry Wotton was sent to the king with warning and Italian antidotes against poison. Being in danger as a friend of Essex, he went to Scotland by way of Norway, in the character of an Italian messenger, calling himself Octavio Baldi. He delivered his letters as an Italian in presence of the king's friends, but took an opportunity of whispering to the king that he was an Englishman, beseeching private con- ference and concealment during his stay. The friends of Essex were the friends of James, and the King of Scotland having learnt the true name of his Italian messenger, treated him hospitably for three months as Octavio Baldi. When Elizabeth died, about a year afterwards, and James came to England, he asked Sir Edward Wotton whether he knew one Henry Wotton who had spent some time in foreign travel. Sir Edward replied that he was his brother. Then the king asked where he was, and learning that he would be soon in Paris, said, “Send for him, and when he shall come to England, bid him repair privately to me.” Sir Edward, wondering, asked the king whether he knew him. To which the king answered, “You must rest unsatisfied of that till you bring the gentleman to me.” When, after a while, Henry Wotton was in England and came to court, the king embraced him, welcoming him as Octavio Baldi, said he was the most honest dis- sembler he had ever known, knighted him, and thenceforth used his knowledge of foreign lands and languages by employing him on embassies. He was first sent, with a large allowance, to Venice. On the way, going through Germany, he stayed some days at Treves, where, being one day with good company in playful mood, he was asked to write a line in the album of Christopher Flecamore. He wrote a definition of an ambassador in Latin that did not bear the pleasant double meaning of the English version he would have given of it—“Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum Reipublicae causa"—“An Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” Eight years afterwards this sentence was brought out of its friendly privacy by an Italian adversary of King James, who took it as evidence of the King of England's morals in diplomacy. The king was angry until Henry Wotton had written two notable apologies to clear himself. Henry Wotton was sent also as ambassador to the Emperor Ferdinand II., to urge the claims of the Queen of Bohemia to the Palatinate. He was sent also to the German princes. Towards the close of James I.'s reign, Sir Henry Wotton had returned to England, and, embarrassed by much expenditure, was in money difficulties, looking for some office at home from the king. The Provost of Eton died in 1623; his place was sought by many, and was given to Sir Henry Wotton. Thenceforth his life was easy and happy until his death in 1639. Among his pieces published as “Reliquiæ Wottonianae” are some letters, of which examples are given. The first, written in October 1620, describes an incident of war—the death of Count Tampier. FOUR LETTERS OF SIR HENRY WOTTON. Right Honourable, Of my purpose to depart from Vienna, and to leave the Emperor to the counsels of his own fortune, I gave his Majesty knowledge by my servant, James Vary. . I will now make you a summary account of what hath happened here, which is to be done both out of duty to your place, and out of obligation to your friendship. The Count Tampier had some twelve days since taken from the Hungarians, by surprisal in the field, thirteen cornets of horse, and one ensign of foot, which here with much ostenta- tion were carried up and down, and laid on Sunday was seven night under the Emperor's feet, as he came from the chapel. +. Some note, that the vanity of this triumph was greater than the merit; for the Hungarians by their ordinary discipline, abound in cornets, bearing one almost for every twenty horse, so as flags are good cheap amongst them, and but slightly guarded. Howsoever the matter be made more or less, according to the wits on both sides, this was breve gaudium, and itself, indeed, some cause of the following disaster; for the Count Tampier, being by nature an enterprising man, was now also inflamed by accident, which made him immediately conceive the surprisal of Presburg, while the Prince of Transylvania was retired to the siege of Güns, some six or seven leagues distant. A project in truth, if it had prospered, of notorious utility. First, by the very reputation of the place, being the capital town of Hungaria. Next, the access to Comorn and Raab (which places only the Emperor retaineth, in that kingdom of any considerable value) had been freed by water, which now in a manner are blocked up. Thirdly, the incursions into these provinces, and igno- minious depredations had been cut off. And lastly, the Crown of Hungaria had been recovered, which the Emperor Matthias did transport to the castle of Presburg, after the deposition of Rodolph, his brother, who always kept it in the castle of Prague; which men account one of the subtle things of that retired Emperor, as I hear by discourse. So as upon these considerations, the enterprise was more commendable in the design, than it will appear in the execution; being thus carried. From hence to Presburg is in this month of October an easy night's journey by water. Thither on Thursday night of the last week, Tampier himself, accompanied with some four or five Colonels, and other remarkable men of this court, resolves to bring down in twenty-five boats, about 3,000 foot, or such a matter; having given order, and space enough 110 ENGLISH DITERATURE. [A.D. 1620 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF before, for certain horse, partly Dutch, and partly Polonians, to be there, and to attend his coming about two hours before Friday morning. And to shadow this purpose, himself on Thursday in the afternoon, with affected noise goes up the river the contrary way, though no reasonable imaginations could conceive whither ; for the lower Austria was then all reduced. By which artificial delay, and by some natural stops in the shallows of the water, when they fell silently down again, it was three or four hours of clear day before he arrived at Presburg the next morning : where his meaning was, first to destroy the bridge built upon boats, and thereby to keep Bethlem Gabor (as then on the Austrian side) not only from succouring the town, but from all possibility of repassing the Danube nearer than Buda. Next, to apply the petard to one of the gates of the citadel. Some wise say, he had like inward intelligence, that at his approach, the wicket of the castle should be opened unto him by one Palfy, an Hungarian gentleman; which conceit, though perchance raised at first to animate the soldier, yet hath gotten much credit, by seeing the enterprise against all discourse continued by daylight. Be that point how it will, his fatal hour was come: for approaching a Sconce that lies by the castle gate, and turning about to cry for his men to come on, he was shot in the lowest part of his skull nearest his neck, after which he spake no syllable, as Don Carolo d’Austria (second base son to Rodolph the Emperor, and himself at that time saved by the goodness of his armour) doth testify. After which, some two or three soldiers attempting to bring away his body, and those being shot, the rest gave it over, and the whole troops transported themselves to the other side, leaving the boats behind them, as if they had meant to contribute new provision for the mending of the bridge, whereof they had only broken one little piece. This was the end of the Count Tampier; by his father’s side a Norman, by his mother's a Champaigne, a servant twenty-two years to the House of Austria. Himself captain of a thousand horse: but commander divers times in chief, especially before the coming of the Count Bucquoy, from whom he was severed to these nearer services, being of incompatible natures: a valiant and plotting soldier; in encounters more fortunate than sieges; gracious to his own, and terrible to the Hungarians; to the present Emperor most dear, though, perchance, as much for civil as military merit: for this was the very man that first seized upon the Cardinal Clesel, when he was put into a coach, and transported hence to Tirol; so as now we may expect some pamphlet the next mart from Ingolstadt, or Köln ; that no man can end well who hath laid violent hands upon any of those Roman Purpurati. To this point I must add two remarkable circumstances: the first, that Tampier, among other papers found in his pockets, is said to have had a memorial of certain conditions, whereon it should be fit to insist in his parley with the town, as having already swallowed the castle. The other, that his head having been cut off by a soldier, and sold for five dollars to another, who meant to have the merit of presenting it to the prince, the presenter was rewarded with a stroke of a sabre, for insulting over the dead carcass of a gentleman of honour. The next letter was to an old friend Nicholas, Pey, who, from service in the house of Henry Wotton's brother Sir Edmund, had been advanced by Sir Edmund to profitable service in the household of the king, and was at court the trustiest friend of the Wotton family. The death referred to in the letter is that of Wotton's cousin, Sir Albert Morton, who had gone with him to Venice as his secretary. My dear N1c. PEY, This is the account of me since you saw me last. My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air, other- wise I should approve your counsel to prefer Boughton before any other part whatsoever; that air best agreeing with me, and being a kind of resolving me into my own beginnings; for there I was born. But I have a little ambitious vanity stirring in me, to print a thing of my composition there: which would else in London run through too much noise beforehand, by reason of the licences that must be gotten, and an eternal trick in those city-stationers, to rumour what they have under press. From Oxford I was rapt by my nephew, Sir Edmund Bacon, to Redgrave, and by himself, and by my sweet niece detained ever since: (so I say), for believe me, there is in their conversations, and in the freedom of their entertain- ment, a kind of delightful violence. In our way hither we blanched Paul's Perry, though within three miles of it, which we are not tender to confess (being indeed our manifest excuse); for thereby it appears the pains of the way did not keep us thence. In truth, we thought it (coming immediately from an infected place) an hazardous incivility to put ourselves upon them ; for if any sinister accident had fallen out about the same time (for coincidents are not always causes) we should have rued it for ever. Here, when I had been almost a fortnight in the midst of much contentment, I received knowledge of Sir Albertus Morton's departure out of this world, who was dearer unto me than mine own being in it. What a wound it is to my heart, you will easily believe: but His undisputable will must be done, and unrepiningly received by His own creatures, who is the Lord of all mature, and of all fortune, when He taketh now one, and then another, till the expected day wherein it shall please Him to dissolve the whole, and to wrap up even the heaven itself as a scroll of parchment. This is the last philosophy that we must study upon the earth; let us now, that yet remain, while our glasses shall run by the dropping away of friends, reinforce our love to one another; which of all virtues, both spiritual and moral, hath the highest privilege, because death itself shall not end it. And, good Nic., exercise that love towards me in letting me know, &c. Your ever poor friend, H. Wotton. The next letter is to Sir Edmund Bacon, in sympathy for his loss of a wife, whom Wotton in a previous letter had greeted with his “hot love to the best niece in the world.” Sir, Among those that have deep interest in whatsoever can befall you, I am the freshest witness of your unexpressible affections to my most dear niece; whom God hath taken from us into His eternal light and rest; where we must leave her till we come unto her. I should think myself unworthy for ever of that love she bare me, if in this case I were fit to comfort you. But it is that only God who can reconsolate us both : who, when He hath called now one, and then another of His own creatures unto Himself, will unclasp the final book of His decrees, and dissolve the whole : for which I hope He will rather teach us to thirst and languish, than to repine at To A.D. 1625.] 111 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. particular dissolutions. I had in a peculiar affliction of mine own (all within the compass of little time) much con- solation from you; which cannot but be now present with yourself; for I am well acquainted with the strength of your Christian mind. Therefore being kindly invited by the good Master of the Rolls to write by his express messenger unto you, let me (without further discourse of our griefs) only join in this with him, to wish your company divided between him and Iſle. We will contemplate together, when we meet, our future blessedness, and our present uncertainties: and I am afraid we shall find too much argument to drown our private feelings in the public solicitude. God's love, wherein is all joy, be with us. Your ever true and hearty servant, H. Wotton. From Westminster, this 16th April, 1626. A letter to Francis Bacon, thanking him for the gift of his “ Novum Organum,” describes a visit to Kepler. Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Bacon. Right Honourable, and my very good Lord, I have your lordship's letters dated the 20th of October, and I have withal by the care of my cousin, Mr. Thomas Meawtis, and by your own special favour, three copies of that work, wherewith your lordship hath done a great and ever-living benefit to all the children of Nature; and to Nature herself, in her uttermost extent and latitude: who never before had so noble nor so true an interpreter, or (as I am readier to style your lordship) never so inward a secretary of her cabinet. But of your said work (which came but this week to my hands) I shall find occasion to speak more here- after; having yet read only the first book thereof, and a few aphorisms of the second. For it is not a banquet, that men may superficially taste, and put up the rest in their pockets; but, in truth, a solid feast, which requireth due mastication. Therefore when I have once myself perused the whole, I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain hours in my domestic college, as an ancient author: for I have learned thus much by it already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity, by searching it backwards, because indeed the first times were the youngest; especially in points of natural discovery and experience. For though I grant, that Adam knew the natures of all beasts, and Solomon of all plants, not only more than any, but more than all since their time; yet that was by divine infusion, and therefore they did not need any such Organum as your lordship hath now delivered to the world; nor we neither, if they had left us the memories of their wisdom. But I am gone further than I meant in speaking of this excellent labour, while the delight yet I feel, and even the pride that I take in a certain congeniality (as I may term it) with your lordship's studies, will scant let me cease. And, indeed, I owe your lordship even by promise (which you are pleased to remember, thereby doubly binding me) some trouble this way; I mean, by the commerce of philosophical experiments, which surely, of all other, is the most ingenuous traffic. Therefore, for a beginning, let me tell your lordship a pretty thing which I saw coming down the Danube, though more remarkable for the application than for the theory. I lay a night at Lintz, the metropolis of the higher Austria, but then in very low estate, having been newly taken by the Duke of Bavaria; who, blandiente fortuné, was gone on to the late effects. There I found Kepler, a man famous in the sciences, as your lordship knows, to whom I purpose to convey from hence one of your books, that he may see we have some of our own that can honour our king, as well as he hath done with his Harmonice.” In this man's study I was much taken with the draught of a landskip on a piece of paper, me- thoughts masterly done : whereof inquiring the author, he bewrayed with a smile, it was himself; adding, he had done it, Non tanquam Pictor, sed tanquam Mathematicus.” This set me on fire ; at last he told me how. He hath a little black tent (of what stuff is not much importing) which he can suddenly set up where he will in a field, and it is convertible (like a windmill) to all quarters at pleasure, capable of not much more than one man, as I conceive, and perhaps at no great ease; exactly close and dark, save at one hole, about an inch and a half in the diameter, to which he applies a long perspective trunk, with a convex glass fitted to the said hole, and the concave taken out at the other end, which extendeth to about the middle of this erected tent, through which the visible radiations of all the objects without are intromitted, falling upon a paper, which is accommodated to receive them, and so he traceth them with his pen in their natural appear- ance, turning his little tent round by degrees till he hath designed the whole aspect of the field. This I have described to your lordship, because I think there might be good use made of it for chorography: for otherwise, to make landskips by it were illiberal; though surely no painter can do them so precisely. Now from these artificial and natural curiosities, let me a little direct your lordship to the contemplation of fortune. The rest of the letter tells of the changed face of politics about the German Emperor. It was in October, 1620, that Francis Bacon presented to King James his “ Novum Organum,” ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. ALBANS. a fragment on which he had worked for thirty years. He had been created Baron Verulam a few months 1 Johann Kepler (born 1571, died 1630) published his “Harmonice Mundi,” developing the third of “ Kepler's Laws,” in 1619. * Not as Painter, but as Mathematician. 112 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1625 before, taking the ancient name of the town beside the family seat at Gorhambury, and in January, 1621, he was made Viscount, with his title derived from the later name of the town—Wiscount St. Albans. In March followed his fall. In May, 1621, he was sentenced, and thenceforth he withdrew from political life. His last five years were spent in the worthiest use of his intellect. Bacon was, however, among those who sought the office of Provost of Eton, which was given to Sir Henry Wotton. In 1625, the year before his death, he published the third edition of his Essays, leaving them perfected to the utmost of his power. Of the Essays, as they were then published, these are three – ESSAYS OF BACON, 1625. Of Truth. “What is truth?” said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting freewill in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor, again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts; that doth bring lies in favour: but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advan- tage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day: but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like; but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers in great severity called poesy, Vinum Daemonum," because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie. that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus, in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and His sabbath work ever since is the illumination of His spirit. First He breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then He breathed light into the face of man; and still He breatheth and inspireth light into the face of His chosen. The poet,” that beautified the sect” that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: “It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adven- tures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tem- pests, in the vale below.” So always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver; which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false, and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily * when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge P Saith he, “If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men.” For a lie faces God and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men ; it being foretold that when Christ cometh He shall not find faith upon the earth. Of Friendship. It had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more truth and untruth together, in few words, than in that speech: “Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”" For it is most true that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society in any man hath somewhat of the Savage beast ; but it is most untrue that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation, such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides, the Candian ; Numa, the Roman ; Empedocles, the Sicilian; and Apollonius, of Tyana ; and, truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what soli- tude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: “Magna civitas, magnasolitudo;”" because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude, to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness: and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You may take Sarza to open the liver; steel to open the spleen; flowers of sulphur 1 Wine of Demons (Augustine). 8. The Epicureans. * Lucretius. * Essais, Liv. II., chap, a viii. Du Desmentir. 5 Aristotle, “Ethics,” Bk. viii. 6 A great city, a great solitude. A.D. 1625.] I13 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. *: *- for the lungs; castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak, so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit; except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to them- selves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace or con- versation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum;’ for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have often- times joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using the word which is received between private men. L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet: for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death; for when Caesar would have discharged the Senate, in regard of Some ill presages, and especially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his wife had dreamt a better dream.” And it seemeth his favour was so great, as Antonius in a letter, which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics,” calleth him “venefica,” witch, as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as, when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith: “Haec pro amicitiã nostră non occultavi’’;4 and the whole Senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus; for he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus, and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the Senate” by these words: “I love the man so well as I wish he may over-live me.” Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought 1 Care-sharers. * These illustrations are from Plutarch’s Lives of Pompey and Caesar. 3 Cic. “Philipp.” xiii. 11. * These things, because of our friendship, I have not concealed. * Dion. Cass. lxxv. *. that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they might have a friend to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. It is not to be forgotten what Commineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy,” namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none, and least of all those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith, that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely Commineus might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Louis XI., whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true: “Corne edito,” eat not the heart.” Certainly, if a. man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects: for it re- doubleth joys and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth of operation upon a man's mind, of like virtue, as the alchymists used to attri- bute to their stone, for man's body: that it worketh all con- trary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet, without praying in 8 aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impres- sion; and even so is it of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding as the first is for the affections. For friend- ship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections from storm and tempest: but it maketh daylight in the understanding out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel which a man receiveth from his friend. But before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another. He tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the King of Persia, that speech was like cloth of arras, opened and put abroad,” whereby the imagery 6 Philippe de Commines began his career at the court of Charles le. Hardi, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and was drawn, in 1472, from the service of Charles into the service of Louis XI., who gave him his confidence and treated him with great familiarity. Commines, therefore, had no personal reason to record “the same judgment also of his second master.” 7 Quoted in Plutarch’s treatise on “Education.” " 8 Praying in, inviting; “praying in aid” was a law term for the calling in of help to a cause from one who has interest in it. So Pro- culeius says to Cleopatra (“Ant. and Cl.,” Act v., sc. 2):— “You shall find A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness, When he is kneeled to.” Hammer first pointed out the meaning of the phrase in this passage of Shakespeare. 9 Plutarch's Life of Themistocles. 191 I14: [A.D. 1625 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH IITERATURE. doth appear in figure ; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best), but even without that a man learneth of himself and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation, which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well, in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best.” And certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth and that a man giveth himself, as there is be- tween the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes unproper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take), is the admoni- tion of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors, and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. For, as S. James” saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass and presently forget their own shape and favour. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker on ; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and-twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: One, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed, partly of mischief and partly of remedy: even as if you would call a physician that is thought good, for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate will beware by furthering any present business how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct. After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit, which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels: I mean aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here, the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say, that a friend is another himself: * for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart: the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them. A man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son, but as a father ; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless. I have given the rule where a man cannot fitly play his own part— if he have not a friend he may quit the stage. OF STUDIES. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judg- ment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience. For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study: and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: For they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and con- fute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others, * Quoted by Plutárch in his tract on “Flesh Eating :” the original words are, aiºh $nph Wuxh orogotárn. In the opening of the first book of his “Advancement of Learning,” Bacon has another reference to the “dry light" or “lumen siccum,” saying that where fears and desires join personal care to the pursuit of knowledge, “it becometh ‘lumen madidum' or ‘maceratum,' being steeped and infused in the humours of the affections.” So in common speech a “ dry subject ’’ or “dry style” is that which is not at all touched by “the humours of the affections.” * James i. 23. 3. It was Cicero (“De Amicitia") who said this of a friend: “IEst, enim is quidem tamguam alter idem.” TO A.D. 1626.T 115 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And there- fore, if a man write little he had need have a great memory; if he confer little he had need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. “Abeunt studia in mores.” Nay, there is no stond” or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head, and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathe- matics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to dis- tinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are “cymini sectores.”* If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. From Plato’s “Republic * downward various attempts have been made by philosophers in playful earnest to suggest ideal commonwealths. Such a work of intellectual fancy, practical in essence and glancing everywhere at the political life of the days of Henry VIII., was More's “Utopia.” Joseph Hall, in 1607, had in his “Mundus Alter et Idem,” “A World Other and the Same,” imagined a great Austral continent, parcelled out into lands that typified the vices and follies of mankind, near to which was the Terra Sancta, little known. The gluttons and wine-bibbers peopled a Crapulia ; the masterful women a Viraginia, or Gynia Nova ; the fools a Moronia, the largest of those regions; and Lavernia was the land of thieves. Dr. William King long afterwards began a translation of Hall's “Mundus Alter et Idem,” which, being found among his “Remains,” was supposed by their editor to be a fragment of an original work, a satire on the Dutch, and printed by him in 1732 as “a fragment in the manner of Rabelais.” Another famous sketch of an ideal commonwealth was Campanella’s “Civitas Solis,” City of the Sun, a city glorified by knowledge, ruled by the citizen who had attained to the most perfect intellect, through Triumvirs, who represented severally Power, Wisdom, and Love. Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” is an ideal, at the heart of which he placed the highest spiritual aim of his philosophy, the drawing of men near to the divine life by search for the wisdom of God in His works, that they may make it theirs. Bacon, like Joseph Hall, laid the scene of his imagined life in a then undiscovered Australia, as the old Greek legend placed Atlantis in the New World beyond the Atlantic, that was yet to remain for eighteen * Studies pass on into chºracter. From Ovid, Ep. xv. 81:— “Sive abeunt studia in mores, artesque magistras.” * Stond, point of standstill, as when a horse comes to a stand. * Dividers of cumin (a very small seed); as we now say, splitters of centuries unknown. Bacon also attached his fancy to the ancient fable of Atlantis. Solon, who died 558 years before Christ, was said to have been writing in his last days what he had heard in Egypt of Atlantis, a perfect island, rich in precious metals, wine, grain, choicest fruit. Neptune was its chief deity, and its ten kingdoms were ruled by ten of his descendants. Plato, who died B.C. 347, has left among his dialogues three that are thus related to one another: “Timias” represents the Divine Cosmos; the “Republic,” Man in Society; “Critias” (unfinished), the perfect Society shown in action under the pressure of terrible enemies, the pressure being an invasion from Atlantis. Plato represents that Timaeus, the Pythagorean philosopher of Locri, and the Athenian Critias, having listened to dialogue in which Socrates had developed the nature of Justice in the constitution of a true Republic, Socrates called on them to show such a State in action. Critias undertook to do so by telling of the rescue of Europe by the ancient citizens of Attica, ten thousand years before, from an inroad of countless and irresistible invaders out of the vast island of Atlantis —an island greater than all Libya and Asia—in the Western Ocean. The story of this struggle was preserved, it was said, with the ancient records of the temple of Naith, or Athene, at Sais, in Egypt, and handed down, through Solon, by a family tradi- tion to Critias. The divine life had become slowly imbruted in the Atlantid Kings, till they were reckless and ambitious. They poured into Europe, and broke their force against the trained valour and wisdom of the citizens of Attica. But the perfect citizens, having achieved their victory, were lost from the face of the earth, which swallowed them in one night, while Atlantis itself, with all its people, was drowned in the ocean. The sinking of that great land was the cause of what in Plato's time was supposed to be the fact—that the Atlantic Ocean is a great region of shallow water and mud. Francis Bacon’s “New Atlantis” is, like Plato's “Critias,” unfinished; but it is nearly finished, and sets forth the whole design. It is one of the works in which he sought to win men to an experimental study of Nature, and was first published nine years after his death. Bacon died in 1626, and the English version of the “New Atlantis,” first written in Latin, appeared in 1629 as an appendix to Bacon’s “Sylva Sylvarum; or, a Natural History in Ten Centuries.” It accords with that view of his philosophy given by Bacon in his “ Novum Organum,” where he distin- guishes “three kinds and, as it were, degrees of human ambition; first, that of those who desire to enlarge their own power in their country, which is a vulgar and degenerate kind; next, that of those who strive to enlarge the power and dominion of their country among the human race, which is cer- tainly more dignified, but no less covetous. But if one should endeavour to renew and enlarge the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, this ambition (if so it may be called) is, beyond a doubt, more sane and noble than the other two. Now the dominion of men over things depends alone on arts and sciences; for Nature is only governed by obeying her.” CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D... 1626. -geſsº ºne. º Nºxº~TIST OY" a 4X.A.T.uk/ſtreſſſsſaſº. In ten Centuries. Awritten by the right Jſon; Jºraneir \\ & 19eritam 1';ſºunt Sºta"; ubliſhed after #Authéºpes º Lºos £rinted fºr W: ſee and are tº be ſouldat &#######. TITLE OF SYLVA SylvaruM.1 We sailed from Peru (where we had continued by the space of one whole year), for China and Japan, by the South Sea, taking with us victuals for twelve months; and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months' space and more ; but then the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south, with a point east, which carried us up, for all that we could do, towards the north, by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. So that finding ourselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victual, we gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, who showeth His wonders in the deep, beseeching Him of His mercy, that as in the beginning He dis- covered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so He would now discover land to us, that we might not perish. And it came to pass that the next day, about evening, we saw within a kenning” before us, towards the north, as it were thick clouds, which did put us in some hope of land, knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown, and might have islands, or continents, that hitherto were not come to light.” Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw * This is a copy of the engraved title of “Sylva Sylvarum,” with the title of its appendix, the “New Atlantis,” substituted. * A kenning, as far as one can see. John Palsgrave, in “Lesclar- Cissement de la Langue Francoyse ’’ (1530), explains “Je blanchis” by “I am within syght, as a shyppe is that cometh within the kemmyng.” * Islands, or continents, that hitherto were not come to light. Existing | the appearance of land all that night; and in the dawning of the next day we might plainly discern that it was a land, flat to our sight, and full of boscage;” which made it show the more dark. And after an hour and a half sailing, we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city—not great, indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the Sea. And we, thinking every minute long till we were on land, came close to the shore, and offered to land; but straightways we saw divers of the people, with bastons in their hands, as it were, forbidding us to land; yet without any cries of fierceness, but only as warning us off by signs that they made. Whereupon, being not a little discomfited, we were advising with ourselves what we should do; during which time there made forth to us a small boat with about eight persons in it, whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who came aboard our ship without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw one of our number present himself some- what afore the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing-tables, but otherwise soft and flexible), and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words: “Land ye not, none of you; and provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days, except you have further time given you. Meanwhile, if you want fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repair, write down your wants, and you shall have that which belongeth to mercy.” This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubins' wings, not spread, but hanging downwards; and by them a cross. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a servant with us to receive our answer. Consulting hereupon amongst ourselves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing and hasty warning us away troubled us much ; on the other side, to find that the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort us not a little. And above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument was to us a great rejoicing, and, as it were, a ceatain presage of good. Our answer was in the Spanish tongue: That for our ship, it was well, for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any tempests; for our sick, they were many, and in very ill case, so that if they were not permitted to land they ran danger of their lives. Our other wants we set down in particular; adding, that we had some little store of maps, of which the earliest is in the British Museum, prove that the Portuguese had as early as 1540 a belief that there was much land in the region now known as Australia. It is figured south of Java as a great region called, “Jave la Grande.” A map by a Jean Rotz, in an English volume of 1542, repeats this representation, calling the great southern continent “The Londe of Java,” and Java. “The Lytil Java.” In the Introduction to Mr. R. H. Major's edition for the Hakluyt Society (1859) of “Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia,” will be found very interesting results of an inquiry into the growth from suspicion to vague knowledge of the existence of an unexplored Austral land, of which it was said in a book by Cornelius Wytfliet, published at Louvain in 1598, that “its shores are hitherto but little known, since after one voyage and another, that route has been deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless when sailors are driven there by storms. The Australis Terra begins at two or three degrees from the equator, and is main- tained by some to be of so great an extent that if it were thoroughly explored, it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world.” In 1608, a part of the Australian coast was visited by the Dutch yacht, the Dwyphen. In the same year, Luis Vaez de Torres, a Spaniard, passed through Torres Straits, which separate Australia from New Guinea. Bacon’s knowledge went no farther, but the Dutch were busy in the southern seas during the last years of his life, and in 1642, fourteen years after his death, began the discoveries of Abel Jans Tasman. 4 Boscage, wood, thicket. An old French word modern French, “bocage.” So, a little later, bastoms, sticks or staves, bátons. A.D. ...1626.] 117 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. * merchandise, which, if it pleased them to deal for, it might supply our wants without being chargeable unto them. We offered some reward in pistolets” unto the servant, and a piece of crimson velvet to be presented to the officer; but the ser- vant took them not, nor would scarce look upon them ; and so left us, and went back in another little boat, which was sent for him. About three hours after we had dispatched our answer, there came towards us a person (as it seemed) of place. He had on him a gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamolett,” of an excellent azure colour, far more glossy than ours. His under apparel was green, and so was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans, and the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it—a reverend-man was he to behold. He came in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons more only in that boat; and was followed by another boat, wherein were some twenty. When he was come within a flight-shot of our ship, signs were made to us that we should send forth some to meet him upon the water, which we presently” did in our ship-boat, sending the principal man amongst us save one, and four of our number with him. When we were come within six yards of their boat, they called to us to stay, and not to approach further, which we did. And thereupon the man whom I before described, stood up, and with a loud voice, in Spanish, asked, “Are ye Christians?” We answered we were ; fearing the less because of the cross we had seen in the subscription. At which answer the said person lift up his right hand towards Heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth, (which is the gesture they use when they thank God), and then said, “If ye will swear, all of you, by the merits of the Saviour, that ye are no pirates, nor have shed blood, lawfully nor unlawfully, within forty days past, you may have license to come on land.” We said we were all ready to take that oath. Whereupon, one of those that were with him, being, as it seemed, a notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the attendants of the great person, which was with him in the same boat, after his lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud, “My lord would have you know that it is not of pride or greatness that he cometh not aboard your ship, but for that, in your answer, you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by the Conservator of Health of the city that he should keep a distance.” We bowed ourselves towards him and answered, We were his humble servants, and accounted for great honour and singular humanity towards us that which was already done; but hoped well that the nature of the sickness of our men was not infectious. So he returned ; and awhile after came the notary to us aboard our ship, holding in his hand a fruit of that country, like an orange, but of colour between Orange- tawny and scarlet, which cast a most excellent odour; he used it, as it seemeth, for a preservative against infection. He gave us our oath, by the name of Jesus and His merits; and after told us that the next day, by six of the clock in the morning, we should be sent to, and brought to the Strangers' House (so he called it), where we should be accommodated of things, both for our whole and for our sick. So he left us; and when we offered him some pistolets, he smiling said, He 1 Pistolets were gold coins two grains lighter than ducats. The ducat weighed 2 dwt. 6 gr. There were also double pistolets and double ducats. * Chamolett, chamlet or camlet. Spanish “camelote” and “chamelote,” a stuff originally made of camels’ hair, afterwards of hair and silk, and then of wool and thread. It had a wavy or watered gloss, and in their latest cheapened form was used as a material for cloaks comparatively waterproof, until the application of caoutchouc to other fabrics. . * Presently, immediately. must not be twice paid for one labour; meaning, as I take it, that he had salary sufficient of the State for his service. For, as I after learned, they call an officer that taketh rewards, twice paid. The next morning early there came to us the same officer that came to us at first with his cane, and told us he came to conduct us to the Strangers' House, and that he had pre- vented” the hour because we might have the whole day before us for our business. “For,” said he, “if you will follow my advice, there shall first go with me some few of you, and see the place, and how it may be made convenient for you; and then you may send for your sick, and the rest of your number, which ye will bring on land.” We thanked him, and said, That this care which he took of desolate strangers God would reward. And so six of us went on land with him. And when we were on land he went before us, and turned to us and said, He was but our servant and our guide. He led us through three fair streets, and all the way we went there were gathered some people on both sides, standing in a row, but in so civil a fashion, as if it had been not to wonder at us, but to welcome us. And divers of them, as we passed by them, put their arms a little abroad, which is their gesture when they bid any welcome. The Strangers' House is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than our brick, and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled. He brought us first into a fair parlour above stairs, and then asked us what number of persons we were, and how many sick? We answered, we were in all (sick and whole) one and fifty persons, whereof our sick were seventeen. He desired us to have patience a little, and to stay till he came back to us, which was about an hour after ; and then he led us to see the chambers which were provided for us, being in number nineteen. They having cast it (as it seemeth) that four of those chambers, which were better than the rest, might receive four of the principal men of our company, and lodge them alone by themselves; and the other fifteen chambers were to lodge us two and two together. The chambers were handsome and cheerful cham- bers, and furnished civilly. Then he led us to a long gallery, like a dorture,” where he showed us all along the one side (for the other side was but wall and window) seventeen cells, very neat ones, having partitions of cedar wood, which gallery and cells, being in all forty (many more than we needed), were instituted as an infirmary for sick persons. And he told us withal, that as any of our sick waxed well, he might be removed from his cell to a chamber, for which purpose there were set forth ten spare chambers, besides the number we spake of before. This done, he brought us back to the par- lour, and lifting up his cane a little (as they do when they give any charge or command), said to us, “Ye are to know that the custom of the land requireth that after this day and to- morrow (which we give you for removing of your people from your ship), you are to keep within doors for three days. But let it not trouble you, nor do not think yourselves restrained, but rather left to your rest and ease. You shall want nothing, and there are six of our people appointed to attend you for any business you may have abroad.” We gave him thanks with all affection and respect, and said, “God surely is mani- fested in this land.” We offered him also twenty pistolets; but he smiled, and only said, “What? twice paid!” and so he left us. Soon after our dinner was served in, which was right good viands, both for bread and meat, better than any 4 Prevented, come before, the strict meaning of the word. As in the prayer to God in one of the Collects of the English Church that His grace “may always prevent and follow us.” 5 Dorture, from French “dortoir,” Latin “dormitorium,” dormi- tory. . . - -- - 118 [A.D. ...1626. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. collegiate diet that I have known in Europe. We had also drink of three sorts, all wholesome and good: wine of the grape, a drink of grain (such as is with us our ale, but more clear), and a kind of cider made of a fruit of that country—a wonder- ful pleasing and refreshing drink. Besides, there were brought in to us great store of those scarlet oranges for our sick, which, they said, were an assured remedy for sickness taken at sea. There was given us also a box of Small grey, or whitish, pills, which they wished our sick should take, one of the pills every night before sleep, which, they said, would hasten their recovery. The next day, after that our trouble of carriage, and removing of our men and goods out of our ship was somewhat settled and quiet, I thought good to call our company together, and when they were assembled, said unto them, “My dear friends,-Let us know ourselves, and how it standeth with us. We are men cast on land, as Jonas was, out of the whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep; and now we are on land. We are but between death and life, for we are beyond both the old world and the new ; and whether ever we shall see Europe, God only knoweth. It is a kind of miracle hath brought us hither, and it must be little less that shall bring us hence. Therefore, in regard of our deliverance past, and our danger present and to come, let us look up to God, and every man reform his own ways. Besides, we are come here amongst a Christian people, full of piety and humanity; let us not bring that confusion of face upon ourselves, as to show our vices or unworthiness before them. Yet there is more, for they have by commandment (though in form of courtesy) cloistered us within these walls for three days; who knoweth whether it be not to take some taste of our manners and conditions? And if they find them bad, to banish us straightways; if good, to give us further time; for these men that they have given us for attendance may withal have an eye upon us. Therefore, for God's love, and as we love the weal of our souls and bodies, let us so behave ourselves as we may be at peace with God, and may find grace in the eyes of this people.” Our company with one voice thanked me for my good admonition, and promised me to live soberly and civilly, and without giving any the least occasion of offence. So we spent our three days joyfully and without care, in expectation what would be done with us when they were expired; during which time we had every hour joy of the amendment of our sick, who thought them- selves cast into some divine pool of healing, they mended so kindly and so fast. The morrow after our three days were past there came to us a new man, that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was, save that his turban was white with a small red cross on the top ; he had also a tippet of fine linen. At his coming in he did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our parts saluted him in a very lowly and submissive manner, as looking that from him we should receive sentence of life or death. He desired to speak with some few of us, whereupon six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided the room. He said: “I am by office governor of this House of Strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian priest, and, therefore, am come to you to offer you my ser- vice, both as strangers and chiefly as Christians. Some things I may tell you, which, I think, you will not be unwilling to hear. The State hath given you license to stay on land for the space of six weeks; and let it not trouble you if your occasions ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise; and I do not doubt but myself shall be able to obtain for you such further time as may be convenient. Ye shall also understand that the Strangers' House is at this time rich, and much aforehand, for it hath laid up revenue these thirty- Seven years, for so long it is since any stranger arrived in º this part. And, therefore, take ye no care; the State will defray you all the time you stay ; neither shall you stay one day the less for that. As for any merchandise ye have brought, ye shall be well used, and have your return either in merchandise or in gold and silver, for to us it is all one. And if you have any other request to make, hide it not, for ye shall find we will not make your countenance to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only this I must tell you, that none of you must go above a karan [that is with them a mile and a half] from the walls of the city without especial leave.” We answered, after we had looked awhile one upon another, admiring this gracious and parent-like usage, That we could not tell what to say, for we wanted words to express our thanks, and his noble, free offers left us nothing to ask. It seemed to us that we had before us a picture of our salvation in heaven: for we that were a while since in the jaws of death were now brought into a place where we found nothing but consolations. For the commandment laid upon us we would not fail to obey it, though it was impossible but our hearts should be inflamed to tread further upon this happy and holy ground. We added, That our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths ere we should forget either his reverend person or this whole nation in our prayers. We also most humbly besought him to accept of us as his true servants, by as just a right as ever men on earth were bounden, laying and presenting both our persons and all we had at his feet. He said he was a priest, and looked for a priest's reward, which was our brotherly love and the good of our souls and bodies. So he went from us—not without tesis of tenderness in his eyes—and left us also confused with joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves, That we were come into a land of angels, which did appear to us daily and prevent us with comforts which we thought not of, much less expected. The next day, about ten of the clock, the governor came to us again, and, after salutations, said familiarly, That he was come to visit us; and called for a chair, and sat him down. And we, being some ten of us (the rest were of the meaner Sort, or else gone abroad), sat down with him. And when we were sat, he began thus: “We of this island of Bensalem [for so they call it in their language] have this: That by means of our solitary situation, and the laws of secrecy which we have for our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers, we know well most part of the habitable world, and are our- selves unknown. Therefore because he that knoweth least is fittest to ask questions, it is more reason for the entertain- ment of the time that ye ask me questions than that I ask you.” We answered, That we humbly thanked him that he would give us leave so to do, and that we conceived by the taste we had already that there was no worldly thing on earth more worthy to be known than the state of that happy land. But above all, we said, since that we were met from the several ends of the world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the kingdom of heaven (for that we were both parts Christians), we desired to know (in respect that land was so remote, and so divided by vast and unknown seas from the land where our Saviour walked on earth) who was the Apostle of that nation, and how it was converted to the faith? It appeared in his face that he took great con- tentment in this our question. He said: “Ye knit my heart to you by asking this question in the first place, for it showeth that you first seek the Kingdom of Heaven, and I shall gladly and briefly satisfy your demand. “About twenty years after the Ascension of our Saviour, it came to pass that there was seen by the people of Renfusa (a city upon the eastern coast of our island) within night (the night was cloudy and calm), as it might be some mile into A.D. ...1626.1 119 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. the sea, a great pillar of light, not sharp, but in form of a column or cylinder, rising from the sea a great way up to- wards heaven; and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar. Upon which so strange a spectacle, the people of the city gathered apace together upon the sands to wonder, and so after put themselves into a number of small boats, to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But when the boats were come within (about) sixty yards of the pillar they found themselves all bound, and could go no further; yet so as they might move to go about, but might not approach nearer. So as the boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as a heavenly sign, it so fell out that there was in one of the boats one of the wise men of the Society of Salomon’s House, which house, or college, my good brethren, is the very eye of this kingdom, who, having awhile attentively and devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down upon his face, and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up his hands to Heaven, made his prayers in this manner:— “‘Lord God of Heaven and earth, Thou hast vouchsafed of Thy grace to those of our order to know Thy Works of Creation and the secrets of them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts. I do here acknowledge and testify before this people that the thing which we now see before our eyes is Thy finger, and a true miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books that Thou never workest miracles but to a divine and excellent end (for the laws of nature are Thine own laws, and Thou exceedest them not but upon great cause), we most humbly beseech Thee to prosper this great sign, and to give us the interpreta- tion and use of it in mercy, which Thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it unto us.” “When he had made his prayer, he presently found the 'boat he was in movable and unbound, whereas all the rest remained still fast ; and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the boat to be softly, and with silence, rowed towards the pillar; but ere he came near it the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars, which also vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen but a small ark, or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it swam. And in the fore end of it, which was towards him, grew a small green branch of palm ; and when the wise man had taken it, with all reverence, into his boat, it opened of itself, and there were found in it a book and a letter, both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in sindons" of linen. The book contained all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them (for we know well what the churches with you receive), and the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament, which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the book. And for the letter, it was in these words:— “‘I, Bartholomew,” a servant of the Highest, and Apostle of Jesus Christ, was warned by an angel, that appeared to me in a vision of glory, that I should commit this ark to the floods of the sea. Therefore, I do testify and declare unto 1 Sindoms. Sindon is a classical word (Greek, “ or vööv *) for a fine Indian cotton stuff. As a delicate and soft fabric, it was fit for en- veloping delicate and costly things (as we now might use cotton-wool). Sindons meant, therefore, delicate wrappings; and the word is still used in Surgery for the plug of soft cotton put, to protect the brain, into the hole made in the skull by use of the trephine. * Bartholomew is the saint named, because church legend associated him with the work of spreading the tidings of the Gospel to far lands. He was said to have preached in Greater Armenia, to have converted the Lycaonians, and to have at last carried the Gospel into India, whence he never returned. that people where God shall ordain this ark to come to land, that in the same day has come unto them salvation and peace, and goodwill from the Father and from the Lord Jesus.” “There was also in both these writings, as well the book as the letter, wrought a great miracle, conforme to that of the Apostles in the original gift of tongues. For there being at that time in this land Hebrews, Persians, and Indians, besides the natives, every one read upon the book and letter, as if they had been written in his own language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity (as the remains of the Old World was from water) by an ark, through the Apostolical and miraculous evangelism of Saint Bartholomew.” And here he paused, and a messenger came and called him from us. So this was all that passed in that conference. The next day the same governor came again to us imme- diately after dinner, and excused himself, saying, That the day before he was called from us somewhat abruptly, but now he would make us amends, and spend time with us if we held his company and conference agreeable. We answered, That we held it so agreeable and pleasing to us as we forgot both dangers past and fears to come for the time we heard him speak. And that we thought an hour spent with him was worth years of our former life. He bowed himself a little to us, and after we were set again, he said, “Well, the questions are on your part.” One of our number said, after a little pause, That there was a matter we were no less desirous to know than fearful to ask, lest we might presume too far; but, en- couraged by his rare humanity towards us (that could scarce think ourselves strangers, being his vowed and professed ser- vants), we would take the hardiness to propound it, humbly beseeching him, if he thought it not fit to be answered, that he would pardon it though he rejected it. We said, 'We well observed those his words which he formerly spake, that this happy island where we now stood was known to few, and yet knew most of the nations of the world; which we found to be true, considering they had the languages of Europe, and knew much of our state and business, and yet we in Europe (notwithstanding all the remote discoveries and navigations of this last age) never heard any of the least ink- ling or glimpse of this island. This we found wonderful strange, for that all nations have inter-knowledge one of another, either by voyage into foreign parts, or by strangers that come to them. And though the traveller into a foreign country doth commonly know more by the eye than he that stayeth at home can by relation of the traveller, yet both ways suffice to make a mutual knowledge in some degree on both parts. But for this island, we never heard tell of any ship of theirs that had been seen to arrive upon any shore of Europe; no, nor of either the East or West Indies, nor yet of any ship of any other part of the world that had made return from them. And yet the marvel rested not in this, for the situation of it (as his lordship said) in the secret conclave 3 of such a vast sea might cause it. But then, that they should have knowledge of the languages, books, affairs of those that lie such a distance from them, it was a thing we could not tell what to make of; for that it seemed to us a condition and propriety of divine powers and beings to be hidden and un- seen to others, and yet to have others open and as in a light to them. At this speech the governor gave a gracious smile, and said: That we did well to ask pardon for this question we now asked, for that it imported as if we thought this land a land of magicians, that sent forth spirits of the air into all parts to bring them news and intelligence of other countries. * Conclave, a room or space that may be locked up. From Latin “con,” with, and “clavis;” a key. Hence the present use of the word for a secret council. - 120 [A.D... 1626. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. It was answered by us all in all possible humbleness, but yet with a countenance taking knowledge, that we knew that he spake it but merrily. That we were apt enough to think there was somewhat supernatural in this island, but yet rather as angelical than magical. But to let his lordship know truly what it was that made us tender, and doubtful to ask this question, it was not any such conceit, but because we remembered he had given a touch in his former speech that this land had laws of secrecy touching strangers. To this he said: “You remember it aright, and therefore in that I shall say to you I must reserve some particulars which it is not lawful for me to reveal; but there will be enough left to give you satisfaction. “You shall understand—that which, perhaps, you will scarce think credible—that about three thousand years ago, or somewhat more, the navigation of the world (especially for remote voyages) was greater than at this day. Do not think with yourselves that I know not how much it is increased with you within these six score years; I know it well, and yet I say greater then than now. Whether it was that the example of the ark that saved the remnant of men from the universal deluge gave men confidence to adventure upon the waters, or what it was, but such is the truth. The Phoeni- cians, and specially the Tyrians, had great fleets; so had the Carthaginians their colony, which is yet further west. To- wards the East the shipping of Egypt and of Palestina was likewise great ; China, also, and the great Atlantis (that you call America) which have now but junks and canoes, abounded then in tall ships. This island (as appeareth by faithful registers of those times) had then fifteen hundred strong ships of great content. Of all this, there is with you sparing memory, or none; but we have large knowledge thereof. “At that time this land was known and frequented by the ships and vessels of all the nations before named. And, as it cometh to pass, they had many times men of other countries, that were no sailors, that came with them : as Persians, Chal- deans, Arabians. So as almost all nations of might and fame resorted hither, of whom we have some stirps' and little tribes with us at this day. And for our own ships, they went sun- dry voyages, as well to your straits, which you call the Pillars of Hercules,” as to other parts in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas; as to Paguin (which is the same with Cambaline)” and Quinzy," upon the Oriental seas, as far as to the borders of the East Tartary. “At the same time, and an age after or more, the inhabit- ants of the Great Atlantis did flourish. For though the narration and description which is made by a great man with you, that the descendants of Neptune planted there, and of the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill, and the mani- fold streams of goodly navigable rivers (which as so many chains environed the same site and temple), and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a Scala Caeli," be all poetical and fabulous. Yet so much is true that the said country of Atlantis—as well that of Peru, then called Coya, as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel—were mighty and proud kingdoms in arms, ship- ping, and riches; so mighty as at one time—or at least within the space of ten years—they both made two great expedi- tions: they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the Medi- terranean Sea; and they of Coya through the South Sea upon * Stirps, progeny. Latin, “stirps,” stem, plant, shoot, stock, race, offspring: used here as in Virgil's “stirps et genus omne futurum.” * Straits of Gibraltar. * Cambay, in Guzerat, where trade has decayed by shallowing of the Gulf of Cambay. * Quinzy, the Chinese province of Quang-si. 5 Stair of Heaven. this our island. And for the former of these, which was into Europe, the same author amongst you, as it seemeth, had some relation from the Egyptian priest whom he citeth, for assuredly such a thing there was. But whether it were the ancient Athenians that had the glory of the repulse and resis- tance of those forces, I can say nothing; but certain it is, there never came back either ship or man from that voyage. Neither had the other voyage of those of Coya upon us had better fortune, if they had not met with enemies of greater clemency. For the king of this island, by name Altabin, a wise man and a great warrior, knowing well both his own strength and that of his enemies, handled the matter so as he cut off their land forces from their ships, and entoiled both their navy and their camp with a greater power than theirs, both by sea and land, and compelled them to render them- selves without striking stroke. And after they were at his mercy, contenting himself only with their oath that they should no more bear arms against him, dismissed them all in safety. But the divine revenge overtook not long after those proud enterprises, for within less than the space of one hun- dred years the great Atlantis was utterly lost and destroyed. Not by a great earthquake, as your man saith (for that whole tract is little subject to earthquakes), but by a particular deluge, or inundation. Those countries having at this day far greater rivers and far higher mountains to pour down waters than any part of the Old World. But it is true that the same inundation was not deep : not past forty feet in most places from the ground; so that although it destroyed man and beast generally, yet some few wild inhabitants of the wood escaped, birds also were saved by flying to the high trees and woods. For, as for men, although they had build- ings in many places higher than the depth of the water, yet that inundation, though it were shallow, had a long con- tinuance, whereby they of the vale that were not drowned perished for want of food and other things necessary. So as marvel you not at the thin population of America, nor at the rudeness and ignorance of the people, for you must account your inhabitants of America as a young people, younger a thousand years at the least than the rest of the world; for that there was so much time between the universal flood and their particular inundation. For the poor remnant of human seed which remained in their mountains peopled the country again slowly by little and little ; and being simple and Savage people (not like Noah and his sons, which was the chief family of the earth), they were not able to leave letters, arts, and civility to their posterity. And having likewise in their mountainous habitations been used (in respect of the extreme cold of those regions) to clothe themselves with the skins of tigers, bears, and great hairy goats that they have in those parts, whenafter they came down into the valley, and found the intolerable heats which are there, and knew no means of lighter apparel, they were forced to begin the custom of going naked, which continueth at this day. Only they take great pride and delight in the feathers of birds; and this also they took from those their ancestors of the mountains, who were invited unto it by the infinite flights of birds that came up to the high grounds while the waters stood below. So you see, by this main accident of time we lost our traffic with the Americans, with whom of all others in regard they lay nearest to us, we had most commerce. As for the other parts of the world, it is most manifest that in the ages following (whether it were in respect of wars, or by a natural revolution of time) navigation did everywhere greatly decay, and especially far voyages (the rather by the use of galleys, and such vessels, as could hardly brook the ocean) were altogether left and omitted. So then, that part of intercourse | which could be from other nations to sail to us, you see how A.D. ...1626.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 121 it hath long since ceased, except it were by some rare accident as this of yours. But now of the cessation of that other part of intercourse which might be by our sailing to other nations, I must yield you some other cause; for I cannot say, if I shall say truly, but our shipping for number, strength, mariners, pilots, and all things that appertain to navigation, is as great as ever; and, therefore, why we should sit at home, I shall now give you an account by itself; and it will draw nearer to give you satisfaction to your principal question. “There reigned in this island about 1,900 years ago a King, whose memory of all others we most adore; not supersti- tiously, but as a divine instrument though a mortal man. His name was Solamona, and we esteem him as the law-giver of our nation. This king had a large heart, inscrutable for good, and was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy. He, therefore, taking into consideration how sufficient and substantive this land was to maintain itself without any aid at all of the foreigner; being 5,600 miles in circuit, and of rare fertility of soil in the greatest part thereof: and find- ing also the shipping of this country might be plentifully set on work, both by fishing and by transportations from port to port, and likewise by sailing unto some small islands that are not far from us, and are under the crown and laws of this State : and recalling into his memory the happy and flourish- ing estate wherein this land then was, so as it might be a thousand ways altered to the worse, but scarce any one way to the better—thought nothing wanted to his noble and heroical intentions, but only (as far as human foresight might reach) to give perpetuity to that which was in his time so happily established. Therefore, amongst his other funda- mental laws of this kingdom he did ordain the interdicts and prohibitions which we have touching entrance of strangers, which at that time (though it was after the calamity of America) was frequent, doubting novelties and commixture of manners. It is true, the like law against the admission of strangers without license is an ancient law in the kingdom of China, and yet continued in use; but there it is a poor thing, and hath made them a curious, ignorant, fearful, foolish nation. But our law-giver made his law of another temper. For first, he hath preserved all points of humanity in taking order and making provision for the relief of strangers distressed, whereof you have tasted.” At which speech, as reason was, we all rose up and bowed ourselves. He went on : “That King also, still desiring to join humanity and policy together, and think- ing it against humanity to detain strangers here against their wills, and against policy that they should return and dis- cover their knowledge of this estate, he took this course : he did ordain that of the strangers that should be permitted to land, as many at all times might depart as would ; but as many as would stay should have very good conditions and means to live from the State. Wherein he saw so far, that now, in so many ages since the prohibition, we have memory not of one ship that ever returned, and but of thirteen per- sons only, at several times, that chose to return in our bottoms. What those few that returned may have reported abroad I know not; but you must think whatsoever they have said could be taken, where they came, but for a dream. Now for our travelling from hence into parts abroad, our law-giver thought fit altogether to restrain it. So is it not in China, for the Chinese sail where they will or can, which showeth that their law of keeping out strangers is a law of pusillanimity and fear. But this restraint of ours hath one only exception, which is admirable : preserving the good which cometh by communicating with strangers, and avoiding the hurt. And I will now open it to you ; and here I shall seem a little to digress, but you will by and by find it pertinent. “Ye shall understand, my dear friends, that amongst the ex- cellent acts of that king, one above all hath the pre-eminence. It was the erection and institution of an order, or society, which we call Salomon's House: the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth, and the lanthorn of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the Works and Creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solamona's House, but the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous with you and no stranger to us, for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost; namely, that Natural History which he wrote of all Plants, from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wail, and of all things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our king, finding himself to sym- bolise in many things with that king of the Hebrews (which lived many years before him), honoured him with the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of this opinion for that I find in ancient records this order, or society, is sometimes called Salomon's House, and sometimes the College of the Six Days' Works, whereby I am satisfied that our excellent king had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the World and all that therein is within six days; and therefore, he instituting that house for the finding out of the true nature of all things (whereby God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more fruit in the use of them), did give it also that second name. But now to come to our present purpose. When the king had for- bidden to all his people navigation into any part that was not under his crown, he made, nevertheless, this ordinance: That every twelve years there should be set forth out of this king- dom two ships appointed to several voyages; that in either of these ships there should be a mission of three of the fellows, or brethren, of Salomon's House, whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world; and withal to bring unto us books, instruments, and patterns in every kind. That the ships, after they had landed the brethren, should return, and that the brethren should stay abroad till the new mission. These ships are not otherwise fraught than with store of victuals, and good quantity of treasure to remain with the brethren, for the buying of such things and rewarding of such persons as they should think fit. Now for me to tell you how the vulgar sort of mariners are contained from being discovered at land, and how they that must be put on shore for any time colour themselves under the names of other nations, and to what places these voyages have been designed, and what places of rendezvous are ap- pointed for the new missions, and the like circumstances of the practice—I may not do it. Neither is it much to your desire. But thus you see we maintain a trade, not for gold, silver, or jewels; not for silks, not for spices, nor any other commodity of matter; but only for God's first creature, which was Light. To have light, I say, of the growth of all parts of the world.” And when he had said this he was silent, and so were we all; for indeed we were all astonished to hear so strange things so probably told. And he, perceiving that we were willing to say somewhat but had it not ready, in great courtesy took us off, and descended to ask us questions of our voyage and fortunes, and in the end concluded that we might do well to think with ourselves what time of stay we would demand of the State; and bade us not to scant ourselves, for he would procure such time as we desired. Whereupon we all rose up, and presented ourselves to kiss the skirt of his tippet, but he would not suffer us, and so took his leave. But 192 122 ENGLISHE LITERATURE. [A.D. ...1626. CASSELL's LIBRARY OF when it came once amongst our people that the State used to offer conditions to strangers that would stay, we had work enough to get any of our men to look to our ship, and to keep them from going presently to the governor to crave con- ditions. But with much adowe refrained them till we might agree what course to take. We took ourselves now for free men, seeing there was no danger of our utter perdition, and lived most joyfully, going abroad, and seeing what was to be seen in the city and places adjacent within our tether; and obtaining acquaintance with many of the city, not of the meanest quality, at whose hands we found such humanity, and such a freedom and desire to take strangers, as it were, into their bosom, as was enough to make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries. And continually we met with many things right worthy of observation and relation; as, indeed, if there be a mirror in the world worthy to hold men's eyes, it is that country. One day there were two of our company bidden to a feast of the family, as they call it; a most natural, pious, and reverend custom it is, showing that nation to be compounded of all goodness. This is the manner of it : it is granted to any man that shall live to see thirty persons descended of his body alive together, and all above three years old, to make this feast, which is done at the cost of the State. The Father of the Family, whom they call the Tirsan, two days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he liketh to choose, and is assisted also by the governor of the city or place where the feast is celebrated; and all the persons of the family of both sexes are summoned to attend him. These two days the Tirsan sitteth in consultation concerning the good estate of the family. There, if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they are compounded and ap- peased. There, if any of the family be distressed or decayed, order is taken for their relief and competent means to live. There, if any be subject to vice, or take ill courses, they are reproved and censured. So, likewise, direction is given touching marriages, and the courses of life which any of them should take, with divers other the like orders and ad- vices. The governor assisteth to the end to put in execution by his public authority the decrees and orders of the Tirsan if they should be disobeyed, though that seldom needeth, such reverence and obedience they give to the order of nature. The Tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from amongst his sons to live in house with him, who is called ever after the Son of the Vine—the reason will hereafter appear. On the feast-day the Father, or Tirsan, cometh forth after divine service into a large room, where the feast is celebrated, which room hath a half-pace at the upper end. Against the wall, in the middle of the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with a table and carpet before it. Over the chair is a state, made round or oval, and it is of ivy—an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, like the leaf of a silver asp," but more shining, for it is green all winter. And the state is curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colours, broiding or binding in the ivy, and is ever of the work of some of the daughters of the family, and veiled over at the top with a fine net of silk and silver; but the substance of it is true ivy, whereof, after it is taken down the friends of the family are desirous to have Some leaf or sprig to keep. The Tirsan cometh forth with all his generation, or lineage, the males before him and the females following him ; and if there be a Mother from whose body the whole lineage is descended, there is a traverse? placed in a loft above, on the right hand of the chair, with a privy * Asp, aspen. First-English, “aesp.” Aspen is its adjective. * Traverse, barrier or movable screen, sometimes formed only by a curtain. - door, and a carved window of glass leaded with gold and blue, where she sitteth but is not seen. When the Tirsan is come forth he sitteth down in the chair, and all the lineage place themselves against the wall, both at his back and upon the return of the half-pace,” in order of their years, without dif- ference of sex, and stand upon their feet. When he is set, the room being always full of company, but well kept and without disorder, after some pause there cometh in from the lower end of the room a taratan (which is as much as a herald), and on either side of him two young lads, whereof one carrieth a scroll of their shining yellow parchment, and the other a cluster of grapés of gold, with a long foot, or stalk. The herald and children are clothed with mantles of sea-water green satin, but the herald's mantle is streamed with gold, and hath a train. Then the herald, with three curtseys, or rather inclinations, cometh up as far as the half-pace, and there first taketh into his hand the scroll. This scroll is the king's charter, containing gift of revenue, and many privi- leges, exemptions, and points of honour granted to the father of the family; and it is ever styled and directed : “To such an one, our Well-beloved Friend and Creditor,” which is a title proper only to this case. For they say, the king is debtor to no man but for propagation of his subjects. The seal set to the king's charter is the king's image embossed, or moulded, in gold; and though such charters be expedited of course, and as of right, yet they are varied by discretion, according to the number and dignity of the family. This charter the herald readeth aloud, and while it is read the Father, or Tirsan, standeth up, supported by two of his sons, such as he chooseth. Then the herald mounteth the half-pace, and delivereth the charter into his hand, and with that there is an acclamation by all that are present in their language, which is thus much, “‘Happy are the people of Bensalem.” Then the herald taketh into his hand from the other child the cluster of grapes, which is of gold, both the stalk and the grapes. But the grapes are daintily enamelled; and if the males of the family be the greater number, the grapes are enamelled purple, with a little sun set on the top ; if the females, then they are enamelled into a greenish-yellow, with a crescent on the top. The grapes are in number as many as there are descend- ants of the family. This golden cluster the herald delivereth also to the Tirsan, who presently delivereth it over to that son that he had formerly chosen to be in house with him, who beareth it before his father as an ensign of honour when he goeth in public ever after, and is thereupon called the Son of the Vine. After this ceremony ended, the Father, or Tirsan, re- tireth, and after some time cometh forth again to dinner, where he sitteth alone under the state as before, and none of his descendants sit with him of what degree or dignity soever, except he hap to be of Salomon's House. He is served only by his own children, such as are male, who perform unto him all service of the table upon the knee; and the women only stand about him, leaning against the wall. The room below the half-pace hath tables on the sides for the guests that are bidden, who are served with great and comely order. And towards the end of dinner (which, in the greatest feast with them, lasteth never above an hour and a half) there is an hymn sung, varied according to the invention of him that composeth it (for they have excellent poesy), but the subject of it is always the praises of Adam, and Noah, and Abraham, whereof the former two peopled the world and the last was * The return of the half-pace. Return is here used in the architectural sense of the continuation of a moulding, projection, &c., in a con- trary direction; a part that falls away from the front of a straight work; as here the half-pace (the raised floor or scaffold) projects from | the straight line of the wall. A.D. ... 1626.] 123 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. the Father of the Faithful: concluding ever with a thanks- giving for the Nativity of our Saviour, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed. Dinner being done, the Tirsan re- tireth again, and having withdrawn himself alone into a place, where he maketh some private prayers, he cometh forth the third time to give the blessing, with all his descendants, who stand about him as at the first. Then he calleth them forth by one and by one, by name, as he pleaseth, though seldom the order of age be inverted. The person that is called (the table being before removed) kneeleth down before the chair, and the father layeth his hand upon his head, or her head, and giveth the blessing in these words: “Son of Bensalem [or daughter of Bensalem], thy Father saith it; the man by whom thou hast breath and life speaketh the word; the blessing of the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove be upon thee, and make the days of thy pil- grimage good and many.” This he saith to every of them; and that done, if there be any of his sons of eminent merit and virtue (so they be not above two) he calleth for them again, and saith, laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing, “Sons, it is well ye are born; give God the praise, and persevere to the end.” And withal delivereth to either of them a jewel, made in the figure of an ear of wheat, which they ever after wear in the front of their turban, or hat. This done, they fall to music and dances, and other recreations after their manner for the rest of the day. This is the full order of that feast. By that time six or seven days were spent, I was fallen into straight acquaintance with a merchant of that city, whose name was Joabin. He was a Jew, and circumcised, for they have some few stirps" of Jews yet remaining among them, whom they leave to their own religion: which they may the better do because they are of a far different disposition from the Jews in other parts: for whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour against the people amongst whom they live, these, contrariwise, give unto our Saviour many high attributes, and love the nation of Ben- Salem extremely. Surely this man of whom I speak would ever acknowledge that Christ was born of a virgin, and that He was more than a man; and he would tell how God made Him ruler of the seraphins which guard His throne; and they call him also the Milken Way, and the Elijah of the Messiah, and many other high names, which, though they be inferior to His Divine Majesty, yet they are far from the language of other Jews. And for the country of Bensalem this man would make no end of commending it, being desirous by tradition among the Jews there to have it believed that the people thereof were of the generations of Abraham by another son, whom they called Nachoran; and that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they now use; and that when the Messiah should come, and sit in His throne at Jerusalem, the king of Bensalem should sit at his feet, whereas other kings should keep a great distance. But yet, setting aside these Jewish dreams, the man was a wise man, and learned, and of great policy, and excellently seen in” the laws and customs of that nation. Amongst other discourses one day, I told him I was much affected with the relation I had from some of the company of their custom in holding the Feast of the Family, for that, methought, I had never heard of a solemnity wherein Nature did so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and customs they had concerning marriage, and whether they kept * Stirps. See Note 1, p. 120. * Seen in, skilled in. Imitation of the Latin use of “spectatus;” a Common phrase in Old English. marriage well, and whether they were tied to one wife; for that where population is so much affected, and such as with them it seemed to be, there is commonly permission of plurality of wives. To this he said, “You have reason for to com- mend that excellent institution of the Feast of the Family, and indeed we have experience that those families that are par- takers of the blessing of that feast do flourish and prosper ever after in an an extraordinary manner. But hear me now, and I will tell you what I know. You shall understand that there is not under the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem, nor so free from all pollution or foulness. It is the virgin of the world. I remember I have read in one of your European books of a holy hermit amongst you that desired to see the spirit of fornication, and there appeared to him a little, foul, ugly Ethiop; but if he had desired to see the spirit of chastity of Bensalem, it would have appeared to him in the likeness of a fair beautiful cherubin ; for there is nothing amongst mortal men more fair and admirable than the chaste minds of this people. Know, therefore, that with them there are no stews, no dissolute houses, no courtesans, nor anything of that kind. Nay, they wonder, with detesta- tion, at you in Europe which permit such things. They say ye have put marriage out of office, for marriage is ordained a remedy for unlawful concupiscence ; and natural concupi- scence seemeth as a spur to marriage; but when men have at hand a remedy more agreeable to their corrupt will, marriage is almost expulsed. And, therefore, there are with you seen infinite men that marry not, but choose rather a libertine and impure single life than to be yoked in marriage; and many that do marry, marry late, when the prime and strength of their years is past. And when they do marry, what is marriage to them but a very bargain, wherein is sought alliance, or portion, or reputation, with some desire (almost indifferent) of issue, and not the faithful nuptial union of man and wife that was first instituted. Neither is it possible that those that have cast away so basely so much of their strength should greatly esteem children (being of the same matter) as chaste men do. So, likewise during marriage, is the case much amended, as it ought to be if those things were tolerated only for necessity ? No, but they remain still as a very affront to marriage. The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are no more punished in married men than in bachelors, and the depraved custom of change, and the delight in meretricious embracements (where sin is turned into art), maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind of impo- sition, or tax. They hear you defend these things as done to avoid greater evils; but they say this is a preposterous wisdom, and they call it Lot's offer, who, to save his guests from abusing, offered his daughters. Nay, they say further that there is little gained in this, for that the same vices and appetites do still remain and abound: unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the flames altogether, it will quench; but if you give it any vent it will rage. As for masculine love, they have no touch of it: and yet there are not so faithful and inviolate friendships in the world again as are there ; and to speak generally, as I said before, I have not read of any such chastity in any people as theirs. And their usual saying is, ‘That whosoever is unchaste cannot reverence himself.” And they say, “That the reverence of a man's self is, next religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.’” And when he had said this, the good Jew paused a little; whereupon I, far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak myself, yet thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech I should not be altogether silent, said only this, “That I would say to him as the widow of Sarepta said to Elias: that he was come to bring to memory our sins, and that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem was greater than the, 124 [A.D. ... 1626. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. righteousness of Europe.” At which speech he bowed his head, and went on in this manner: “They have also many wise and excellent laws touching marriage: They allow no polygamy; they have ordained that none do intermarry or contract until a month be past from their first interview. Marriage without consent of parents they do not make void; but they mulct it in the inheritors, for the children of such marriages are not admitted to inherit above a third part of their parents’ inheritance. . . . . . And as we were thus in conference there came one that seemed to be a messenger, in a rich huke," that spake with the Jew, whereupon he turned to me, and said: “You will pardon me, for I am commanded away in haste.” The next morning he came to me again, joyful as it seemed, and said: “There is word come to the governor of the city that one of the fathers of Salomon's House will be here this day seven-night. We have seen none of them this dozen years; his coming is in state; but the cause of his coming is secret. I will provide you and your fellows of a good standing to see his entry.” I thanked him, and told him I was most glad of the news. The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied men. He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape ; his under-garment was of excellent white linen, down to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same, and a sindon,” or tippet, of the same about his neck. He had gloves that were curious and set with stone; and shoes of peach-coloured velvet; his neck was bare to the shoulders; his hat was like a helmet, or Spanish montera;3 and his locks curled below it decently (they were of colour brown); his beard was cut round, and of the same colour with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot without wheels, litter-wise, with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet embroidered, and two foot- men on each side in the like attire. The chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal, save that the fore-end had panels of Sapphires set in borders of gold, and the hinder end the like of emeralds of the Peru colour; there was also a sun of gold, radiant upon the top, in the midst, and on the top before, a small cherub of gold with wings displayed. The chariot was covered with cloth of gold tissued upon blue. He had before him fifty attendants, young men all, in white satin loose coats to the mid leg, and stockings of white silk, and shoes of blue velvet, and hats of blue velvet, with fine plumes of diverse colours set round like hat-bands. Next before the chariot went two men, bare headed, in linen gar- ments down to the foot, girt, and shoes of blue velvet, who carried the one a crosier the other a pastoral staff, like a sheep-hook, neither of them of metal, but the crosier of balm- wood, the pastoral staff of cedar. Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot, as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all the officers and principals of the companies of the city. He sat alone upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot curious carpets of silk of diverse colours, like the Persian, but far finer. He held up his bare hand, as he went, as blessing the people, but in silence. The street was wonderfully well kept, so that there was never any army had their men stand in better battle array than the people stood. The windows likewise were not crowded, but every one stood * Huke, cloak. Old French “huque.” Probably named from the piece of cottom cloth worn by the Arabs over the tunic, haik, from Ar. “haka,” to weave. The word occurs in Old English as haik, hyke, and huke. * Sindon. See Note 1, page 119. * Montera, a hunting-cap, from “montero,” a huntsman, so called because his game is on the mountain, “monte.” in them as if they had been placed. When the show was past, the Jew said to me, “I shall not be able to attend you as I would, in regard of some charge the city hath laid upon me for the entertaining of this great person.” Three days after, the Jew came to me again and said, “Ye are happy men, for the father of Salomon's House taketh knowledge of your being here, and commanded me to tell you that he will admit all your company to his presence, and have private conference with one of you that ye shall choose, and for this hath ap- pointed the next day after to-morrow; and because he meaneth to give you his blessing he hath appointed it in the forenoon.” We came at our day and hour, and I was chosen by my fellows for the private access. We found him in a fair chamber, richly hanged, and carpeted under foot, without any degrees to the state; * he was sat upon a low throne richly adorned, and a rich cloth of state over his head of blue satin embroidered. He was alone, save that he had two pages of honour on either hand, one finely attired in white; his under garments were the like that we saw him wear in the chariot, but instead of his gown he had on him a mantle with a cape, of the same fine black, fastened about him. When we came in, as we were taught, we bowed low at our first entrance; and when we were come near his chair he stood up, holding forth his hand ungloved, and in posture of blessing, and we, every one of us, stooped down and kissed the hem of his tippet; that done, the rest departed, and I remained. Then he warned the pages forth of the room, and caused me to sit down beside him, and spake to me thus in the Spanish, tongue:— “God bless thee, my son I will give thee the greatest jewel I have, for I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of the true state of Salomon's House. Son, to make you know the true state of Salomon's House, I will keep this order: first I will set forth unto you the end of our foundation. Secondly, the preparations and instru- ments we have for our works. Thirdly, the several employ- ments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned. And fourthly, the ordinances and rites which we observe. “The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.” “The preparations and instruments are these: we have large and deep caves of several depths; the deepest are sunk six hun- dred fathoms, and some of them are dug and made under great hills and mountains, so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep. For we find that the depth of a hill and the depth of a cave from the flat is the same thing; both remote alike from the sun and heaven's beams, and from the open air. These caves we call the lower region, and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of new artificial metals by compositions and materials which we use, and lay there for many years. We use them also some- times (which may seem strange) for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life, in some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all things necessary, and indeed live very long; by whom also we learn many things. “We have burials in several earths, where we put divers cements, as the Chinese do their porcelain, but we have them in greater variety, and some of them more fine. We have 4 Degrees to the state, steps up to the canopied seat. 5 The end of our foundation was the avowed aim of the whole system of Bacon’s philosophy. A.D. ...1626.1 125 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. also great variety of composts and soils for the making of the earth fruitful. - “We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and some of them likewise set upon high mountains, so that the vantage of the hill with the tower is, in the highest of them, three miles at least. And these places we call the upper region; accounting the air between the high places and the low as a middle region. We use these towers, according to their several heights and situations, for insola- tion,” refrigeration, conservation, and for the view of divers meteors, as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe. “We have great lakes, both salt and fresh, whereof we have use for the fish and fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural bodies; for we find a difference in things buried in earth or in air below the earth, and things buried in water. We have also pools, of which some do strain fresh water out of salt, and others by art do turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of the sea, and some bays upon the shore, for some works wherein is required the air and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions, and likewise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also on going diverse motions. “We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths, as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again, we have little wells for infusions of many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and Better than in vessels or basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call water of Paradise, being, by that we do to it, made very sovereign for health and prolongation of life. “We have also great and spacious houses where we imitate and demonstrate meteors, as Snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of bodies and not of water, thunders, lightnings; also generations of bodies in air, as frogs, flies, and divers others. “We have also certain chambers, which we call chambers of health, where we qualify the air as we think good and proper, for the cure of divers diseases and preservation of health. “We have also fair and large baths of several mixtures, for the cure of diseases and the restoring of man’s body from arefaction;” and others for the confirming of it in strength of sinews, vital parts, and the very juice and substance of the body. - “We have also large and various orchards and gardens, wherein we do not so much respect beauty as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs, and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set, whereof we make diverse kinds of drinks, besides the vineyards. In these we practise likewise all conclusions” of grafting and in- oculating, as well of wild trees as fruit trees, which pro- duceth many effects. And we make (by art) in the same orchards and gardens, trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons, and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course they do. We make them also, by art, greater much than their nature, and their fruit greater and sweeter, and of differing taste, smell, colour, and figure from their nature. And many of them we so order as they become of medicinal use. * Insolation, exposing to the rays of the sun. * Arefaction, being made dry; from Latin “arere,” to be dry, and “facere,” to make. * Practise conclusions, equivalent to “try conclusions,” make the experiment from which conclusions may be drawn. “We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earth without seeds, and likewise to make divers new plants, differing from the vulgar; and to make one tree or plant turn into another. “We have also parks, and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects, as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appear- ance, and the like. We try, also, all poisons, and other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgery as physic. By art, likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is, and, contrariwise, dwarf them, and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is, and, contrariwise, barren and not generative; also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity—many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of divers kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction, whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like beasts or birds, and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand, of what matter and com- mixture, what kind of those creatures will arise. “We have also particular pools, where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. “We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use, such as are with you your silkworms and bees. “I will not hold you long with recounting of our brew- houses, bakehouses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and meats, rare, and of special effects. Wines we have of grapes, and drinks of other juice of fruits, of grains, and of roots; and of mixtures with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried and decocted. Also of the tears and woundings of trees, and of the pulp of canes. And these drinks are of several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. We have drinks also brewed with several herbs, and roots, and spices; yea, with several fleshes and white meats, whereof some of the drinks are such as they are in effect meat and drink both, so that divers, especially in age, do desire to live with them, with little or no meat or bread. And, above all, we strive to have drinks of extreme thin parts, to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or fretting ; insomuch as some of them, put upon the back of your hand, will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion, as they be- come nourishing, so that they are indeed excellent drink, and many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and kernels: yea, and some of flesh and fish, dried, with divers kinds of leavenings and seasonings, so that some do extremely move appetites. Some do nourish so as divers do live of them without any other meat, who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so beaten and made tender, and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as a weak heat of the stomach will turn them into good chylus, as well as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some meats also, and breads, and drinks, which, taken by men, enable them to fast long after; and some other, that used make the very flesh of men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and their strength far greater than otherwise it would be. “We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines, wherein you may easily think, if we have such variety of plants and 126 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. ...1626 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF living creatures more than you have in Europe—for we know what you have—the simples, drugs, and ingredients of medi- cines must likewise be in so much the greater variety. We have them, likewise, of divers ages and long fermentations; and for their preparations we have not only all manner of exquisite distillations and separations, and especially by gentle heats, and percolations through divers strainers, yea, and sub- stances ; but also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorporate almost as they were natural simples. “We have also divers mechanical arts which you have not, and stuffs made by them, as papers, linen, silks, tissues, dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre, excellent dyes, and many others; and shops, likewise, as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use amongst us, as for those that are; for you must know that of the things before recited, many of them are grown into use throughout the kingdom ; but yet if they did flow from our invention, we have of them also for patterns and principals. “We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great diversity of heats, fierce and quick, strong and con- stant, soft and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist, and the like ; but above all we have heats in imitation of the sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass diverse inequalities, and, as it were, orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs, and of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies; and of hays and herbs laid up moist, of lime un- quenched, and such-like. Instruments, also, which generate heat only by motion. And further, places for strong insola- tions; and again, places under the earth, which, by nature of art, yield heat. These divers heats we use as the nature of the operation which we intend requireth. - “We have, also, perspective houses, where we make de- monstrations of all lights and radiations, and of all colours; and out of things uncoloured and transparent we can repre- sent unto you all several colours, not in rainbows—as it is in gems and prisms—but of themselves single. We represent, also, all multiplications of light, which we carry to great dis- tance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines. Also all colorations of light; all delusions and deceits of the sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours; all demon- strations of shadows. We find, also, divers means yet un- known to you of producing of light originally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing objects afar off, as in the heaven, and remote places; and represent things near as afar off, and things afar off as near, making feigned distances. We have also helps for the sight, far above spectacles and glasses in use; we have also glasses and means to see small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, as the shapes and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot otherwise be seen ; observations in urine and blood not otherwise to be seen. We make artificial rainbows, halos and circles about light; we represent also all manner of reflections, refractions, and multiplications of visual beams of objects. “We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great beauty, and to you unknown ; crystals likewise, and glasses of divers kinds. And amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other materials, besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils and imperfect minerals, which you have not. Likewise loadstones of prodigious virtue, and other rare stones, both natural and artificial. “We have also sound-houses, where we practice and de- monstrate all Sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music, likewise to you unknown, Some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We repre- sent Small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and war- blings of sounds which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps, which, set to the ear, do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and, as it were, tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper. Yea, some rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances. “We have also perfume-houses, wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to breathe out of other mixtures than those that give them. We make diverse imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a con- fiture house, where we make all sweetmeats, dry and moist; and diverse pleasant wines, milks, broths, and salads, far in greater variety than you have. “We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions: there we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have ; and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means; and to make them stronger and more violent than yours are, exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent, also, ordnance and in- struments of war, and engines of all kinds; and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water, and unquenchable; also fireworks of all variety, both for pleasure and use. We imitate, also, flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water and brooking of seas; also swim- ming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return, and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures, by images of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents. We have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fine- ness, and subtlety. “We have also a mathematical house, where are repre- sented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made. “We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures and illusions, and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we that have so many things truly natural which induce admiration, could, in a world of par- ticulars, deceive the senses, if we would disguise those things, and labour to make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures and lies; insomuch as we have severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not show any natural work or thing adorned or swelling, but only pure as it is, and without all affectation of strangeness. “These are, my son, the riches of Salomon's House. “For the several employments and offices of our fellows: We have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light. “We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators. - “We have three that collect the experiments of all A.D. ...1626] * SHORTER PROSE WORKs, 127 mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of prac- tices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery IſleIl. “We have three that try new experiments such as them- selves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners. “We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers. “We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and casting about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men, or Benefactors. “Then after diverse meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experi- ments of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps. “We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators. Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries, by experiments, into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature. - “We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not fail, besides a great number of servants and attendants—men and women. And this we do also: we have consultations which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not ; and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret, though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the State, and some not. “For our ordinances and rites, we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies; also the inventor of ships ; your monk, that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder; the in- ventor of music; the inventor of letters; the inventor of printing ; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor of works in metal; the inventor of glass ; the in- ventor of silk of the worm ; the inventor of wine; the in- ventor of corn and bread; the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Then have we diverse inventors of our own of excellent works, which, since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them ; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err; for upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are, some of brass, some of marble and touchstone," some of cedar and other special woods, gilt and adorned, some of iron, some of silver, some of gold. “We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of laud and thanks to God for His marvellous Works, and forms of prayers imploring His aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses. “Lastly, we have circuits, or visits, of diverse principal 1 Touchstone, Lydian stone, or basanite, is silicious schist almost as compact as flint, called touchstone because it was used to indicate the purity of gold by the streak left where the gold had been drawn across it. - - cities of the kingdom, where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, Swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and diverse other things; and we give counsel thereupon what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them.” And when he had said this, he stood up. And I, as I had been taught, kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said:—“God bless thee, my son ; and God bless this relation which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it, for the good of other nations; for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown.” And so he left me, having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats for a bounty to me and my fellows. For they give great largesses where they come, upon all occasions. The rest was not perfected. NWWW § • * * JoBN MILTON, AGED TWENTY-ONE. From Vertue’s Engraving of the original Picture. CHAPTER. W. UNDER CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONWEALTH.— A.D. 1625 to A.D. 1660. BEN Jonson was fifty-one years old at the accession of Charles I., and he lived, in weak health, the chief poet of the time, during the first twelve years of the reign, dying in 1637 at the age of sixty-three. Among the papers found after his death was his pastoral play “The Sad Shepherd,” of which a part is lost, the beginning of a domestic tragedy, an English gram- mar, and a series of thoughts in prose which he called “Discoveries,” and which seem to have been written at intervals, during the last years of his life, as they were suggested by his observation or his reading. By “discovery” he meant, according to a sense of the word then usual, uncovering, unmasking, and 128 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. ...1637. ENGLISH LITERATURE. endeavour to look below their disguises at the truths of life ; or of literature, which is but the voice of life when most intent on its day labour. Here is a selection from Ben Jonson's DISCOVERIES. Jactura vitae."—What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in in scattering compli- ments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, follow- ing feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark COTIlêI’. Beneficia.”—Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they are, necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy, and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water, another whipped out of a fever: but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and imper- tinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I escaped pirates by being shipwrecked ; was the wreck a benefit therefore ? No: the doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake, is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them: he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield. Veritas proprium hominis."—Truth is man's proper good; and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or ethnic,” if he be honest, can miss it : no statesman or patriot should. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says,” he hates him worse than hell- mouth, that utters one thing with his tongue, and keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason: for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned ;" it will have another face than it had ere long. As Euripides saith, “No lie ever grows old.” De were argutis.7—I do hear them say often, some men are not witty; because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose ! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else, are as necessary, and natural in the place. But now nothing is good that is natural: right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it ; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted P no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing our own tongue? Nothing is fashionable till it be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected, and preposterous as our gallant's clothes, sweet bags, and night dressings: in which you would think our men lay in like ladies, it is so curious. Ingeniorum discrimina.” Not. 1–In the difference of wits, I have observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them ; to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear: for, before we sow our land, we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible, and therefore we must search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some . lawyers, some physicians: some to be sent to the plough, and trades. There is no doctrine will do good, where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery, others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur. Not. 2.-There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do every little thing easily, I mean that is hard-by. and next them, which they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they show presently like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground, shoots up but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an ingenistitium : they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher. Not. 3.−You have others that labour only to ostentation, and are ever more busy about the colours and surface of a work, than in the matter and foundation: for that is hid, the other is seen. Not. 4.—Others, that in composition are nothing but what is rough and broken : Quae per salebras, altaque saica cadunt.” And if it would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves, have some singularity in a rough, cloak, or hat- band; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which he fell into the others seek for: this is the danger when vice becomes a precedent. Not. 5.—Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women’s tailors: They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream ; In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream. You may sound these wits, and find the depth of them with your middle finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle- deep. Not. 6.—Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all papers, that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice; by which means it happens that what they have discredited and impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last ; and therein their own folly, so much, that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested: not that the place did need it neither; but that they thought themselves furnished, and would vent it. Not. 7.—Some again (who after they have got authority, 1 Throwing away of life, * Kindnesses done. 8 Truth is the special property of man. * Ethnic, heathen. 5 Iliad, ix. 312, 313. * “Ficta omnia celeriter, tanquam flosculi, decidunt, mec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum.” (Cicero.) 7 Of the truly witty. 8 Discriminations of character. 9 From an epigram of Martial’s (xi. 91) to a Chrestillus, who liked no verses that flow smoothly, but only “those which fall through rugged places and high rocks.” g A.D. ...1639.] 129 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. or, which is less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much) dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious. Not. 8.—And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author: their necessities compelling them to read for present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty than those, who because they cannot trace, they yet would slander their industry. Not. 9.—But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which perhaps are excellent) dare deride all diligence and seem to mock at the terms when they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in negligence, though they cannot be in nature : and they utter all they can think with a kind of violence and in- disposition ; unexamined, without relation either to person, place, or any fitness else: and the more wilful and stubborn they are in it, the more learned they are esteemed of the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment: who think those things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose. Not. 10.—It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to do more than enough, may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom, and when it comes it does not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now because they speak all they can (however unfitly) they are thought to have the greater copy: " where the learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true artificer will not run away from Nature, as he were afraid of her; or depart from life, and the likeness of truth; but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes, and Tamar-chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art, so to carry it as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what con- tumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men, who, without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses: how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath orna- ments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show the com- * Copy, Latin, “copia,” abundance. Anything is said to be a copy of another as being an increase of its quantity by reproduction. position manly ; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse) especially for that it is nought. De Augmentis Scientiarum.—Julius Caesar.—Lord St. Alban. —I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the state, to take care of the Commonwealth of Learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of state; and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman, than that part of the republic which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the care of Julius Caesar, who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his books of analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late Lord St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum; which though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated, nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book Qui longum noto scriptori prorogat a-vum.” My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest. The word “Discovery" is used, in the sense applied to it by Ben Jonson, in John Earle's “Microcosmo- graphie; or, a Piece of the World Discovered.” John Earle, born at York in the year 1600, was sent to Oxford at the age of sixteen, and at twenty- three was M.A., and a Fellow of Merton. In 1628, he being in his twenty-eighth year, a little volume of Characters, written by him, was published under the name of “Microcosmographie,” because it painted man, the microcosm or world in little. Earle was a fine scholar, and esteemed at court as wit and poet; for he was drawn from the University a few years after the publishing of his “Microcosmo- graphie,” and had lodgings at court as chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke, who was Lord Chamberlain to the King's household. In 1639 the Earl of Pembroke presented him—then Dr. Earle—to the Rectory of Bishopston, in Wiltshire, by which he remained until 1662, when (under Charles II.) he was made Bishop of Worcester. He had become Dean of Westminster at the Restoration. He died in 1665, and left behind him the character of one who had been no man's enemy. He was firm to Church and Crown, but an opponent of intolerance; “a man,” said Dr. Calamy, “that could do good against evil, forgive much out of a charitable heart.” Here are two of John Earle's Characters:— AN ANTIQUARY. He is a man strangely thrifty of Time Past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when * Horace, “Ars Poetica,” 1.346, which Roscommon translates, with its preceding context, “These pass with admiration through the world, And bring their author to eternal fame.” 193 130 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF |ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1639 they are now all rotten and stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese) the better for being mouldy and worm-eaten. He is of our religion because we say it is most ancient, and yet a broken statue would almost make him an idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads only those characters where time hath eaten out the letters. He will go you forty miles to see a Saint's well or a ruined abbey : and if there be but a cross or stone footstool in the way, he'll be considering it so long till he forget his journey. His estate consists much in shekels and Roman coins, and he hath more pictures of Caesar than James or Elizabeth. Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dung- hills, and he preserves their rags for precious relics. He loves no library but where there are more spiders' volumes than authors' and looks with great veneration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts' skins, and is a kind of charnel house of bones extraordinary, and his discourse upon them, if you will hear him, shall last longer. His very attire is that which is the eldest out of fashion, and you may pick a criticism out of his breeches. He never looks upon himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better because it gathers him to his fathers. A DOWN RIGHT SCHOLAR. Is one that has much learning in the ore, unwrought and un- tried, which time and experience fashions and refines. He is good metal in the inside though rough and unscoured without, and therefore hated of the courtier that is quite contrary. The time has got a vein of making him ridiculous, and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity but is put upon his profession and “done like a scholar.” But his fault is only this, that his mind is somewhat much taken up with his mind, and his thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not put on the quaint garb of the age which is now become a man's total. He has not humbled his medi- tations to the industry of compliment, nor afflicted his brain in an elaborate leg º' His body is not set upon nice pins to be turning and flexible for every motion, but his scrape is homely and his nod worse. He cannot kiss his hand and cry, Madame, nor talk idly enough to bear her company. His smacking of a gentlewoman” is somewhat too savoury, and he mistakes her nose for her lip. A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the logic of a capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale, but his words come Squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter commonly before the jest. He names this word College too often, and his discourse beats too much on the University. The per- plexity of mannerliness will not let him feed, and he is sharp set at an argument when he should cut his meat. He is discarded for a gamester at all games but One and Thirty, and at Tables he reaches not beyond doublets. His fingers are not long and drawn out to handle a fiddle, but his fist is cluncht with the habit of disputing. He ascends a horse somewhat sinisterly, though not on the left side, and they both go jogging in grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the Inns of Court men for that heinous vice, being out of fashion. He cannot speak to a dog in his own dialect, and understands Greek better than the language of a falconer. He has been used to a dark room and dark clothes, and his eyes dazzle at a satin doublet. The hermitage of his study has made him somewhat uncouth in the world, and men make him worse by staring on him. Thus is he silly and ridiculous, and it continues with him for some quarter of a year out of the University. But practise him a little in men, and brush him over with good company, and he shall out-balance those glisterers as much as a solid substance does a feather, or gold gold-lace. The taste for Character writing became so general that even William Habington, in the second edition of a series of pure love-poems entitled “Castara,” prefixed to each of the three parts a prose Character of a Mistress, a Wife, and a Holy Man, to which he added afterwards the Character of a Friend; and John Milton, when at College, tried his hand at two Characters in verse, the pieces upon Hobson, the University carrier. In 1639 an unnamed writer published a small collection of “Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and Whim- zies,” which serve to illustrate the current form of jest among the talkers who desired to set the table in a roar. Many of these were of his own invention, and invented in cold blood. All of them, doubtless, obtained currency and aided mirth in social gatherings wherever laughter was at home and hungry enough to welcome all food, fresh or stale. I give them with the crust of age by leaving their old spelling. CONCEITs, CLINCHES, FLASHES, AND WHIMZIES. One wondred much what great Scholler this same Finis was, because his name was almost to every booke. One asked what he was that had a fine wit in Jest. answered, a foole in earnest. It was One hearing a Usurer say he had been on the pike of Teneriff (which is supposed to be one of the highest hills in the world), asked him why he had not stayd there, for he was perswaded hee would never come so neere heaven againe. A Gentleman that bore a spleene to another meets him in the street, gives him a box on the eare; the other, not willing to stricke againe, puts it off with a jest, asking him whether it was in jest or in earnest ? The other answers it was in earnest. I am glad of that, said he, for if it had been in jest, I should have been very angry, for I do not like such jesting; and so past away from him. Usurers live, sayes one, by the fall of heires, like swine by the dropping of acorns. One asked his friend how he should use tobacco so that it might do him good? He answered : you must keepe a tobacco shop and sell it, for certainly there is none else find good in it. 1 Leg, bow. Has not made a study of bowing. * The kiss was still used as an act of social courtesy. 3. A small edition of this book (26 copies) was issued by Mr. Halli- well-Phillipps in 1860, and in 1864 it was reprinted by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in his valuable series of Shakespeare Jest-Books. To A.D. 1644.] 131 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. A simple fellow in gay cloths, sayes one, is like a Cinnamom tree; the barke is of more worth then the body. A Scholler and a Courtier meeting in the street seemd to contest for the wall; sayes the Courtier: I do not use to give every coxcombe the wall. The Scholler answered: but I do, Sir; and so passed by him. One asked why Ladyes called their husbands Master such a one, and master such a one, and not by their titles of knighthood, as Sir Thomas, Sir Richard, Sir William, etc. It was answered that, though others called them by their right titles, as Sir William, Sir Thomas, etc., yet it was fit their wives should master them. Of all knaves there's the greatest hope of a Cobler, for though he be never so idle a fellow, yet he is still mending. A Smith, said one, is the most pragmaticall fellow under the Sun, for he hath alwayes many irons in the fire. Smiths of all handy-crafts men are the most irregular, for they never thinke themselves better employed, then when they are addicted to their vices. Glasiers, said one, must needes be good arbitrators, for they spend their whole time in nothing but composing of quarels. Carpenters, said one, are the civelest men in a Common- wealth, for they never do their buisinesse without a Rule. Of all wofull friends a hangman is the most trusty : for, if he once have to do with a man, he will see him hang'd before hee shall want mony or any thing else. One said Physitians had the best of it; for, if they did well, the world did proclaime it; if ill, the earth did cover it. Scriveners are most hard harted fellowes, for they never rejoyce more then when they put other men in bonds. Horse-keepers and ostlers (let the world go which way it will, though there be never so much alteration in times and persons) are still stable men. One said it was no great matter what a drunkard said in his drinke, for he seldome spake any thing that he could stand to. One said of all professions, that Stage-players were the most philosophicall men that were, because they were as merry and as well contented, when they were in rags as when they were in robes. One said Painters were cunning fellowes, for they had a colour for every thing they did. One said Gallants had reason to be good Schollers, because they were deep in many books. An Upholster was chiding his Apprentice, because he was not nimble enough at his worke, and had not his nailes and hammar in readines, when he should use them, telling him that, when he was an Apprentice, he was taught to have his nailes at his fingers ends. One, drinking of a clip of burnt claret, said he was not able to let it down. Another demanded why. He answered, because it was red hot. - An Inkeeper brag'd he had a bed so large that two hundred Constables had lyen in it at one time, meaning two Constables of hundreds. One said to his friend that had been speaking: I love to heare a man talk nonsense; the other answered, I know you love to heare youre selfe talke as well as any man. One asked why begars stood in the streets begging with broomes in their hands. It was answered, because they did with them sweep away the durt out of peoples sight, whicn while they had a mind on they would never part with a penny. - A Gentleman tooke up some commodities upon trust in a shop, promising the master of the shop that he would owe him so much money. The master of the shop was therewith very well contented; but seeing that the Gentleman delayed the painment, he asked the money. The gentleman told him he had not promised to pay him, he had promised to owe him so much money, and that he would in no wise breake his promise, which if he paid him he did. - One asked why B stood before c. Because, said another, a man must B before he can c. One asked how long the longest letter in the English Alphabet was. It was answered, an L. long. One comming by a Sexton (who was making a grave for one Button which was a great tal fellow), asked him for whom that extraordinary long grave was. He answered, he had made many longer then that, and said it was but a button hole in respect of some graves that he had made. A great tall follow, whose name was Way, lay along the street drunke. One went over him, and being asked why he did so, he answered he did but goe along the high-way. Printers (saies one) are the most lawlesse men in a King- dome, for they commit faults cum privilegio. The greatest prose work of the reign of Charles I., perhaps the greatest in our literature, is Milton's “Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Un- licensed Printing.” Milton, born in 1608, was seventeen years old at the accession of Charles I., and then went to College. He remained at College seven years, and then, having taken his M.A. degree, spent seven years in special study, five years and three quarters at Horton, during which time he wrote “L’Allegro” and “Ilfenseroso,” “Arcades,” “Comus,” and “Lycidas,” followed by fifteen months of foreign travel. In June and July, 1639, Milton returned, and soon afterwards he took a garden house in Aldersgate Street, where he established a school. Danger of civil war then occupied men's thoughts, and the series of Milton's prose works—which repre- sented simply his contribution of opinion and argument to the great controversies of the time— began in 1641 with pamphlets upon the most burning question of that year. Swords may clash as they will, but their victories leave all undecided, open to fresh strife that will come in sooner or later—“for what can war but endless war still breed "-unless reason side with the battalions and approve their cause. The only war that can have happy issue is of thought opposed to thought ; this is and must be the essential part of every battle that concerns the interests of man. In this conflict it was Milton's duty, as it is the duty of every citizen in time of danger to the commonwealth, to be at his post; and the period of Milton's prose writing, which extended over man's best years of ripened vigour—from the age of thirty-three to that of fifty-two—was a willing sacrifice of all his aspiration as a poet, that he might 132 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644. CASSELL's LIBRARY OF give to his country the day-labour those years required. All hope of progress rested then, as it must always rest, on a free trial of the strength of opposite opinions. To-and-fro utterance of differing opinion is a thing not merely to tolerate, but to welcome. Boldest is best. The sieve must be well shaken that parts chaff from corn. When it was believed that oneness of opinion was essential in matters of religion and government, especially in matters of religion, and the printing press began to scatter men's thoughts broadcast, the Church, naturally enough, endeavoured to sift out before publication whatever might establish or en- courage schism, and a systematic censorship began at Rome. When Henry VIII. threw off the Pope, the censorship for England passed from the care of the Pope to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London. The state added its efforts to prevent publication of discordant political opinions. Elizabeth forbade printing in all parts of England except London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and in those towns limited the number of the presses. The Star Chamber, by a decree of the year 1637, limited the number of printers in the whole country to twenty, and of type-founders to four, placed them under the strictest oversight, and ordained precautions against unlicensed importation of books from abroad. In 1640 the Star Chamber was abolished, but not its spirit of intolerance, which represented in average men of all parties an aspect of the time, and not the malignity of any one body of thinkers. The Long Parliament sought in its own way to control the press and suppress books and pamphlets that in its opinion defamed religion and government, and on the 14th of June, 1643, it published an Ordinance for the regulating of printing. Milton then sought with all his might to win from his own party an aban- donment of this great error, and teach it that Truth's victories are to be won only in free and open encounter. For this purpose he published in November, 1644, the following pamphlet:- AREOPAGITICA." A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. *They, who to states * and governors of the common- wealth direct their speech, High Court of Parliament, or wanting such access in a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the public good; I suppose * Areopagitica. Milton takes this name from the Apswomayºrikos Aóyos—Oratio Areopagitica—which was directed by Isocrates to the Great Council of Athens, the Areopagus, as this is addressed to the Great Council of England, the Parliament. In both speeches there is an endeavour to produce a change of conduct in the chief assembly. The Athenian Council was so called, because its meetings were held on the Hill of Mars (Areios pagos). Isocrates was born in Erecthea, a village of Attica, 436 years before Christ, being seven or eight years older than Plato, his contemporary. His father Theodorus, a rich manufacturer of musical instruments, gave him a good education. He was taught by Gorgias, the founder of the Greek school of rhetoric, by Prodicus, the first of the Sophists who took fees from his pupils, and by Socrates. He lost his patrimony during the Peloponnesian war, and at first earned money by writing defences of accused persons, but soon abandoned this employment, and became a teacher. Isocrates was a man of genius and a true kover of liberty; though, by voice and temperament, disqualified for public speaking, he raised the standard of the art of oratory, and taught its principles in a school, established them as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little altered” and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of what will be the censure;” some with hope, others with confidence º § º [.º § sº gs, r YS #y § SS º § % THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND (From the Great Seal of the Commonwealth). of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also disclose which of them first at Chios, afterwards at Athens, from which, as Cicero said (De Oratore, ii. 3, 10) as from the Trojan horse there came out none but chiefs; Isaeus, Lycurgus, Hyperides, Demosthenes, and Timotheus the son of Conon, who won over the allies of Athens, by speaking in the generous and noble spirit of his master. Demosthemes, unrivalled in delivery, always regarded his old teacher as his superior in the art of composition. Plato in his Phaedrus, a dialogue of Love and Beauty, written when Isocrates was old, but representing an earlier time, makes Socrates say, “Isocrates is still young, but he has too much genius to be compared with Lysias; he shows a greater love for virtue, and I should not be surprised that, as his knowledge increases with his years, he excel all those in the same walk of literature as much as men excel children.” Cicero wrote of Isocrates as unrivalled in sweetness of numbers and graces of oratory. Quintilian spoke as highly of his genius, and praised him for having used it always in aid of the cause of virtue. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has left a long criticism on the writings of Isocrates, and especially admired the sound rules of conduct, and the grand principles of political wisdom contained in them. Isocrates lived to the age of 98, and died in the year B. c. 338, overcome by grief when, as Milton wrote of him in his sonnet to Lady Margaret Lay, the - “dishonest victory At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, Killed with report that old man eloquent.” Of sixty orations by Isocrates which were extant in the time of Plutarch, twenty-one remain. That called the Areopagitic was written about twenty years after the close of the Peloponnesian war, when the Athenians were recovering their lead in Greece, but had fallen from the virtue of their ancient manners. The Council of the Areopagus had influence over manners and religion which was used for good when only men of weight and experience were admitted to it. But in later days the way to the dignity of an Areopagite had been opened to men of lower mark, licentious and corruptible. The object of Isocrates was to urge a restoration of the old simplicity and purity of manners, by a restoration of the old system under which the Areopagites were patterns as well as guides to the young, and the maintenance by them of religion and morals among the young assured the strength of the Republic. “Virtue,” he said (I quote from Dr. John Gillies’s translation of the Orations of Lysias and Iso- crates, published in 1778), “Wirtue is not to be taught by rules; it must A.D. 1644.] 133 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a passion, far more welcome than incidental to a preface. Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall be blameless, if it be no other, than the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish and promote their country's liberty; whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a trophy." For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth, that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained, that wise men look for. To which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery,7 it will be attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of God our deliverer, next to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England. Neither is it in God's esteem, the diminution of His glory, when honourable things are spoken of good men and worthy magistrates; which if I now first should begin to do, after so fair a progress of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them that praise ye. Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship and flattery, First, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise: next when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascribed, the other, when he who praises, by showing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impair your merits with a trivial and malignant encomium;8 the latter as belonging chiefly to mine beformed by practice and habit; these alone can produce any powerful effect, or any real harmony in the political machine ; the number and accuracy of the laws only denotes imperfections. They are mounds to prevent the inundation of vice, but never can give birth to one virtuous action. Such as are wisely governed, therefore, have not their piazzas covered with edicts; they have the principles of justice engraven on their hearts. Without these the best laws can be of no avail; for they only who are well educated are sufficiently prepared to receive them.” Wise example of the old, and a firm care over education which did not end with the young, but allowed no young man, rich or poor, to be idle, and checked inclination to frivolity and vice, maintained the health and wealth of the republic. “I have celebrated,” said Isocrates, “the love of equality and every other virtue which tends to preserve the true republican spirit, and have exposed those vices which tend to destroy it ; ” and he said this at the beginning of a digression in his speech, designed to testify his “ detestation against every kind of arbitrary power.” A free govern- ment, even when ill administered, was better, he said, than the sovereignty of the few. But the Athenians were not to rest content with such comparison as that. “I reproach him for being unworthy of high descent whose conduct is not more noble and generous than that of the vulgar, and with regard to public affairs, I think there is no reason for being satisfied with you, while you only have the advantage over men possessed, as it were, with daemons, or inspired with madness. Norought you to be satisfied with yourselves till you become more worthy of your ancestors; for it is their virtue and not the worthlessness of tyrants that you ought to place before your eyes.” Of such sort was the high thinking that won Milton’s regard for Isocrates. 2 The essential parts of a speech, according to Aristotle's Rhetoric, are Exordium, Statement, Proof, Peroration. Milton's speech here opens with a skilfully-planned exordium, which extends to the first break of paragraph at “set forth by your predecessors.” This is the place of the first break in the printing of the original edition. A Latin writer of uncertain name, perhaps the rhetorician Cornificus, defined exordium as “the beginning of a speech by which the mind of the hearer or judge is disposed or prepared for hearing.” Milton addresses the Parliament and has a practical end in view, to persuade it to suppress one of its own edicts. He must begin by disposing the minds of the members to hear argument against themselves. He can do this only by conciliating, as Aristotle had taught, backing his suggestion by quoting from Homer the prayer of Ulysses to Atheme, “Grant that I come as a friend to the Phaeacians.” “And,” said Aristotle, “in demonstrative speeches, you should cause the hearer to suppose that he is praised simultaneously with the subject, either in his own person, or his family, or in his maxims of conduct, or at least somehow or other.” The reader will observe how artfully, without a sacrifice of what he held to be the truth, Milton blended in his exor- dium praise of the Parliament for its maxims of conduct with the introduction of his purpose, and made even the fact that he was free to call attention to a fault an argument for higher exaltation of its merits. The opening sentences of the exordium, in direct address to the Parliament, indicates the relation of one who, as a private citizen, through desire for the public good, “at the beginning of no mean endeavour,” seeks speech with the rulers of the land. The opening sentence is right in rhetoric and not faulty in grammar; it first pre- sents to the mind of the hearers the absolute substantive idea of citizens who seek by speech or pen to influence their rulers; then asssociating this with an inflected pronoun represents their possible attitudes of mind upon the first approach. In the next sentence he proceeds to his own present attitude of mind, under a like condition, in which warmth of enthusiasm overcomes every consideration. The third sentence joins to enthusiastic regard for the subject to be spoken of, a like regard for the Parliament to which he is about to speak, and the rest of the exordium blends inextricably a statement of no more than the general purpose of the speech—namely, to ask the Parliament to repeal one of its own orders—with suggestions in them- selves not less sincere for being designed to conciliate the goodwill of his hearers, and secure for him that he “come as a friend to the Phaeacians.” 3 States, statesmen. In Milton's translation of Psalm lxxxii. it has been pointed out that he wrote, * God in the great assembly stands Of kings and lordly states.” * Altered. This word was once very commonly used to express change in the condition of the mind. So says Shylock, “There is no power in the tongue of man To alter me.” 5 Censure, Latin “censura,” an assessing, whence the Roman office of “censor;” a judging. From a word meaning, first, to count or reckon with a view to estimating value, then to estimate or judge. 6 A certain testimony, if not a trophy. If a trophy it would mark the place of a turning back which it could not do unless Milton prevailed in his argument, and the publication of the “Areopagitica” should mark the date of a reversal of the order for restriction of the freedom of the press. The Greek rport, means “a turn,” and was applied to the tropics where the sun at midsummer and midwinter appears to turn his course; it was applied to the turning of the enemy, and the original trophy was a pile of captured arms fixed on the trunk of a tree to mark the place where battle had been given and the adversary had been forced to retreat from his position. 7 Beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery. Rome sank as low under the Emperors as England sank under the Stuarts. The Romans could not, but our English manhood could, recover the lost footing. 8 A trivial and malignant encomiwm. Bishop Joseph Hall had given towards the end of 1641 cold praise to the Parliament in his “Defence of the Humble Remonstrance against the Frivolous and False Excep- tions of Smectymnuus.” Milton replied with “Animadversions; ” another, probably Bishop Hall's son, retorted with “A Modest Con- futation of a Slanderous and Scurrilous Libel, intituled ‘Animadver- sions upon the Remonstrant’s Defence against Smectymnuus.’’ Milton completed the argument in 1642 with “An Apology against a Pamphlet called ‘AlModest Confutation of the Animadversions of the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus.’” In this he maintained the dignity of the Parliament against a form of encomium that touched on trifles (wherein it was trivial) and avoided recognition of its higher service to the country, therein.showing the writer ill-disposed towards it. The word malignant, in the sense of having ill-will to the ruling power, was usually applied to men of the Stuart party, who sought to resist or undermine the authority of Parliament. In the same pamphlet Milton replied with quiet dignity to personal slanders asso- ciated with the cry, “You that love Christ and know this miscreant wretch, stone him to death, lest yourselves smart for his impunity,” with a simple expression of the true aim of his life, in condemnation of this butcherly speech “against one who in all his writings spake not that any man's skin should be rased.” 134 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644. own acquittal, that whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kind of praising; for though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if one of your published Orders, which I should name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas private persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice, than other statists' have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a triennial” Parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late, whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories and successes more gently brooking written exceptions against a voted Order, than other Courts, which had produced nothing worth memory but the weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike at any sudden Proclamation. If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as what your published Order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders, I could name him * who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament of Athens, that persuades them to change the form of democraty which was then established. Such honour was done in those days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, not only in their own country, but in other lands, that cities and signiories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus, a stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a former edict : * and I abound with other like examples, which to set here would be superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly dedicated to studious labours, and 1 Statists, statesmen. Our word “statistics.” has only by accident become exclusively associated with the figures illustrating the con- dition of a state. * Triennial. Not here meaning of three years’ duration, but guarded, by an Act passed by the Long Parliament, Feb. 15th, 1641, against prorogation at the will of a king for indefinite periods, by pro- vision that it should meet at least once in three years. Charles I. had ruled without a Parliament from March 10, 1629 to April 13, 1640; and during those eleven years had extended the power of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission, under the control of Laud, while ruling by his own will with the aid of cabinet or cabin councillors, whom only he admitted to his confidence. These were selected favourites. There was no recognised official distinction in Milton's time between Cabinet Ministers and the rest of the Privy Council. The phrase “Cabinet Council" first appears in English history in the reign of Charles I., when Clarendon says that one of the grounds of Strafford's attainder was a discourse of his “in the Committee of State, which they called the Cabinet Council.” The place of the Cabinet in the Privy Council was more fully established in the reign of William III. * I could name him. Isocrates. See Note, p. 132. * Dion Prusſeus. Dion of Prusa, who died A.D. 117, was a famous Orator, who in one of his speeches exhorted the Rhodians not to give bestimonials to living friends at the expense of the dead, by altering upon old statutes the forms of old worthies, and inscribing them to Worthies or unworthies of their later time. those natural endowments haply not the worse for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be derogated, as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I would obtain to be thought not so inferior, as yourselves are superior to the most of them who received their counsel; and how far you excel them, be assured, Lords and Commons, there can no greater testimony appear, than when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason from what quarter soever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any Act of your own Setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors. *If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to show both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves; by judging over again that Order which ye have ordained to regulate Printing. That no Book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth Printed, unless the same be first approved and licensed by such, or at least one of such as shall be thereto appointed. For that part which preserves justly every man's copy" to himself, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they be not made pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful men, who offend not in either of these particulars. But that other clause of Licensing Books, which we thought had died with his brother quadragesimal and matrimonial 7 when the prelates expired, I shall now attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it, to be those whom ye will be loth to own ; next what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be ; and that this Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed. Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of Truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made both in religious and civil Wisdom. I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors: For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as 5 Here the division of the speech pºsses, by a skilful transition, to what Aristotle set forth as next following the Exordium, namely, the Statement of the case, and the exordium having opened with the pre- paration of the hearer's mind for friendly admission of a suggestion that some order of Parliament is to be impugned, the statement now definitely sets forth what the order is, and in what manner that which constitutes Aristotle's third and main part of the Oration, the , Proof, is to be divided and arranged. ‘6 Every man’s copy to himself. Copyright. Protection of this “by reason that divers of the Stationers’ Company and others being de- linquents (contrary to former orders and the constant custom used among the said company) have taken liberty to print, vend, and publish the most profitable vendible copies of books belonging to the Company and other stationers” formed a clause in the order of Wednesday, June 14th, 1643. But the purport of the whole is ex- pressed in the first part of its title, “An Order of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the Regulating of Printing, and for suppressing the great late abuses and frequent disorders in Printing many false, Scandalous, seditious, libellous, and unlicensed pamphlets, to the great defamation of Religion and Government.” 7 Quadragesimal and Matrimonial. Ecclesiastical Orders as to the keeping of Lent and Marriage Ceremonial. Milton held that there was no ground in Scripture for the claim of an ecclesiastical control over the civil contract of marriage. A.D. 1644.] 135 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.” Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence,” the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life. But lest I should be condemned of introducing licence, while I oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much historical, as will serve to show what hath been done by ancient and famous commonwealths, against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licensing crept out of the inquisition, was catched up by our prelates, and hath caught some of our presbyters.” In Athens where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take notice of ; those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libellous. Thus the books of Protagoras were by the judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himself banished the territory for a discourse begun with his confessing not to know “whether there were gods, or whether not.” And against defaming, it was agreed that none should be traduced by name, as was the manner of Vetus Comoedia," whereby we may guess how they censured libelling: And this course was quick enough, as Cicero writes,' ' to quell both the desperate wits of other atheists, and the open way of defaming, as the event showed. Of other sects. and opinions though tending to voluptuousness, and the denying of divine Providence they took no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or that libertine school of Cyrene,” or what the Cynic impudence 9 uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded, that the writings of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them were forbid; and that Plato commended the re&ding of Aristophanes the loosest of them all, to his royal Scholar Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom,” as is reported, nightly studied so much the same author and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon. That other leading city of Greece, Lacedaemon, considering that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning, as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales” from Crete to prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be wondered how museless and unbookish they were, minding nought but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all but their own laconic * apothegms, and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus” out of their city, perhaps for composing in a higher strain than their own soldierly ballads and roundels could reach to: Or if it were for his broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, but they were as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing ; whence Euripides affirms in Andromache,” that their women were all unchaste. Thus much may give us light afterº what sort of books were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans also for many ages trained up only to a military roughness, resembling 1 Those fabulous dragon’s teeth. Cadmus—who is said to have intro- duced into Greece the use of letters—slew a dragon, and having sown its teeth in the plain there sprung up a crop of armed warriors who contended one with another until only five survived; with the help of these Cadmus built Thebes. * As it were in the eye—in men's perception of it. The actual image of God was in the mind that produced the book, and that was inde- structible. The book represents that image “in the eye ’’ of the world—the power mankind has of seeing it. * Not . . . an elemental life, but . . . that ethereal and fifth essence. The theory of the quintessence, or fifth essence, was derived from the Platonic motion of Superior ideas. Everything below has a celestial patterm and receives power from its own idea through the help of the Soul of the World. Soul being the primum mobile, as it may be said, when one man acts upon another, or the loadstone on the iron, that the soul of one thing went out and went into another thing, altering it or its operations, so it is conceived that some such medium is the spirit of the world; called the quintessence, because it is not com- posed of the four elements, but is a fifth essence, a certain first thing which is above and beside them. This spirit exists in the body of the world, as the human spirit in the body of a man; and as the powers of a man’s Soul are communicated to the members of his body by his spirit, so, through this mundane spirit, or quintessence, are the powers of the Soul of the World diffused through all things ; and there is nothing so base that contains not some spark of its virtue, but there is most virtue in those things wherein this spirit does most abound. It abounds in the celestial bodies, and descends in the rays of the stars, so that things influenced by their rays become conform- able to them so far forth in nature. By this spirit, therefore, a very occult property is conveyed into herbs, stones, metals, and animals, through the sun, moon, planets, and through stars higher than the planets. If we can part spirit from matter, or use only those things in which spirit predominates, we can obtain therewith results of great advantage to us. This account of the quintessence and its relation to the old belief in planetary influences is from the first book of Corne- lius Agrippa, De Occultiore Philosophia. * Here the second part of the speech, the Statement, ends, with a smooth transition to the third and main part, the Proof, which is to be arranged in sections as already set forth in the Statement: I. That the inventors of licensing were the Popes and the Inquisition; II. That there is gain from the free reading of all books; III. That this Order will not suppress scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, against which it was mainly directed; IV. That it will tend to dis- courage learning and check the advance of truth. Section I. begins with the next paragraph, showing when and how licensing first came in, not as in itself proof that it is bad, but as raising a very strong presumption against it. After this the proof lies in sections II., III., IV. 5 Protagoras in the year 411 B.C. was so accused by Pythodoros for such a sentence in a book upon the gods. 6 Vetus Comoedia. The old Comedy of Greece. 7 In his treatise on “The Nature of the Gods,” i. 23, where also he wrote what Milton here repeats about Protagoras. * That libertime school of Cyrene, founded by Aristippus, who—de- parting from the lessons of his master, Socrates—made pleasure the aim of life. - 9 The Cymic impudence of the school founded by another pupil of Socrates, Antisthenes, after the death of his master. Diogenes, of Sinope, was the most famous disciple of this school. 10 John, who was called Chrysostom, or Goldenmouth, who was born at Antioch about A.D. 347, made Patriarch of Constantinople A D. 397, and died in exile A.D. 407, was the most eloquent of the Fathers. ll. The poet Thales, or Thaletas, of whom Milton takes his account from Plutarch’s “Life of Lycurgus.” 12 Laconic. The Spartans had a repute for brevity of speech, the Cretans a repute for babbling. This brevity was called laconic from their country Laconia, of which Sparta or Lacedæmon was the capital. 13 Archilochus, of Thasos, died 676 B.C. He is said to have intro- duced Iambic verse and given to his themes the bitterness that made “to iambise” a phrase for the writing of censorious lines. Horace said that in his “Epodes " he imitated Archilochus. l? Andromache from lime 490. - * Light after, light upon the track of, light in following the search after. 136 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. ió44. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF most the Lacedaemonian guise, knew of learning little but what their twelve Tables, and the Pontific College with their augurs and flamins taught them in religion and law, so unacquainted with other learning, that when Carmeades and Critolaus, with the Stoic Diogenes coming ambassadors to Rome,” took thereby occasion to give the city a taste of their philosophy, they were suspected for seducers by no less a man than Cato the Censor, who moved it in the Senate to dismiss them speedily, and to banish all such Attic babblers out of Italy. But Scipio and others of the noblest senators withstood him and his old Sabine austerity; honoured and admired the men; and the censor himself at last, in his old age, fell to the study of that whereof before he was so scrupulous. And yet at the same time, Naevius and Plautus the first Latin comedians had filled the city with all the borrowed scenes of Menander and Philemon. Then began to be considered there also what was to be done to libellous books and authors; for Naevius” was quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, and released by the tribunes upon his recantation; we read also that libels were burnt, and the makers punished by Augustus. The like severity, no doubt, was used, if aught were impiously written against their esteemed gods. Except in these two points, how the world went in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning. And therefore Lucretius without impeachment versifies his Epicurism to Memmius, and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of the common- wealth; although himself disputes against that opinion in his own writings. Nor was the satirical sharpness or naked plainness of Lucilius, or Catullus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters of state, the story of Titus Livius, though it extolled that part which Pompey held, was not therefore suppressed by Octavius Caesar of the other faction. But that Naso was by him banished in his old age, for the wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere covert of state over some secret cause: and besides, the books were neither banished nor called in. From hence 3 we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we may not marvel, if not so often bad, as good books were silenced. I shall therefore deem to have been large enough, in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write, save only which, all other arguments were free to treat on. By this time the emperors were become Christians, whose discipline in this point I do not find to have been more severe than what was formerly in practice. The books of those whom they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the general Councils; and not till then were prohibited, or burnt, by authority of the emperor. As for the writings of heathen authors, unless they were plain invectives against Christianity, as those of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no interdict that can be cited, till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian council, wherein bishops themselves were forbid to read the books of Gentiles, but heresies they might read: while others long before them * Ambassadors to Rome, B.C. 155. Carneades of Cyrene gave at Rome during his embassy two lectures on Justice, in the second of which he refuted the arguments of the first. This was Cato's ground of offence. He insisted that the Senate should dismiss a man who played with truth, making right wrong or right at pleasure. * Cnetw8 Naevius, a Latin versifier, who wrote comedies and tragedies, and of whom fragments are in the “Corpus Poetarum Latinorum,” served as a soldier in the first Punic war. He got into trouble, as Milton says, for his oversharpness of satire, and at last died in poverty at Utica. His chief trouble in Rome had arisen from conflict with the strong house of the Metelli, which he satirised un- mercifully, and whose frequent holding of civic dignities he ascribed to a blind fate. * From hence, from the reign of Augustus. on the contrary scrupled more the books of heretics, than of Gentiles. And that the primitive Councils and Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable, passing no further, but leaving it to each one's conscience to read or to lay by, till after the year 800, is observed already by Padre Paolo” the great unmasker of the Trentine Council. After which time the popes of Rome, engrossing what they pleased of political rule into their own hands, extended their dominion over men's eyes, as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting to be read what they fancied not ; yet sparing in their censures, and the books not many which they so dealt with : till Martin V., by his bull, not only prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated the reading of heretical books; for about that time Wickliffe and Huss growing terrible, were they who first drove the the Papal Court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which course Leo X. and his successors followed, until the council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendering together brought forth, or perfected those Catalogues, and expurging indexes, that rake through the entrails of many an old good author, with a violation worse than any could be offered to his tomb. Nor did they stay in matters heretical, but any subject that was not to their palate, they either condemned in a Prohibition, or had it straight into the new Purgatory of an Index." To fill up the measure of encroach- ment, their last invention was to ordain that no book, pamphlet, or paper, should be printed (as if St. Peter had bequeathed them the keys of the Press also out of Paradise) unless it were approved and licensed under the hands of two or three glutton Friars. For example:" Let the Chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this present work be contained aught that may withstand the printing, Vincent Rabbatta, Vicar of Florence. 4 Padre Paolo. Pietro Paolo Sarpi, commonly called Fra Paolo, or Paul of Venice, had received in his youth a most liberal education and earned a reputation among the learned throughout Italy. At the age of 27 he became Provincial of his religious Order, that of the Servites, and in the questions between Pope Paul W. and the Republic of Venice, Fra Paolo was counsellor and theologian for the Venetians, so warmly defending their civil independence of Papal control that in 1606 he was excommunicated. He died in 1623, aged 71. Among his numerous works the most important was the “History of the Council of Trent,” published in London, in Italian, in 1619, and in Latin in 1620. Its opinions were such as could not be published in Italy, for the author’s learning was not greater than his love of intellectual liberty. The first and last meetings of the Council of Trent were on December 13th, 1545, and December 4th, 1563. 5 Comdemned in a Prohibition . . . new Purgatory of an Indea. Pro- hibition : the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Purgatory: the Index Expurgatorius, containing the books which were not utterly con- demned, but sent for the purgation of offending matter by obliteration of certain pages or lines. Censorship of the press began with the Church soon after the invention of printing. Ecclesiastical super- intendence, introduced in 1479 and 1496, was more completely estab- lished by the Bull of Leo X. in 1515. Bishops and inquisitors were required by that Bull to examine all books before they were printed, and suppress heretical opinions. The Index of Prohibited Books was begun by the Council of Trent in 1546. It contained all books which might not be read by any member of the Church without a special license from his Bishop. Other books, which required only expurga- tions, were put in the Expurgatory Index, and might be read only after the offending passages had been blotted out by the authorities. These lists still appear under the Superintendence of a special con- gregation of cardinals called the Congregation of the Index. 6 Milton here looked among his books for one printed in Italy, which would well illustrate his meaning, and took down a book on the Schism of the English Church, “Scisma d'Inghilterra, &c.” by Bernardo Davanzati Bostischi, which had been published at Florence in 1638, when Milton was in Italy, and, no doubt, considering its subject, was among the many books then bought by him. In the original book the date of Vincent Rabbatta’s first duck towards Chan- cellor Cini is June 12, 1636; the date of Nicolo Cimi's duck in reply is July 2, 1636. A.D. 1644.T SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 137 I have seen this present work, and find nothing athwart the Catholic faith and good manners: in witness whereof I have given, &c. Nicolo Cini, Chancellor of Florence. Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present work of Davanzati may be Printed, - Vincent Rabatta, &c. It may be Printed, July 15. Friar Simon Mompei d’Amelia, Chancellor of the holy office in Florence. Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomless pit had not long since broke prison, that this quadruple exorcism would bar him down. I fear their next design will be to get into their custody the licensing of that which they say Claudius intended, but went not through with, Vouchsafe to see another of their forms, the Roman stamp : Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend master of the holy Palace, Belcastro, Vicegerent. Imprimatur, Friar Nicolo Rodolphi, Master of the holy Palace. Sometimes five Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue wise in the piazza of one title page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge. These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our Prelates, and their Chaplains, with the goodly echo they made; and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lam'.eth-house, another from the west end of Paul's;” so apishly romanizing, that the word of command still was set down in Latin; as if the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latin; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English.” And thus ye have the inventors and the original of Book-licensing ripped up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later; nor from the modern custom of any reformed city or church abroad; but from the most antichristian council, and the most tyrannous inquisition, that ever inquired. Till then Books were ever as freely admitted into the world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb : no envious Juno sat crosslegged over the nativity of any man’s intellectual offspring ; but if it proved a monster, who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea. But that a Book in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to stand before a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo yet in darkness the judgment of Radamanth and his colleagues,” ere it can pass the ferry backward into light, was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity provoked and troubled at the first entrance of Reformation, sought out new limbos and new hells wherein they might include our books also 5 within the number of their damned. And this was the rare morsel so officiously snatched up, and so ill- favouredly imitated by our inquisiturient" bishops, and the attendant minorities their chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain authors of this licensing order, and that all sinister intention was far distant from your thoughts, when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who know the integrity of your actions, and how ye honour Truth, will clear ye readily. 7 But some will say, What though the Inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good? It may so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but obvious, and easy for any man to light on, and yet best and wisest commonwealths through all ages, and occasions have forborne to use it, and falsest seducers, and oppressors of men were the first who took it up, and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hind r the first approach of Reformation; I am of those who believe, it will be a harder alchymy than Lullius ever knew, to sublimate any good use out of such an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves, for the tree that bore it, until I can dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to be thought in general of reading Books, whatever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit, or the harm that thence proceeds? Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel, and Paul, who were skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts, in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek poets, and one of them a tragedian,” the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirmed it both lawful and profitable, as was then evidently perceived, when Julian the Apostate, and subtlest enemy to our faith, made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning: for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our own arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means, and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance, that the two Apollinarii" were fain as a 1 Breaking wind in company. * From Lambeth House . . . from the West End of Paul's. When Henry VIII, threw off the jurisdiction of the Pope in England, he took upon himself the settling of the faith of Englishmen, and the machinery for licensing of books was transferred from Rome to Tondon; the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, by themselves or by their chaplains, then became licensers for the English Church. 3 To spell . . . English. To spell Englishwise. adverbially. * Rhadamanthus, AEacus, and Minos were the fabled judges of the under world. English is used 5 New limbos and new hells wherein they might include own books also. Within Italy, as within the pale of the Christian Church, there was a natural jurisdiction. The sinner born in Christendom had his heaven and hell to choose between. But the Church once puzzled itself with questioning, What became of the patriarchs of old who had not known Christ and therefore could not believe on him and be saved P What became of Socrates and Plato ; what of new-born children who died before baptism P. To meet these questions, new and milder hells were invented, and—from “limbus,” a border—were called limbos. There was then a limbo for the Fathers, a limbo for infants, &c. So the books of foreigners, which could not be seized or destroyed, were put in one of the two limbos, Prohibitory or Expur- gatory, of the Index. 6 Inquisitwrient yearning. 7 Here begins Section II. of the Proof. Section I. had prepared the minds that Milton hoped to influence by setting forth a fact which, although not proof in itself, might be expected to excite among those whom he addressed a predisposition to accept his subsequent argu- ments. He proceeds now to show that the reading of all books ought to be free. * Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 33 (ascribed to Euripides); Titus i. 12. ° The two Apollinarii. Apollinarius the elder and his son Bishop of Alexandria. When Julian excluded Christians from the study of the old Greek literature, these men produced a sacred history in twenty- four books, after the mammer of Homer, and Christian imitations of Euripides and other poets. The Latin suffix adds the sense of desire or 194 138 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF man may say, to coin all the seven liberal sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of orations, poems, dialogues, even to the calculating of a new Christian grammar. But, saith the historian Socrates, the providence of God provided better than the industry of Apollinarius and his son, by taking away that illiterate law with the life of him who devised it. So great an injury they then held it to be deprived of Hellenic learning; and thought it a persecution more undermining, and secretly decaying the church, than the open cruelty of Decius or Diocletian. And perhaps it was the same politic drift that the devil whipped St. Jerome in a lenten dream, for reading Cicero; or else it was a phantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him.” For had an angel been his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading, not the vanity, it had been plainly partial; first to correct him for grave Cicero, and not for scurril Plautus whom he confesses to have been reading not long before; next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not now extant, writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante, an Italian romance much to the same purpose. But if it be agreed we shall be tried by visions, there is a vision recorded by Eusebius,” far ancienter than this tale of Jerome to the nun Eustochium, and besides, has nothing of a fever in it. Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240, a person of great name in the Church for piety and learning, who had wont to avail himself much against heretics by being conversant in their books; until a certain presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he durst venture himself among those defiling volumes. The worthy man loth to give offence, fell into a new debate with himself what was to be thought ; when suddenly a vision sent from God (it is his own epistle that so avers it) confirmed him in these words: Read any books whatever come to thy hands, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter. To this revelation he assented the Sooner, as he confesses, because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same author: To the pure, all things are pure ; Inot only meats and drinks, but all kind of knowledge whether of good or evil; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled. For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil substance; and yet God in that unapocryphal vision, said without exception, Rise, Peter, kill and eat, leaving the choice to each man's discretion. Wholesome * The historian Socrates, named Scholasticus, wrote an Ecclesiastical History, in seven books, of events from A. D. 306 to A.D. 439. Julian died A.D. 363. * Jerome speaks of his illusion as arising in the middle of Lent, when he was seriously reduced by fever. The story is in a letter to a nun, Eustochium, upon Virginity, written by him A.D. 384. He ascribed the dream to the Devil, though it made him seem to be con- demned in heaven to be whipped by angels for being a Ciceronian rather than a Christian. * Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, died A.D. 338. He wrote an Eccle- siastical History in ten books, which is the earliest and best of its kind. There was a translation into English of “the Ancient Eccle- siastical Histories of the First Six Hundred Years after Christ written in the Greek Tongue by three learned Historiographers, Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius,” published in 1585 by Dr. Meredith Hanmer, which Milton might have possessed. It was a well-read book, and reached its sixth edition in 1663. The seventh book of Eusebius contains many letters of Dionysius, including the ome here quoted by Milton. meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Whereof what better witness can ye expect I should produce, than one of your own now sitting in Parliament, the chief of learned men reputed in this land, Mr. Selden; whose volume of natural and John SELDEN. (From the Engraving in his “Janus,” 1683.) national laws" proves, not only by great authorities brought together, but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically demonstrative, that all opinions, yea errors, known, read, and collated, are of main service and assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest. I conceive therefore, that when God did enlarge the universal diet of man's body, saving over the rules of temporance, He then also, as before, left arbitrary the dieting and repasting of our minds; as wherein every mature man might have to exercise his own leading capacity. How great a virtue is temperance, how much of moment through the whole life of man Yet God commits the managing so great a trust, without particular law or prescription, wholly to the demeanour of every grown man. And therefore when He Himself tabled the Jews from heaven, that omer, which was every man’s daily portion of manna, is computed to have been more than might have well sufficed the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. For those actions which enter into a man, rather than issue out of him, and therefore defile not, God uses not to captivate under a perpetual childhood of prescription, but trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own chooser; there were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should grow so fast upon those things which heretofore were governed only by exhortation. Solomon informs us, that much reading is a weariness to the flesh ; but neither he, nor other inspired author tells us that such, or such reading is unlawful : yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein, it had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful, * Selden, “De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Ebraeorum ” (1640), A.D. 1644.] 139 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. than what was wearisome. As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Paul's converts; ’tis replied the books were magic, the Syriac so renders them. It was a private act, a voluntary act, and leaves us to a voluntary imitation: the men in remorse burnt those books which were their own; the magistrate by this example is not appointed: these men practised the books, another might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully. Good and evil we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed." It was from out the rind of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continuance to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.” I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and know not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is but an excremental whiteness; which was the reason why our Sage and serious poet Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas,” describing true temperance under the person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of earthly bliss that he might see and know, and yet abstain. Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this which is the truer opinion ? world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason 2 And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read. But of the harm that may result hence three kinds are usually reckoned. First, is feared the infection that may spread; but then all human learning and controversy in religious points must remove out of the world, yea the Bible itself; for that ofttimes relates blasphemy not nicely, it describes the carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader: and ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv.” For these causes we all know the Bible itself put by the Papist into the first rank of prohibited books. The ancientest fathers must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of Evangelic prepara- tion, transmitting our ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the Gospel. Who finds not that Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and others discover more heresies than they well confute, and that oft for heresy Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen writers of greatest infection, if it must be thought So, with whom is bound up the life of human learning, that they writ in an unknown tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are both most able, and most diligent to instil the poison they suck, first into the courts of princes, acquainting them with the choicest delights, and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Petronius whom Nero called his Arbiter, the master of his revels; and the notorious ribald of Arezzo,” dreaded and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name not him for posterity's sake, whom Henry VIII. named in merri- ment his Vicar of hell." By which compendious way all the contagion that foreign books can infuse, will find a passage to the people far easier and shorter than an Indian voyage, though it could be sailed either by the north of Cataio east- ward, or of Canada westward, while our Spanish licensing gags the English press never so severely. But on the other side that infection which is from books of controversy in Religion, is more doubtful and dangerous to the learned, than to the ignorant; and yet those books must be permitted 1 The reference is to an incident in the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche—an incidental tale represented in the “Golden Ass * of Apuleius, as told by an old woman in the thieves' den to a gentle- woman whom the thieves had stolem. Venus, in the tale, among other persecutions of Psyche for having won her son Cupid, “took her by the hair and dashed her head upon the ground. Then she took a great quantity of wheat, of barley, poppyseed, peasen, lentiles, and beans, and mingled them all into a heap,” bidding her separate and sort them all before her return in the evening. Psyche sat in mute despair over her task, “then the little pismire, the emmet, taking pity of her great difficulty and labour, cursing the cruelness of the daughter of Jupiter, and of so evil a mother, ran about hither and thither, and called to all her friends, “Ye quick sons of the Ground, the mother of all things, take mercy on this poor maid, espouse to Cupid, who is in great danger of her person, I pray you help her with all diligence.” Incontinently one came after another, dissevering and dividing the grain, and after that they had put each kind of corn in order, they ran away again in all haste.” I quote from a trans'a- tion of “The XI. Bookes of the Golden Asse,” by William Adlington, published in 1639, four or five years before Milton wrote his “Areo- pagitica.” * Wayfaring Christian. In a copy of the “Areopagitica” which be- longed to a Mr. Thomason, and was inscribed by him as the gift of the author, the “y” in “wayfaring” is struck out with a pen, and “r” written at the side, perhaps by Milton. The book is now in the British Museum. 3 Spenser. Dryden, at the close of his life, wrote in the Preface to his Fables, “Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, Milton has con- fessed to me that Spenser is his original.” This was Dryden's im- pression from words of conversation strongly expressing such opinion of Spenser as is here recorded. And Spenser was, in many senses, an Elizabethan Milton. * Marginal Keri . . . teaſtwal Chettv. Keri meant that which is read; Chetiv that which is written. Where various readings occur, the reading to be avoided was written in the text, and the true read- ing, or keri, in the margin. The corrections, about one thousand in number, have been ascribed to Ezra. Among them were corrections, which Milton had in his mind, made according to a rule of the Talmud, “That all words which in the Law are written obscenely, must be changed to more civil words.” For which in another place Milton calls the scholiasts, “Fools who would teach men to read more decently than God thought good to write.” * Ribald of Arezzo. Pietro Aretino, born at Arezzo in 1492, who said of his youth, “I had no more learning than was just enough to teach me how to cross myself,” fastened upon the best writers of his own country, and became the great satirist of his time in Italy. He died at the age of sixty-five, by falling back upon his head when over-balan- cing his chair in a fit of laughter. 6 The Vicar of Hell. If this be a play on the office of John Skelton as Rector of Diss, making Diss stand for Dis, and so represent the god of the under world, Milton misunderstood John Skelton, and therein fell behind Spenser, who took from a poem of Skelton's his poetic name of Colin Clout, and knew him as he was, a bold denouncer of the pride of prelacy, who dared attack, in a strain of humour that came home to the people whose voice it expressed, the worldly pomp of Wolsey, when he risked his life in doing so. 140 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644. untouched by the licenser. It will be hard to instance where any ignorant man hath been ever seduced by papistical book in English, unless it were commended and expounded to him by some of that clergy: and indeed all such tractates whether false or true are as the prophecy of Isaiah was to the eunuch, not to be understood without a guide. But of our Priests and Doctors how many have been corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists, and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people, our experience is both late and sad. It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted merely by the perusing of a nameless discourse written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to confute." Seeing therefore that those books, and those in great abundance which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppressed without the fall of learning, and of all ability in disputation, and that these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned, from whom to the common people whatever is heretical or dissolute may quickly be conveyed, and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopped, and evil doctrine not with books can propagate, except a teacher guide, which he might also do without writing, and so beyond prohibiting, I am not unable to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licensing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts. And he who were pleasantly disposed, could not well avoid to liken it to the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park gate. Besides another inconvenience, if learned men be the first receivers out of books and dispreaders both of vice and error, how shall the licensers themselves be confided in, unless we can confer upon them, or they assume to themselves above all others in the land, the grace of infallibility and uncorruptedness? And again if it be true, that a wise man, like a good refiner can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea or without book; there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being restrained will be no hindrance to his folly. For if there should be so much Oxactness always used to keep that from him which is unfit for his reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle not only, but of Solomon, and of our Saviour, not vouchsafe him good precepts, and by consequence not willingly admit him to good books; as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, than a fool will do of sacred Scripture. *"Tis next alleged we must not expose ourselves to tempta- tions without necessity, and next to that, not employ our time in vain things. To both these objections one answer will serve, out of the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are not temptations, nor vanities; but useful drugs and materials wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong medicines, which man's life cannot want.8 The rest, as children and childish men, who have not the art to qualify and prepare these working minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear, but hindered forcibly they cannot be by all the licensing that Sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive; which is what I promised to deliver next, That this order of licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it was * See in the volume of this Library illustrating “English Religion,” page 263, N te 1. * Section C of the proof is here led up to ; that this order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed. * Cannot want. Cannot be without. framed ; and hath almost prevented me *by being clear already while thus much hath been explaining. See the ingenuity of Truth, who, when she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself faster, than the pace of method and discourse can overtake her. It was the task which I began with, To show that no nation, or well instituted state, if they valued books at all, did ever use this way of licensing; and it might be answered, that this is a piece of prudence lately discovered. To which I return, that as it was a thing slight and obvious to think on, so if it had been difficult to find out, there wanted not among them long since, who suggested such a course; which they not following, leave us a pattern of their judg- ment that it was not the not knowing, but the not approving, which was the cause of their not using it. Plato, a man of high authority indeed, but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no city ever yet received, fed his fancy by making many edicts to his airy burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him, wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups of an Academic night sitting. By which laws he seems to tolerate no kind of learning, but by unalterable decree, consisting most of practi- cal traditions, to the attainment whereof a library of smaller bulk than his own dialogues would be abundant. And there also enacts, that no Poet should so much as read to any private man, what he had written, until the judges and law keepers had seen it, and allowed it : But that Plato meant this law peculiarly to that Commonwealth which he had imagined, and to no other, is evident. Why was he not else a lawgiver to himself, but a transgressor, and to be expelled by his own magistrates; both for the wanton epigrams and dialogues which he made, and his perpetual reading of Sophron, Mimus, and Aristophanes, books of grossest infamy, and also for commending the latter of them though he were the malicious libeller of his chief friends, to be read by the tyrant Dionysius, who had little need of such trash to spend his time on ? But that he knew this licensing of poems had reference and dependence to many other provisos there set down in his fancied republic, which in this world could have no place: and so neither he himself, nor any magistrate, or city ever imitated that course, which taken apart from those other collateral injunctions must needs be vain and fruitless. For if they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless their care were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delight- ful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato was provided of ; It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals, that whisper softness in chambers ? The windows also, and the balconies must be thought on, there are shrewd books, with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale; who shall prohibit them, shall twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to inquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebeck” reads even to the ballatry, and the gamut of every municipal fiddler, for 4. Prevented me, “come in advance of its place in my arrangement.” 5 Rebeck. A rustic fiddle. See “Illustrations of English Religiou” in this Library, page 132, Note 2. A.D. 1644.] 141 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. these are the countryman's Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors." Next, what more national corruption, for which England hears ill abroad, than household gluttony; who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting P And what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses where drunkenness is sold and harboured? Our garments also should be referred to the licensing of some more sober work- masters to see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation of our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of this country, who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what presumed, and no further ? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil company P These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a State. To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian” polities, which never can be drawn into use, will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato's licensing of books will do this, which neces- sarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining laws of virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of the Common- wealth, the pillars and the sustainers of every written statute; these they be which will bear chief sway in such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded. Impunity and remissness, for certain are the bane of a Common- wealth, but here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. If every action which is good, or evil in man at ripe years, were to be under pittance, and pre- scription, and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to well doing, what gramercy” to be sober, just or continent P Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress, foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing;* he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions." We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes" herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue P They are not skilful con- siderers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing though Some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as books are ; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has * George de Montemayor was the chief founder of Spanish pastoral, as Sanmazaro, who wrote “Arcadia,” was the strong establisher of pastoral in Italy. The influence of both is to be traced in the “Arcadia” of Sir Philip Sidney. * Atlantic and Utopian. See page 115. * Grammercy, “grand merci,” great thank. What great thank is due to a man for being just, &c. - * Compare “Paradise Lost,” Book iii., lines 102–110. * Motions. Puppet shows, which usually represented Bible history. ° There is no stop here in the original. The text has been through- out read with Milton's first edition, the spelling modernised, but the punctuation left, to avoid risk of altering the rhythm of Milton’s prose. The merit is in abstinence with the enticing object almost ever present to the eyes. yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so : such great care and wisdom is required to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could expel sin by this means; look how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of them both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who, though He commands us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely permitted are, both to the trial of virtue, and the exercise of truth It would be better done, to learn that the law must needs be frivolous, which goes to restrain things, uncertainly and yet equally working to good, and to evil. And were I the chooser, a dram of well doing should be preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evil doing. For God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious. And albeit whatever thing we hear or see, sitting, walking, travelling, or conversing, may be fitly called our book, and is of the same effect that writings are, yet grant the thing to be prohibited were only books, it appears that this order hitherto is far insufficient to the end which it intends. Do we not see, not once or oftener, but weekly that continued court-libel7 against the Parliament and City, printed, as the wet sheets can witness, and dispersed among us, for all that licensing can do P yet this is the prime service a man would think, wherein this Order should give proof of itself. If it were executed, you'll say. But certain, if execution be remiss or blindfold now, and in this particular, what will it be hereafter, and in other books? If then the Order shall not be vain and frustrate, behold a new labour, Lords and Commons, ye must repeal and proscribe all scandalous and unlicensed books already printed and divulged; after ye have drawn them up into a list, that all may know which are condemned, and which not ; and ordain that no foreign books be delivered out of custody, till they have been read over. This office will require the whole time of not a few overseers, and those no vulgar men. There be also books which are partly useful and excellent, partly culpable and pernicious; this work will ask as many more officials, to make expurgations, and expunctions, that the Commonwealth of Learning be not damnified. In fine, when the multitude of books increase upon their hands, ye must be fain to catalogue all those printers who are found frequently offend- ing, and forbid the importation of their whole suspected typography. In a word, that this your Order may be exact, and not deficient, ye must reform it perfectly according to the model of Trent and Seville, which I know ye abhor to do. Yet though ye should condescend to this, which God forbid, the Order still would be but fruitless and defective to that end whereto ye meant it. If to prevent sects and schisms, who is so unread or so uncatechised in story, that hath not heard of many sects refusing books as a hindrance, and preserving their doctrine unmixed for many ages, only by unwritten traditions? The Christian faith, for that was once a schism, is not unknown to have spread all over Asia, ere any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing. If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy and Spain, whether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, 7 Court-libel. Mercurius Aulicus, which appeared once a week from 1642 to 1645. 142 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644. since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books. Another reason, whereby to make it plain that this Order will miss the end it seeks, consider by the quality which ought to be in every licenser. It cannot be denied but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth, or death of books whether they may be wafted into this world, or not; had need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious; there may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable or not ; which is also no mean injury. If he be of such worth as behoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes. There is no book that is acceptable unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoined the reading of that at all times, and in a hand scarce legible, whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print, is an impo- sition which I cannot believe how he that values time, and his own studies, or is but of a sensible nostril, should be able to endure. In this one thing I crave leave of the present licensers to be pardoned for so thinking; who doubtless took this office up, looking on it through their obedience to the Parliament, whose command perhaps made all things seem easy and unlaborious to them ; but that this short trial hath wearied them out already, their own expressions and excuses to them who make so many journeys to solicit their license, are testimony enough. Seeing therefore those who now possess the employment, by all evident signs wish themselves well rid of it, and that no man of worth, none that is not a plain unthrift of his own hours is ever likely to succeed them, except he mean to put himself to the salary of a press corrector, we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary. This is what I had to show, wherein this Order cannot conduce to that end, whereof it bears the intention. - * I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the greatest discouragement and affront, that can be offered to learning, and to learned men. It was the complaint and lamentation of prelates, upon every least breath of a motion to remove pluralities, and distribute more equally church revenues, that then all learning would be for ever dashed and discouraged. But as for that opinion, I never found cause to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy speech of any churchman who had a competency left him. If therefore ye be loth to dishearten heartily and discontent, not the mer- cenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study, and love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind, then know, that so far to distrust the judgment and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in learning, and never yet offended, as not to count him fit to print his mind, without a tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a schism, or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him. What advantage is it to be a man over it is to be a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue 2 - --------- ! Section D of the Proof. * Ferula—fescue. Ferula, from “ferire,” to strike, was a stick with a of an Imprimatur P if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporising and extemporising licenser? He who is not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument to think himself reputed in the Common- wealth wherein he was born, for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him ; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which done he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that writ before him; if in this the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judg- ment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of bookwriting, and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a puny & with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot, or seducer, it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of Learn- ing. And what if the author shall be one so copious of fancy, as to have many things well worth the adding, come into his mind after licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers; and that perhaps a dozen times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond his licensed copy; so often then must the author trudge to his leave-giver, that those his new insertions may be viewed; and many a jaunt will be made, ere that licenser, for it must be the same man, can either be found, or found at leisure; meanwhile either the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author lose his accuratest thoughts, and send the book forth worse than he had made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall. And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a doctor in his book as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment P When every acute reader upon the first sight of a pedantic licence, will be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit's distance from him, I hate a pupil teacher, I endure not an instructor that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist. I know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his own hand here for his arrogance ; who shall warrant me his judgment * The State, sir, replies the stationer, but has a quick return, The State shall be my governors, but not my critics; they may be mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this licenser may be mistaken in an author; this is some common stuff; and he might add from Sir Francis Bacon, That such authorized books are but the language of the times.” For though a licenser should happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be a great jeopardy of the next succes- sion, yet his very office, and his commission enjoins him to flattened end for striking boys on the palm of the hand. Fescu was a stick used for pointing, which was also convenient for beating. 3 A puny. “Puis-né,” afterborn. A young son in a family. * The quotation is from Bacon's paper touching controversies in the Church, first published in 1640. It is in the volume of this Library illustrating “English Religion,” pages 184 to 190. A.D. 1644.] 143 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. let pass nothing but what is vulgarly received already. Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased author, though never so famous in his lifetime, and even to this day, come to their hands for license to be printed, or reprinted, if there be found in his book one sentence of a venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal and who knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit, yet not suiting with every low decrepit humour of their own, though it were Rinox himself, the Reformer of a Kingdom, that spake it, they will not pardon him their dash; the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be lost, for the fearfulness, or the presumptuous rashness of a perfunctory licenser. And to what an author this violence hath been lately done, and in what book of greatest consequence to be faithfully published, I could now instance, but shall forbear till a more convenient season. Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in their power, but that such iron-moulds as these shall have authority to gnaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books, and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan remainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will belong to that hapless race of men, whose misfortune it is to have under- standing. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or care to be more than worldly wise; for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce will be the only pleasant life, and only in request. And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person alive, and most injurious to the written labours and monu- ments of the dead, so to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole Nation. I cannot set so light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid judgment which is in England, as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities how good soever, much less that it should not pass except their superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strained with their strainers, that it should be uncurrent without their manual stamp. Truth and under- standing are not such wares as to be monopolised and traded in by tickets and statutes, and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth, and our wool- packs. What is it but a servitude like that imposed by the Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of our own axes and coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty licensing forges. Had any one written and divulged errone- ous things and Scandalous to honest life, misusing and forfeit- ing the esteem had of his reason among men, if after con- viction this only censure were adjudged him, that he should never henceforth write, but what were first examined by an appointed officer, whose hand should be annexed to pass his credit for him, that now he might be safely read; it could not be apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole Nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more, whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailor in their title. Nor is it to the common people less than a reproach ; for if we be so jealous over them, as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people; in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licenser. That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in those popish places where the laity are most hated and despised the same strictness is used over them. Wisdom we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach of license, nor that neither: whenas those corruptions which it seeks to prevent, break in faster at other doors which cannot be shut. And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of our Minis- ters also, of whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should still be frequented with such an unprincipled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism, and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the Ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turned loose to three sheets of paper without a licenser, that all the sermons, all the lectures preached, printed, vented in such numbers, and such volumes, as have now well-nigh made all other books unsaleable, should not be armour enough against one single Enchiridion," without the castle of St. Angelo of an Imprimatur. And lest some should persuade ye, Lords and Commons, that these arguments of learned men's discouragement at this your Order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannises; when I have sat among their learned men for that honour I had, and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo’ grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy other- wise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those Worthies were then breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance, as shall never be forgotten by any revolu- tion of time that this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among learned men of other parts uttered against the Inquisition, the same I should hear by as learned men at home uttered in time of Parliament against an order of licensing ; and that so generally, that when I had disclosed myself a companion of their discontent, I might say, if with- out envy, that he whom an honest quaestorship had endeared to the Sicilians, was not more by them importuned against Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and persuasions, that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind, toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning. That this is not therefore the disburdening of a particular fancy, but the common grievance of all those who had prepared their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others, and from others to entertain it, thus much may satisfy. And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the general murmur is; that if it come to inquisitioning again, and licensing, and that we are so timorous of ourselves, and so suspicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the shaking of every leaf, before we 1 Enchiridiom. That which is held in the hand, a handbook; also a dagger. 2 Galileo, who died in 1642, offended the Church by believing that the earth moved round the sun. 144 ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1644. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF know what the contents are, if some who but of late were little better than silenced from preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, except what they please, it cannot be guessed what is intended by some but a second tyranny over learning : and will soon put it out of controversy, that Bishops and Presbyters are the same to us both name and thing. That those evils of Prelaty which before from five or six and twenty sees were distributively charged upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not obscure to us: whenas now the Pastor of a small unlearned Parish, on the sudden shall be exalted Archbishop over a large diocese of books, and yet not remove, but keep his other cure too, a mystical pluralist. He who but of late cried down the sole ordination of every novice Bachelor of Art, and denied sole jurisdiction over the simplest parishioner, shall now at home in his private chair assume both these over worthiest and excellentest books and ablest authors that write them. 4 : | | { ſ ºf ſº C ſ # *% ſº This is not, ye Covenants and Protestations that we have made : this is not to put down Prelaty; this is but to chop an Episcopacy; this is but to translate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; this is but an old canonical sleight of commuting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a mere unlicensed pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every Christian meeting. But I am certain that a State governed by the rules of justice and fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock of faith and true knowledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While things are yet not constituted in Religion, that freedom of writing should be restrained by a discipline imitated from the Prelates, and learnt by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again into the breast of a licenser, must needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men. Who cannot but discern the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers; that while Bishops were to be baited down, then all Presses might be open; it was the people's birthright and privilege in time of Parliament, it was the breaking forth of light. But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out the Church, as if our Reformation sought no more, but to make voom for others into their seats under another name, the episcopal arts begin to bud again, the Cruise of truth must run no more oil, liberty of Printing must be enthralled again under a prelatical commission of twenty, the privilege of the people nullified, and which is worse, the freedom of learning must groan again, and to her old fetters: all this the Parlia- ment yet sitting. Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelates might remember them, that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at: instead of Sup- pressing sects and schisms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation: ‘The punishing of wits enhances their authority,” saith the Wiscount St. Albans; ' ' and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seek to tread it out.” This Order therefore may prove a nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily show how it will be a stepdame to Truth: and first by disenabling us to the maintenance of what is known already. § ài § à Tº- ====º :== - ~- Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and com- plexion. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his Pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds, becomes his heresy. There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another, than the charge and care of their Religion. There be, who knows not that there be of Protestants and professors who live and die in as arrant an implicit faith, as any lay papist of Loretto. A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds Religion to be a traffic so entangled, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he do? fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself 1 “Controversies of the Church.” Religion,” page 185 and Note 4. See “Illustrations of English A.D. 1644.] 145 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; some Divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He enter- tains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sump- tuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his Religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion. Another sort there be, who when they hear that all things shall be ordered, all things regulated and settled; nothing written but what passes through the custom-house of certain Publicans that have the tonnaging and the poundaging of all free-spoken truth, will straight give themselves up into your hands, make 'em and cut 'em out what religion ye please: there be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream. What need they torture their heads with that which others have taken so strictly, and so unalterably into their own purveying P These are the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people. How goodly, and how to be wished were such an obedient unanimity as this, what a fine con- formity would it starch us all into ? Doubtless a staunch and, solid piece of framework, as any January could freeze together. Nor much better will be the consequence even among the clergy themselves: it is no new thing never heard of before, for a parochial Minister, who has his reward, and is at his Hercules pillars' in a warm benefice, to be easily inclinable, if he have nothing else that may rouse up his studies, to finish his circuit in an English Concordance and a topic folio,” the gatherings and savings of a sober graduateship, a Harmony and a Catena,” treading the constant round of certain common doctrinal heads, attended with their uses, motives, marks, and means, out of which, as out of an alphabet or sol-fa, by form- ing and transforming, joining and disjoining variously a little bookcraft, and two hours' meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the performance of more than a weekly charge of Sermoning: not to reckon up the infinite helps of interlinaries, breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear. But as for the multitude of sermons ready printed and piled up, on every text that is not difficult, our London trading St. Thomas in his vestry, and add to boot St. Martin, and St. Hugh, have not within their hallowed limits more ven- dible ware of all sorts ready made: so that penury he never need fear of pulpit provision, having where so plenteously to refresh his magazine. But if his rear and flanks be not impaled, if his back door be not secured by the rigid licenser, but that a bold book may now and then issue forth, and give the assault to some of his old collections in their trenches, it will concern him then to keep waking, to stand in watch, to set good guards and sentinels about his received opinions, to walk the round and counter-round with his fellow inspectors, * Hercules pillars. The Straits of Gibraltar were the ancient limit of navigation to the nations bordering the Mediterranean. * Topic folio, commonplace book. * Catema, a chain of authorities. fearing lest any of his flock be seduced, who also then would be better instructed, better exercised and disciplined. And God send that the fear of this diligence, which must then be used, do not make us affect the laziness of a licensing Church. For if we be sure we are in the right, and do not hold the truth guiltily, which becomes not, if we ourselves condemn not our own weak and frivolous teaching, and the people for an untaught and irreligious gadding rout, what can be more fair, than when a man judicious, learned, and of a con- Science, for aught we know, as good as theirs that taught us what we know, shall not privily from house to house, which is more dangerous, but openly by writing publish to the world what his opinion is, what his reasons, and wherefore that which is now thought cannot be sound? Christ urged it as wherewith to justify himself, that he preached in public; yet writing is more public than preaching; and more easy to refutation, if need be, there being so many whose business and profession merely it is, to be the champions of Truth; which if they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth, or unability ? Thus much we are hindered and disinured by this course of licensing toward the true knowledge of what we seem to know. For how much it hurts and hinders the licensers themselves in the calling of their ministry, more than any secular employment, if they will discharge that office as they ought, so that of necessity they must neglect either the one duty or the other, I insist not, because it is a particular, but leave it to their own conscience, how they will decide it there. There is yet behind of what I purposed to lay open, the incredible loss and detriment that this plot of licensing puts us to, more than if some enemy at sea should stop up all our havens, and ports, and creeks, it hinders and retards the im- portation of our richest Merchandise, Truth: may, it was first established and put in practice by Antichristian malice and mystery on set purpose to extinguish, if it were possible, the light of Reformation, and to settle falsehood; little differing from that policy wherewith the Turk upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibition of Printing. 'Tis not denied, but gladly con- fessed, we are to send our thanks and vows to Heaven, louder than most of nations, for that great measure of truth which we enjoy, especially in those main points between us and the Pope, with his appurtenances the Prelates: but he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attained the utmost prospect of reformation, that the mortal glass wherein we contemplate can show us, till we come to beatific vision that man by this very opinion declares, that he is yet far short of Truth. Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on : but when He ascended, and His Apostles after Him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his con- spirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris,* 'took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, * How they dealt with the good Osiris. Osiris, the god chiefly wor- shipped in Egypt, represented fertility; Oschiri, “much make,” creative in nature. His bride and sister Isis had even higher worship. Their antagonist was Typhon; their son Horus. Typhon cut the body of Osiris in pieces and threw them into the Nile. They were collected after a long search by Isis and Horus. - 195 146 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1644. Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; He shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint. We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the Sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the Sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen even- ing or morning. The light which we have gained, was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop, and the removing him from off the presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy Nation, no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both economical and political be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be suppressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth. To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and proportional), this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forced and outward union of cold, and neutral, and inwardly divided minds. Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity, and ablest judgment have been persuaded that even the school of Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old philosophy of this island. And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for Caesar, preferred the natural wits of Britain, before the laboured studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvanian sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their staid men, to learn our language, and our theologic arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heaven we have great argument to think in a pecu- liar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this Nation chosen before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of Wickliff, to sup- press him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had been ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been completely ours. But now, as our obdurate clergy have with violence demeaned the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and backwardest scholars, of whom God offered to have made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself: what does He then but reveal himself to His servants, and as His manner is, first to His Englishmen; I say as His manner is, first to us, though we mark not the method of His counsels, and are unworthy. Behold now this vast City: a city of refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prome to seek after knowledge. What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and of Worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and Schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the ill-reputed care of their Religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligences to join, and unite in one general and brotherly search after Truth; could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a Church or Kingdom happy. Yet these are the men cried out against for Schismatics and sec- taries; as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort 1 of irrational men who could not con- sider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is laid artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world; neither can every piece of the building be of one form; may rather the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in spiri- tual architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great prophet may sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy Elders, but * Sort, company. See Note 4, page 35. A.D. 1644.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - . 147 all the Lord's people, are become prophets.” No marvel then though some men, and some good men too, perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour, when they have branched themselves out, saith he, Small enough into parties and par- titions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: nor will beware until he see our small divided maniples” cutting through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects, and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over-timorous of them that vexin this behalf, but shall laugh in the end, at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to persuade me. First, when a City shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance and battle oft rumoured to be marching up even to her walls, and suburb trenches, that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity, and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singular goodwill, contentedness and confidence in your prudent foresight, and safe government, Lords and Commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped |his own regiment.* Next it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest, and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is, so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it has, not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy, and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor droop- ing to a fatal decay, but casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of Truth and prosperous virtue destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing * her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam ; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. What should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet spring- ing daily in this City, should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who counselye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government; it is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchased us, liberty which is the nurse of all great wits; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. * What would be best advised then, if it be found so hurtful and so unequal to suppress opinions for the newness, or the unsuitableness to a customary acceptance, will not be my task to say; I only shall repeat what I have learned from one of your own honourable number, a right noble and pious lord, who had he not sacrificed his life and fortunes to the Church and Commonwealth, we had not now missed and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument. Ye know him I am sure; yet I for honour's sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall name him, the Lord Brook." He writing of Episcopacy, and by the way treating of sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or rather now the last words of his dying charge, which I know will ever be of dear and honoured regard with ye, so full of meekness and breathing charity, that next to His last testament, who bequeathed love and peace to His disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peaceful. He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those, however they be miscalled, that desire to live purely, in such a use of God’s ordinances, as the best guidance of their conscience gives them, and to tolerate them, though in some discon- formity to ourselves. The book itself will tell us more at 1 The Lord’s people prophets. Numbers xi. 29. * Maniples. The Roman maniplus was a small company. 3 This mark of confidence in Rome, when a rich Roman would pay a good price for the very land on which the enemy was camped, is told by Livy, xxvi. 11. * Mewing, renewing, from French muer, Latin mutare, applied to birds moulting and renewing plumage. But not to birds only. “Nine times the moon had mewed her horns,” wrote Dryden. 5 The Proof is now ended, and the Peroration here begins. 6 Robert, son of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, was shot when he had marched against the Earl of Chesterfield, in Lichfield, and was prepar- ing an assault on combatants who held Lichfield Cathedral, March 1st, 1643. He had published an earnest volume in 1641 on “The Nature of Truth.” In his treatise on Episcopacy he said, “I must confess that I begin to think there may be, perhaps, something more of God in these sects which they call new schisms, than appears at first glimpse.” Laud wrote of Lord Robert Brooke in his Diary, “First, I observe that this great and known enemy to Cathedral Churches died thus fearfully, in the assault of a Cathedral; a fearful manner of death in such a quarrel; secondly, that this happened on St. Chad's day, of which saint the Cathedral bears the name.” He was killed by a musket-shot out of the House of God. 148 | A.D. 1644 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. large being published to the world, and dedicated to the Parliament by him who both for his life and for his death deserves, that what advice he left be not laid by without perusal. And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy, and oppose, if it come not first in at their case- ments. What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence, to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute 2 When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please; only that he may try the matter by dint of argument, for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldier- ship, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who spake Oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike herself. What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross, what great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of. His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day, or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency" yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forward- ness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any en- thralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect * Ghost of a limen decency. The formality of the white surplice as a substitute for that decency of worship which lies in essentials. When congregations trouble themselves over surplice and black gown, they are still haunted by the ghost of linen decency. by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood, and hay, and stubble forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think well of every light separation, or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and precious stones: it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the Angels' Ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Chris- tian that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil Supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassion- ate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled : that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace. In the meanwhile if any one would write, and bring his helpful hand to the slow- moving Reformation which we labour under, if Truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking license to do so worthy a deed P and not consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not ought more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose first appear- ance to our eyes bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and con- temptible to see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard, but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief cause why sects and schisms do so much abound, and true knowledge is kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger which is in it. For when God shakes a Kingdom with strong and healthful com- motions to a general reforming, 'tis not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing; but yet more true it is, that God then raises to His own work men of rare abilities, and more than common industry not only to look back and revise what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further and go on, Some new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth. For such is the order of God's en- lightening His church, to dispense and deal out by degrees His beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place these His chosen shall be first heard to speak; for He sees not as man sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set places, and assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the old Con- vocation house, and another while in the Chapel at West- minster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonised, is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII. himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead, to swell their number. And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them To A.D. 1657.] 149 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter throughly with liberal and fre- quent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own P Seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who not contented with stale receipts are able to manage, and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the Priests, nor among the Pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them, no less than woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors. There have been not a few since the beginning of this Parliament, both of the Presbytery and others who by their unlicensed books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day: I hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is, if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church by this let' of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade, and execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors themselves: whom the change of their condition hath puffed up, more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise. And as for regulating the Press, let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better than yourselves have done in that Order published next before this, “that no book be Printed, unless the Printer's and the Author's name, or at least the Printer's be registered.” Those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy, that man's prevention can use. For this authentic Spanish policy of licensing books, if I have said aught, will prove the most unlicensed book itself within a short while; and was the immediate image of a Star Chamber decree to that purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer. Whereby ye may guess what kind of state prudence, what love of the people, what care of Religion or good manners there was at the contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pretended to bind books to their good behaviour. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well constituted before, if we may believe those men whose profession gives them cause to inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolisers in the trade of bookselling; who under pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid, brought divers glosing colours to the House, which were * Let, hindrance. indeed but colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours, men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them in procuring by petition this Order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier scape abroad, as the event shows. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchan- dise I skill not : This I know, that errors in a good govern- ment and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what Magistrate may not be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of Printing be reduced into the power of a few ; but to redress willingly and speedily what hath been erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a sumptuous bribe, is a virtue (honoured Lords and Commons) answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.” - Q 4. £a. J 3 Men widely divided in opinion when they lived, join now in aid to the lifting of our hearts above all that is low-thoughted in party feud. Jeremy Taylor, loyal to monarchy, loyal to Lambeth and “the Palace Metropolitan,” was, like Milton, loyal also to God, by labouring through life after the highest truth he could attain. If Truth was found in diverse shapes, “yet,” as we have just heard Milton saying, “yet it is not impossible that she may have more shapes than one.” Jeremy Taylor, four or five years younger than Milton, was, as to the truth of the hour, in a camp opposite to his, but as to the truth that abides, his fellow combatant.” In 1657 Jeremy Taylor had left his retirement by the Towey, where he had lived, aided by the friend- ship of Lord Carbery, at Golden Grove, with Grongar Hill, afterwards to become a pleasant name in English literature, on the other side of the stream. He was in London in that year, having charge, perhaps, of a small congregation of churchmen, who, under the Commonwealth, were firm in fidelity to the episcopal forms and ancient usages of the Church. The Long Parliament required every parish to maintain a minister; the jurisdiction of 2 There are two excellent reprints of Milton’s “Areopagitica.” One is in the series of “English Reprints,” by Mr. Edward Arber, being, indeed, the book with the publication of which, at the price of six- pence, that excellent diffuser of good literature began his indefatigable labours. It gives the original text, in the original spelling, preceded by full reprints of the Orders of Star Chamber and of Parliament concerning Printing, which occasioned Milton's defence of free speech. This edition, like Mr. Arber's other publications, can be obtained only by post from the Editor, Edward Arber, F.S.A., Southgate, London, N. The other edition gives also the original text and spelling, and is amply provided with notes by its Editor, J. W. Hales, M.A., Professor of English Literature at King's College London. This is all that can be desired as an aid to the study of Milton’s greatest prose work. It is included (price three shillings) in the Clarendon Press Series of English Classics, published by Macmillan and Co. 3 Signature of John Milton to a petition dated 1650, among the “Composition Papers” in the Record Office. * For some account of Jeremy Taylor see, in this Library, “Illus- trations of English Religion,” pages 285–288. 150 [A.D. 1657. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. the official Triers was confined to benefices, and thus there arose here and there lectureships in London which, by local influence of friends to monarchy and the episcopal system, could be en- trusted to men like Jeremy Taylor or John Pearson, whose lectures on the Creed given at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, were published as his “Exposition of the Creed” in 1659. Jeremy Taylor had in London John Evelyn for a friend, who gave, in this time of adverse fortune, some substantial help, and it was to Evelyn that Taylor wrote on the 9th of June, 1657, “Your kind letter hath so abundantly re- ſº º, inwººtºuſſfiſſiºſitºtiſſiſſiſt ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v . warded and crowned my innocent endeavours in my description of Friendship, that I perceive there is a friendship beyond what I have fancied, and a real material worthiness beyond the heights of the most perfect ideas; and I know now where to make my book perfect, and by an Appendix to outdo the first Essay ; for when anything shall be observed to be wanting in my Character, I can tell them where to seek the substance, more beauteous than the picture, and by sending the readers of my book to be specta- tors of your life and worthiness, they shall see what I would fain have taught them, by what you really are.” Jeremy Taylor's “Discourse of Friendship” was addressed to Mrs. Katherine Phillips, a lady who lived with her husband in Wales, wrote inno- cent verse as Orinda, chiefly with friendship for her theme, and who was in 1657, when the Discourse was written and first published, only twenty-four * The portrait of Taylor as Mercurius Christianus was prefixed to the “Treatise of Friendship ’’ in 1657. JEREMY TAYLOR. (From the Frontispiece “ years old.” I preserve in this treatise the old variations of type, spelling, &c. A DISCOURSE OF THE NATURE AND OFFICES FRIENDSHIP. In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Eccellent Madam, Mrs. Katherine Phillips. The wise Bensirach advised that we should not consult with a woman concerning her of whom she is jealous, neither with a Coward in matters of War, nor with a Merchant con- cerning exchange; * and some other instances he gives of interested persons, to whom he would not have us hearken in OF Holy Dying.”)] any matter of Counsel. For where ever the interest is secular or vicious, there the biass is not on the side of truth or reason, because these are seldom served by profit and low regards. But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship is like consulting with a spiritual person in Religion ; they who understand the secrets of Religion, or the interior beauties of friendship are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries con- cerning the respective subjects; because reason and experience are on the side of interest, and that which in friendship is most pleasing and most useful, is also most reasonable and most true ; and a friends fairest interest is the best measure of the conducting friendships: and therefore you who are so eminent in friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries, and you could have trusted your own reason, 2 Some verse of hers is in the volume of this Library containing “Shorter English Poems,” page 340. 8 Jesus the Son of Sirach in his book called “Ecclesiasticus,” chap. xxxvii., verse 11. It goes on, “nor with a buyer, of selling; nor with an envious man, of thankfulness; nor with an unmerciful man, touch- ing kindness; nor with the slothful, for any work; nor with an hireling for a year, of finishing work; nor with an idle servant, of much business: hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel.” A.D. 1657.1 151 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things, but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire. But because I will not use anything that shall look like an excuse, I will rather give you such an account which you can easily reprove, then by declining your commands, seem more safe in my prudence, then open and communicative in my friendship to you. - - You first inquire how far a Dear and a perfect friendship is authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity ? To this I answer; That the word [Friendship] in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not so much as named in the New Testament; and our Religion takes no notice of it. You think it strange; but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it. There is mention of [Friendship with the world, and it is said to be enmity with God; but the word is no where else named, or to any other purpose in all the New Testament. It speaks of Friends often ; but by Friends are meant our acquaintance, or our Kindred, the relatives of our family or our fortune, or our sect; something of society, or something of kindness there is in it; a tenderness of appellation and civility, a relation made by gifts, or by duty, by services and sub- jection ; and I think, I have reason to be confident, that the word friend (speaking of humane entercourse) is no other- ways used in the Gospels or Epistles, or Acts of the Apostles: and the reason of it is, the word friend is of a large significa- tion ; and means all relations and societies, and whatsoever is not enemy, but by friendships, I suppose you mean, the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds, of which brave men and women are capable. But then I must tell you that Chris- tianity hath new christened it, and calls this Charity. The Christian knows no enemy he hath ; that is, though persons may be injurious to him, and unworthy in themselves, yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive, which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies, that is, to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend, it shall not be a relative term and signifie some- thing on each hand, a relative and a correlative, and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for, to treat kindly and justly, liberally and obligingly. Christian Charity is Friendship to all the world; and when Friend- ships were the noblest things in the world, Charity was little, like the Sun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the centre of a Burning-Glass; but Christian charity is Friendship, expanded like the face of the Sun when it mounts above the Eastern hills: and I was strangely pleas'd when I saw something of this in CICERo ; for I have been so pushed at by herds and flocks of People that follow any body that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, that I am grown afraid of any Truth that seems chargeable with singu- larity : but therefore I say, glad I was when I saw Laºlius in Cicero discourse thus: Amicitia ex; infinita societate generis humani quam conciliavit insa natura, ita contracta res est, et adducta in angustum ; ut omnis charitas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur." Nature hath made friendships, and societies, relations and endearments; and by something or other we relate to all the World; there is enough in every man that is willing, to make him become our friend; but when men contract friendships, they inclose the Commons; 1 Laºlius: De Amicitia. Friendship amidst the infinite society of the human race which Nature has joined in fellowship, is a thing so contracted and drawn within strait bounds, that all love might be fastened up either between two or among a few. and what Nature intended should be every mans, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers and the strand of seas, and the air, common to all the World; but Tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love have made them proper and peculiar. But when Christianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to increase her priviledges, and to make her aptness to become religion, then it was declared that our friendships were to be as universal as our conversation; that is, actual to all with whom we con- verse, and potentially extended unto those with whom we did not. For he who was to treat his enemies with forgiveness and prayers, and love and beneficence was indeed to have no enemies, and to have all friends. So that to your question, how far a Dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity? The answer is ready and easie. It is warranted to extend to all Mankind; and the more we love, the better we are, and the greater our friendships are, the dearer we are to God; let them be as Dear, and let them be as perfect, and let them be as many as you can ; there is no danger in it; only where the restraint begins, there begins our imperfection; it is not ill that you entertain brave friendships and worthy Societies: it were well if you could love, and if you could benefit all Mankind; for I conceive that is the summe of all friendship. I confess this is not to be expected of us in this world; but as all our graces here are but imperfect, that is, at the best they are but tendencies to glory, so our friendships are imperfect too, and but beginnings of a celestial friendship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved. But then so we must here in our proportion ; and indeed that is it that can make the difference; we must be friends to all: That is, apt to do good, loving them really, and doing to them all the benefits which we can, and which they are capable of. The Friendship is equal to all the World, and of it self hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and Religion are the bands of friend- ships; excellency and usefulness are its great indearments : society and neighbourhood, that is, the possibilities and the circumstances of converse are the determinations and actuali- ties of it. Now when men either are unnatural, or irreligious, they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor useful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, they cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath any thing of the good, contrary to those evils, so he can have and must have his share of friendship. For thus the Sun is the eye of the World; and he is indifferent” to the Negro, or the cold Russian, to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand near the Tropicks, the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills; but the fluxures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the North or South respectively change the emanations of his beams; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below, but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can; and some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattel, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of Catarrhes and Consumptions, apo- plexies and dead palsies; but some have splendid fires, and aromatick spices, rich wines, and well digested fruits, great wit and great courage; because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the Courtiers of the Sun, and wait upon him in his Chambers of the East; just so is it in friend- 2 Indifferent, not different. In himself he makes no distinction of perSOInS. 152 CASSELL’S [A.D. 1657 LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ships: some are worthy, and some are necessary; some dwell hard by and are fitted for converse; Nature joyns some to us, and Religion combines us with others; society and accidents, parity of fortune, and equal dispositions do actuate our friend- ships: which of themselves and in their prime disposition are prepared for all Mankind according as any one can receive them. We see this best exemplified by two instances and expressions of friendship and charity: viz., Alins and Prayers; Every one that needs relief is equally the object of our charity; but though to all mankind in equal needs we ought to be alike in charity; yet we signifie this severally and by limits, and distinct measures: the poor man that is near me, he whom I meet, he whom I love, he whom I fancy, he who did me benefit, he who relates to my family, he rather then another, because my expressions being finite and narrow, and cannot extend to all in equal significations, must be appro- priate to those whose circumstances best fit me: and yet even to all I give my alms; to all the World that needs them; I pray for all mankind, I am grieved at every sad story I hear; I am troubled when I hear of a pretty Bride murdered in her bride-chamber by an ambitious and enrag'd Rival; I shed a tear when I am told that a brave King was misunderstood, then slandered, then imprisoned, and then put to death by evil men; and I can never read the story of the Parisian Massacre, or the Sicilian Vespers, but my blood curdles, and I am disorder'd by two or three affections. A good man is a friend to all the World; and he is not truly charitable that does not wish well, and do good to all mankind in what he can ; but though we must pray for all men, yet we say special Litanies for brave Kings and holy Prelates, and the wise Guides of souls; for our Brethren and Relations, our Wives and Children. The effect of this consideration is, that the Universal friendship of which I speak, must be limited, because we are so : in those things where we stand next to immensity and infinity, as in good wishes and prayers, and a readiness to benefit all mankind, in these our friendships must not be limited ; but in other things which pass under our hand and eye, our voices and our material exchanges; our hands can reach no further but to our arms end, and our voices can but Sound till the next air be quiet, and therefore they can have entercourse but within the sphere of their own activity; our needs and our conversations are served by a few, and they cannot reach to all ; where they can, they must ; but where it is impossible, it cannot be necessary. It must therefore follow, that our friendships to mankind may admit variety as does our conversation; and as by nature we are made sociable to all, so we are friendly, but as all cannot actually be of our Society, so neither can all be admitted to a special, actual friendship; Of some entercourses all men are capable, but not of all ; Men can pray for one another, and abstain from doing injuries to all the world, and be desirous to do all mankind good, and love all men; Now this friendship we must pay to all because we can, but if we can do no more to all, we must shew our readiness to do more good to all by actually doing more good to all them to whom we can. To some we can, and therefore there are nearer friendships to some then" to others, according as there are natural or civil nearnesses, relations and societies; and as I cannot express my friendships to all in equal measures and significations, that is, as I cannot do benefits to all alike : so neither am I tied to love all alike: for although there is much reason to love every man; yet there are more reasons to love some than others; and if I must love because there is reason I 1 Then, than. In the “Areopagitica” Milton invariably wrote then for than. The words have the same origin. should; then I must love more, where there is more reason ; and where there's a special affection and a great readiness to do good and to delight in certain persons towards each other, there is that special charity and indearment which Philosophy calls friendship ; but our Religion calls love or charity. Now if the inquiry be concerning this special friendship. 1. How it can be appropriate, that is, who to be chosen to it; 2. how far it may extend ; that is, with what expressions signified; 3. how conducted 3 The answers will depend upon such con- siderations which will be neither useless nor unpleasant. 1. There may be a special friendship contracted for any Special excellency whatsoever; because friendships are nothing but love and society mixt together ; that is, a conversing with them whom we love; now for whatsoever we can love any oné, for that we can be his friend; and since every excellency is a degree of amability, every such worthiness is a just and proper motive of friendship, or loving conversation. But yet in these things there is an order and proportion. Therefore 2. A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to be retain’d ; and indeed never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen. Töv 3’ &AAtov ćpeti, Totei qiXov Óg ris àptortos? Miltrote Töv kaköv čvápa pixov troteiota ŚTaipov. 3 Where vertue dwells there friendships make, But evil neighbourhoods forsake. But although vertue alone is the worthiest cause of amability, and can weigh down any one consideration ; and therefore to a man that is vertuous every man ought to be a friend; yet I do not mean the severe, and philosophical excellencies of some morose persons who are indeed wise unto themselves, and exemplar to others: by vertue here I do not mean justice and temperance, charity and devotion ; for these I am to love the man, but friendship is something more then that: Friend- ship is the nearest love and the nearest society of which the persons are capable: Now justice is a good entercourse for Merchants, as all men are that buy and sell; and temperance makes a Man good company, and helps to make a wise man; but a perfect friendship requires something else, these must be in him that is chosen to be my friend; but for these I do not make him my privado; that is, my special and peculiar friend: but if he be a good man, then he is properly fitted to be my correlative in the noblest combination. And for this we have the best warrant in the world : For a just man scarcely will a man die; the Syriac interpreter reads it, Örºp déticov for an unjust man scarcely will a man die; that is, a wicked man is at no hand fit to receive the expres- sion of the greatest friendship ; but all the Greek copies that ever I saw, or read of, read it as we do ; for a righteous man or a just man, that is, justice and righteousness is not the nearest indearment of friendship ; but for a good man some will even dare to die : that is for a man that is sweetly disposed, ready to do acts of goodness and to oblige others, to do things useful and profitable, for a loving man, a bene. ficent, bountiful man, one who delights in doing good to his friend, such a man may have the highest friendship; he may have a friend that will die for him. And this is the meaning of Laelius : Vertue may be despised, so may Learning and Nobility: at una est amicitia in rebus humanis de cujus utilitate omnes consentiunt : only friendship is that thing, which because all know to be useful and profitable, no man can despise; that is xpmarðrms, or dyadérms, goodness or beneficence makes friendships. For if he be a good man he will love where he is beloved, and that's the first tie of friendship. 'AAAñAous éq i\norav torq, ºvº. * Pythagoras, “Carmen Aureurn,” 5. * Theognis, l. 113. A.D. 1657.] 153 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. That was the commendation of the bravest friendship in Theocritus," They lov’d each other with a love That did in all things equal prove. "H pa tor' fiorav xpva'elot tróAut àvöpes 6x' &vt ºptAma' & pºndeis. The World was under Saturn's reign When he that lov’d was lov’d again. For it is impossible this nearness of friendship can be where there is not mutual love; but this is secured if I choose a good man; for he that is apt enough to begin alone, will never be behind in the relation and correspondency; and therefore I like the Gentiles Litany well, Zeiſs plot tav te pixov Óoin two ivot pie pixevant.” "OA6.ot Öt pºéovres, trijv toov &vrepačvrat.* Let God give friends to me for my reward, Who shall my love with equal love regard; Happy are they, who when they give their heart Find such as in exchange their own impart. But there is more in it than this felicity amounts to. For xpmaros duhp the good man is a profitable, useful person, and that's the band of an effective friendship. For I do not think that friendships are Metaphysical nothings, created for con- templation, or that Men or Women should stare upon each others faces, and make dialogues of news and prettinesses, and look babies in one anothers eyes. Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds, the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate. And although I love my friend because he is worthy, yet he is not worthy if he can do no good. I do not speak of acci- dental hindrances and misfortunes by which the bravest man may become unable to help his Child; but of the natural and artificial capacities of the man. He only is fit to be chosen for a friend, who can do those offices for which friendship is excellent. For (mistake not) no man can be loved for himself; our perfections in this World cannot reach so high; it is well if we would love God at that rate, and I very much fear, that if God did us no good, we might admire his Beauties, but we should have but a small proportion of love towards him ; and therefore it is, that God to endear the obedience, that is, the love of his servants, signifies what benefits he gives us, what great good things he does for us. I am the Lord God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt : and does Job serve God for nought 2 and he that comes to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder ; all his other greatnesses are objects of fear and wonder, it is his goodness that makes him lovely: and so it is in friendships. He only is fit to be chosen for a friend who can give counsel, or defend my cause, or guide me right, or relieve my need, or can and will, when I need it, do me good: only this I add: into the heaps of doing good, I will reckon [loving me] for it is a pleasure to be be- loved, but when his love signifies nothing but kissing my cheek, or talking kindly, and can go no further, it is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship to spend it upon impertinent people who are (it may be) loads to their families, but can never ease my loads: but my friend is a worthy person when he can become to me instead of God, a guide or a support, an eye, or a hand; a staff, or a rule: There must be in friendship something to distinguish it from a Companion, and a Country man, from a School-fellow or a Gossip, from a Sweet-heart or a Fellow-traveller: Friendship may look in at any one of these doors, but it stays not any where till it come to be the best thing in the world: and when we consider that one man is not better than another, neither towards God nor towards Man, but by doing better and braver things, we shall also see, that that which is most beneficent is also most excellent; and therefore those friend- ships must needs be most perfect, where the friends can be most useful. For men cannot be useful but by worthinesses in the several instances: a fool cannot be relyed upon for counsel, nor a vitious person for the advantages of vertue, nor a begger for relief, nor a stranger for conduct, nor a tatler to keep a secret, nor a pittiless person trusted with my com- plaint, nor a covetous man with my childs fortune, nor a false person without a witness, nor a suspicious person with a private design; nor him that I fear with the treasures of my love : But he that is wise and vertuous, rich and at hand, close and merciful, free of his money and tenacious of a secret, open and ingenuous, true and honest, is of himself an excellent man; and therefore fit to be loved; and he can do good to me in all capacities where I can need him, and there- fore is fit to be a friend. I confess we are forced in our friendships to abate some of these ingredients; but full measures of friendship, would have full measures of worthi- ness; and according as any defect is in the foundation; in the relation also there may be imperfection: and indeed I shall not blame the friendship so it be worthy, though it be not perfect; not only because friendship is charity, which cannot be perfect here, but because there is not in the World a perfect cause of perfect friendship. If you can suspect that this discourse can suppose friend- ship to be mercenary, and to be defective in the greatest worthiness of it, which is to love our friend for our friends sake, I shall easily be able to defend my self; because I speak of the election and reasons of choosing friends: after he is chosen do as nobly as you talk, and love as purely as you dream, and let your conversation * be as metaphysical as your discourse, and proceed in this method, till you be confuted by experience; yet till then, the case is otherwise when we speak of choosing one to be my friend: He is not my friend till I have chosen him, or loved him; and if any man enquires whom he shall choose or whom he should love, I suppose it ought not to be answered, that we should love him who hath least amability; that we should choose him who hath least reason to be chosen: But if it be answered, he is to be chosen to be my friend who is most worthy in himself, not he that can do most good to me; I say, here is a distinction but no difference ; for he is most worthy in himself who can do most good; and if he can love me too, that is, if he will do me all the good he can, that I need, then he is my friend and he deserves it. And it is impossible from a friend to separate a will to do me good: and therefore I do not choose well, if I choose one that hath not power; for if it may consist with the nobleness of friendship to desire that my friend be ready to do me benefit or support, it is not sense to say, it is ignoble to desire he should really do it when I need; and if it were not for pleasure or profit, we might as well be without a friend as have him. Among all the pleasures and profits, the sensual pleasure and the matter of money are the lowest and the least; and therefore although they may sometimes be used in friendship, and so not wholly excluded from the consideration of him that is to choose, yet of all things they are to be the least regarded. 'Ev roſs & 3ewois, xpnuditov Kpeirtov pixos." 1 Idyll xii. 15. * Theognis, l. 337. * Bion, in Stobaeus, a Greek of the fifth or sixth century who col- lected extracts. When fortune frowns upon a Man, A friend does more than money can. * Conversation. others. 5 Uncertain author, in Grotius, “Excerpt. ex Trag, et Com.,” 4to, Paris, 1626, p. 945. The familiar intercourse of life; behaviour among 196 154 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1657. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF For there are besides these, many profits and many pleasures; and because these only are sordid, all the other are noble and fair, and the expectations of them no disparagements to the best friendships. For can any wise or good man be angry if I say, I choose this man to be my friend, because he is able to give me counsel, to restrain my wandrings, to comfort me in my sorrows; he is pleasant to me in private, and useful in publick; he will make my joys double, and divide my grief between himself and me P For what else should I choose; For being a fool, and useless ; for a pretty face or a smooth chin P I confess it is possible to be a friend to one that is ignorant, and pitiable, handsome and good for nothing, that eats well, and drinks deep, but he cannot be a friend to me; and I love him with a fondness or a pity, but it cannot be a noble friendship. owk #d trótov kai tris Katº' huépav rpupris Zntowpiev (; triotetſorouev tá roi, Biov Ilárep 3 oil repºrtöv otoi r" ēševpnkévat 'Ayatov čkaotos éâv éxn pixov aktav’ said Menander. By Wine and mirth and every days delight We choose our friends, to whom we think we might Our Souls intrust; but fools are they that lend Their bosom to the shadow of a friend. Ełówaa kal pupiñpara pixtas. Plutarch calls such friendships, the Idols and Images of friendship. True and brave friend- ships are between worthy persons; and there is in Mankind no degree of worthiness, but is also a degree of usefulness, and |by every thing by which a man is excellent, I may be profited; and because those are the bravest friends which can best serve the ends of friendships, either we must suppose that friendships are not the greatest comforts in the World, or else we must say, he chooses his friend best, that chooses such a one by whom he can receive the greatest comforts and assistances. * 3. This being the measure of all friendships; they all partake of excellency, according as they are fitted to this measure: a friend may be counselled well enough though his friend be not the wisest man in the world, and he may be pleased in his Society though he be not the best natured man in the world; but still it must be, that something excellent is, or is apprehended, or else it can be no worthy friendship; because the choice is imprudent and foolish. Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just, ingenuous and honest; and in those things which have a latitude, use your own liberty; but in such things which consist in an indivisible point, make no abatements; That is, you must not choose him to be your friend that is not honest and secret, just and true to a tittle; but if he be wise at all, and useful in any degree, and as good as you can have him, you need not be ashamed to own your friendships: though sometimes you may be ashamed of some imperfections of your friend. 4. But if you yet enquire further, whether fancy may be an ingredient in your choice P I answer, that fancy may minister to this as to all other actions in which there is a liberty and variety; and we shall find that there may be peculiarities and little partialities, a friendship, improperly so called, entring upon accounts of an innocent passion and a pleas'd fancy; even our Blessed Saviour himself loved Saint John and Lazarus by a special love, which was signified by special treatments; and of the young man that spake well and wisely to Christ, it is affirmed, Jesus loved him ; that is, he fancied the man, and his soul had a certain cognation and similitude of temper and inclination. For in all things where there is a latitude, every faculty will endeavour to be pleased, and Somtimes the meanest persons in a house have a festival; even sympathies and natural inclinations to some persons, and a conformity of humours, and proportionable loves, and the beauty of the face, and a witty answer may first strike the flint and kindle a spark, which if it falls upon tender and compliant natures may grow into a flame; but this will never be maintained at the rate of friendship, unless it be fed by pure materials, by worthinesses which are the food of friendship: where these are not, Men and Women may be pleased with one anothers company, and lye under the same roof, and make themselves companions of equal prosperities, and humour their friend; but if you call this friendship, you give a sacred name to humour or fancy, for there is a Platonick friendship as well as a Platonick love; but they being but the Images of more noble bodies are but like tinsel dressings, which will shew bravely by candle-light, and do excellently in a mask, but are not fit for conversation, and the material entercourses of our life. These are the pretti- nesses of prosperity and good-natured wit; but when we speak of friendship, which is the best thing in the World (for it is love and beneficence; it is charity that is fitted for society) we cannot suppose a brave pile should be built up with nothing; and they that build Castles in the air, and look upon friendship, as upon a fine Romance, a thing that pleases the fancy, but is good for nothing else, will do well when they are asleep, or when they are come to Elysium ; and for ought I know in the mean time may be as much in love with Mandana in the Grand Cyrus," as with the Infanta of Spain, or any of the most perfect beauties and real excellencies of the world: and by dreaming of perfect and abstracted friendships, make them so immaterial that they perish in the handling and become good for nothing. But I know not whither I was going ; I did only mean to say that because friendship is that by which the world is most blessed and receives most good, it ought to be chosen amongst the worthiest persons, that is, amongst those that can do greatest benefit to each other; and though in equal worthiness I may chuse by my eye, or ear, that is, into the consideration of the essential I may take in also the acci- dental and extrinsick worthinesses; yet I ought to give every one their just value; when the internal beauties are equal, these shall help to weigh down the scale, and I will love a worthy friend that can delight me as well as profit me, rather than him who cannot delight me at all, and profit me no more ; but yet I will not weigh the gayest flowers, or the wings of butterflies against wheat; but when I am to chuse wheat, I may take that which looks the brightest: I had rather see Thyme and Roses, Marjoram and July-flowers that are fair and sweet and medicinal, than the prettiest Tulips that are good for nothing: And my Sheep and Kine are better servants than Race-horses and Gray-hounds: And I shall rather furnish my Study with Plutarch and Cicero, with Livy and Polybius, than with Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa ;” and if I do give an hour to these for divertisement or pleasure, yet I will dwell with them that can instruct me, and make me wise and eloquent, severe and useful to my self and others. I end this with the saying of Laclius in Cicero : 1 Madeleine de Scudéri’s “Artamene, ou le Grand Cyrus,” was com- pleted in ten vols. in 1650, and the English translation was published in 1653–54. * Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa. Calprenède's French novel of “Cassandra,” published in 1642, had been translated into English by Sir Charles Cotterell in 1653; Madeleine de Scudéri's “Ibrahim, or the Illustrious Bassa,” had been Englished by Henry Cogan in 1652. Such translations of French romances into folio volumes were the chief fare of the novel-readers under the Commonwealth. Almost the only home-grown imitation of this style was the Earl of Orrery's ** Parthenissa.” A.D. 1657.] 155 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Amieitia non debet consequi utilitatem, sed amicitiam utilitas." When I chuse my friend, I will not stay till I have received a kindness; but I will chuse such an one that can do me many if I need them : But I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser, and which make me better; that is, I will when I chuse my friend, chuse him that is the bravest, the worthiest and the most excellent person: and then your first Question is soon answered; to love such a person and to contract such friendships is just so authorized by the prin- ciples of Christianity, as it is warranted to love wisdom and vertue, goodness and beneficence, and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men. 2. The next inquiry is how far it may extend ? That is, by what expressions it may be signified ? I find that David and Jonathan loved at a strange rate; they were both good men; though it happened that Jonathan was on the obliging side; but here the expressions were ; Jonathan watched for Davids good; told him of his danger, and helped him to escape; took part with Davids innocence against his Fathers malice and injustice; and beyond all this, did it to his own pre- judice; and they two stood like two feet supporting one body; though Jonathan knew that David would prove like the foot of a Wrestler, and would supplant him, not by any unworthy or unfriendly action, but it was from God; and he gave him his hand to set him upon his own Throne. We find his parallels in the Gentile stories: young Athenodorus having divided the estate with his Brother Xenon ; * divided it again when Xenon had spent his own share; and Lucullus would not take the Consulship till his younger brother had first enjoyed it for a year; but Pollux divided with Castor his immortality; and you know who offer'd himself to death being pledg for his friend; and his friend by performing his word rescued him as bravely : and when we find in Scripture that for a good man some will even dare to die; and that Aquila and Prisgilla laid their necks down for S. Paul : and the Galatians would have given him their very eyes, that is, every thing that was most dear to them, and some others were near unto death for his sake; and that it is a precept of Christian charity, to lay down our lives for our brethren, that is, those who were combined in a cause of Religion, who were united with the same hopes, and imparted to each other ready assistances, and grew dear by common sufferings, we need enquire no further for the expressions of friendships: Greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends; and this we are oblig'd to do in some Cases for all Christians; and therefore we may do it for those who are to us in this present and imperfect state of things, that which all the good Men and Women in the World shall be in Heaven, that is, in the state of perfect friendships. This is the biggest; but then it includes and can suppose all the rest; and if this may be done for all, and in some cases must for any one of the multitude, we need not scruple whether we may do it for those who are better than a multitude. But as for the thing it self, it is not easily and lightly to be done; and a Man must not die for humour, nor expend so great a Jewel for a trifle : eióðres étr' občevl AvoriteXe? Máxis &vetveto auev trapavdAoua yewmarðuevo : said Philo ; we will hardly die. when it is for nothing, when no good, no worthy end is served, and become a Sacrifice to redeem a foot boy. But we may not give our life to redeem another: unless 1. The party for whom we die be a worthy and an useful person; better for the publick, or better for Religion, and more useful * Friendship ought not to be the consequence of usefulness, but usefulness of friendship. * Plutarch on “Fraternal Friendship.” to others than my self. Thus Ribisehius the German died bravely when he became a Sacrifice for his Master, Maurice Duke of Sarony; Covering his Masters body with his own, that he might escape the fury of the Turkish Souldiers. Succurram perituro, sed ut ipse non peream, nisi si futurus ero 'magni hominis, aut magna, rei merces, said Seneca.” I will help a dying person if I can; but I will not die my self for him, unless by my death I save a brave man, or become the price of a great thing; that is, I will die for a Prince, for the re- publick, or to save an Army, as David expos'd himself to combat with the Philistin for the redemption of the host of Israel : and in this sense, that is true; Prastat ut pereat wnus, quam Unitas,” better that one perish than a multitude. 2. A man dies bravely when he gives his temporal life to save the soul of any single person in the Christian world. It is a worthy exchange, and the glorification of that love by which Christ gave his life for every soul. Thus he that reproves an erring Prince wisely and necessarily, he that affirms a fundamental truth, or stands up for the glory of the Divine attributes, though he die for it, becomes a worthy sacrifice. 3. These are duty, but it may be heroick and full of Christian bravery, to give my life to rescue a noble and a brave friend; though I my self be as worthy a man as he ; because the preference of him is an act of humility in me; and of friendship towards him: Humility and Charity making a pious difference, where art and nature have made all equal. Some have fancied other measures of treating our friends. One sort of men say that we are to expect that our friends should value us as we value our selves : which if it were to be admitted, will require that we make no friendship with a proud man; and so far indeed were well; but then this pro- portion does exclude some humble men who are most to be valued, and the rather because they undervalue themselves. Others say that a friend is to value his friend as much as his friend values him ; but neither is this well or safe, wise or sufficient; for it makes friendship a meer bargain, and is something like the Country weddings in some places where I have been ; where the bridegroom and the bride must meet in the half way, and if they fail a step, they retire and break the match : It is not good to make a reckoning in friendship; that merchandise, or it may be gratitude, but not noble friendship; in which each part strives to out-do the other in significations of an excellent love: And amongst true friends there is no fear of losing any thing. But that which amongst the old Philosophers comes nearest to the right, is that we love our friends as we love our selves. If they had meant it as our Blessed Saviour did, of that general friendship by which we are to love all Mankind, it had been perfect and well; or if they had meant it of the inward affection, or of outward justice; but because they meant it of the most excellent friendships, and of the out- ward significations of it, it cannot be sufficient: for a friend may and must sometimes do more for his friend than he would do for himself. Some men will perish before they will beg or petition for themselves to some certain persons; but they account it noble to do it for their friend, and they will want rather than their friend shall want; and they will be more earnest in praise or dispraise respectively for their friend than for themselves. And indeed I account that one of the greatest demonstrations of real friendship, that a friend can really endeavour to have his friend advanced in honour, in reputation, in the opinion of wit or learning before himself. Aurum et opes, et rura frequens domabit amicus: Qui velit ingenio cedere rarus erit. Sed, tibi tantus inest veteris respectus amici. Carior wt mea sit quam tua fami tibi...—Martial, lib. 8, ep. 18. 8 “De Beneficiis.” * St, Augustine, 156 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1657. Lands, gold and trifles many give or lend; But he that stoops in fame is a rare friend; In friendships orb thou art the brightest star, Before thy fame mine thou preferrest far. But then be pleased to think that therefore I so highly value this signification of friendship, because I so highly value humility. Humility and Charity are the two greatest graces in the World; and these are the greatest ingredients which constitute friendship and express it. But there needs no other measures of friendship, but that it may be as great as you can express it; beyond death it cannot go, to death it may, when the cause is reasonable and just, charitable and religious: and yet if there be any thing greater than to suffer death (and pain and shame to some are more insufferable) a true and noble friendship shrinks not at the greatest trials. . And yet there is a limit even to friendship. It must be as great as our friend fairly needs in all things where we are not tied up by a former duty, to God, to our selves, or some pre-obliging relative. When Pollua, heard some body whisper a reproach against his Brother Castor, he killed the slanderer with his fist: that was a zeal which his friendship could not warrant. Nulla est eaccusatio si amiei causá peccaveris, said Cicero. No friendship can excuse a sin: And this the braver Romans instanced in the matter of duty to their Country. It is not lawful to fight on our friends part against our Prince or Country; and therefore when Caius Blesius of Cuma in the sedition of Gracehus appeared against his Country, when he was taken he answered, That he loved Tiberius Gracchus so dearly, that he thought fit to follow him whithersoever he led; and begg'd pardon upon that account. They who were his Judges were so noble, that though they knew it no fair excuse: yet for the honour of friendship they did not directly reject his motion: but put him to death, because he did not follow, but led on Graechus, and brought his friend into the snare: For so they preserved the honours of friendship on either hand, by neither suffering it to be sullied by a foul excuse, nor yet rejected in any fair pretence. A man may not be perjured for his friend. I remember to have read in the History of the Low-countries, that Grimston and Redhead,” when Bergenapzoom was besieged by the Duke of Parma, acted for the interest of the Queen of Englands Forces a notable design; but being suspected and put for their acquit- tance to take the Sacrament of the Altar, they dissembled their persons and their interest, their design and their religion, and did for the Queens service (as one wittily wrote to her) give not only their bodies but their souls, and so deserved a reward greater than she could pay them : I cannot say this is a thing greater than a friendship can require, for it is not great at all, but a great villany, which hath no name, and no order in worthy entercourses; and no obligation to a friend can reach as high as our duty to God: And he that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thred that ties their hearts together; it is a con- spiracy, but no longer friendship. And when Cato lent his Wife to Hortensius, and Socrates lent his to a merry Greek, they could not amongst wise persons obtain so much as the fame of being worthy friends, neither could those great Names legitimate an unworthy action under the most plausible title. It is certain that amongst friends their estates are common; that is, by whatsoever I can rescue my friend from calamity, I am to serve him, or not to call him friend; there is a great latitude in this, and it is to be restrained by no prudence, but when there is on the other side a great necessity neither 1 “Victoires de Maurice de Nassau,” fol., Leyden, 1612, p. 74, vicious nor avoidable: A man may chuse whether he will or no; and he does not sin in not doing it, unless he have bound himself to it: But certainly friendship is the greatest band in the world, and if he have professed a great friendship, he hath a very great obligation to do that and more; and he can no ways be disobliged but by the care of his Natural relations. I said, [Friendship is the greatest bond in the world.] and I had reason for it, for it is all the bands that this world hath; and there is no society, and there is no relation that is worthy, but it is made so by the communications of friendship, and by partaking some of its excellencies. For friendship is a transcendent, and signifies as much as Unity can mean, and every consent, and every pleasure, and every benefit, and every society is the Mother or the Daughter of friendship. Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls. And in proportion to these ways of Uniting, so the friendships are greater or less, vertuous or natural, profitable or holy, or all this together. Nature makes excellent friendships, of which we observe something in social parts; growing better in each others neighbourhood than where they stand singly: And in animals it is more notorious, whose friendships extend so far as to herd and dwell together, to play, and feed, to defend and fight for one another, and to cry in absence, and to re- joyce in one anothers presence. But these friendships have other names less noble, they are sympathy, or they are instinct. But if to this natural friendship there be reason superadded, something will come in upon the stock of reason which will ennoble it ; but because no Rivers can rise higher than Fountains, reason shall draw out all the dispositions which are in Nature and establish them into friendships, but they cannot surmount the communications of Nature; Nature can make no friendships greater than her own excellencies. Nature is the way of contracting necessary friendships: that is, by nature such friendships are con- tracted without which we cannot live, and be educated, or be well, or be at all. In this scene, that of Parents and Children is the greatest, which indeed is begun in nature, but is actuated by society and mutual endearments. For Parents love their Children because they love themselves, Children being but like emissions of water, symbolical, or indeed the same with the fountain; and they in their posterity see the images and instruments of a civil immor- tality; but if Parents and Children do not live together, we see their friendships and their loves are much abated, and supported only by fame and duty, by customs and religion, which to nature are but artificial pillars, and make this friendship to be complicated, and to pass from its own kind to another. That of Children to their Parents is not properly friendship, but gratitude and interest, and religion, and what- ever can supervene of the nature of friendship comes in upon another account; upon society and worthiness and choice. This relation on either hand makes great Dearnesses: But it hath special and proper significations of it, and there is a special duty incumbent on each other respectively. This friendship and social relation is not equal, and there is too much authority on one side, and too much fear on the other to make equal friendships; and therefore although this is one of the kinds of friendship, that is of a social and relative love and conversation, yet in the more proper use of the word; [Friendship] does do some things which Father and Son do not; I instance in the free and open communicating counsels, and the evenness and pleasantness of conversation ; and con- sequently the significations of the paternal and filial love as they are divers in themselves and unequal, and therefore another kind of friendship than we mean in our inquiry; so they are such a duty which no other friendship can annul: A.D. 1657.] 157 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. because their mutual duty is bound upon them by religion long before any other friendships can be contracted; and therefore having first possession must abide for ever. The duty and love to Parents must not yield to religion, much less to any new friendships: and our Parents are to be pre- ferred before the Corban; and are at no hand to be laid aside but when they engage against God: That is, in the rights which this relation and kind of friendship challenges as its propriety, it is supreme and cannot give place to any other friendships; till the Father gives his right away, and God or the Laws consent to it; as in the case of marriage, emanci- pation, and adoption to another family: in which cases though love and gratitude are still obliging, yet the societies and duties of relation are very much altered, which in the proper and best friendships can never be at all. But then this also is true: that the social relations of Parents and Children not having in them all the capacities of a proper friendship, cannot challenge all the significations of it: that is, it is no prejudice to the duty I owe there, to pay all the dearnesses which are due here, and to friends there are some things due which the other cannot challenge: I mean, my secret, and my equal conversation, and the pleasures and interests of these, and the consequents of all. Next to this is the society and dearness of Brothers and Sisters: which usually is very great amongst worthy persons; but if it be considered what it is in it self, it is but very little; there is very often a likeness of natural temper, and there is a social life under the same roof, and they are com- manded to love one another, and they are equals in many instances, and are endeared by conversation when it is merry and pleasant, innocent and simple, without art and without design. But Brothers pass not into noble friendships upon the stock of that relation : they have fair dispositions and advantages, and are more easie and ready to ferment into the greatest dearnesses, if all things else be answerable. Nature disposes them well towards it, but in this inquiry if we ask what duty is passed upon a Brother to a Brother even for being so P I answer, that religion and our parents and God and the laws appoint what measures they please; but nature passes but very little, and friendship less; and this we see apparently in those Brothers who live asunder, and con- tract new relations, and dwell in other societies: There is no love, no friendship without the entercourse of conversation : Friendships indeed may last longer than our abode together, but they were first contracted by it, and established by pleasure and benefit, and unless it be the best kind of friend- ship (which that of Brothers in that meer capacity is not) it dies when it wants the proper nutriment and support: and to this purpose is that which was spoken by Solomon : [better is a neighbour that is near, than a Brother that is far off.”] that is, although ordinarily, Brothers are first possessed of the entries and fancies of friendship, because they are of the first societies and conversations, yet when that ceases and the Brother goes away, so that he does no advantage, no benefit of entercourse; the neighbour that dwells by me, with whom if I converse at all, either he is my enemy and does, and receives evil; or if we converse in worthinesses and benefit 1 Mark vii. 11; Matthew xv. 5. Corban was a vow associated with a gift or offering to God, whence its name of “a gift.” The thing interdicted by the vow was “Corban.” Origen, associating the word with the gifts to the treasury of the Temple, called by Josephus Corbanas, says that children sometimes excused themselves from contribution to poor parents on the ground that they had paid money to the treasury from which they might be relieved. Jeremy Taylor means by Corban the vow that might cross duty to parents with plea of a pledge to God. * Prov. xxvii. 10. and pleasant communication, he is better in the laws and measures of friendship than my distant Brother. And it is observable that [Brother] is indeed a word of friendship and charity and of mutual endearment, and so is a title of the bravest society; yet in all the Scripture there are no precepts given of any duty and comport which Brothers, that is, the descendents of the same parents are to have one towards another in that capacity, and it is not because their nearness is such that they need none : For Parents and children are nearer, and yet need tables of duty to be described; and for Brothers, certainly they need it infinitely if there be any peculiar duty; Cain and Abel are the great probation of that, and you know who said,” - Fratrum quoque gratia rara est: It is not often you shall see Two Brothers live in amity. But the Scripture which often describes the duty of Parents and Children, never describes the duty of Brothers; except where by Brethren are meant all that part of mankind who are tied to us by any vicinity and indearment of religion or country, of profession and family, of contract or society, of love and the noblest friendships; the meaning is, that though fraternity alone be the endearment of some degrees of friend- ship, without choice and without excellency; yet the relation it self is not friendship, and does not naturally infer it, and that which is procured by it, is but limited and little; and though it may pass into it, as other conversations may, yet the friendship is accidental to it; and enters upon other accounts, as it does between strangers; with this only dif- ference that Brotherhood does oftentimes assist the valuation of those excellencies for which we entertain our friendships. Fraternity is the opportunity and preliminary disposition to friendship, and no more. For if my Brother be a fool or a vitious person, the love to which nature and our first con- versation disposes me, does not end in friendship, but in pity and fair provisions, and assistances; which is a demonstration that Brotherhood is but the inclination and address to friend- ship: and though I will love a worthy Brother more than a worthy stranger; if the worthiness be equal, because the relation is something, and being put into the scales against an equal worthiness must needs turn the ballance, as every grain will do in an even weight; yet when the relation is all the worthiness that is pretended, it cannot stand in competi- tion with a friend: for though a friend-Brother is better than a friend-stranger, where the friend is equal, but the Brother is not : yet a Brother is not better than a friend; but as Solomons expression is [there is a friend that is better than a Brother, and to be born of the same parents is so accidental and extrinsick to a mans pleasure or worthiness, or spiritual advantages, that though it be very pleasing and useful that a Brother should be a friend, yet it is no great addition to a friend that he also is a Brother: there is something in it, but not much. But in short, the case is thus. The first begin- nings of friendship serve the necessities; but choice and worthiness are the excellencies of its endearment and its bravery; and between a Brother that is no friend, and a friend that is no Brother, there is the same difference as between the disposition, and the act or habit: a Brother if he be worthy is the readiest and the nearest to be a friend, but till he be so, he is but the twilight of the day, and but the blossom to the fairest fruit of Paradise. A Brother does not always make a friend, but a friend ever makes a Brother and more: And although nature sometimes finds the tree, yet friendship engraves the Image; the first relation places him in the Garden, but friendship sets it in the Temple, and * Ovid, “Metamorphoses,” i. 145. 158 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1657. then only it is venerable and sacred: and so is Brotherhood when it hath the soul of friendship. So that if it be asked which are most to be valued, Brothers or friends; the answer is very easie; Brotherhood is or may be one of the kinds of friendship, and from thence only hath its valuc, and therefore if it be compared with a greater friendship must give place: But then it is not to be asked which is to be preferred, a Brother or a Friend, but which is the better friend; Memnon or my Brother ? For if my Brother says I ought to love him best, then he ought to love me best;" If he does, then there is a great friendship, and he possibly is to be preferred; if he can be that friend which he pretends to be, that is, if he be equally worthy: but if he says, I must love him only because he is my Brother, whether he loves me or no, he is ridiculous; and it will be a strange relation which hath no correspondent: but suppose it, and add this also, that I am equally his Brother as he is mine, and then he also must love me whether I love him or no; and if he does not, he says, I must love him though he be my Enemy; and so I must; but I must not love my Enemy though he be my Brother more than I love my Friend; and at last if he does love me for being his Brother, I confess that this love de- serves love again; but then I consider, that he loves me upon an incompetent reason: for he that loves me only because I am his Brother, loves me for that which is no worthiness, and I must love him as much as that comes to, and for as little reason; unless this be added, that he loves me first : but whether choice and union of souls, and worthiness of manners, and greatness of understanding, and usefulness of conversation, and the benefits of Counsel, and all those en- dearments which make our lives pleasant and our persons Dear, are not better and greater reasons of love and Dearness than to be born of the same flesh, I think amongst wise persons needs no great inquiry. For fraternity is but a Cognation of bodies, but friendship is an Union of souls which are confederated by more noble ligatures. My Brother, if he be no more, shall have my hand to help him, but unless he be my friend too, he cannot challenge my heart: and if his being my friend be the greater near- ness, then friend is more than Brother, and I suppose no man doubts but that David lov’d Jonathan far more than he lov'd his Brother Eliab. One inquiry more there may be in this affair, and that is, whether a friend may be more than a Husband or Wife; To which I answer, that it can never be reasonable or just, prudent or lawful: but the reason is, because Marriage is the Queen of friendships, in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship: and it being made sacred by vows and love, by bodies and souls, by in- terest and custome, by religion and by laws, by common Counsels, and common fortunes; it is the principal in the kind of friendship, and the measure of all the rest: And there is no abatement to this consideration, but that there may be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships by the incapacity of the persons: if I have not chosen my friend wisely or fortunately, he cannot be the correlative in the best Union; but then the friend lives as the soul does after death, it is in the state of separation, in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be reunited, but the body is an useless trunk and can do no ministeries to the soul; which therefore prays to have the body reformed and re- stored and made a brave and a fit companion: so must these best friends, when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of * Ut praestem. Pyladen, aliquis mihi praestet Orestem. Hoc mom fit verbis, Marce, ut ameris, ama.— Mar. lib. 6, ep. 11. (Jeremy Taylor's Note.) the princely friendship, they must love ever, and pray ever, and long till the other be perfected and made fit; in this case there wants only the body, but the soul is still a relative and must be so for ever. A Husband and a Wife are the best friends, but they cannot always signifie all that to each other which their friendships would; as the Sun shines not upon a Valley which sends up a thick vapour to cover his face; and though his beams are etermal, yet the emission is intercepted by the intervening cloud. But however all friendships are but parts of this; a man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife, that is [the dearest thing in Nature is not comparable to the dearest thing of friendship : ] and I think this is argu- ment sufficient to prove friendship to be the greatest band in the world; Add to this, that other friendships are parts of this, they are marriages too, less indeed than the other, because they cannot, must not be all that endearment which the other is; yet that being the principal, is the measure of the rest, and are all to be honoured by like dignities, and measured by the same rules, and conducted by their portion of the same Laws: But as friendships are Marriages of the soul, and of fortunes and interests, and counsels; so they are brotherhoods too; and I often think of the excellen- cies of friendships in the words of David, who certainly was the best friend in the World [Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum fratres habitare in unum ...") It is good and it is pleasant that Brethren should live like friends, that is, they who are any ways relative, and who are any ways social and confederate should also dwell in Unity and loving society, for that is the meaning of the word [Brother] in Scripture. [It was my Brother Jonathan] said David; such Brothers contracting such friendships are the beauties of society, and the pleasure of life, and the festivity of minds: and whatso- ever can be spoken of love, which is God's eldest daughter, can be said of vertuous friendships; and though Carneades made an eloquent Oration at Rome against justice,” and yet never saw a Panegyrick of malice, or ever read that any man was witty against friendship. Indeed it is probable that some men, finding themselves by the peculiarities of friend- ship excluded from the participation of those beauties of society which enamel and adorm the wise and the vertuous, might suppose themselves to have reason to speak the evil words of envy and detraction; I wonder not that all those unhappy souls which shall find heaven gates shut against them, will think they have reason to murmur and blaspheme: The similitude is apt enough, for that is the region of friend- ship, and love is the light of that glorious Countrey, but so bright that it needs no Sun: Here we have fine and bright rayes of that Celestial flame, and though to all Mankind the light of it is in some measure to be extended, like the treasures of light dwelling in the South, yet a little do illustrate and beautifie the North, yet some live under the line, and the beams of friendship in that position are im- minent and perpendicular. I know but one thing more in which the Communications of friendship can be restrained; and that is, in Friends and Enemies: Amicus amici, amicus meus nom est : My friends friend is not always my friend; nor his enemy mine; for if my friend quarrel with a third person with whom he hath had no friendships, upon the account of interest; if that third person be my friend, the nobleness of our friendships despises such a quarrel; and what may be reasonable in him, 1 Psalm crxxiii. 1. “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity 1" * See Note 1, page 136. The story is in Lactantius, “Div. Inst.” v. 13, 16; and Quintilian, “Inst. Or.” xii. 1. A.D. 1657.] 159 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. would be ignoble in me; sometimes it may be otherwise, and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds, but it is by chance if it can be just, and therefore because it is not always right it cannot be ever necessary. In all things else, let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union, or that friends like the Molionidae" be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Pyramis; no charity can be reproved; and such friend- ships which are more than shadows, are nothing else but the rayes of that glorious grace drawn into one centre, and made more active by the Union; and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick, by which the ancients depicted friendship: “In the beauties and strength ‘‘ of a young man, bare-headed, rudely clothed, to signifie its “activity, and lastingness, readiness of action, and aptnesses “to do service; Upon the fringes of his garment was written “Mors et vita, as signifying that in life and death the friend- “ship was the same ; on the forehead was written Summer “ and Winter, that is, prosperous and adverse accidents and “states of life; the left arm and shoulder was bare and naked “down to the heart to which the finger pointed, and there “was written longé et propé . " by all which we know that friendship does good far and near : in Summer and Winter, in life and death, and knows no difference of state or acci- dent but by the variety of her services: and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship; for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent, useful and necessary. For this is all the allay of this Universality, we may do any thing or suffer any thing, that is wise or necessary, or greatly beneficial to my friend, and that in any thing, in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes. But I would not in bravery visit my friend when he is sick of the plague, unless I can do him good equal at least to my danger, but I will procure him Physicians and prayers, all the assistances that he can receive, and that he can desire, if they be in my power: and when he is dead, I will not run into his grave and be stified with his earth; but I will mourn for him, and perform his will, and take care of his relatives, and do for him as if he were alive, and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet.” "Avôpton' &AAñAotorw &mdrpo6ev &prev čtaipot" IIAjiv toºtov travtós xpiluatos éarri kópos. To me though distant let thy friendship fly, Though men be mortal, friendship must not die, Of all things else there’s great satiety. Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty; and to see brothers hate each other, is not so rare as to see them love at this rate. The dead and the absent have but few friends, say the Spaniards; but they who are the same to their friend dirámpo6ev, when he is in another Countrey, or in another World, these are they who are fit to preserve the sacred fire for eternal sacrifices, and to per- petuate the memory of those exemplar friendships of the best men which have filled the World with history and wonder: for in no other sense but this, can it be true; that friendships are pure loves, regarding to do good more than to receive it: He that is a friend after death, hopes not for a recompense from his friend, and makes no bargain either for fame or love ; but is rewarded with the conscience and satisfaction of doing bravely : but then this is demonstration that they choose Friends best who take persons so worthy that can and will do so: This is the profit and usefulness of friendship; and he that contracts such a noble Union, must take care that his friend be such who can and will; but hopes that himself 1 The Molionidae, Cteatus and Eurytus, twin sons of Molione by Neptume, slain by Hercules. The reference is from Plutarch on “Fraternal Friendship.” * Theognis, l. 595. shall be first used, and put to act it: I will not have such a friendship that is good for nothing, but I hope that I shall be on the giving and āssisting part; and yet if both the friends be so noble, and hope and strive to do the benefit, I cannot well say which ought to yield; and whether that friendship were braver that could be content to be unprosperous so his friend might have the glory of assisting him ; or that which desires to give assistances in the greatest measures of friend- ship; but he that chooses a worthy friend that himself in the days of Sorrow and need might receive the advantage, hath no excuse, no pardon, unless himself be as certain to do assist- ances when evil fortune shall require them. The sum of this answer to this enquiry I give you in a pair of Greek verses.” * torov 6ép orov rous pi\ovs tºpºv 0éAe. êv roſs kakoſs dé rous pi\ovs &vepºérei. Friends are to friends as lesser Gods, while they Honour and service to each other pay. But when a dark cloud comes, grudge not to lend Thy head, thy heart, thy fortune to thy friend. 3. The last inquiry is, how friendships are to be conducted 2 That is, what are the duties in presence and in absence; whether the friend may not desire to enjoy his friend as well as his friend- ship 3 The answer to which in a great measure depends upon what I have said already: and if friendship be a charity in society, and is not for contemplation and noise, but for material comforts and noble treatments and usages, this is no peradventure, but that if I buy land, I may eat the fruits, and if I take a house I may dwell in it; and if I love a worthy person, I may please my self in his society: and in this there is no exception, unless the friendship be between persons of a different sex: for then not only the interest of their religion, and the care of their honour, but the worthi- ness of their friendship requires that their entercourse be prudent and free from suspicion and reproach: and if a friend is obliged to bear a calamity, so he secure the honour of his friend, it will concern him to conduct his entercourse in the lines of a vertuous prudence, so that he shall rather lose much of his own comfort, than she any thing of her honour ; and in this case the noises of people are so to be regarded, that next to innocence they are the principal. But when by caution and prudence and severe conduct, a friend hath done all that he or she can to secure fame and honourable reports; after this, their noises are to be despised; they must not fright us from our friendship, nor from her fairest enter- courses; I may lawfully pluck the clusters from my own Vine, though he that walks by, calls me thief. - But by the way (Madam) you may see how much I differ from the morosity of those Cynicks who would not admit your sex into the communities of a noble friendship. I believe some Wives have been the best friends in the World; and few stories can out do the nobleness and piety of that Lady that suck'd the poysonous, purulent matter from the wound of our brave Prince in the holy Land, when an Assasine had pierc'd him with a venom'd arrow ; and if it be told that Women cannot retain counsel, and therefore can be no brave friends; I can best confute them by the story of Porcia, who being fearful of the weakness of her sex, stabb’d her self into the thigh to try how she could bear pain; and finding herself constant enough to that sufferance, gently chid her Brutus for not daring to trust her, since now she perceived that no torment could wrest that secret from her, which she hoped might be intrusted to her. If there were not more things to be said for your satisfaction, I could have made it disputable whether have been more illustrious in their friendships Men or Women? I cannot say that Women * Anon. from Grotius, “Excerpt. ex Trag. et Com.,” p. 945. 160 ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1657. CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF are capable of all those excellencies by which Men can oblige the World; and therefore a female friend in some cases is not so good a counsellor as a wise man, and cannot so well defend my honour; nor dispose of reliefs and assistances if she be under the power of another: but a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministeries; and she can die for her friend as well as the bravest Roman Knight ; and we find that some persons have engag'd them- selves as far as death upon a less interest than all this amounts to : such were the évywkipafot," as the Greeks call them, the Devoti of a Prince or General, the Assasines amongst the Saracens, the XoAtôoövot” amongst the old Galatians : they did as much as a friend could do ; and if the greatest services of a friend can be paid for by an ignoble price, we cannot grudge to vertuous and brave women that they be partners in a noble friendship, since their conversation and returns can add so many moments to the felicity of our lives: and therefore, though a Knife cannot enter as far as a Sword, yet a Knife may be more useful to Some purposes; and in every thing, except it be against an enemy. A man is the best friend in trouble, but a woman may be equal to him in the days of joy: a woman can as well increase our comforts, but cannot so well lessen our sorrows; and therefore we do not carry women with us when we go to fight; but in peaceful Cities and times, vertuous women are the beauties of society and the pretti- nesses of friendship. And when we consider that few persons in the world have all those excellencies by which friendship can be useful and illustrious, we may as well allow women as men to be friends; since they can have all that which can be necessary and essential to friendships, and these cannot have all by which friendships can be accidentally improved ; in all some abatements will be made; and we shall do too much honour to women if we reject them from friendships because they are not perfect : for if to friend- ships we admit imperfect men, because no man is perfect: he that rejects women does find fault with them because they are not more perfect than men, which either does secretly affirm that they ought and can be perfect, or else it openly accuses men of injustice and partiality. I hope you will pardon me that I am a little gone from my undertaking, I went aside to wait upon the women and to do countenance to their tender vertues: I am now return'd, and, if I were to do the office of a guide to uninstructed friends, would add the particulars following: Madam, you need not read them now, but when any friends come to be taught by your precept and example how to converse in the noblest conjurations, you may put these into better words and tell them. - 1. That the first law of friendship is, they must neither ask of their friend what is Undecent; nor grant it if them- selves be askt. For it is no good office to make my friend more vicious or more a fool; I will restrain his folly, but not nurse it ; I will not make my groom the officer of my lust and vanity. There are Villains who sell their souls for bread, that offer sin and vanity at a price: I should be unwilling my friend should know I am vicious; but if he could be brought to minister to it, he is not worthy to be my friend : and if I could offer it to him, I do not deserve to clasp hands with a vertuous person. 2. Let no Man chuse him for his friend whom it shall be 1 Eucholimaioi, bound by, eúxcoxii, a vow ; devoted, in the strict sense of the word. From Herodotus, “Euterpe,” lxiii. * Solidoumoi. Silidouroi, Athen, vi. 12. Soldurii, Caesar, “De Bell. Gall.,” iii. 22. ; possible for him ever after to hate, for though the society may justly be interrupted, yet love is an immortal thing, and I will never despise him whom I could once think worthy of my love. A friend that proves not good is rather to be suffered, than any enmities be entertained: and there are some outer offices of friendship and little drudgeries in which the less worthy are to be imployed, and it is better that he be below stairs than quite thrown out of doors. 3. There are two things which a friend can never pardon, a treacherous blow and the revealing of a secret, because these are against the Nature of friendship ; they are the adulteries of it, and dissolve the Union; and in the matters of friendship which is the marriage of souls; these are the proper causes of divorce: and therefore I shall add this only, that secrecy is the chastity of friendship, and the publication of it is a prostitution and direct debauchery; but a secret, treacherous wound is a perfect and unpardonable Apostasie. I remember a pretty apologue that Bromiard” tells, A Fowler in a sharp frosty morning having taken many little birds for which he had long watched, began to take up his Nets; and nipping the birds on the head laid them down. A young Thrush espying the tears trickling down his cheeks by reason of the extreme cold, said to her Mother, that certainly the man was very merciful and compassionate that wept so bitterly over the calamity of the poor Birds. But her Mother told her more wisely, that she might better judge of the man's disposition by his hand than by his eye ; and if the hands do strike treacherously, he can never be admitted to friendship, who speaks fairly and weeps pitifully. Friendship is the greatest honesty and ingenuity in the World. 4. Never accuse thy friend, nor believe him that does; if thou dost, thou hast broken the skin; but he that is angry with every little fault breaks the bones of friendship ; and when we consider that in society and the accidents of every day, in which no man is constantly pleased or displeased with the same things; we shall find reason to impute the change unto ourselves; and the emanations of the Sun are still glorious, when our eyes are sore : and we have no reason to be angry with an eternal light, because we have a changeable and a mortal faculty. But however do not think thou didst contract alliance with an Angel, when thou didst take thy friend into thy bosom; he may be weak as well as thou art, and thou mayest need pardon as well as he, and piñror’ &mi orpukpº rpoq’áget pixov &vöp’ &moxéorons IIezőöuevos xaxenſi Küpwe 6taffoxin. 'Etrus &puaproxnaw pixov čtri trčvti xoMºto 'Oviror' év &AAñAous épéputo, oùre pixot, Theog. that man loves flattery more than friendship, who would not only have his friend, but all the contingencies of his friend to humour him. - 5. Give thy friend counsel wisely and charitably, but leave him to his liberty whether he will follow thee or no; and be not angry if thy counsel be rejected: for, advice is no Empire, and he is not my friend that will be my Judge whether I will or no. Neoptolemus had never been honoured with the victory and spoils of Troy if he had attended to the tears and counsel of Lycomedes, who being afraid to venture the young man, fain would have had him sleep at home safe in his little Island. He that gives advice to his friend and exacts obedience to it, does not the kindness and ingenuity of a friend, but the office and pertness of a School-master. 3 John of Bromyard (in Herefordshire) in his “Summa Predican- tium.” John of Bromyard, a Dominican and famous Cambridge teacher of Theology, who opposed Wiclif, died in 1419. The first edition of his “Summa,” was among the earliest books printed abroad. It is undated; the secoud was a folio printed at Nuremberg in 1485. TO A.D. 1660.] 161 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. 6. Never be a Judge between thy friends in any matter where both set their hearts upon the victory: If strangers or enemies be litigants, what ever side thou favourest, thou gettest a friend, but when friends are the parties thou losest OIl6. 7. Never comport thy self so, as that thy friend can be afraid of thee: for then the state of the relation alters when a new and troublesome passion supervenes. 0.D.E.R. UNT quos METUUNT1 Perfect love casteth out fear, and no man is friend to a Tyrant; but that friendship is Tyranny where the love is changed into fear, equality into empire, Society into obedience; for then all my kindness to him also will be no better than flattery. 8. When you admonish your friend, let it be without |bitterness; when you chide him, let it be without reproach ; when you praise him, let it be with worthy purposes and for just causes, and in friendly measures; too much of that is flattery, too little is envy; if you do it justly, you teach him true measures: but when others praise him, rejoyce, though they praise not thee, and remember that if thou esteemest his praise to be thy disparagement, thou art envious, but neither just nor kind. 9. When all things else are equal prefer an old friend before a new. If thou meanest to spend thy friend, and make a gain of him till he be weary, thou wilt esteem him as a beast of burden, the worse for his age ; But if thou esteemest him by noble measures, he will be better to thee by thy being used to him, by trial and experience, by re- ciprocation of indearments, and an habitual worthiness. An old friend is like old wine, which when a man hath drunk, he doth not desire new, because he saith the old is better. But every old friend was new once; and if he be worthy keep the new one till he become old. 10. After all this, treat thy friend nobly, love to be with him, do to him all the worthinesses of love and fair endear- ment, according to thy capacity and his; Bear with his infirmities till they approach towards being criminal; but never dissemble with him, never despise him, never leave him. * Give him gifts and upbraid him not, * and refuse not his kindnesses, and be sure never to despise the Smallness or the impropriety of them. Confirmatur amor beneficio accepto: A gift (saith Solomon) fasteneth friendships; for as an eye that dwells long upon a star must be refreshed with lesser beauties and strengthened with greens and looking-glasses, lest the sight become amazed with too great a splendor; so must the love of friends sometimes be refreshed with material and low Caresses; lest by striving to be too divine it become less humane : It must be allowed its share of both : It is humane in giving pardon and fair construction, and openness and ingenuity, and keeping secrets; it hath some- thing that is divine, because it is beneficent ; but much because it is eternal. 1 They will Hate those whom they Fear. Words of an unknown author quoted by Seneca, “I)e Ira '' (“Oderint dum metuant’’), and more than once by Cicero. * Extra fortunam est quicquid donatur amicis; Quas dederis solas semper habebis opes.—Mart., lib. 5, ep. 43. Et tamen hoc vitium, sed non leve, sit licet wnwm, Quod colit ingratas pauper amicitias. Quis largitur opes veteri fidoque sodali 2–Ep. 19. * Nom belle quaedam faciunt duo ; sufficit unus Hwic operi: si vis wit loquar, ipse tace. Crede mihi, quamvis ingentia, Posthume, domes, Authoris pereunt garrulitate swi.—Ep 53. (These references to Martial are Jeremy Taylor's notes.) CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE LATER STUARTS.—A.D. 1660 To A.D. 1688. ! HE love of Nature in the reign of Charles II. chiefly took the form of study of her secrets. The impulse given to scientific inquiry by the writings of Francis Eacon, is to be felt in the speculations of in- genious men who club- bed their wits together, in Oxford, or in London at Gresham College, and escaped from the storms of the Civil War and Commonwealth, into a harbour of quiet thought where their chief care was to secure what Bacon called the merchandise of light. When Robert Boyle settled at Oxford in 1654, for love of the companionship of men of science . there, Dr. John Wilkins was warden of Wadham College. Dr. Wilkins, son of Walter Wilkins, citizen and goldsmith, was then forty years old. He had been of the Parliament's side in the Civil War, and in 1656 he married Oliver Cromwell's sister Robina, widow of Peter French, formerly Canon of Christchurch. In 1659, Richard Cromwell made Dr. Wilkins Master of Trinity, but he was ejected at the Restoration, and then came to London, where he was at first made preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and minister of St. Laurence Jewry. Dr. Wilkins was one of the most ingenious men of his time. He was well skilled in mathematics, and had endeavoured to apply his knowledge to the well-being of society by stimu- lating men's minds with suggestions of possible mechanical inventions, and of future conquests of nature. He had written in his youth one book to show that the earth is a planet, another (in 1638) to argue that the moon is an inhabited world, and to suggest that intercourse between inhabitants of the earth and the moon is among the future possibilities of life. Into speculations of this kind he entered with manifest enjoyment, pouring out good and bad or half humorous suggestions and arguments together. For instance, when he had finished his argument upon the conceivable possibility of a man's getting to the moon, he added this:— ºº ſyt§º ººº-5 :º-É- §ºgi º S. º & sº ຠº:: Ww-:º º#g ºº º -E º º ‘‘. AKS Sº Ø - º º Nºyºº Yºs ºzzº º % 3. †º., 2 & W. º? Q = se tº sº *~~ 3, . : W. º tº wº W. !. Initial from the Earl of Orrery’s ** Panthemissa.” Having thus finished this discourse, I chanced upon a late fancy to this purpose, under the feigned name of Domingo Gonsales, written by a late reverend and learned bishop: in which (besides sundry particulars wherein this latter chapter did unwittingly agree with it) there is delivered a very pleasant and well-contrived fancy concerning a voyage to this other world. He supposeth that there is a natural and usual passage for many creatures betwixt our earth and this planet. Thus he says, those great multitudes of locusts, wherewith divers countries have been destroyed, do proceed from thence. And if we peruse the authors who treat of them, we shall find 197 162 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 158s that many times they fly in numberless troops, or swarms, and for sundry days together before they fall, are seen over those places in great high clouds, such as coming nearer, are of extension enough to obscure the day, and hinder the light of the sun. From which, together with divers other such relations, he concludes that 'tis not altogether improbable they should proceed from the moon. Thus likewise he supposeth the swallows, cuckoos, nightingales, with divers other fowl, which are with us only half the year, to fly up thither, when they go from us. Amongst which kind, there is a wild-swan in the East Indies, which at certain seasons of the year do constantly take their flight thither. Now this bird being of great strength, able to continue for a long flight, as also going usually in flocks, like our wild-geese; he supposeth that many of them together might be taught to carry the weight of a man; especially if an engine were so contrived (as he thinks it might) that each of them should bear an equal share in the burden. So that by this means 'tis easily conceivable, how once every year a man might finish such a voyage ; going along with these birds at the beginning of winter, and again returning with them at the spring. And here, one that had a strong fancy, were better able to set forth the great benefit and pleasure to be had by such a journey. And that whether you consider the strangeness of the persons, language, arts, policy, religion of those inhabit- ants, together with the new traffic that might be brought thence. In brief, do but consider the pleasure and profit of those later discoveries in America, and we must needs con- clude this to be inconceivably beyond it. Another of Dr. Wilkins's books is a series of amusing exercises in what he calls Mixed Mathe- matics, first printed while he was at Oxford, and re- published in 1680. He entitled it “Mathematical Magick,” or the wonders that may be performed by mechanical geometry. Its first part, called “Archi- medes,” illustrates powers of the lever, wheel, pulley, wedge, and screw, and one chapter in it is said in its title to be “concerning the infinite strength of wheels, pulleys, and screws; that it is possible by the multitude of these, to pull up any oak by the roots with a hair, lift it up with a straw, or blow it up with one's breath ; or to perform the greatest labour with the least power.” The second part, called “Daedalus,” abounds in suggestion of me- chanical motions. Here are two — Of a Sailing Chariot, that may without Horses be driven on the Land by the Wind, as Ships are on the Sea. The force of wind in the motion of sails may be applied also to the driving of a chariot, by which a man may sail on the land, as well as by a ship on the water. The labour of horses or other beasts, which are usually applied to this purpose, being artificially supplied by the strength of winds. That such chariots are commonly used in the champion plains of China, is frequently affirmed by divers credible authors. Boterus' mentions that they have been tried also in Spain, though with what success he doth not specify. But above all other experiments to this purpose, that sailing chariot at Sceveling in Holland, is more eminently remark- able. It was made by the direction of Stephinus, and 1 “IDe incremento Urbium,” l. 1. c. 10. (The references are given in the margin of his book by Dr. Wilkins.) is celebrated by many authors. Walchius? affirms it to be of so great a swiftness for its motion, and yet of so great a capacity for its burden : “Ut in medio freto secundis ventis commissas naves, velocitate multis parasangis post se relinquat, et paucarum horarum spatio, viginti aut triginta milliaria Germanica continuo cursu emetiatur, concreditosque Sibi plus minus vectores sex aut decem, in petitum locum transferat, facillimo illius ad clavum qui sedet nutu, quaqua versum minimo labore velis commissum, mirabile hoc continenti currus navigium dirigentis.” That it did far exceed the speed of any ship, though we should suppose it to be carried in the open sea with never so prosperous wind: and that in some few hours' space it would convey six or seven persons, twenty or thirty German miles, and all this with very little labour of him that sitteth at the stern, who may easily guide the course of it as he pleaseth. That eminent inquisitive man Peireskius, having travelled to Sceveling for the sight and experience of this chariot, would frequently after with much wonder mention the extreme swiftness of its motion. * “Commemorare solebat stuporem quo correptus fuerat cum vento translatus citatissimo non persentiscere tamen, nempe tam citus erat quam ventus.” Though the wind were in itself very swift and strong, yet to passengers in this chariot it would not be at all discernible, because they did go with an equal swiftness to the wind itself: men that ran before it seeming to go backwards, things which seem at a great distance being presently overtaken and left behind. In two hours' space it would pass from Sceveling to Putten, which are distant from one another above fourteen horaria milliaria, (saith the same author), that is, more than two and forty miles. Grotius is very copious and elegant in the celebration of this invention, and the author of it in divers epigrams. “Wentivolam Tiphys deduxit in aequora navim, Jupiter in stellas, athereamque domum. In terrestre solum virtus Stevnia, nam nec Tiphy tuum fuerat, nec Jovis istud opus.” + And in another place— “Imposuit plaustro vectantem carbasa malum An potius navi subdidit ille rotas P —Scandit aquas navis, currus ruit ačre prono, Et merito dicas, hºc volat, illa matat.” 5 These relations did at the first seem unto me, (and perhaps they will so to others) somewhat strange and incredible. But upon farther enquiry, I have heard them frequently attested from the particular eyesight and experience of such eminent persons, whose names I dare not cite in a business of this nature, which in those parts is so very common and little observed. . I have not met with any author who doth treat particularly concerning the manner of framing this chariot, though 2 “Fabularum Decas,” Fab. 9. 3 “Pet. Gassendus vita Peireskii,” l. 2. * “Grotii Poemata,” Ep. 19. This quotation and the next are from the second book of Epigrams in the collected poems of Grotius, that book consisting entirely of twenty-two epigrams on the sailing chariots made for Prince Maurice of Nassau, Captain-General of the United States of Holland, by Simon Stevin of Bruges, who had been his teacher in mathematics, and who was made by him superintendent of the dykes. He died in 1635, and was the inventor of the sailing chariots, used afterwards for some time upon the Dutch plains and frozen canals. This epigram says: Tiphys brought down the sailing ship into the seas, Jove placed it in the skies, Stevin on earth; that was not your work, Tiphys, nor Jove's. 5 Ep 5. Here two lines at the close of the epigram are added to two from the middle : Did he put on a chariot a mast bearing sals, or add wheels to a ship P The ship climbs the water, the chariot runs swiftly with air, and you may rightly say this flies, that swims. To A.D. 1663.] 163 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Grotius' mentions an elegant description of it in copper by One Geynius: And Hondius in one of his large maps of Asia, does give another conjectural description of the like chariots used in China. The form of it is related to be very simple and plain, after this manner. The body of it being somewhat like a boat, moving upon - §º-º§ º-º§ º§§ §-§-º §º §§§ § N §§ § *A § § R § º § § § º A § A SAILING CHARIOT. four wheels of an equal bigness, with two sails like those in a ship ; there being some contrivance to turn and steer it, by moving a rudder which is placed beyond the two hindmost wheels; and for the stopping of it, this must be done, either by letting down the sail, or turning it from the wind. Of this kind they have frequently in Holland other little vessels for one or two persons to go upon the ice, having sledges instead of wheels, being driven with a sail; the bodies of them like little boats, that if the ice should break, they might yet safely carry a man upon the water, where the sail would be still useful for the motion of it. I have often thought that it would be worth the experiment to enquire, whether or no such a sailing chariot might not be more conveniently framed with moveable sails, whose force may be impressed from their motion, equivalent to those in a wind-mill. Their foremost wheels (as in other chariots) for the greater facility, being somewhat lower than the other, answerable to this figure. In which the sails are so contrived, that the wind from any coast will have a force upon them to turn them about ; and the motion of these sails must needs turn the wheels, and consequently carry on the chariot itself to any place (though fully against the wind) whither it shall be directed. The chief doubt will be, whether in such a contrivance, every little ruggedness or unevenness of the ground, will not cause such a jolting of the chariot, as to hinder the motion of its sails. But this perhaps (if it should prove so) is capable of several remedies. I have often wondered, why none of our gentry who live near great plains, and smooth champions, have attempted anything to this purpose. The experiments of this kind being very pleasant, and not costly : what could be more º #: * - *- A CHARIOT ON THE WINDMILL PRINCIPLE. delightful, or better husbandry, than to make use of the wind (which costs nothing, and eats nothing) instead of horses? This being very easy to be effected by those, the convenience of whose habitations doth accommodate them for such experiments. Concerning the Possibility of Framing an Ark for Submarine Navigations. The Difficulties and Conveniences of such a Contrivance. It will not be altogether impertinent unto the discourse of these gradient Automata,” to mention what Mersennus doth so largely and pleasantly descant upon, concerning the making of a ship, wherein men may safely swim under the water. That such a contrivance is feasible, and may be effected, is beyond all question, because it hath been already experi- mented here in England by Cornelius Drebel; * but how to improve it unto public use and advantage, so as to be service- able for remote voyages, the carrying of any considerable number of men, with provisions and commodities, would be of such excellent use, as may deserve some further enquiry. 1 Epig. 20, 21. 2 “Tract. de Magnetis Proprietatibus.” 3 Cornelius van Drebbel, born at Alcmaer, in 1572, died in London 1634. He improved telescopes and microscopes, invented a thermo- meter, speculated on the possibility of producing rain and cold by machines. He is said to have invented scarlet dyeing, and given the secret to his daughter, whose husband, Cuffler, first practised the art. 164 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1648 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF Concerning which there are two things chiefly consider- able: - The many Difficulties with their Remedies. The Great Conveniences. 1. The difficulties are generally reducible to these three heads. 1. The letting out, or receiving in anything, as there shall be occasion, without the admission of water. If it have not such a convenience, these kind of voyages must needs be very dangerous and uncomfortable, both by reason of many noisome, offensive things, which should be thrust out, and many other needful things which should be received in. Now herein will consist the difficulty, how to contrive the opening of this vessel so, that anything may be put in or out, and yet the water not rush into it with much violence, as it doth usually in the leak of a ship. In which case, this may be a proper remedy; let there be certain leather bags made of several bignesses, which for the matter of them should be both tractable for the use and managing of them, and strong to keep out the water; for the figure of them, being long and open at both ends. Answer- able to these, let there be divers windows, or open places in the frame of the ship, round the sides of which one end of these bags may be fixed, the other end coming within the ship, being to open and shut as a purse. Now if we suppose this bag thus fastened, to be tied close about towards the window, then anything that is to be sent out, may be safely put into that end within the ship, which being again close shut, and the other end loosened, the thing may be safely sent out without the admission of any water. So again, when anything is to be taken in, it must be first received into that part of the bag towards the window, which being (after the thing is within it) close tied about, the other end may then be safely opened. It is easy to conceive, how by this means any thing or person may be sent out, or re- ceived in, as there shall be occasion; how the water, which will perhaps by degrees leak into several parts, may be emptied out again, with divers the like advantages. Though if there should be any leak at the bottom of this vessel, yet very little water would get in, because no air could get out. 2. The second difficulty in such an ark will be the motion or fixing of it according to occasion: the directing of it to several places, as the voyage shall be designed, without which, it would be very useless, if it were to remain only in one place, or were to remove only blindfold, without any certain direction: and the contrivance of this may seem very difficult, because these submarine navigators will want the usual advantages of winds and tides for motion, and the sight of the heavens for direction. But these difficulties may be thus remedied; as for the progressive motion of it, this may be effected by the help of several oars, which in the outward ends of them, shall be like the fins of a fish to contract and dilate. The passage where they are admitted into the ship being tied about with such leather bags (as were mentioned before) to keep out the water. It will not be convenient perhaps that the motion in these voyages should be very swift, because of those observa- tions and discoveries to be made at the bottom of the sea, which in a little space may abundantly recompense the slow- ness of its progress. If this ark be so ballast as to be of equal weight with the like magnitude of water, it will then be easily moveable in any part of it. As for the ascent of it, this may be easily contrived, if there be some great weight at the bottom of the ship (being part of its ballast) which by some cord within may be loosened from it: as this weight is let lower, so will the ship ascend from it (if need be) to the very surface of the water; and again, as it is pulled close to the ship, so will it descend. For direction of this ark, the Mariners’ Needle may be useful in respect of the latitude of places; and the course of this ship being more regular than others, by reason it is not subject to tempests or unequal winds, may more certainly guide them in judging of the longitude of places. 3. But the greatest difficulty of all will be this: how the air will be supplied for respiration: how constant fires may be kept in it for light and the dressing of food; how those vicissitudes of rarefaction and condensation may be main- tained. It is observed, that a barrel or cap, whose cavity will con- tain eight cubical feet of air, will not serve a urinator” or diver for respiration, above one quarter of an hour; the breath which is often sucked in and out, being so corrupted by the mixture of vapours, that nature rejects it as unservice- able. Now in an hour a man will need at least three hundred and sixty respirations, betwixt every one of which there shall be ten second minutes, and consequently a great change and supply of air will be necessary for many persons, and any long space. ſº And so likewise for the keeping of fire; a close vessel con- taining ten cubical feet of air, will not suffer a wax candle of an ounce to burn in it above an hour before it be suffocated ; though this proportion (saith Mersennus) doth not equally increase for several lights, because four flames of an equal magnitude will be kept alive the space of sixteen second minutes, though one of these flames alone in the same vessel will not last above thirty-five, or at most thirty seconds; which may be easily tried in large glass bottles, having wax candles lighted in them, and with their mouths inverted in water. For the resolution of this difficulty, though I will not say, that a man may, by custom (which in other things doth pro- duce such strange incredible effects) be enabled to live in the open water, as the fishes do, the inspiration and expiration of water serving instead of air, this being usual with many fishes that have lungs; yet it is certain, that long use and custom may strengthen men against many such incon- veniences of this kind, which to unexperienced persons may prove very hazardous: and so it will not perhaps be unto these so necessary, to have the air for breathing so pure and defecated, as is required for others. But further, there are in this case these three things con- siderable. 1. That the vessel itself should be of a large capacity, that as the air in it is corrupted in one part, so it may be purified and renewed in the other; or if the mere refrigeration of the air would fit it for breathing, this might be somewhat helped with bellows, which would cool it by motion. 2. It is not altogether improbable, that the lamps or fires in the middle of it, like the reflected beams in the first region, rarefying the air, and the circumambient coldness towards the sides of the vessel, like the second region, cooling and condensing of it, would make such a vicissitude and change of air, as might fit it for all its proper uses. 3. Or if neither of these conjectures will help, yet Mersennus2 tells us in another place, that there is in France one Barrieus a diver, who hath lately found out another art, whereby a man might easily continue under water for six hours together; and whereas ten cubical feet of air will not 1 Urinator, Latin, from “urinari,” to plunge under water. A diver. The word was used also by John Ray, a famous hotanist who was contemporary with John Wilkins. 2 “Harmon.,” 1. 4., prop. 6., Monit. 5. To A.D. 1605.] 165 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. serve another diver to breathe in for half an hour, he by the help of a cavity, not above one or two foot at most, will have breath enough for six hours, and a lanthorn scarce above the usual size to keep a candle burning as long as a man please, which (if it be true, and were commonly known) might be a sufficient help against this greatest difficulty. As for the many advantages and conveniences of such a contrivance, it is not easy to recite them. . 1. 'Tis private; a man may thus go to any coast of the world invisibly, without being discovered or prevented in his journey. 2. 'Tis safe; from the uncertainty of tides, and the violence of tempests, which do never move the sea above five or six paces deep. From pirates and robbers which do so infest other voyages: from ice and great frosts, which do so much endanger the passages towards the poles. 3. It may be of very great advantage against a navy of enemies, who by this means may be undermined in the water, and blown up. 4. It may be of special use for the relief of any place that is besieged by water, to convey unto them invisible supplies; and so likewise for the surprisal of any place that is accessible by water. 5. It may be of unspeakable benefit for submarine experi- ments and discoveries; as, the several proportions of swift- ness betwixt the ascent of a bladder, cork, or any other light substance, in comparison to the descent of stones or lead. The deep caverns, and subterraneous passages, where the sea- water, in the course of its circulation, doth vent itself into other places, and the like. The nature and kinds of fishes, the several arts of catching them, by alluring them with lights, by placing divers nets about the sides of this vessel, shooting the greater sort of them with guns, which may be put out of the ship by the help of such bags as were mentioned before, with divers the like artifices and treacheries, which may be more successfully practised by such who live so familiarly together. These fish may serve not only for food, but for fuel likewise, in respect of that oil which may be extracted from them; the way of dressing meat by lamps, being in many respects the most convenient for such a voyage. The many fresh springs that may probably be met with in the bottom of the sea, will serve for the supply of drink, and other occasions. But above all, the discovery of submarine treasures is more especially considerable; not only in regard of what hath been drowned by wrecks, but the several precious things that grow there; as pearl, coral, mines; with innumerable other things of great value, which may be much more easily found out, and fetched up by the help of this, than by any other usual way of the urinators. To which purpose, this great vessel may have some lesser cabins tied about it, at various distances; wherein several persons, as Scouts, may be lodged for the taking of observa- tions, according as the admiral shall direct them; some of them being frequently sent up to the surface of the water, as there shall be occasion. All kinds of arts and manufactures may be exercised in this vessel. The observations made by it, may be both written, and (if need were) printed here likewise. Several colonies may thus inhabit, having their children born, and bred up without the knowledge of land, who could not choose but be amazed with strange conceits upon the discovery of this upper world. I am not able to judge what other advantages there may be suggested, or whether experiment would fully answer to these notional conjectures. But, however, because the inven- tion did unto me seem ingenious and new, being not imperti- nent to the present enquiry, therefore I thought it might be worth the mentioning. Dr. Wilkins's house was a museum of curiosities, and his foremost place among scientific inquirers caused him to be a member of the first Council of the Royal Society, a society which Cowley honoured 8,S— So virtuous and so noble a design, So human for its use, for knowledge so divine— which was incorporated by letters patent, dated the 22nd of April, 1663. It was founded, as its letters patent said, to advance “philosophical studies, es- pecially those which endeavour by solid experiments either to reform or improve philosophy.” Soon after- wards Dr. Wilkins became Dean of Ripon, and in November, 1668, he was consecrated Bishop of Chester. That was four years before his death. It was in April, 1668, that Robert Boyle left Oxford for London. Among his Oxford friends, besides Dr. Wilkins, had been Dr. John Wallis and Dr. Seth Ward, the Savilian Professors of Geo- metry and Astronomy; Christopher Wren, then a Fellow of All Souls; and other men of science, among whom Boyle worked in his own way. He invented the air-pump at this time. The first conception of the air-pump is to be ascribed to Otto Guericke, a magistrate of Magdeburg, who constructed a rude machine about the year 1654, and showed experi- ments. Robert Boyle was at work in the same direction a little later. He had in his house as an assistant an ingenious man, Robert Hooke, who had been recommended to him by Dr. Thomas Willis, the physician. In 1658 or 1659 Hooke perfected Boyle's instrument, and produced an air-pump far surpassing the machine of Otto Guericke. Robert Hooke was made first Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society, and in 1664 its Professor of Mechanics. Robert Boyle, born in 1626, the year of Bacon's death, was the fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, who, with convenient opportunities, had gained large estates and an Earldom by taking advantage of the political condition of Ireland. In 1643, when the Earl died, Robert was a youth of seventeen, who had been educated at Eton and Geneva. With estate enough bequeathed to him, he followed the bent of his mind, and joined a deep religious feeling to a keen study of nature by way of experiment. Boyle published many little books that set forth the results of his inquiries or main- tained the union of science with religion. He never named God without a reverent pause ; refused to take orders with assurance of high church promotion; declined also the Presidency of the Royal Society because, although a Churchman, he would not be bound by test and oaths on taking office. He declined the Provostship of Eton, and several times refused a peerage. He remained unmarried until his death, in 1691, his elder sister, Lady Ranelagh, being his lifelong friend and housekeeper. He survived her only a week. In 1665 Boyle published some “Occasional Re- 166 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGINISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1665. flections upon several subjects: whereto is premised a Discourse about such kind of Thoughts.” He had ROBERT BOYLE. From the Frontispiece to his “ wº and Incentives to the Love of God,” 1670, written them early in life, but here is one upon the occasion of the Coronation of Charles II. :- AN OCCASIONAL REFLECTION Upon a Letter (received in April, 1662), containing an Account of what passed on the ſing’s Coronation Day, in a little Country Town. I need not, Pyrocles, after what we have been reading, tell you that the writer of this letter thinks that both in what he has said of the king, and what he has done to solemnize his coronation, he has behaved himself rarely well. For I doubt not, but you easily discern by his way of writing, that he is highly satisfied with his performances, and expects that he shall, if not be thanked by the king, at least be mentioned in the news-book. But it will, I fear, be requisite to tell you that this honest man is not alone of his mind; for being his landlord’s bailiff, he is esteemed at that rate by his neigh- bours, and looked upon as a man very considerable in his parish; and is perhaps thought to have a right to pity most of those that do not admire what he has now been doing. And yet, you and I, who pretend not to be courtiers, can, in his rural encomiums, and in his ill-contrived way of honour- ing his prince, easily discover so much that might have been mended, and so much that might be laughed at, that, if the king, according to his wonted graciousness, vouchsafe this action his smiles, it must not be in consideration of the suit- ableness of the performances to the occasion, but, partly as they proceed from a hearty, though ill-expressed, loyalty and love, and partly as they afford him a subject of merriment. And not only the nice critics, who have seen those magni- ficent solemnities, and heard the eloquent panegyrics, where- with the principal cities and assemblies in the nation have thought they did but part of what they should ; and not only those assiduous courtiers who, by the honour of a nearer access, have opportunities (denied to others) of discovering those particularities that may best give a high veneration for a great person and a great prince, to those that are qualified to discern and relish such things; not only these, I say, will have a quite other opinion of the rural praises, and antique ceremonies that were so well liked a hundred miles from London; but this countryman himself, if he were admitted to the Court and bred a while there, would in time see so great a distance betwixt what he has done, and what a person better bred might have done, that he could not remember without blushes, what he now looks upon with triumph. And now I must on this occasion confess to you, Pyrocles, that I have (on other rises') several times been revolving in my thoughts, what the angels think of those praises and descriptions of God that men devise (for I intend not here to speak of those the Scripture suggests) and wherein we are most applauded by others, and do oftentimes perchance ap- plaud ourselves. For those celestial courtiers (if I may so call them) have several advantages to assist them in the celebration of our common Master, which we poor mortals want. For first, they are free from those selfish and inordi- mate affections that too often hinder us either from discerning the excellency of divers of God's attributes and ways, or from duly acknowledging it. They have no sins to keep them from descrying the justness of what He does; they have no ingratitude to oppose the fuller resentments of His goodness; and they are not tempted not to discern and adore His wisdom, for fear they should appear culpable for repining at His dis- pensations. And, indeed, their longevity allowing them the full prospect from end to end of those intricate transactions of Providence of which short-lived mortals do commonly see but a part ; they are questionless far more satisfied with the incomparably better contrivances they discern in the manage- ment of human affairs, than we are with the conduct of plots of the most skilfully written plays and romances. Besides, those happy spirits, of whom the Scripture tells us that they stand before God and that they continually see His face, have by that privilege, the blessed opportunities of discovering in the Deity they contemplate and serve, many excellences which even they could never but by experience have formed any thoughts of; and they see in one another’s solemn adorations and praises, a way of honouring the object of them so much transcending the utmost of what we here aim at, that their homages to their Creator may well be supposed of a far nobler kind than ours. And lastly, when I consider how much less unworthy thoughts and expressions touching things divine the same person may have, when come to his full maturity of age and parts, and whilst he was but a child in both ; and when I consider, how much more advantageous conceptions of the wisdom displayed in the universe, and particularly in the contrivance of a human body, one that is a true philosopher and a skilful anatomist may have, in comparison of a man illiterate and unacquainted with dissec- tions: When, I say, I consider these things, and compare the dim twilight of human intellects in this life, with that clear and radiant light which the Scripture ascribes to angels, I cannot but think, that, having to the privilege of a much nearer access than is allowed us to contemplate God’s perfections, the advantage of having incomparably more illuminated intellects to apprehend them with, they must frame otherguess conceptions of the Divine attributes, and glorify the possessor at an otherguess rate, than is allowed to those, whose understandings are so dim, and whose residence is so remote from that blessed place, where the perfections they would extol are most displayed. Assisted by these and the like advantages, Pyrocles, those happy spirits may well frame notions and employ expressions in honour of their Maker, so far transcending ours that, 1 Rises, heights. A.D. 1665.] 167 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. though the angel’s goodness keeps them, doubtless, from beholding them with contempt, yet, we may well think, they look upon them with such a kind of pity, as that wherewith great wits and courtiers look upon the mistakes and imper- fections of what they did and writ when they were but schoolboys; and as that wherewith, when we shall be admitted to the society of the angels, we shall look back upon our former selves. No, Pyrocles, to praise God is a debt which, though we should ever be paying, we must always owe, not only because the renewed obligations will last as long as we, but because, though the entire sum were possible to be paid, we have no coin of the value that would be requisite to make a payment of that nature. It is true, indeed, that some men say much more than others upon a subject on which none can say enough, and which even the spirits of just men made perfect can but imperfectly celebrate. It may be, too, that the praises we pay to God procure us some from men, and perhaps even from orators and encomiasts; and though I hope no man can so flatter himself as to think he can flatter what he can never do right to ; yet the zealousness of our endea- vours, and the applause that others entertain them with, may perhaps tempt us to think that because in our expressions we have surpassed ourselves, we have almost equalled our theme: as if to make our praises too great for any other subject were sufficient to make them great enough for God. But alas, how widely must we be mistaken since our expressions, if we speak sense, can at best but fully represent our concep- tions, and those being but the notions of a finite creature, must needs fall extremely short of perfections, which were not what they are, if they were not infinite. No, when we have employed the loftiest hyperboles, and exhausted all the celebrating topics and figures of rhetoric; when we have dressed metaphysical abstractions in poetic raptures; when we have ransacked whatever things are most excellent among the creatures, and having defecated them, and piled them up together, have made that heap but a rise to take our soaring flight from ; when we have summed up, and left beneath our expressions all that we are here wont to acknowledge above them; nay, when instructed as well as inflamed and trans- ported by that inaccessible light that is inhabited by what we adore, we seem raised and elevated above all that is mortal, and above ourselves, and say things that nothing else could either inspire or merit; even then, I say, those expressions, which any otherwise applied would be hyperboles, do but express our devotion, not the divine object of it, and declare how much we honour Him, rather than what He is. And, indeed, none but the possessor of an infinite intellect can be able to say what the possessor of other infinite perfections deserves to have said of Him. And whatever zealous skill we praise God with, we do far less honour Him than injure Him, if we think our aspiringst praises can arrive so far, as I say not to reach, but so much as to approach their subject. But let not this inevitable impotence, Pyrocles, trouble or discourage us; those blessed souls that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes, do (as we are taught in the Apocalypse) make it their business, and find it their happiness, to spend a great part of their eternity in extolling Him, by whom they are placed in a condition where they can have no employ- ment but what is holy and noble. And even here below, the praising of God is a work, wherein we imitate though we do not equal the angels, and are busied in the same employment though not with the same skill. Nay, heaven itself exempts not its residents from an impotence which belongs to creatures, not as they are imperfect ones, but as they are creatures. Even the members of the Church Triumphant do not triumph over this necessary impotence; their praises may need pardon, even in a place where they can sin no more; and they can expect but from God's goodness, the acceptance of those praises that are improved as well as occasioned even by their being made partakers of His glory. Nay, even in the Pro- phet Isaiah's ecstatic vision, the Seraphims themselves that are introduced as answering one another's glad acclamations to God are likewise represented as covering (out of respect) their faces with their wings. But, Pyrocles, as I was saying, this unavoidable disability to say things worthy of God, need not at all trouble us; since we pay our homages to One, whose goodness our expressions can as little equal, as they can His other attributes. He that created us will not impute it to us that we act but as creatures: and since He has declared that where there is a willing mind a man is accepted according to what he has, and not according to what he has not, the impotence I have been speaking of, ought to bring us rather joy than trouble, since the infinite distance betwixt us, without lessening His favourable acceptance of our praises, supposes the boundless perfections of Him whom those praises (through His goodness) help to give us an interest in; and no son would repine at his Royal Father's greatness, how immense soever, being sure that greatness would not lessen his kindness. For it is less desirable to be able to describe the power and excellencies of him we have an interest in, than to have an interest in one whose power and goodness exceeds whatever we can say or fancy of them. To conclude, Pyrocles, since on the one side God is most truly said in the Scripture to be so glorious, that He is exalted above all blessing and praise, and consequently, though I could (to use St. Paul's phrase) speak with the tongues of men and angels, yet the highest things I could say of the Divine perfections must needs be, therefore, far below them, because a creature were able to say them. And, since on the other side, it is of us men that God vouchsafes to say, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me;” and His transcendent excellency is so far from being inconsistent with resembling graciousness, that such a benignity is one of the most conspicuous parts of it; I will not forbear to pay my praises unto One, whose deserving infinitely more than I can offer, keeps Him not from accepting as much less than He deserves. But then I must not presume to fill ‘my mouth with His praises, without sensibly acknowledging that there is not any subject whereon my expressions can want more eloquence, than on this subject; even eloquence itself would want expressions. From another of Robert Boyle's little books I add— AN OBSERVATION UPON WITIATED SIGHT. Some may think that a man has rather an excellent than a vitiated sight who can see objects with a far less degree of light than other men have need of to discern them. But though an extraordinary tenderness may be a kind of perfec- tion in the eyes of bats and owls, whose usual food may be more easily purchased” by twilight: yet as to man, the main part of whose actions is to be performed by the light of the day, or some other almost equivalent, it may argue the pro- vident goodness of the Author of Nature, to have given him eyes constituted as those of men generally are: since, that a very great tenderness of the retina, or principal part of the organ of sight, would be, if not an imperfection, at least a great inconvenience, may appear by the memorable story I am going to relate:— - In the army of the late king of happy memory (Charles I.), there was a gentleman of great courage and good parts, that 1 Purchased, obtained by chasing; from Fr. “pour” and “chasser.” 168 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1360 was major to one of the regiments; who, being afterwards by the prevailing usurpers forced to seek his fortune abroad, ventured to do his king a piece of service at Madrid, which was of an extraordinary nature and consequence, and there judged very irregular. Upon this he was committed to an uncommon prison, which, though otherwise tolerable enough, had no window at all belonging to it but a hole in the thick- ness of the wall, at which the keeper once or twice a day put in liberal provision of victuals and wine, and presently closed the window, if it may be so called, on the outside, but not perhaps very solicitously. For some weeks this poor gentle- man continued in the dark, very disconsolate. But after- wards he began to think he saw some little glimmering of light, which from time to time increased; insomuch, that he could not only discover the parts of his bed, and other such large objects, but at length came to discover things so minute that he could perceive the mice that frequented his chamber, to eat the crumbs of bread that fell upon the ground, and discern their motions very well. Several other effects of his sight in that dark place he related. And that which con- firms that this proceeded mainly from the great tenderness the visive organ had acquired by so long a stay in so obscure a place, was, that when after some months, the face of affairs abroad being somewhat changed, his liberty was restored him, he durst not leave his prison abruptly, for fear of losing his sight by the dazzling light of the day; and therefore was fain to accustom his eyes by slow degrees to the light. This strange, as well as once famous story, I the less scruple to set down in this place, because I had the curiosity to learn it from the gentleman's own mouth, who acquainted me with other particulars about it, that, for want of the notes I then took, I shall not now venture to speak of. Abraham Cowley joined the poet's love of nature with that of the man of science. He had actively served Charles I. and his queen, and had suffered for his loyalty ; but at the Restoration he found no favour at court, and sought none. He had praised Brutus in an ode, for which Charles II. thought it enough that Mr. Cowley was forgiven. In his CowLEY’s Hous E AT CHERTSEY. earlier manhood a studious and thoughtful nature had been drawn into the stream of politics, and shown its worth and its fidelity; but it was no dis- appointment to Cowley that after the Restoration the last seven years of his life—from 1660 to his death in 1667 — were spent in a seclusion that could give him wholly to himself. His narrow income was enlarged by the kindness of two patrons, Lord St. Albans and the Duke of Buckingham, and he sought a quiet home on the banks of the Thames, seldom visiting the city or the court. His first home by the Thames was at Barn Elms, where he suffered much from fever. He then went to Chertsey, where he lived at the Porch House, and there died in 1667 of a severe cold, caught in a hot summer-time, when staying too long among his labourers in the meadows. Cowley finished in these days of retire- ment his Latin poem in six books upon Plants. He also wrote the charming series of essays, in prose intermixed with verse, which dwell on the happiness of quiet life among the works of God, with leisure to make right use of one's mind. He looks from his Chertsey hermitage with compassion upon the man who is driven “sometimes to pitiful shifts in seeking how to avoid himself.” Thus Cowley writes OF GREATNESS. “Since we cannot attain to greatness,” says the Sieur de Montagn, “let’s have our revenge by railing at it.” This he spoke but in jest. I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had less reason, for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a most excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, separated and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be sequestered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of small authority, because I never was nor ever shall be put to the trial; I can therefore only make my protestation— If ever I more riches did desire Than cleanliness and quiet do require, If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat With any wish so mean as to be great, Continue, Heav'n, still from me to remove The humble blessings of that life I love. I know very many men will despise, and some pity me for this humour, as a poor spirited fellow ; but I’m content, and like Horace, thank God for being so. “Dii bene fecerunt, inopis me quoddue pusilli Finxerunt animi.” " I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast ; and if I were ever to fall in love again (which is a great passion, and therefore I hope I have done with it) it would be, I think, with prettiness rather than with majestical beauty. I would neither wish that my mistress nor my fortune should be a Bona Roba, nor as Homer uses to de- scribe his beauties, like a daughter of great Jupiter, for the stateliness and largeness of her person, but as Lucretius Says, “Parvula pumilio, Xapitov uta, total merum Sal.” Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thou- sand of Senecio's mind, whose ridiculous affectation of 1 Horace, Sat. I. iv. 17. It is well that the gods made me poor, because they shaped me with a little mind. 2 De Rerum Natura, IV., 1155. “The tiny dwarf is one of the graces, all pure essence.” From a description of the language of lovers, who find charm in all : “The black seem brown, the nasty negligent, Owl-eyed, like Pallas, and my heart’s content : The little dwarf is pretty, grace all o'er; The vast surprising ; and we must adore The stammering lips; ” &c.—Creech's Translation. To A.D. 1667.] 169 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. grandeur, Seneca the elder describes to this effect." Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to speak any but mighty words and sentences, till this humour grew at last into so notorious a habit, or rather disease, as became the sport of the whole town. He would have no servants, but huge massy fellows; no plate or house- hold stuff, but thrice as big as the fashion. You may believe me, for I speak it without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into such a madness, that he would not put on a pair of shoes each of which was not big enough for both his feet. He would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound-pears. He kept a concubine that was a very giantess, and made her walk too always in chiopins,” till at last he got the surname of Senecio Grandio, which, Messala said, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum.” When he declaimed for the three hundred Lacedemonians, who alone opposed Xerxes' army of above three hundred thousand, he stretched out his arms, and stood on tiptoes, that he might appear the taller, and cried out in a very loud voice, “I rejoice I rejoice!” We wondered, I remember, what new great fortune had befallen his eminence. “Xerxes,” says he, “is all mine own . He who took away the sight of the sea with the canvas vails of so many ships * —and then he goes on so as I know not what to make of the rest, whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burly way of nonsense. This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop, whom we stand amazed at, and yet there are few men who are not in some things and to some degrees Grandios. Is anything more common than to see our ladies of quality wear such high shoes as they cannot walk in without one to lead them P and a gown as long again as their body, so that they cannot stir to the next room without a page or two to hold it up P I may safely say, that all the ostentation of our grandees is just like a train of no use in the world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious. What is all this but a spice of Grandio P how tedious would this be if we were always bound to it? I do believe there is no king who would not rather be deposed than endure every day of his reign all the ceremonies of his coronation. The mightiest princes are glad to fly often from these majestic pleasures (which is, methinks, no small disparagement to them) as it were for refuge, to the most contemptible divertisements and meanest recreations of the vulgar, nay, even of children. One of the most powerful and fortunate princes of the world of late could find out no delight so satisfactory as the keeping of little singing birds, and hearing of them, and whistling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human great- ness (may, that would not suffice, for they would be gods too) they certainly possessed it; and yet one of them, who styled himself Lord and God of the Earth, could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending constantly two or three hours in catching of flies and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godship had been Beelzebub. One of his predecessors, Nero (who never put any bounds, nor met with any stop to his appetite), could divert himself with no pastime more agreeable than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, and abuse the women and affront the men whom he met, and sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them. This was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefest in the day was to sing and play upon a fiddle in the habit of a minstrel upon the public stage. He was prouder of the garlands that were given to his Divine voice (as they called it then) in those kind of prizes than all his forefathers were of their triumphs over nations. He did not at his death complain that so mighty an emperor, and the last of all the Caesarian race of deities, should be brought to so shameful and miserable an end, but only cried out, “Alas, what pity it is that so excellent a musician should perish in this manner!” His uncle, Claudius, spent half his time in playing at dice—that was the main fruit of his sovereignty. I omit the madness of Caligula’s delights, and the execrable sordid- ness of those of Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts of Nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of recreation, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding stones with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took delight in, for their prating and their wantonness P Was it for this that Rome's best blood he spilt, With so much falsehood, so much guilt P Was it for this that his ambition strove, To equal Capsar first and after Jove P Greatness is barren sure of solid joys; Her merchandise (I fear) is all in toys, She could not else sure so uncivil be, To treat His universal Majesty— His new-created Deity— With nuts and bounding-stones and boys. But we must excuse her for this meagre entertainment, she has not really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine; her guests must be contented sometimes with but slender cates, and with the same cold meats served over and over again, even till they became nauseous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and natural content- ment does there remain which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year 2 Not so many servants or horses, but a few good ones which will do all the business as well; not so many choice dishes at every meal, but at several meals all of them, which makes them both the more healthy and the more pleasant; not so rich garments, nor so frequent changes, but as warm and as comely, and so frequent change too as is every jot as good for the master, though not for the tailor or valet de chambre ; not such a stately palace, nor gilt rooms, or the costliest sorts of tapestry, but a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot and pretty forest-work hangings. Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that which I love most in both conditions), not whole woods cut in walks, nor vast parks, nor fountain, or cascade-gardens; but herb, and flower, and fruit-gardens, which are more useful, and the water every whit as clear and wholesome as if it darted from the breasts of a marble nymph, or the urn of a river god. If for all this you like better the substance of that former estate of life, do but consider the inseparable accidents of both—servitude, disquiet, danger, and most commonly guilt, inherent in the one; in the other, liberty, tranquillity, security, and innocence, and when you have thought upon this, you will confess that to be a truth which appeared to you before but a ridiculous paradox—that a low fortune is better guarded and attended than a high one. If indeed we look only upon the flourishing head of the tree, it appears a more beautiful object— 1 Reference is to the second of the “Suasoriae" of Marcus Annaeus Seneca. His son Lucius has Epist. ci. on the sudden death of another Senecio, who had heaped up riches and understood the art of keeping them. * Chiopins, high light frames covered with leather and worn under the shoe, to give height to the wearer. Ital. “scappino,” sock; Old Fr. “escapin.” Cowley adds the chiopins. * Cognomentum, augmentative from cognomen. This suggestion of Messala is in the original ; from which, indeed, the whole account of Senecio is a rather close translation. *' “Sed quantum vertice ad auras AEtherias tantum radice ad Tartara tendit.” ” * Virgil, Georgics II. 291. -* 198 170 LA. D. 1660 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. As far as up tºwards Heav'n the branches grow, So far the root sinks down to hell below. Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the most part in pitiful want and distress. What a wonderful thing is this Unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be greatness, it falls perpetually into such necessities as drive it into all the meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cousenage, and robbery, “Mancipiis locuples eget aeris Cappadocum Rex.” This is the case of almost all great men, as well as of the poor King of Cappadocia; they abound with slaves, but are indigent of money. The ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their revenue, had where withal to live (one would have thought) pretty well at ease, and to have been exempt from the pressures of extreme poverty; but yet with most of them it was much otherwise, and they fell perpetually into such miserable penury that they were forced to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds they must expend in vanity, so that they remain debtors for all the necessary provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy those debts, but out of the succours and supplies of rapine: as riches increases, says Solomon, so do the mouths that devour it. The master’s mouth has no more than before. The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable,” who is per- petually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the end perpetually eating it. Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is that no greatness can be satis- fied or contented with itself. Still if it could mount up a little higher it would be happy; if it could gain but that point it would obtain all its desires. But yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Peak of Tenarif, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no possibility of ascending upwards into the seat of tranquillity above the moon. The first ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are said to have made an heroical attempt of scaling heaven in despite of the gods, and they cast Ossa. upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa ; two or three moun- tains more they thought would have done their business, but the thunder spoiled all the work when they were come up to the third story. And what a noble plot was crossed, And what a brave design was lost. A famous person of their offspring, the late giant of our nation, when from the condition of a very inconsiderable captain he had made himself lieutenant-general of an army of little Titans, which was his first mountain, and afterwards general, which was the second, and after that absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent because he could not attain to the honest name of a king and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have compassed that he would perhaps have wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for want of the title of an emperor or a god. The reason of this is that greatness has no reality in nature, but a creature of the fancy, a notion that consists only in relation and comparison. It is indeed an idol; but St. Paul teaches us, “That an idol is nothing in the world.” There is in truth no rising or meridian of the sun, but only in respect to several places; there is no right or left, no upper hand in nature, everything is little and everything is great, according as it is diversely compared. There may be perhaps some village in Scotland or Ireland where I might be a great man ; and in that case I should be like Caesar (you would wonder how Caesar and I should be like one another in anything), and choose rather to be the first man of the village than second at Rome. Our country is called Great Britany, in regard only of a lesser of the same name ; it would be but a ridiculous epithet for it when we consider it together with the kingdom of China. That too is but a pitiful rood of ground in comparison of the whole earth besides; and this whole globe of earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold. The other many inconveniences of grandeur I have spoken of disperstly in several chapters, and shall end this with an ode of Horace, not exactly copied, but rudely imitated.” Among Cowley's Essays there is one especially interesting for the thoughtful glance it casts back over his own life as he nears its end. It is entitled OF MYSELF. It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself. It grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to the estima- tion of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew, or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a book or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then too so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which, I confess, I wonder at myself) may appear at the latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish, but of this part which I here set down (if a very little were cor- rected) I should hardly now be much ashamed— 1 Horace, Epist. I. vi. 39. slaves, wants money.” Many of the inhabitants of Cappadocia were slaves of the lowest kind, and Cicero speaks of their sovereign as the poorest of kings. * Propertius, IV. iii. 21. The fable represented an industrious man with an extravagant wife. -- “The King of the Cappadocians, rich in . This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. 3 The Ode is the 38th of the first book, “Persicos odi, puer, appa- ratus.” TO A.D. 1674.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone. The unknown are better than ill-known. Rumour can ope’ the grave, Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends. Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturb’d as death, the Inight. My house a cottage, more Than palace, and should fitting be For all my use, no luxury. My garden painted o'er With Nature's hand, not arts; and pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field. Thus would I double my life's fading space, For he that runs it well twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These umbought sports, that happy state, I would not fear nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them, I have liv'd to-day. You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace); and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved these characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there. For I remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother’s parlour (I know not by what accident, for she her- self never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there was wont to lie Spenser's Works. This I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there (though my understanding had little to do with all this), and by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence by that violent public storm which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest ; for I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses of the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my life—that is, into much company and no small business, and into a daily fight of greatness, both militant and triumphant (for that was the state then of the English and French Courts)—yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with when, for ought I knew, it was real, was not likely to loewitch or entice me when I saw that it was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which ride safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach if it did with my courage; though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old school-boy's wish in a copy of verses to the same effect— Weil then; I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c. And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his Majesty's happy Restoration, but the getting into Some moderately-convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed as well as some others, who with no greater probabilities or pretences have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophesy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance of it— Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, Nor at th' Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; Content thyself with the small barren praise Which neglected verse does raise, &c.1 However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it d corps perdu,” without making capitulations or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, “Take thy ease.” I met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine; yet I do neither repent nor alter my course. “Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum : ”* nothing shall separate me from a mis- tress which I have loved so long, and have now at last married ; though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her. “—Nec vos dulcissima mundi Nomina, vos Musae, Libertas, Otia, Libri, Hortique Sylvaeque anima remanente relinquam.” Nor by me e'er shall you, You of all names the sweetest and the best, You muses, books, and liberty and rest ; You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, As long as life itself forsakes not me. But this is a very pretty ejaculation; because I have con- cluded all the other chapters with a copy of verses, I will maintain the humour to the last. If we leave Chertsey for London, where the critics feed upon the wits and the wits feed on the follies of the day, there is John Dryden busy upon Heroic Plays, and about two years after the Duke of Buckingham's clever caricature of the nonsense of them in the “Rehearsal,” Dryden, who, in prefaces and dedications to the printed copies of his plays, was proving himself one of the best critics of the day, wrote—in 1674, before his transformation of “Para- dise Lost” into an opera, “The State of Innocence”— JOHN DRYDEN’s APOLOGY FOR HERO1C POETRY AND POETIC LICENSE. To satisfy the curiosity of those who will give themselves the trouble of reading the ensuing poem, I think myself obliged to render them a reason, why I publish an Opera 1 Pindar, “Ode to Destiny.” * A corps perd (, headlong; with might and main; with heart and soul. 8 Horace, Odes, II, xvii. 9. “I have not uttered a false vow.” 172 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1674. CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF which was never acted. In the first place, I shall not be ashamed to own, that my chiefest motive was the ambition which I acknowledged in the epistle. I was desirous to lay at the feet of so beautiful and excellent a princess, a work which, I confess, was unworthy her ; but which I hope she will have the goodness to forgive. I was also induced to it in my own defence, many hundred copies of it being dispersed abroad, without my knowledge or consent; so that everyone gathering new faults, it became at length a libel against me; and I saw, with some disdain, more nonsense than either I, or as bad a poet could have crammed into it, at a month's warning; in which time, it was wholly written, and not since revised. After this, I cannot, without injury to the deceased author of Paradise Lost, but acknowledge that this poem has received its entire foundation, part of the design, and many of the ornaments from him. What I have borrowed, will be so easily discerned from my mean produc- tions, that I shall not need to point the reader to the places: and truly, I should be sorry, for my own sake, that anyone should take the pains to compare them together, the original being undoubtedly one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems, which either this age or nation has produced. And though I could not refuse the partiality of my friend, who is pleased to commend me in his verses, I hope they will rather be esteemed the effect of his love to me, than of his deliberate and sober judgment. His genius is able to make beautiful what he pleases: yet, as he has been too favourable to me, I doubt not but he will hear of his kind- ness from many of our contemporaries: for we are fallen into an age of illiterate, censorious, and detracting people; who, thus qualified, set up for critics. In the first place, I must take leave to tell them, that they wholly mistake the nature of criticism, who think its business is principally to find fault. Criticism, as it was first insti- tuted by Aristotle, was meant a standard of judging well. The chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which should delight a reasonable reader. If the design, the conduct, the thoughts, and the expressions of a poem, be general, such as proceed from a true genius of poetry, the critic ought to pass his judgment in favour of the author. 'Tis malicious and unmanly to snarl at the little lapses of a pen, from which Virgil himself stands not exempted. Horace acknowledges that honest Homer nods sometimes: he is not equally awake in every line. But he leaves it also as a standing measure for our judgments: ——Non, ubi plura nitent in carmine, paucis Offendi maculis, quas aut incuria fudit Aut humana parum cavit matura. And Longinus, who was undoubtedly, after Aristotle, the greatest critic among the Greeks, in his twenty-seventh chapter” trep) iſ povs, has judiciously preferred the sublime genius that sometimes errs, to the middling or indifferent one which makes few faults, but seldom or never rises to any excellence. He compares the first to a man of large possessions, who has not leisure to consider of every slight expense, will not debase himself to the management of every trifle : particular sums are not laid out or spared to the greatest advantage in his economy, but are T. sometimes * Ars Poetica, lines 351–3, with the first words adapted to the English context “—Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis.” “Where many things shine in a poem I will not be offended by a few spots that carelessness scattered, or that human nature may hardly guard against.” * It is the thirty-third section which shows that the sublime with a few faults is better than a faultless mediocrity. suffered to run to waste, while he is only careful of the main. On the other side, he likens the mediocrity of wit to one of a mean fortune, who manages his store with extreme fru- gality, or rather parsimony; but who, with fear of running into profuseness, never arrives to the magnificence of living. This kind of genius writes indeed correctly: a wary man he is in grammar; very nice as to solecism or barbarism, judges to a hair of little decencies, knows better than any man what is not to be written, and never hazards himself so far as to fall; but plods on deliberately, and, as a grave man ought, is sure to put his staff before him ; in short, he sets his heart upon it, and with wonderful care makes his business sure; that is, in plain English, neither to be blamed nor praised. I could, saith my author, find out some blemishes in Homer; and am, perhaps, as naturally inclined to be disgusted at a fault as another man. But, after all, to speak impartially, his failings are such, as are only marks of human frailty; they are little mistakes, or rather negligences, which have escaped his pen in the fervour of his writing ; the sublimity of his spirit carries it with me against his carelessness. And though Apollonius his Argonautes, and Theocritus his Eidullia, are more free from errors, there is not any man of so false a judgment, who would choose rather to have been Apollonius or Theocritus, than Homer. 'Tis worth our consideration, a little to examine how much these hypercritics of English poetry differ from the opinion of the Greek and Latin judges of antiquity; from the Italians and French, who have succeeded them ; and, indeed, from the general taste and approbation of all ages. Heroic poetry, which they contemn, has ever been esteemed, and ever will be, the greatest work of human nature; in that rank has Aristotle placed it, and Longinus is so full of the like expressions, that he abundantly confirms the other's testi- mony. Horace as plainly delivers his opinion, and particu- larly praises Homer in these verses: “Trojani belli scriptorem, maxime Lolli, Dum tu declamas Roma, Praeneste relegi ; Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.” 8 And in another place, modestly excluding himself from the number of poets, because he only wrote Odes and Satires, he tells you a poet is such an one : “—Cui mens divinior atque os Magna, sonaturum.” + Quotations are superfluous in an established truth, other- wise I could reckon up amongst the moderns, all the Italian commentators on Aristotle's Book of Poetry; amongst the French, the greatest in this age, Boileau and Rapin ; * the latter of which is alone sufficient, were all other critics lost, to teach anew the rules of writing. Any man who will seriously consider the nature of an epic poem, how it agrees with that of poetry in general, which is to instruct and to delight; what actions it describes, and what persons they are chiefly whom it informs; will find it a work which indeed is full of difficulty in the attempt, but admirable when 'tis well performed. I write not this with the least intention to undervalue the other parts of poetry; for comedy is both 8 Horace, Epist. I. ii. 1–3. “While you declaim in Rome, greatest Lollius, I have read over again at Praeneste the writer of the Trojan war, who tells what is fair, what foul, what useful and what not, more clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor.” 4 Horace, Satires, I. iv. 44, 45. “To him whose wit, whose mind is diviner and whose mouth is to utter great things, give the honour of this name.” + 5 Réné Rapin, born in 1621, was living until thirteen years after this was written. He was a Jesuit who taught belles-lettres, and whose books of criticism, now unread, had a great reputation in their time. A.D. 1674.] 173 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. excellently instructive, and extremely pleasant : satire lashes vice into reformation, and humour represents folly so as to render it ridiculous. Many of our present writers are eminent in both these kinds; and particularly the author of the Plain-Dealer," whom I am proud to call my friend, has obliged all honest and virtuous men, by one of the most bold, most general, and most useful satires which has ever been presented on the English theatre. I do not dispute the preference of tragedy: let every man enjoy his taste; but 'tis unjust that they who have not the least notion of heroic writing, should therefore condemn the pleasure which others receive from it, because they cannot comprehend it. Let them please their appetites in eating what they like; but let them not force their dish on all the table. They who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men. Are all the flights of heroic poetry to be concluded bombast, unnatural, and mere madness, because they are not affected with their excellences P 'Tis just as reasonable as to conclude there is no day, because a blind man cannot distinguish of light and colours; ought they not rather in modesty to doubt of their own judgments, when they think this or that expression in Homer, Virgil, Tasso, or Milton’s Paradise, to be too far strained, than positively to conclude, that 'tis all fustian and mere nonsense P 'Tis true, there are limits to be set betwixt the boldness and rashness of a poet; but he must understand those limits who pretends to judge, as well as he who undertakes to write ; and he who has no liking to the whole, ought in reason to be excluded from censuring of the parts. He must be a lawyer before he mounts the tribunal; and the judicature of one court too, does not qualify a man to preside in another. He may be an excellent pleader in the Chancery, who is not fit to rule the Common Pleas. But I will presume for once to tell them, that the boldest strokes of poetry, when they are managed artfully, are those which most delight the reader. Virgil and Horace, the severest writers of the severest age, have made frequent use of the hardest metaphors, and of the strongest hyperboles: and in this case the best authority is the best argument. For generally to have pleased, through all ages, must bear the force of universal tradition. And if you would appeal from thence to right reason, you will gain no more by it in effect, than first, to set up your reason against those authors; and secondly, against all those who have admired them. You must prove why that ought not to have pleased, which has pleased the most learned, and the most judicious: and to be thought knowing, you must first put the fool upon all mankind. If you can enter more deeply than they have done, into the causes and resorts of that which moves pleasure in a reader, the field is open, you may be heard: But those springs of human nature are not so easily discovered by every superficial judge: it requires philosophy as well as poetry to sound the depth of all the passions; what they are in themselves, and how they are to |be provoked; and in this science the best poets have excelled. Aristotle raised the fabric of his poetry, from observations of those things, in which Euripides, Sophocles, and AEschylus pleased; he considered how they raised the passions, and thence has drawn rules for our imitation. From hence have sprung the tropes and figures, for which they wanted a name, who first practised them, and succeeded in them : thus I grant you, that the knowledge of nature was the original rule, and that all poets ought to study her, as well as 1 The author of the Plain-Dealer, William Wycherley, who is repre- sented by “The Plain-Dealer” in the volume of this Library con- taining “English Plays,” pages 359—363. Aristotle and Horace her interpreters. But then this also undeniably follows, that those things which delight all ages, must have been an imitation of nature; which is all I con- tend. Therefore is rhetoric made an art; therefore the names of so many tropes and figures were invented; because it was observed they had such and such an effect upon the audience. Therefore catachreses and hyperboles have found their place amongst them ; not that they are to be avoided, but to be used judiciously, and placed in poetry, as height- nings and shadows are in painting, to make the figure bolder, and cause it to stand off to sight. & & Necretia cervis Ulla dolum meditantur,” 2 Says Virgil in his Eclogues. his Georgicks: “Caeca nocte natat serus freta; quem super, ingens Porta tomat coeli; et scopulis illisa reclamant AEquora : ” 3. In both of these, you see, he fears not to give voice and thought to things inanimate. Will you arraign your Master Horace for his hardness of expression, when he describes the death of Cleopatra P and says she did “Asperas tractare serpentes, ut atrum corpore combiberet venenum ?”* because the body in that action performs what is proper to the mouth. As for hyperboles, I will neither quote Lucan nor Statius, men of an unbounded imagination, but who often wanted the poise of judgment. The divine Virgil was not liable to that exception; and yet he describes Polyphemus thus: And speaking of Leander in Graditurque per acquor Jam medium; necdum fluctus latera ardua timxit.” 5 In imitation of this place, our admirable Cowley thus paints Goliah: “The valley, now, this monster seem'd to fill; And we, methought, look'd up to him from our hill.” Where the two words, seem'd and methought, have mollified the figure; and yét if they had not been there, the fright of the Israelites might have excused their belief of the giant's stature. In the eighth of the AEneids, Virgil paints the swiftness of Camilla thus: “Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret Gramina, mec teneras cursu lassisset aristas: Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti, Ferret iter, celeris nectingeret acquore plantas.” 6 You are not obliged, as in history, to a literal belief of what the poet says: but you are pleased with the image, without being couzened by the fiction. Yet even in history, Longinus quotes Herodotus on this occasion of hyperboles. The Lacedemonians, says he, at the Straits of Thermopylae, defended themselves to the last extremity; and when their arms failed them, fought it out with their nails and teeth ; till at length (the Persians shoot- ing continually upon them) they lay buried under the arrows * Ecl. v. 1. 60. Nor any nets plan fraud upon the deer. * Georgics iii., lines 230—3, “Nocte natat casca,” &c. “The youth who braves weather for love, belated swims the strait in the dark night, while the great gate of heaven thunders over him, and waters shattered on the rocks cry out against him.” * Horace, Ode I., xxxvii. 27. Cleopatra drank the poison of asps “with her body.” 5 “AEneid” iii., 663, 4– “Through seas he strides, And scarce the topmost billows touch his sides.”—Dryden’s Tr. * Not the eighth, but the seventh book, at the end— “Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain: She swept the seas, and as she skimmed along, Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.”—Dryden’s Tr. 174 [A.D. 1674 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. of their enemies. It is not reasonable (continues the Critic) to believe that men could defend themselves with their nails and teeth from an armed multitude; nor that they lay buried under a pile of darts and arrows: and yet there wants not probability for the figure, because the hyperbole seems not to have been made for the sake of the description, but rather to have been produced from the occasion. 'Tis true, the boldness of the figures are to be hidden sometimes by the address of the poet, that they may work their effect upon the mind, without discovering the art which caused it; and therefore they are principally to be used in passion, when we speak more warmly, and with more preci- pitation than at other times: For then, “ Si vis me fiere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi; ” the poet must put on the passion he endeavours to represent. A man in such an occa- sion is not cool enough, either to reason rightly, or to talk calmly. Aggravations are then in their proper places; inter- rogations, exclamations, hyperbata, or a disordered connection of discourse, are graceful there, because they are natural. The sum of all depends on what before I hinted, that this boldness of expression is not to be blamed, if it be managed by the coolness and discretion which is necessary to a poet. Yet before I leave this subject, I cannot but take notice how disingenuous our adversaries appear: all that is dull, insipid, languishing, and without sinews in a poem, they call an imitation of nature : they only offend our most equitable judges, who think beyond them; and lively images and elocution are never to be forgiven. What fustian, as they call it, have I heard these gentlemen find out in Mr. Cowley's Odes? I acknowledged myself unworthy to defend so excellent an author: neither have I room to do it here ; only in general I will say, that nothing can appear more beautiful to me, than the strength of those images which they condemn. Imaging is, in itself, the very height and life of poetry. 'Tis, as Longinus describes it, a discourse, which by a kind of enthusiasm, or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints, so as to be pleased with them, and to admire them. If poetry be imitation, that part of it must needs be best, which describes most lively our actions and passions, our virtues and our vices, our follies and our humours; for neither is comedy without its part of imaging; and they who do it best, are certainly the most excellent in their kind. This is too plainly proved to be denied. But how are poetical fictions, how are Hippocentaurs and Chimaeras, or how are angels and immaterial substances to be imaged; which, some of them, are things quite out of nature; others, such whereof we can have no notion ? This is the last refuge of our adversaries, and more than any of them have yet had the wit to ooject against us. The answer is easy to the first part of it. The fiction of some beings which are not in nature (second notions as the logicians call them) has been founded on the conjunction of two natures, which have a real separate being. So Hippocentaurs were imaged by joining the natures of a man and horse together, as Lucretius tells us, who has used this word of image oftener than any of the poets. “Nam certe ex vivo Centauri non fit imago, Nulla fuit quoniam talis matura animantis: Verum ubi equi atque hominis casu convenit imago, Haerescit facile extemplo, &c.” The same reason may also be alleged for Chimaeras and the rest. And poets may be allowed the like liberty, for 1 “De Rerum Natura " iv. 739—742, “For assuredly no image of Centaur is ever formed out of a live one, since no such mature of living creature ever existed ; but when images of a horse and man have by chance come together, they readily adhere at once,” &c. describing things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular belief. Of this nature are fairies, pigmies, and and the extraordinary effects of magic: for ’tis still an imita- tion, though of other men’s fancies; and thus are Shake- speare's Tempest, his Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ben Jonson’s Mask of Witches, to be defended. For immaterial substances we are authorised by scripture in their description ; and herein the text accommodates itself to vulgar apprehen- sion, in giving angels the likeness of beautiful young men. Thus, after the pagan divinity, has Homer drawn his gods with human faces: and thus we have notions of things above us, by describing them like other beings more within our knowledge. - I wish I could produce any one example of excellent imaging in all this poem : perhaps I cannot; but that which comes nearest it, is in these four lines, which have been sufficiently canvased by my well-natured censors: Seraph and Cherub, careless of their charge, And wanton, in full ease now live at large; Unguarded leave the passes of the sky, And all dissolv’d in hallelujahs lie. I have heard (says one of them) of anchovies dissolved in sauce, but never of an angel in hallelujahs. A mighty witticism (if you will pardon a new word) but there is some difference between a laugher and a critic. He might have burlesqued Virgil too, from whom I took the image: “Invadunt urbem, somno vimoque; sepultam.” 8 A city’s being buried, is just as proper on occasion, as an angel’s being dissolved in ease and songs of triumph. Mr. Cowley lies as open too in many places: “Where their vast courts the mother waters keep, &c.” IFor if the mass of waters be the mothers, then their daughters, the little streams, are bound in all good manners to make curtsy to them, and ask them blessing. How easy 'tis to turn into ridicule the best descriptions, when once a man is in the humour of laughing till he wheezes at his own dull jest But an image which is strongly and beautifully set before the eyes of the reader, will still be poetry when the merry fit is over; and last when the other is forgotten. I promised to say somewhat of poetic license, but have in part anticipated my discourse already. Poetic license, I take to be the liberty which poets have assumed to themselves in all ages, of speaking things in verse, which are beyond the severity of prose. 'Tis that particular character which distinguishes and sets the bounds betwixt Oratio soluta 8 and poetry. This, as to what regards the thought, or imagina- tion of a poet, consists in fiction; but then those thoughts must be expressed; and here arise two other branches of it: for if this license be included in a single word, it admits of tropes; if in a sentence or proposition, of figures; both which, are of a much larger extent, and more forcibly to be used in verse than prose. This is that birthright which is derived to us from our great forefathers, even from Homer down to Ben. And they who would deny it to us, have, in plain terms, the fox's quarrel to the grapes, they cannot reach it. How far these liberties are to be extended, I will not pre- sume to determine here, since Horace does not. But it is certain, that they are to be varied according to the language and age in which an author writes. That which would be allowed to a Grecian poet, Martial tells you, would not be suffered in a Roman. And 'tis evident that the English does more nearly follow the strictness of the latter, than the freedoms of the former. Connection of epithets, or the con- 2 “AEmeid” ii. 265. “They invade the city buried in sleep and wine.” 8 Oratio soluta, prose. To A.D. 1638.] 175 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. junction of two words in one, are frequent and elegant in the Greek; which yet Sir Philip Sidney, and the translator of Du Bartas, have unluckily attempted in the English; though this, I confess, is not so proper an instance of poetic license, as it is of variety of idiom in languages. Horace a little explains himself on this subject of Licentia Poetica in these verses: & & —Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aqua potestas: Sed mon, ut placidis coéant immitia, non ut Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.” " He would have a poem of a piece; not to begin one thing and end with another: he restrains it so far, that thoughts of an unlike nature ought not to be joined together. That were indeed to make a chaos. He taxed not Homer, nor the divine Virgil, for interessing their gods in the wars of Troy and Italy: neither, had he now lived, would he have taxed Milton, as our false critics have presumed to do, for his choice of a supernatural argument; but he would have blamed any author who was a Christian, had he introduced into his poems heathen deities, as Tasso is condemned by Rapin on the like occasion: and as Camoëns, the author of the Lusiads, ought to be censured by all his readers, when he brings in Bacchus and Christ into the same adventure of his fable. From that which has been said, it may be collected, that the definition of wit (which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully, by many poets) is only this, that it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject. If our critics will join issue on this definition, that we may “convenire in aliquo tertio; " if they will take it as a granted principle, 'twill be easy to put an end to the dispute. No man will disagree from another's judgment concerning this dignity of style in Heroic Poetry; but all reasonable men will conclude it necessary, that sublimest subjects ought to be adorned with the sublimest, and (consequently often) with the most figurative expressions. In the meantime, I will not run into their faults of imposing my opinions on other men, any more than I would my writings on their tastes: I have only laid down, and that Superficially enough, my present thoughts; and shall be glad to be taught better, by those who pretend to reform our poetry. Among the wits also there was a woman, Mrs. Aphra Behn, who put a woman's heart into at least one of her works, although she wrote plays that had to please the profligate, who were then chief patrons of comedy, and novels not always so true in tone as that for which she is best remembered. She was born at Canterbury in 1642. Her father, General Johnson, was sent out as Governor to Surinam when Aphra was very young. He died on the passage, but his widow and family settled in Surinam, where the English girl turned sick at heart from the cruelties of slavery, and became strongly interested in a slave—Oroonoko—who had been a prince in his own country. In later years, she married a Dutch merchant, Mr. Behn, after whose death she had to support herself, and did so by writing seventeen plays, besides short novels, poems, model love-letters, translations. She had served Charles II. as a political spy in Holland, during the Dutch war, before she turned playwright, but while she wrote much that was addressed to the corrupt taste of the town in her day, her industry is in some sense evidence of her honesty until her death in April, 1689. She had to earn her bread by diligent use of her brains, and we cannot think unkindly of the woman who among the frivolous remembered the wrongs of the negro, and made a brave use of her popularity by seeking to win English sympathy for the slave, and show that under the black skin, broken by the whip, there might be housed the soul of a nobler creature than his master. This is Mrs. Behn's novel of “Oroonoko,” which struck, in English literature, out of a woman's º º % % ººº - º M .* 3 #4 º % % % º zº */ % APHRA BEHN. (From the Portrait preſiaſed to her Novels.) heart, the first note of condemnation against one of the worst wrongs of life. I have omitted only a few innocent words in which Mrs. Behn indicates love from the animal side more directly than we now think fit. When Thomas Southerne, in 1696, with much variation of incident, turned the novel into a play, the princely Negro shamed the meanness of slave-driving with a new voice from the stage.” THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL, SLAVE. I do not pretend, in giving you the History of this Royal Slave, to entertain my Reader with the Adventures of a feign'd JHero, whose Life and Fortunes Fancy may manage at the Poet's pleasure; nor in relating the Truth, design to adorn it with any Accidents, but such as arrived in earnest to him : And it shall come simply into the World, recommended by its own proper Merits, and natural Intrigues; there being enough of Reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of Invention, - I was my self an Eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down ; and what I cou’d not be Witness of, I receiv'd from the Mouth of the chief Actor in this History, the Hero himself, who gave us the whole Transactions of his Youth: And though I shall omit, for brevity's sake, a thousand little Accidents of his Life, which, however pleasant to us, where History was scarce, and Adventures very rare, yet 1 “Ars Poetica,” lines 9–12. “Painters and poets had always an equal right to be daring ; but not so as to mix “the cruel and the kind, Serpents with birds, and lambs with tigers joined.”—Francis’s Tr. * See, in this Library, “English Plays,” page 394. 176 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 might prove tedious and heavy to my Reader, in a World where he finds Diversions for every Minute, new and strange. But we who were perfectly charm'd with the Character of this great Man, were curious to gather every Circumstance of his Life. - The Scene of the last part of his Adventures lies in a Colony in America, called Surinam, in the West-Indies." But before I give you the Story of this Gallant Slave, ’tis fit I tell you the manner of bringing them to these new Colonies ; those they make use of there, not being Natives of the place: for those we live with in perfect Amity, without daring to command ’em ; but, on the contrary, caress 'em with all the brotherly and friendly Affection in the world: trading with them for their Fish, Venison, Buffalo's Skins, and little Rarities; as Marmosets, a sort of Monkey, as big as a Rat or Weasel, but of a marvellous and delicate shape, having Face and Hands like a Human Creature; and Cousheries,” a little Beast in the form and fashion of a Lion, as big as a Kitten, but so exactly made in all Parts like that Noble Beast, that it is it in Miniature. Then for little Paraketoes, great Parrots, Muckaws, and a thousand other Birds and Beasts of wonderful and surprizing Forms, Shapes, and Colours. For Skins of prodigious Snakes, of which there are some threescore Yards in length; as is the Skin of one that may be seen at his Majesty’s Antiquary's ; where are also some rare Flies, of amazing Forms and Colours, presented to 'em by my self; some as big as my Fist, some less; and all of various Ex- cellencies, such as Art cannot imitate. Then we trade for Feathers, which they order into all Shapes, make themselves little short Habits of 'em, and glorious Wreaths for their Heads, Necks, Arms and Legs, whose Tinctures are uncon- ceivable. I had a Set of these presented to me, and I gave 'em to the Kings Theatre, and it was the Dress of the Indian Queen,” infinitely admir’d by Persons of Quality; and was unimitable. Besides these, a thousand little Knacks, and Rarities in Nature; and some of Art, as their Baskets, Weapons, Aprons, &c. We dealt with 'em with Beads of all Colours, Knives, Axes, Pins and Needles; which they us’d only as Tools to drill Holes with in their Eares, Noses and Lips, where they hang a great many little things; as long Beads, bits of Tin, Brass or Silver beat thin, and any shining Trinket. The Beads they weave into Aprons about a Quarter of an Ell long, and of the same breadth; working them very prettily in Flowers of several Colours; which Apron they wear just before 'em, as Adam and Eve did the Fig-leaves; the Men wearing a long stripe of Linen, which they deal with us for. They thread these Beads also on long Cotton-threads, and make Girdles to tie their Aprons to, which come twenty times, or more, about the Waste, and then cross, like a Shoulder-belt, both ways, and round their Necks, Arms and Legs. This Adornment, with their long black Hair, and the Face painted in little Specks or Flowers here and there, makes 'em a won- derful Figure to behold. Some of the beauties, which indeed are finely shap’d, as almost all are, and who have pretty Features, are charming and novel; for they have all that is called Beauty, except the Colour, which is a reddish Yellow; or after a new Oiling, which they often use to themselves, they are of the Colour of a new Brick, but smooth, soft and * Surinam in the West-Indies, West Indies not in the present more restricted sense. Surinam is on the mainland to the south-east of the West India Islands; the Dutch part of Guiana. * Cousheries. The Puma, called the American Lion, is called also Couguar, a French form of the Paraguayan word Gouazouara; but the full-grown Puma, four feet long, plus two feet of tail, would be, as to its size, no kitten. Perhaps the jaguar is meant. * The Indian Queen, by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, acted in January, 1664. See, in this Library, the volume of “English Plays,” pages 327–331. - sleek. They are extreme modest and bashful, very shy, and nice of being touch’d. And though they are all thus naked, if one lives for ever among 'em, there is not to be seen an undecent Action, or Glance: and being continually us’d to see one another so unadorn'd, so like our first Parents before the Fall, it seems as if they had no Wishes, there being nothing to heighten Curiosity; but all you can see, you see at once, and every moment see; and where there is no Novelty, there can be no Curiosity. Not but I have seen a handsome young Indian, dying for Love of a very beautiful young Indian Maid; but all his Courtship was, to fold his Arms, pursue her with his Eyes, and Sighs were all his Language : While she, as if no such Lover were present, or rather as if she desired none such, carefully guarded her Eyes from beholding him ; and never approach’d him, but she look’d down with all the blushing Modesty I have seen in the most severe and cautious of our World. And these People represented to me an abso- lute Idea of the first State of Innocence, before Man knew how to sin : And 'tis most evident and plain, that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive and virtuous Mis- tress. "Tis she alone, if she were permitted, that better instructs the World, than all the Inventions of Man: Religion wou’d here but destroy that Tranquillity they possess by Ignorance; and Laws wou’d but teach 'em to know Offence, of which now they have no Notion. They once made mourn- ing and fasting for the Death of the English Governor, who had given his Hand to come on such a day to 'em, and neither came nor sent; believing, when a Man's word was past, nothing but Death cou’d or shou’d prevent his keeping it: And when they saw he was not dead, they ask’d him what Name they had for a Man who promis'd a thing he did not do? The Governor told them, Such a Man was a Lyar, which was a Word of Infamy to a Gentleman. Then one of 'em reply'd, Governor, you are a Lyar, and guilty of that Infany. They have a native Justice, which knows no Fraud; and they understand no Vice, or Cunning, but when they are taught by the White Men. They have Plurality of Wives; which, when they grow old, serve those that succeed 'em, who are young, but with a Servitude easy and respected; and unless they take Slaves in War, they have no other Attendants. - Those on that Continent where I was, had no King; but the oldest War-Captain was obey'd with great Resignation. A War-Captain is a Man who has led them on to Battle with Conduct and Success; of whom I shall have occasion to speak more hereafter, and of some other of their Customs and Manners, as they fall in my way. With these People, as Isaid, we live in perfect Tranquillity, and good Understanding, as it behoves us to do; they knowing all the places where to seek the best Food of the Country, and the means of getting it; and for very small and unvaluable Trifles, supply us with what 'tis impossible for us to get: for they do not only in the Woods, and over the Sewana's, in Hunting, supply the parts of Hounds, by swiftly scouring through those almost impassable Places, and by the mere Activity of their Feet run down the nimblest Deer, and other eatable Beasts; but in the Water, one wou'd think they were Gods of the Rivers, or Fellow-Citizens of the deep ; so rare an Art they have in swimming, diving, and almost living in Water; by which they command the less swift Inhabitants of the Floods. And then for shooting, what they cannot take or reach with their Hands, they do with Arrows; and have so admirable an Aim, that they will split almost an Hair, and at any distance that an Arrow can reach: they will shoot down Oranges, and other Fruit, and only touch the Stalk with the Dart's Point, that they may not hurt the Fruit. So that they being on all occasions very useful to us, we find it To A.D. 1689.] 177 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. absolutely necessary to caress 'em as Friends, and not to treat 'em as Slaves; nor dare we do other, their numbers so far surpassing ours in that Continent. Those then whom we make use of to work in our Planta- tions of Sugar, are Negroes, Black-Slaves all together, who are transported thither in this manner. Those who want Slaves, make a Bargain with a Master, or a Captain of a Ship, and contract to pay him so much a-piece, a matter of twenty Pound a head, for as many as he agrees £or, and to pay for 'em when they shall be deliver'd on such a Plantation: So that when there arrives a Ship laden with Slaves, they who have so contracted, go a-board, and receive their number by Lot; and perhaps in one Lot that may be for ten, there may happen to be three or four Men, the rest Women and Children. Or be there more or less of either Sex, you are obliged to be contented with your Lot. Coramantiem,' a Country of Blacks so called, was one of those Places in which they found the most advantageous Trading for these Slaves, and thither most of our great Traders in that Merchandize traffick; for that Nation is very warlike and brave : and having a continual Campaign, being always in hostility with one neighbouring Prince or other, they had the fortune to take a great many Captives: for all they took in Battle were sold as Slaves; at least those common Men who cou’d not ransom themselves. Of these Slaves so taken, the General only has all the Profit; and of these Generals our Captains and Masters of Ships buy all their Freights. The King of Coramantien was himself a Man of an hundred and odd Years old, and had no Son, tho he had many beauti- ful Black Wives: for most certainly there are Beauties that can charm of that Colour. In his younger Years he had had many gallant Men to his Sons, thirteen of whom died in Battle, conquering when they fell; and he had only left him for his Successor, one Grand-child, Son to one of these dead Victors, who, as soon as he could bear a Bow in his Hand, and a Quiver at his Back, was sent into the Field to be train’d up by one of the oldest Generals to War; where, from his natural Inclination to Arms, and the Occasions given him, with the good Conduct of the old General, he became, at the Age of seventeen, one of the most expert Captains, and bravest Soldiers that ever saw the Field of Mars : so that he was ador'd as the wonder of all that World, and the Darling of the Soldiers. Besides, he was adorn'd with a native Beauty so transcending all those of his gloomy Race, that he struck an Awe and Reverence, even into those that knew not his Quality; as he did into me, who beheld him with surprise and wonder, when afterwards he arrived in our World. He had scarce arrived at his seventeenth Year, when, fight- ing by his side, the General was kill'd with an Arrow in his Eye, which the Prince Oroonoko (for so was this gallant Moor call’d) very narrowly avoided; nor had he, if the General who saw the Arrow shot, and perceiving it aimed at the Prince, had not bow’d his Head between, on purpose to receive it in his own Body, rather than it should touch that of the Prince, and so saved him. 'Twas then, afflicted as Oroonoko was, that he was proclaimed General in the old Man’s place : and then it was, at the finishing of that War, which had continu’d for two Years, that the Prince came to Court, where he had hardly been a Month together, from the time of his fifth Year to that of seventeen; and ’twas amazing to imagine where it was he learn’d so much Humanity : or, to give his Accomplishments a juster Name, where 'twas he got that real Greatness of 1 Coramantien. Cormantin is on the Gold Coast, in the Gulf of Guinea, within the region of the Fantees, on the seaboard of Ashantee. - Soul, those refined Notions of true Honour, that absolute Generosity, and that Softness that was capable of the highest Passions of Love and Gallantry, whose Objects were almost continually fighting Men, or those mangled or dead, who heard no sounds but those of War and Groans. Some part of it we may attribute to the care of a Frenchman of Wit and Learning, who finding it turn to very good account to be a sort of Royal Tutor to this young Black, and perceiving him very ready, apt, and quick of Apprehension, took a great pleasure to teach him Morals, Language and Science; and was for it extremely belov’d and valu’d by him. Another Reason was, he lov’d when he came from War, to see all the Bnglish Gentlemen that traded thither; and did not only learn their Language, but that of the Spaniard also, with whom he traded afterwards for Slaves. I have often seen and conversed with this Great Man, and been a Witness to many of his mighty Actions; and do assure my Reader, the most illustrious Courts could not have pro- duced a braver Man, both for Greatness of Courage and Mind, a Judgment more solid, a Wit more quick, and a Conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew almost as much as if he had read much : He had heard of and admired the Romans : He had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the de- plorable Death of our great Monarch; and wou’d discourse of it with all the Sense and Abhorrence of the Injustice imagin- able. He had an extreme good and graceful Mein, and all the Civility of a well-bred great Man. He had nothing of Barbarity in his Nature, but in all Points address'd himself as if his Education had been in some European Court. This great and just Character of Oroonoko gave me an extreme Curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French and English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so much of him, I was as greatly surprized when I saw him, as if I had heard nothing of him; so beyond all Report I found him. He came into the Room, and addressed himself to me, and some other Women, with the best Grace in the World. He was pretty tall, but of a Shape the most exact that can be fancy'd : The most famous Statuary cou’d not form the Figure of a Man more admirably turn'd from head to foot. His Face was not of that brown rusty Black which most of that Nation are, but a perfect Ebony, or polished Jett. His Eyes were the most awful that cou’d be seen, and very piercing ; the White of 'em being like Snow, as were his Teeth. His Nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His Mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turn'd Lips, which are so natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole Proportion and Air of his Face was so nobly and exactly form’d, that bating his Colour, there could be nothing in Nature more beautiful, agreeable and handsome. There was no one Grace wanting, that bears the Standard of true Beauty. His Hair came down to his Shoulders, by the Aids of Art, which was by pulling it out with a Quill, and keeping it comb'd ; of which he took particular care. Nor did the Perfections of his Mind come short of those of his Person; for his Discourse was admirable upon almost any Subject: and whoever had heard him speak, wou’d have been convinced of their Errors, that all fine Wit is confined to the white Men, especially to those of Christendom; and wou'd have confess'd that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well, and of governing as wisely, had as great a Soul, as politick Maxims, and was as sensible of Power, as any Prince civiliz'd in the most refined Schools of Humanity and Learning, or the most illustrious Courts. This Prince, such as I have describ'd him, whose Soul and Body were so admirably adorned, was (while yet he was in the Court of his Grandfather, as I said) as capable of Love, 199 178 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 as 'twas possible for a brave and gallant Man to be ; and in saying that, I have named the highest Degree of Love: for sure great Souls are most capable of that Passion. I have already said, the old General was kill'd by the Shot of an Arrow by the side of this Prince in Battle; and that Oroonoko was made General. This old dead Hero had one only Daughter left of his Race, a Beauty, that to describe her truly, one need say only, she was Female to the noble Male; the beautiful Black Venus to our young Mars ; as charming in her Person as he, and of delicate Vertues. I have seen a hundred White Men fighting after her, and making a thousand Vows at her feet, all in vain, and unsuccessful. And she was indeed too great for any but a Prince of her own Nation to adore. Oroonoko coming from the Wars (which were now ended) after he had made his Court to his Grandfather, he thought in honour he ought to make a Visit to Inoinda, the Daughter of his Foster-father, the dead General; and to make some Excuses to her, because his Preservation was the occasion of her Father's Death; and to present her with those Slaves that had been taken in this last Battle, as the Trophies of her Father's Victories. When he came, attended by all the young Soldiers of any Merit, he was infinitely surpriz'd at the Beauty of this fair Queen of Night, whose Face and Person was so exceeding all he had ever beheld, that lovely Modesty with which she receiv'd him, that Softness in her Look and Sighs, upon the melancholy Occasion of this Honour that was done by so great a Man as Oroonoko, and a Prince of whom she had heard such admirable things; the Awfulness where with she receiv'd him, and the Sweetness of her Words and Behaviour while he stay’d, gain’d a perfect Conquest over his fierce Heart, and made him feel, the Victor cou’d be subdu’d. So that having made his first Compliments, and presented her an hundred and fifty Slaves in Fetters, he told her with his Eyes, that he was not insensible of her Charms; while Imoinda, who wish’d for nothing more than so glorious a Conquest, was pleas'd to believe, she understood that silent Language of new-born Love ; and, from that moment, put on all her additions to Beauty. The Prince return'd to Court with quite another Humour than before; and though he did not speak much of the fair Imoinda, he had the pleasure to hear all his Followers speak of nothing but the Charms of that Maid, insomuch that, even in the presence of the old King, they were extolling her, and heightening, if possible, the Beauties they had found in her : so that nothing else was talk’d of, no other Sound was heard in every Corner where there were Whisperers, but Inoinda 1 Imoinda 1 'Twill be imagin’d Oroonoko stay’d not long before he made his second Visit ; nor, considering his Quality, not much longer before he told her, he ador'd her. I have often heard him say, that he admir’d by what strange Inspiration he came to talk things so soft, and so passionate, who Rever knew Love, nor was used to the Conversation of Women; but (to use his own words) he said, Most happily some new, and, till then, unknown Power instructed his Heart and Tongue in the Language of Love, and at the same time, in favour of him, inspir'd Inoinda with a sense of his Passion. She was touch'd with what he said, and return'd it all in such Answers as went to his very Heart, with a Pleasure unknown before. Nor did he use those Obligations ill, that Love had done him, but turn’d all his happy moments to the best advantage; and as he knew no Vice, his Fame aim'd at nothing but Honour, if such a distinction may be made in Love; and especially in that Country, where Men take to themselves as many as they can maintain ; and where the only Crime and Sin with Woman, is, to turn her off, to abandon her to want, shame and misery: such ill Morals are only practis'd in Christian Countries, where they prefer the bare Name of Religion; and, without Vertue or Morality, think that sufficient. But Oroonoko was none of those Professors; but as he had right Notions of Honour, so he made her such IPropositions as were not only and barely such ; but, contrary to the custom of his Country, he made her Vows, she shou'd be the only Woman he wou'd possess while he liv'd; that no Age or Wrinkles shou'd encline him to change; for her Soul wou'd be always fine, and always young; and he shou’d have an eternal Idea in his Mind of the Charms she now bore; and shou’d look into his Heart for that Idea, when he cou’d find it no longer in her Face. After a thousand Assurances of his lasting Flame, and her eternal Empire over him, she condescended to receive him for her Husband; or rather, receiv'd him, as the greatest Honour the Gods cou’d do her. There is a certain Ceremony in these cases to be observ’d, which I forgot to ask how 'twas perform'd; but ’twas con- cluded on both sides, that in obedience to him, the Grand- father was to be first made acquainted with the Design : For they pay a most absolute Resignation to the Monarch, especially when he is a Parent also. On the other side, the old King, who had many Wives, and many Concubines, wanted not Court-Flatterers to insinuate into his Heart a thousand tender Thoughts for this young Beauty; and who represented her to his Fancy, as the most charming he had ever possess'd in all the long race of his numerous Years. At this Character, his old Heart, like an extinguish'd Brand, most apt to take fire, felt new Sparks of Love, and began to kindle; and now grown to his second Childhood, long’d with impatience to behold this gay thing, with whom, alas! he could but innocently play. But how he shou’d be confirm’d she was this Wonder, before he us'd his Power to call her to Court, he was next to consider; and while he was so doing, he had Intelligence brought him, that Inoinda was most certainly Mistress to the Prince Oroonoko. This gave him some Chagreen : however, it gave him also an opportunity, one day, when the Prince was a hunting, to wait on a Man of Quality, as his Slave and Attendant, who should go and make a Present to Inoinda, as from the Prince; he should then, unknown, see this fair Maid, and have an oppor- tunity to hear what Message she wou’d return the Prince for his Present, and from thence gather the state of her Heart, and degree of her Inclination. This was put in execution, and the old Monarch saw, and burn'd : He found her all he had heard, and would not delay his Happiness, but found he should have some Obstacle to overcome her Heart; for she express'd her sense of the Present the Prince had sent her, in terms so sweet, so soft and pretty, with an Air of Love and Joy that cou’d not be dissembled, insomuch that 'twas past doubt whether she lov’d Oroonoko entirely. This gave the old King some affliction; but he salv’d it with this, that the Obedience the People pay their King, was not at all inferiour to what they paid their Gods; and what Love wou’d not oblige Inoinda to do, Duty wou’d compel her to. He was therefore no sooner got to his Apartment, but he sent the Royal Weil to Inoinda ; that is, the Ceremony of Invitation : He sends the Lady he has a mind to honour a Veil, with which she is cover'd, and secur'd for the King ; and ’tis Death to disobey; besides, held a most impious Disobedience. 'Tis not to be imagin'd the Surprize and Grief that seiz'd. the lovely Maid at this News and Sight. However, as Delays in these cases are dangerous, and Pleading worse than Treason; trembling, and almost fainting, she was oblig'd to suffer her self to be cover'd and led away. To A.D. 1689.] 179 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. They brought her thus to Court; and the King, who had caus’d a very rich Bath to be prepar’d, was led into it, where he sate under a Canopy, in State, to receive this long'd-for Virgin; whom he having commanded shou'd be brought to him, they (after disrobing her) led her to the Bath, and making fast the Doors, left her to descend. The King, without more Court- ship, bade her come. But Inoinda, all in Tears, threw her self on the Marble, on the brink of the Bath, and be- sought him to hear her. She told him, as she was a Maid, how proud of the Divine Glory she should have been, of having it in her power to oblige her King ; but as by the Laws he could not, and from his Royal Goodness would not take from any Man his wedded Wife; so she believ'd she shou’d be the Occasion of making him commit a great Sin, if she did not reveal her State and Condition; and tell him, she was another's, and cou’d not be so happy to be his. The King, enrag’d at this Delay, hastily demanded the Name of the bold Man, that had married a Woman of her Degree, without his Consent. Inoinda, seeing his Eyes fierce, and his Hands tremble, (whether with Age or Anger, I know not, but she fancy'd the last) almost repented she had said so much, for now she fear'd the storm wou'd fall on the Prince; she therefore said a thousand things to appease the raging of his Flame, and to prepare him to hear who it was with calm- mess: but before she spoke, he imagin'd who she meant, but wou’d not seem to do so, but commanded her to receive his Caresses, or, by his Gods he swore, that happy Man whom she was going to name shou'd die, though it were even Oroonoko himself. Therefore (said he) deny this Marriage, and swear thy self a Maid. That (reply'd Inoinda) by all our Powers I do ; for I am not yet known to my Husband. 'Tis enough (said the King;) 'tis enough both to satisfy my Conscience, and any Heart. In this time, the Prince, who was return'd from Hunting, went to visit his Inoinda, but found her gone; and not only so, but heard she had receiv'd the Royal Veil. This rais'd him to a storm ; and in his madness, they had much ado to save him from laying violent hands on himself. Force first prevail'd, and then Reason: They urg’d all to him, that might oppose his Rage; but nothing weigh’d so greatly with him as the King's Old Age, uncapable of injuring him with Inoinda. He wou'd give way to that Hope, because it pleas'd him most, and flatter’d best his Heart. Yet this serv’d not altogether to make him cease his different Passions, which sometimes rag’d within him, and softened into Showers. 'Twas not enough to appease him, to tell him, his Grandfather was old, while he retain'd that awful Duty which the young Men are us’d there to pay to their grave Relations. He cou’d not be convinc'd he had no cause to sigh and mourn for the loss of a Mistress, he cou’d not with all his strength and courage retrieve. And he wou'd often cry, Oh, my Friends ! were she in wall’d Cities, or confined from one in Fortifications of the greatest strength ; did Inchantments or Monsters detain her from me; I wou'd venture through any Hazard to free her : But here, in the Arms of a feeble Old Man, my Youth, my violent Love, my Trade in Arms, and all any vast Desire of Glory, avail me mething. Imoinda is as irre- coverably lost to me, as if she were snatch'd by the cold Arms of Death : Oh 1 she is never to be retriev'd. If I wou'd wait tedious Years, till Fate shou’d bow the old King to his Grave, even that wou’d not leave me Imoinda free, but still that custom that makes it so vile a Crime for a Son to marry his Pather’s Wives, wou'd hinder my Happiness ; unless I would either ignobly set an ill Precedent to my Successors, or abandon my Country, and fly with her to some unknown World who never heard our Story. But it was objected to him, That his Case was not the same; for Inoinda being his lawful Wife by solemn Contract, 'twas he was the injur'd Man, and might, if he so pleas'd, take Imoinda back, the breach of the Law being on his Grand- father's side; and that if he cou’d circumvent him, and redeem her from the Otan, which is the Palace of the King's Women, a sort of Seraglio, it was both just and lawful for him so to do. - This Reasoning had some force upon him, and he shou'd have been entirely comforted, but for the thought that she was possess'd by his Grandfather. However, he lov’d so well, that he was resolv'd to believe what most favour'd his Hope, and to endeavour to learn from Imoinda's own mouth, what only she cou’d satisfy him in, whether she was robb’d of that Blessing which was only due to his Faith and Love. But as it was very hard to get a sight of the Women, (for no Men ever enter'd into the Otan, but when the King went to enter- tain himself with some one of his Wives; and ’twas Death, at any other time, for any other to go in) so he knew not how to contrive to get a sight of her. While Oroonoko felt all the Agonies of Love, and suffer'd under a Torment the most painful in the World, the old King was not exempted from his share of Affliction. He was troubled, for having been forc'd, by an irresistible Passion, to rob his Son of a Treasure, he knew, cou’d not but be extremely dear to him; since she was the most beautiful that ever had been seen, and had besides, all the Sweetness and Innocence of Youth and Modesty, with a Charm of Wit surpassing all. He found, that she cou’d only sigh and weep, and think of Oroonoko ; and oftentimes cou’d not forbear speaking of him, tho her Life were, by Custom, forfeited by own- ing her Passion. But she spoke not of a Lover only, but of a Prince dear to him to whom she spoke ; and of the Praises of a Man, who, till now, fill'd the old Man's Soul with Joy at every recital of his Bravery, or even his Name. And 'twas this Dotage on our young Hero, that gave Imoinda a thousand Privileges to speak of him, without offending; and this Condescension in the old King, that made her take the Satisfaction of speaking of him so very often. Besides, he many times enquir’d how the Prince bore him- self: And those of whom he ask'd, being entirely Slaves to the Merits and Vertues of the Prince, still answer'd what they thought conduc’d best to his Service; which was, to make the old King fancy that the Prince had no more Interest in Inoinda, and had resign'd her willingly; that he diverted himself with his Mathematicians, his Fortifications, his Officers, and his Hunting. This pleas'd the old Lover, who fail'd not to report these things again to Imoinda, that she might, by the Example of her young Lover, withdraw her Heart, and rest better con- tented in his Arms. But, however she was forc’d to receive this unwelcome News, in all appearance, with unconcern and content; her Heart was bursting within, and she was only happy when she cou’d get alone, to vent her Griefs and Moans with Sighs and Tears. What Reports of the Prince's Conduct were made to the Ring, he thought good to justify as far as possibly he cou’d by his Actions; and when he appear'd in the presence of the Ring, he shew’d a Face not at all betraying his Heart: so that in a little time, the old Man, being entirely convinc'd that he was no longer a Lover of Imoinda, he carry'd him with him, in his Train, to the Otan, often to banquet. But as soon as he enter'd, one day, into the Apartment of Imoinda, with the King, at the first Glance from her Eyes, notwithstanding all his determined Resolution, he was ready to sink in the place where he stood; and had certainly done so, but for the support of Aboan, a young Man who was next to him; which, with his Change of Countenance, 180 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 had betray’d him, had the King chanc'd to look that way. And I have observ'd, 'tis a very great Error in those who laugh when one says, A Negro can change Colour: for I have seen 'em as frequently blush, and look pale, and that as visibly as ever I saw in the most beautiful White. And 'tis certain, that both these Changes were evident, this day, in both these Lovers. And Inoinda, who saw with some Joy the Change in the Prince's Face, and found it in her own, strove to divert the King from beholding either, by a forc’d Caress, with which she met him; which was a new Wound in the Heart of the poor dying Prince. But as soon as the King was busy'd in looking on some fine thing of Imoinda's making, she had time to tell the Prince, with her angry, but Love-darting Eyes, that she resented his Coldness, and be- moan’d her own miserable Captivity. Nor were his Eyes silent, but answer'd hers again, as much as Eyes cou’d do, instructed by the most tender and most passionate Heart that ever lov'd : And they spoke so well, and so effectually, as Imoinda no longer doubted but she was the only delight and darling of that Soul she found pleading in 'em its rights of Love, which none was more willing to resign than she. And 'twas this powerful Language alone that in an instant convey’d all the Thoughts of their Souls to each other; that they both found there wanted but Opportunity to make them both entirely happy. But when he saw another Door open'd by Onahal (a former old Wife of the King's, who now had Charge of Inoinda,) and who immediately led the trembling Victim from his sight; what Rage what wild Frenzies seiz'd his Heart which forcing to keep within bounds, and to suffer without noise, it became the more insupportable, and rent his Soul with ten thousand Pains. He was forced to retire to vent his Groans, where he fell down on a Carpet, and lay struggling a long time, and only breathing now and then— Oh Imoinda 1 When Omahal had finished her necessary Affair within, shutting the Door, she came forth, to wait till the King called; and hearing some one sighing in the other Room, she past on, and found the Prince in that deplorable Condition, which she thought needed her Aid. She gave him Cordials, but all in vain; till finding the Nature of his Disease, by his Sighs, and naming Imoinda, she told him he had not so much cause as he imagined to afflict himself: for if he knew the King so well as she did, he wou'd not lose a moment in Jealousy; and that she was con- fident that Inoinda bore, at this minute, part in his Affliction. Aboan was of the same opinion, and both together persuaded him to re-assume his Courage; and all sitting down on the Carpet, the Prince said so many obliging things to Onahal, that he half-persuaded her to be of his Party: and she promised him, she would thus far comply with his just De- sires, that she would let Imoinda know how faithful he was, what he suffer'd, and what he said. e This Discourse lasted till the King called, which gave Oroonoko a certain Satisfaction; and with the Hope Omahal had made him conceive, he assumed a Look as gay as 'twas possible a Man in his circumstances could do : and presently after, he was call’d in with the rest who waited without. The King commanded Musick to be brought, and several of his young Wives came all together by his Command, to dance before him; where Imoinda perform'd her Part with an Air and Grace so surpassing all the rest, as her Beauty was above 'em, and received the Present ordained as a Prize. The Prince was every moment more charmed with the new Beauties and Graces he beheld in this Fair One; and while he gazed, and she danc'd, Onahal was retired to a Window with Aboan. This Onahal, as I said, was one of those (now past their Beauty) that were made Guardians or Governantees to the new and the young ones, and whose business it was to teach them all those Arts of Love, with which they prevailed and charmed heretofore in their turn ; and who now treated the triumphing Happy-one with all the Severity as to Liberty and Freedom, that was possible, in revenge of their Honours they rob them of ; envying them those Gallantries and Presents, that were once made to themselves, while Youth and Beauty lasted, and which they now saw pass, as it were re- gardless by, and paid only to the Bloomings. And certainly, nothing is more afflicting to a decay’d Beauty, than to behold in it self declining Charms, that were once ador'd; and to find those Caresses paid to new Beauties, to which once she laid claim ; to hear them whisper, as she passes by, that once was a delicate Woman. Those abandon'd Ladies therefore endeavour to revenge all the despights and decays of time, on these flourishing Happy-ones. And ’twas this Severity that gave Oroonoko a thousand Fears he should never prevail with Onahal to see Inoinda. But, as I said, she was now retir’d to a Window with Aboan. - This young Man was not only one of the best Quality, but a Man extremely well made, and beautiful; and coming often to attend the King to the Otan, he had subdu'd the Heart of the antiquated Onahal, which had not forgot how pleasant it was to be in love. And though she had some Decays in her Face, she had none in her Sense and Wit ; she was there agreeable still, even to Aboan's Youth : so that he took pleasure in entertaining her with Discourses of Love. He knew also, that to make his court to these She-favourites, was the way to be great; these being the Persons that do all Affairs and Business at Court. He had also observed that she had given him Glances more tender and inviting than she had done to others of his Quality. And now, when he saw that her Favour cou’d so absolutely oblige the Prince, he fail'd not to sigh in her Ear, and to look with Eyes all soft upon her, and gave her hope that she had made some Impres- sions on his Heart. He found her pleas'd at this, and making a thousand Advances to him : but the Ceremony ending, and the King departing, broke up the Company for that day, and his Conversation. Aboan fail’d not that night to tell the Prince of his Success, and how advantageous the Service of Onahal might be to Imoinda. The Prince was over-joy'd with this good News, and besought him if it were possible to caress her so, as to engage her entirely : For then (said the Prince) her Life lying at your mercy, she must grant you the Request you make in my behalf. Aboan understood him, and assur’d him he would make love so effectually, that he would defy the most expert Mistress of the Art, to find out whether he dis- sembled it, or had it really. And 'twas with impatience they waited the next opportunity of going to the Otan. The Wars came on, the time of taking the Field approached; and ’twas impossible for the Prince to delay his going at the Head of his Army to encounter the Enemy; so that every Day seem'd a tedious Year, till he saw his Inoinda: for he believed he cou’d not live, if he were forced away without being so happy. 'Twas with impatience therefore that he expected the next Visit the King wou'd make; and according to his Wish it was not long. The Parley of the Eyes of these two Lovers has not pass'd so secretly, but an old jealous Lover could spy it: or rather, he wanted not Flutterers who told him they observ’d it: so that the Prince was hasten’d to the Camp, and this was the last Visit he found he should make to the Otan ; he therefore urged Aboan to make the best of this last Effort, and to explain himself so to Omahal, that she might make way for the Prince to speak to Inoinda. The whole Affair being agreed on between the Prince and To A.D. 1689.] 181 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Aboan, they attended the King, as the Custom was, to the Otan ; where, while the whole Company was taken up in beholding the Dancing, and Antick Postures the Women- Royal made, to divert the King, Onahal singled out Aboan, whom she found most pliable to her wish. When she had him where she believ'd she cou’d not be heard, she sigh’d to him, and softly cry’d, Ah, Aboan when will you be sensible of my Passion 2 I confess it with my Mouth, because I would not give any Eyes the Lye, and you have but too much already perceived they have confess'd my Flame. I can have Lovers still, but will have none but Aboan. Madam, (reply'd the half-feigning Youth) you have already, by my Eyes, found you still conquer; and I believe 'tis in pity of me you con- descend to this kind Confession. But, Madam, Words are used to be so small a part of our Country-Courtship, that 'tis rare one can get so happy an Opportunity as to tell one's Heart. He spoke this with such a Tone, that she hoped it true, and cou’d not forbear believing it; and being wholly transported with Joy for having subdued the finest of all the King's Subjects, she took from her Ears two large Pearls, and commanded him to wear ’em in his. He would have refused 'em, crying, Madam, these are not the Proofs of gyour Love that I expect. But forcing the Pearls into his Hand, she whisper'd softly to him; Oh I do not fear a Woman's Invention, when Love sets her a thinking. And pressing his Hand, she cry’d, This Night come to the Gate of the Orange- Grove, behind the Otan, and I will be ready about Mid-night to receive you. 'Twas thus agreed, and she left him, that no notice might be taken of their speaking together. The Ladies were still dancing, and the King laid on a Carpet with a great deal of pleasure was beholding them, especially Inoinda, who that day appear'd more lovely than ever, being enliven'd with the good Tidings Onahal had brought her, of the constant Passion the Prince had for her. The Prince was laid on another Carpet at the other end of the Room, with his Eyes fixed on the Object of his Soul; and as she turned or moved, so did they : and she alone gave his Eyes and Soul their Motions. Nor did Imoinda employ her Eyes to any other use, than in beholding with infinite pleasure the Joy she produced in those of the Prince. But while she was more regarding him, than the Steps she took, she chanced to fall; and so near him, as that leaping with extreme force from the Carpet, he caught her in his Arms as she fell: and 'twas visible to the whole Presence, the Joy wherewith he received her. He clasped her close to his Bosom, and quite forgot that Reverence that was due and that Punishment that is the Reward of a Boldness of this nature. And had not the Presence of Mind of Inoinda (fonder of his Safety, than her own) befriended him, in making her spring from his Arms, and fall into her Dance again, he had at that instant met his Death; for the old King, jealous to the last degree, rose up in a rage, broke all the Diversion, and led Inoinda to her Apartment, and sent out word to the Prince, to go immediately to the Camp; and that if he were found another Night in Court, he shou'd suffer the Death ordained for disobedient Offenders. You may imagine how welcome this News was to Oroonoko, whose unseasonable Transport and Caress of Inoinda was blamed by all Men that loved him: and now he perceived his Fault, yet cry'd, That for such another Moment he would be content to die. All the Otan was in disorder about this Accident; and Onahal was particularly concern'd, because on the Prince's Stay depended her Happiness; for she cou’d no longer expect that of Aboan : So that e'er they departed, they contrived it so, that the Prince and he should both come that night to the Grove of the Otan, which was all of Oranges and Citrons, and that there they would wait her Orders. * They parted thus with Grief enough till night, leaving the King in possession of the lovely Maid. But nothing could appease the Jealousy of the old Lover ; he wou’d not be im- posed on, but would have it, that Imoinda made a false Step on purpose to fall into Oroonoko's bosom, and that all things looked like a Design on both sides; and ’twas in vain she pro- tested her Innocence : he was old and obstinate, and left her more than half assur'd that his Fear was true. The King going to his Apartment, sent to know where the Prince was, and if he intended to obey his Command. The Messenger return'd, and told him he found the Prince pensive, and altogether unprepar'd for the Campaign; that he lay negligently on the ground, and answer'd very little. This confirmed the Jealousy of the King, and he commanded that they should very narrowly and privately watch his Motions; and that he should not stir from his Apartment, but one Spy or other shou'd be employed to watch him : So that the hour approaching, wherein he was to go to the Citron-Grove; and taking only Aboan along with him, he leaves his Apartment, and was watched to the very gate of the Otan ; where he was seen to enter, and where they left him, to carry back the Tidings to the King. Oroonoko and Aboan were no sooner enter'd, but Onahal led the Prince to the Apartment of Inoinda ; and took her dear Aboan to her own. The Prince softly waken'd Imoinda, who was not a little surpriz'd with Joy to find him there; and yet she trembled with a thousand Fears. 'Tis not to be imagined the Satisfaction of these two young Lovers; nor the Wows she made him, and ’tis impossible to express the Transports he suffer'd, while he listen’d to a Dis- course so charming from her loved Lips. Nothing now afflicted him, but his sudden Departure from her; for he told her the Necessity, and his Commands, but should depart satisfy'd in this, That he believed her safe, even in the Arms of the King, and innocent; yet would he have ventur'd at the Conquest of the World, and have given it all to have had her avoided that Honour of receiving the Royal Veil. ’Twas thus, between a thousand Caresses, that both bemoan'd the hard Fate of Youth and Beauty, so liable to that cruel Promotion: ’twas a Glory that could well have been spared here, tho desired and aim'd at by all the young Females of that Kingdom. But while they were thus fondly employ'd, forgetting how time ran on, and that the Dawn must conduct him far away from his only Happiness, they heard a great Noise in the Otan, and unusual Voices of Men; at which the Prince, starting from the frighted Imoinda, ran to a little Battle- Ax he used to wear by his side; and having not so much leisure as to put on his Habit, he opposed himself against some who were already opening the Door: which they did with so much Violence, that Oroonoko was not able to defend it ; but was forced to cry out with a commanding Voice, Who- ever ye are that have the Boldness to attempt to approach this Apartment thus rudely ; know, that I, the Prince Oroonoko, will revenge it with the certain Death of him that first enters : Therefore, stand back, and know, this Place is sacred to Love and Me this night, to-morrow ’tis the King's. This he spoke with a Voice so resolv’d and assur'd, that they soon retired from the Door; but cry'd, 'Tis by the King's Com- mand we are come ; and being satisfy'd by thy Voice, O Prince, as much as if we had enter'd, we can report to the King the Truth of all his Fears, and leave thee to provide for thy own Safety, as thou art advis’d by thy Friends. At these words they departed, and left the Prince to take a short and sad leave of his Imoinda ; who, trusting in the 182 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 Strength of her Charms, believed she should appease the Fury of a jealous King, by saying, she was surprised, and that it was by force of Arms he got into her Apartment. All her Concern now was for his Life, and therefore she hasten’d him to the Camp, and with much ado prevail'd on him to go. Nor was it she alone that prevailed; Aboan and Onahal, both pleaded, and both assured him of a Lye that should be well enough contrived to secure Inoinda. So that at last, with a Heart sad as Death, dying Eyes, and sighing Soul, Oroonoko departed, and took his way to the Camp. It was not long after, the King in Person came to the Otan ; where beholding Imoinda, with Rage in his Eyes, he upbraided her Wickedness, and Perfidy ; and threatening her Royal Lover, she fell on her face at his feet, bedeving the Floor with her Tears, and imploring his pardon for a Fault which she had not with her Will committed; as Onahal, who was also prostrate with her, could testify : That, unknown to her, he had broke into her Apartment. She spoke this much against her Conscience; but to save her own Life, ’twas absolutely necessary she should feign this Falsity. She knew he could not injure the Prince, he being fled to an Army that would stand by him, against any Injuries that should assault him. However this last Thought changed the Measures of his Revenge; and whereas before he designed to be himself her Executioner, he now resolved she should not die. But as it is the greatest Crime in nature amongst 'em, to touch a Woman after having been possess'd by a Son, a Father, or a Brother, so now he looked on Imoinda as a polluted thing, wholly unfit for his Em- brace; nor wou'd he resign her to his Grandson, because she had received the Royal Veil : He therefore removes her from the Otan, with Onahal ; whom he put into safe hands, with order they should be both sold off as Slaves to another Country, either Christian or Heathen, 'twas no matter where. This cruel Sentence, worse than Death, they implor’d might be reversed; but their Prayers were vain, and it was put in execution accordingly, and that with so much Secrecy, that none, either without or within the Otan, knew any thing of their Absence, or their Destiny. The old King nevertheless executed this with a great deal of Reluctancy; but he believed he had made a very great Conquest over himself, when he had once resolved, and had perform'd what he resolv'd. He believed now, that his Love had been unjust ; and that he cou’d not expect the Gods, or Captain of the Clouds (as they call the unknown Power) wou'd suffer a better Consequence from so ill a Cause. He now begins to hold Oroonoko excused; and to say, he had reason for what he did : And now every body cou’d assure the King how passionately Imoinda was beloved by the Prince; even those confess'd it now, who said the contrary before his Flame was not abated. So that the King being old, and not able to defend himself in War, and having no Sons of all his Race remaining alive, but only this, to maintain him on his Throne; and looking on this as a Man disobliged, first by the seizure of his Mistress, or rather Wife, and now by depriving of him wholly of her, he fear'd, might make him desperate, and do Some cruel thing, either to himself or his old Grandfather the Offender, he began to repent him extremely of the Contempt he had, in his Rage, put off Imoinda. Besides he consider'd he ought in honour to have killed her for this Offence, if it had been one. He ought to have had so much Value and Consideration for a Maid of her Quality, as to have nobly put her to death, and not to have sold her like a common Slave ; the greatest Revenge, and the most disgraceful of any, and to which they a thousand times prefer Death, and implore it; as Inoinda did, but cou’d not obtain that Honour. Seeing therefore it was certain, that Oroonoko would highly resent this Affront, he thought good to make some Excuse for his Rashness to him ; and to that end, he sent a Messenger to the Camp, with Orders to treat with him about the Matter, to gain his Pardon, and to endeavour to mitigate his Grief; but that by no means he shou'd tell him she was sold, but Secretly put to death: for he knew he should never obtain his Pardon for the other. When the Messenger came, he found the Prince upon the point of engaging with the Enemy ; but as soon as he heard of the arrival of the Messenger, he commanded him to his Tent, where he embraced him, and received him with Joy : which was soon abated by the down-cast Looks of the Mes- senger, who was instantly demanded the Cause by Oroonoko ; who, impatient of delay, ask’d a thousand Questions in a breath, and all concerning Imoinda. But there needed little return ; for he cou’d almost answer himself of all he demanded from his Sighs and Eyes. At last the Messenger casting himself at the Prince's feet, and kissing them with all the Submission of a Man that had something to implore which he dreaded to utter, he besought him to hear with Calmness what he had to deliver to him, and to call up all his noble and heroick Courage, to encounter with his Words, and defend himself against the ungrateful things he must relate. Oroonoko reply'd, with a deep Sigh, and a languishing Voice, I am armed against their worst Efforts —For I know they will tell me, Imoinda is no more —and after that, you may spare the rest. Then, commanding him to rise, he laid himself on a Carpet, under a rich Pavilion, and remained a good while silent, and was hardly heard to sigh. When he was come a little to himself, the Messenger asked him leave to deliver that part of his Embassy which the Prince had not yet divin'd : And the Prince cry’d, I permit thee Then he told him the Affliction the old King was in, for the Rashness he had committed in his Cruelty to Inoinda ; and how he deign'd to ask pardon for his Offence, and to implore the Prince would not suffer that Loss to touch his Heart too sensibly, which now all the Gods cou’d not restore him, but might recompense him in Glory, which he begged he would pursue ; and that Death, that common Revenger of all In- juries, would soon even the Account between him and a feeble old Man. - Oroonoko bad him return his Duty to his Lord and Master; and to assure him, there was no Account of Revenge to be adjusted between them: if there were, ’twas he was the Aggressor, and that Death would be just, and, maugre his Age, wou'd see him righted; and he was contented to leave his Share of Glory to Youths more fortunate and worthy of that Favour from the Gods: That henceforth he would never lift a Weapon, or draw a Bow, but abandon the Small Remains of his Life to Sighs and Tears, and the continual Thoughts of what his Lord and Grandfather had thought good to send out of the World, with all that Youth, that Innocence and Beauty. - After having spoken this, whatever his greatest Officers an Men of the best Rank cou’d do, they could not raise him from the Carpet, or persuade him to Action, and Resolutions of Life; but commanding all to retire, he shut himself into his Pavilion all that day, while the Enemy was ready to engage: and wondring at the delay, the whole Body of the chief of the Army then address'd themselves to him, and to whom they had much ado to get Admittance. They fell on their faces at the foot of his Carpet, where they lay, and be- sought him with earnest Prayers and Tears, to lead them forth to Battle, and not let the Enemy take Advantages of them ; and implored him to have regard to his Glory, and to the World, that depended on his Courage and Conduct. But he ====msº made no other Reply to all their Supplications, but this, That To A.D. 1689.] 183 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. he had now no more business for Glory; and for the World, it was a Trifle not worth his Care : Go (continued he, sighing) and divide it amongst you, and reap with Joy what you 80 vainly prize, and leave ºne to my more welcome Destiny. They then demanded what they should do, and whom he would constitute in his room, that the Confusion of ambitious Youth and Power might not ruin their Order, and make them a Prey to the Enemy. He reply'd, he would not give himself the trouble but wished 'em to chuse the bravest Man amongst 'em, let his Quality or Birth be what it wou'd : For, Oh my Friends ! (said he) it is not Titles make Men brave or good ; or Birth that bestows Courage and Generosity, or makes the Owner happy. Believe this, when you behold Oroonoko the most wretched, and abandoned by Fortune, of all the Creation of the Gods. So turning himself about, he wou'd make no more Reply to all they could urge or implore. The Army beholding their Officers return unsuccessful, with sad Faces and ominous Looks, that presaged no good luck, suffer'd a thousand Fears to take possession of their Hearts, and the Enemy to come even upon them, before they would provide for their Safety, by any Defence: and though they were assured by some, who had a mind to animate them, that they should be immediately headed by the Prince, and that in the mean time Aboan had orders to command as General; yet they were so dismay’d for want of that great Example of Bravery, that they could make but a very feeble Resistance; and at last, downright fled before the Enemy, who pursued 'em to the very Tents, killing 'em. Nor could all Aboan's Courage, which that day gained him immortal Glory, shame 'em into a manly Defence of themselves. The Guards that were left behind about the Prince's Tent seeing the Soldiers flee before the Enemy, and scatter themselves all over the Plain, in great disorder, made such out-cries as rouz'd the Prince from his amorous Slumber, in which he had remain’d bury'd for two days, without permitting any Susten- ance to approach him. But, in spight of all his Resolutions, he had not the Constancy of Grief to that degree, as to make him insensible of the Danger of his Army; and in that instant he leaped from his Couch, and cry’d Come, if we must die, let us neet Death the noblest way; and 'twill be more like Oroonoko to encounter him at an Army's Head, opposing the Torrent of a conquering Foe, than lazily on a Couch, to wait his Wingring Pleasure, and die every moment by a thousand racking Thoughts ; or be tamely taken by an Enemy, and led a whining łove-sick Slave to adorn the Triumphs of Jamoan, that young Victor, who already is enter'd beyond the Limits I have prescrib'd him. While he was speaking, he suffer'd his People to dress him for the Field; and Sallying out of his Pavilion, with more Life and Vigour in his Countenance than ever he shew’d, he appear'd like some Divine Power descended to save his Country from Destruction : and his People had purposely put him on all things that might make him shine with most Splendor, to strike a reverend Awe into the Beholders. He flew into the thickest of those that were pursuing his Men; and being animated with Despair, he fought as if he came on purpose to die, and did such things as will not be believed that Human Strength could perform ; and such as soon in- spir'd all the rest with new Courage, and new Order. And now it was that they began to fight indeed; and so, as if they would not be outdone even by their ador'd Hero; who turning the Tide of the Victory, changing absolutely the Fate of the Day, gain’d an entire Conquest: and Oroonoko having the good Fortune to single out Jamoan, he took him prisoner with his own Hand, having wounded him almost to death. This Jamoan afterwards became very dear to him, being a Man very gallant, and of excellent Graces, and fine Parts; so that he never put him amongst the Rank of Captives, as they used to do, without distinction, for the common Sale, or Market, but kept him in his own Court, where he retain'd nothing of the Prisoner but the Name, and returned no more into his own Country; so great an Affection he took for Oroonoko, and by a thousand Tales and Adventures of Love and Gallantry, flatter'd his Disease of Melancholy and Lan- guishment: which I have often heard him say, had certainly kill'd him, but for the Conversation of this Prince and Aboan, and the French Governour he had from his Childhood, of whom I have spoken before, and who was a Man of admirable Wit, great Ingenuity and Learning; all which he had infused into his young Pupil. This Frenchman was banished out of his own Country, for some Heretical Notions he held: and tho he was a Man of very little Religion, he had admirable Morals, and a brave Soul. After the total Defeat of Jamoan's Army, which all fled, or were left dead upon the place, they spent some time in the Camp ; Oroonoko chusing rather to remain awhile there in his Tents, than to enter into a Palace, or live in a Court where he had so lately suffer'd so great a Loss. The Officers there- fore, who saw and knew his Cause of Discontent, invented all sorts of Diversions and Sports to entertain their Prince: So that what with those Amusements abroad, and others at home, that is, within their Tents, with the Persuasions, Argu- ments, and Care of his Friends and Servants that he more peculiarly priz'd, he wore off in time a great part of that Chagreen, and Torture of Despair, which the first Efforts of Inoinda’s Death had given him; insomuch as having received a thousand kind Embassies from the King, and Invitation to return to Court, he obey'd, tho with no little reluctancy: and when he did so, there was a visible change in him, and for a long time he was much more melancholy than before. But time lessens all Extremes, and reduces 'em to Mediums, and Unconcern : but no Motives of Beauties, tho all endeavour’d it, cou’d engage him in any sort of Amour, though he had all the Invitations to it, both from his own Youth, and other Ambitions and Designs. Oroonoko was no sooner return'd from this last Conquest, and receiv'd at Court with all the Joy and Magnificence that cou’d be expressed to a young Victor, who was not only returned triumphant, but belov'd like a Deity, than there arriv'd in the Port an English Ship. The Master of it had often before been in these Countries, and was very well known to Oroonoko, with whom he had traffick'd for Slaves, and had us’d to do the same with his Predecessors. This Commander was a Man of a finer sort of Address and Conversation, better bred, and more engaging, than most of that sort of Men are; so that he seem'd rather never to have been bred out of a Court, than almost all his life at Sea. This Captain therefore was always better receiv'd at Court, than most of the Traders to those Countries were ; and especially by Oroonoko, who was more civiliz'd, according to the Euro- pean Mode, than any other had been, and took more delight in the White Nations; and, above all, Men of Parts and Wit. To this Captain he sold abundance of his Slaves; and for the Favour and Esteem he had for him, made him many Presents, and oblig'd him to stay at Court as long as possibly he cou’d. Which the Captain seem'd to take as a very great Honour done him, entertaining the Prince every day with Globes and Maps, and mathematical Discourses and Instruments; eating, drink- ing, hunting, and living with him with so much familiarity, that it was not to be doubted but he had gain’d very greatly upon the Heart of this gallant young Man. And the Captain, in return of all these mighty Favours, besought the Prince to 184 [A.D. 1685 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. honour his Wessel with his Presence, some day or other at Dinner, before he shou'd set sail; which he condescended to accept, and appointed his day. The Captain, on his part, fail'd not to have all things in a readiness, in the most magnifi- cent order he cou’d possibly : And the day being come, the Captain, in his Boat, richly adorn'd with Carpets and Velvet- Cushions, row'd to the shore, to receive the Prince; with another Long-Boat, where was plac'd all his Musick and Trumpets, with which Oroonoko was extremely delighted; who met him on the shore, attended by his French Governor, Jamoan, Aboan, and about an hundred of the noblest of the Youths of the Court: And after they had first carry'd the Prince on board, the Boats fetch'd the rest off; where they found a very splendid Treat, with all sorts of fine Wines; and were as well entertain'd, as 'twas possible in such a place to be. The Prince having drank hard of Punch, and several sorts of Wine, as did all the rest, (for great care was taken, they shou’d want nothing of that part of the Entertainment) was very merry, and in great admiration of the Ship, for he had never been in one before ; so that he was curious of beholding every place where he decently might descend. The rest, no less curious, who were not quite overcome with Drinking, rambled at their pleasure Fore and Aft, as their Fancies guided 'em : So that the Captain, who had well laid his Design before, gave the Word, and seiz'd on all his Guests; they clapping great Irons suddenly on the Prince, when he was leap'd down into the Hold, to view that part of the Wessel; and locking him fast down, secur'd him. The same Treachery was us’d to all the rest ; and all in one instant, in several places of the Ship, were lash’d fast in Irons, and betray'd to Slavery. That great Design over, they set all Hands to work to hoist Sail; and with as treacherous as fair a Wind they made from the Shore with this innocent and glorious Prize, who thought of nothing less than such an Entertainment. Some have commended this Act, as brave in the Captain ; but I will spare my sense of it, and leave it to my Reader to judge as he pleases. It may be easily guess'd, in what manner the Prince resented this Indignity, who may be best resembled to a Lion taken in a Toil; so he rag’d, so he struggled for Liberty, but all in vain : and they had so wisely manag'd his Fetters, that he could not use a hand in his defence to quit himself of a Life that wou'd by no means endure Slavery; Inor cou’d he move from the place where he was ty'd, to any solid part of the Ship against which he might have beat his Head, and have finish’d his Disgrace that way. So that being deprived of all other means, he resolv'd to perish for want of Food; and pleas'd at last with that Thought, and toil'd and tir’d by Rage and Indignation, he laid himself down, and sullenly resolv’d upon dying, and refused all things that were brought him. This did not a little vex the Captain, and the more so, be- cause he found almost all of 'em of the same Humour; so that the loss of so many brave Slaves, so tall and goodly to behold, would have been very considerable : He therefore order'd one to go from him (for he wou’d not be seen himself) to Oroonoko, and to assure him, he was afflicted for having rashly done so unhospitable a Deed, and which could not be now remedy’d, since they were far from shore; but since he resented it in so high a nature, he assur’d him he would revoke his Resolution, and set both him and his Friends a-shore on the next Land they should touch at ; and of this the Mes- senger gave his Oath, provided he would resolve to live. And Oroonoko, whose Honour was such as he never had violated a Word in his Life himself, much less a solemn Asseveration, believ'd in an instant what this Man said; but reply'd, He expected, for a Confirmation of this, to have his shameful Fetters dismiss'd. This demand was carried to the Captain; who return’d him an answer, That the Offence had been so great which he had put upon the Prince, that he durst not trust him with Liberty while he remain’d in the Ship, for fear lest by a Valour natural to him, and a Revenge that would animate that Valour, he might commit some Outrage fatal to himself, and the King his Master, to whom this Wessel did belong. To this Oroonoko reply'd, He would engage his Honour to behave himself in all friendly Order and Manner, and obey the command of the Captain, as he was Lord of the King's Vessel, and General of those Men under his command. This was deliver'd to the still doubting Captain, who could not resolve to trust a Heathen, he said, upon his Parole, a Man that had no sense or notion of the God that he wor- shipp'd. Oroonoko then reply'd, He was very sorry to hear that the Captain pretended to the knowledge and worship of any Gods, who had taught him no better Principles, than not to credit as he would be credited. But they told him the differ- ence of their Faith occasion'd that distrust : For the Captain had protested to him upon the word of a Christian, and sworn in the name of a great God; which if he should violate, he would expect eternal Torment in the World to come. Is that all the Obligation he has to be just to his Oath 2 (reply'd Oroonoko) Let him know, I swear by my Honour ; which to violate, would not only render me contemptible and despised by all brave and honest Men, and so give myself perpetual Pain, but it would be eternally offending and displeasing all Mankind; harming, betray- ing, circumventing and outraging all Men. But Punishments hereafter are suffer'd by one's self; and the World takes no Cognizance whether this GOD have reveng'd 'em, or not, 'tis done so secretly, and deferr'd so long : while the Man of no Honour suffers every moment the Scorn and Contempt of the honester World, and dies every day ignominiously in his Fame, which is more valuable than Life. I speak not this to move Belief, but to shew you how you mistake, when you imagine, That he who will violate his Honour, will keep his Word with his Gods. So, turning from him with a disdainful Smile, he refused to answer him, when he urged him to know what Answer he should carry back to his Captain ; so that he departed without saying any more. - The Captain pondering and consulting what to do, it was concluded that nothing but Oroonoko's Liberty would encou- rage any of the rest to eat, except the French-man, whom the Captain could not pretend to keep Prisoner, but only told him, he was secured, because he might act something in favour of the Prince, but that he should be freed as soon as they came to Land. So that they concluded it wholly necessary to free the Prince from his Irons, that he might shew himself to the rest; that they might have an eye upon him, and that they could not fear a single Man. This being resolv’d, to make the Obligation the greater, the Captain himself went to Oroonoko , where, after many Com- pliments, and Assurances of what he had already promis'd, he receiving from the Prince his Parole, and his Hand, for his good Behaviour, dismiss'd his Irons, and brought him to his own Cabin; where, after having treated and repos'd him a while, (for he had neither eat nor slept in four days before) he besought him to visit those obstinate People in Chains, who refus'd all manner of Sustenance; and intreated him to oblige 'em to eat, and assure 'em of that Liberty the first Oppor- tunity. Oroonoko, who was too generous, not to give credit to his Words, shew’d himself to his People, who were transported with excess of Joy at the sight of their darling Prince; falling at his feet, and kissing and embracing 'em ; believing, as some divine Oracle, all he assur’d 'em. But he besought 'em to bear their Chains with that Bravery that became those whom To A.D. 1688.] 185 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. he had seen act so nobly in Arms; and that they could not give him greater Proofs of their Love and Friendship, since 'twas all the Security the Captain (his Friend) could have, against the Revenge, he said, they might possibly justly take, for the Injuries sustain’d by him. And they all, with one accord, assur'd him, they cou’d not suffer enough, when it was for his Repose and Safety. - After this, they no longer refus’d to eat, but took what was brought 'em, and were pleas'd with their Captivity, since by it they hoped to redeem the Prince, who, all the rest of the Voyage, was treated with all the respect due to his Birth, tho nothing could divert his Melancholy; and he wou'd often sigh for Ianoinda, and think this a Punishment due to his Misfortune, in having left that noble Maid behind him, that fatal Night, in the Otan, when he fled to the Camp. Possess'd with a thousand Thoughts of past Joys with this fair young Person, and a thousand Griefs for her eternal Loss, he endur’d a tedious Voyage, and at last arriv'd at the Mouth of the River of Surinam, a Colony belonging to the King of England, and where they were to deliver some part of their Slaves. There the Merchants and Gentlemen of the Country going on board, to demand those Lots of Slaves they had already agreed on ; and, amongst those, the Overseers of those Plantations where I then chanc'd to be : the Captain, who had given the Word, order'd his Men to bring up those noble Slaves in Fetters, whom I have spoken of ; and having put 'em some in one, and some in other Lots, with Women and Children (which they call Pickaninies) they sold 'em off, as Slaves, to several Merchants and Gentlemen; not putting any two in one Lot, because they would separate 'em far from each other; nor daring to trust 'em together, lest Rage and Courage should put 'em upon contriving some great Action, to the ruin of the Colony. Oroonoko was first seiz'd on, and sold to our Overseer, who had the first Lot, with seventeen more of all sorts and sizes, but not one of Quality with him. When he saw this, he found what they meant; for, as I said, he understood English pretty well; and being wholly unarm'd and defenceless, so as it was in vain to make any Resistance, he only beheld the Captain with a Look all fierce and disdainful, upbraiding him with Eyes that forc’d Blushes on his guilty Cheeks, he only cry’d in passing over the side of the Ship; Farewel, Sir, 'tis worth any Sufferings, to gain so true a Knowledge both of you, and of your Gods by whom you swear. And desiring those that held him to forbear their Pains, and telling 'em he would make no Resistance, he cry’d, Come, my Fellow-Slaves, let us descend, and see if we can meet with more Honour and Honesty in the next World we shall touch upon. So he nimbly leapt into the Boat, and shewing no more concern, suffer'd himself to be row'd up the River, with his seventeen Companions. The Gentleman that bought him, was a young Cornish Gentleman, whose Name was Trefry; a Man of great Wit, and fine Learning, and was carry'd into those Parts by the Lord——Governour, to manage all his Affairs. He reflect- ing on the last Words of Oroonoko to the Captain, and be- holding the Richness of his West, no sooner came into the Boat, but he fix’d his Eyes on him; and finding something so extraordinary in his Face, his Shape and Mein, a greatness of Look, and haughtiness in his Air, and finding he spoke Pnglish, had a great mind to be enquiring into his Quality and Fortune: which, though Oroonoko endeavour'd to hide, by only confessing he was above the Rank of common Slaves; Trefry soon found he was yet something greater then he con- fess'd ; and from that moment began to conceive so vast an Esteem for him, that he ever after lov’d him as his dearest Brother, and shew’d him all the Civilities due to so great a Man. Tréfry was a very good Mathematician, and a Linguist; could speak French and Spanish ; and in the three days they remain’d in the Boat (for so long were they going from the Ship to the Plantation) he entertain'd Oroonoko so agreeably with his Art and Discourse, that he was no less pleas'd with. Tréfry, than he was with the Prince; and he thought him- self, at least, fortunate in this, that since he was a Slave, as long as he would suffer himself to remain so, he had a Man of so excellent Wit and Parts for a Master. So that before they had finish’d their Voyage up the River, he made no scruple of declaring to Trefry all his Fortunes, and most part of what I have here related, and put himself wholly into the hands of his new Friend, whom he found resenting all the Injuries. were done him, and was charm'd with all the Greatnesses of his Actions; which were recited with that Modesty, and delicate Sense, as wholly vanquished him, and subdu’d him to his In- terest. And he promised him on his Word and Honour he wou'd find the Means to re-conduct him to his own Country again; assuring him, he had a perfect Abhorrence of so dis- honourable an Action; and that he would sooner have dy’d, then have been the Author of such a Perfidy. He found the Prince was very much concerned to know what became of his Friends, and how they took their Slavery; and Trefry pro- mised to take care about the enquiring after their Condition, and that he should have an account of 'em. Though, as Oroonoko afterwards said, he had little reason to: credit the Words of a Backearary ; yet he knew not why, but he saw a kind of Sincerity, and awful Truth in the Face of Trefry; he saw an Honesty in his Eyes, and he found him wise and witty enough to understand Honour: for it was one of his Maxims, A Man of Wit cou’d not be a Knave or Villain. In their Passage up the River, they put in at several Houses for Refreshment; and ever when they landed, numbers of People would flock to behold this Man: not but their Eyes were daily entertain’d with the sight of Slaves, but the Fame of Oroonoko was gone before him, and all People were in ad- miration of his Beauty. Besides, he had a rich Habit on, in which he was taken, so different from the rest, and which the Captain cou’d not strip him of, because he was forc'd to surprize his Person in the minute he sold him. When he found his Habit made him liable, as he thought, to be gazed at the more, he begged Trefry to give him something more befitting a Slave, which he did, and took off his Robes: Never- theless he shone thro all, and his Osenbrigs (a sort of brown Holland Suit he had on) cou’d not conceal the Graces of his Looks and Mein ; and he had no less Admirers than when he had his dazling Habit on : The Royal Youth appear'd in spight of the Slave, and People cou’d not help treating him after a different manner, without designing it. As soon as they approached him, they venerated and esteemed him; his Eyes insensibly commanded Respect, and his Behaviour insinuated it into every Soul. So that there was nothing talked of but this young and gallant Slave, even by those who yet knew not that he was a Prince. - I ought to tell you, that the Christians never buy any Slaves but they give 'em some Name of their own, their native ones being likely very barbarous, and hard to pronounce; so that Mr. Trefry gave Oroonoko that of Caesar; which Name will live in that Country as long as that (scarce more) glorious one of the great Roman : for ’tis most evident he wanted no part of the personal Courage of that Caesar, and acted things as memorable, had they been done in some part of the World replenished with People and Historians, that might have given him his due. But his Misfortune was, to fall in an ob- scure World, that afforded only a Female Pen to celebrate his Fame; though I doubt not but it had lived from others En- deavours, if the Dutch, who immediately after his time took 200 186 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 that Country, had not killed, banished, and dispersed all those that were capable of giving the World this great Man's Life, much better than I have done. And Mr. Trefry, who designed it, dy'd before he began it, and bemoan’d himself for not having undertook it in time. For the future therefore I must call Oroonoko Caesar ; since by that Name only he was known in our Western World, and by that Name he was received on shore at Parham-House, where he was destin’d a Slave. But if the King himself (God bless him) had come ashore, there cou’d not have been greater Expectation by all the whole Plantation, and those neighbour- ing ones, than was on ours at that time; and he was received more like a Governour than a Slave: notwithstanding, as the Custom was, they assigned him his Portion of Land, his House and his Business up in the Plantation. But as it was more for Form, than any Design to put him to his Task, he en- dured no more of the Slave but the Name, and remain’d some days in the House, receiving all Visits that were made him, without stirring towards that part of the Plantation where the Negroes were. At last, he wou’d needs go view his Land, his House, and the Business assign'd him. But he no sooner came to the Houses of the Slaves, which are like a little Town by it self, the Negroes all having left work, but they all came forth to behold him, and found he was that Prince who had, at several times, sold most of 'em to these Parts; and from a Veneration they pay to great Men, especially if they know 'em, and from the Surprize and Awe they had at the sight of him, they all cast themselves at his feet, crying out, in their Language, Live, O King 1 Long live, O King ! and kissing his Feet, paid him even Divine Homage. Several English Gentlemen were with him, and what Mr. Trefry had told 'em was here confirm'd; of which he himself before had no other Witness than Caesar himself: But he was infinitely glad to find his Grandeur confirmed by the Adora- tion of all the Slaves. & Caesar troubled with their Over-Joy, and Over-Ceremony, besought 'em to rise, and to receive him as their Fellow-Slave; assuring them he was no better. At which they set up with one accord a most terrible and hideous mourning and con- doling, which he and the English had much ado to appease : but at last they prevailed with 'em, and they prepared all their barbarous Musick, and every one kill'd and dress'd something of his own Stock (for every Family has their Land apart, on which, at their leisure-times, they breed all eatable things) and clubbing it together, made a most magnificent Supper, inviting their Grandee Captain, their Prince, to honour it with his Presence; which he did, and several English with him, where they all waited on him, some playing, others dancing before him all the time, according to the Manners of their several Nations, and with unweary'd Industry endeavouring to please and delight him. While they sat at Meat, Mr. Trefry told Caesar, that most of these young Slaves were undone in love with a fine She- Slave, whom they had had about six Months on their Land ; the Prince, who never heard the Name of Love without a Sigh, nor any mention of it without the Curiosity of examining further into that Tale, which of all Discourses was most agreeable to him, asked, how they came to be so unhappy, as to be all undone for one fair Slave P Trefry, who was naturally amorous, and lov'd to talk of Love as well as any body, pro- ceeded to tell him, they had the most charming Black that ever was beheld on their Plantation, about fifteen or sixteen Years old, as he guess'd ; that for his part he had done nothing but sigh for her ever since she came; and that all the White Beauties he had seen, never charm'd him so absolutely as this fine Creature had done; and that no Man, of any —ºn Nation, ever beheld her that did not fall in love with her; and that she had all the Slaves perpetually at her feet; and the whole Country resounded with the Fame of Clemene, for so (Said he) we have christen’d her : but she denies us all with such a noble Disdain, that 'tis a Miracle to see, that she who can give such eternal Desires, should her self be all Ice and all Unconcern. She is adorn'd with the most graceful Modesty that ever beautify'd Youth; the softest Sigher—— that, if she were capable of Love, one would swear she lan- guished for some absent happy Man; and so retired, as if she fear'd even the God of Day, or that the Breezes wou'd steal Kisses from her delicate Mouth. Her Task of Work, Some sighing Lover every day makes it his petition to perform for her; which she accepts blushing, and with reluctancy, for fear he will ask her a Look for a Recompence, which he dares not presume to hope; so great an Awe she strikes into the Hearts of her Admirers. I do not wonder (reply'd the Prince) that Clemene should refuse Slaves, being, as you say, so beauti- ful, but wonder how she escapes those that can entertain her as $you can do : or why, being your Slave, you do not oblige her to wield 3 I confess (said Trefry) when I have, against her will, entertained her with Love so long, as to be transported with my Passion, I have been ready to make use of those Ad- vantages of Strength and Force Nature has given me : But Oh 1 she disarms ºne with that Modesty and Weeping so tender and so moving, that I retire, and thank my Stars she over- came me. The Company laugh’d at his Civility to a Slave and Caesar only applauded the Nobleness of his Passion and Nature, since that Slave might be noble, or, what was better; have true Notions of Honour and Vertue in her. Thus passed they this Night, after having received from the Slaves all imaginable Respect and Obedience. The next day, Trefry ask'd Caesar to walk when the Heat was allay’d, and designedly carry’d him by the Cottage of the fair Slave; and told him she whom he spoke of last night lived there retir'd: But (says he) I would not wish you to ap- proach ; for I am sure you will be in love as soon as you behold her. Caesar assured him, he was proof against all the Charms of that Sex ; and that if he imagined his Heart could be so perfidious to love again, after Imoinda, he believed he should tear it from his Bosom. They had no sooner spoke, but a little Shock-Dog, that Clemene had presented her, which she took great delight in, ran out; and she, not knowing any body was there, ran to get it in again, and bolted out on those who were just speaking of her : when seeing them, she would have run in again, but Trefry caught her by the Hand, and cry’d, Clemene, however you fly a Lover, you ought to pay some respect to this Stranger, (pointing to Casar.) But she, as if she had resolved never to raise her Eyes to the Face of a Man again, bent ’em the more to the Earth, when he spoke, and gave the Prince the leisure to look the more at her. There needed no long gazing, or Consideration, to examine who this fair Crea- ture was ; he soon Saw Imoinda all over her ; in a minute he saw her Face, her Shape, her Air, her Modesty, and all that call’d forth his Soul with Joy at his Eyes, and left his Body destitute of almost Life: it stood without Motion, and for a Minute knew not that it had a Being; and, I believe, he had never come to himself, so oppress'd he was with Over-Joy, if he had not met with this allay, that he perceived Inoinda fall dead in the hands of Trefry. This awaken'd him, and he ran to her aid, and caught her in his Arms, where by degrees she came to her self; and ’tis needless to tell with what Trans- ports, what Extasies of Joy, they both awhile beheld each other, without speaking; then snatched each other to their Arms; then gazed again, as if they still doubted whether they possess'd the Blessing they grasped: but when they recover'd their Speech, 'tis not to be imagined what tender things they To A.D. 1688.] 187 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. express'd to each other ; wondering what strange Fate had brought them again together. They soon inform'd each other of their Fortunes, and equally bewail'd their Fate; but at the same time they mutually protested, that even Fetters and Slavery were soft and easy, and would be supported with Joy and Pleasure, while they cou’d be so happy to possess each other, and to be able to make good their Vows. Caesar swore he disdained the Empire of the World, while he could behold his Inoinda ; and she despised Grandeur and Pomp, those Vanities of her Sex, when she could gaze on Oroonoko. He ador'd the very Cottage where she resided, and said, That little Inch of the World would give him more Happiness than all the Universe cou’d do ; and she vow’d, it was a Palace, while adorned with the Presence of Oroonoko. Trefry was infinitely pleased with this Novel, and found this Clemene was the fair Mistress of whom Caesar had before spoke; and was not a little satisfy'd, that Heaven was so kind to the Prince as to sweeten his Misfortunes by so lucky an Accident; and leaving the Lovers to themselves, was impatient to come down to Parham-House (which was on the same Plantation) to give me an account of what had hapned. I was as impatient to make these Lovers a Visit, having already made a Friendship with Casar, and from his own Mouth learned what I have related; which was confirmed by his Prenchman, who was set on shore to seek his Fortune, and of whom they cou’d not make a Slave, because a Christian ; and he came daily to Parham-Hill to see and pay his Respects to his Pupil Prince. So that concerning and interesting my self in all that related to Caesar, whom I had assured of Liberty as soon as the Governour arrived, I hasted presently to the Place where these Lovers were, and was infinitely glad to find this beautiful young Slave (who had already gain’d all our Esteems, for her Modesty and her extraordinary Prettiness) to be the same I had heard Caesar speak so much of. One may imagine then we paid her a treble Respect ; and tho from her being carved in fine Flowers and Birds all over her Body, we took her to be of Quality before, yet when we knew Clemene was Inoinda, we could not enough admire her. I had forgot to tell you, that those who are nobly born of that Country, are so delicately cut and raised all over the Fore-part of the Trunk of their Bodies, that it looks as if it were japan'd, the Works being raised like high Points round the edges of the Flowers. Some are only carved with a little Flower, or Bird, at the sides of the Temples, as was Caesar ; and those who are so carved over the Body, resemble our antient Picts that are figur'd in the Chronicles, but these Carvings are more delicate. From that happy day Caesar took Clemene for his Wife, to the general joy of all People; and there was as much Mag- nificence as the Country would afford at the Celebration of this Wedding: and in a very short time after she conceived with Child, which made Caesar even adore her, knowing he was the last of his great Race. This new Accident made him more impatient of Liberty, and he was every day treating with Trefry for his and Clemene's Liberty, and offer'd either Gold, or a vast quantity of Slaves, which should be paid before they let him go, provided he could have any Security that he should go when his Ransom was paid. They fed him from day to day with Promises, and delay’d him till the Lord- Governour should come; so that he began to suspect them of Falshood, and that they would delay him till the time of his Wife's Delivery, and make a Slave of that too: for all the Breed is theirs to whom the Parents belong. This Thought made him very uneasy, and his Sullenness gave them some Jealousies of him ; so that I was obliged, by some Persons who fear'd a Mutiny (which is very fatal sometimes in those Colonies that abound so with Slaves, that they exceed the Whites in vast numbers) to discourse with Caesar, and to give him all the Satisfaction I possibly could : They knew he and Clemene were scarce an Hour in a Day from my Lodgings; that they eat with me, and that I oblig'd 'em in all things I was capable of. I entertained them with the Lives of the Romans, and great Men, which charmed him to my company; and her, with teaching her all the pretty Works that I was Mistress of, and telling her Stories of Nuns, and endeavouring to bring her to the Knowledg of the true God: But of all Discourses, Caesar liked that the worst, and would never be reconciled to our Notions of the Trinity, of which he ever made a Jest; it was a Riddle he said would turn his Brain to conceive, and one cou’d not make him understand what Faith was. However, these Conversations fail’d not altogether so well to divert him, that he liked the Company of us Women much above the Men, for he could not drink, and he is but an ill Companion in that Country that cannot. So that obliging him to Love us very well, we had all the Liberty of Speech with him, especially my self, whom he call’d his Great Mis- tress ; and indeed my Word would go a great way with him. For these Reasons I had opportunity to take notice to him, that he was not well pleased of late, as he used to be ; was more retired and thoughtful; and told him, I took it ill he shou’d suspect we wou'd break our Words with him, and not permit both him and Clemene to return to his own Kingdom, which was not so long a way, but when he was once on his Voyage he wou'd quickly arrive there. He made me some Answers that shew’d a doubt in him, which made me ask, what advantage it would be to doubt P It would but give us a fear of him, and possibly compel us to treat him so as I should be very loth to behold : that is, it might occasion his Confinement. Perhaps this was not so luckily spoke of me, for I perceiv'd he resented that Word, which I strove to soften again in Vain: However, he assur'd me, that whatsoever Resolutions he should take, he would act nothing upon the White People; and as for my self, and those upon that Plan- tation where he was, he would sooner forfeit his eternal Liberty, and Life it self, than lift his Hand against his great- est Enemy on that place. He besought me to suffer no Fears upon his account, for he could do nothing that Honour should not dictate; but he accus’d himself for having suffer'd Slavery so long : yet he charg’d that weakness on Love alone, who was capable of making him neglect even Glory it self; and, for which, now he reproaches himself every moment of the Day. Much more to this effect he spoke, with an Air im- patient enough to make me know he would not be long in Bondage; and though he suffer'd only the Name of a Slave, and had nothing of the Toil and Labour of one, yet that was sufficient to render him uneasy; and he had been too long idle, who us’d to be always in Action, and in Arms. He had a Spirit all rough and fierce, and that could not be tam'd to lazy Rest; and though all Endeavours were us’d to exercise himself in such Actions and Sports as this World afforded, as Running, Wrestling, Pitching the Bar, Hunting and Fishing, Chasing and Killing Tygers of a monstrous size, which this Continent affords in abundance;" and wonderful Snakes, such as Alexander is reported to have encounter'd at the River of Amazons, and which Caesar took great delight to overcome; yet these were not Actions great enough for his large Soul, which was still panting after more renown'd Actions. 1 There are no tigers in the New World, but the jaguar will seize and drag off a horse, and has powerful claws. Though not usually of great size, Humboldt says he has seen a jaguar “which in length surpassed that of any tiger of India which he had seen in the collections of Europe.” Mrs. Behn is quite right as to the wonderful snakes; the armadillo and the electric eel are also common in Guiana. She is right also in dwelling on the perfume of the forests. 188 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. LA.D. 1685 Before I parted that day with him, I got, with much-ado, a Promise from him to rest yet a little longer with patience, and wait the coming of the Lord Governour, who was every day expected on our shore: he assur'd me he would, and this Promise he desired me to know was given perfectly in com- plaisance to me, in whom he had an intire Confidence. After this, I neither thought it convenient to trust him much out of our view, nor did the Country, who fear'd him; but with one accord it was advis’d to treat him fairly, and oblige him to remain within such a compass, and that he should be permitted, as seldom as could be, to go up to the Plantations of the Negroes ; or, if he did, to be accompany’d by some that should be rather in appearance Attendants than Spies. This Care was for some time taken, and Caesar look'd upon it as a Mark of extraordinary Respect, and was glad his discontent had oblig'd 'em to be more observant to him ; he received new assurance from the Overseer, which was con- firmed to him by the Opinion of all the Gentlemen of the Country, who made their court to him. During this time that we had his Company more frequently than hitherto we had had, it may not be unpleasant to relate to you the Diver- sions we entertain’d him with, or rather he us. My stay was to be short in that Country; because my Father dy’d at Sea, and never arriv'd to possess the Honour design'd him, (which was Lieutenant-General of six and thirty Islands, besides the Continent of Surinam) nor the Advantages he hop'd to reap by them : so that though we were oblig'd to continue on our Voyage, we did not intend to stay upon the Place. Though, in a word, I must say thus much of it; that certainly had his late Majesty, of sacred Memory, but seen and known what a vast and charming World he had been Master of in that Continent, he would never have parted so easily with it to the Dutch.' 'Tis a Continent whose vast Ex- tent was never yet known, and may contain more noble Earth than all the Universe beside; for, they say, it reaches from East to West one way as far as China, and another to Peru: It affords all things both for Beauty and Use; 'tis there eternal Spring, always the very months of April, May, and June ; the Shades are perpetual, the Trees bearing at once all degrees of Leaves and Fruit, from blooming Buds to ripe Autumn : Groves of Oranges, Lemons, Citrons, Figs, Nut- mcgs, and noble Aromaticks, continually bearing their Fragrancies. The Trees appearing all like Nosegays adorn'd with Flowers of different kinds, some are all White, some Purple, some Scarlet, some Blue, some Yellow ; bearing at the same time ripe Fruit, and blooming Young, or producing every day new. The very Wood of all these Trees has an intrinsick Value above common Timber; for they are, when cut, of different Colours, glorious to behold, and bear a price considerable, to inlay withal. Besides this, they yield rich Balm, and Gums; so that we make our Candles of such an aromatick Substance, as does not only give a sufficient Light, but, as they burn, they cast their Perfumes all about. Cedar is the common firing, and all the Houses are built with it. The very Meat we eat, when set on the Table, if it be native, I mean of the Country, perfumes the whole Room; especially a little Beast call'd an Armadilly, a thing which I can liken to nothing so well as a Rhinoceros ; ’tis all in white Armour, so jointed, that it moves as well in it, as if it had nothing on : this Beast is about the Bigness of a Pig of six Weeks old. But it were endless to give an account of all the divers *- 1 The Dutch took Guiana from the English in 1666, and it was ceded to them by Charles II. in 1668. Charles II. is here called “his late Majesty of happy memory.” The novel must, therefore, have been written in the reign of James II., between February, 1685, and April, 1689, when Mrs. Behn died. It was a later work than her last comedy, which she mentions in another part of the tale as a recent production. wonderful and strange Things that Country affords, and which we took a very great delight to go in search of ; tho those Advantages are oftentimes fatal, and at least dangerous : But while we had Caesar in our company on these Designs, we fear'd no harm, nor suffer'd any. As soon as I came into the Country, the best House in it was presented me, call’d St. John's Hill . It stood on a vast Rock of white Marble, at the foot of which the River ran a vast depth down, and not to be descended on that side; the little Waves still dashing and washing the foot of this Rock, made the softest Murmurs and Purlings in the World; and the opposite Bank was adorn'd with such vast quantities of different Flowers eternally blowing; and every Day and Hour new, fenc'd behind 'em with lofty Trees of a thousand rare Forms and Colours, that the Prospect was the most ravishing that Sands can create. On the edge of this white Rock, towards the River, was a Walk or Grove of Orange and Lemon-Trees, about half the length of the Mall here, whose flowery and fruit-bearing Branches met at the top, and hinder'd the Sun, whose Rays are very fierce there, from entering a Beam into the Grove; and the cool Air that came from the River, made it not only fit to entertain People in, at all the hottest hours of the day, but refresh'd the sweet Blossoms, and made it always sweet and charming ; and sure, the whole Globe of the World cannot shew so delightful a Place as this Grove was : Not all the Gardens of boasted Italy can produce a Shade to out-vie this, which Nature had join'd with Art to render so exceeding fine; and ’tis a marvel to see how vast Trees, as big as English Oaks, could take footing on so solid a Rock, and in so little Earth as cover'd that Rock: But all things by Nature there are rare, delightful and wonderful. But to our Sports. Sometimes we would go surprizing, and in search of young Tygers in their Dens, watching when the old ones went forth to forage for Prey ; and oftentimes we have been in great danger, and have fled apace for our Lives, when surpriz’d by the Dams. But once, above all other times, we went on this Design, and Casar was with us ; who had no sooner stoln a young Tyger from her Nest, but going off, we encounter'd the Dam, bearing a Buttock of a Cow, which he had torn off with his mighty Paw, and going with it towards his Den: we had only four Women, Caesar, and an English Gentleman, Brother to Harry Martin the great Oliverian ; we found there was no escaping this enraged and ravenous Beast. However, we Women fled as fast as we could from it; but our Heels had not saved our Lives, if Caesar had not laid down his Cub, when he found the Tyger quit her Prey to make the more speed towards him ; and taking Mr. Martin's Sword, desired him to stand aside, or follow the Ladies. He obey'd him ; and Caesar met this monstrous Beast of mighty Size, and vast Limbs, who came with open Jaws upon him; and fixing his awful stern Eyes full upon those of the Beast, and putting himself into a very steddy and good aiming Posture of Defence, ran his Sword quite through his Breast down to his very Heart, home to the Hilt of the Sword: the dying Beast stretch'd forth her Paw, and going to grasp his Thigh, surpriz'd with death in that very moment, did him no other harm than fixing her long Nails in his Flesh very deep, feebly wounded him, but could not grasp the Flesh to tear off any. When he had done this, he hollow'd to us to return: which, after some assurance of his Victory, we did, and found him lugging out the Sword from the Bosom of the Tiger, who was laid in her Blood on the ground; he took up the Cub, and with an unconcern that had nothing of the Joy or Gladness of a Victory, he came and laid the Whelp at my feet. We all extremely wonder'd at his daring, and at the bigness of the Beast, which was about the height of an Heifer, but of mighty great and strong Limbs. To A.D. 1688.] 189 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Another time being in the Woods, he kill'd a Tyger which had long infested that Part, and borne away abundance of Sheep add Oxen, and other things that were for the support of those to whom they belong'd: abundance of People assail'd this Beast, some affirming they had shot her with several Bullets quite through the Body, at several times; and some swearing they shot her through the very Heart, and they believ'd she was a Devil, rather than a mortal thing. Caesar had often said, he had a mind to encounter this Monster, and spoke with several Gentlemen who had attempted her ; one crying, I shot her with so many poison’d Arrows, another with his Gun in this part of her, and another in that: so that he remarking all these places where she was shot, fancy’d still he should overcome her, by giving her another sort of a Wound than any had yet done, and one day said (at the Table) What Trophies and Garlands, Ladies, will you make me, if I bring you home the Heart of this ravenous Beast, that eats up all 4/our Lambs and Pigs & We all promis'd he should be rewarded at all our hands. So taking a Bow, which he chose out of a great many, he went up into the Wood, with two Gentlemen, where he imagin'd this Devourer to be; they had not past very far in it, but they heard her Voice, growling and grum- bling, as if she were pleas'd with something she was doing. When they came in view, they found her muzzling in the Belly of a new ravish'd Sheep, which she had torn open; and seeing her self approach'd, she took fast hold of her Prey with her fore Paws, and set a very fierce raging Look on Caesar, without offering to approach him, for fear at the same time of losing what she had in possession. So that Caesar remain’d a good while, only taking aim, and getting an opportunity to shoot her where he design'd : 'twas some time before he could accomplish it ; and to wound her, and not kill her, would but have enrag’d her the more, and endanger'd him. He had a Quiver of Arrows at his side, so that if one fail'd, he could be supply'd ; at last, retiring a little, he gave her opportunity to eat, for he found she was ravenous, and fell to as soon as she saw him retire, being more eager of her Prey, than of doing new Mischief : when he going softly to one side of her, and hiding his Person behind certain herbage that grew high and thick, he took so good aim, that, as he intended, he shot her just into the Eye, and the Arrow was sent with so good a will, and so sure a hand, that it stuck in her Brain, and made her caper, and become mad for a moment or two; but being seconded by another Arrow, she fell dead upon the Prey. Caesar cut her open with a Knife, to see where those Wounds were that had been reported to him, and why she did not die of 'em. But I shall now relate a thing that, possibly, will find no credit among Men; because ’tis a Notion commonly receiv'd with us, That nothing can receive a Wound in the Heart and live: But when the Heart of this courageous Animal was taken out, there were seven Bullets of Lead in it, the Wound seam’d up with great Scars, and she liv'd with the Bullets a great while, for it was long since they were shot: This Heart the Conqueror brought up to us, and ’twas a very great Curiosity, which all the Country came to see ; and which gave Caesar occasion of many fine Discourses, of Accidents in War, and strange Escapes. At other times he would go a fishing; and discoursing on that Diversion, he found we had in that Country a very strange Fish, call’d a Numb-Eel (an Eel of which I have eaten) that while it is alive, it has a Quality so cold, that those who are Angling, though with a Line of ever so great a length, with a Rod at the end of it, it shall, in the same minute the Bait is touch'd by this Eel, seize him or her that holds the Rod with a numbness, that shall deprive them of Sense for a while ; and some have fallen into the Water, and others drop'd as dead, on the Banks of the Rivers where they stood, as soon as this Fish touches the Bait. Caesar us’d to laugh at this, and believ’d it impossible a Man could lose his Force at the touch of a Fish; and could not understand that Philosophy, that a cold Quality should be of that nature; however, he had a great Curiosity to try whether it would have the same effect on him it had on others, and often try’d, but in vain. At last, the sought-for Fish came to the Bait, as he stood angling on the Bank; and instead of throwing away the Rod, or giving it a sudden twitch out of the Water, whereby he might have caught both the Eel, and have dismiss'd the Rod, before it could have too much power over him; for Ex- periment-sake, he grasp'd it but the harder, and fainting fell into the River; and being still possess'd of the Rod, the Tide carry’d him, sen eless as he was, a great way, till an Indian Boat took him up ; and perceiv'd, when they touch'd him, a Numbness seize them, and by that knew the Rod was in his hand; which with a Paddle, (that is, a short Oar) they struck away, and snatcht it into the Boat, Eel and all. If Caesar was almost dead, with the effects of this Fish, he was more so with that of the Water, where he had remain'd the space of going a League, and they found they had much ado to bring him back to Life; but at last they did and brought him home, where he was in a few hours well recover'd and refresh'd, and not a little asham'd to find he should be overcome by an Eel, and that all the People, who heard his Defiance, would laugh at him. But we chear'd him up; and he being convinc'd, we had the Eel at Supper, which was a quarter of an Ell about, and most delicate Meat; and was of the more value, since it cost so dear as almost the Life of so gallant a Man. About this time we were in many mortal Fears, about some Disputes the English had with the Indians ; so that we could scarce trust our selves, without great Numbers, to go to any Indian Towns or Place where they abode, for fear they should fall upon us, as they did immediately after my coming away; and the Place being in the Possession of the Dutch, they us'd them not so civilly as the English : so that they cut in pieces all they could take, getting into Houses, and hanging up the Mother, and all her Children about her; and cut a Footman, I left behind me, all in Joints, and nail’d him to Trees. This Feud began while I was there; so that I lost half the Satisfaction I propos'd, in not seeing and visiting the Indian Towns. But one day, bemoaning of our Misfortunes upon this account, Caesar told us, we need not fear, for if we had a mind to go, he would undertake to be our Guard. Some would, but most would not venture: About Eighteen of us resolv’d, and took Barge; and after eight days, arriv'd near an Indian Town: But approaching it, the Hearts of some of our Com- pany fail'd, and they would not venture on Shore; so we poll'd, who would, and who would not. For my part, I said, if Caesar would, I would go. He resolv’d; so did my Brother, and my Woman, a Maid of good Courage. Now, none of us speaking the Language of the People, and imagining we should have a half Diversion in gazing only; and not knowing what they said, we took a Fisherman that liv'd at the Mouth of the River, who had been a long Inhabitant there, and oblig'd him to go with us : But because he was known to the Indians, as trading among 'em, and being, by long living there, become a perfect Indian in colour, we, who had a mind to surprize’em, by making them see something they never had seen, (that is, White People) resolv’d only my self, my Brother and Woman should go: so Caesar, the Fisherman, and the rest, hiding behind some thick Reeds and Flowers that grew in the Banks, let us pass on towards the Town, which was on the Bank of the River all along. A little distant from the Houses, or Huts, we saw some dancing, others busy’d in fetching and carrying of Water from the River. They had no sooner spy'd us, but they set up a loud Cry, that 190 [A.D. 1685 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. frightened us at first ; we thought it had been for those that should kill us, but it seems it was of Wonder and Amazement. They were all naked; and we were dress'd, so as is most com- mode for the hot Countries, very glittering and rich; so that we appear'd extremely fine: my own Hair was cut short, and I had a taffety Cap, with black Feathers on my Head; my Brother was in a Stuff-Suit, with silver Loops and Buttons, and abundance of green Ribbon. This was all infinitely sur- prizing to them; and because we saw them stand still till we approach'd 'em, we took heart and advanc'd, came up to 'em, and offer'd 'em our Hands; which they took, and look'd on us round about, calling still for more Company; who came swarming out, all wondering, and crying out Tepeeſne taking their Hair up in their Hands, and spreading it wide to those they call'd out to; as if they would say (as indeed it signify'd) Mumberless Wonders, or not to be recounted, no more than to number the Hair of their Heads. By degrees they grew more bold, and from gazing upon us round, they touch'd us, laying their Hands upon all the Features of our Faces, feeling our Breasts and Arms, taking up one Petticoat, than wondering to see another; admiring our Shoes and Stockings, but more our Garters, which we gave 'em, and they ty’d about their Legs, being lac'd with silver Lace at the ends; for they much esteem any shining things. In fine, we suffer'd 'em to survey us as they pleas'd, and we thought they would never have done admiring us. When Casar, and the rest, saw we were receiv'd with such wonder, they came up to us; and finding the Indian Trader whom they knew, (for 'tis by these Fisher- men, call’d Indian Traders, we hold a Commerce with 'em ; for they love not to go far from home, and we never go to them) when they saw him therefore, they set up a new Joy, and cry’d in their Language, Oh here's our Tiguamy, and we shall now know whether those things can speak. So advancing to him, some of 'em gave him their Hands, an cry’d, Amnora Tiguamy; which is as much as, How do you do, or, welcome Friend : and all, with one din, began to gabble to him, and ask'd, if we had Sense and Wit? If we could talk of Affairs of Life and War, as they could do? If we could hunt, swim, and do a thousand things they use ? He answer'd 'em, We could. Then they invited us into their Houses, and dress'd Venison and Buffalo for us; and, going out, gather'd a Leaf of a Tree, called a Sarumbo Leaf, of six Yards long, and spread it on the Ground for a Table-cloth ; and cutting another in pieces, instead of Plates, set us on little low Indian-Stools, which they cut out of one entire piece of Wood, and paint in a sort of Japan-work. They serve every one their Mess on these pieces of Leaves; and it was very good, but too high- season'd with Pepper. When we had eat, my Brother and I took out our Flutes, and play'd to 'em, which gave 'em new wonder; and I soon perceiv'd, by an admiration that is natural to these People, and by the extreme Ignorance and Simplicity of 'em, it were not difficult to establish any un- known or extravagant Religion among them, and to impose any Notions or Fictions upon 'em. For seeing a Kinsman of mine set some Paper on fire with a Burning-glass, a Trick they had never before seen, they were like to have ador'd him for a God, and begg'd he would give ’om the Characters or Figures of his Name, that they might oppose it against Winds and Storms: which he did, and they held it up in those Seasons, and fancy'd it had a Charm to conquer them, and kept it like a holy Relique. They are very superstitious, and call'd him the great Peeie, that is, Prophet. They shewed us their Indian Peete, a Youth about sixteen Years old, as hand- som as Nature could make a Man. They consecrate a beauti- ful Youth from his Infancy, and all Arts are used to compleat him in the finest manner, both in Beauty and Shape : He is bred to all the little arts and cunning they are capable of; to all the legerdemain Tricks, and sleight of Hand, whereby he imposes upon the Rabble; and is both a Doctor in Physick and Divinity: And by these Tricks makes the sick believe he sometimes eases their Pains, by drawing from the afflicted I’art little Serpents, or odd Flies, or Worms, or any strange thing; and though they have besides undoubted good Re- medies for almost all their Diseases, they Cure the Patient more by Fancy than by Medicines, and make themselves feared, loved, and reverenced. This young Peete had a very young Wife, who seeing my Brother kiss her, came running and kiss'd me. After this they kiss'd one another, and made it a very great Jest, it being so novel; and new Admiration and Laughing went round the Multitude, that they never will forget that Ceremony, never before us'd or known. Caesar had a mind to see and talk with their War-Captains, and we were conducted to one of their Houses; where we beheld several of the great Captains, who had been at Council: But so frightful a Vision it was to see 'em, no Fancy can create ; no sad Dreams can represent so dreadful a Spectacle. For my part, I took 'em for Hobgoblins, or Fiends, rather than Men: but however their Shapes appear'd, their Souls were very humane and noble ; but some wanted their Noses, some their Lips, some both Noses and Lips, some their Ears, and others cut through each Cheek, with long Slashes, through which their Teeth appear'd : they had several other formidable Wounds, and Scars, or rather Dismembrings. They had Comitia's, or little Aprons before 'em ; and Girdles of Cotton, with their Knives naked stuck in it ; a Bow at their Back, and a Quiver of Arrows on their Thighs; and most had Feathers on their Heads of divers Colours. They cry’d Amora Tiguame to us, at our entrance, and were pleas'd we said as much to them : They seated us, and gave us Drink of the best sort, and wonder'd as much as the others had done before, to see us. Caesar was marvelling as much at their Faces, wondring how they should all be so wounded in War; he was impatient to know how they all came by those frightful Marks of Rage or Malice, rather than Wounds got in noble Battel: They told us by our Interpreter, That when any War was waging, two Men, chosen out by some old Captain whose fighting was past, and who could only teach the Theory of War, were to stand in competition for the Generalship, or great War- Captain; and being brought before the old Judges, now past Labour, they are ask'd, What they dare do, to shew they are worthy to lead an Army When he who is first ask'd, making no reply, cuts off his Nose, and throws it contemptibly on the ground; and the other does something to himself that he thinks surpasses him, and perhaps deprives himself of Lips and an Eye: so they slash on till one gives out, and many have dy’d in this Debate. And it's by a passive Valour they shew and prove their Activity; a sort of Courage too brutal to be applauded by our Black Hero; nevertheless, he express'd his Esteem of 'em. In this Voyage Casar begat so good an understanding be- tween the Indians and the English, that there were no more Fears or Heart-burnings during our stay, but we had a perfect, open, and free Trade with 'em. Many things remarkable, and worthy reciting, we met with in this short Voyage; because Caesar made it his business to search out and provide for our Entertainment, especially to please his dearly ador'd Imoinda, who was a sharer in all our Adventures; we being resolv'd to make her Chains as easy as we could, and to compliment the Prince in that manner that most oblig'd him. As we were coming up again, we met with some Indians of strange Aspects; that is of a larger size, and other sort of Features, than those of our Country. Our Indian Slaves, that row'd us, ask'd 'em some Questions; but they could not To A.D. 1688 J 191 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. understand us, but shew’d us a long cotton String, with several Knots on it, and told us, they had been coming from the Mountains so many Moons as there were Knots: they were habited in Skins of a strange Beast, and brought along with 'em Bags of Gold-Dust ; which, as well as they could give us to understand, came streaming in little small Channels down the high Mountains, when the Rains fell; and offer'd to be the Convoy to any body, or persons, that would go to the Mountains. We carry'd these Men up to Parham, where they were kept till the Lord-Governour came : And because all the Country was mad to be going on this Golden Adventure, the Governour, by his Letters, commanded (for they sent some of the Gold to him) that a Guard should be set at the Mouth of the River of Amazons (a River so call’d, almost as broad as the River of Thames) and prohibited all People from going up that River, it conducting to those Mountains of Gold. But we going off for England before the Project was further prose- cuted, and the Governour being drown'd in a Hurricane, either the Design dy’d, or the Dutch have the advantage of it : And 'tis to be bemoan'd what his Majesty lost by losing that part of America. Though this Digression is a little from my Story, however, since it contains some Proofs of the Curiosity and Daring of this great Man, I was content to omit nothing of his Character. . It was thus for some time we diverted him ; but now Inoinda began to shew she was with Child, and did nothing but sigh and weep for the Captivity of her Lord, her self, and the Infant yet unborn ; and believ'd, if it were so hard to gain the liberty of two, 'twould be more difficult to get that for three. Her Griefs were so many Darts in the great Heart of Caesar, and taking his opportunity, one Sunday, when all the Whites were overtaken in Drink, as there were abundance of several Trades, and Slaves for four Years, that inhabited among the Negro Houses; and Sunday being their Day of debauch, (otherwise they were a sort of Spies upon Casar) he went, pretending out of goodness to 'em, to feast among 'em, and sent all his Musick, and order'd a great Treat for the whole gang, about three hundred Negroes, and about an hundred and fifty were able to bear Arms, such as they had, which were sufficient to do execution with Spirits accordingly: For the English had none but rusty Swords, that no Strength could draw from a Scabbard; except the People of particular Quality, who took care to oil’em, and keep ’em in good order: The Guns also, unless here and there one, or those newly carry'd from England, would do no good or harm; for ’tis the nature of that Country to rust and eat up iron, or any Metals but Gold and Silver. And they are very expert at the Bow, which the Negroes and Indians are perfect Masters of. Caesar, having singled out these Men from the Women and Children, made an Harangue to 'em, of the Miseries and Ignominies of Slavery; counting up all their Toils and Suffer- ings, under such Loads, Burdens and Drudgeries, as were fitter for Beast than Men; senseless Brutes, than human Souls. He told 'em, it was not for Days, Months or Years, but for Eternity; there was no end to be of their Misfortunes: They suffer'd not like Men, who might find a Glory and Fortitude in Oppression; but like Dogs, that lov’d the Whip and Bell, and fawn’d the more they were beaten : That they had lost the divine Quality of Men, and were become insensi- ble Asses, fit only to bear: nay, worse; an Ass, or Dog, or Horse, having done his Duty, could lie down in retreat, and rise to work again, and while he did his Duty, indur’d no Stripes; but Men, villanous, senseless Men, such as they, toil’d on all the tedious Work till Black Friday : and then, whether they work'd or not, whether, they were faulty or meriting, they, promiscuously, the innocent with the guilty, suffer'd the infamous Whip, the sordid Stripes, from their Fellow-Slaves, till their Blood trickled from all Parts of their Body; Blood, whose every Drop ought to be revenged with a Life of some of those Tyrants that impose it. And why (said he) my dear Friends and Fellow-sufferers, should we be Slaves to an unknown People 3 Have they vanquished us nobly in Fight 2 Have they won us in Honourable Battle 2 And are we by the Chance of War become their Slaves 2 This wou’d not anger a noble Heart ; this would not animate a Soldier's Soul : no, but we are bought and sold like Apes or Monkeys, to be the sport of Women, Fools and Cowards ; and the Support of Rogues and Runagades, that have abandoned their own Countries for Rapine, Murders, Theft and Villanies. Do you not hear every day how they upbraid each other with Infamy of Life, below the wildest Salvages 3 And shall we render Obedience to such a degenerate Race, who have no one human Vertue left, to distin- guish them from the vilest Creatures 2 Will you, I say, suffer the Lash from such hands & They all reply'd with one accord, No, No, No, Caesar has spoke like a great Captain, like a great King. After this he would have proceeded, but was interrupted by a tall Negroe of some more Quality than the rest, his Name was Tuscan ; who bowing at the feet of Caesar, cry’d, My Lord, we have listen’d with Joy and Attention to what you have said, and, were we only Men, would follow so great a Leader through the World: But Oh I consider we are Busbands, and Parents too, and have things more dear to us than Life : our Wives and Children, wrºfit for Travel in those unpassable Woods, Mountains and Bogs. We have not only difficult Lands to over- come, but Rivers to wade, and Mountains to encounter ; ravenous Beasts of Prey.—To this Caesar reply'd, That Honour was the first Principle in Nature, that was to be obey'd : but as no Man would pretend to that, without all the Acts of Vertue, Compassion, Charity, Love, Justice, and Reason ; he found it not inconsistent with that, to take equal care of their Wives and Children, as they wou'd of themselves ; and that he did not design, when he led them to Freedom, and glorious Liberty, that they shou'd leave that better part of themselves to perish by the hand of the Tyrant's Whip : But if there were a Woman among them so degenerate from Love and Vertue, to chuse Slavery before the pursuit of her Husband, and with the hazard of her Life, to share with him in his Fortunes ; that such a one ought to be abandoned, and left as a Prey to the common Enemy. To which they all agreed———and bowed. After this, he spoke of the impassable Woods and Rivers; and convinced them, the more Danger the more Glory. He told them, that he had heard of one Hannibal, a great Captain, had cut his way through Mountains of solid Rocks; and should a few Shrubs oppose them, which they could fire before 'em 2 No, 'twas a trifling Excuse to Men resolved to die, or overcome. As for Bogs, they are with a little Labour filled and harden’d ; and the Rivers could be no Obstacle, since they swam by Nature, at least by Custom, from the first hour of their Birth: That when the Children were weary, they must carry them by turns, and the Woods and their own Industry wou'd afford them Food. To this they all assented with Joy. Tuscan then demanded, what he would do: He said they would travel towards the Sea, plant a new Colony, and defend it by their Valour; and when they could find a Ship, either driven by stress of Weather, or guided by Providence that way, they wou'd seize it, and make it a Prize, till it had transported them to their own Countries: at least they should be made free in his Kingdom, and be esteem’d as his Fellow- Sufferers, and Men that had the Courage and the Bravery to attempt, at least, for Liberty; and if they dy’d in the Attempt, it would be more brave, than to live in perpetual Slavery. They bow’d and kiss'd his Feet at this Resolution, and with 192 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 one accord vow'd to follow him to death; and that Night was appointed to begin their march. They made it known to their Wives, and directed them to tie their Hamaca about their Shoulders, and under their Arm, like a Scarf, and to lead their Children that could go, and carry those that could not. The Wives, who pay an entire Obedience to their Husbands, obey'd, and stay’d for 'em where they were appointed: the Men stay’d but to furnish themselves with what defensive Arms they could get; and all met at the Rendezvouz, where Caesar made a new encouraging Speech to 'em, and led 'em out. But as they cou’d not march far that night, on Monday early, when the Overseers went to call 'em all together, to go to work, they were extremely surprized, to find not one upon the Place, but all fled with what Baggage they had. You may imagine this News was not only suddenly spread all over the Plantation, but soon reached the neighbouring ones; and we had by Noon about 600 Men, they call the Militia of the Country, that came to assist us in the pursuit of the Fugitives: but never did one see so comical an Army march forth to War. The Men of any Fashion would not concern themselves, tho it were almost the Common Cause; for such Revoltings are very ill Examples, and have very fatal Consequences often- times, in many Colonies: But they had a Respect for Casar, and all hands were against the Parhamites (as they called those of Parham-Plantation) because they did not in the first place love the Ilord-Governour; and secondly, they would have it, that Caesar was ill used, and baffled with : and ’tis not impossible but some of the best in the Country was of his Council in this Flight, and depriving us of all the Slaves; so that they of the better sort wou’d not meddle in the matter. The Deputy-Governour, of whom I have had no great occasion to speak, and who was the most fawning fair-tongu'd Fellow in the World, and one that pretended the most Friendship to Casar, was now the only violent Man against him; and though he had nothing, and so need fear nothing, yet taſked and looked bigger than any Man. He was a Fellow, whose Charac- ter is not fit to be mentioned with the worst of the Slaves: This Fellow would lead his Army forth to meet Caesar, or rather to pursue him. Most of their Arms were of those sort of cruel Whips they call Cat with nine Tails ; some had rusty useless Guns for shew ; others old Basket Hilts, whose Blades had never seen the Light in this Age; and others had long Staffs and Clubs. Mr. Trefry went along, rather to be a Mediator than a Conqueror in such a Battle; for he foresaw and knew, if by fighting they put the Negroes into despair, they were a sort of sullen Fellows, that would drown or kill themselves before they would yield; and he advis’d that fair means was best: But Byam was one that abounded in his own Wit, and would take his own Measures. It was not hard to find these Fugitives; for as they fled, they were forced to fire and cut the Woods before 'em : so that night or day they pursu'd 'em by the Light they made, and by the Path they had cleared. But as soon as Caesar found he was pursu'd, he put himself in a posture of Defence, placing all the Women and Children in the Rear; and himself, with Tuscan by his side, or next to him, all promising to die or conquer. Encouraged thus, they never stood to parley, but fell on pell-mell upon the English, and killed some, and wounded a great many; they having recourse to their Whips, as the best of their Weapons. And as they observed no order, they perplexed the Enemy so sorely, with lashing'em in the Eyes; and the Women and Children seeing their Hus- bands so treated, being of fearful cowardly Dispositions, and hearing the English cry out, Yield, and Live 1 Yield, and be Pardoned 1 they all ran in amongst their Husbands and Fathers, and hung about them, crying out, Yield / Yield ! and leave Caesar to their revenge : that by degrees the Slaves aban- don’d Caesar, and left him only Tuscan and his Heroick Inoinda, who grown big as she was, did nevertheless press near her Lord, having a Bow and a Quiver full of poisoned Arrows, which she managed with such dexterity, that she wounded several, and shot the Governour into the Shoulder; of which Wound he had like to have died, but that an Indian Woman, his Mistress, sucked the Wound, and cleans'd it from the Venom : But however, he stir’d not from the Place till he had parly’d with Casar, who he found was resolved to die fighting, and would not be taken; no more would Tuscan or Imoimda. But he, more thirsting after Revenge of another sort, than that of depriving him of Life, now made use of all his Art of talking and dissembling, and besought Caesar to yield himself upon terms which he himself should propose, and should be Sacredly assented to, and kept by him. He told him, It was not that he any longer fear'd him, or could believe the Force of two Men, and a young Heroine, could overthrow all them, and with all the Slaves now on their side also ; but it was the vast Esteem he had for his Person, the Desire he had to serve so gallant a Man, and to hinder himself from the Re- proach hereafter, of having been the occasion of the Death of a Prince, whose Valour and Magnanimity deserved the Em- pire of the World. He protested to him, he looked upon this Action as gallant and brave, however tending to the Prejudice of his Lord and Master, who would by it have lost so consider- able a number of Slaves; that this Flight of his shou’d be looked on as a Heat of Youth, and a Rashness of a too forward Courage, and an unconsider'd Impatience of Liberty, and no more ; and that he labour'd in vain to accomplish that which they would effectually perform as soon as any Ship arrived that would touch on his Coast: So that if you will be pleased (continued he) to surrender your self, all imaginable Respect shall be paid you ; and your Self, your Wife and Child, if it be born here, shall depart free out of our Land. But Casar would hear of no Composition; though Byam urged, if he pursued and went on in his design, he would inevitably perish, either by great Snakes, wild Beasts, or Hunger; and he ought to have regard to his Wife, whose Condition requir’d Ease, and not the Fatigues of tedious Travel, where she could not be secured from being devoured. But Caesar told him, there was no Faith in the White Men, or the Gods they ador’d ; who instructed them in Principles so false, that honest Men could not live amongst them; though no People profess'd so much, none performed so little: That he knew what he had to do when he dealt with Men of Honour; but with them a Man ought to be eternally on his guard, and never to eat and drink with Christians, without his Weapons of Defence in his hand; and, for his own Security, never to credit one Word they spoke. As for the Rashness and Inconsiderateness of his Action, he would confess the Governour is in the right ; and that he was ashamed of what he had done, in endeavouring to make those free, who were by Nature Slaves, poor wretched Rogues, fit to be used as Christians Tools; Dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such Masters; and they wanted only but to be whipped into the knowledg of the Christian Gods, to be the vilest of all creeping things; to learn to worship such Deities as had not power to make them just, brave, or honest; In fine, after a thousand things of this nature, not fit here to be recited, he told Byam, He had rather die, than live upon the same Earth with such Dogs. But Trefry and Byam pleaded and protested together so much, that Trefry believing the Governour to mean what he said, and speaking very cordially himself, generously put himself into Caesar's hands, and took him aside, and persuaded him, even with Tears, to live, by surrendring himself, and to name his Conditions. Caesar was overcome by his Wit and Reasons, and in considera- TO A.D. 1688. ) 193 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. tion of Inoinda ; and demanding what he desired, and that it should be ratify’d by their Hands in Writing, because he had perceived that was the common way of Contract between Man and Man amongst the Whites; all this was performed, and Tuscan's Pardon was put in, and they surrender'd to the Governour, who walked peaceably down into the Plantation with them, after giving order to bury their Dead. Caesar was very much toil'd with the Bustle of the Day, for he had fought like a Fury; and what Mischief was done, he and Tuscan performed alone; and gave their Enemies a fatal Proof, that they durst do any thing, and fear'd no mortal Force. But they were no sooner arrived at the Place where all the Slaves receive their Punishments of Whipping, but they laid hands on Caesar and Tuscan, faint with Heat and Toil; and surprizing them, bound them to two several Stakes, and whipped them in the most deplorable and inhuman manner, rending the very Flesh from their Bones, especially Caesar, who was not perceived to make any Moan, or to alter his Face, only to roll his Eyes on the faithless Governour, and those he believed guilty, with Fierceness and Indignation; and to compleat his Rage, he saw every one of those Slaves, who but a few days before ador'd him as something more than mortal, now had a Whip to give him some Lashes, while he strove not to break his Fetters; though if he had, it were impossible: but he pronounced a Woe and Revenge from his Eyes, that darted Fire, which was at once both awful and terrible to behold. When they thought they were sufficiently revenged on him, they unty’d him, almost fainting with loss of Blood, from a thousand Wounds all over his Body; from which they had rent his Clothes, and led him bleeding and naked as he was, and loaded him all over with Irons, and then rubb'd his Wounds, to compleat their Cruelty, with Indian Pepper, which had like to have made him raving mad; and, in this Condition made him so fast to the Ground, that he could not stir, if his Pains and Wounds would have given him leave. They spared Imoinda, and did not let her see this Barbarity committed towards her Lord, but carry’d her down to Parham, and shut her up; which was not in kindness to her, but for fear she should die with the sight, or miscarry, and then they should lose a young Slave, and perhaps the Mother. You must know, that when the News was brought on Monday Morning, that Caesarhad betaken himself to the Woods, and carry'd with him all the Negroes, we were possess'd with extreme Fear, which no Persuasions could dissipate, that he would secure himself till night, and then, that he would come down and cut all our Throats. This Apprehension made all the Females of us fly down the River, to be secured; and while we were away, they acted this Cruelty; for I suppose I had Authority and Interest enough there, had I suspected any such thing, to have prevented it : but we had not gone many Leagues, but the News over-took us, that Caesar was taken and whipped like a common Slave. We met on the River with Colonel Martin, a Man of great Gallantry, Wit, and Goodness, and whom I have celebrated in a Character of my new Comedy,” by his own Name, in memory of so brave a Man: He was wise and eloquent, and, from the Fineness of his Parts, bore a great sway over the Hearts of all the Colony: He was a Friend to Caesar, and resented this false dealing with him very much. We carry’d him back to Parham, thinking to have made an Accommodation; when he came, the first News we heard, was, That the Governour was dead of a Wound Imoinda had given him ; but it was not so well. But it seems, he would have the Pleasure of beholding the Re- 1 George Marteen in “ The Younger Brother, or the Amorous Jilt,” printed in 1696, the last of Mrs. Behn's plays. venge he took on Caesar; and before the cruel Ceremony was finished, he dropt down; and then they perceived the Wound he had on his Shoulder was by a venom'd Arrow, which, as I said, his Indian Mistress healed, by sucking the Wound. We were no sooner arrived, but we went up to the Planta- tion to see Caesar; whom we found in a very miserable and unexpressible Condition; and I have a thousand times admired how he lived in so much tormenting Pain. We said all things to him, that Trouble, Pity and Good-Nature could suggest, protesting our Innocency of the Fact, and our Abhorrence of such Cruelties; making a thousand Professions and Services to him, and begging as many Pardons for the Offenders, till we said so much, that he believed we had no hand in his ill Treatment: but told us, He could never pardon Byam as for Trefry, he confess'd he saw his Grief and Sorrow for his Suffering, which he could not hinder, but was like to have been beaten down by the very Slaves, for speaking in his defence: But for Byam, who was their Leader, their Head ——and shou'd, by his Justice and Honour, have been an Example to 'em —for him he wished to live to take a dire revenge of him ; and said, It had been well for him, if he had sacrificed me instead of giving me the contemptible Whip. He refused to talk much : but begging us to give him our Hands, he took them, and protested never to lift up his, to do us any harm. He had a great Respect for Colonel Martin, and always took his Counsel like that of a Parent; and assured him, he would obey him in any thing, but his Revenge on Byam : Therefore (said he) for his own Safety, let him speedily dispatch me, for if I could dispatch my self, I would not, till that Justice were done to my injured Person, and the Contempt of a Soldier : No, I would not kill myself, even after a Whipping, but will be content to live with that Infamy, and be pointed at by every grinning Slave, till I have compleated any Revenge ; and then you shall see, that Oroonoko scorns to live with the In- dignity that was put on Caesar. All we could do, could get no more Words from him ; and we took care to have him put immediately into a healing Bath, to rid him of his Pepper, and order'd a Chirurgeon to anoint him with healing Balm, which he suffer'd, and in some time he began to be able to walk and eat. We failed not to visit him every day, and to that end had him brought to an Apartment at Parham. The Governour had no sooner recover'd, and had heard of the Menaces of Caesar, but he called his Council, who (not to disgrace them, or burlesque the Government there) consisted of such notorious Villains as Newgate never transported; and, possibly, originally were such who understood neither the Laws of God or Man, and had no sort of Principles to make them worthy the Name of Man; but at the very Council- Table wou’d contradict and fight with one another, and swear so bloodily, that 'twas terrible to hear and see 'em. (Some of 'em were afterwards hanged when the Dutch took possession of the Place, others sent off in Chains.) But calling these special Rulers of the Nation together, and requiring their Counsel in this weighty Affair, they all concluded, that it might be their own Cases; and that Caesar ought to be made an Example to all the Negroes, to fright 'em from daring to threaten their Betters, their Lords and Masters: and at this rate no Man was safe from his own Slaves; and con- cluded, nemine contradicente, That Caesar should be hanged. Tréfry then thought it time to use his Authority, and told Byam, his Command did not extend to his Lord's Plantation; and that Parham was as much exempt from the Law as White- Hall ; and that they ought no more to touch the Servants of the Lord——(who there represented the King's Person) than they could those about the King himself; and that Parham was a Sanctuary; and tho his Lord were absent in Person, his Power was still in being there, which he had entrusted 201 194 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1685 with him, as far as the Dominions of his particular Plantations reached, and all that belonged to it: the rest of the Country, as Byam was Lieutenant to his Lord, he might exercise his Tyranny upon. Trefry had others as powerful, or more, that interested themselves in Casar's Life, and absolutely said, he should be defended. So turning the Governour, and his wise Council, out of doors, (for they sat at Parham-House) we set a Guard upon our Lodging-Place, and would admit none but those we call Friends to us and Caesar. The Governour having remain’d wounded at Parham, till his Recovery was compleated, Caesar did not know but he was still there, and indeed, for the most part, his time was spent there : for he was one that loved to live at other Peoples Ex- pence, and if he were a day absent, he was ten present there; and us’d to play, and walk, and hunt and fish with Caesar : So that Caesar did not at all doubt, if he once recover'd Strength, but he should find an opportunity of being revenged on him ; though, after such a Revenge, he could not hope to live : for if he escaped the Fury of the English Mobile, who perhaps would have been glad of the occasion to have killed him, he was resolved not to survive his whipping; yet he had some tender Hours, a repenting Softness, which he called his Fits of Cowardice, wherein he struggled with Love for the Victory of his Heart, which took part with his charming Inoinda there : but, for the most part, his time was past in melancholy Thoughts, and black Designs. He consider'd, if he should do this Deed, and die either in the Attempt, or after it, he left his lovely Imoinda a Prey, or at best a Slave to the enraged Multitude; his great Heart could not endure that Thought : No, he could not live a moment under that Apprehension, too insupportable to be borne. These were his Thoughts, and his silent Arguments with his Heart, as he told us afterwards: so that now resolving not only to kill Byam, but all those he thought had enraged him; pleasing his great Heart with the fancy'd Slaughter he should make over the whole face of the Plantation; he first resolved on a Deed, that (however horrid it first appear'd to us all) when we had heard his Reasons, we thought it brave and just. Being able to walk, and, as he believed, fit for the execution of his great Design, he begg’d Trefry to trust him into the Air, believing a Walk would do him good; which was granted him ; and taking Imoinda with him, as he used to do in his more happy and calmer days, he led her up into a Wood, where (after with a thousand Sighs, and long gazing silently on her Face, while Tears gush'd, in spight of him, from his Eyes) he told her his Design, first of killing her, and then his Enemies, and next himself, and the Impossibility of escaping, and therefore he told her the Necessity of dying. He found the heroick Wife faster pleading for Death, than he was to pro- pose it, when she found his fix’d Resolution; and on her Knees, besought him not to leave her a Prey to his Enemies. He (grieved to death) yet pleased at her noble Resolution, took her up, and embracing of her with all the Passion and Lan- guishment of a dying Lover, drew his Knife to kill this Trea- sure of his Soul, this Pleasure of his Eyes; while Tears trickled down his Cheeks, hers were smiling with Joy she should die by so noble a Hand, and be sent into her own Country (for that's their Notion of the next World) by him She so tenderly loved, and so truly ador'd in this: For Wives have a respect for their Husbands equal to what any other People pay a Deity; and when a Man finds any occasion to quit his Wife, if he love her, she dies by his hand; if not, he sells her, or suffers some other to kill her. It being thus, you may believe the Deed was soon resolved on ; and 'tis not * Mobile. This word, not yet abridged into “mob,” was introduced into English in the reign of Charles II. It had its birth in a “Green Ribbon Club,” to be doubted, but the parting, the eternal leave-taking of two such Lovers, so greatly born, so sensible, so beautiful, so young, and so fond, must be very moving, as the Relation of it was to me afterwards. All that Love could say in such cases, being ended, and all the intermitting Irresolutions being adjusted, the lovely, young and ador'd Victim lays her self down before the Sacri- ficer; while he, with a hand resolved, and a heart-breaking within, gave the fatal Stroke, first cutting her Throat, and than severing her yet smiling Face from that delicate Body, pregnant as it was with the Fruits of tenderest Love. As Soon as he had done, he laid the Body decently on Leaves and Flowers, of which he made a Bed, and conceal’d it under the same Cover-lid of Nature; only her Face he left yet bare to look on : But when he found she was dead, and past all retrieve, never more to bless him with her Eyes, and soft Language, his Grief swell’d up to rage; he tore, he raved, he roar'd like some Monster of the Wood, calling on the lov’d Name of Inoinda. A thousand times he turned the fatal IXnife that did the Deed towards his own Heart, with a Reso- lution to go immediately after her; but dire Revenge, which was now a thousand times more fierce in his Soul than before, prevents him: and he would cry out, No, since I have sacrific’d Imoinda to my Revenge, shall I lose that Glory which I have purchased so dear, as at the Price of the fairest, dearest, softest Creature that ever Nature made 2 No, no 1 Then at her Name Grief would get the ascendant of Rage, and he would lie down by her side, and water her Face with showers of Tears, which never were wont to fall from those Eyes; and however bent he was on his intended Slaughter, he had not power to stir from the Sight of this dear Object, now more beloved, and more ador'd than ever. He remained in this deplorable Condition for two days, and never rose from the Ground where he had made his sad Sacri- fice; at last rousing from her Side, and accusing himself with living too long, now Inoinda was dead, and that the Deaths of those barbarous Enemies were deferred too long, he resolv’d now to finish the great Work: but offering to rise, he found his Strength so decay’d, that he reeled to and fro, like Boughs assailed by contrary Winds; so that he was forced to lie down again, and try to summon all his Courage to his Aid. He found his Brains turned round, and his Eyes were dizzy, and Objects appear'd not the same to him they were wont to do; his Breath was short, and all his Limbs surpriz'd with a Faintness he had never felt before. He had not eat in two days, which was one occasion of his Feebleness, but excess of Grief was the greatest, yet still he hoped he shou'd recover Vigour to act his Design, and lay expecting it yet six days longer; still mourning over the dead Idol of his Heart, and striving every day to rise, but could not. In all this time you may believe we were in no little Affliction for Caesar and his Wife: some were of opinion he was escaped, never to return; others thought some Accident had hapned to him : but however, we fail'd not to send out a hundred People several ways, to search for him. A Party of about forty went that way he took, among whom was Tuscan, who was perfectly reconciled to Byam : They had not gone very far into the Wood, but they smelt an unusual Smell, as of a dead Body; for Stinks must be very noisom, that can be distinguished among such a quantity of natural Sweets, as every Inch of that Land produces: so that they concluded they should find him dead, or some body that was so ; they pass'd on towards it, as loathsome as it was, and made such rusling among the Leaves that lie thick on the ground, by continual falling, that Caesar heard he was approach'd; and though he had, during the space of these eight days, endeavoured to rise, but found he wanted Strength, yet looking up, and seeing his Pursuers, TO A.D. 1688.] 195 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. he rose, and reel'd to a neighbouring Tree, against which he fix’d his Back; and being within a dozen Yards of those that advanc'd and saw him, he call'd out to them, and bid them approach no nearer, if they would be safe. So that they stood still, and hardly believing their Eyes, that would persuade them that it was Caesar that spoke to 'em, so much was he alter'd; they ask’d him, what he had done with his Wife, for they smelt a Stink that almost struck 'em dead? He pointing to the dead Body, sighing, cry’d, Behold her there. They put off the Flowers that cover'd her, with their Sticks, and found she was kill’d, and cry’d out, Oh, Monster 1 thou hast murder'd thy Wife. Then asking him, why he did so cruel a Deed ? He replied, He had no leisure to answer impertinent Questions: You may go back (continued he) and tell the faithless Governour he may thank Fortune that I am breathing my last , and that any Arm is too feeble to obey my Heart, in what it had design'd him : But his Tongue faultering, and trembling, he could scarce end what he was saying. The English taking advan- tage by his Weakness, cry’d Let us take him alive by all means. He heard 'em ; and, as if he had reviv'd from a fainting, or a dream, he cryed out, No, Gentlemen, you are deceiv'd ; you will Jind no more Caesars to be whipt ; no more find a Faith in me : Feeble as you think me, I have Strength yet left to secure me from a second Indignity. They swore all anew ; and he only shook his Head, and beheld them with Scorn. Then they cry’d out, Who will venture on this single Man 2 Will nobody ? They stood all silent while Caesar replied, Fatal will be the Attempt to the first Adventurer, let him assure himself, (and, at that word, held up his Knife in a menacing posture:) Look ye, ye Faithless Crew, said he, ’tis not Life I seek, nor am I afraid of dying, (and at that word, cut a piece of Flesh from his own Throat, and threw it at 'em,) yet still I would live if I could, till I had perfected my Revenge : But, oh 1 it cannot be ; I feel Life gliding from my Eyes and Heart ; and if I make not haste, I shall fall a Victim to the shameful Whip. At that, he rip'd up his own Belly, and took his Bowels and pulled 'em out, with what strength he could; while some, on their Knees im- ploring, besought him to hold his Hand. But when they saw him tottering, they cry'd out, Will none venture on him 2 A Bold Englishman cry'd Yes, if he were the Devil, (taking Courage when he saw him almost dead) and swearing a horrid Oath for his farewel to the World, he rush'd on him. Caesar with his arm'd Hand, met him so fairly, as struck him to the heart, and he fell dead at his feet. Tuscan seeing that, cry’d out, I love thee, O Caesar ! and therefore will not let thee die, if possible ; and running to him, took him in his Arms: but, at the same time, warding a Blow that Caesar made at his Bosom, he receiv'd it quite through his Arm; and Caesar having not the strength to pluck the Knife forth, tho he attempted it, Tuscan neither pull'd it out himself, nor suffer'd it to be pull'd out, but came down with it sticking in his Arm ; and the reason he gave for it, was, because the Air should not get into the Wound. They put their Hands a-cross, and carry’d Caesar between six of 'em, fainting as he was, and they thought dead, or just dying; and they brought him to Parham, and laid him on a Couch, and had the Chirurgeon immediately to him, who drest his Wounds, and sow'd up his Belly, and us'd means to bring him to Life, which they effected. We ran all to see him; and, if before we thought him so beautiful a Sight, he was now so alter'd, that his Face was like a Death's-Head black'd over, nothing but Teeth and Eye-holes: For some days we suffer'd no body to speak to him, but caused Cordials to be poured down his Throat; which sustained his Life, and in six or seven days he recover'd his Senses: For, you must know, that Wounds are almost to a miracle cur'd in the Indies ; unless Wounds in the Legs, which they rarely ever Cllre, $ When he was well enough to speak, we talk’d to him, and ask’d him some Questions about his Wife, and the Reasons why he kill'd her ; and he then told us what I have related of that Resolution, and of his parting, and he besought us we would let him die, and was extremely afflicted to think it was possible he might live : he assur'd us, if we did not dispatch him, he would prove very fatal to a great many. We said all we could to make him live, and gave him new Assurances; but he begg’d we would not think so poorly of him, or of his Love to Inoinda, to imagine we could flatter him to Life again : but the Chirurgeon assur’d him he could not live, and therefore he need not fear. We were all (but Casar) afflicted at this News, and the Sight was ghastly : His Discourse was Sad; and the earthy Smell about him so strong, that I was persuaded to leave the place for some time, (being my self but sickly, and very apt to fall into Fits of dangerous Illness upon any extraordinary Melancholy). The Servants, and Trefry, and the Chirurgeons promis'd all to take what possible care they could of the Life of Casar ; and I, aking Boat, went with other Company to Colonel Martin's, about three days Journey down the River. But I was no sooner gone, than the Governour taking Tréfry, about some pretended earnest Business, a Day's Journey up the River, having communicated his Design to one Banister, a wild Irish Man, and one of the Council, a Fellow of absolute Barbarity, and fit to execute any Villany, but rich ; he came up to Parham, and forcibly took Caesar, and had him carried to the same Post where he was whipp'd ; and causing him to be ty’d to it, and a great Fire made before him, he told him, he should die like a Dog, as he was. Caesar replied, this was the first piece of Bravery that ever Banister did, and he never spoke Sense till he pronounc'd that Word; and, if he would keep it, he would declare, in the other World, that he was the only Man, of all the Whites, that ever he heard speak Truth. And turning to the Men that had bound him, he said, My Friends, am I to die, or to be whipt # And they cry’d, Whipt 1 no, you shall not escape so well. And then he reply'd, smiling, A Blessing on thee; and assur'd them, they need not tie him, for he would stand fix’d like a Rock, and endure Death so as should encourage them to die : But if you whip me (said he) be sure you tie me fast. He had learn'd to take Tobacco ; and when he was assur’d he should die, he desir'd they would give him a Pipe in his Mouth, ready lighted; which they did: And the Executioner came, and first cut off his Members, and threw them into the Fire; after that, with an ill-favour’d Knife, they cut off his Ears and his Nose, and burn'd them; he still Smoak'd on, as if nothing had touch'd him; then they hack'd off one of his Arms, and still he bore up, and held his Pipe ; but at the cutting off the other Arm, his Head sunk, and his Pipe dropt and he gave up the Ghost, without a Groan, or a Reproach. My Mother and Sister were by him all the while, but not suffer'd to save him; so rude and wild were the Rabble, and so inhuman were the Justices who stood by to see the Execu- tion, who after paid dearly enough for their Insolence. They cut Caesar in Quarters, and sent them to several of the chief Plantations: One Quarter was sent to Colonel Martin ; who refus'd it, and swore, he had rather see the Quarters of Banis- ter, and the Governour himself, than those of Caesar, on his Plantations; and that he could govern his Negroes, without terrifying and grieving them with frightful Spectacles of a mangled King. Thus died this great Man, worthy of a better Fate, and a more sublime Wit than mine to write his Praise : Yet, I hope, the Reputation of my Pen is considerable enough to make his glorious Name to survive to all Ages, with that of the brave, the beautiful, and the constant Imoinda, 196 {A.D. 1690. CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. ſº ORNAMENT. CHAPTER VII. UNDER WILLIAM III. AND QUEEN THE first great prose writer after the Revolution was John Locke. His Latin letter on Toleration, printed at Gouda in 1689, was in the same year translated into Dutch, French, and English, and the English version of it by William Popple, set forth before his countrymen Locke's plea for Religious Liberty. Locke himself quitted Amsterdam, came over to England in the ship that brought the Princess Mary, now to be Queen, and defended in two other pamphlets his argument, for freedom of opinion in religion, against all attack. Locke laid also the foundations of a right understanding of the principles of Civil Liberty, in two Treatises of Government. One of these, published in 1689, demolished the arguments that had supported abso- lute monarchy; the other, published in 1690, set forth briefly, and in due order, a philosophical view of the origin and nature of government, and of the right constitution of a state. In active life we had our Revolution, and in Literature, side by side therewith, its wise interpreter. Two chapters, the thirteenth and fourteenth, of Locke’s “Essay con- cerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government,” are so far complete in themselves that they may serve here to show how our prose literature represents this turning point in English history. OF THE SUBORDINATION OF THE POWERS OF THE COMMON WEALTH. Though in a constituted Commonwealth, standing upon its own basis, and acting according to its own nature—that is, acting for the preservation of the Community—there can be but one supreme power, which is the Legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the Legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the People a supreme power to remove or alter the Legislative, when they find the Legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given ANNE.—A.D. 1689 TO A.D. 1714. with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the Community perpetually retains a Supreme lower of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their Legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject. For no man or society of men having a power to deliver up their pre- servation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of another, whenever any one shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition they will always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation, for which they entered into society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people can never take place till the government be dissolved. In all cases, whilst the government subsists, the Legislative is the supreme power. For what can give laws to another must needs be superior to him; and since the Legislative is no otherwise legislative of the society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts, and every member of the society prescribing rules to their actions and giving power of execution where they are transgressed, the Legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other powers in any members or parts of the society derived from and sub- ordinate to it. In some Commonwealths where the Legislative is not always in being, and the Executive is vested in a single person, who has also a share in the Legislative, there that single person in a very tolerable sense may also be called supreme : not that he has in himself all the supreme power, which is that of law making; but because he has in him the supreme execution, from whom all inferior magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, or at least the greatest part of them; having also no Legislative superior to him, A.D. 1690.] 197 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. there being no law to be made without his consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the other part of the Legislative, he is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be observed, that though oaths of allegiance and fealty are taken to him, 'tis not to him as supreme legislator, but as supreme executor of the law, made by a joint power of him with others; allegiance being nothing but an obedience according to law, which when he violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it other- wise than as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so is to be considered as the image, phantom or representative of the Commonwealth, acted by the will of the Society, declared in its laws: and thus he has no will, no power, but that of the law. But when he quits this repre- sentation, this public will, and acts by his own private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private person with- out power and without will—the members owing no obedience but to the public will of the society. The Executive power placed anywhere but in a person that has also a share in the Legislative, is visibly subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced : so that it is not the supreme executive power that is exempt from subordination, but the supreme executive power vested in one, who having a share in the legislative, has no distinct superior legislative to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and con- sent, so that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other ministerial and subordinate powers in a Commonwealth, we need not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in the different customs and constitu- tions of distinct Commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus much which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of con- cerning them, that they have no manner of authority any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them, and are all of them accountable to some other power in the Commonwealth. It is not necessary, no nor so much as convenient, that the Legislative should be always in being. But absolutely neces- sary, that the Executive power should, because there is not always need of new laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made. When the Legislative hath put the execution of the laws they make into other hands, they have a power still to resume it out of those hands when they find cause, and to punish for any maladminis- tration against the laws. The same holds also in regard of the Federative power, that and the executive being both ministerial and subordinate to the legislative, which as has been showed in a constituted Commonwealth, is the Supreme. The Legislative also in this case being supposed to consist of several persons; for if it be a single person, it cannot but be always in being, and so will as supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the legislative, may assemble and exercise their legislative, at the times that either their original constitution, or their own adjourn- ment appoints, or when they please; if neither of these hath appointed any time, or there be no other way pre- scribed to convoke them. For the supreme power being placed in them by the people, ’tis always in them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time, and when that time comes they have a right to as- semble and act again. If the Legislative, or any part of it, be of representatives chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislature but upon a new choice, this power of choosing must also be exercised by the people, either at certain ap- pointed seasons, or else when they are summoned to it; and in this latter case, the power of convoking the Legislative is ordinarily placed in the Executive, and has one of these two limitations in respect of time : That either the original con- stitution requires their assembling and acting at certain intervals, and then the Executive power does nothing but ministerially issue directions for their electing and as- sembling, according to due forms; or else it is left to his prudence to call them by new elections, when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the amendment of old, or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of any inconveniences that lie on or threaten the people. It may be demanded here, What if the Executive power, being possessed of the force of the Commonwealth, shall Inake use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the Legislative, when the original constitution or the public exigencies require it 2 I say using force upon the People, without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the People, who have a right to reinstate their Legislative in the exercise of their power. For having erected a Legislative with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the Society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the People consists, the People have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war, as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly. The power of assembling and dismissing the Legislative, placed in the Executive, gives not the Executive a superiority over it, but is a fiduciary trust placed in him for the safety of the People, in a case where the uncertainty and variable- ness of human affairs could not bear a steady fixed rule, For it not being possible that the first framers of the govern- ment should, by any foresight, be so much masters of future events as to be able to prefix so just periods of return and duration to the assemblies of the Legislative, in all times to come, that might exactly answer all the exigencies of the Commonwealth; the best remedy that could be found for this defect, was to trust this to the prudence of one who was always to be present, and whose business it was to watch over the public good. Constant frequent meetings of the Legislative, and long continuations of their assemblies with- out necessary occasion, could not but be burthensome to the people, and must necessarily in time produce more dangerous inconveniences, and yet the quick turn of affairs might be sometimes such as to need their present help : any delay of their convening might endanger the public, and sometimes too their business might be so great that the limited time of their sitting might be too short for their work, and rob the public of that benefit which could be had only from their mature deliberation. What, then, could be done in this case to prevent the Community from being exposed some time or other to eminent hazard, on one side or the other, by fixed intervals and periods, set to the meeting and acting of the Legislative, but to intrust it to the prudence of some, who being present, and acquainted with the state of public affairs, might make use of this Prerogative for the public good 2 And where else could this be so well placed as in his hands who was intrusted with the execution of the laws for the same end ? Thus supposing the regulation of times for the as- sembling and sitting of the Legislative, not settled by the 198 [A.D. 1690. CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. original constitution, it naturally fell into the hands of the Executive; not as an arbitrary power depending on his good pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only for the public weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs might require. Whether settled periods of their convening, or a liberty left to the prince for convoking the Legislative, or perhaps a mixture of both, hath the least inconvenience attending. it, 'tis not my business here to inquire, but only to show that though the Executive power may have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving such conventions of the Legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it. Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state. Thus people, riches, trade, power, change their stations; flourishing mighty cities come to ruin, and prove in time neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow into populous countries, filled with wealth and inhabitants. But things not always changing equally, and private interest often keeping up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are ceased, it often comes to pass that in governments where part of the Legislative consists of representatives chosen by the People, that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To what gross absurdities the following of custom when reason has left it may lead, we may be satisfied when we see the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce SO much housing as a sheepcot, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, send as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers, as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy; though most think it hard to find one, because the constitu- tion of the Legislative being the original and supreme act of the Society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depend- ing wholly on the People, no inferior power can alter it. And therefore the People, when the Legislative is once con- stituted, having in such a government as we have been speaking of no power to act as long as the government stands, this inconvenience is thought incapable of a remedy. Salus Populi Suprema Lea,' is certainly so just and fun- damental a rule, that he who sincerely follows it cannot dangerously err. If therefore the Executive, who has the power of convoking the Legislative, observing rather the true proportion than fashion of representation, regulates not by old custom, but true reason, the number of members, in all places, that have a right to be distinctly represented, which no part of the People, however incorporated, can pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance which it affords to the public, it cannot be judged to have set up a new Legislative, but to have restored the old and true one, and to have rectified the disorders which succession of time had in- sensibly as well as inevitably introduced ; for it being the interest as well as intention of the People to have a fair and equal representative, whoever brings it nearest to that, is an undoubted friend to, and establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and approbation of the com- munity. Prerogative being nothing but a power in the hands of the prince to provide for the public good, in such cases, which depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occur- rences, certain and unalterable laws could not safely direct; whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good of the People, and establishing the government upon its true foundations, is, and always will be, just prerogative. The 1 The welfare of the people is the highest Law. power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new representatives, carries with it a supposition that in time the measures of representation might vary, and those have a just right to be represented which before had none; and by the same reason, those cease to have a right and be too in- considerable for such a privilege which before had it. 'Tis not a change from the present state, which perhaps corrup- tion or decay has introduced, that makes an inroad upon the government, but the tendency of it to injure or oppress the People, and to set up one part or party with a distinction from and an unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the Society and people in general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done, justify itself; and whenever the people shall choose their representatives upon just and undeniably equal measures, suitable to the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will and act of the Society, whoever permitted or proposed to them so to do. OF PREROGATIVE. Where the Legislative and Executive power are in distinct hands, as they are in all moderated monarchies and well- framed governments, there the good of the Society requires that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the Executive power. For the legislators not being able to foresee and provide by laws for all that may be useful to the Community, the executor of the laws, having the power in his hands, has by the common law of nature a right to make use of it for the good of the Society, in many cases where the municipal law has given no direction, till the Legislative can conveniently be assembled to provide for it. Nay, many things there are which the law can by no means provide for, and those must necessarily be left to the dis- cretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require. Nay, 'tis fit that the laws themselves should, in some cases, give way to the executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of nature and government, viz., that, as much as may be, all the members of the Society are to be preserved. For since many accidents may happen wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm—as not to pull down an innocent man's house to stop the fire when the next to it is burning—and a man may come sometimes within the reach of the law, which makes no distinction of persons, by an action that may deserve reward and pardon, 'tis fit the ruler should have a power in many cases to mitigate the severity of the law, and pardon some offenders, since the end of government, being the preservation of all as much as may be, even the guilty are to be spared where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent. This power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is called Prerogative; for since in some governments the law-making power is not always in being, and is usually too numerous, and so too slow, for the dispatch requisite to execution; and because also it is im- possible to foresee, and so by laws to provide for, all accidents and necessities that may concern the public, or make such laws as will do no harm, if they are executed with an in- flexible rigour on all occasions, and upon all persons that may come in their way, therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe. This power whilst employed for the benefit of the com- munity, and suitably to the trust and ends of the government, is undoubted Prerogative, and never is questioned. For the A.D. 1690.] 199 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. people are very seldom, or never, scrupulous or nice in the point or questioning of Prerogative, whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant, that is, the good of the people, and not manifestly against it. But if there comes to be a question between the Executive power and the People about a thing claimed as a Prerogative, the tendency of the exercise of such Prerogative to the good or hurt of the People will easily decide that question. It is easy to conceive that in the infancy of governments, when commonwealths differed little from families in number of people, they differed from them too but little in number of laws; and the governors being as the fathers of them, watching over them for their good, the government was almost all Prerogative. A few established laws served the turn, and the discretion and care of the ruler supplied the rest. But when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make use of this power for private ends of their own, and not for the public good, the people were fain by express laws to get Prerogative determined" in those points wherein they found disadvantage from it, and declared limitations of Prerogative in those cases which they and their ancestors had left in the utmost latitude, to the wisdom. of those princes who made no other but a right use of it, that is, for the good of their People. And therefore they have a very wrong notion of govern- ment who say that the People have encroached upon the Prerogative when they have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws. For in so doing they have not pulled from the prince anything that of right belonged to him, but only declared that that power which they indefinitely left in him, or his ancestors' hands, to be exercised for their good, was not a thing they intended him, when he used it otherwise. For the end of government being the good of the Community, whatsoever alterations are made in it, tending to that end, cannot be an encroachment upon anybody; since nobody, in government, can have a right tending to any other end. And those only are incroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good. Those who say otherwise, speak as if the prince had a distinct and separate interest from the good of the Community, and was not made for it: the root and source from which spring almost all those evils and disorders, which happen in kingly governments. And indeed, if that be so, the People, under his government, are not a society of rational creatures, entered into a Community for their mutual good, such as have set rulers over themselves, to guard and promote that good, but are to be looked on as a herd of inferior creatures, under the dominion of a master, who keeps them, and works them, for his own pleasure or profit. If men were so void of reason, and brutish, as to enter into Society upon such terms, Prerogative might indeed be, what some men would have it, an arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people. But since a rational creature cannot be supposed, when free, to put himself into subjection to another, for his own harm (though where he finds a good and a wise ruler, he may not, perhaps, think it either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all things), Prerogative can be nothing but the People's permitting their rulers to do several things of their own free choice, where the law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law, for the public good, and their acquiescing in it when so done. For as a good prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands, and careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much Prerogative, that is, power to do good : so a weak 1 Determined. With its boundaries assigned; which is the first meaning of the word. and ill prince, who would claim that power his predecessors exercised, without the direction of the law, as a Prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which he may exercise at his pleasure, to make or promote an interest distinct from that of the public, gives the People an occasion to claim their right, and limit that power which, whilst it was exercised for their good, they were content should be tacitly allowed. And therefore he that will look into the History of England will find that Prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best princes: because the People observing the whole tendency of their actions to be the public good, or if any human frailty or mistake (for princes are but men, made as others) appeared in some small declinations from that end, yet ’twas visible the main of their conduct tended to nothing but the care of the public. The People therefore finding reason to be satisfied with these princes, whenever they acted without or contrary to the letter of the law, acquiesced in what they did, and without the least complaint let them enlarge their Prerogative as they pleased, judging rightly that they did nothing herein to the prejudice of their laws, since they acted conformable to the foundation and end of all laws, the public good. Such God-like princes indeed had some title to arbitrary power, by that argument that would prove absolute monarchy the best government, as that which God himself governs the universe by, because such kings partake of His wisdom and goodness. Upon this is founded that saying, that the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their People. For when their successors, manag- ing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent, and make them the standard of their Prerogative—as if what had been done only for the good of the People was a right in them to do for the harm of the People, if they so pleased—it has often occasioned contest, and sometimes public disorders, before the People could recover their original right, and get that to be declared not to be Prerogative which truly was never so : since it is impossible anybody in the Society should ever have a right to do the People harm, though it be very possible and reasonable that the People should not go about to set any bounds to the Prerogative of those kings or rulers, who themselves transgressed not the bounds of the public good. For prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good, without a rule. The power of calling parliaments in England, as to precise time, place, and duration, is certainly a Prerogative of the king, but still with this trust, that it shall be made use of for the good of the nation, as the exigencies of the times, and variety of occasion shall require. For it being impossible to foresee which should always be the fittest place for them to assemble in, and what the best season : the choice of these was left with the executive power, as might be best subservient to the public good, and best suit the ends of parliaments. The old question will be asked in this matter of Preroga- tive, But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of P I answer: Between an executive power in being, with such a Prerogative, and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening, there can be no judge on earth; as there can be none between the Legislative and the people, should either the Executive or the Legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them. The People have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven. For the rulers, in such attempts, exercising a power the People never put into their 200 ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1690 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF hands, who can never be supposed to consent that anybody should rule over them for their harm, do that which they have ſlot a right to do. And where the body of the People, or any single man, are deprived of their right, or are under the exercise of a power without right, having no appeal on earth, they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the People cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that Society, any superior power to determine and give effective sentence in the case, yet they have reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind where there lies no appeal on earth, by a law antecedent, and paramount to all positive laws of men, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy him ; God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself as to neglect his own preserva- tion. And since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it. Nor let any one think this lays a perpetual foundation for disorder; for this operates not till the inconvenience is so great that the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have it amended. And this the executive power or wise princes never need come in the danger of. And 'tis the thing, of all others, they have most need to avoid, as, of all others, the most perilous. In 1690 followed Locke's famous “Essay Con- cerning Human Understanding,” designed to econo- mise the force of human reason ; and in 1693 he added to his work in aid of a sound and healthy citizenship “Some Thoughts Concerning Education.” In 1693 Daniel Defoe had misfortunes in trade that caused friendly merchants to offer him a settle- ment as agent at Cadiz, but he was bound to England by his patriotic interest in public affairs. Jonathan SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. From Vertue's Engraving of the Portrait by Sir Peter Lely, taken in 1679. Swift, then aged twenty-six, was near the close of his first five years' residence with the retired statesman Sir William Temple, at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey. Richard Steele and Joseph Addison were in that year young men of one-and- twenty, and they were both studying at Oxford. Daniel, the son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, of Cripplegate, was born in 1661, four years before the Plague, and five before the Fire of London. When about fourteen years old he was placed in an academy at Newington Green, kept by a Dis- senting minister, the Rev. Charles Morton, and his father's purpose was that he also should be a minister. The father of John Wesley, Samuel, a year younger than Defoe, was one of Defoe's schoolfellows at Newington Green, but Samuel Wesley turned from Dissent to the Established Church. Defoe studied under Mr. Morton until he was about nineteen, and then went into training for a commercial life, but his strong interest as a young man in the contest against arbitrary power of the Stuarts caused him to join the standard of James, Duke of Monmouth, when he landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, in June, 1685. The attempt at insurrection failed. Defoe escaped the clutches of Judge Jeffries, and after a time was settled in London at Freeman's Court, Cornhill, as a hose factor. In 1687 he wrote “A Letter,” dated the 4th of April, “containing some Reflections on His Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience,” in which he held “ that the King's suspending of Laws, strikes at the root of this whole government and subverts it quite.” When William of Orange made his public entry into London, on the 18th of December, 1688, no man in England felt more deeply than Daniel Defoe what the change meant, or ought to mean. For the next two or three years he was busy with trading adven- ture. In a later pamphlet he wrote, “Misfortunes in business having unhinged me from matters of trade, it was about the year 1694, when I was invited by some merchants with whom I had corresponded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz, in Spain, and that with offers of very good commission ; but Providence, which had other work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind to quitting England upon any account, and made me refuse the best offers of that kind, to be concerned with some eminent persons at home, in proposing Ways and Means to the Government for raising money to supply the occasions of the war then newly begun.” In these days Defoe was writing his “Essay on Projects,” a series of suggestions, often in playful earnest, always in real earnest, that glance upon some points far beyond the civilisation of his time. This was Defoe's first volume—he had already written many pamphlets—and it was first published in 1697. His suggestions are on Banks, Highways, Assurances, Friendly Societies for Seamen and for Widows, a Pension Office, Wagering, the Care of Idiots, the Laws of Bankruptcy, Academies of all kinds, including a College for Women, a Court Merchant, and the Manning of the Navy. Of the right of women to full education, Defoe spoke in other works than this, and here he writes thus on THE EDUCATION OF W () MEN. To such whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no sort of learning ; but the chief thing in general is to To A.D. 1697.1 201 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation; that their parts and judgments being improved, they may be as profitable in their conversation as they are pleasant. Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them, but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers, indeed, may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing part is their breeding. The whole sex are generally quick and sharp; I believe I may be allowed to say generally so, for you rarely see them lumpish and heavy when they are children, as boys will often be. If a woman be well bred and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive, and without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God’s creation; the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man, His darling creature, to whom He gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive ; and it is the sordidest piece of folly and in- gratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds. A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her con- versation heavenly; she is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful. On the other hand, suppose her to be the very same woman, and rob her of the benefit of education, and it follows thus:– If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft and easy. Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and talkative. Her knowledge, for want of judgment and experience, makes her fanciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse, and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud. If she be passionate, want of manners makes her termagant and a scold, which is much at one with lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion (which still is breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic, and ridiculous. And from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamorous, noisy, nasty, and the devil. Methinks mankind for their own sakes, since say what we will of the women, we all think fit one time or other to be concerned with them, should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable, if they expected no such thing as delight from them. Bless us! what care do we take to breed up a good horse, and to break him well, and what a value do we put upon him when it is done, and all because he should be fit for our use; and why not a woman P since all her ornaments and beauty, without suitable be- haviour, is a cheat in nature, like the false tradesman, who puts the best of his goods uppermost, that the buyer may think the rest are of the same goodness. Beauty of the body, which is the women's glory, seems to be now unequally bestowed, and Nature, or rather Providence, to lie under some scandal about it, as if it was given a women for a snare to men, and so make a kind of a she-devil of her, because they say exquisite beauty is rarely given with wit, more rarely with goodness of temper, and never at all with modesty. And some, pretending to justify the equity of such a distribution, will tell us it is the effect of the justice of Providence in dividing particular excellences among all His creatures, share and share alike as it were, that all might for something or other be acceptable to one another, else some would be despised. I think both these notions false, and yet the last, which has the show of respect to Providence, is the worst, for it supposes Providence to be indigent and empty, as if it had not wherewith to furnish all the creatures it had made, but was fain to be parsimonious in its gifts, and distribute them by piecemeal, for fear of being exhausted. If I might venture my opinion against an almost universal notion, I would say most men mistake the proceedings of Providence in this case, and all the world at this day are mistaken in their practice about it; and because the assertion is very bold I desire to explain myself. That Almighty First Cause which made us all is certainly the fountain of excellence, as it is of being, and by an invisible influence could have diffused equal qualities and perfections to all the creatures it has made, as the sun does its light, without the least ebb or diminution to Himself; and has given, indeed, to every individual sufficient to the figure His Providence had designed him in the world. I believe it might be defended if I should say that I do suppose God has given to all mankind equal gifts and capacities, in that he has given them all souls equally capable, and that the whole difference in mankind proceeds either from accidental difference in the make of their bodies or from the foolish difference of education. - 1. From Accidental Difference in Bodies.—I would avoid discoursing here of the philosophical position of the soul in the body, but if it be true as philosophers do affirm, that the understanding and memory is dilated or contracted according to the accidental dimensions of the organ through which it is conveyed, then, though God has given a soul as capable to me as another, yet if I have any natural defect in those parts of the body by which the soul should act, I may have the same Soul infused as another man, and yet he be a wise man and I a very fool. For example, if a child naturally have a defect in the organ of hearing, so that he could never distinguish any sound, that child should never be able to speak or read, though it have a soul capable of all the accomplishments in the world. The brain is the centre of the soul’s actings, where all the distinguishing faculties of it reside; and it is observable, a man who has a narrow con- tracted head, in which there is not room for the due and necessary operations of nature by the brain, is never a man of very great judgment; and that proverb, a great head and little wit, is not meant by nature, but is a reproof upon sloth, as if one should, by way of wonder, say, Fye, fye, you that have a great head have but little wit, that is strange that must certainly be your own fault. From this notion I do believe there is a great matter in the breed of men and women, not that wise men shall always get wise children, but I believe strong and healthy bodies have the wisest children, and sickly weakly bodies affect the wits as well as the bodies of their children. We are easily persuaded to believe this in the breeds of horses, cocks, dogs, and other creatures, and I believe it is as visible in men. § 2. But to come closer to the business, the great distinguish- ing difference which is seen in the world between men and women is in their education, and this is manifested by com- paring it with the difference between one man or woman and another. And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold assertion, that all the world are mistaken in their practice about women, for I cannot think that God Almighty ever 202 202 ENGIISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1697 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind, with Souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all to be only stewards of our houses—cooks and slaves. Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least, but, in short, I would have men take women for com- panions, and educate them to be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of the man, as a man of sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the woman. But if the women's souls were refined and improved by teaching, that word would be lost; to say the weakness of the sex, as to judgment, would be monsense, for ignorance and folly would be no more to be found among women than men. I remember a passage which I heard from a very fine woman; she had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary shape and face, and a great fortune, but had been cloistered up all her time, and for fear of being stolen had not had the liberty of being taught the common necessary knowledge of women’s affairs; and when she came to converse in the world, her natural wit made her so sensible of the want of education, that she gave this short reflection on herself:— “I am ashamed to talk with my very maids,” says she, “for I don’t know when they do right or wrong; I had more need go to school than be married.” I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the sex, nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice; it is a thing will be more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but an essay at the thing, and I refer the practice to those happy days, if ever they shall be, when men shall be wise enough to mend it. Defoe now improved his fortunes by the manage- ment of tile works at Tilbury, and for a few years before 1699, when the tax was abolished, he served as accountant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty. In 1700, on the 1st of August, appeared a pamphlet in verse called “The Foreigners,” levelled against William III. and his friends. Defoe replied effectively with a vigorous piece of doggrel called “The True Born Englishman,” which opens with these lines:— “Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found upon examination The latter has the largest congregation.” The retaliation caught the fancy of the people. Defoe's pamphlet in original and pirated editions was sold by thousands. There were in four years nine editions on good paper, and 80,000 copies sold of cheap issues. The king was defended before the populace, and the cause of the Revolution usefully defended. But there followed soon afterwards, on the 8th of March, 1702, the death of King William. Queen Anne came to the throne with Tory sym- pathies, English at heart, as she said of herself, and devoted to the English Church. The rising influence of the Tories was associated with an endeavour to secure unity in religion by legislating to suppress difference of opinion. In the midst of the outcry Defoe, in 1702, writing with fine irony in the character of a thorough-going churchman, and so reducing to absurdity, by carrying to its full con- clusions, the principle opposed to toleration, wrote this famous tract :— THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS : or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story, in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses." The cock was gotten to roost in the stable, among the horses, and there being no racks, or other conveniencies for him, it seems, he was forced to roost upon the ground; the horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, “Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another.” There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with Æsop's cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for- getting that when they had the power in their hands, those graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed, by a sort of men, whom God in his providence has suffered to insult over her, and bring her down ; these have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has born with an invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger. And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood, till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them. No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves. We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your act of toleration; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church-doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful king, could not dispense with that oath, their king being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed, to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their con- sciences, with your new Sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve P And now the tables are turned upon you, you must not be perse- cuted, it is not a Christian spirit. 1 Sir Roger L'Estrange, a lively supporter of Charles II. (and founder of the London Gazette), who was knighted by James II., published in 1692 a collection of “Fables of Æsop and other Eminent Mythologists, with Morals and Reflections,” adding a second volume in 1694. “A Cock and Horses” is Number 439 in the first collection. To A.D. 1702.] 203 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third; and yet you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Any- body that did not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the impudence, as well as folly, to think of it. Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Cl—s, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles, as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and God be thanked, the queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you. There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation hasin itself a power, and a right to that power; to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with but a gentle hand neither, was all that the fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution; this they have magnified to a height that the sufferings of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with Now to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those laws, can never be called per- secution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England was in the days of King James I. ; and what did it amount to ? Truly, the worst they suffered was, at their own request, to let them go to New England, and erect a new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was the cruelty of the Church of England, fatal lenity It was the ruin of that excellent prince, King Charles I. Had King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies, we had been a national, unmixed Church; the Church of England had been kept undivided and entire. To requite the lenity of the father, they take up arms against the Son ; conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last put to death the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of government, setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title to govern, nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want with power, bloody and desperate councils and craft, without conscience. Had not King James I. withheld the full execution of the laws; had he given them strict justice, he had cleared the nation of them, and the consequences had been plain; his son had never been murdered by them, nor the monarchy overwhelmed. It was too much mercy shown them was the ruin of his posterity, and the ruin of the nation's peace. One would think the Dissenters should not have the face to believe that we are to be wheedled and canted into peace and tolera- tion, when they know that they have once requited us with a civil war, and once with an intolerable and unrighteous per- secution for our former civility. Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that they never had the upper hand of the Church, but they treated her with all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt as was possible. What peace, and what mercy did they show the loyal gentry of the Church of England in the time of their triumphant Commonwealth? How did they put all the gentry of England to ransom, whether they were actually in arms for the king or not, making people compound for their estates, and starve their families P. How did they treat the clergy of the Church of England, sequestered the ministers, devoured the patrimony of the Church, and divided the spoil, by sharing the Church lands among their soldiers, and turning her clergy out to starve P Just such measure as they have meted should be measured them again. Charity and love is the known doctrine of the Church of England, and it is plain she has put it in practice towards the Dissenters, even beyond what they ought, till she has been wanting to herself, and, in effect, unkind to her own sons; particularly, in the too much lenity of King James I., mentioned before ; had he so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early to have done, they had not had the power to vex the Church, as since they have done. In the days of King Charles II., how did the Church reward their bloody doings with lenity and mercy, except the bar- barous regicides of the pretended court of justice? Not a soul suffered for all the blood in an unnatural war. King Charles came in all mercy and love, cherished them, preferred them, employed them, withheld the rigour of the law, and often- times, even against the advice of his parliament, gave them liberty of conscience ; and how did they requite him with the villainous contrivance to depose and murder him and his successor at the Rye plot ? King James, as if mercy was the inherent quality of the family, began his reign with unusual favour to them. Nor could their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him move him to do himself justice upon them; but that mistaken prince thought to win them by gentleness and love, pro- claimed an universal liberty to them, and rather discoun- tenanced the Church of England than them ; how they requited him all the world knows. The late reign is too fresh in the memory of all the world to need a comment; how under pretence of joining with the Church in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that extremity, in conjunction with some mistaken gentle- men, as to depose the late king, as if the grievance of the nation could not have been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the prince. Here is an instance of their temper, their peace and charity. To what height they carried themselves during the reign of a king of their own; how they crope into all places of trust and profit; how they insinuated into the favour of the king, and were at first preferred to the highest places in the nation ; how they engrossed the ministry, and above all, how pitifully they managed, is too plain to need any remarks. But particularly their mercy and charity, the spirit of union, they tell us so much of, has been remarkable in Scot- land; if any man would see the spirit of a Dissenter, let him look into Scotland. There they made entire conquest of the Church, trampled down the sacred orders, and suppressed the Episcopal government, with an absolute, and as they suppose irretrievable victory, though it is possible they may find themselves mistaken. Now it would be a very proper question to ask their impudent advocate, the Observator, Pray how much mercy and favour did the members of the Episcopal Church find in Scotland from the Scotch Presbyterian govern- ment? and I shall undertake for the Church of England, that the Dissenters shall still receive as much here, though they deserve but little. In a small treatise of the sufferings of the Episcopal clergy in Scotland, it will appear what usage they met with, how they not only lost their livings, but in several places were plundered and abused in their persons; the ministers that could not conform, turned out with numerous families, and no maintenance, and hardly charity enough left to relieve them with a bit of bread; and the cruelties of the parties are innumerable, and not to be attempted in this short piece. And now to prevent the distant cloud which they perceived to hang over their heads from England; with a true Presby- 204 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1702. terian policy, they put in for a union of nations, that Eng- land might unite their Church with the Kirk of Scotland, and their Presbyterian members sit in our House of Commons, and their assembly of Scotch canting long-cloaks in our Con- vocation; what might have been if our fanatic, whiggish statesmen continued, God only knows, but we hope we are out of fear of that now. It is alleged by some of the faction, and they began to bully us with it, that if we will not unite with them, they will not settle the crown with us again, but when Her Majesty dies, will choose a king for themselves. If they will not, we must make them, and it is not the first time we have let them know that we are able. The crowns of these kingdoms have not so far disowned the right of succes- sion, but they may retrieve it again, and if Scotland thinks to come off from a successive to an elective state of govern- ment, England has not promised not to assist the right heir, and put them into possession, without any regard to their ridiculous settlements. These are the gentlemen, these their ways of treating the Church, both at home and abroad. Now let us examine the reasons they pretend to give, why we should be favourable to them, why we should continue and tolerate them among us. First, they are very numerous, they say, they are a great part of the nation, and we cannot suppress them. To this may be answered, first, they are not so numerous as the Protestants in France, and yet the French king effec- tually cleared the nation of them at once, and we do not find he misses them at home." - But I am not of the opinion they are so numerous as is pretended ; their party is more numerous than their persons, and those mistaken people of the Church who are misled and deluded by their wheedling artifices, to join with them, make their party the greater; but those will open their eyes, when the Government shall set heartily about the work, and come off from them, as some animals, which they say, always desert a house when it is likely to fall. Secondly, the more numerous, the more dangerous, and there- fore the more need to suppress them ; and God has suffered us to bear them as goads in our sides, for not utterly extin- guishing them long ago. . Thirdly, if we are to allow them, only because we cannot suppress them, then it ought to be tried whether we can or no ; and I am of opinion it is easy to be done, and could pre- scribe ways and means, if it were proper, but I doubt not the Government will find effectual methods for the rooting the contagion from this face of this land. Another argument they use, which is this, that it is a time of war, and we have need to unite against the common enemy. We answer, this common enemy had been no enemy, if they had not made him so ; he was quiet in peace, and no way disturbed, or encroached upon us, and we know no reason we had to quarrel with him. But further, we make no question but we are able to deal with this common enemy without their help; but why must we unite with them, because of the enemy? Will they go Over to the enemy, if we do not prevent it by a union with them *--We are very well contented they should, and make no question we shall be ready to deal with them and the Common encmy too, and better without them than with them. Besides, if we have a common enemy, there is the more * The Edict of Nantes, by which Henri IV. granted a measure of toleration to some of the French Protestants, in April, 1598, was revoked by Louis XIV. on the 22nd of October, 1685. The result was that 50,000 Protestant families left France, and many of them established their industries in England. need to be secure against our private enemies; if there is one common enemy, we have the less need to have an enemy in our bowels. It was a great argument some people used against suppres- sing the old money, that it was a time of war, and it was too great a risk for the nation to run, if we should not master it, we should be undone;” and yet the sequel proved the hazard was not so great, but it might be mastered, and the success was answerable. The suppressing the Dissenters is not a harder work, nor a work of less necessity to the public. We can never enjoy a settled uninterrupted union and tranquillity in this nation, till the spirit of whiggism, faction, and schism is melted down like the old money. To talk of the difficulty is to frighten ourselves with chimeras and notions of a powerful party, which are indeed a party without power; difficulties often appear greater at a dis- tance, than when they are searched into with judgment, and distinguished from the vapours and shadows that attend them. We are not to be frightened with it; this age is wiser than that, by all our own experience, and theirs too; King Charles I. had early suppressed this party, if he had took more deliberate measures. In short, it is not worth arguing, to talk of their arms, their Monmouths, and Shaftesburys, and Argyles are gone, their Dutch sanctuary is at an end, heaven has made way for their destruction, and if we do not close with the divine occasion, we are to blame ourselves, and may remember that we had once an opportunity to serve the Church of England, by extirpating her implacable enemies, and having let slip the minute that heaven presented, may experimentally com- plain, post est occasio calva. Here are some popular objections in the way. As, first, the queen has promised them, to continue them in their tolerated liberty; and has told us she will be a religious observer of her word. * What Her Majesty will do we cannot help, but what, as the Head of the Church, she ought to do, is another case. Her Majesty has promised to protect and defend the Church of England, and if she cannot effectually do that without the des- truction of the Dissenters, she must of course dispense with one promise to comply with another. But to answer this cavil more effectually; Her Majesty did never promise to maintain the toleration, to the destruction of the Church ; but it is upon supposition that it may be compatible with the well-being and safety of the Church which she had declared she would take especial care of. Now if these two interests clash, it is plain Her Majesty's intentions are to uphold, protect, defend, and establish the Church, and this we conceive is impossible. Perhaps it may be said that the Church is in no immediate danger from the Dissenters, and therefore it is time enough ; but this is a weak answer. For, first, if a danger be real, the distance of it is no argu- ment against, but rather a spur to quicken us to prevention, lest it be too late hereafter. And, secondly, here is the opportunity, and the only one perhaps that ever the Church had to secure herself, and destroy her enemies. The representatives of the nation have now an opportunity, the time is come which all good men have wished for, that the gentlemen of England may serve the Church of England; now they are protected and cncouraged by a Church of Eng- land queen. What will you do for your sister in the day that she shall be spoken for P ? Difficulties caused by continual melting down of new money and growing depreciation of the coin by clipping, were met after great agitation by Charles Montague's Recoinage Act in 1696. A.D. 1702.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 205 If ever you will establish the best Christian Church in the world. If ever you will suppress the spirit of enthusiasm. If ever you will free the nation from the viperous brood that have so long sucked the blood of their mother. If ever you will leave your posterity free from faction and rebellion, this is the time. This is the time to pull up this heretical weed of sedition, that has so long disturbed the peace of our Church, and poisoned the good corn. But, says another hot and cold objector, this is renewing fire and faggot, reviving the act De Heret. Comburendo. This will be cruelty in its nature, and barbarous to all the world. I answer, it is cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our neighbours to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury received, but for prevention; not for the evil they have done, but the evil they may do. Serpents, toads, vipers, &c., are noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life; these poison the soul, corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vitals of our happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole Iſla SS. Shall any law be given to such wild creatures P. Some beasts are for sport, and the huntsmen give them advantages of ground; but some are knocked on the head by all possible ways of violence and surprise. I do not prescribe fire and faggot, but, as Scipio said of Carthage, Delenda est Carthago, they are to be rooted out of this nation, if ever we will live in peace, serve God, or enjoy our own. As for the manner, I leave it to those hands who have a right to execute God's justice on the nation’s and the Church’s enemies. But if we must be frighted from this justice under the specious pretences, and odious sense of cruelty, nothing will be effected. It will be more barbarous to our own children, and dear posterity, when they shall reproach their fathers, as we do ours, and tell us, “You had an opportunity to root out this cursed race from the world, under the favour and protec- tion of a true English queen; and out of your foolish pity you spared them, because, forsooth, you would not be cruel, and now our Church is suppressed and persecuted, our religion trampled under foot, our estates plundered, our persons im- prisoned, and dragged to jails, gibbets and scaffolds; your sparing this Amalekite race is our destruction, your mercy to them proves cruelty to your poor posterity.” How just will such reflections be, when our posterity shall fall under the merciless clutches of this uncharitable genera- tion, when our Church shall be swallowed up in schism, faction, enthusiasm, and confusion ; when our Government shall be devolved upon foreigners, and our monarchy dwindled into a republic. It would be more rational for us, if we must spare this generation, to summon our own to a general massacre, and as we have brought them into the world free, send them out so, and not betray them to destruction by our supine negli- gence, and then cry “it is mercy.” Moses was a merciful meek man, and yet with what fury did he run through the camp, and cut the throats of three- and-thirty thousand of his dear Israelites, that were fallen into idolatry; what was the reason P. It was mercy to the rest, to make these examples, to prevent the destruction of the whole army. How many millions of future souls we save from infection and delusion, if the present race of poisoned spirits were purged from the face of the land. It is vain to trifle in this matter, the light foolish handling of them by mulcts, fines, &c., it is their glory and their advantage, if the gallows instead of the counter, and the galleys instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a con- venticle, to preach or hear, there would not be so many sufferers, the spirit of martyrdom is over; they that will go to church to be chosen sheriffs and mayors, would go to forty churches rather than be hanged. If one severe law were made, and punctually executed, that whoever was found at a conventicle should be banished the nation, and the preacher be hanged, we should soon see an end of the tale; they would all come to church, and one age would make us all one again. To talk of five shillings a month for not coming to the sacrament, and one shilling per week for not coming to church, this is such a way of converting people as never was known; this is selling them a liberty to transgress for so much money : if it be not a crime, why do not we give them full licence? And if it be, no price ought to compound for the committing it, for that is selling a liberty to people to sin against God and the Government. If it be a crime of the highest consequence both against the peace and welfare of the nation, the glory of God, the good of the Church, and the happiness of the soul, let us rank it among capital offences, and let it receive a punishment in pro- portion to it. - We hang men for trifles, and banish them for things not worth naming, but an offence against God and the Church, against the welfare of the world, and the dignity of religion, shall be bought off for five shillings, this is such a shame to a Christian government, that it is with regret I transmit it to posterity. If men sin against God, affront His ordinances, rebel against His Church, and disobey the precepts of their superiors, let them suffer as such capital crimes deserve, so will religion flourish, and this divided nation be once again united. And yet the title of barbarous and cruel will soon be taken off from this law too. I am not supposing that all the Dissenters in England should be hanged or banished, but as in cases of rebellions and insurrections, if a few of the ringleaders suffer, the multitude are dismissed, so a few obstinate people being made examples, there is no doubt but the severity of the law would find a stop in the compliance of the multitude. To make the reasonableness of this matter out of question and more unanswerably plain, let us examine for what it is that this nation is divided into parties and factions, and let us see how they can justify a separation, or we of the Church of England can justify our bearing the insults and incon- veniences of the party. One of their leading pastors, and a man of as much learning as most among them, in his answer to a pamphlet, entitled, “An Enquiry into the Occasional Conformity,” hath these words (p. 27) : “Do the religion of the Church and the meeting- houses make two religions? Wherein do they differ P The sub- stance of the same religion is common to them both ; and the modes and accidents are the things in which only they differ.” P. 28: “Thirty-nine articles are given us for the summary of our religion; thirty-six contain the substance of it, wherein we agree; three the additional appendices, about which we have some differences.” * Now, if as by their own acknowledgment, the Church of England is a true Church, and the difference between them is only in a few modes and accidents, why should we expect that they will suffer galleys, corporal punishment, and banish- ment for these trifles? There is no question but they will be wiser, even their own principles will not bear them out in 206 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1702 it; they will certainly comply with the laws, and with reason, and though at the first, severity may seem hard, the next age will feel nothing of it, the contagion will be rooted out, the disease being cured, there will be no need of the operation, but if they should venture to transgress, and fall into the pit, all the world must condemn their obstimacy, as being without ground from their own principles. Thus the pretence of cruelty will be taken off, and the party actually suppressed, and the disquiets they have so often brought upon the nation, prevented. Their numbers, and their wealth, makes them haughty, and that it is so far from being an argument to persuade us to forbear them, that it is a warning to us, without any more delay, to reconcile them to the unity of the Church, or remove them from us. At present, Heaven be praised, they are not so formidable as they have been, and it is our own fault if ever we suffer them to be so ; Providence, and the Church of England, seems to join in this particular, that now the destroyers of the nation's peace may be overturned, and to this end the present oppor- tunity seems to be put into our hands. To this end her present Majesty seems reserved to enjoy the crown, that the ecclesiastic as well as civil rights of the nation may be restored by her hand. To this end the face of affairs have received such a turn in the process of a few months, as never has been before; the leading men of the nation, the universal cry of the people, the unanimous request of the clergy, agree in this, that the deliverance of our Church is at hand. For this end has Providence given such a parliament, such a convocation, such a gentry, and such a queen as we never had before. And what may be the consequences of a neglect of such opportunities? The succession of the crown has but a dark prospect, another Dutch turn may make the hopes of it ridiculous, and the practice impossible. Be the house of our future princes never so well inclined, they will be foreigners; and many years will be spent in suiting the genius of strangers to this crown, and the interests of the nation; and how many ages it may be before the English throne be filled with so much zeal and candour, so much tenderness, and hearty affec- tion to the Church, as we see it now covered with, who can imagine? It is high time then for the friends of the Church of Eng- land to think of building up, and establishing her, in such a manner, that she may be no more invaded by foreigners, nor divided by factions, schisms, and error. If this could be done by gentle and easy methods, I should be glad, but the wound is corroded, the vitals begin to mortify, and nothing but amputation of members can complete the all cure; the ways of tenderness and compassion, all persuasive arguments have been made use of in vain. The humour of the Dissenters has so increased among the people, that they hold the Church in defiance, and the house of God is an abomination among them. Nay, they have brought up their posterity in such prepossessed aversions to our holy religion, that the ignorant mob think we are all idolaters and worshippers of Baal; and account it a sin to come within the walls of our churches. The primitive Christians were not more shy of a heathen- temple, or of meat offered to idols, nor the Jews of swine's flesh, than some of our Dissenters are of the Church, and the divine service solemnised therein. This obstinacy must be rooted out with the profession of it, while the generation are left at liberty daily to affront God Almighty, and dishonour his holy worship, we are wanting in our duty to God, and our mother the Church of England. How can we answer it to God, to the Church, and to our posterity, to leave them entangled with fanaticism, error, and obstinacy, in the bowels of the nation; to leave them an enemy in their streets, that in time may involve them in the same crimes, and endanger the utter extirpation of religion in the nation? What is the difference betwixt this, and being subjected to the power of the Church of Rome, from whence we have reformed P. If one be an extreme on one hand, and one on another, it is equally destructive to the truth, to have errors Settled among us, let them be of what nature they will. Both are enemies of our Church, and of our peace, and why should it not be as criminal to admit an enthusiast as a Jesuit? Why should the Papist with his seven sacraments be worse than the Quaker with no sacraments at all ? Why should religious houses be more intolerable than meeting-houses P Alas ! the Church of England ' What with Popery on one hand, and Schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between two thieves. Now let us crucify the thieves. Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of her enemies. The doors of mercy being always open to the returning part of the deluded people. Let the obstinate be ruled with the rod of iron. Let all true sons of so holy and oppressed a mother, exas- perated by her afflictions, harden their hearts against those who have oppressed her. And may God Almighty put it into the hearts of all the friends of truth, to lift up a standard against pride and Anti- christ, that the posterity of the sons of error may be rooted out from the face of this land for ever. This pamphlet, which reduced to absurdity the argument against toleration by pushing it to its legitimate conclusion, for a little time won the ap- plause of thorough - going men upon the side it seemed to take. A Fellow of one of the colleges in Cambridge thus thanked his bookseller for sending him a copy of it –“I received yours, and with it that Pamphlet which makes so much noise, called ‘The Shortest Way with the Dissenters,’ for which I thank you. I joyn with that Author in all he says, and have such a value for the Book that, next to the Bible and the Sacred Comments, I take it for the most valuable Piece I have. I pray God put it into her Majesty's Heart to put what is there pro- posed in Execution.” When it was found that the pamphlet was a satire designed to bring the policy of intolerance into ridicule, Defoe had to withdraw from danger, and the following proclamation was inserted in the London Gazette of the 10th of January, 1703 – “Whereas Daniel De Foe, alias De Fooe, is charged with writing a scandalous and seditious pamphlet, intitled, “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.’ He is a middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark-brown coloured hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth ; was born in London, and for many years was a hose-factor, in Freeman's Yard, in Cornhill; and now is owner of the brick and pantile works, near Tilbury Fort, in Essex : whoever shall discover the said Daniel De Foe to one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, or any of her Majesty's justices of the peace, so he may be TO A.D. 1704.] 207 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. apprehended, shall have a reward of £50, which her Majesty has ordered immediately to be paid on such discovery.” On the 25th of February the House of Commons ordered the pamphlet to be burnt by the common hangman. Then the printer was seized ; and to deliver him Defoe surrendered, immediately after publishing “A Brief Explanation of a late Pamphlet, intitled, “The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.’” He was tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to stand thrice in the pillory, with a paper over him setting forth his crime, to find sureties DANIEL DEFOE. From the “True Collection” of his writings, July, 1703. for his good behaviour for seven years, to pay 200 marks, and lie in prison during the Queen's pleasure. During the twenty days in Newgate, before his ap- pearance in the pillory on the three last days of July, 1703, Defoe completed a pamphlet on “The Shortest Way to Peace and Union,” which was pub- lished on the 29th of July, the first day of his ap- pearance in the pillory, its station then being before the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. Next day he was pilloried near the conduit in Cheapside; and on the third day at Temple Bar. But on the morning of the first day he had also published his defiant “Hymn to the Pillory,” beginning— “Hail, hieroglyphic state machine, Contrived to punish Fancy in ; Men that are men in thee can feel no pain, And all thy insignificants disdain.” The hymn was a pillory for the persecutors; they stand in it to this day, and the attempt to inflict shame on Defoe brought him to honour. The people formed a guard about him, drank his health, and adorned the state machine with flowers. Defoe returned to Newgate, where he still was busy with his pen. More than a dozen pamphlets upon vital questions of civil and religious liberty were written by him before he laid the foundations of independent political journalism by establishing a newspaper called The Review, of which the first number appeared on the 19th of February, 1704. The first eight numbers were weekly, then it ap- peared twice a week, and after one year's issue at that rate it was published three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, until the 29th of July, 1712. The imposition of a halfpenny stamp on all newspapers and detached leaves of print like Steele's Spectator, which crippled even The Spectator, caused Defoe to change the form of his publication to a single leaf issued twice a week, and in that form it was continued to its close on the 11th of June, 1713. This is its plan, as set forth in its first number :- A W E E R L. Y. R. E. V. I E W OF THE AFFAIRS OF FRANCE. Purg’d from the Errors and Partiality of News-Writers and Petty-Statesmen, of all Sides. Saturday, Feb. 19, 1704. THE INTRODUCTION. THIs Paper is the foundation of a very large and useful design, which, if it meet with suitable encouragement Permissu Superiorum, may contribute to setting the affairs of Europe in a clearer light, and to prevent the various uncertain accounts and the partial reflections of our street- scriblers, who daily and monthly amuse mankind with stories of great victories when we are beaten, miracles when we conquer, and a multitude of unaccountable and inconsistent stories, which have at least this effect, that people are possest with wrong notions of things, and nations wheeled to believe nonsense and contradiction. As these papers may be collected into volumes, they will compose a complete History of France, the ancient part of which shall be a faithful abridgement of former authors, and the modern affairs stated as impartially, and as metho- dical as the length of this Paper will permit. As we blame our enemies for being partial to themselves, and for filling their Gazettes with French rhodomontades, we shall carefully avoid the same error, and give even the French themselves full satisfaction for those of our own writers who are guilty that way, by sufficiently exposing them in our more diverting part of this paper. We shall particularly have a regard to the rise and fall of the Protestant Religion in the Dominions of France; and the reader, if the author live, and is permitted to pursue the design, shall find this Paper a useful index to turn him to the best historians of the Church in all ages. Here he shall find the mighty struggle the Protestant Churches met with in that kingdom for nearly 200 years; the strong convulsions of their expiring circumstances; the true history of the vast expense and mighty endeavours of this nation to support them; and at last, the sudden and violent destruction of them in France, by the solemn Revo- cation of the Edict of Nantes. Here the Reader will, as far as possible, have a true history of the Gallican Church in her solitude and sufferings, her conduct in a persecutel state, and just observations on 208 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1704. the scattering of her professors over all parts of the Christian World. We shall give as exact an account as can be had from good authorities of all the confessors of this Church, whose blood has dyed the hands of her enemies, and for which somebody must answer. All along we shall prosecute with as much care as possible, the genuine history of what happens in the matters of state and war now carried on in Europe by this vigorous nation, wherein we shall convince the world by the sequel that we shall follow Truth as close as it is possible and, human frailty excepted, shall never fail to lead the world into that plain and clear light of affairs which every wise man covets. When matters are thus laid open and stript from the false glosses of parties, men are easily able to judge what and why things are done, and will begin to see before them in the world, whereas all the observations or reflections I ever yet met with serve but to amuse mankind, bias our judg- ments to parties, and make us partial to ourselves. Thus we raise clouds before men's eyes and then complain nobody sees but ourselves; what we would not see we will not own, make all our calculations on our own side, and dose our readers with continued fumes of our own brain. This brings the world to a constant intoxication, that we can talk of nothing but victory, and the enemy is always beaten though we lose never so much ground. If a town be lost to the enemy, then we please our reader with the vigorous defence and gallant Sallies made by the garrison. If our armies receive a foil, then the bravery of our troops in making such or such a retreat, and every subsequent paper brings so many men to their colours that few or none are killed or taken. For our parts, and yet we hope without offence, when a battle is fought, we resolve to give you a sincere and just relation of fact; if we are beaten we shall not be ashamed to own it; and if we conquer, we shall not be afraid to say so and relate the particulars. The world, therefore, may be sure to find here, to the best of our power, a relation so exact that no gloss shall need to be set forth ; and both sides being examined, the particulars referred to the general opinion of all men. Not that we shall pretend to a constant supply of news, but as the public papers inform the world of what is done, in their way of management, we shall go on with what needful rectifications the case requires. As we shall be impartial to our own relators, and unravel Sometimes the ridiculous and inconsistent stories we meet with there; so we shall find occasion to take in pieces the particular accounts given by the enemies, and divert the reader sometimes with the rhodomontade of the French. All this will be the natural consequence of a diligent en- quiry after truth, and laying before the world the naked prospect of fact, as it really is. For this Paper is not designed for so trivial an occasion as only bantering the nonsense of a few News-Writers, though that may come in often enough by the way; but the matter of our account will be real history and just observation. Nor shall we embroil ourselves with Parties, but pursue the Truth; find her out when a crowd of lies and nonsense has almost smothered her, and set her up so as she may be both seen and heard. . After our serious matters are over; we shall at the end of every paper, present you with a little diversion, as anything occurs to make the world merry; and whether friend or foe, one Party or another, if anything happens so scandalous as to require an open reproof, the world may meet with it thore. We hope to offend no side, and unless our paper suffers in the general conflagration of pamphlets, viz., by an Act of Parliament, we fear not being called before Authority, or to the Bar of the House; for we have learnt more manners than to affront a Government under which we enjoy all that we can claim a right to, with the utmost Liberty. We rather hope to make our Governors judges and ap- provers of our work, by the merit of an impartial and exact historical pen. And if our best conduct can add to the value of the Paper, it shall be a History more than particular ordinary; for impartial and authentic truth. As to our brethren of the Worshipful Company of News-writers, Fellows of Scriblers College, Students in Politics and Professors in Contradiction; we prepare them this hint as a fair warning. Let them please to be careful not to impose absurdities and contradictions in their Weekly Papers, and they shall meet with no ill-treatment from this Paper : nay we will forgive them small Erratas, and slips of the pen; nor will we always quarrel with them for errors in geography; but if they tell us a lie that a man may feel with his foot, and not only proclaim their own folly but their knavery too, and tell the world they think their readers are fools too, that is intolerable. If they come to banter religion, sport with things sacred, and dip their pens in blasphemy (as sometimes they are very free with their Maker), our Scandalous Club is a new cor- poration, erected on purpose to make inquisition of such matters, and will treat them but scurvily, as they deserve. And being now upon the Introduction, 'tis necessary to explain a little what we mean by the errors and nonsense of Our News-writers which we intend to be thus free with, and that we may give you a lawful specimen of the fact, and so avoid being indicted for scandal, the reader is humbly re- ferred to a certain News-writer called the London Post, of the 21st of August last, where in advice from the Hague by way of Lisbon we are acquainted with some news from Paris. Now because all men are not geographers, nor every body does not know but that Lisbon may lie in the road between Paris and the Hague, and so the letters may come by the ordinary post; the Dutch, as some say, having renewed their correspondence; I think it might not be improper to let the reader know that this is just as direct an intelligence as if they should say, These are Letters from Jamaica, by the last East India Ship, which give a more particular account of a great fight in Flanders. And that the news this retrograde account brings, might be as cater-cornered as the way of its coming, the Advice adds, that when the Most Christian King heard that the Ring of Portugal had entered into the grand Alliance, his Majesty should say, “he would teach that little king to feel the weight of his arm.’ Methinks they who know anything of the King of France might have had more manners to his character than to have made such a speech as that for him ; for without doubt he who has known above fifty year how to act like a king, knows better how to talk like a king than that comes to. And they who have the worst opinion of his honesty never told us they had an ill opinion of his wit. At least they should have made a speech for him a little like a king; but this is such a boyish sentence, such a meanness, such a dull thing; the Czar of Muscovy would have made a better speech than that. This is an instance of the ignorance of our News-writers: then as to the partiality of their writing; I refer to the Post Boy, of August 24th, that two sorts of fluxes rage in both the German and French armies; this is very probable, A.D. 1704.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 209 and often the effect of armies lying long in a place, and the fact may be true, but then comes in Mr. News-writer and, partial to our friends, will have nobody die but in the enemy's army. This is such a piece of ridiculous banter, that they that can bear to be thus used ought indeed to be imposed upon to the end of the chapter. As occasions of this nature offer themselves, this Paper will not fail to set you to rights. Not that the Author thinks it worth while to take up your hours always to tell you how your pockets are picked and your senses imposed upon; only now and then, where 'tis a little grosser than ordinary. For the body of this Paper, we shall endeavour to fill it with truth of fact, and not improper reflections. The stories we tell you shall be true, and our observations, as near as we can, shall be just, and both shall study the reader's profit and diversion. It is probable, as we shall find presently, that Richard Steele's conception of The Tatler was in part derived from certain papers in Defoe's Review, An honest jest of Swift's also suggested to Steele the pleasant development of Isaac Bickerstaff as a central figure among the pictures of life in The Tatler papers. Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on the 30th of November, 1667, seven months after his father's death. His father, after whom he was named Jonathan, was a young attorney, who had lately been made steward of the King's Inns, when he died, leaving his wife, who had been Abigail Herrick of Leicester, with an infant daughter and an unborn son, but with no worldly means beyond an annuity of £20 a year. Tittle Jonathan was cared for by an uncle in Dublin, Godwin Swift, a barrister, four times married, who had fifteen sons of his own and three daughters dependent on him. When six years old, Jonathan Swift was sent to a foundation school at Kilkenny, where he was taught till, at the age of fourteen, he went as a pensioner to Trinity College, Dublin. In February, 1686, he took his Bachelor of Arts degree. In the time of the Revolution, at the age of twenty-one, when the College was deserted, Swift, who had been ready to take his Master of Arts degree, went to his mother at Leicester, and there lived with her for some months, considering the future. Mrs. Swift was distantly related to the wife of the retired statesman, Sir William Temple, and there was some other slight ground for the endeavour to find in him a patron. Young Jonathan Swift went to Sir William's house, Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey, was kindly received, and became from 1689 to 1694 a useful companion and amanuensis, until Sir William should find an oppor- tunity of helping him in life. Sir William Temple, about forty years older than Swift, had distinguished himself as a liberal states- man in the time of Charles II., who now slighted him, now sought for himself shelter behind the statesman's popularity. Sir William withdrew to lettered peace, for he took pleasure in talk of books, and wrote essays himself with a gentlemanly ease, having salt of enough thoughtfulness to make them readable. He wrote with the critical air that French influence had brought into fashion, and especially when he considered himself to be writing history, with proper regard for the dignified turn of his sentences. Thus, for example, he supports the con- ventional dignity of the historian in a summary of THE CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. William, surnamed The Conqueror, was of the tallest Stature among those common in his Age and Country; his Size large, and his Body strong built, but well proportion'd: His Strength such, as few of his Court could draw his Bow : His Health was great and constant, which made him very active in his Business and Pleasures, till about the Decline of his Age he grew something corpulent. From all which, I suppose, came the Story in some Norman Writers, that he was Eight Foot high, or the Size of Hercules. As he was of goodly Personage, so his Face was lovely, but of a masculine Beauty, the Lines being strong, rather than delicate : His Eyes were quick and lively, but when moved, Something fierce : His Complexion sanguine : His Counten- ance very pleasant, when he was gay and familiar; when he was serious, something severe. His Pastimes were chiefly Hunting and Feasting : In the first he spent much Time, used great Exercise, and yet much Moderation of Diet. In his Feasts, which were design'd for Magnificence or Conversation, to know or to be known among his Nobles, and not for Luxury; he was courteous, affable, familiar, and often pleasant, and which made him the more so to his Company, was easy at those Times in granting Suits and Pardons. It is by All agreed, that he was Chaste and Temperate, which, with a happy Constitution, and much Exercise, pre- serv'd not only his Health, but Vigour, to the last Decline of his Age. He was of sound natural Sense, and shew’d it not only in his own Conduct and Reasoning upon all great Occasions, but also in the Choice of his Ministers and Friends, where no Prince was happier or wiser than he. He talk’d little, never vaunted, observ’d much, was very secret, and us’d only Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, with an universal Confidence, both as a Counseller and a Friend; to whom he was ever meek and gentle, tho' to others some- thing austere; as if this Conqueror had been himself subdu'd by the Wisdom and Virtue of that excellent Man. In his Purposes he was steady, but not obstinate, and tho’ constant to his Ends, yet appliable to Occasions; as appear'd by his favouring and trusting the Normans in his Troubles of England, and the English in those of Normandy; and was either very wise, or very happy, in the Arts of gaining Enemies, and retaining Friends, having never lost but one, which was Fitz-Auber. He was a Prince deep in his Designs, bold in his Enterprizes, firm in his Prosecution, excelling in the Order and Discipline of his Armies, and Choice in his Officers, both of his Army and his State: But admirable in Expedition and Dispatch of Civil as well as Military Affairs, never deferring 'till to Morrow, what should be done to Day. - Above all, he was careful and prudent in the Management of his Treasure, and finding a Temper between the Bounty of his own Nature, and the Necessity of his Affairs, proportioning always the Expences of his Gifts, his Buildings, his Enterprises, to the Treasure he was Master of, for defraying them, design- ing nothing out of his Compass, and thereby compassing all he seem'd to design. He was Religious in frequenting Divine Service, giving much Alms, building Abbies, and endowing them, sending Presents of Crosses of Gold, rich Vestures and Plate to many other Churches, and much Treasure to Rome. 203 210 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1688 He was a great Lover of Learning, and tho’ he despised the loose ignorant Saxon Clergy he found in England, yet he took Care and Pleasure to fill Ecclesiastical Dignities here with Persons of great Worth and Learning from Abroad, as Lanfranc, Durand, Anselm, with many more. He was a Lover of Virtue in others, and a Hater of Vice; for being naturally very kind to his Half-Brother Odon Bishop of Bayeux, having made him Earl of Kent, given him great Revenues, intrusted him, in his Absence, with the Govern- ment of the Realm; yet finding him a Man of incurable Ambition, Avarice, Cruelty, Oppression, and Prophaneness, he at length wholly disgrac'd him, and kept him in prison during all the rest of his Reign; which seems to have been a just Punishment of his Crimes, and Sacrifice to the English, he had cruelly oppressed in the King's Absence, rather than a Greediness of his Treasures, as some envious Writers would make it appear. Yet by the Consent of them all, and the most partial or malicious to his Memory, as well as others; He is agreed to have been a Prince of great Strength, Wisdom, Courage, Clemency, Magnificence, Wit, Courtesy, Charity, Temperance, and Piety. This short Character, and by all agreed, is enough to vindicate the Memory of this noble Prince, and famous Con- queror, from the Aspersions or Detractions of several malicious or partial Authors, who have more unfaithfully represented his Reign, than any other Period of our English History. As we are on the way to the essayists of Queen Anne's reign, it may here be remarked that the essays of Sir William Temple are too long and formal to claim kindred with Tatler and Spectator papers; but there was essay-writing that made some nearer approach to them. Jeremy Collier, a nonjuring divine, who in 1698 fluttered the dramatists of London by his shrewd attack upon them in “A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage,” was known favourably as a writer of “Essays upon Several Subjects,” of which one may serve as an example — OF THE ASPECT. The countenance seems designed not only for ornament, but information. The passions there displayed make way for commerce and communication, and help to let one man into the sentiments and affections of another. It is true, the soul is not altogether discovered. If the thoughts lay open to observation, there would great inconveniences follow. Many good designs would be defeated; many improper aver- sions and desires would appear; the business of life would be disturbed, and conversation made almost impracticable. In such cases, people would choose to converse in the dark, rather than trust themselves with the sight of each other. However, though the soul cannot be all forced into the face, yet there is no small part of it to be seen there, especially when it comes of its own accord. Here the different apprehensions of the mind discover themselves. I grant they are not always fully distinguished in their causes and their kind; but, though they are not drawn at length, you have something of the colour and proportion. Here joy and grief, resolution and fear, modesty and conceit, inclination, indifferency and disgust are made legible. The character is fairest and best marked in children, and those who are unpractised in the little hypocrisies of conversation; for, when mature has learnt to put on art and disguise, the forehead is not easily read. Now, it is very surprising to see the image of the mind stamped upon the aspect; to see the cheeks take the dye of the passions thus naturally, and appear in all the colours and complexions of thought. Why is this variety of changes confined to a single place P What is the reason a man’s arm won’t smile and frown, and do all the intellectual postures of the countenance P The arm seems to have a finer skin than the face; it is less exposed to the weather; the veins are larger and more visible, and the pulse beats stronger. In short, if matter and motion would do the business, the arm, excepting the eye, seems to have the ad- vantage, and might put in for the index and interpreter of the mind. And yet we see it is strangely uniform and unaffected upon every accident and turn of thought ; and nothing but a blow or a pinch can make it change colour. But the face being designed to be unclothed, and in view, God has there fixed the seat and visibility of the passions, for the better direction of conversation. The sudden altera- tion of the countenance is very remarkable: a forcible object will rub out the freshest colours at a stroke, and paint others of a quite different appearance; a vigorous thought, or a sur- prise of good fortune, dispels the gloom, and brightens the air immediately. To metamorphose the blood and spirits thus extempore is not a little strange. It argues an amazing fineness and curiosity in the parts; that the least touch of the imagination can alter them into almost what appearances it pleases. The strength of the representation is another cir- cumstance worth considering ; the inward motions and temper are sometimes drawn with wonderful life; the advantages of youth and complexion, the particular force of the mind and occasion, answer to the fineness of the colours and the skill of the painter. When all these causes meet, the passions are marked with extraordinary clearness and strength. What can be more significant than the sudden flushing and con- fusion of a blush, than the sparklings of rage, and the light- ning of a smile P The soul is, as it were, visible upon these occasions; the passions ebb and flow in the cheeks, and are much better distinguished in their progress than the change of the air in a weather-glass. Some people have an air of dignity and greatness, and an unusual vigour in their aspect; others have a sweetness and good-humour printed upon them, which is very engaging. A face well furnished out by nature, and a little disciplined, has a great deal of rhetoric in it; a graceful presence bespeaks acceptance, gives a force to language, and helps to convince by look and posture; but this talent must be sparingly used, for fear of falling into affectation, than which nothing is more nauseous. Of all the appearances, methinks a smile is the most extraordinary: it plays with a surprising agreeableness in the eye, breaks out with the brightest distinction, and fits like a glory upon the countenance. What sun is there within us that shoots his rays with so sudden a vigour P To see the soul flash in the face at this rate, one would think might convert an athcist. By the way, we may observe that smiles are much more be- coming than frowns: this seems a natural encouragement to good-humour, as much as to say, If people have a mind to be handsome, they must not be peevish and untoward. Another thing remarkable is the obsequiousness of the aspect. It goes as true to the mind, when we please, as the dial to the sun. The orders are published as soon as given. It is but throwing the will into the face, and the inward direction appears immediately : it is true a man cannot command the standing features and complexion, but the diversities of passion are under disposal. The image of pleasure is never seen when anger was intended. No 1 the sentiments are painted exactly, and drawn by the life within. And, since it is in our power not to give a wrong sign, we should not pervert the intendments of Providence. To To A.D. 1704.] 211 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. wash over a coarse or insignificant meaning is to counterfeit nature's coin. We ought to be just in our looks, as well as in our actions, for the mind may be declared one way no less than the other. A man might as good break his word as his face, especially upon some critical occasions. It may so happen that we can converse no other way, for want of an interpreter; but, though I cannot tell what a man says, if he will be sin- cere, I may easily know what he looks. The meaning of sounds is uncertain, and tied to particular times and places; but the language of the face is fixed and universal: its con- sents and refusals are everywhere alike. A smile has the same form and sense in China as with us. If looks were as arbitrary as words, conversation would be more in the dark, and a traveller would be obliged to learn the coun- tenances as well as the tongues of foreign countries. And as the language of the face is universal, so it is very comprehensive : no laconism can reach it. It is the short- hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room. A man may look a sentence, as soon as speak a word. The strokes are small, but so masterly drawn that you may easily collect the image and proportions of what they resemble. Whether honesty and dishonesty are discernible in the face is a question which admits of dispute. King Charles II. thought he could depend upon these observations. But, with submission, I believe an instance might be given in which his rules of physiognomy failed. It is true, the temper and inward disposition is sometimes visible in the countenance. Thus, Sallust tells us, Cataline had rage and defiance in his looks even after he was dead. However, here the impression was partly designed, and voluntary. He had a mind, no question, to appear as fierce and formidable as he could; but in insincerity the case is otherwise, for no man is willing to be known for a knave. Whether men, as they say of plants, have signatures to discover their natures by, is hard to de- termine. Some people fancy an honest man looks plain and open, and all of a piece; and therefore, when they see a shy and compounded air, a remote and absconding kind of coun- tenance, they conclude it Cain's mark. This, in their opinion, is either a caution given us by Providence, or the natural effect of a crafty and suspicious mind. A knave, say they, is apprehensive of being discovered, and this habitual concern puts an oddness into his looks. But, after all, no man's face is actionable. These singulari- ties are interpretable from more innocent causes; and there- fore, though there may be ground for caution, there is none for censure. Jonathan Swift discoursed of literature and politics with Sir William Temple at Moor Park, copied and arranged his patron's essays and other works, made himself generally useful, and studied for eight or ten hours every day. When he went to Moor Park he first saw Esther Johnson, the elder of two daughters of a Mrs. Johnson who lived in the house as confidential attendant upon Lady Giffard, Sir William's sister. He was then a young man of twenty-two, and she a child of seven, clever, but sickly until her fifteenth year. Jonathan Swift took pleasure in the child, and gave aid to her education. Swift, from the age of twenty, had attacks of giddiness and deafness, which indicated the beginning of that affection of the brain which finally quenched his reason. For his illness he went to Ireland about a year after he had joined Sir William Temple, but becoming worse rather than better, he returned. Sir William had helped him to procure the same degree at Oxford which he had from Dublin, and after that to proceed to his M.A. at Oxford in July, 1692. Swift desired to enter the Church, and not finding prompt aid in that direction, he left Moor Park in June, 1694, was ordained in Dublin at the close of the year, and obtained the prebend of Kilroot, not far from Belfast, which was worth about £100 a year. He went to Rilroot, stayed a year there, and paid court to a Miss Waring, whom he found there living. She was the sister of a college friend. Esther Johnson had been left at Moor Park a sickly child of eleven or twelve, and the time had not come when her growth to womanhood established her influence over Swift's life, or when the growing sense of the heritable evil of insanity within him would cause him to feel that he must not marry as other men, and transmit so terrible a burden to a child. When he had been a year at Kilroot, Sir William Temple, who had felt Swift's absence, drew his young com- panion back to Moor Park, and there he remained until his patron's death, in January, 1699. By that time Esther Johnson had grown out of sickly child- hood into early womanhood, with health, beauty, and bright intelligence, and was taking place in Swift's affections beside his mother, whom he visited at Leicester, wherever he might be living, at least once every year, until her death, when he was forty- four years old. Not long after the death of Sir William Temple, of whose works he was left editor, Swift went to Dublin with the Earl of Berkeley, became his chaplain, and remained chaplain at Dublin Castle for some years thereafter. Lord Berkeley obtained for him the living of Laracor, near Trim, in the diocese of Meath, with Rathbeggan added to eke out its insufficient income. At Laracor the new minister improved the decayed church, the decayed parsonage-house and its glebe. He improved, also, the services of the church, and was diligent in duty, though some months of each year were spent in London. Sir William Temple had bequeathed to Esther Johnson a farm in Wexford. Swift, upon his first visit to England from Laracor, found her in lodgings at Farnham, with her elder friend Miss Dingley, who had also been one of Sir William's household. He persuaded the two ladies to come to Laracor, and so began the relation of his life with the woman who was its star, his Stella, in familiar friendship, with daily companionship, always, as precaution against evil speakers, of more than two alone. Swift felt, I believe, in forebodings of in- sanity a cloud upon his inner life. In later years he always read the third chapter of Job on his birth- day. Within himself he felt the reason why he must not marry as other men, and yet he loved. After a few years all must have been understood between himself and Stella. - When in London, Swift published “The Battle of the Books” and the “Tale of a Tub,” which had been written at Moor Park. Sometimes when in Dublin with Lord Berkeley, and much liked for his wit, he would read aloud to Lady Berkeley; who liked him to read one of the “Meditations” of the Hon. Robert Boyle, of which an example has been given on page 166. One day, instead of the expected 212 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE, [A.D. 1704 moralising, Mr. Swift gave her, in the manner of the Honourable Robert Boyle, the following MEDITATION According to the style and manner of the Honourable Robert Boyle's Meditations. U PON A BROOM-STICK. This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; It was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk. 'Tis now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air. 'Tis now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself; at length worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, ’tis either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a fire. When I beheld this I sighed, and said within myself, “Surely mortal man is a broom-stick!” Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, ’till the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk. He then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head ; but now should this our broom-stick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, through the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other men's defaults Dut a broom-stick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the earth ! and yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every slut’s corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving ; till worn to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames, for others to warm themselves by. In 1707 Swift was unusually busy in London. He published anonymously an “Argument to Prove the Inconvenience of Abolishing Christianity,” and a “Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners,” both very earnest in their purpose. Not less earnest was a pamphlet of “Pre- dictions for the Year 1708,” in which, under the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, a thoroughgoing astrologer, he attacked one of the strongholds of superstition, the astrological almanac. One editor of such an almanac, Merlinus Liberatus, was John Partridge, originally a cobbler, who drove a good trade in predictions. In the character of Isaac Bickerstaff, Swift claimed to be a real astrologer, who did not need to shelter himself behind vague hints, but exactly foretold what was to happen, gave dates, and named persons. Among his pro- phecies, which otherwise played chiefly with current politics, he set a prediction of the death of Partridge “on the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.” As soon as the date was passed, JONATHAN SWIFT IN LATER LIFE. From the Portrait prefia'ed to Lord Orrery’s “Remarks on Swift,” 1752. Swift was ready with a second pamphlet, and pub- lished at once, for the amusement of the town and the bewilderment of the unlucky astrologer, THE ACCOMPLISHIMENT OF THE FIRST OF BICKERSTAFF's PREDICTIONS ; MIR. Being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanack- maker, upon the 29th instant. In a letter to a Person of IHonour, JPritten in the year 1708. MY LORD, In obedience to your lordship's commands, as well as to satisfy my own curiosity, I have for some days past inquired constantly after Partridge, the Almanack-maker, of whom it was foretold in Mr. Bickerstaff's predictions, published about a month ago, that he should die the 29th instant about eleven at night of a raging fever. I had some sort of knowledge of him when I was employed in the revenue, because he used every year to present me with his almanack, as he did other gen- tlemen, upon the score of some little gratuity we gave him. I saw him accidentally once or twice about ten days before he died, and observed he began very much to droop and languish, though I hear his friends did not seem to apprehend him in any danger. About two or three days ago he grew ill, was confined first to his chamber, and in a few hours after to his bed, where Dr. Case and Mrs. Kirleus were sent for to visit, and to prescribe to him. Upon this intelligence I sent thrice every day one servant or other to inquire after his health; and yesterday, about four in the afternoon, word was brought me that he was past hopes; upon which, I prevailed with myself to go and see him, partly out of commiseration, and I confess, partly out of curiosity. He knew me very well, seemed surprised at my condescension, and made me compliments upon it as well as he could, in the condition he was. The people about him said he had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him he had his understanding as well as ever I knew, and spoke strong and hearty, without To A.L. 1708. 213 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. any seeming uneasiness or constraint. After I had told him how sorry I was to see him in those melancholy circum- stances, and said some other civilities suitable to the occasion, I desired him to tell me freely and ingeniously, whether the predictions Mr. Bickerstaff had published relating to his death had not too much affected and worked on his imagina- tion. He confessed he had often had it in his head, but never with much apprehension, till about a fortnight before; since which time it had the perpetual possession of his mind and thoughts, and he did verily believe was the true natural cause of his present distemper; “for,” said he, “I am thoroughly persuaded, and I think I have very good reasons, that Mr. Bickerstaff spoke altogether by guess, and knew no more what will happen this year than I did myself.” I told him his discourse surprised me; and I would be glad he were in a state of health to be able to tell me what reason he had to be convinced of Mr. Bickerstaff's ignorance. He replied, “I am a poor ignorant fellow, bred to a mean trade, yet I have sense enough to know that all pretences of foretelling by astrology are deceits, for this manifest reason, because the wise and the learned, who can only know whether there be any truth in this science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise it ; and none but the poor ignorant vulgar give it any credit, and that only upon the word of such silly wretches as I and my fellows, who can hardly write or read. I then asked him why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it agreed with Bickerstaff's prediction ? at which he shook his head, and said, “Oh sir, this is no time for jesting, but for repenting those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom of my heart.” “By what I can gather from you,” said I, “the observations and predictions you printed, with your Almanacks, were mere impositions on the people.” He replied, “If it were otherwise I should have the less to answer for. We have a common form for all those things; as to foretelling the weather, we never meddle with that, but leave it to the printer, who takes it out of any old almanack, as he thinks fit; the rest was my own invention, to make my almanack sell, having a wife to maintain, and no other way to get my bread; for mending old shoes is a poor livelihood; and,” added he, sighing, “I wish I may not have done more mischief by my physic than my astrology; though I had some good receipts from my grandmother, and my own compositions were such as I thought could at least do no hurt.” I had some other discourse with him, which now I cannot call to mind; and I fear I have already tried your lordship. I shall only add one circumstance, that on his death-bed he declared himself a Nonconformist, and had a fanatic preacher to be his spiritual guide. After half an hour's conversation I took my leave, being half stifled by the closeness of the room. I imagined he could not hold out long, and therefore withdrew to a little coffee house hard by, leaving a servant at the house with orders to come immediately, and tell me, as near as he could, the minute when Partridge should ex- pire, which was not above two hours after; when, looking upon my watch, I found it to be above five minutes after seven; by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his calculation. In the other circum- stances he was exact enough. But whether he has not been the cause of this poor man's death, as well as the predictor, may be very reasonably disputed. However, it must be con- fessed the matter is odd enough, whether we should en- deavour to account for it by chance, or the effect of imagina- tion. For my own part, though I believe no man has less faith in these matters, yet I shall wait with some impatience, and not without some expectation, the fulfilling of Mr. Bickerstaff's second prediction, that the Cardinal de Noailles is to die upon the fourth of April, and if that should be verified as exactly as this of poor Partridge, I must own I should be wholly surprised, and at a loss, and should infallibly expect the accomplishment of all the rest. This jest tickled the fancy of the times. Others took part in it. When Partridge replied that he was alive, it was proved to him that he was dead, because his calling was at an end. Richard Steele then beginning his Tatler, and then one of Swift's friends, carried the jest on into his first numbers, and thus taking by chance the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, explained to Partridge that although a certain bundle of legs, arms, &c., called by his name might be seen walking about, he ought to understand that he was himself dead, for when a man's art is dead the man is dead. According to Steele's doctrine of life, a man is but what he can do. Richard Steele cannot be spoken of apart from Joseph Addison. They were friends from boyhood, and their strength was in their fellowship of work. Of Addison, indeed, it may be said that it was Steele who found for him the right use of his genius; but for Steele, Addison would have left unused that part of himself in which his best strength lay, and we should have remembered him only among the minor writers of his time. In all the literary ventures by which their names have been associated, Steele went his own way and drew Addison after him. They were of like age, Steele born in Dublin a little before the 12th of March, 1672 (new style; old style, 1671), and Addison, at Milston, near Salisbury plain, on the following May Day. Steele's father was a lawyer, Addison's a clergyman. Steele lost his parents early in life, and was presented by the first Duke of Ormond, whom his father had served, to a foundation scholarship at the Charter- house when he was about twelve years old. Addison's father, Lancelot, had been a poor son of a 'poor Westmoreland clergyman, and had not thriven in the church till he obtained the patronage of Joseph Williamson, afterwards Sir Joseph and a Secretary of State. Joseph Williamson gave him the small living of Milston, in Wiltshire, upon which he married Jane Gulstone, a clergyman's daughter, and their first child, born on May Day in 1672, was named Joseph, after the friend who had enabled them to marry. Then Lancelot Addison, who wrote two creditable little books, became through help of his friend, in 1677, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and in 1683 Dean of Lichfield. It was from the Deanery at Lichfield that young Joseph Addison was sent to the Charterhouse, nearly at the same time as Steele. Steele was an orphan, little cared for, with Irish vivacity of temper; frank, fearless, generous, as all his after-life showed; with a delight in human fel- lowship, and a heart full of love. Fatherless and motherless, he poured it all out on his friend Addison. Addison was of a sensitive and nervous temperament, with a shyness easily mistaken for a proud reserve. In after-life, though he became a minister of State, he only once ventured to speak in the House of Commons, and then he broke down. This difference 214 [A.D. 1688 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. of temper was one source of strength in the friend- ship, unlikeness in accidental features, with a like- ness in essentials. Between Steele and Addison, as boys and men, the essential likeness was in the deep religious earnestness that lay at the heart of each. In holiday time Steele, being homeless, went with his friend to the deanery, and was as a brother with the children of the family. From the Charterhouse each went to Oxford— Addison in 1687 to Queen's College, and presently elected a demy of Magdalen; Steele, in March, 1689, to Christchurch. Addison was in training for the Church. His bent was towards literature. His fine humour he only ventured to use in Latin verse, where the language was supposed to dignify it, and he earned credit as one of the best writers of Latin verse in Oxford. His bent was towards literature ; and, except upon one point, he was submissive to the French critical tone of the day. In 1694 his lines in Dryden’s “Miscellany ” upon the chief English poets, from Chaucer to Dryden, repeat opinions of the self-satisfied ignorance of the time — which called itself “an understanding age " — in judgments upon Chaucer and Spenser, and absolutely omit Shake- speare; but there was one exception. Addison had felt “Paradise Lost,” and though French criticism was against Milton, the higher life in him had known the touch of Milton's fire. The critics were great men, no doubt, but Addison dared upon this point to think for himself, and slipped into warm eulogy of Milton : Whate'er his pen describes I more than see; While every verse, arrayed in majesty, Bold and sublime my whole attention draws, And seems above the critic's nicer laws. In after years, in The Spectator, it was Addison who taught the polite readers of his time that the best genius of Greece and Rome must yield to Milton his pre-eminence. But Addison never rose to a perception of the higher genius of Shakespeare. His own genius was not like Steele's, allied to the dramatic by a vivid interest in life itself. Addison looked through life to literature, Steele always through literature to the life in which he had the keenest and most sympathetic interest. Soon after Addison's first printed verse came Steele's. It shared the grief of the people for Queen Mary's death by small-pox in the Christmas week; and, full of a warm, living sympathy, founded its meditations on the funeral procession. It was called “The Procession,” and contained a line that so far repre- sented his own earnest inner life, with all the warmth of joyous kindliness that his friends knew in him, as to be repeated in another of his works; the second line of the couplet— No satisfaction is on earth sincere, Pleasure itself has something that's severe. The different ways taken by the two young men in entering on active life are also characteristic. Addison looked for promotion in the Church, and sought, by honest means, to win a patron. In 1695 he addressed to the king verses on the taking of Namur, and sent them through Sir John Somers, then Lord Keeper, who in 1697 became Lord High Chancellor of England, with the title of Lord Somers, Baron Evesham. In 1697 he celebrated the Peace of Ryswick in verses to Charles Montague, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and became in May of that year First Lord of the Treasury. Because Montague was a good Latin scholar, Addison wrote on this occasion Latin verse, to show his scholarship, as well as his other good parts and his Whig loyalty. The desired result was obtained. Somers and Mon- tague became Addison's friends, and, persuading him to give up his purpose of entering the church, allowed him a travelling pension of £300 a year while he should be qualifying himself abroad for the diplomatic service. Their purpose was the loyal one of bringing a young high-minded and cultivated man into government employment for his own good and the good of England. Addison went to France and Italy, wrote a letter in verse to Montague, then become Lord Halifax, as he crossed the Alps' in December, 1701, from Italy to Geneva–this serving to remind Halifax of the poet he had helped—and was at Geneva when William III. died on the 8th of March 1702. The king's death put an end to Addison's pension, but he travelled still, probably as companion to a young gentleman ; was at Vienna in the autumn, where he wrote his Dialogues on Medals; was at Dresden in January, 1703, and in March at Hamburg, of whose people he wrote to the Earl of Winchelsea : “Their chief commodity, at least that which I am best acquainted with, is Rhenish wine. This they have in such prodigious quantities that there is no sensible diminution of it, tho' Mr. Perrot and myself have been among 'em above a week.” In May he was still at Hamburg, and refusing an offer of £100 a year from the Duke of Somerset as salary for travelling with his son Algernon, Earl of Hertford, aged nineteen. In September, 1703, Addison, then thirty-one years old, was at the Hague, whence he wrote to a friend, “At my first arrival I received the melancholy news of my father's death, and ever since have been engaged in so much noise and company that it was impossible for me to think of rhyming in it.” Then it was that he came to London. The little money that his father left him enabled him to pay, at last, his college debts, and he took poor lodgings in the Haymarket, not doubtfully expecting fortune. He had ripened ability and a just claim on the political party that had tempted him out of the family pro- fession for which he was born and bred. Joseph Addison once back in London, Steele was again with living enthusiasm by his side. He found that his friend had become Captain Steele, had uttered his religious mind in print, was in high credit as the author of a witty comedy, and was then writing another. How had Richard Steele begun life " His interest in men and women had caused him to write a comedy when at college. A college friend, Richard 1 See in this Library “Shorter English Poems,” pages 349, 350. TO A.D. 1705.] 215 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Parker, thought ill of it, and Steele destroyed it. With his interest in life, there was in Steele a sense of the immense gain to the country by the settle- ment of the Revolution, that idealised for him William III. as a king faithful in its maintenance, and gave him a strength of interest real as Defoe's in the political situation. He knew how much of the future of his country was dependent on the main- tenance of the Revolution, by resistance to all efforts for bringing back the principle of the divine right of kings and breaking down the limitation of the monarchy. The Chancellor of the University of Oxford in Steele's student years was James Butler, second Duke of Ormond, grandson of the first Duke of Ormond whom Steele's father had served, and from whom Steele's presentation to the Charterhouse had been obtained. The second Duke, who succeeded his father in July, 1688, went went Ring William to Holland in 1691, was in the battle of Steinkirk, where William was defeated in 1692, was taken prisoner in July, 1693, when William was defeated at Landen. These defeats encouraged James, and in 1694 Bristol, Exeter, and Boston adhered to him ; troops were raised also in the north of Eng- land to assist his cause. In 1696 there was the conspiracy of Sir George Barclay to seize William on the 15th of February. Captain Charnock, one of the conspirators, had been a Fellow of Magdalen. On the 23rd of February the plot was laid before Parliament. A loyal association was formed. There was a stir of feeling on all sides. The Duke of Ormond, as Chancellor of the University, sought volunteers among the Oxford men, and Richard Steele was among those who, for love of the liberties of England, enlisted under him. He had not yet learnt that he could give his country more than ser- vice of his arm. As he afterwards wrote, “When he cocked his hat, and put on a broad-sword, jack-boots, and shoulder-belt, under the command of the unfor- tunate Duke of Ormond, he was not acquainted with his own parts, and did not then know he should ever have been able (as has since appeared to be, in the case of Dunkirk) to demolish a fortified town with a goose-quill.” Thus it was that Steele entered the Coldstream or second regiment of Guards, where a brave man, John Cutts, who wrote verse of a sort, and loved literature, was colonel. He became Secretary to Lord Cutts, who soon gave him an ensign's commission, and then got him command of a company as Captain Steele in Lord Lucas's regi- ment of Fusileers. The false code of honour which included duelling as a necessity, and countenanced immorality as gallantry, made life in the mess-room somewhat difficult to Steele. Always kindly and sympathetic, he was under the temptations of good fellowship. Duelling he held then and always in abhorrence. Throughout his writings it is one of those evils that he seeks steadily to overcome. His avowed opinions incurred ridicule. Duels were forced upon him which as a soldier he was bound to accept on pain of expulsion from his regiment. He sought so to fence that there should be no hurt done, but by a chance slip of the sword once wounded an antagonist so that his life was for a time in danger. This deepened his abhorrence of a social custom opposed alike to reason and religion in the eyes of all whom slavery to custom cannot blind. In other respects he felt that he was slipping from his firm hold on religious life, and in order to steady himself he then wrote in four sections “The Christian Hero: An Argument, proving that no Principles but those of Religion are sufficient to make a Great Man.” In the first part of this little treatise he treated of the heroism of the ancient world (concerning which there was much cant in those days of the French classical critics); in the second he connected man with his Creator by the Bible story of the death of Christ; in the third part he defined the Christian as set forth by the character and teaching of St. Paul, applying the definitions practically to the daily life of his own time ; in the last part he turned to the common springs of action among men, and argued that they were used to the best purpose when joined with religion. The little book closed in a strain of patriotism with the character of King William, then much decried by enemies to the Re- volution. Steele declared it to be “that of a glorious Captain, and (what he much more values than the most splendid titles) that of a sincere and honest man.” The people of England were so far from ridiculing Steele's deep earnestness when the little book was published in the spring of 1701, that it went quickly through several editions. Its fifth edition was ap- pended to the first collection of The Tatler into volumes. But Richard Steele was the last man to assume airs of the preacher. He had written this treatise to strengthen himself, and published it be- cause it might give like help to others, who were perplexed by the false weights and measures current in society. That he might not seem to play Pharisee among his comrades, Captain Steele next wrote, and pro- duced, in 1702, his Comedy of the “Funeral, or Grief a la Mode,” earnest and honest in purpose, and pure in tone, while full of his own genial wit, and lively sympathetic interest in human character. His fellow-soldiers crowded to the theatre to lend hands to their friend on his first night. This comedy was a success, and in 1703 he was about another called “The Tender Husband,” when his dear friend Addison came home. Then, if he worked with Addison by his side and Addison put in a stroke of humour, to Addison was to be given all the merit of success. Steele had the noble nature that can utterly lose sight of itself in thought of others; he had a whole heart to give, without one selfish reservation, to his friend or to his country. In 1704, on the 2nd of August, there was the battle of Blenheim. Addison then had his oppor- tunity of continued advance along the line of patronage. He was visited by Mr. Boyle, Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, sent by Godolphin on the suggestion of Lord Halifax. He was asked to write a poem on Marlborough's victory, and at once had an office given him of Commissioner of Appeal in the Excise. The poem then written was called “The Campaign.” In 1705 Addison, aged 33, published his travels 216 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1705 in Italy, dedicated to Lord Somers. The book chiefly consisted of illustrations of the Latin poets by observation of the land where they had lived. Except a playful passage about Saint Anthony preaching to the fishes, throughout the book Addison shows a genius with its originality subdued by regard for the false critical conventions of his day. There was no evidence of what Steele knew to be his friend's strength when he wrote of Addison in a preface to “The Drummer,” Addison's one comedy, which Steele caused to be acted : “He was above all men in that talent we call humour, and enjoyed it in such perfection that I have often reflected, after a night spent with him apart from all the world, that I had the pleasure of conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catallus, who had all their wit and nature heightened with humour more exquisite and delightful than any other man ever possessed.” But to find Addison himself, his friends had to get him “apart from all the world.” One stranger in the company would chill him. He would never have written with a soul unconscious of the wig upon his head, of which he had to support all the dignity, if his friend Richard Steele had not struck out a new path in literature, and found for Addison a form of writing that gave play to all his powers. Early in 1706 Addison became under-secretary to Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory, and remained in the same office under the Earl of Sunderland, a Whig, and Marlborough's son-in-law, to whom from this time Addison looked especially for friendly patron- age. In the same year Addison produced his opera “Rosamond,” which was to show how far English words and music could surpass Italian. It did not succeed in that respect ; but Addison had chosen the subject that he might lay the scene at Woodstock, and give King Henry a vision of the palace thereafter to be raised on that spot by a grateful nation as a gift to the victor of Blenheim. Thus there was political capital to be made out of the opera, whatever might be its failure in other respects. In the year of Blenheim, Steele had produced a third comedy, “The Lying Lover,” which failed because overweighted with earnestness. Soon after- wards he married a lady, who died in a few months, leaving him an encumbered estate in Barbadoes worth about £600 a year. In 1707 Steele was appointed Gazetteer, with a salary raised from £60 to £300; and about the same time Gentleman Usher to the Prince Consort, with a salary of £100 a year. In September of this year, 1707, Steele married the wife who is associated with all memories of him as the “dear Prue,” to whom he paid after marriage as much attention as she could have claimed in the days of courtship. She had some property in Wales, which she and her mother would have made over to Steele, but he required it to be settled absolutely on herself and on any children of the marriage. In 1708 Addison was writing from his lodgings at Sandy End, Fulham, about birds' nests, eggs, &c., to the young Lord Warwick, aged ten, at Holland House, son of the Countess Dowager whom, towards the close of his life, he married. Swift was now amusing London with his joke against John Partridge and astrology. Defoe's Review was steadily appearing, with opinions tho- roughly accordant to the mind of Steele. One feature of The Review was an occasional appendix, pleasant in its tone and serious in purpose, in which a Scandalous Club was supposed to receive letters, discuss and otherwise deal with the follies and vices of society. It occurred to Steele that such good work was important enough to be the main duty of a journal which might thus help to clear England of some of the levity and folly that in the days of Charles II. had deepened into vice, and still weakened the ties of home and religion and the sense of truth by the untruth of conven- tional manners. He would not affect to preach ; would call his journal by no name more alarming than The Tatler. His office of Gazetteer would enable him to give some scraps of news, which he supposed to be necessary to the sale of his paper; but he soon found that the main design was strong enough to stand without artificial support of any kind. Therefore the scraps of news soon disap- peared. The first number of The Tatler appeared on the 12th of April, 1709, when Addison, who knew nothing of the design, had gone to Treland as Chief Secretary to Earl Wharton. It was a penny paper, published three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thurs- days, and Saturdays, until its close, at No. 271, on the 2nd of January, 1711. When its success had been completely established, Addison, in London again, was drawn by Steele into hearty fellowship with an endeavour, by kindly unassuming little papers con- stantly appearing, to laugh out the feeble affectations of the day, and lift again the minds of Englishmen to a right reverence for woman's place in society, and of the ties of home and religion; to turn public opinion against the gambler, the duellist, and others of their kind. Taking up the parable of his friend Swift, Steele began easily in the character of Mr. Bickerstaff. Replying to the writer of a complimentary letter, Mr. Bickerstaff says in number 89 of The Tatler — MR. BICKERSTAFF, As for my labours, which he is pleased to enquire after, if they can but wear one impertinence out of human life, destroy a single vice, or give a morning's cheerfulness to an honest mind; in short, if the world can be but one virtue the better, or in any degree less vicious, or receive from them the smallest addition to their innocent diversions; I shall not think my pains, or indeed my life, to have been spent 1Il Val11. Thus far as to my studies. It will be expected I should in the next place give some account of my life. I shall therefore, for the satisfaction of the present age, and the benefit of posterity, present the world with the following abridgement of it. It is remarkable, that I was bred by hand, and ate nothing but milk until I was a twelve month old; from which time, to the eighth year of my age, I was observed to delight in pudding and potatoes; and indeed I retain a benevolence for that sort of food to this day. I do not remember that I distinguished myself in anything at those years, but by my great skill at taw, for which I was so barbarously used, that To A.D. 1709.] 217 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. it has ever since given me an aversion to gaming. In my twelfth year, I suffered very much for two or three false concords. At fifteen I was sent to the university, and stayed there for some time; but a drum passing by, being a lover of music, I enlisted myself for a soldier. As years came on, I began to examine things, and grew discontented at the times. This made me quit the sword, and take to the study of the occult sciences, in which I was so wrapped up, that Oliver Cromwell had been buried, and taken up again, five years before I heard he was dead. This gave me first the reputa- tion of a conjurer, which has been of great disadvantage to me ever since, and kept me out of all public employments. The greater part of my later years has been divided between Dick's coffee house, the Trumpet in Sheer Lane, and my own lodgings. In number 132 of The Tatler, Steele describes THE CLUB AT THE TRUMPET. Iſabeo Senectuti magnam gratian, qua mihi sermonis ari- ditatem attacit, potion is et cibi sustulit. —TULL. de Sen. (I am much beholden to old age, which has increased my eagerness for conversation, in proportion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and thirst.) Sheer Lane, February 10. After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such, as are rather easy than shining companions. This I find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have passed many hours with much indolence, though not with great pleasure. Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep : it takes the mind down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the condition of a thinking man, when he is but half awake. After this, my reader will not be surprised to hear the account, which I am about to give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity, as well as to the society at the Trumpet, of which I am a member, did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen ; but, partly by the severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that number : in which, however, we have this consolation, that the best company is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and difficulty. Sir Jeoffery Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in possession of the right hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years before he had dis- cretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest, worthy gentleman, who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart. Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor; and every night tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London ap- prentices; for which he is in great esteem among us. Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. He is a good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our jokes; and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good com- pany, and give him a taste of the world. This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs at any thing that passes, he is constantly told by his uncle, after a jocular manner, “Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools; but we old men know you are.” The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the neighbouring inn, who in his youth fre- quented the ordinaries about Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle. He has about ten distichs of Hudibras without book, and never leaves the club until he has applied them all. If any modern wit be men- tioned, or any town-frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle. For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am something respected by others; though at the same time I understand by their behaviour, that I am con- sidered by them as a man of a great deal of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch, that the Major some- time, in the height of his military pride, calls me the Philosopher: and Sir Jeoffery, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, “What does the scholar say to it P’’ Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; * but I did not come last night until half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about three-quarters after six: I found also, that my good friend the Bencher had already spent three of his distichs; and only waited an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the couplet where “a stick” rhymes to “ecclesiastic.” “ At my entrance into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the Bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle.” 1 July 14, 1647, the London apprentices presented a petition signed by above 10,000 hands; and on the 26th, they forced their way into the House of Commons. 2 Clubs at the universities met at six till 1730; now, in 1784, they do not meet before nine in the evening, or later. [Note to the edition by John Nichols and others. To other notes from this edition I append the letter N.] 3 “When pulpit drum ecclesiastic Was beat with fist instead of a stick.” “Hudibras,” Part I., c. i., l. 10. * Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius, and great extravagance, but rather artful than witty. The extensive knowledge which he is re- ported to have had of gaming, must have been built on the ruins of his moral character; for every professed gamester is so much the worse man, in proportion as he is skilled in his profession. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful, it is said, than was neces- sary, to arrive, as she did, at the honour of being a mistress to the Duke of York. King Charles II. was wont to say of the Duke’s mistresses, who were generally very plain, “that he supposed they were prescribed by the priests, to his brother, in the way of penance.” This sister Ogle laid under very frequent contributions, to supply his wants, and support his extravagance. It is said, that by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed, as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot-guards, at that time under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this aera of Ogle's life, the story of the red petticoat refers. He had pawned his trooper's cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady's red petticoat, 204 218 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF FNGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1709. I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffery, to show his good-will towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who endeavour to oblige me; and therefore, in requital for his kindness, and to set the Con- versation a-going, I took the best occasion I could to put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his several battles, and particu- larly that in which he fell. This Gantlett was a game cock, upon whose head the knight, in his youth, had won five hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the Major upon the account of Edge Hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's. Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and, upon all occasions, winked upon his nephew to mind what passed. This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation, which we spun out until about ten of the clock, when my maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself, as I was going out, upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ his natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man begin a story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour long in a man of five-and- twenty, gathers circumstances every time he tells it, until it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that time he is threescore. The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age is, to lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation, as may make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently dis- charge itself in something impertinent or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable, than One who has turned his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind. . In short, we, who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what we speak be worth being heard, and endeavour to make our dis- course like that of Nestor,” which Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness. I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of, when I cannot conclude without observing, that Milton certainly thought of this passage in Homer, when, in his description of an eloquent spirit, he says, His tongue dropped manna.” Note may be taken by the way of one of the which he carried rolled up en crowpe behind him; the Duke of Mon- mouth Smoakt it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a detection, gave order to cloak all, with which Ogle, after some hesitation, was obliged to comply ; although he could not cloak, he said he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know more of the silly history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may consult the wretched account of them in the “Memoirs of Gamesters,” 1714, 12mo, p. 183. [N.] * Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skilled, Words sweet as honey from his lips distilled. Pope's Homer, Book I, p. 331. * See the character of Belial, Milton, “Par. Lost,” Book II., ver. 112. But all was false and hollow, though his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better cause, * advertisements to this number of The Tatler. “A black Indian boy, twelve years of age, fit to wait on a gentleman, to be disposed of, at Dennis's Coffee House in Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange.” In number 83 of The Tatler, Steele thus repre- sents Mr. Bickerstaff gently answering a letter from the too susceptible MARIA. Little did I think I should ever have business of this kind on my hands more; but, as little as any one who knows me would believe it, there is a lady at this time who professes love to me. Her passion and good humour you shall have in her own words. - “MR. BICKERSTAFF, “I had formerly a very good opinion of myself; but it is now withdrawn, and I have placed it upon you, Mr. Bicker- staff, for whom I am not ashamed to declare I have a very great passion and tenderness. It is not for your face, for that I never saw ; your shape and height I am equally a stranger to ; but your understanding charms me, and I am lost if you do not dissemble a little love for me. I am not without hopes; because I am not like the tawdry gay things that are fit only to make bone lace. I am neither childish-young, nor beldam-old, but, the world says, a good agreeable woman. “Speak peace to a troubled heart, troubled only for you; and in your next paper let me find your thoughts of me. “Do not think of finding out who I am, for, notwithstand- ing your interest in daemons, they cannot help you either to my name, or a sight of my face; therefore, do not let them deceive you. “I can bear no discourse, if you are not the subject; and believe me, I know more of love than you do of astronomy. “Pray, say some civil things in return to my generosity, and you shall have my very best pen employed to thank you, and I will confirm it. I am, “Your admirer, ‘‘MARIA.” There is something wonderfully pleasing in the favour of women; and this letter has put me in so good an humour, that nothing could displease me since I received it. My boy breaks glasses and pipes; and instead of giving him a knock on the pate, as my way is, for I hate scolding at servants, I only say, “Ah, Jack thou hast a head, and so has a pin,” or some such merry expression. But, alas ! how am I mortified when he is putting on my fourth pair of stockings on these poor spindles of mine P “The fair one understands love better than I astronomy ” I am sure, without the help of that art, this poor meagre trunk of mine is a very ill habitation for love. She is pleased to speak civilly of my sense, but Ingenium male habitat 8 is an invincible difficulty in cases of this nature. I had always, indeed, from a passion to please the eyes of the fair, a great pleasure in dress. Add to this, that I have writ songs since I was sixty, and have lived with all the circumspection of an old beau, as I am. But my friend Horace has very well said, “Every year takes some- thing from us; ” and instructed me to form my pursuits and desires according to the stage of my life : therefore, I have no more to value myself upon, than that I can converse with young people without peevishness, or wishing myself a moment younger. For which reason, when I am amongst them, I rather moderate than interrupt their diversions. But though I have this complacency, I must not pretend to write to a lady civil things, as Maria desires. Time was, when I * Wit is ill housed, To A.D. 1711.] 219. SHORTER PROSE WORKS. could have told her, “I had received a letter from her fair hands; and, that if this paper trembled as she read it, it then best expressed its author,” or some other gay conceit. Though I never saw her, I could have told her, “that good sense and good humour smiled in her eyes: that constancy and good nature dwelt in her heart: that beauty and good breeding appeared in all her actions.” When I was five-and-twenty, upon sight of one syllable, even wrong spelt by a lady I never saw, I could tell her, “that her height was that which was fit for inviting our approach, and commanding our respect; that a smile sat on her lips, which prefaced her expressions before she uttered them, and her aspect prevented her speech. All she could say, though she had an infinite deal of wit, was but a repetition of what was expressed by her form; her form which struck her beholders with ideas | more moving and forcible than ever were inspired by music, painting, or eloquence.” At this rate I panted in those days; but, ah! sixty-three I am very sorry I can only return the agreeable Maria a passion expressed rather from the head than the heart. “DEAR MADAM, “You have already seen the best of me, and I so passion- ately love you, that I desire we may never meet. If you will examine your heart, you will find that you join the man with the philosopher: and if you have that kind opinion of my sense as you pretend, I question not but you add to it complexion, air, and shape: but, dear Molly, a man in his grand climacteric is of no sex. Be a good girl; and conduct yourself with honour and virtue, when you love one younger than myself. I am, with the greatest tenderness, “Your innocent lover, “I. B.” Again in number 91 Steele writes:— I was very much surprised this evening with a visit from one of the top Toasts of the town, who came privately in a chair, and bolted into my room, while I was reading a chapter of Agrippa upon the occult sciences; but, as she entered with all the air and bloom that nature ever bestowed on woman, I threw down the conjurer, and met the charmer. I had no sooner placed her at my right hand by the fire, but she opened to me the reason of her visit. “Mr. Bickerstaff,” said the fine creature, “I have been your correspondent some time, though I never saw you before; I have writ by the name of Maria. You have told me, you were too far gone in life to think of love. Therefore, I am answered as to the passion I spoke of ; and,” continued she, smiling, “I will not stay until you grow young again, as you men never fail to do in your dotage ; but am come to consult you about disposing of myself to another. My person you see; my fortune is very considerable ; but I am at present under much perplexity how to act in a great conjuncture. I have two lovers, Crassus and Lorio: Crassus is prodigiously rich, but has no one distinguishing quality; though at the same time he is not remarkable on the defective side. Lorio has travelled, is well bred, pleasant in discourse, discreet in his conduct, agreeable in his person; and with all this, he has a competency of fortune without superfluity. When I consider Lorio, my mind is filled with an idea of the great satisfactions of a pleasant conversation. When I think of Crassus, my equipage, numerous servants, gay liveries, and various dresses, are opposed to the charms of his rival. In a word, when I cast my eyes upon Lorio, I forget and despise fortune; when I behold Crassus, I think only of pleasing my vanity, and enjoying an uncontrolled expence in all the pleasures of life, except love.” She paused here. “Madam,” said I, “I am confident you have not stated your case with sincerity, and that there is some secret pang which you have concealed from me: for I see by your aspect the generosity of your mind; and that open ingenuous air lets me know, that you have too great a sense of the generous passion of love, to prefer the ostentation of life in the arms of Crassus, to the entertainments and conveniences of it in the company of your beloved Lorio; for so he is indeed, Madam; you speak his name with a different accent from the rest of your discourse. The idea his image raises in you gives new life to your features, and new grace to your speech. Nay, blush not, Madam; there is no dishonour in loving a man of merit; I assure you, I am grieved at this dallying with yourself, when you put another in competition with him, for no other reason but superior wealth.” “To tell you, then,” said she, “the bottom of my heart, there is Clotilda lies by, and plants herself in the way of Crassus, and I am confident will snap him if I refuse him. I cannot bear to think that she will shine above me. When our coaches meet, to see her chariot hung behind with four footmen, and mine with but two : hers, powdered, gay, and saucy, kept only for show; mine, a couple of careful rogues that are good for something: I own, I cannot bear that Clotilda should be in all the pride and wantonness of wealth, and I only in the ease and affluence of it.” Here I interrupted: “Well, Madam, now I see your whole affliction; you could be happy, but that you fear another would be happier. Or rather, you could be solidly happy, but that another is to be happy in appearance. This is an evil which you must get over, or never know happiness. We will put the case, Madam, that you married Crassus, and she Lorio.” She answered, “Speak not of it. out at the mention of it.” “Well then, I pronounce Lorio to be the man; but I must tell you, that what we call settling in the world is, in a kind, leaving it; and you must at once resolve to keep your thoughts of happiness within the reach of your fortune, and not measure it by comparison with others. But, indeed, Madam, when I behold that beauteous form of your's, and consider the generality of your sex, as to their disposal of themselves in marriage, or their parents doing it for them without their own approbation, I cannot but look upon all such matches as the most impudent prostitutions. Do but observe, when you are at a play, the familiar wenches that sit laughing among the men. These appear detestable to you in the boxes. Each of them would give up her person for a guinea; and some of you would take the worst there for life for twenty thousand. If so, how do you differ but in price P As to the circumstance of marriage, I take that to be hardly an alteration of the case; for wedlock is but a more solemn prostitution, where there is not an union of minds. You would hardly believe it, but there have been designs even upon me. “A neighbour in this very lane, who knows I have, by leading a very wary life, laid up a little money, had a great mind to marry me to his daughter. I was frequently invited to their table: the girl was always very pleasant and agree- able. After dinner, Miss Molly would be sure to fill my pipe for me, and put more sugar than ordinary into my coffee; for she was sure I was good natured. If I chanced to hem, the mother would applaud my vigour; and has often said on that occasion, ‘I wonder, Mr. Bickerstaff, you do not marry, I am sure you would have children.’ Things went so far, that my mistress presented me with a wrought night-cap and a laced band of her own working. I began to think of it in earnest; but one day, having an occasion to ride to Islington, as two or three people were lifting me upon my pad, I spied I could tear her eyes 220 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. 1709 ENGLISH LITERATURE. her at a convenient distance laughing at her lover, with a parcel of romps of her acquaintance. One of them, who I suppose had the same design upon me, told me she said, “Do you see how briskly my old gentleman mounts?’ This made me cut off my amour, and to reflect with myself, that no married life could be so unhappy, as where the wife proposes no other advantage from her husband, than that of making herself fine, and keeping her out of the dirt.” My fair client burst out a laughing at the account I gave her of my escape, and went away seemingly convinced of the reasonableness of my discourse to her. JoSEPH ADDISON. From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1716. One of the most delightful examples of the humour of Addison is in a contribution of his to the Bicker- staff sketches, number 86 of The Tatler, THE DEPUTATION. Prom my own Apartment, October 25. When I came home last night, my servant delivered me the following letter: “SIR, “ October 24. “I have orders from Sir Harry Quickset, of Staffordshire, baronet, to acquaint you, that his honour Sir Harry himself, Sir Giles Wheelbarrow, knight, Thomas Rentfree, esquire, justice of the quorum, Andrew Windmill, esquire, and Mr. Nicholas Doubt, of the Inner Temple, Sir Harry's grandson, will wait upon you at the hour of nine to-morrow morning, being Tuesday the twenty-fifth of October, upon business which Sir Harry will impart to you by word of mouth. I thought it proper to acquaint you before hand so many persons of quality came, that you might not be surprised thercwith. Which concludes, though by many years absence since I saw you at Stafford, unknown, Sir, “Your most humble servant, “JOHN THRIFTY,” I received this message with less surprise than I believe Mr. Thrifty imagined ; for I knew the good company too well to feel any palpitations at their approach: but I was in very great concern how I should adjust the ceremonial, and demean myself to all these great men, who perhaps had not seen anything above themselves for these twenty years last past. I am sure that is the case of Sir Harry. Besides which, I was sensible that there was a great point in adjust- ing my behaviour to the simple squire, so as to give him satisfaction, and not disoblige the justice of the quorum. The hour of nine was come this morning, and I had no sooner set chairs, by the steward's letter, and fixed my tea- equipage, but I heard a knock at my door, which was opened, but no one entered; after which followed a long silence, which was broke at last by, “Sir, I beg your pardon ; I think I know better:” and another voice, “Nay, good Sir Giles—” I looked out from my window, and saw the good company all with their hats off, and arms spread, offering the door to each other. After many offers, they entered with much solemnity, in the order Mr. Thrifty was so kind as to name them to me. But they are now got to my chamber door, and I saw my old friend Sir Harry enter. I met him with all the respect due to so reverend a vegetable ; for, you are to know, that is my sense of a person who remains idle in the same place for half a century. I got him with great success into his chair by the fire, without throwing down any of my cups. The knight-bachelor told me, “he had a great respect for my whole family, and would, with my leave, place him- self next to Sir Harry, at whose right hand he had sat at every quarter sessions these thirty years, unless he was sick.” The steward in the rear whispered the young Templar, “That is true, to my knowledge.” I had the misfortune, as they stood cheek by jowl, to desire the squire to sit down before the justice of the quorum, to the no small satisfaction of the former, and resentment of the latter. But I saw my error too late, and got them as soon as I could into their seats. “Well,” said I, “gentlemen, after I have told you how glad I am of this great honour, I am to desire you to drink a dish of tea.” They answered one and all, “that they never drank tea in a morning.”—“Not in a morning !” said I, staring round me. Upon which the pert Jackanapes, Nic Doubt, tipped me the wink, and put out his tongue at his grandfather. Here followed a profound silence, when the steward in his boots and whip proposed, “that we should adjourn to some public house, where every body might call for what they pleased, and enter upon the business.” We all stood up in an instant, and Sir Harry filed off from the left, very discreetly, countermarching behind the chairs to- wards the door. After him, Sir Giles in the same manner. The simple squire made a sudden start to follow ; but the justice of the quorum whipped between upon the stand of the stairs. A maid, going up with coals, made us halt, and put us into such confusion, that we stood all in a heap, with- out any visible possibility of recovering our order; for the young jackanapes seemed to make a jest of this matter, and had so contrived, by pressing amongst us, under pretence of making way, that his grandfather was got into the middle, and he knew nobody was of quality to stir a step, until Sir Harry moved first. We were fixed in this perplexity for some time, until we heard a very loud noise in the street; and Sir Harry asking what it was, I, to make them move, said, “it was fire.” Upon this, all ran down as fast as they could, without order or ceremony, until we got into the street, where we drew up in very good Order, and filed off down Sheer Lane; the importinent Templar driving us before him, as in a string, and pointing to his acquaintance who passed by. I must confess, I love to use people according to their own sense of good breeding, and therefore whipped in between the justice and the simple Squire. He could not properly take this ill; but I overheard him whisper the steward, “ that he thought it hard, that a common conjurer should To A.D. 1711.] 221 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. take place of him, though an elder squire.” In this order we marched down. Sheer Lane, at the upper end of which I lodge. When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry and Sir Giles got over; but a run of the coaches kept the rest of us on this side of the street; however, we all at last landed, and drew up in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying with great humanity; from whence we proceeded again, until we came to Dick's coffee house, where I designed to carry them. Here we were at our old difficulty, and took up the street upon the same ceremony. We proceeded through the entry, and were so necessarily kept in order by the situation, that we were now got into the 'coffee house itself, where, as soon as we arrived, we repeated our civilities to each other; after which, we marched up to the high table, which has an ascent to it in- closed in the middle of the room. The whole house was alarmed at this entry, made up of persons of so much state and rusticity. Sir Harry called for a mug of ale, and Dyer's Letter. The boy brought the ale in an instant; but said, “they did not take in the Letter.”—“No l’” says Sir Harry, “then take back your mug ; we are like indeed to have good liquor at this house !” Here the Templar tipped me a second wink, and, if I had not looked very grave upon him, I found he was disposed to be very familiar with me. In short, I observed after a long pause, that the gentlemen did not care to enter upon business until after their morning draught, for which reason I called for a bottle of mum; and, finding that had no effect upon them, I order a second, and a third, after which Sir Harry reached over to me, and told me in a low voice, “that the place was too public for business; but he would call upon me again to-morrow morning at my own lodgings, and bring some more friends with him.” Pleasant use is made of a familiar, Pacolet, who is thus introduced by Steele in number 13 of The Tatler:— PACOLET. Much hurry and business has to day perplexed me into a mood too thoughtful for going into company; for which reason, instead of the tavern, I went into Lincoln's Inn walks; and, having taken a round or two, I sat down, according to the allowed familiarity of these places, on a bench ; at the other end of which sat a venerable gentleman, who speaking with a very affable air, “Mr. Bickerstaff,” said he, “I take it for a very great piece of good fortune that you have found me out.” “Sir,” said I, “I had never, that I know of, the honour of seeing you before.” “That,” replied he, “is what I have often lamented; but, I assure you, I have for many years done you good offices, without being observed by you ; or else, when you had any little glimpse of my being concerned in an affair, you have fled from me, and shunned me like an enemy; but however, the part I am to act in the world is such, that I am to go on in doing good, though I meet with never so many repulses, even from those I oblige.” This, thought I, shews a great good-nature, but little judgement in the persons upon whom he confers his favours. He immediately took notice to me, that he observed by my countenance I thought him indiscreet in his beneficence, and proceeded to tell me his quality in the following manner: “I know thee, Isaac, to be so well versed in the occult sciences, that I need not much preface, or make long preparations to gain your faith that there are airy beings, who are employed in the care and attendance of men, as nurses are to infants, until they come to an age in which they can act of themselves. These beings are usually called amongst men, guardian angels; and, Mr. Bickerstaff, I am to acquaint you, that I am to be yours for some time to come; it being our orders to vary our stations, and sometimes to have one patient under our protection, and sometimes another, with a power of assuming what shape we please, to ensnare our wards into their own good. I have of late been upon such hard duty, and know you have so much work for me, that I think fit to appear to you face to face, to desire you will give me as little occasion for vigilance as you can.” And this is Pacolet's farther account of himself, given by Steele in number 15:— From my own Apartment, May 12. I have taken a resolution hereafter, on any want of in- telligence, to carry my familiar abroad with me, who has promised to give me very proper and just notices of persons and things, to make up the history of the passing day. He is wonderfully skilful in the knowledge of men and manners, which has made me more than ordinary curious to know how he came to that perfection, and I communicated to him that doubt. “Mr. Pacolet,” said I, “I am mightily surprised to see you so good a judge of our nature and circumstances, since you are a mere spirit, and have no knowledge of the bodily part of us.” He answered, smiling, “You are mis- taken ; I have been one of you, and lived a month amongst you, which gives me an exact sense of your condition. You are to know, that all, who enter into human life, have a certain date or stamen given to their being, which they only who die of age may be said to have arrived at ; but it is ordered sometimes by fate, that such as die infants are, after death, to attend mankind to the end of that stamen of being in themselves, which was broke off by sickness or any other disaster. These are proper guardians to men, as being sensible of the infirmity of their state. You are philosopher enough to know, that the difference of men's understandings proceeds only from the various dispositions of their organs; so that he, who dies at a month old, is in the next life as knowing, though more innocent, as they who live to fifty; and after death, they have as perfect a memory and judge- ment of all that passed in their life-time, as I have of all the revolutions in that uneasy, turbulent condition of yours; and you would say I had enough of it in a month, were I to tell you all my misfortunes.” “A life of a month cannot have, one would think, much variety. But pray,” said I, “let us have your story.” Then he proceeds in the following manner: “It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which I was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so happened, otherwise I had still, in all pro- bability, been living: but I shall recount to you all the occurrences of my short and miserable existence, just as, by examining into the traces made in my brain, they appeared to me at that time. The first thing that ever struck my senses was a noise over my head of one shrieking; after which, methought, I took a full jump, and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had been long waking, and employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly frightened, and cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they meant, I could not imagine: for there gathered a great crowd about me, crying, ‘An Heirſ an Heir l’ upon which I grew a little still, and believed this was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and such as made them, what they called Heirs. I lay very quiet; but the witch, for no manner of reason or provocation in the world, takes me and binds my head as hard as possibly she 222 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1709 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF could ; then ties up both my legs, and makes me swallow down an horrid mixture. I thought it an harsh entrance into life, to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must have taken down a great instrument in which she gave it me. When I was thus dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady (my mother I wot) had like to have hugged me to death. From her, they faced me about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the rest of the company, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed wonderfully pleased to see me; but I knew since, my nose belonged to another family. That into which I was born is one of the most numerous amongst you; there- fore crowds of relations came every day to congratulate my arrival; amongst others, my cousin Betty, the greatest romp in nature : she whisks me such a height over her head, that I cried out for fear of falling. She pinched me, and called me squealing chit, and threw me into a girl’s arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon her to strip and dress me a-new, because I made a noise, to see what ailed me : she did so, and stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still cried : upon which, she lays me on my face in her lap ; and, to quiet me, fell a nailing in all the pins, by clapping me on the back, and screaming a lullaby. But my pain made me exalt my voice above hers, which brought up the nurse, the witch I first saw, and my grand-mother. The girl is turned down stairs, and I stripped again, as well to find what ailed me, as to satisfy my granam's farther curiosity. This good old woman's visit was the cause of all my troubles. You are to understand, that I was hitherto bred by hand, and anybody that stood next gave me pap, if I did but open my lips; insomuch, that I was grown so cunning, as to pretend myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed. But my grand-mother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the wives of this age, who, for fear of their shapes, forbear suckling their own offspring: and ten nurses were immediately sent for ; one was whispered to have a wanton eye, and would soon spoil her milk; another was in a consumption ; the third had an ill voice, and would frighten me instead of lulling me to sleep. Such exceptions were made against all but one country milch wench, to whom I was committed, and put to the breast. This careless jade was eternally romping with the footman, and downright starved me; insomuch that I daily pined away, and should never have been relieved had it not been that, on the thirteenth day of my life, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who had writ upon cold baths, came to visit me, and solemnly protested, I was utterly lost for want of that method; upon which he soused me head and ears into a pail of water, where I had the good fortune to be drowned ; and so escaped being lashed into a linguist until sixteen, running after wenches until twenty-five, and being married to an ill-natured wife until sixty: which had certainly been my fate, had not the enchantment between body and soul been broke by this philosopher. Thus, until the age I should have otherwise lived, I am obliged to watch the steps of men; and, if you please, shall accompany you in your present walk, and get you intelligence from the aerial lacquey, who is in waiting, what are the thoughts and purposes of any whom you enquire for.” I accepted his kind offer, and immediately took him with me in a hack to White's. JWhite's Chocolate-house, May 13. We got in hither, and my companion threw a powder round us, that made me as invisible as himself; so that we could see and hear all others, ourselves unseen and unheard. The first thing we took notice of was a nobleman of a goodly and frank aspect, with his generous birth and temper visible in it, playing at cards with a creature of a black and horrid countenance, wherein were plainly delineated the arts of his mind, cozenage and falshood. They were marking their game with counters, on which we could see inscriptions, imperceptible to any but us. My lord had scored with pieces of ivory, on which were writ “Good fame, glory, riches, honour, and posterity.” The spectre over against him had on his counters the inscriptions of “Dishonour, impudence, poverty, ignorance, and want of shame.” “Bless me !” said I; “sure, my lord does not see what he plays for ‘’” “As well as I do,” says Pacolet, “he despises that fellow he plays with, and scorns himself for making him his companion.” At the very instant he was speaking, I saw the fellow, who played with my lord, hide two cards in the roll of his stocking : Pacolet immediately stole them from thence; upon which the nobleman soon after won the game. The little triumph he appeared in, when he got such a trifling stock of ready money, though he had ventured so great sums with indifference, increased my admiration. But Pacolet began to talk to me. “Mr. Isaac, this to you looks wonder- ful, but not at all to us higher beings: that nobleman has as many good qualities as any man of his order, and seems to have no faults but what, as I may say, are excrescences from virtues. He is generous to a prodigality, more affable than is consistent with his quality, and courageous to a rashness. Yet, after all this, the source of his whole conduct is (though he would hate himself if he knew it) mere avarice. The ready cash laid before the gamester's counters makes him venture, as you see, and lay distinction against infamy, abundance against want ; in a word, all that is desirable against all that is to be avoided.” “However,” said I, “be sure you disappoint the sharpers to night, and steal from them all the cards they hide.” Pacolet obeyed me, and my lord went home with their whole bank in his pocket. SIR. RICHARD STEELE.- From the Portrant before the French Translation of his Political Works. (Amsterdam, 1715.) Let us take next two papers—numbers 95 (Nov. 17, 1709) and 114 (Dec. 31, 1709) of The Tatler—in which Steele as Isaac Bickerstaff paints the beauty of To A.D. 1711.] 223 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, HoNE LovE. Interea dulces pendent circum oscula mati. Casta pudicitiam servat domws— VIRG. Georg. II. 523. His cares are eas'd with intervals of bliss; His little children, climbing for a kiss, Welcome their father's late return at night ; His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight. T)RYDEN. From my own Apartment, November 16. There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession, which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such in- stances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Tersons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am as it were at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is, to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which, they began to railly me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbour's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, “Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her.” With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand; “Well, my good friend,” says he, “I am heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her from the play-house, to find out who she was, for me?” I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to turn the discourse, I said, “She is not indeed quite that creature she was, when she returned me the letter I carried from you ; and told me, “she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman’s friend, as to dissuade him from a pursuit, which he could never succeed in.' You may remember, I thought her in earnest; and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her, for you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen.”—“Fifteen l’’ replied my good friend: “Ah! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really beloved . It is impossible, that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me, in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures be- yond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclina- tions, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature, which I cannot trace, from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, me- thinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs, she shews a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenious shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melan- choly.” ‘s He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance told us, “she had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend as I was.” Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerful- ness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observing something in our looks which shewed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of ; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, “Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you, I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know, he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintance and school-fellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open breasted.” My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. “Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry me thither to- morrow night, and lead me into the front-box.” This put 224 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1709 us into a long field of discourse about the beauties, who were mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, “I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.” & We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found upon conversa- tion with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in AEsop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, “that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; ” for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies, for about a twelve-month past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellainis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- ness of his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks, which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me, “that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. Betty,” says she, “deals chiefly in fairies and sprights; and sometimes in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.” I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometime in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, con- sidering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me. Sheer, lane, December 30. I was walking about my chamber this morning in a very gay humour, when I saw a coach stop at my door, and a youth about fifteen alighting out of it, whom I perceived to be the eldest son of my bosom friend, that I gave some account of in my paper of the seventeenth of the last month. I felt a sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my acquaintance having begun with his father when he was just such a stripling, and about that very age. When he came up to me, he took me by the hand, and burst out in tears. I was extremely moved, and immediately said, “Child, how does your father do?” He began to reply, “My mother—” but could not go on for weeping. I went down with him into the coach, and gathered out of him, “that his mother was then dying, and that, while the holy man was doing the last offices to her, he had taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he said, would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort him.” The child's dis- cretion in coming to me of his own head, and the tenderness he shewed for his parents, would have quite overpowered me, had I not resolved to fortify myself for the seasonable per- formances of those duties which I owed to my friend. As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the character of that excellent woman, and the greatness of his grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support to him under all afflictions. How, thought I, will he be able to bear the hour of her death, that could not, when I was lately with him, speak of a sickness, which was then past, without Sorrow We were now got pretty far into Westminster, and arrived at my friend's house. At the door of it I met Favonius, not without a secret satisfaction to find he had been there. I had formerly conversed with him at this house; and as he abounds with that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes religion beautiful, and never leads the conversation into the violence and rage of party-disputes, I listened to him with great pleasure. Our discourse chanced to be upon the subject of death, which he treated with such a strength of reason, and greatness of soul, that, instead of being terrible, it appeared to a mind rightly cultivated altogether to be contemned, or rather to be desired. As I met him at the door, I saw in his face a certain glowing of grief and humanity, heightened with an air of fortitude and resolution, which, as I afterwards found, had such an irresistable force, as to suspend the pains of the dying, and the lamentation of the nearest friends who attended her. I went up directly to the room where she lay, and was met at the entrance by my friend, who, notwithstanding his thoughts had been composed a little before, at the sight of me turned away his face and wept. The little family of children renewed the expressions of their solrow according to their several ages and degrees of understanding. The eldest daughter was in tears, busied in attendance upon her mother; others were kneeling about the bedside; and what troubled me most was, to see a little boy, who was too young to know the reason, weeping only because his sisters did. The only one in the room who seemed resigned and comforted was the dying person. At my approach to the bedside, she told me, with a low broken voice, “This is kindly done—take care of your friend——do not go from him ' " She had before taken leave of her husband and children, in a manner proper for so solemn a parting, and with a gracefulness peculiar to a woman of her character. My heart was torn in pieces, to see the husband on one side suppressing and keeping down the swellings of his grief, for fear of disturbing her in her last moments; and the wife even at that time concealing the pains she endured, for fear of increasing his affliction. She kept her eyes upon him for some moments after she grew speechless, and soon after closed them for ever. In the moment of her departure, my friend, who had thus far commanded himself, gave a deep groan, and fell into a swoon by her bedside. The dis- traction of the children, who thought they saw both their parents expiring together, and now lying dead before them, would have melted the hardest heart; but they soon perceived their father recover, whom I helped to remove into another room, with a resolution to accompany him until the first pangs of his affliction were abated. I knew consolation would now be impertinent; and, therefore, contented myself to sit by him, and to condole with him in silence. For I shall here use the method of an ancient author, who, in one of his epistles, relating the virtues and death of Macrinus's wife, expresses himself thus: “I shall suspend my advice to this best of friends, until he is made capable of receiving it by those three great remedies, the necessity of submission, length of time, and satiety of grief.” “Necessitas ipsa, dies longa, et satietas doloris.”—PLINY. TO A.D. 1710.] 225 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. In number 181 of The Tatler there is a paper by Steele, dwelling on SAD MEMORIES. ——Dies, mi fallor, adest, quem semper acerbwin, Semper homoratum, sic dii voluistis, habebo. VIRG. AEm. v. 49. And now the rising day renews the year, A day for ever sad, for ever dear.—DRYDEN. From my own Apartment, June 5. There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being, except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true friendship or good-will, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a certain reverence for the Manes of their deceased friends; and have withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have gone before them out of this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in years, there is not a more pleasing entertain- ment, than to recollect in a gloomy moment the many we have parted with, that have been dear and agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those, with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time : but I could, without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with some, who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the benefit of nature, that length of time thus blots out the violence of afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost neces- sary to revive the old places of grief in our memory; and ponder step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours, before it can recover the regularity of its time. Such, thought I, shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year which I dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much delighted in when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and their memory, while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this kind which have occurred to me in my whole life. The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, “Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again.” She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which, methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that, before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark, with which a child is born, is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that, in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the soft- nesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions. We, that are very old, are better able to remember things which befel us in our distant youth, than the passages of later days. For this reason it is, that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely and unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different pas- sions, according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not join with the im- precations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices P But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity; and we gather relief enough from their own con- tempt of death, to make that no evil, which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say, when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider the havock which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once. Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin how ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel? O Death ! thou hast right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty ; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the un- discerning, to the thoughtless P Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of death become the pretty trifler P I still behold the smiling earth—A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put up to sale, on Thursday next, at Garraway’s coffee- 205 226 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. tº nº house." Upon the receipt of it, I sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such an heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the clock this morning; and having to-day met a little before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a man, we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the night before. There is a suggestive change—and Steele meant us to feel it, when he made the transition so abrupt —from the sadness within, to the knock at the door that brought a note asking him to taste and recom- mend some wine that would be advertised for sale in his next number. It is no rare thing for men thus to be called out from within themselves, and then feel in the height of mirth that “Pleasure itself has something that's severe.” There is in number 117 a striking narrative—again drawn from experience—of the effect produced on the mind by A DREAM. I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows. When I was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those parts, and had the Satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk under her, and threw her down from so prodigious an height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than for me to express it. I said to myself, it is not in the power of heaven to relieve me ! when I awaked, equally transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an affliction which, the very moment before, appeared to me altogether inextricable. The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this occasion, that while they lasted they made me more miserable than I was at the real death of this beloved person, which happened a few months after, at a time when the match between us was concluded; inasmuch as the imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessary; whereas *ADVERTISEMENT.-Notice is hereby given, that 46 hogsheads and one half of extraordinary French claret will be put up to sale, at £20 per hogshead, at Garraway's coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on Thursday the 8th instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in a vault under Messrs. Lane and Harrison's, in Sweething's Lane, Lombard Street, from this day till the time of Sale, &c.—Tatler, Original Edition, No. 181. her real disease had at least these alleviations, of being natural and inevitable. * The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so strongly upon me, that I can never read the description of Dover-cliff in Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, without a fresh sense of my escape. In both Tatler and Spectator, Steele's sympathetic interest in men and women gave him a power, which Addison had not, of telling pathetic tales. Numbers 82 and 94 of The Tatler contain these STORIES FROM LIFE. Ubi idem et maarimus et homestissinus annor est, aliquando prºstat mortc jwngi, quam vità distrahi...—WAL. MAX. Where there is the greatest and most honourable love, it is some- times better to be joined in death, than separated in life. From my own Apartment, October 17. After the mind has been employed on contemplations suitable to its greatness, it is unnatural to run into sudden mirth or levity; but we must let the soul subside, as it rose, by proper degrees. My late considerations of the ancient heroes impressed a certain gravity upon Iny mind, which is much above the little gratification received from starts of humour and fancy, and threw me into a pleasing sadness. In this state of thought I have been looking at the fire, and in a pensive manner reflecting upon the great misfortunes and calamities incident to human life; among which there are none that touch so sensibly as those which befal persons who eminently love, and meet with fatal interruptions of their happiness when they least expect it. The piety of children to parents, and the affection of parents to their children, are the effects of instinct; but the affection between lovers and friends is founded on reason and choice, which has always made me think the sorrows of the latter much more to be pitied than those of the former. The contempla- tion of distresses of this sort softens the mind of man, and makes the heart better. It extinguishes the seeds of envy and ill-will towards mankind, corrects the pride of prosperity, and beats down all that fierceness and insolence which are apt to get into the minds of the daring and fortunate. For this reason the wise Athenians, in their theatrical performances, laid before the eyes of the people the greatest afflictions which could befal human life, and insensibly polished their tempers by such representations. Among the moderns, indeed, there has arisen a chimerical method of disposing the fortune of the persons represented, according to what they call poetical justice; and letting none be un- happy but those who deserve it. In such cases, an intelligent spectator, if he is concerned, knows he ought not to be so ; and can learn nothing from such a tenderness, but that he is a weak creature, whose passions cannot follow the dictates of his understanding. It is very natural, when one is got into such a way of thinking, to recollect those examples of sorrow which have made the strongest impression upon our imagina- tions. An instance or two of such you will give me leave to communicate. A young gentleman and lady of ancient and honourable houses in Cornwall had from their childhood entertained for each other a generous and noble passion, which had been long opposed by their friends, by reason of the inequality of their fortunes; but their constancy to each other, and obedience to those on whom they depended, wrought so much upon their relations, that these celebrated lovers were at length joined in marriage. Soon after their nuptials, the bridegroom To A.D. 1710.] 227 . SHORTER PROSE WORKS. was obliged to go into a foreign country, to take care of a considerable fortune, which was left him by a relation, and came very opportunely to improve their moderate circum- stances. They received the congratulations of all the country on this occasion; and I remember it was a common sentence in every one’s mouth, “You see how faithful love is rewarded.” He took this agreeable voyage, and sent home every post fresh accounts of his success in his affairs abroad; but at last, though he designed to return with the next ship, he lamented, in his letters, that “business would detain him some time longer from home,” because he would give himself the pleasure of an unexpected arrival. The young lady, after the heat of the day, walked every evening on the sea-shore, near which she lived, with a familiar friend, her husband's kinswoman ; and diverted herself with what objects they met there, or upon discourses of the future methods of life, in the happy change of their circumstances. They stood one evening on the shore to- gether in a perfect tranquillity, observing the setting of the sun, the calm face of the deep, and the silent heaving of the waves, which gently rolled towards them, and broke at their feet; when at a distance her kinswoman saw something float on the waters, which she fancied was a chest ; and with a smile told her, “she saw it first, and if it came ashore full of jewels, she had a right to it.” They both fixed their eyes upon it, and entertained themselves with the subject of the wreck, the cousin still asserting her right; but promising, “If it was a prize, to give her a very rich coral for the child of which she was then big, provided she might be god- mother.” Their mirth soon abated, when they observed, upon the nearer approach, that it was a human body. The young lady, who had a heart naturally filled with pity and compassion, made many melancholy reflections on the occa- sion. “Who knows,” said she, “but this man may be the only hope and heir of a wealthy house; the darling of indulgent parents, who are now in impertinent mirth, and pleasing themselves with the thoughts of offering him a bride they have got ready for him P or, may he not be the master of a family that wholly depended upon his life? There may, for aught we know, be half a dozen fatherless children, and a tender wife, now exposed to poverty by his death. What pleasure might he have promised himself in the different welcome he was to have from her and them . But let us go away; it is a dreadful sight ! The best office we can do, is to take care that the poor man, whoever he is, may be decently buried.” She turned away, when a wave threw the carcase on the shore. The kinswoman immediately shrieked out, “Oh, my cousin!” and fell upon the ground. The un- happy wife went to help her friend, when she saw her own husband at her feet, and dropped in a swoon upon the body. An old woman, who had been the gentleman's nurse, came out about this time to call the ladies in to supper, and found her child, as she always called him, dead on the shore, her mistress and kinswoman both lying dead by him. Her loud lamentations, and calling her young master to life, soon awaked the friend from her trance; but the wife was gone for ever. When the family and neighbourhood got together round the bodies, no one asked any question, but the objects before them told the story. Incidents of this nature are the more moving"when they are drawn by persons concerned in the catastrophe, notwith- standing they are often oppressed beyond the power of giving them in a distinct light, except we gather their sorrow from their inability to speak it. I have two original letters, written both on the same day, which are to me exquisite in their different kinds. The occasion was this. A gentleman who had courted a most agreeable young woman, and won her heart, obtained also the consent of her father, to whom she was an only child. The old man had a fancy that they should be married in the same church where he himself was, in a village in West- moreland, and made them set out while he was laid up with the gout at London. The bridegroom took only his man, the bride her maid; they had the most agreeable journey imaginable to the place of marriage; from whence the bride- groom writ the following letter to his wife's father. “Sir, “ March 18, 1672. “After a very pleasant journey hither, we are preparing for the happy hour in which I am to be your son. I assure you the hride carries it, in the eye of the vicar who married you, much beyond her mother; though he says, your open sleeves, pantaloons, and shoulder-knot, made a much better show than the finical dress I am in. However, I am contented to be second fine man this village ever saw, and shall make it very merry before night, because I shall write myself from thence, “Your most dutiful son, “T. D.” “The bride gives her duty, and is as handsome as an angel. ———I am the happiest man breathing.” The villagers were assembling about the church, and the happy couple took a walk in a private garden. The bride- groom's man knew his master would leave the place on a sudden after the wedding, and, seeing him draw his pistols before, took this opportunity to go into his chamber and charge them. Upon their return from the garden, they went into that room; and, after a little fond raillery on the subject of their courtship, the lover took up a pistol, which he knew he had unloaded the night before, and, presenting it to her, said, with the most graceful air, while she looked pleased at his agreeable flattery: “Now, madam, repent of all those cruelties you have been guilty of to me; consider, before you die, how often you have made a poor wretch freeze under your casement; you shall die, you tyrant, you shall die, with all those instruments of death and destruction about you, with that enchanting smile, those killing ringlets of your hair"—“Give fire ' " said she, laughing. He did so; and shot her dead. Who can speak his condition ? but he bore it so patiently as to call up his man. The poor wretch entered, and his master locked the door upon him. “Will,” said he, “did you charge these pistols?” He answered, “Yes.” Upon which, he shot him dead with that remaining. After this, amidst a thousand broken sobs, piercing groans, and distracted motions, he writ the following letter to the father of his dead mistress. { { Sir, “I, who two hours ago told you truly I was the happiest man alive, am now the most miserable. Your daughter lies dead at my feet, killed by my hand, through a mistake of my man's charging my pistols unknown to me. Him have I murdered for it. Such is my wedding day.——I will immediately follow my wife to her grave: but, before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together until I have stabbed it. Poor, good old man —Remember, he that killed your daughter died for it. In the article of death, I give you my thanks, and pray for you, though I dare not for myself. If it be possible, do not curse me.” - 228 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1709 This is the tale in number 94; the names of cha- racters are such as readers of that time expected ; the sense of life is true for all times: Simon errásset, fecerat ille minus.-MART. “Had he not err'd, his glory had been less.” Will's Coffee-house, November 14. That which we call gallantry to women seems to be the heroic virtue of private persons; and there never breathed one man, who did not, in that part of his days wherein he was recommending himself to his mistress, do something beyond his ordinary course of life. As this has a very great effect even upon the most slow and common men; so, upon such as it finds qualified with virtue and merit, it shines out in proportionable degrees of excellence. It gives new grace to the most eminent accomplishments; and he, who of himself has either wit, wisdom, or valour, exerts each of these noble endowments, when he becomes a lover, with a certain beauty of action above what was ever observed in him before; and all who are without any one of these qualities are to be looked upon as the rabble of mankind. I was talking after this manner in a corner of this place with an old acquaintance, who, taking me by the hand, said, “Mr. Bickerstaff, your discourse recalls to my mind a story, which I have longed to tell you ever since I read that article wherein you desire your friends to give you accounts of obscure merit.” The story I had of him is literally true, and well known to be so in the country wherein the circum- stances were transacted. He acquainted me with the names of the persons concerned, which I shall change into feigned ones; there being a respect due to their families that are still in being, as well as that the names themselves would not be so familiar to an English ear. The adventure really happened in Denmark; and if I can remember all the passages, I doubt not but it will be as moving to my readers as it was to me. Clarinda and Chloe, two very fine women, were bred up as sisters in the family of Romeo, who was the father of Chloe, and the guardian of Clarinda. Philander, a young gentle- man of a good person, and charming conversation, being a friend of old Romeo, frequented his house, and by that means was much in conversation with the young ladies, though still in the presence of the father and the guardian. The ladies both entertained a secret passion for him, and could see well enough, notwithstanding the delight which he really took in Romeo's conversation, that there was something more in his heart, which made him so assiduous a visitant. Each of them thought herself the happy woman ; but the person beloved was Chloe. It happened that both of them were at a play in a carnival evening, when it is the fashion there, as well as in most countries of Europe, both for men and women to appear in masks and disguises. It was on that memorable night, in the year 1679, when the playhouse by some unhappy accident was set on fire. Philander, in the first hurry of the disaster, immediately ran where his treasure was; burst open the door of the box, snatched the lady up in his arms; and, with un- speakable resolution and good fortune, carried her off safe. He was no sooner out of the crowd, but he set her down ; and, grasping her in his arms, with all the raptures of a deserving lover, “How happy am I,’” says he, “in an oppor- tunity to tell you I love you more than all things, and of shewing you the sincerity of my passion at the very first declaration of it !”—“My dear, dear Philander,” says the lady, pulling off her mask, “this is not a time for art; you are much dearer to methan the life you have preserved; and the joy of my present deliverance does not transport me so much as the passion which occasioned it.” Who can tell the grief, the astonishment, the terror, that appeared in the face of Philander, when he saw the person he spoke to was Clarinda . After a short pause, “Madam,” says he, with the looks of a dead man, “we are both mistaken ; ” and im- mediately flew away, without hearing the distressed Clarinda, who had just strength enough to cry out, “Cruel Philander why did you not leave me in the theatre P” Crowds of people immediately gathered about her, and, after having brought her to herself, conveyed her to the house of the good old unhappy Romeo. Philander was now pressing against a whole tide of people at the doors of the theatre, and striving to enter with more earnestness than any there endeavoured to get out. He did it at last, and with much difficulty forced his way to the box where his beloved Chloe stood, expecting her fate amidst this scene of terror and dis- traction. She revived at the sight of Philander, who fell about her neck with a tenderness not to be expressed; and, amidst a thousand sobs and sighs, told her his love, and his dreadful mistake. The stage was now in flames, and the whole house full of smoke ; the entrance was quite barred up with heaps of people, who had fallen upon one another as they endeavoured to get out. Swords were drawn, shrieks heard on all sides; and, in short, no possibility of an escape for Philander himself, had he been capable of making it without his Chloe. But his mind was above such a thought, and wholly employed in weeping, condoling, and comforting. He catches her in his arms. The fire surrounds them, while ——I cannot go on—— Were I an infidel, misfortunes like this would convince me that there must be an hereafter : for who can believe that so much virtue could meet with so great distress without a following reward? As for my part, I am so old-fashioned as firmly to believe, that all who perish in such generous enterprizes are relieved from the further exercise of life; and Providence, which sees their virtue consummate and manifest, takes them to an immediate reward, in a being more suitable to the grandeur of their spirit. What else can wipe away our tears, when we contemplate such undeserved, such irre- parable distresses 2 It was a sublime thought in some of the heathens of old; —Quae gratia currām, Armorumque fuit vivis, quo: cwra Quitentes Pascere equos, eaſlem sequitur tellure repostos." That is, in other words, “The same employments and inclinations which were the entertainment of virtuous men upon earth make up their happiness in Elysium.” Before we pass from Tatler to Spectator, let us turn aside to make acquaintance with another of the wits who was amusing readers in Queen Anne's time. Dr. William King was born in the year 1663, son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman of London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He early inherited a fair estate, took his Master of Arts degree in 1688, and began his career as writer with a refutation of attacks upon Wiclif in the “History of Heresy,” by M. Varillas. . He then chose law for a profession, in 1692 graduated as LL.D., and was admitted an Advocate at Doctor's Commons. He kept a light heart and a lighter purse than beseemed one of his fraternity, publishing playful satires, and at times showing an earnest mind under his mirth. In or soon after the year 1 Virgil, AEmeid, vi. 653–5. To A.D. 1710.] 229 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 1702 Dr. King went to Ireland as judge of the High Court of Admiralty, sole Commissioner of the Prizes, Vicar General to the Lord Primate, and Keeper of the Records in Birmingham's Tower, in which office he was succeeded in 1708 by Joseph Addison. Dr. King, who had not increased his credit for a love of work, returned to London about that time, and following his own way of mirth began publishing | Ż à } % ſ' 2333.3% Ż% % 23. £3 % WILLIAM KING. From the title-page of his Collected Worls (1776). “ Useful Transactions in Philosophy and other sorts of learning.” In 1709 he published the best of his playful poems, “The Art of Cookery, in imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry; with some letters to Dr. Lister and others, occasioned principally by the Title of a Book published by the Doctor, being the works of Apicius Coelius, concerning the Soups and Sauces of the Ancients." With an Extract of the greatest Curiosities contained in that Book.” Here the “Extract ’’ is a satire on waste erudition, which is only entitled “Letter IX. To Mr. ,” but may be said to represent in whimsical fashion— APIC[US SAUCED. DEAR SIR,--I must communicate my happiness to you, because you are so much my friend as to rejoice at it. I some days ago met with an old acquaintance, a curious person, of whom I inquired if he had seen the book concern- ing soups and sauces. He told me he had ; but that he had but a very slight view of it, the person who was master of it not being willing to part with so valuable a rarity out of his closet. I desired him to give me what account he could of it. He says that it is a very handsome octavo ; for ever since the days of Ogilby * good paper and good print and fine cuts make a book become ingenious, and brighten up an author strangely ; that there is a copious index; and at the end a catalogue of all the Doctor's works concerning cockles, * De Opsomiis sive Condimentis, sive Arte Coquinaria, Libri Decem. Amsterdam, 1709. * John Ogilby's illustrated translation of Virgil, 1654. English beetles, snails, spiders that get up into the air and throw us down cobwebs, a monster vomited up by a baker, and such like; which, if carefully perused, would wonder- fully improve us. There is, it seems, no manuscript of it in England, nor any other country that can be heard of ; so that this impression is from one of Humelbergius, who, as my friend says, he does not believe contrived it himself, because the things are so very much out of the way, that it is not probable any learned man would set himself seriously to work to invent them. He tells me of this ingenious remark made by the editor, “That, whatever manuscripts there might have been, they must have been extremely vicious and corrupt, as being written out by the cooks themselves, or some of their friends or servants, who are not always the most accurate.” And then, as my friend observed, if the cook had used it much it might be sullied; the cook perhaps not always licking his fingers when he had occasion for it. I should think it no improvident matter for the State to order a select Scrivener to transcribe receipts, lest ignorant women and house-keepers should impose upon future ages by ill- spelt and uncorrect receipts for potting of lobsters, or pickling of turkeys. Coelius Apicius, it seems, passes for the author of this treatise ; whose Science, learning, and discipline, were extremely contemmed, and almost abhorred, by Seneca and the Stoics, as introducing luxury, and infecting the manners of the Romans; and so lay neglected till the inferior ages; but then were introduced, as being a help to physic, to which a learned author, called Donatus, says that “the kitchen is a handmaid.” I remember in our days, though we cannot in every respect come up to the ancients, that by a very good author an old gentleman is introduced as making use of three doctors, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merriman. They are reported to be excellent physicians; and, if kept at a constant pension, their fees will not be very costly. It seems, as my friend has learnt, there were two persons that bore the name of Apicius, one under the Republic, the other in the time of Tiberius, who is recorded by Pliny, “to have had a great deal of wit and judgment in all affairs that related to eating,” and consequently has his name affixed to many sorts of omelets and pancakes. Nor were emperors less contributors to so great an undertaking, as Vitellius, Commodus, Didius Julianus, and Varius Helio- gabalus, whose imperial names are prefixed to manifold receipts; the last of which emperors had the peculiar glory of first making sausages of shrimps, crabs, oysters, prawns, and lobsters. And these sausages being mentioned by the author which the editor publishes, from that and many other arguments the learned doctor irrefragably maintains, that the Book, as now printed, could not be transcribed till after the time of Heliogabalus, who gloried in the titles of Apicius and Vitellius, more than Antoninus, who had gained his reputa- tion by a temperate, austere, and solid virtue. And, it seems, under his administration, a person that found out a new soup might have as great a reward as Drake or Dampier might expect for finding a new continent. My friend says, the editor tells us of unheard-of dainties; how “AEsopus had a supper of the tongues of birds that could speak; ” and that “his daughter regaled on pearls,” though he does not tell us how she dressed them; how “Hortensius left ten thousand pipes of wine in his cellar, for his heir's drinking; ” how “Vedius Pollio fed his fish-ponds with man's flesh;” and how “Caesar bought six thousand weight of lampreys for his triumphal supper.” He says, the editor proves equally to a demonstration, by the proportions and quantities set down, and the nauseousness of the ingredients, that the dinners of the emperors were ordered by their physicians; and that the recipe was taken by the cook as the collegiate doctors would 230 [A.D. 1709 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. do their bills' to a modern apothecary; and that this custom was taken from the Egyptians; and that this method con- tinued till the Goths and Vandals overran the western empire; and that they, by use, exercise, and necessity of abstinence, introduced the eating of cheese and venison without those additional sauces, which the physicians of old found out to restore the depraved appetites of such great men as had lost their stomachs by an excess of luxury. Out of the ruins of Erasistratus's book of endive, Glaucus Lorrensis' of cow-heel, Mithaecus of hot-pots, Dionysius of sugar-Sops, Agis of pickled broom-buds, Epimetus of sack-posset, Euthedemus of apple-dumplings, Hegesippus of black-pudding, Crito of soused mackerel, Stephanus of lemon-cream, Archites of hogs-harslet, Acestius of quince-marmalade, Hickesius of potted pigeons, Diocles of sweet-breads, and Philistion of oat- cakes, and several other such authors, the great Humel- bergius composed his annotations upon Apicius; whose receipts, when part of Tully, Livy, and Tacitus, have been Transylvania, for the peculiar palate of the ingenious editor. Latinus Latimius finds fault with several dishes of Apicius, and is pleased to say they are nauseous; but our editor noble invention, since made use of at Colchester with most admirable success What estates might brawn or locket have got in those days, when Apicius, only for boiling sprouts after a new fashion, deservedly came into the good graces of Drusus, who then commanded the Roman armies! The first book having treated of sauces or standing pickles for relish, which are used in most of the succeeding receipts: the second has a glorious subject, of sausages, both with skins and without, which contain matters no less remarkable than the former. The ancients that were delicate in their eating prepared their own mushrooms with an amber or at least a silver knife; where the annotator shows elegantly, against Hardouinus, that the whole knife, and not only the handle, was of amber or silver, lest the rustiness of an ordinary knife might prove infectious. This is a nicety which I hope we may in time arrive to ; for the Britons, though not very forward in inventions, yet are out-done by no nations in imitation or improvements. neglected and lost, were preserved in the utmost parts of defends that great person, by showing the difference of our customs; how Plutarch says, “the ancients used no pepper,” whereas all, or at, least five or six hundred of Apicius's delicates were seasoned with it. For we may as well admire that some West Indians should abstain from salt, as that we should be able to bear the bitterness of hops in our common drink; and therefore we should not be averse to rue, cummin, parsley-seed, marsh-mallows, or nettles, with our common meat; or to have pepper, honey, salt, vinegar, raisins, mustard and oil, rue, mastic, and cardamoms, strewn promiscuously over our dinner when it comes to table. My friend tells me of some short observations he made out of the annotations, which he owes to his memory; and therefore begs pardon if in some things he may mistake, because it is not wilfully, as that Papirius Petus was the great patron of custard: “That the tetrapharmacon, a dish much admired by the Emperors Adrian and Alexander Severus, was made of pheasant, pea- cock, a wild sow's hock and udder, with a bread-pudding over it; and that the name and reason of so odd a dish are to be sought for amongst the physicians.” - The work is divided into ten books, of which the first treats of soups and pickles, and amongst other things shows that saucepans were tinned before the time of Pliny; that Gordian used a glass of bitter in the morning; that the ancients scalded their wine; and that burnt claret, as now practised, with spice and sugar, is pernicious; that the adul- teration of wine was as ancient as Cato; that brawn was a Roman dish, which Apicius commends as wonderful; its sauce then was mustard and honey, before the frequent use of sugar : nor were soused hog's feet, cheeks, and ears, un- known to those ages. It is very probable they were not so superstitious as to have so great a delicate only at Christmas. It were worth a dissertation between two learned persons, so it were managed with temper and candour, to know whether the Britons taught it to the Romans, or whether Caesar introduced it into Britain: and it is strange he should take no notice of it; whereas he has recorded that they did not eat hare's flesh; that the ancients used to marinate their fish, by frying them in oil, and the moment they were taken out pouring boiling vinegar upon them. The learned annotator observes, that the best way of keeping the liquor in oysters is by laying the deep shell downwards; and by this means Apicius conveyed oysters to Tiberius when in Parthia. A The third book is of such edibles as are produced in gardens. The Romans used nitre, to make their herbs look green; the annotator shows our saltpetre at present to differ from the ancient nitre. Apicius had a way of mincing them first with oil and salt, and so boiling them; which Pliny com- mends. But the present receipt is, to let the water boil well; throw in salt and a bit of butter; and so not only sprouts but spinage will be green. There is a most extraordinary obser- vation of the editor's, to which I cannot but agree; that it is a vulgar error, that walnut-trees, like ruffian wives, thrive the better for being beaten; and that long poles and stones are used by boys and others to get the fruit down, the walnut- tree being so very high they could not otherwise reach it, rather out of kindness to themselves, than any regard to the tree that bears it. As for asparagus, there is an excel- lent remark, that, according to Pliny, they were the great care of the ancient gardeners, and that at Ravenna three weighed a pound; but that in England it was thought a rarity when a hundred of them weighed thirty; that cu- cumbers are apt to rise in the stomach, unless pared, or boiled with oil, vinegar, and honey; that the Egyptians would drink hard without any disturbance, because it was a rule for them to have always boiled cabbage for their first dish at supper; that the best way to roast onions is in colewort leaves, for fear of burning them: that beets are good for Smiths, because they, working at the fire, are generally costive: that Petronius has recorded a little old woman, who sold the agreste olus of the ancients; which honour I take to be as much due to those who in our days cry nettle-tops, elder-buds, and cliver,” in spring-time very wholesome. The fourth book contains the universal art of cookery. As Matthaeus Sylvaticus composed the pandects of physic, and Justinian those of law; so Apicius has done the pandects of his art, in this book which bears that inscription. The first chapter contains the admirable receipt of a salacacaby of Apicius. Bruise in a mortar parsley-seed, dried pennyroyal, dried mint, ginger, green coriander, raisins stoned, honey, vinegar, oil, and wine; put them into a cacabulum; three crusts of pycentine bread, the flesh of a pullet, goat stones, vestine cheese, pine kernels, cucumbers, dried onions minced small; pour a soup over it, garnish it with snow, and send it up in the cacabulum. This cacabulum being an unusual vessel, my friend went to his dictionary, where, finding an odd interpretation of it, he was easily persuaded, from the whimsicalness of the composition, and the fantasticalness of snow for its garniture, that the properest vessel for a phy- sician to prescribe to send to table upon that occasion might 1 Bills, prescriptions. * Cliver, goosegrass. 10 A.D. 1710.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 231 be a bed-pan. There are some admirable remarks in the annotations to the second chapter, concerning the Dialogue of Asellius Sabinus, who introduces a combat between mush- rooms, chats or becoafico's, oysters, and red-wings, a work that ought to be published; for the same annotator observes that this island is not destitute of red-wings, though coming to us only in the hardest weather, and therefore seldom brought fat to our tables; that the chats come to us in April and breed, and about autumn return to Africk; that experience shows us they may be kept in cages, fed with beef or wether mutton, figs, grapes, and minced filberts, being dainties not unworthy the care of such as would preserve our British hospitality. There is a curious observation concerning the diversity of Roman and British dishes; the first delighting in hodge-podge, gallimaufreys, forced meats, jussels, and Salmagundies;" the latter in spear-ribs, surloins, chines and barons; and thence our terms of art both as to dressing and carving, become very different; for they, lying upon a sort of couch, could not have carved those dishes which our ancestors When they sat upon forms used to do. But, since the use of cushions and elbow-chairs, and the editions of good books and authors, it may be hoped in time we may come up to them. For indeed hitherto we have been something to blame. The fifth book is of peas-porridge; under which are included, frumetary, watergruel, milk-porridge, rice-milk, flummery, stir-about, and the like. The Latin or rather Greek name is Ausprios; but my friend was pleased to entitle it Pantagruel, a named used by Rabelais, an eminent physician. There are some very remarkable things in it; as the Emperor Julianus had seldom anything but spoon meat at supper: that the herb fenugreek, with pickles, oil, and wine, was a Roman dainty; upon which the annotator observes, that it is not used in our kitchens for a certain ungrateful bitter- ness that it has ; and that it is plainly a physical diet; and that, mixed with Oats, it is the best purge for horses: an excellent invention for frugality, that nothing might be lost; for what the lord did not eat he might send to his stable ! The sixth book treats of wild-fowl; how to dress ostriches (the biggest, grossest, and most difficult of digestion of any bird), phoenicoptrices,” parrots, &c. The seventh book treats of things sumptuous and costly, and therefore chiefly concerning hog-meat; in which the Romans came to that excess, that the laws forbade the usage of hogs-harslet, sweet-breads, cheeks, &c., at their public Suppers; and Cato, when censor, sought to restrain the extravagant use of brawn, by several of his orations. So much regard was had then to the art of cookery, that we see it took place in the thoughts of the wisest men, and bore a part in their most important counsels. But, alas ! the degeneracy of our present age is such, that I believe few besides the annotator know the excellency of a virgin sow, especially of the black kind brought from China, and how to make the most of her liver, lights, brains, and pettitoes; and to vary her into those fifty dishes which, Pliny says, were usually made of that delicious creature. Besides, Galen tells us more of its excellencies: “That fellow that eats bacon for two or three days before he is to box or wrestle, shall be much stronger than if he should eat the best roast beef or bag pudding in the parish.” The eighth book treats of such dainties as four-footed beasts afford us; as (1) the wild boar, which they used to boil with all its bristles on. (2) The deer, dressed with broth * Gallimaufry was a hash of several meats; jussel, a mince of several meats, for which old recipes are extant; salmagundi was a mixture of chopped meat and pickled herring, with oil, vinegar, pepper, and onions. * Phoenicoptrices, flamingoes. made with pepper, wine, honey, oil, and stewed damsons, &c. (3) The wild sheep, of which there are “innumerable in the mountains of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, that will let nobody handle them; ” but, if they are caught they are to be sent up with an elegant sauce, prescribed after a physical manner, in form of an electuary, made of pepper, rue, parsley- seed, juniper, thyme dried, mint, pennyroyal, honey, &c.,” with which any apothecary in that country can furnish you. (4) Beef, with onion sauce, and commended by Celsus, but not much approved by Hippocrates, because the Greeks scarce knew how to make oxen, and powdering-tubs were in very few families: for physicians have been very peculiar in their diet in all ages; otherwise Galen would scarce have found out that young foxes were in season in autumn. (5) The sucking pig boiled in paper. (6) The hare, the chief of the Roman dainties; its blood being the sweetest of any animal, its natural fear contributing to that excellence. Though the emperors and nobility had parks to fatten them in ; yet in the time of Didianus Julianus, if anyone had sent him one, or a pig, he would make it last him three days; whereas Alexander Severus had one every meal, which must have been a great expense, and is very remarkable. But the most exquisite animal was reserved for the last chapter; and that was the dormouse, a harmless creature, whose innocence might at least have defended it both from cooks and physicians. But Apicius found out an odd sort of fate for those poor creatures; Some to be boned, and others to be put whole, with odd in- gredients, into hogs-guts, and so boiled for sausages. In ancient times people made it their business to fatten them: Aristotle rightly observes that sleep fattened them, and Martial from thence too poetically tells us that sleep was their only nourishment. But the annotator has cleared that point; he, good man, has tenderly observed one of them for many years, and finds that it does not sleep all the winter, as falsely reported, but wakes at meals, and after its repast then rolls itself up in a ball to sleep. This dormouse, according to the author, did not drink in three years time; but whether other dormice do so, I cannot tell, because Bambouselber- gius's treatise “ of fattening dormice” is lost. Though very costly, they became a common dish at great entertainments. Petronius delivers us an odd receipt for dressing them, and serving them up with poppies and honey; which must be a very Soporiferous dainty, and as good as owl-pie to such as want a map after dinner. The fondness of the Romans came to be so excessive towards them, that, as Pliny says, “the Censorian Laws, and Marcus Scaurus in his consulship, got them prohibited from public entertainments.” But Nero, Commodus, and Heliogabalus, would not deny the liberty, and indeed property, of their subjects in so reasonable an enjoyment; and therefore we find them long after brought to table in the times of Ammianus Marcellinus, who tells us likewise, that “scales were brought to table in those ages, to weigh curious fishes, birds and dormice,” to see whether they were at the standard of excellence and perfection, and some- times, I suppose, to vie with other pretenders to magnificence. The annotator takes hold of this occasion to show “ of how great use scales would be at the tables of our nobility,” especially upon the bringing up of a dish of wild-fowl: “For if twelve larks (he says) should weigh below twelve ounces, they would be very lean and scarce tolerable; if twelve and down-weight, they would be very well; but if thirteen, they would be fat to perfection.” We see upon how nice and exact a balance the happiness of eating depends ! I could scarce forbear smiling, not to say worse, at such exactness and such dainties; and told my friend, that those Scales would be of extraordinary use at Dunstable; and that, if the annotator had not prescribed his dormouse, I should 232 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1709 upon the first occasion be glad to visit it, if I knew its visiting- days and hours, so as not to disturb it. My friend said there remained but two books more, one of sea and the other of river fish, in the account of which he would not be long, seeing his memory began to fail him almost as much as my patience. “”Tis true, in a long work, soft slumbers creep, And gently sink the artist into sleep; ” especially when treating of dormice. The ninth book is concerning sea fish, where, &mongst other learned annotations, is recorded that famous voyage of Apicius, who, having spent many millions, and being retired into Campania, heard that there were lobsters of a vast and unusual bigness in Africa, and thereupon impatiently got on shipboard the same day; and, having suffered much at sea, came at last to the coast. But the fame of so great a man's coming had landed before him, and all the fishermen sailed out to meet him, and presented him with their fairest lobsters. He asked if they had no larger. They answered, “Their sea produced nothing more excellent than what they had brought.” This honest freedom of theirs, with his disap- pointment, so disgusted him, that he took pet, and bade the master return home again immediately: So, it seems, Africa lost the breed of one monster more than it had before. There are many receipts in the book to dress cramp-fish, that numb the hands of those that touch them; the cuttle-fish, whose blood is like ink; the pourcontrel, or many-feet; the sea-urchin, or hedge-hog; with several others, whose sauces are agreeable to their natures. But, to the comfort of us moderns, the ancients often eat their oysters alive, and spread hard eggs minced over their sprats as we do now over our salt-fish. There is one thing very curious concerning herrings: It seems the ancients were very fantastical in making one thing pass for another; so, at Petronius's supper, the cook sent up a fat goose, fish, and wild-fowl of all sorts to appearance, but still all were made out of the several parts of one single porker. The great Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, had a very delightful deception of this nature put upon him by his cook; the king was extremely affected with fresh herrings (as indeed who is not ?); but, being far up in Asia from the sea coast, his whole wealth could not have purchased one ; but his cook contrived some sort of meat which, put into a frame, so resembled a herring, that it was extremely satisfactory both to this Prince's eyes and gusto. My friend told me that, to the honour of the city of London, he had seen a thing of this nature there ; that is, a herring, or rather a salmagundy, with the head and tail so neatly laid, that it surprised him. He says, many of the species may be found at the Sugar-loaf in Bell Yard, as giving an excellent relish to Burton Ale, and not costing above six pence, an incon- siderable price for so imperial a dainty, The tenth book, as my friend tells me, is concerning fish sauces, which consist of variety of ingredients, amongst which is generally a kind of frumetary. But it is not to be forgotten by any person who would boil fish exactly, that they threw them alive into the water, which at present is said to be a Dutch receipt, but was derived from the Romans. It seems Seneca the philosopher (a man from whose morose temper little good in the art of cookery could be expected), in his third book of Natural Questions, correcting the luxury of the times, says, the Romans were come to that daintiness, that they would not eat a fish unless upon the same day it was taken, “that it might taste of the sea,” as they expressed it; and therefore had them brought by persons who rode post, and made a great outcry, whereupon all other people were obliged to give them the road. It was an usual expression for a Roman to say, “In other matters I may confide in you, but in a thing of this weight it is not consistent with my gravity and prudence. I will trust nothing but my own eyes. Bring the fish hither, let me see him breathe his last.” And when the poor fish was brought to table swimming and gasping, would cry out, “Nothing is more beautiful than a dying mullet !” My friend says, “the annotator looks upon these as jests made by the Stoics, and spoken absurdly and beyond nature;” though the annotator at the same time tells us, that it was a law at Athens that the fishermen should not wash their fish, but bring them as they came out of the sea. Happy were the Athenians in good laws, and the Romans in great examples | But I believe our Britons need wish their friends no longer life, than till they see London served with live herrings and gasping mackerel. It is true, we are not quite so barbarous but that we throw our crabs alive into scalding water, and tie our lobsters to the spit to hear them squeak when they are roasted; our eels use the same peri- staltic motion upon the gridiron, when their skin is off and their guts are out, as they did before; and our gudgeons, taking opportunity of jumping after they are flowered, give occasion to the admirable remark of some persons' folly, when, to avoid the danger of the frying-pan, they leap into the fire. My friend said that the mention of eels put him in mind of the concluding remark of the annotator, “That they who amongst the Sybarites would fish for eels, or sell them, should be free from all taxes.” I was glad to hear of the word conclude; and told him nothing could be more acceptable to me than the mention of the Sybarites, of whom I shortly intend a history, showing how they deservedly banished cocks for waking them in a morning, and Smiths for being useful; how one cried out because one of the rose-leaves he lay on was rumpled; how they taught their horses to dance; and so their enemies coming against them with guitars and harpsichords, set them so upon their round O's and minuets, that the form of their battle was broken, and three hundred thousand of them slain, as Gouldman, Littleton, and several other good authors, affirm. I told my friend, I had much overstayed my hour; but if, at any time, he would find Dick Humelbergius, Caspar Barthius, and another friend, with himself, I would invite him to dinner of a few but choice dishes to cover the table at once, which, except they would think of anything better, should be a salacacaby, a dish of fenugreek, a wild sheep's head and appurtenance with a suitable electuary, a ragout of capons’ stones, and some dormouse sausages. If, as friends do with one another at a venison-pasty, you should send for a plate, you know you may command it; for what is mine is yours, as being entirely your, &c. Dr. King was a high churchman, who contributed to The Easaminer, used his wit on behalf of Sache- verell, and was a friend of Swift's. Though lively and a jovial man at table, he was religious and pure- minded. He was made Gazetteer in 1711, but, though the office was worth £300 a year, Dr. King found the work of it too troublesome, and gave it up, for his health was then failing seriously, and he died on Christmas Day in the year 1712. The Tatler—published three times a week—having been brought to a close by Steele on the 2nd of January, 1711, on the 1st of March following ap- peared the first number of The Spectator, also a penny paper, which appeared in daily numbers until the 6th of December, 1712. The imposition of a halfpenny To A.D. 1711.] 233 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. stamp duty on the 1st of August, 1712, raised the price of The Spectator from that date to twopence. Of The Spectator Steele alone was proprietor and editor, but Addison was now from the first his fellow-worker, and they began with fair division of the labour of producing. In the first paper Addison sketched an imaginary character of The Spectator himself. In the second paper Steele sketched in clear outline the characters of The Spectator Club, which were to be afterwards from time to time developed and playfully associated with discussion of the forms of life they typified. This is Steele's opening of THE SPECTATOR CLUB. Ast Alii sea: Et plures uno conclamant ore."—JUV. The first of our Society is a Gentleman of Worcestershire, of antient Descent, a Baronet, his Name SIR. RogFR DE CoveRLY.” His great Grandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'd after him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with the Parts and Merits of Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singular in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense, and are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinks the World is in the wrong. How- ever, this Humour creates him no Enemies, for he does nothing with Sourness or Obstimacy; and his being uncon- fined to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he lives in Soho Square :* It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelour by reason he was crossed in Love by a perverse beautiful Widow of the next County to him. Before this Disappointment Sir Roger was what you call a fine Gentleman, and often supped with my Lord Rochester” and Sir George Etherege,” fought a Duel upon his first coming to 1 Juvenal, Sat. VII., l. 166, 7. “Six and more besides cry all together with one voice.” Steele here sketches six characters. 3 The character of Sir Roger de Coverley is said to have been drawm from Sir John Pakington, of Worcestershire, a Tory, whose name, family, and politics are represented by a statesman of the present time. But see note 2, page 238. The name, on this its first appearance in The Spectator, is spelt Coverly; also in the first reprint. The papers here quoted from The Spectator are taken, with the notes, from my annotated three-and-sixpenny edition of The Spectator in Routledge's Standard Library. The volume was exactly printed from the first edition of the original, and thus escaped the corruptions of text which for the last hundred years have abounded in all other reprints. 3 Soho Square was then a new and most fashionable part of the town. It was built in 1681. The Duke of Monmouth lived in the centre house, facing the statue. Originally the square was called King Square. Pennant mentions, on Pegg's authority, a tradition that, on the death of Monmouth, his admirers changed the name to Soho, the word of the day at the field of Sedgemoor. But the ground upon which the Square stands was called Soho as early as the year 1632. * So ho? was the old call in hunting when a hare was found. 4 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, b. 1648, d. 1680. His licentious wit made him a favourite of Charles II. His strength was exhausted by licentious living at the age of one and thirty. His chief work is a poem upon “Nothing.” He died repentant of his wasted life, in which, as he told Burmët, he had “for five years been continually drunk,' or so much affected by frequent drunkenness as in no instance to be master of himself. 5 Sir George Etherege, b. 1636, d. 1694. “Gentle George’ and “Easy Etherege,’ a wit and friend of the wits of the Restoration. He bought his knighthood to enable him to marry a rich widow who required a title, and died of a broken neck, by tumbling down-stairs when he was drunk and lighting guests to their apartments. His three comedies, ‘The Comical Revenge,” “She Would if she Could,’ and “The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, excellent embodi- ments of the court humour of his time, were collected and printed in 8vo in 1704, and reprinted with addition of five poems, in 1715. Town, and kick'd Bully Dawson” in a publick Coffee-house for calling him Youngster. But being ill-used by the above- mentioned Widow, he was very serious for a Year and a half; and tho' his Temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself and never dressed after- wards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet of the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve Times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir Roger grew humble in his Desires after he had forgot this cruel Beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in Point of Chastity with Beggars and Gipsies: but this is look'd upon by his Friends rather as Matter of Raillery than Truth. He is now in his Fifty-sixth Year, cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House in both Town and Country; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful Cast in his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His Tenants grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women profess Love to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he comes into a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all the way Up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a Justice of the Quorum ; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session with great Abilities, and three Months ago, gained universal Applause by explaining a passage in the Game-Act. The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another Batchelour, who is a Member of the Inner Temple ; a Man of great Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place of Residence rather to obey the Direc- tion of an old humoursome Father, than in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was plac'd there to study the Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House in those of the Stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Cooke. The Father sends up every Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and Tenures, in the Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with an Attorney to answer and take care of in the Lump. He is studying the Passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the Debates among Men which arise from them. He knows the Argument of each of the Orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one Case in the Reports of our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, except his intimate Friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This Turn makes him at once both dis- interested and agreeable : As few of his Thoughts are drawn from Business, they are most of them fit for Conversation. His Taste of Books is a little too just for the Age he lives in ; he has read all, but approves of very few. His Familiarity with the Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World. He is an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play is his Hour of Business; exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses through Russel Court ; and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubb’d and his Perriwig powder'd at the Barber's as you go into the Rose.7 It is for the Good of the Audience when he is at a Play, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him. The Person of next Consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a Merchant of great Eminence in the City of London : A 8 Bully Dawson, a swaggering sharper of Whitefriars, is said to have been sketched by Shadwell in the Captain Hackum of his comedy called ‘The Squire of Alsatia.” 7 The Rose Taverm was on the east side of Brydges Street, near Drury Lane Theatre, much favoured by the looser sort of play-goers. Garrick, when he enlarged the Theatre, made the Rose Tavern a part of it. - 206 234. [A.D. 1711. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, Person of indefatigable Industry, strong Reason, and great | unacquainted with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, Experience. His Notions of Trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some sly Way of Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a rich Man) he calls the Sea the British Common. He is acquainted with Commerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got by Arts and Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of our Trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove that Diligence makes more lasting Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruin’d more Nations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongst which the greatest Favourite is, “A Penny saved is a Penny got.' A General Trader of good Sense is pleasanter Company than a general Scholar; and Sir ANDREW having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the Perspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in another Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself is richer than other Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the Compass, but blows home a Ship in which he is an Owner. Next to Sir ANDREW in the Club-room sits Captain SENTRY,” a Gentleman of great Courage, good Understanding, but Invincible Modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their Talents within the Observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with great Gallantry in several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having a small Estate of his own, and being next Heir to Sir RogFR, he has quitted a Way of Life in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit, who is not something of a Courtier, a well as Soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a Profession where Merit is placed in so conspicuous a View, Impudence should get the better of Modesty. When he has talked to this Purpose, I never heard him make a sour Expression, but frankly confess that he left the World, because he was not fit for it. A strict Honesty and an even regular Behaviour, are in themselves Obstacles to him that must press through Crowds who endeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of a Commander. He will, how- ever, in this Way of Talk, excuse Generals, for not disposing according to Men's Desert, or enquiring into it: For, says he, that great Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him : Therefore he will conclude, that the Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military Way, must get over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against the Importunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his own Vindica- tion. He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be slow in attacking when it is your Duty. With this Candour does the Gentleman speak of himself and others. The same Frankness runs through all his Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnished him with many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to the Company; for he is never over-bearing, though accustomed to command Men in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an Habit of obeying Men highly above him. But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists we have among us the gallant WILL. HoNEYCOMB,” a Gentle- man who, according to his Years, should be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful of his Person, and always had a very easy fortune, Time has made but very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces in his Brain. His Person is well turned, and of a good Height. He is very ready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertain Women. He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits as others do Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which of the French King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this manner of curling their Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; whose Frailty was covered by such a sort of Petticoat, and whose Vanity to show her Foot made that Part of the Dress so short in such a Year. In a Word, all his Conversation and Knowledge has been in the female World: As other Men of his Age will take Notice to RICHARD STEELE. (From the Engraving made for John Nichols's Editions of his Letters, &c.) you what such a Minister said upon such and such an Occa- sion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at Court such a Woman was then Smitten, another was taken with him at the Head of his Troop in the Park. In all these important Relations, he has ever about the same Time re- ceived a kind Glance, or a Blow of a Fan, from some cele- brated Beauty, Mother of the present Lord such-a-one. If you speak of a young Commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts up, “He has good Blood in his Weins, “Tom Mirabell begot him, the Rogue cheated me in that ‘Affair; that young Fellow's Mother used me more like a Dog than any Woman I ever made Advances to.' This Way of Talking of his, very much enlivens the Conversation among us of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is not one of the Company but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that Sort of Man, who is usually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude his Character, where Women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy Man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is a Clergyman, a very * Captain Sentry was by some supposed to have been drawn from Colonel Kempenfelt, the father of the Admiral who went down with the Royal George. * Will. Honeycomb was by some found in a Colonel Cleland. A.D. 1711.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 235 philosophick Man, of general Learning, great Sanctity of Life, and the most exact good Breeding. He has the Mis- fortune to be of a very weak Constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such Cares and Business as Preferments in his Function would oblige him to . He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-Counsellor is among Lawyers. The Probity of his Mind, and the Integrity of his Life, create him. Followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the Subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in Years, that he observes when he is among us, an Earnestness to have him fall on some divine Topick, which he always treats with much Authority, as one who has no Interests in this World, as one who is hastening to the Object of all his Wishes, and conceives Hopes from his Decays and Infirmities. These are may ordinary Companions. . R.1 The eleventh number, by Steele, contained the story of— INKLE AND YARICO. Dat veniam, corvis, vea'at censura columba.s.”—JUV. Arietta is visited by all Persons of both Sexes, who may have any Pretence to Wit and Gallantry. She is in that time of Life which is neither affected with the Follies of Youth or Infirmities of Age; and her Conversation is so mixed with Gaiety and Prudence, that she is agreeable both to the Young and the Old. Her Behaviour is very frank, without being in the least blameable; and as she is out of the Tract of any amorous or ambitious Pursuits of her own, her Visitants entertain her with Accounts of themselves very freely, whether they concern their Passions or their Interests. I made her a Visit this Afternoon, having been formerly intro- duced to the Honour of her Acquaintance, by my friend Will. Honeycomb, who has prevailed upon her to admit me sometimes into her Assembly, as a civil, inoffensive Man. I found her accompanied with one Person only, a Common-Place Talker, who, upon my Entrance, rose, and after a very slight Civility sat down again; then turning to Arietta, pursued his Dis- course, which I found was upon the old Topick, of Constancy in Love. He went on with great Facility in repeating what he talks every Day of his Life; and, with the Orna- ments of insignificant Laughs and Gestures, enforced his Arguments by Quotations out of Plays and Songs, which allude to the Perjuries of the Fair, and the general Levity of Women. Methought he strove to shine more than ordinarily in his Talkative Way, that he might insult my Silence, and distinguish himself before a Woman of Arietta's Taste and Understanding. She had often an Inclination to interrupt him, but could find no Opportunity, 'till the Larum ceased of its self; which it did not 'till he had repeated and murdered the celebrated Story of the Ephesian Matron.* Arietta seemed to regard this Piece of Raillery as an Outrage done to her Sex; as indeed I have always observed 1 Steele's papers in The Spectator are signed with R, L, or T. R (the initial of his Christian name) is thought to mark a paper as of his own writing; L to mark papers founded on hints dropt into the Letter- box; and T to distinguish what he had received, as editor, from un- known correspondents, and adapted to his paper; signifying Trans- cribed from anonymous communications. 2 Juvenal, Sat. II., 1.63. Acquits the vultures and condemns the doves. 3 Told in the prose ‘Satyricon ascribed to Petronius, whom Nero called his Arbiter of Elegance. The tale was known in the Middle Ages from the stories of the ‘Seven Wise Masters.” She went down into the vault with her husband's corpse, resolved-to weep to death or die of famine; but was tempted to share the supper of a soldier who was watching seven bodies hanging upon trees, and that very night, in the grave of her husband and in her funeral garments, married her new and stranger guest. - ‘born as he that Women, whether out of a nicer Regard to their Honour, or what other Reason I cannot tell, are more sensibly touched with those general Aspersions, which are cast upon their Sex, than Men are by what is said of theirs. When she had a little recovered her self from the serious Anger she was in, she replied in the following manner. Sir, when I consider, how perfectly new all you have said on this Subject is, and that the Story you have given us is not quite two thousand Years Old, I cannot but think it a Piece of Presumption to dispute with you : But your Quo- tations put me in Mind of the Fable of the Lion and the Man. The Man walking with that noble Animal, showed him, in the Ostentation of Human Superiority, a Sign of a Man killing a Lion. Upon which the Lion said very justly, We Lions are none of us Painters, else we could show a hundred Men killed by Lions, for one Lion killed by a Man. You Men are Writers, and can represent us Women as Unbecoming as you please in your Works, while we are unable to return the Injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your Discourse, that Hypocrisy is the very Foundation of our Education ; and that an Ability to dissemble our affections, is a professed Part of our Breeding. These and such other Reflections, are sprinkled up and down the Writings of all Ages, by Authors, who leave behind them Memorials of their Resentment against the Scorn of particular Women, in Invectives against the whole Sex. Such a writer, I doubt not, was the cele- brated Petronius, who invented the pleasant Aggravations of the Ephesian Lady; but when we consider this Question between the Sexes, which has been either a Point of Dispute or Raillery ever since there were Men and Women, let us take Facts from plain People, and from such as have not either Ambition or Capacity to embellish their Narrations with any Beauties of Imagination. I was the other Day amusing myself with Ligon's Account of Barbadoes; and, in Answer to your well-wrought Tale, I will give you (as it dwells upon my Memory) out of that honest Traveller, in his fifty fifth page, the History of Inkle and Yarico.4 Mr. Thomas Inkle of London, aged twenty Years, embarked in the Downs, on the good Ship called the Achilles, bound for the West Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his Fortune by Trade and Merchandize. Our Adventurer was the third Son of an eminent Citizen, who had taken particular Care to instil into his Mind an early Love of Gain, by making him a perfect Master of Numbers, and consequently giving him a quick View of Loss and Advantage, and preventing the natural Impulses of his Passions, by Prepossession towards his Interests. With a * ‘A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes. By * Richard Ligon, Gent.,’ fol. 1673. The first edition had appeared in 1657. Steele's beautiful story is elaborated from the following short passage in the page he cites. After telling that he had an Indian slave woman, ‘of excellent shape and colour,” who would not be wooed by any means to wear clothes, Mr. Ligon says : “This Indian ‘ dwelling near the Sea Coast, upon the Main, an English ship put in ‘to a Bay, and sent some of her Men a shoar, to try what victuals or ‘water they could find, for in some distress they were: But the ‘Indians perceiving them to go up so far into the Country, as they were ‘sure they could not make a safe retreat, intercepted them in their ‘return, and fell upon them, chasing them into a Wood, and being ‘dispersed there, some were taken and some kill'd : But a young man “amongst them straggling from the rest, was met by this Indian ‘maid, who upon the first sight fell in love with him, and hid him ‘close from her Countrymen (the Indians) in a Cave, and there fed ‘ him, till they could safely go down to the shoar, where the ship lay ‘at anchor, expecting the return of their friends. But at last, seeing ‘them upon the shoar, sent the long-Boat for them, took them aboard, ‘and brought them away. But the youth, when he came ashoar in ‘the Barbadoes, forgot the kindness of the poor maid, that inadven- ‘tured her life for his safety, and sold her for a slave, who was as free And so poor Yarico for her love, lost her liberty.” 236 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1711 Mind thus turned, young Inkle had a Person every way agreeable, a ruddy Vigour in his Countenance, Strength in his Limbs, with Ringlets of fair Hair loosely flowing on his Shoulders. It happened, in the Course of the Voyage, that the Achilles, in some Distress, put into a Creek on the Main of America, in search of Provisions: The Youth, who is the Hero of my Story, among others, went ashore on this Occasion. From their first Landing they were observed by a Party of Indians, who hid themselves in the Woods for that Purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the Shore into the Country, and were inter. cepted by the Natives, who slew the greatest Number of them. Our Adventurer escaped among others, by flying into a Forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless Part of the Wood, he threw himself [tired and] breathless on a little Hillock, when an Indian Maid rushed from a Thicket behind him: After the first Surprize, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the Limbs, Features, and wild Graces of the Naked American; the American was no less taken with the Dress, Complexion, and Shape of an European, covered from Head to Foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and consequently sollicitous for his Preservation : She therefore conveyed him to a Cave, where she gave him a Delicious Repast of Fruits, and led him to a Stream to slake his Thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would sometimes play with his Hair, and delight in the Opposition of its Colour to that of her Fingers: Then open his Bosome, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a Person of Distinction, for she every day came to him in a different Dress, of the most beautiful Shells, Bugles, and Bredes. She likewise brought him a great many Spoils, which her other Lovers had presented to her; so that his Cave was richly adorned with all the spotted Skins of Beasts, and most Party-coloured Feathers of Fowls, which that World afforded. To make his Confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the Dusk of the Evening, or by the favour of Moon-light, to unfrequented Groves, and Solitudes, and show him where to lye down in Safety, and sleep amidst the Falls of Waters, and Melody of Nightingales. Her Part was to watch and hold him in her Arms, for fear of her Country-men, and wake on Occasions to consult his Safety. In this manner did the Lovers pass away their Time, till they had learn’d a Language of their own, in which the Voyager communicatcd to his Mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his Country, where she should be Cloathed in such Silks as his Waistcoat was made of, and be carried in Houses drawn by Horses, without being exposed to Wind or Weather. All this he promised her the Enjoyment of, with- out such Fears and Alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender Correspondence these Lovers lived for several Months, when Yarico, instructed by her Lover, dis- covered a Wessel on the Coast, to which she made Signals, and in the Night, with the utmost Joy and Satisfaction accompanied him to a Ships-Crew of his Country-Men, bound for Barbadoes. When a Vessel from the Main arrives in that Island, it seems the Planters come down to the Shoar, where there is an immediate Market of the Indians and other Slaves, as with us of Horses and Oxen. To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English Territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of Time, and to weigh with himself how many Days Interest of his Mony he had lost during his Stay with Yarico. This Thought made the Young Man very pensive, and careful what Account he should be able to give his Friends of his Voyage. Upon which Considerations, the prudent and frugal young Man sold Yarico to a Barbadian Merchant } notwithstanding that the poor Girl, to incline him to commiserate her Con- dition, told him that she was with Child by him: But he only made use of that Information, to rise in his Demands upon the Purchaser. I was so touch'd with this Story, (which I think should be always a Counterpart to the Ephesian Matron) that I left the Room with Tears in my Eyes; which a Woman of Arietta's good Sense, did, I am sure, take for greater Applause, than any Compliments I could make her. R. To Steele's tale let us add (the 159th Spectator) Addison's VISION OF MIRZA. — Omnem qua, nunc obducta twenti Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum Caligat, nubem eripiam —.1—VIRG. When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several Oriental Manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one entitled The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great Pleasure. I intend to give it to the Publick when I have no other Entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first Vision, which I have translated Word for Word as follows. ‘On the fifth Day of the Moon, which according to the “Custom of my Forefathers I always keep holy, after having ‘washed my self, and offered up my Morning Devotions, I ‘ascended the high Hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest “of the Day in Meditation and Prayer. As I was here “airing my self on the Tops of the Mountains, I fell into a ‘profound Contemplation on the Vanity of human Life; and ‘passing from one Thought to another, Surely, said I, Man is “but a Shadow and Life a Dream. Whilst I was thus musing, ‘I cast my Eyes towards the Summit of a Rock that was ‘not far from me, where I discovered one in the Habit of a “Shepherd, with a little Musical Instrument in his Hand. As “I looked upon him he applied it to his Lips, and began to ‘play upon it. The Sound of it was exceeding sweet, and ‘wrought into a Variety of Tunes that were inexpressibly ‘melodious, and altogether different from anything I had “ever heard : They put me in mind of those heavenly Airs ‘that are played to the departed Souls of good Men upon ‘their first Arrival in Paradise, to wear out the Impressions “of the last Agonies, and qualify them for the Pleasures of ‘that happy Place. My Heart melted away in secret ‘Raptures. ‘I had been often told that the Rock before me was the “Haunt of a Genius; and that several had been entertained ‘with Musick who had passed by it, but never heard that ‘the Musician had before made himself visible. When he ‘had raised my Thoughts by those transporting Airs which “he played, to taste the Pleasures of his Conversation, as I “looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, ‘and by the waving of his Hand directed me to approach the “Place where he sat. I drew near with that Reverence ‘which is due to a superior Nature; and as my Heart was ‘entirely subdued by the captivating Strains I had heard, I “fell down at his Feet and wept. The Genius Smiled upon ‘me with a Look of Compassion and Affability that familiar- ‘ized him to my Imagination, and at once dispelled all the “Fears and Apprehensions with which I approached him. ‘He lifted me from the Ground, and taking me by the hand, ‘Mirzah, said he, I have heard thee in thy Soliloquies; follow ‘me. 1 “Behold! for I will purge the haze That darkles round their mortal gaze And blunts its keenness.” AEneid, II, 603–5 (Comington’s Translation). To A.D. 1712.] 237 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. “He then led me to the highest Pinnacle of the Rock, and ‘placing me on the Top of it, Cast thy Eyes Eastward, said ‘he, and tell me what thou seest. I see, said I, a huge ‘Valley, and a prodigious Tide of Water rolling through it. ‘The Valley that thou seest, said he, is the Vale of Misery, ‘and the Tide of Water that thou seest is part of the great “Tide of Eternity. What is the Reason, said I, that the “Tide I see rises out of a thick Mist at one End, and again ‘loses itself in a thick Mist at the other? What thou seest, ‘said he, is that Portion of Eternity which is called Time, ‘measured out by the Sun, and reaching from the Beginning “of the World to its Consummation. Examine now, said he, ‘this Sea that is bounded with Darkness at both Ends, and “tell me what thou discoverest in it. I see a Bridge, said I, ‘standing in the Midst of the Tide. The Bridge thou seest, ‘said he, is human Life, consider it attentively. Upon a ‘more leisurely Survey of it, I found that it consisted of ‘threescore and ten entire Arches, with several broken Arches, ‘which added to those that were entire, made up the Number ‘about an hundred. As I was counting the Arches, the ‘Genius told me that this Bridge consisted at first of a thou- ‘Sand Arches; but that a great Flood swept away the rest, ‘ and left the Bridge in the ruinous Condition I now behold ‘it : But tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on ‘it. I see multitudes of People passing over it, said I, and a ‘black Cloud hanging on each End of it. As I looked more ‘attentively, I saw several of the Passengers dropping thro' ‘the Bridge, into the great Tide that flowed underneath it; ‘and upon farther Examination, perceived there were in- ‘numerable Trap-doors that lay concealed in the Bridge, ‘which the Passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell ‘thro’ them into the Tide and immediately disappeared. “These hidden Pit-falls were set very thick at the Entrance ‘of the Bridge, so that the Throngs of People no sooner broke ‘through the Cloud, but many of them fell into them. They ‘grew thinner towards the Middle, but multiplied and lay ‘closer together towards the End of the Arches that were ‘entire. ‘There were indeed some Persons, but their Number was ‘very small, that continued a kind of hobbling March on the “broken Arches, but fell through one after another, being “quite tired and spent with so long a walk. ‘I passed some Time in the Contemplation of this wonder- ‘ful Structure, and the great Variety of objects which it ‘presented. My Heart was filled with a deep Melancholy to ‘see Several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of Mirth ‘ and Jollity, and catching at every thing that stood by them ‘to save themselves. Some were looking up towards the * Heavens in a thoughtful Posture, and in the midst of a “Speculation stumbled and fell out of Sight. Multitudes ‘were very busy in the Pursuit of Bubbles that glittered ‘in their Eyes and danced before them; but often when ‘they thought themselves within the reach of them their “Footing failed and down they sunk. In this Confusion of ‘Objects, I observed some with Scymetars in their Hands, ‘and others with Urinals, who ran to and fro upon the ‘Bridge, thrusting several Persons on Trap-doors which did ‘not seem to ſlie in their Way, and which they might have “escaped had they not been forced upon them. “The Genius seeing me indulge my self in this melancholy ‘Próspect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it: Take ‘thine Eyes off the Bridge, said he, and tell me if thou yet * Seest anything thou dost not comprehend. Upon looking ‘up, What mean, said I, those great Flights of Birds that are ‘perpetually hovering about the Bridge, and settling upon it ‘from time to time? I see Vultures, Harpyes, Ravens, Cor- ‘morants, and among many other feather'd Creatures several i ‘little winged Boys, that perch in great Numbers upon the ‘middle Arches. These, said the Genius, are Envy, Avarice, ‘Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like Cares and Passions ‘that Infest human Life. ‘I here fetched a deep Sigh, Alas, said I, Man was made ‘in vain How is he given away to Misery and Mortality ‘tortured in Life, and swallowed up in Death ! The Genius “being moved with Compassion towards me, bid me quit so “uncomfortable a Prospect: Look no more, said he, on Man ‘in the first Stage of his Existence, in his setting out for “Eternity; but cast thine Eye on that thick Mist into which ‘the Tide bears the several Generations of Mortals that fall ‘into it. I directed my Sight as I was ordered, and (whe- ‘ther or no the good Genius strengthened it with any super- “natural Force, or dissipated Part of the Mist that was before ‘too thick for the Eye to penetrate) I saw the Valley opening “at the farther End, and spreading forth into an immense “Ocean that had a huge Rock of Adamant running through ‘the Midst of it, and dividing it into two equal Parts. The ‘Clouds still rested on one Half of it, insomuch that I could ‘discover nothing in it: But the other appeared to me a ‘vast Ocean planted with innumerable Islands, that were “covered with Fruits and Flowers, and interwoven with a ‘thousand little shining Seas that ran among them. I could ‘see Persons dressed in glorious Habits with Garlands upon ‘their Heads, passing among the Trees, lying down by the ‘Side of Fountains, or resting on Beds of Flowers; and could “hear a confused Harmony of singing Birds, falling Waters, ‘human Voices, and musical Instruments. Gladness grew in ‘me upon the Discovery of so delightful a Scene. I wished “for the Wings of an Eagle, that I might fly away to those ‘happy Seats; but the Genius told me there was no Passage ‘to them, except through the Gates of Death that I saw ‘opening every Moment upon the Bridge. The Islands, said “he, that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which ‘the whole Face of the Ocean appears spotted as far as thou ‘,canst see, are more in Number than the Sands on the Sea- ‘shore; there are Myriads of Islands behind those which thou “here discoverest, reaching further than thine Eye, or even ‘thine Imagination can extend itself. These are the Mansions “of good Men after Death, who according to the Degree and ‘Kinds of Virtue in which they excelled, are distributed “among the several Islands, which abound with Pleasures of ‘different Kinds and Degrees, suitable to the Relishes and “Perfections of those who are settled in them ; every Island “is a Paradise accommodated to its respective Inhabitants. ‘Are not these, O Mirzah, Habitations worth contending for? “Does Life appear miserable, that gives thee Opportunities of ‘ earning such a Reward? Is Death to be feared, that will ‘convey thee to so happy an Existence? Think not Man “was made in vain, who has such an Eternity reserved for ‘him. I gazed with inexpressible Pleasure on the happy ‘Islands. At length, said I, show me now, I beseech thee, ‘the Secrets that lie hid under those dark Clouds which cover ‘the Ocean on the other side of the Rock of Adamant. The ‘Genius making me no Answer, I turned about to address ‘myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left ‘me; I then turned again to the Vision which I had been so “long contemplating; but Instead of the rolling Tide, the “arched Bridge, and the happy Islands, I saw nothing but ‘the long hollow Valley of Bagdat, with Oxen, Sheep, and ‘Camels grazing upon the Sides of it. The End of the first Vision of Mirzah. C. Finally, here are two papers by Addison, Nos. 106 and 112, developing the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. - CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1711 —— Hic tibi Copia Mamabit ad plenwm, benigno Rwris homorum opulenta cornu.1—HoR, Having often received an Invitation from my Friend Sir RogBR DE CoveFLEY to pass away a Month with him in the Country, I last Week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his Country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing Speculations. Sir RogBR, who is very well acquainted with my Humour, lets me rise and go to Bed when I please, dine at his own Table or in my Chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the Gentlemen of the Country Come to see him, he only shews me at a Distance: As I have been walking in his Fields I have observed them stealing a Sight of me over an Hedge, and have heard the Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. I am the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of sober and staid Persons; for as the Knight is the best Master in the World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him; by this means his Domesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. You would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is grey- headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have ever seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see the Goodness of the Master even in the old House- dog, and in a grey Pad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and Tenderness out of Regard to his past Services, tho’ he has been useless for several Years. I could not but observe with a great deal of Pleasure the Joy that appeared in the Countenances of these ancient Domesticks upon my Friend's Arrival at his Country-Seat. Some of them could not refrain from Tears at the Sight of their old Master; every one of them press'd forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old Knight, with a Mixture of the Father and the Master of the Family, tem- pered the Enquiries after his own Affairs with several kind Questions relating to themselves. This Humanity and good Nature engages every Body to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his Family are in good Humour, and none so much as the Person whom he diverts himself with: On the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any Infirmity of old Age, it is easy for a Stander-by to observe a Secret Concern in the Looks of all his Servants.” 1 Horace, Ode I., xvii., 14–16. “Rural honours, rural treasures, Thou shalt have them to thy fill.” - Hugo N. Jones’s Translation. * Thomas Tyers in his Historical Essay on Mr. Addison (1783) first named Sir John Pakington, of Westwood, Worcestershire, as the original of Sir Roger de Coverley. But there is no real parallel. Sir John, as Mr. W. H. Wills has pointed out in his delightful annotated collection of the Sir Roger de Coverley papers, was twice married, a barrister, Recorder of the City of Worcester, and M.P. for his native county, in every Parliament but one, from his majority till his death. The name of Roger of Coverley applied to a contre-dance (i. e. a dance in which partners stand in opposite rows) Anglicised Country-IDance, was ascribed to the house of Calverley in Yorkshire, by an ingenious member thereof, Ralph Thoresby, who has left a M.S. account of the family written in 1717. Mr. Thoresby has it that Sir Roger of Cal- verly in the time of Richard I. had a harper who was the composer of this tune; his evidence being, apparently, that persons of the name of Harper had lands in the neighbourhood of Calverley. Mr. W. Chap- pell, who repeats this statement in his “Popular Music of the Olden ‘Time,’ says that in a M.S. of the beginning of the last century, this tune is called “Old Roger of Coverlay for evermore, A Lancashire “Hornpipe.” In the Dancing Master of 1696, it is called “Roger of ‘Coverley.” Mr. Chappell quotes also, in illustration of the familiar knowledge of this tune and its name in Addison's time, from ‘the My worthy Friend has put me under the particular Care of his Butler, who is a very prudent Man, and, as well as the rest of his Fellow-Servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their Master talk of me as of his particular Friend. My chief Companion, when Sir RogBR is diverting himself in the Woods or the Fields, is a very venerable Man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his House in the Nature of a Chaplain above thirty Years. This Gentleman is a Person of good Sense and some Learning, of a very regular Life and obliging Conversation: He heartily loves Sir RogBR, and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's Esteem, so that he lives in the Family rather as a Relation than a Dependant. I have observed in several of my Papers, that my Friend Sir RogBR, amidst all his good Qualities, is something of an Humourist; and that his Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain Extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other Men. This Cast of Mind, as it is generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his Conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same Degree of Sense and Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary Colours. As I was walking with him last Night, he asked me how I liked the good Man whom I have just now men- tioned P and without staying for my Answer told me, That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own Table; for which Reason he desired a particular Friend of his at the University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than much Learning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, if possible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. My Friend, says Sir RogER, found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the Endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar, tho' he does not shew it. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; and because I know his Value have settled upon him a good Annuity for Life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my Esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty Years; and tho' he does not know I have taken Notice of it, has never in all that time asked anything of me for himself, tho' he is every Day soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my Tenants his Parishioners. There has not been a Law-suit in the Parish since he has liv'd among them: If any Dispute arises they apply themselves to him for the Decision; if they do not acquiesce in his Judgment, which I think never hap- pened above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a Present of all the good Sermons which have been printed in English, and only begg'd of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued System of practical Divinity. As Sir RogFR was going on in his Story, the Gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to morrow (for it was Saturday Night) told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph in the Morning, and Dr. South in the Afternoon. He then shewed us his List of Preachers for the whole Year, where I saw with a great deal of Pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor Calamy,” with several living Authors who “History of Robert Powell, the Puppet Showman (1715),’ that “upon ‘the Preludis being ended, each party fell to bawling and calling for ‘particular tunes. The hobnail’d fellows, whose breeches and lungs ‘seem'd to be of the same leather, cried out for Cheshire Rounds, ‘Roger of Coverly,’ &c. * Archbishop Tillotson's Sermons appeared in 14 volumes, small To A.D. 1712.1 239 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, have published Discourses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable Man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my Friend's insisting upon the Qualifications of a good Aspect and a clear Voice; for I was so charmed with the Gracefulness of his Figure and Delivery, as well as with the Discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any Time more to my Satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after this Manner, is like the Composition of a Poet in the Mouth of a graceful Actor. I could heartily wish that more of our Country Clergy would follow this Example; and instead of wasting their Spirit in laborious Compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution, and all those other Talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the People. 'A6avátovs pºev trpara 6eois, vépiº dos Suákewtav. Tupual—PYTH. I am always very well pleased with a Country Sunday; and think, if keeping holy the Seventh Day were only a human Institution, it would be the best Method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of Man- kind. It is certain the Country-People would soon degene- rate into a kind of Savages and Barbarians, were there not such frequent Returns of a stated Time, in which the whole Village meet together with their best Faces, and in their clean- liest Habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent Subjects, hear their Duties explained to them, and join together in Adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the Rust of the whole Week, not only as it refreshes in their Minds the Notions of Religion, but as it puts both the Sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a Figure in the Eye of the Village. A Country-Fellow distinguishes himself as much in the Church-yard, as a Citizen does upon the Change, the whole Parish-Politics being generally dis- cussed in that Place either after Sermon or before the Bell rings. My Friend Sir RogBR, being a good Churchman, has beautified the Inside of his Church with several Texts of his own chusing: He has likewise given a handsome Pulpit- Cloth, and railed in the Communion-Table at his own Expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his Estate he found his Parishioners very irregular; and that in order to make them kneel and join in the Responses, he gave every one of them a Hassock and a Common-prayer Book: and at the same time employed an itinerant Singing-Master, who goes about the Country for that Purpose, to instruct 8vo, published at intervals; the first in 1671; the second in 1678; the third in 1682; the fourth in 1694; and the others after his death in that year. Robert Sanderson, who died in 1663, was a friend of Laud and chaplain to Charles I., who made him Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. At the Restoration he was made Bishop of Lincoln. His fame was high for piety and learning. The best edition of his Sermons was the eighth, published in 1687 : Thirty-six Sermons, with Life by Izaak Walton. Isaac Barrow, Theologian and Mathematician, Cam- bridge Professor and Master of Trinity, died in 1677. His Works were edited by Archbishop Tillotson, and include Sermons that must have been very much to the mind of Sir Roger de Coverley, ‘Against * Evil Speaking.” Edmund Calamy, who died in 1666, was a Noncon- formist, and one of the writers of the Treatise against Episcopacy called, from the Initials of its authors, Smectymnuus, which Bishop Hall attacked and John Milton defended. Calamy opposed the exe- cution of Charles I. and aided in bringing about the Restoration. He became chaplain to Charles II., but the Act of Uniformity again made him a seceder. His name, added to the other three, gives breadth to the suggestion of Sir Roger's orthodoxy. 1 Honour first the immortal Gods, as is ordained by law. them rightly in the Tunes of the Psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the Country Churches that I have ever heard. As Sir Roger is Landlord to the whole Congregation, he keeps them in very good Order, and will suffer no Body to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprized into a short Nap at Sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any Body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his Servant to them. Several other of the old Knight's Particularities break out upon these Occasions: Sometimes he will be lengthening out a Verse in the Singing-Psalms, half a Minute after the rest of the Congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the Matter of his Devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same Prayer; and sometimes stands up when every Body else is upon their Knees, to count the Congregation, or see if any of his Tenants are missing. I was Yesterday very much surprised to hear my old Friend, in the Midst of the Service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the Congregation. This John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an idle Fellow, and at that time was kicking his Heels for his Diversion. This Authority of the Knight, though exerted in that odd Manner which accompanies him in all Circumstances of Life, has a very good Effect upon the Parish, who are not polite enough to see anything ridiculous in his Behaviour; besides that the general good Sense and Worthiness of his Character makes his friends observe these little Singularities as Foils that rather set off than blemish his good Qualities. As soon as the Sermon is finished, no Body presumes to stir till Sir RogBR is gone out of the Church. The Knight walks down from his Seat in the Chancel between a double row of his Tenants, that stand bowing to him on each Side; and every now and then enquires how such an one's Wife, or Mother, or Son, or Father do, whom he does not see at Church; which is understood as a secret Reprimand to the Person that is absent. The Chaplain has often told me, that upon a Catechising- day, when Sir Roger has been pleased with a Boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next Day for his Encouragement; and sometimes accompanies it with a Flitch of Bacon to his Mother. Sir RogBR has like- wise added five Pounds a Year to the Clerk's Place; and that he may encourage the young Fellows to make themselves perfect in the Church-Service, has promised upon the Death of the present Incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to Merit. The fair Understanding between Sir Roger and his Chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing Good, is the more remarkable, because the very next Village is famous for the Differences and Contentions that rise between the Parson and the 'Squire, who live in a perpetual State of War. The Parson is always preaching at the 'Squire, and the 'Squire to be revenged on the Parson never comes to Church. The 'Squire has made all his Tenants Atheists and Tithe-Stealers; while the Parson instructs them every Sunday in the Dignity of his Order, and insinuates to them in almost every Sermon, that he is a better Man than his Patron. In Short, Matters are come to such an Extremity, that the 'Squire has not said his Prayers either in publick or private this half Year; and that the Parson threatens him, if he does not mend his Manners, to pray for him in the Face of the whole Congre- gation. Feuds of this Nature, though too frequent in the Country, are very fatal to the ordinary People; who are so used to be dazled with Riches, that they pay as much Deference to 240 ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1710. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF the Understanding of a Man of an Estate, as of a Man of Learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any Truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several Men of five hundred a Year who do not believe it. L. : Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, was grandson of the earl against whom Dryden wrote “Absalom and Achitophel.” He was born in 1671—that is to say, he was only a few months older than Steele and Addison, and he died at the age of forty-four, in February, 1713, during the three months' interval between the close of The Spectator and the beginning of The Guardian. He had been educated with great care, under the direct influence of John Locke, visited the chief courts of Europe, and in 1693 he became member for Poole. In Parliament he was a liberal supporter of the principles that triumphed at the Revolution, but delicacy of health and disinclination for the feuds of party caused him to decline office under William III. In 1698 he went to Holland, where he was much in the society of Pierre Bayle, Le Clerc, and others who claimed liberty of thought. Between 1708 and 1711 Shaftesbury published the essays which were collected in three volumes as “Character- istics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times.” The first, published in 1708, was his “Letter concerning Enthusiasm;” the second, “Sensus Communis; or, an Essay upon the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” appeared in 1709. Other essays published in that year were “The Moralists, a Rhapsody,” and “An Enquiry concerning Virtue,” which had been printed as early as 1699. In 1710 appeared “Soliloquy ; or, Advice to an Author,” which was placed third in the collection of the “Characteristics.” Shaftesbury's essays represent one form of the tendency to speculate on God and man that grew with the advance of the eighteenth century. There was a reaction against dead formalisms in Church and State, strongest in France, where men had suf- fered most from the corruptions of society. Pierre Bayle, who died in 1736, had suggested bold doubts in his “Dictionnaire Historique et Critique,” which was translated into English in 1710, the year in which Leibnitz at Paris endeavoured to reply to Bayle's doubts, to maintain God’s justice, and re- concile the sense of it with sense of evil in the world, in “Essais de Theodicée.” Lord Shaftesbury was then dealing with such questions in his essays as a virtuoso and a man of taste, and his writings were considered to be models of sense and refinement. He maintained the existence of a beneficent God in all creation, but put aside dogmatic theology as super- stition; he condemned enthusiasm, argued that it was best met with kindly ridicule, that good humour and good taste are essential to the religious life, that all nature breathes a divine harmony which leads to good, and that, as Pope wrote afterwards, there is in “all discord harmony not understood.” Shaftes- bury was not without real energy of thought; his essays were translated into foreign languages, and he was regarded as an excellent example of politeness and enlightenment. He was a real person of quality, and not unconscious of the fact, when an author of humble birth and means, would now and then write himself “Person of Quality” upon his title-page to win an audience. Shaftesbury's manner as an essayist will be sufficiently illustrated by the first section of his SOLILOQUY ; or, ADVICE TO AN AUTHOR. I HAVE often thought how ill-natur'd a Maxim it was, which, on many occasions, I have heard from People of good understanding; “That, as to what related to private Conduct, “No-one was ever the better for ADvice.” But upon farther Examination, I have resolv’d with my-self, that the Marin might be admitted without any violent prejudice to Mankind. For in the manner Advice was generally given, there was no reason, I thought, to wonder it shou'd be so ill receiv'd. Something there was which strangely inverted the Case, and made the Giver to be the only Gainer. For by what I cou’d observe in many Occurrences of our Lives, That which we call'd giving Advice, was properly, taking an occasion to shew our own Wisdom, at another's expence. On the other side, to be instructed, or to receive Advice on the terms usually prescrib'd to us, was little better than tamely to afford another the Occasion of raising himself a Character from our Defects. TN reality, however able or willing a Man may be to advise, 'tis no easy matter to make ADVICE a free Gift. For to make a Gift free indeed, there must be nothing in it which takes from Another, to add to Our-self. In all other respects, to give and to dispense, is Generosity, and Good-will: but to bestow Wisdom, is to gain a Mastery which can't so easily be allow'd us. Men willingly learn whatever else is taught 'em. They can bear a Master in Mathematicks, in Musick, or in any other Science; but not in Understanding and Good Sense. 'Tis the hardest thing imaginable for an AUTHoR not to appear assuming in this respect. For all Authors at large are, in a manner, profess'd Masters of Understanding to the age. And for this reason, in early days, Poets were look’d upon as authentick Sages, for dictating Rules of Life, and teaching Manners and good Sense. How they may have lost their Pretension, I can’t say, 'Tis their peculiar Happiness and Advantage, not to be oblig'd to lay their Claim openly. And if whilst they profess only to please, they secretly advise, and give Instruction ; they may now perhaps, as well as formerly, be esteem’d, with justice, the best and most honour- able among Authors. MEAN while : “If dictating and prescribing be of so dan- “gerous a nature, in other Authors; what must his Case be, “who dictates to Authors themselves 2 ” To this I answer; That my Pretension is not so much to give Advice, as to consider of the Way and Manner of advising. My Science, if it be any, is no better than that of a Language- Master, or a Logician. For I have taken it strongly into my head, that there is a certain Knack or Legerdemain in Argu- ment, by which we may safely proceed to the dangerous part of advising, and make sure of the good fortune to have our Advice accepted, if it be any thing worth. My Proposal is to consider of this Affair, as a Case of SURGERY, 'Tis Practice, we all allow, which makes a Hand. “But who, on this occasion, will be practis'd on 2 Who will “willingly be the first to try our Hand 3 and afford us the “requisite Experience 3’” Here lies the Difficulty. For sup- posing we had Hospitals for this sort of Surgery, and there were always in readiness certain meek Patients who wou'd bear any Incisions, and be prob’d or tented at our pleasure; the advantage no doubt wou'd be considerable in this way of --- A.D. 1710.] 241 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Practice. Some Insight must needs be obtain'd. In time a Hand too might be acquir'd ; but in all likelihood a very rough-one : which wou'd by no means serve the purpose of this latter Surgery. For here, a Tenderness of Hand is prin- cipally requisite. No Surgeon will be call'd who has not Feeling and Compassion. And where to find a Subject in which the Operator is likely to preserve the highest Tender- ness, and yet act with the greatest Resolution and Boldness, is certainly a matter of no slight Consideration. I AM sensible there is in all considerable Projects, at first appearance, a certain Air of chimerical Fancy and Conceit, which is apt to render the Projectors somewhat liable to ridicule. I wou'd therefore prepare my Reader against this Prejudice; by assuring him, that in the Operation propos'd, there is nothing which can justly excite his Laughter; or if there be, the Laugh perhaps may turn against him, by his own consent, and with his own concurrence: Which is a Speci- men of that very Art or Science we are about to illustrate. AccortDINGLY, if it be objected against the above-mention'd Practice, and Art of Surgery, “That we can no-where find “such a meek Patient, with whom we can in reality make bold, “and for whom nevertheless we are sure to preserve the greatest “Tenderness and Regard : ”I assert the contrary; and say, for instance, That we have each of us OUR SELVEs to practise on. “Mere Quibble ! (you'll say :) For who can thus multiply “himself into two Persons, and be his own Subject 2 Who can “properly laugh at himself, or find in his heart to be either “merry or severe on such an occasion ?” Go to the Poets, and they will present you with many Instances. Nothing is more common with them than this sort of SoLILoquy. A Person of profound Part, or perhaps of ordinary Capacity, happens, on some occasion, to commit a Fault. He is concern’d for it. He comes alone upon the Stage; looks about him, to see if anybody be near; then takes himself to task, without sparing himself in the least. You wou’d wonder to hear how close he pushes matters, and how thorowly he carries on the busi- ness of Self-dissection. By virtue of this SoLILoquy he becomes two distinct Persons. He is Pupil and Preceptor. He teaches and he learns. And in good earnest, had Inothing else to plead in behalf of the Morals of our modern Dra- matick Poets, I shou’d defend'em still against their Accusers for the sake of this very Practice, which they have taken care to keep up in its full force. For whether the Practice be natural or no in respect of common Custom and Usage; I take upon me to assert, that it is an honest and laudable Practice; and that if already it be not natural to us, we ought however to make it so, by Study and Application. “ARE we to go therefore to the Stage for Edification ? “Must we learn our Catechism from the Poets? And, like the “Players, speak aloud, what we debate at any time with our- “selves alone * Not absolutely so, perhaps. Tho where the harm wou’d be, of spending some Discourse, and bestowing a little Breath and clear Voice purely upon our-selves, I can't see. We might peradventure be less noisy and more profit- able in Company, if at convenient times we discharg’d some of our articulate Sound, and spoke to ourselves vivá voce when alone. For Company is an extreme Provocative to Fancy; and, like a hot-bed in Gardening, is apt to make our Imagi- nations sprout too fast. But by this anticipating Remedy of SoLILoquy we may effectually provide against the Incon- venience. WE HAVE an account in History of a certain Nation, who seem to have been extremely apprehensive of the Effects of this Frothiness or Ventosity in Speech, and were accordingly resolv’d to provide thorowly against the Evil. They carry'd this Remedy of ours so far, that it was not only their Custom, but their Religion and Law, to speak, laugh, use action, gesticulate, and do all in the same manner when by them- selves, as when they were in Company. If you had stol’n upon 'em unawares at any time, when they had been alone, you might have found ’em in high Dispute, arguing with themselves, reproving, counselling, haranguing themselves, and in the most florid manner accosting their own Persons. In all likelihood they had been once a People remarkably fluent in Expression, much pester'd with Orators and Preachers, and mightily subject to that Disease which has since been call'd the Leprosy of Eloquence ; till some sage Legislator arose amongst 'em, who when he cou’d not oppose the Torrent of Words, and stop the Flux of Speech, by any immediate Application, found means to give a vent to the loquacious Humour, and broke the force of the Distemper by eluding it. OUR present Manners, I must own, are not so well calcu- lated for this Method of SoLILoquy, as to suffer it to become a national Practice. 'Tis but a small Portion of this Regimen, which I wou’d willingly borrow, and apply to private use; especially in the case of Authors. I am sensible how fatal it might prove to many honourable Persons, shou'd they ac- quire such a Habit as this, or offer to practise such an Art, within reach of any mortal Ear. For ’tis well known, we are not many of us like that Roman, who wish'd for Windows to his Breast, that all might be as conspicuous there as in his House, which for that very reason he had built as open as was possible. I wou'd therefore advise our Probationer, upon his first Exercise, to retire into some thick Wood, or rather take the Point of some high Hill; where, besides the Advan- tage of looking about him for security, he wou'd find the Air perhaps more rarefy'd, and Sutable to the Perspiration requir’d, especially in the case of a Poetical Genius. 1 Scriptorwm chorus ommis amat memws, & fugit urben. 'TIs remarkable in all great Wits, that they have own’d this Practice of ours, and generally describ'd themselves as a People liable to sufficient Ridicule, for their great loquacity by themselves, and their profound Taciturnity in Company. Not only the Poet and Philosopher, but the Orator himself was wont to have recourse to our Method. And the Prince of this latter Tribe may be prov'd to have been a great Fre- quenter of the Woods and River-banks; where he consum'd abundance of his Breath, suffer'd his Fancy to evaporate, and reduc’d the vehemence both of his Spirit and Voice. If other Authors find nothing which invites’em to these Recesses, ’tis because their Genius is not of force enough : Or tho it be, their Character, they may imagine, will hardly bear 'em out. For to be surpriz'd in the odd Actions, Gestures, or Tones, which are proper to such Asceticks, I must own wou'd be an ill Adventuro for a Man of the world. But with Poets and Philosophers 'tis a known Case: 2 Aut insanit Homo, aut versus facit— CoMPostNG and Raving must necessarily, we see, bear a resemblance. And for those Composers who deal in Systems, and airy Speculations, they have vulgarly pass'd for a sort of Prose-Poets. Their secret Practice and Habit has been as frequently noted: 8 Murmura cium secum & rabiosa silentia rodwmt. Both these sorts are happily indulg'd in this Method of Evacuation. They are thought to act naturally, and in their 1 Horace, Epist. II., ii. 77. The whole choir of writers loves the grove and shuns the town. * Horace, Sat. II., vii. 117. Verses. 3 Persius, iii. 81. With muttered sounds and crazy silences. The man's either raving or making 207 242 [A.D. 1710 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. proper way, when they assume these odd manners. But of other Authors’tis expected they shou'd be better bred. They are oblig'd to preserve a more conversible Habit; which is no small misfortune to 'em. For if their Meditation and Resvery be obstructed by the fear of a nonconforming Mein in Conversation, they may happen to be so much the worse Authors for being finer Gentlemen. Their Fervency of Imagi- nation may possibly be as strong as either the Philosopher's or the Poet's. But being deny'd an equal Benefit of Dis- charge, and with-held from the wholesom manner of Relief in private; 'tis no wonder if they appear with so much Froth and Scum in publick. 'Tis observable, that the writers of MEMOIRs and Essays are chiefly subject to this frothy Distemper. Nor can it be doubted that this is the true Reason why these Gentlemen entertain the World so lavishly with what relates to them- selves. For having had no opportunity of privately conversing with themselves, or exercising their own Genius, so as to make Acquaintance with it, or prove its Strength ; they immediately fall to work in a wrong place, and exhibit on the Stage of the World that Practice, which they shou'd have kept to themselves; if they design'd that either they, or the World, shou’d be the better for their Moralitys. Who indeed can endure to hear an Empirick talk of his own Constitution, how he governs and manages it, what Diet agrees best with it, and what his Practice is with himself? The Proverb, no doubt, is very just, Physician cure thy-self. Yet methinks one shou’d have but an ill time, to be present at these bodily Operations. Nor is the Reader in truth any better enter- tain'd, 'when he is oblig'd to assist at the experimental Discussions of his practising Author, who all the while is in reality doing no better, than taking his physick in pub- lick. FoR this reason, I hold it very indecent for any one to publish his Meditations, Occasional Reflections, Solitary Thoughts, or other such Exercises as come under the notion of this self-discoursing Practice. And the modestest Title I can conceive for such Works, wou’d be that of a certain Author, who call'd them his Cruditys. 'Tis the Unhappiness of those Wits, who conceive suddenly, but without being able to go out their full time, that after many Miscarriages and Abortions, they can bring nothing well-shapen or perfect into the World. They are not however the less fond of their Off-spring, which in a manner they beget in publick. For so publick-spirited they are, that they can never afford them- selves the least time to think in private, for their own parti- cular benefit and use. For this reason, tho they are often retir’d, they are never by themselves. The World is ever of the Party. They have their Author-Character in view, and are always considering how this or that Thought wou'd serve to compleat some Set of Contemplations, or furnish out the Common-Place-Book, from whence these treasur’d Riches are to flow in plenty on the necessitous World. BUT if our Candidates for Authorship happen to be of the sanctify'd kind; ’tis not to be imagin’d how much further still their Charity is apt to extend. So exceeding great is their Indulgence and Tenderness for Mankind, that they are unwilling the least Sample of their devout Exercise shou'd be lost. Tho there are already so many Formularys and Rituals appointed for this Species of Soliloquy ; they can allow nothing to lie conceal’d, which passes in this religious Commerce and way of Dialogue between them and their Soul. * THESE may be term'd a sort of Pseudo-Asceticks, who can have no real Converse either with themselves, or with Heaven; whilst they look thus a-squint upon the World, and carry Titles and Editions along with 'em in their Meditations. And altho the Books of this sort, by a common Idiom, are call'd good Books; the Authors, for certain, are a sorry Race: For religious Cruditys are undoubtedly the worst of any. A Saint-Author of all Men least values Politeness. He scorns to confine that Spirit, in which he writes, to Rules of Criti- cism and profane Learning. Nor is he inclin’d in any respect to play the Critick on himself, or regulate his Style or Lan- guage by the Standard of good Company, and People of the better sort. He is above the Consideration of that which in a narrow sense we call Manners. Nor is he apt to examine any other faults than those which he calls Sins : Tho a Sinner against Good-Breeding, and the Laws of Decency, will no more be esteem’d a good Author, than will a Sinner against Grammar, good Argument, or good Sense. And if Moderation and Temper are not of the Party with a Writer; let his Cause be ever so good, I doubt whether he will be able to recommend it with great advantage to the World. ON this account, I wou’d principally recommend our Exer- cise of Self-Converse to all such Persons as are addicted to write after the manner of holy Advisers ; especially if they lie under an indispensible Necessity of being Talkers or Haranguers in the same kind. For to discharge frequently and vehemently in publick, is a great hindrance to the way of private Exercise; which consists chiefly in Controul. But where, instead of Controul, Debate or Argument, the chief Exercise of the Wit consists in uncontroulable Harangues and Reasonings, which must neither be question’d nor con- tradicted; there is great danger, lest the Party, thro' this Habit, shou’d suffer much by Cruditys, Indigestions, Choler, Bile, and particularly by a certain Tumour or Flatulency, which renders him of all Men the least able to apply the wholesom Regimen of Self-Practice. 'Tis no wonder if such quaint Practitioners grow to an enormous size of Absurdity, whilst they continue in the reverse of that Practice, by which alone we correct the Redundancy of Humours, and chasten the Exuberance of Conceit and Fancy. A REMARKABLE Instance of the want of this sovereign Remedy may be drawn from our common great Talkers, who engross the greatest part of the Conversations of the World, and are the forwardest to speak in publick Assembly's. Many of these have a sprightly Genius, attended with a mighty Heat and Ebullition of Fancy. But ’tis a certain observation in our Science, that they who are great Talkers in Company, have never been any Talkers by themselves, nor us’d to these private Discussions of our home Regimen. For which reason their Froth abounds. Nor can they discharge any thing without some mixture of it. But when they carry their attempts beyond ordinary Discourse, and wou’d rise to the Capacity of Authors, the Case grows worse with 'em. Their Page can carry none of the Advantages of their Person. They can no-way bring into Paper those Airs they give themselves in Discourse. The turns of Voice and Action, with which they help out many a lame Thought and incoherent Sentence, must here be laid aside; and the Speech taken to pieces, compar'd together and examin'd from head to foot. So that unless the Party has been us’d to play the Critick thorowly upon himself, he will hardly be found proof against the Criticisms of others. His thoughts can never appear very correct; unless they have been us’d to sound Correction by themselves, and been well-form'd and disciplin’d before they are brought into the Field. 'Tis the hardest thing in the world to be a good Thinker, without being a strong Self- Examiner, and thorow-pac'd Dialogist, in this solitary way. When the third Earl of Shaftesbury died, aged forty-four, Alexander Pope was a young man of To A.D. 1713.] 243 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. five-and-twenty. Pope was born in 1688, and educated as a Roman Catholic. By that faith—the faith of his parents—he abided to the last, resenting the persecution that it suffered in his time, although indifferent as to its dogmas. In 1709, at the age of twenty-one, Pope had in the sixth part of the “Poetical Miscellanies,” published by Jacob Tonson, several of his pieces printed. There was “January and May ; or, The Merchant's Tale, from Chaucer, by Mr. Alexander Pope.” There was “The Episode of Sarpedon, translated from the Twelfth and Six- teenth Books of Homer's ‘Iliad,” by Mr. Alexander Pope.” The same volume opened with “Pastorals, by Mr. Philips,” and closed with “Pastorals, by Mr. Alexander Pope.” It also included lines “To the Author of Rosamond,” an opera, by Mr. Tickell; and two poems, one by Wycherley in praise of the genius of young Pope. Now the “Pastorals” by Mr. Philips were by Ambrose Philips, who was seventeen years older than Pope, a man of Addison's age, and a most intimate friend of Addison's. Thomas Tickell was a young man who first won Addison's goodwill by praising the worst piece he wrote—the opera of “Rosamond”—and who soon became, as Pope afterwards considered, Addison's familiar hench- man. The “Pastorals” of Philips in the “Miscellany” were prefaced by a few words in commendation of pastoral poetry, which named Spenser with Virgil, and they were to a certain extent based on appre- ciation of Spenser’s “Shepherd's Calendar,” with Colinet, Thenot—names taken by Spenser from Clement Marot — Lanquet, and Hobbinol among the shepherds, and Hobbinol in love with Rosa- lind. Pope's “Pastorals,” one for each of the four seasons, were, on the contrary, entirely inspired by the ancients. TXamon, Strephon, Daphnis, Alexis, Lycidas, and Thyrsis were the shepherds. If, theo- retically, Ambrose Philips was right in seeking escape from the weak French-classical style by following one of our own great poets of a stronger time, there was practically one difficulty in his way—he was not himself a great poet, and he followed Spenser feebly at a distance. If, theoretically, Pope was wrong in following the devices of an age that called itself Augustam, and deserves to keep the name if we now take it to mean that the reign of Queen Anne was distinguished in literature by a great deal of weak cant about Augustus, there was practically one ad- vantage in his case, that he was himself a poet. In 1711 Pope’s “Essay on Criticism * appeared, and Addison, in a paper of The Spectator, made its worth known throughout the country. Pope was grateful, and contributed to The Spectator his “Messiah,” a piece of right “Augustan * ingenuity, showing how very much Isaiah was like Virgil. Such evidence of the politeness of the prophet must in Queen Anne's day greatly have commended him to the attention of the virtuoso. In the same year, 1712, Pope's age being twenty-four, Pope published in Lintot’s “Miscellany” a translation of the first book of the “Thebaid” of Statius, and that daintiest of mock heroics, “The Rape of the Lock,” in its first form, of which the two Cantos were afterwards (in 1714) expanded to five, with addition of the “ma- chinery” of sylphs and gnomes. On the 12th of March, 1713, Richard Steele, who had issued the last number of his Spectator on the 6th of December, 1712, began The Guardian, another series of daily essays. In this, as the political ques- tions of the day became more urgent, he was to be free to speak his mind upon them, and so use his pen as guardian of the liberties obtained by the English Revolution, though he associated the name of the paper, as usual, with a distinct character, Mr. Nestor Ironside, guardian to the Lizard family. In some early numbers of The Guardian appeared a short series of papers upon pastoral poetry. Pope saw in them the hand of Addison's henchman, Thomas Tickell, and was nettled to find that they closed with much praise of the pastorals of Addison's friend, Ambrose Philips, and no mention of his, that had appeared in the same volume, unless by a distant allusion that might be taken for disapprobation of their form. Pope then asked and obtained leave of Steele to add one paper to the series, and No. 40 of The Guardian contained accordingly, from Pope's hand, the following ironical comparison between THE PASTORALS OF POPE AND PHILIPS. Compuleramtgwe greges Corydon and Thyrsis in union : Ea, illo Corydom, Corydon est tempore mobis. VIRG. Ecl. 7. v. 2 and ult. Their sheep and goats together graz'd the plains— Since when P 'tis Corydon among the swains, Young Corydon without a rival reigns.—DRYDEN. I designed to have troubled the reader with no farther discourses of Pastorals, but being informed that I am taxed of partiality in not mentioning an author, whose eclogues are published in the same volume with Mr. Philips's; I shall employ this paper in observations upon him, written in the free spirit of criticism, and without apprehension of offend- ing the gentleman, whose character it is, that he takes the greatest care of his works before they are published, and has the least concern for them afterwards. * I have laid it down as the first rule of pastoral, that its idea should be taken from the manners of the Golden Age, and the moral form'd upon the representation of innocence; 'tis therefore plain that any deviations from that design degrade a poem from being true pastoral. In this view it will appear that Virgil can only have two of his eclogues allowed to be such : His first and ninth must be rejected, because they describe the ravages of armies, and oppressions of the innocent; Corydon's criminal passion for Alexis throws out the second; the calumny and railing in the third are not proper to that state of concord; the eighth represents unlawful ways of procuring love by enchantments, and in- troduces a shepherd whom an inviting precipice tempts to self-murder. As to the fourth, sixth, and tenth, they are given up by Heinsius, Salmasius, Rapin, and the critics in general. They likewise observe that but eleven of all the Idyllia of Theocritus are to be admitted as pastorals; and even out of that number, the greater part will be excluded for one or other of the reasons above-mentioned. So that when I remark'd in a former paper, that Virgil's eclogues, taken all together, are rather Select Poems than Pastorals; I might have said the same thing, with no less truth, of Theocritus. The reason of this I take to be yet unobserved by the critics, viz., “They never meant them all for pas- torals.” Which it is plain Philips hath done, and in that particular excelled both Theocritus and Virgil, 244 [A.D. 1713. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. As simplicity is the distinguishing characteristick of pastoral, Virgil has been thought guilty of too courtly a stile : His language is perfectly pure, and he often forgets he is among peasants. I have frequently wondered that since he was so conversant in the writings of Ennius, he had not imitated the rusticity of the Doric, as well, by the help of the old obsolete Roman language, as Philips hath by the antiquated English: For example, might he not have said Quoi instead of Cui ; Quoijum for Cujum ; volt for vult, &c., as well as our modern hath Welladay for Alas, Whilome for of old, make mock for deride, and witless younglings for simple lambs, &c., by which means he had attained as much of the air of Theocritus, as Philips hath of Spenser. Mr. Pope hath fallen into the same error with Virgil. His clowns do not converse in all the simplicity proper to the country: His names are borrowed from Theocritus and Virgil, which are improper to the scene of his pastorals. He introduces Daphnis, Alexis and Thyrsis on British plains, as Virgil had done before him on the Mantuan : whereas Philips, who hath the strictest regard to propriety, makes choice of names peculiar to the country, and more agreeable to a reader of delicacy; such as Hobbinol, Lobbin, Cuddy, and Colin Clout. So easy as pastoral writing may seem (in the simplicity we have described it), yet it requires great reading, both of the ancients and moderns, to be a master of it. Philips hath given us manifest proofs of his knowledge of books; it must be confessed his competitor hath imitated some single thoughts of the ancients well enough, if we consider he had not the happiness of an university education; but he hath dispersed them here and there, without that order and method which Mr. Philips observes, whose whole third pastoral is an instance how well he hath studied the fifth of Virgil, and how judiciously reduced Virgil's thoughts to the standard of pastoral; as his contention of Colin Clout and the Nightingale, shows with what exactness he hath imitated Strada. When I remarked it as a principal fault to introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth in descriptions where the scene lies in our country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Philips hath with great judgment described wolves in England in his first pastoral. Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself (as Mr. Pope hath done) to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue. 'Tis plain Spenser neglected this pedantry, who in his pastoral of November mentions the mournful song of the nightingale. Sad Philomel her song in tears doth steep. And Mr. Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, lilies, and daffodils blow in the same season. But the better to discover the merits of our two contem- porary pastoral writers, I shall endeavour to draw a parallel of them, by setting several of their particular thoughts in the same light, whereby it will be obvious how much Philips hath the advantage. With what simplicity he introduces two shepherds singing alternately: Hobb. Come, Rosalind, O come, for without thee What pleasure can the country have for me P Come, Rosalind, O come: my brinded kine, My Snowy sheep, my farm, and all is thine. Lang. Come, Rosalind, O come; here shady bowers, Here are cool fountains, and here springing flow’rs, Come, Rosalind; here ever let us stay, And sweetly waste our live-long time away. Our other pastoral writer, in expressing the same thought, deviates into downright poetry. Streph. In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love, At morm the plains, at noon the shady grove, But Delia always; forc’d from Delia's sight, Nor plains at morn, mor groves at noon delight. Daph. Sylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May, More bright than moon, yet fresh as early day; Ev’n spring displeases when she shines not here : But blest with her, 'tis spring throughout the year. In the first of these authors, two shepherds thus innocently describe the behaviour of their mistresses. Hobb. As Marian bath'd, by chance I passed by ; She blush'd, and at me cast a side-long eye : Then swift beneath the crystal wave she try’d Her beauteous form, but all in vain, to hide. Lang. As I to cool me bath’d one sultry day, Fond Lydia lurking in the sedges lay, The wanton laugh’d, and seem'd in haste to fly; Yet often stopp'd and often turn’d her eye. The other modern (who it must be confessed hath a knack of versifying) hath it as follows. Streph. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain; But feigns a laugh, to see me search around, And by that laugh the willing fair is found. Daph. The Sprightly Sylvia trips along the green; She rums, but hopes she does not run unseen ; While a kind glance at her pursuer flies, How much at variance are her feet and eyes! There is nothing the writers of this kind of poetry are fonder of, than descriptions of pastoral presents. Philips says thus of a sheephook. - Of season’d elm ; where studs of brass appear, To speak the giver's name, the month and year, The hook of polish’d steel, the handle turn'd, And richly by the graver's skill adorn’d. The other of a bowl embossed with figures, where wanton ivy twines, And swelling clusters bend the curling vines; Four figures rising from the work appear, The various seasons of the rolling year; And what is that which binds the radiant sky, Where twelve bright signs in beauteous order lie. The simplicity of the swain in this place, who forgets the name of the Zodiack, is no ill imitation of Virgil ; but how much more plainly and unaffectedly would Philips have dressed his thought in his Doric P And what that height, which girds the Welkin sheen, Where twelve gay signs in meet array are seen. If the reader would indulge his curiosity any farther in the comparison of particulars, he may read the first pastoral of Philips with the second of his contemporary, and the fourth and sixth of the former, with the fourth and first of the latter; where several parallel places will occur to every OIlê. Having now shown some parts, in which these two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips, to dis- cover those in which no man can compare with him. First, that beautiful rusticity, of which I shall only produce two instances, out of a hundred not yet quoted. O woful day ! O day of woe, quoth he, And woful I, who live the day to see That simplicity of diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the solemnity of the Sound, and the easy turn of the words, in this Dirge (to make use of our author's ex- pression) are extremely elegant. A.D. 1713.] 245 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. In another of his pastorals a shepherd utters a Dirge not much inferior to the former, in the following lines, Ah me the while ! ah me, the luckless day ! Ah luckless lad, the rather might I Say; Ah silly Il more silly than my sheep, Which on the flow’ry plains I once did keep. How he still charms the ear with these artful repetitions of the epithets; and how significant is the last verse I defy the most common reader to repeat them without feeling some motions of compassion. - In the next place I shall rank his Proverbs, in which I formerly observed he excels: For example, A rolling stone is ever bare of moss; And, to their cost, green years old proverbs cross. —He that late lies down, as late will rise, And, sluggard-like, till noon-day snoring lies. Against ill-luck all cunning foresight fails; Whether we sleep or wake it nought avails. Nor fear, from wyright sentence, wrong. Lastly his elegant dialect, which alone might prove him the eldest born of Spenser, and our only true Arcadian, I should think it proper for the several writers of pastoral, to confine themselves to their several counties: Spenser seems to have been of this opinion; for he hath laid the scene of one of his pastorals in Wales, where, with all the simplicity natural to that part of our island, one shepherd bids the other Good- morrow in an unusual and elegant manner. Diggon Davy, I bid hur God-day: Or Diggon hur is, or I mis-say. Diggon answers, Hur was hur while it was day-light ; But now hur is a most wretched wight, &c. But the most beautiful example of this kind that I ever met with, is a very valuable piece which I chanced to find among some old manuscripts, entitled, “A Pastoral Ballad; ” which I think, for its nature and simplicity, may (notwith- standing the modesty of the title) be allowed a perfect pastoral: It is composed in the Somersetshire dialect, and the names such as are proper to the country people. It may be observed, as a farther beauty of this pastoral, the words Nymph, Dryad, Naiad, Fawn, Cupid, or Satyr, are not once mentioned through the whole. I shall make no apology for inserting some few lines of this excellent piece. Cicily breaks thus into the subject, as she is going a milking; Cicily. Rager go vetch that kee, or else tha zum Will quite be go, be vore c’have half a don. Roger. Thou shouldst not ax ma tweece, but I’ve a be To dreave our bull to bull tha parson’s kee. It is to be observed, that this whole dialogue is formed upon the passion of jealousy; and his mentioning the parson’s kine naturally revives the jealousy of the shepherdess Cicily, which she expresses as follows: Cicily. Ah Rager, Rager, chez was zore avraid When in yond vield you kiss'd tha parson's maid: Is this the love that once to me you zed When from the wake thou broughtst me ginger-bread P Roger. Cicily thou charg'st me false—I’ll zwear to thee, Tha parson's maid is still a maid for me. In which answer of his are express'd at once that “Spirit of Religion,” and that “Innocence of the Golden Age,” so necessary to be observed by all writers of pastoral. At the conclusion of this piece, the author reconciles the lovers, and ends the eclogue the most simply in the world. So Rager parted vor to vetch tha kee, And vor her bucket in went Cicily. * That is the kine or cows. I am loth to shew my fondness for antiquity so far as to prefer this ancient British author to our present English writers of pastoral; but I cannot avoid making this obvious remark, that both Spenser and Philips have hit into the same road with this old West Country Bard of ours. After all that hath been said, I hope none can think it any injustice to Mr. Pope, that I forebore to mention him as a pastoral writer; since upon the whole he is of the same class with Moschus and Bion, whom we have excluded that rank; and of whose eclogues, as well as some of Virgil’s, it may be said, that according to the description we have given of this sort of Poetry, they are by no means Pastorals, but “some- thing better.” Steele's Guardian appeared for the last time on the 1st of October, 1713, when danger of a reaction towards absolutism, which was by no means ima- ginary, pressed so much upon Steele's mind that he gave himself entirely to the momentous questions of the day. On the 6th of October he began The Englishman, which lasted until the 15th of February, 1714. In that month he entered Parliament as member for Stockbridge, in Dorset, and published a pamphlet called “The Crisis,” which endeavoured to defend the settlement of the Crown by the Revolu- tion. He did this, not by attack upon those who would be glad to see the Stuarts back, but by a very clear and temperate setting forth of what was gained by the Revolution, with recital at large of the Acts of Settlement of the respective Crowns of England and Scotland, and of the Act of the 12th and 13th years of William III. “for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects,” of other Acts bearing on the settle- ment of the English Crown, and of the articles of the Act for a union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, which received Royal Assent in the fifth year of the reign of Anne. This pamphlet was suggested by a lawyer, who supplied its materials. It was submitted before publication to Addison and to Whig statesmen for revision, pains being taken to make it simply a full and exact statement of facts to the people who might be misled through ignorance. But party-spirit then was passionate. There was a Tory majority in the House of Commons, and for the writing of “The Crisis” it expelled Steele from the House on the 18th of March, 1714, by a majority of 245 to 152. It is difficult to say how far reaction might have gone if there had been no men bold as Steele to challenge it, or to what issue dealings with the Pretender might ultimately have been brought had there been time for those who sought it to work on towards the re-establishment of Stuart rule. But the Queen died somewhat suddenly on the 1st of August, 1714. His interest in a struggle on which so much of the future of England seemed to depend did not prevent Steele from issuing in this year a “Ladies' Library,” designed to aid in deepening the characters of women and lifting them out of the frivolity that came of their misdirected or neglected education. In Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, he had sought, and Addison had joined in his endeavour, to discredit fashionable affectations among men that had come down out of the days of Charles II., and were inconsistent with our 246 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1714. English reverence for home. The steady genial labour in aid of the establishment of woman as man's equal companion in life, the playful kindliness of satire that discouraged vanities and follies, and the noble § S S S$ 8 S$ ES s s s: º: Sºs E E- -—- sº. * * * FRONTISPIECE TO THE FIRST VoIUME OF STEELE’s “LADIES' LIBRARY " (1714). warmth of his appreciation of the dignity and beauty of true womanhood and of its guiding strength in a true home, went side by side in Steele with a fearless patriotism. This is his INTRODUCTION TO THE LADIES’ LIBRARY. Being by nature more inclined to such enquiries as by general custom my sex is debarr'd from, I could not resist a strong propensity to reading; and having flattered myself that what I read dwelt with improvement upon my mind, I could not but conclude that a due regard being had to different circumstances of life, it is a great injustice to shut |books of knowledge from the eyes of women. Musing one day in this tract of thought, I turned over Some books of French and English, written by the most polite writers of the age, and began to consider what account they gave of our composure, different from that of the other sex. But indeed, when I dipped into those writ- ings, were it possible to conceive otherwise, I could not have believed from their general and undistinguished aspersions that many of these men had any such relations as mothers, wives or sisters; one of them makes a lover say in a tragedy, Thou art woman, a true copy of the first, In whom the race of all mankind was curst : Your sex by beauty was to heaven ally'd, But your great lord, the devil, taught you pride. He too, an angel, till he durst rebel, And you are, sure, the stars that with him fell. Weep on a stock of team's like vows you have, And always ready when you would deceive. OTWAY’s “Don Carlos.” Another says, ———Thy all is but a shew, Rather than solid virtue ; all but a rib, Crooked by Nature, Oh why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven With spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth P this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at Ollce With men, as angels, without feminime, Or find some other way to generate mankind? MILTON. And a third, All traitress Ah ingrate ; Ah faithless mind Ah sex, invented first to damn mankind Nature took care to dress you up for sin; Adorn’d without, unfinish’d left within : Hence by no judgment you your love direct; Talk much, ne'er think, and still the wrong affect. So much self-love in your composure’s mix’d, That love to others still remains unfix’d; Greatness, and noise, and shew are your delight. Yet wise men love you in their own despight : And, finding in their native wit no ease, Are forc’d to put your folly on to please. DRYDEN’s “Aureligzebe.” I shall conclude poetical testimonies to our disadvantage with One quotation more, Intolerable vanity Your sex Was never in the right: you’re always false. Or silly ; ev’rl your dresses are not more Fantastick than your appetites: you think Of nothing twice: opinion you have none : To day you're nice, to morrow not so free ; Now Smile, them frown, now sorrowful, then glad, Now pleas'd, now mot, and all you know not why. Virtue you affect ; inconstancy you practise ; And when your loose desires once get dominion, No hungry churl feeds coarser at a feast : Every rank fool goes down. OTwAY’s “Orphan.” It may be said for these writings, that there is something perhaps in the character of those that speak, which would circumstantiate the thing so as not to make it a reproach upon women as such. But to this it may be easily and justly answer'd, that if the author had right sentiments of woman in general, he might more emphatically aggravate an ill character, by comparison of an ill to an innocent and virtuous one, than by general calumnies without exception. But I leave authors, who are so mean as to desire to please by falling in with corrupt imaginations, rather than affect a just tho’ less extensive esteem by labouring to rectifie our affections by reason; of which number are the greater part of those who have succeeded in poetry, either in verse or prose on the stage. When I apply myself to my French reading, I find women are still worse in proportion to the greater warmth of the climate ; and according to the descriptions of us in the wits of that nation, tho’ they write in cool thought, and in prose, by way of plain opinion, we are made up of affecta- tion, coquettry, falsehood, disguise, treachery, wantonness, A.D. 1714.] 247 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, and perfidiousness. All our merit is to be less guilty one than another under one of these heads. Dissertations for the conduct of life are as gravely com- posed upon these topics, as if they were as infallible as mathematical truths. It cost me a great deal of pains to. study by what means I should refute such scandalous inti- mations against my very nature. But the more I reflected upon those abuses, I grew the less concerned to answer them, and finally resolved upon this. They are perhaps in the right who speak this of mere women ; and it is the business of ingenious debauch'd men, who regard us only as such, to give us those ideas of our- selves, that we may become their more easy prey. I believed it therefore the safest and surest method of gainsaying such light accounts of our sex to think them a truth, till I had arrived by the perusal of more solid authors, to a constancy of mind and settled opinion of persons and things, which should place me above being pleased or dis- satisfied with praise or dispraise, upon account of beauty or deformity, or any other advantages or disadvantages, but what flowed from the habits and dispositions of my soul. I resolve therefore to confine my little studies, which are to lead to the conduct of my life, to the writings of the most eminent of our divines, and from thence, as I have heard young students do in the study of a science, make for my own private use a common place, that may direct me in all the relations of life, that do now, or possibly may, concern Iſle àS a, WOIſlan. “The Ladies' Library” professed to be “Written by a Lady. Published by Mr. Steele.” The “Lady” often writes like Steele, and the serious endeavour to urge with utmost gentleness upon women the duty of developing themselves into rational creatures with a divine purpose in their lives, is in perfect accord with one of the high uses to which Steele put his own gift of reason. Here is a passage from the section that shows what the Mother should be to the Child. Parents must have strict regard to the education of their children, to train them up to justice and honesty; to defraud and oppress no man, to be as good as their word, and to per- form all their promises and contracts. They must endeavour to imprint upon their minds the equity of that great rule which is so natural and so easy that even children are capable of it. I mean that rule which our Saviour tells us is the Law and the Prophets, to do to others as we would have others do to us, if we were in their case and circum- stances and they in ours. You that are parents, and have to deal with the world, Ought to be just and equal in all your dealings; in the first place, for the sake of your own souls, and next for the sake of your children. Not only that you may entail no curse upon the estate you leave them, but likewise that you may teach them no injustice by the example you set before them, which in this particular they will be as apt to imitate as in any one thing, because of the present worldly advantages which it seems to bring, and because justice is in truth a manly virtue, and least understood by children. Wherefore, injustice is a vice which they will soonest practise, and with the least reluctancy, because they have least knowledge of it in many particular cases, and because also they have so little sense of the great virtue of honesty. They should not be allowed to cheat, no, not in play and sport, even when they play for little or nothing; for if they practise it in that case, and be unjust in a little, they will be much more tempted to be so when they can gain a great deal by it. Xenophon, in his Institution of Cyrus, which he de- signed for the idea of a well-educated prince, tells us this little but very instructive story concerning young Cyrus; that his governor, the better to make him understand the nature of justice, put this case to him :—“You see there,” said he to Cyrus, “two boys playing, of different stature; the lesser of them has a very long coat, and the taller a very short one. Now, if you were a judge, how would you dis- pose of these two garments * Cyrus immediately, and with very good reason, as he thought, passes this sudden sentence: “The taller boy should have the longer garment, and he that was of the lower stature the shorter,” because this certainly was fittest for them both. Upon which his governor rebukes him to this purpose, telling him that if he were to make two coats for them he said well; but he did not put this case to him as a tailor, but as a judge, and as such he had given a very wrong sentence, for a judge ought not to consider what is most fit, but what is just ; not who could make best use of a thing, but who has the most right to it. By these familiar ways may the principles of virtue be instilled into children, and there is nothing wherein they may be more easily misled than in justice, in matter of right and wrong. They should therefore be taught the general rules of both, because if we would teach them to do justice, and to avoid doing injustice, we must teach them to know what is justice and what injustice; for many are unjust merely out of ignorance, and for want of knowing better, and cannot help it. Ornament from the First Edition of “The Beggar's Opera.” 248 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1714 §2) Ornament from the First Edition of “The Beggar's Opera.” *w- ... º.º. ºf ſº-ſº - sº tº º, . A 22: º - stº-322/2 ºzº-ſº *º (Zºº º % -- (Mº ; º A., ſº ºut/ N 2 º º: º £3% A WN a. - ) 4: *} § Rº- § (2ss(ſ/23; 2S - | | ſº w "S {(\ºf Jºº SS). 2 Arº ºr 'S §§ §§ANA º | y §§§ - Fº Nº) Ås ** Sº \ CHAPTER VIII. Usper George I. AND George II.-A.D. 1714 to A.D. 1760. ADDISON, at the beginning of the reign of George I., was Chief Secretary in Ireland under the Earl of Sunderland. Steele entered Parliament again as member for Boroughbridge, was made Deputy Lieu- tenant for Middlesex, and knighted upon bringing up an address. At the request of the players, to whom he had always been a friend, he replaced William Collier, Tory M.P. for Truro, as Governor of Drury Lane, and one of the first uses he made of his influence in the theatre was to produce his friend Addison's comedy of “The Drummer.” In 1715 there was the Rebellion in the North, and Addison, at the request of the Whig Government, now in power, wrote a series of essays under the name of “The Freeholder,” which appeared on Mondays and Fridays from December 23rd, 1715, to June 29th, 1716, to persuade men to accept the monarchy as settled by the Revolution. The Earl of Sunderland resigned, in August, 1716, his office of Lord Lieutenant, and Addison, no longer Chief Secretary in Ireland, married in the same month Charlotte, Countess Dowager of Warwick, and began to live at Holland House. In April, 1717, the Earl of Sunderland became Secretary of State, with Addison, aged forty- five, for colleague. He was then suffering from asthma and dropsy. Steele was in the same year lame with gout. After the failure of the Rebellion of 1715, Steele had pleaded for mercy to the condemned lords, and presented a petition. He was made one of the Commissioners of forfeited estates, which excluded other official employment. At this time he owed no more than the pay due to him would clear. In December, 1718, Steele's wife died, aged forty, leaving a son and two daughters. Addison's failing health caused him in that year to resign office, but he was interested in a Peerage Bill which his government had introduced to restrain the power of the Crown in creation of new peers. The bill, de- signed to prevent a corrupt use of power by creating new peers to Secure a vote, as had been once done by advice of Robert Harley in the preceding reign, would have transformed our peerage into a caste, feebly instead of vigorously recruited by drawing into its ranks the representatives of wealth, wisdom, or genius among the people. Steele saw the mis- take, and opposed the bill in a series of four papers, connected together by the title of “The Plebeian,” of which the first number appeared on the 14th of March, 1719. Addison replied to it on the 19th with “The Old Whig.” This division of opinion brought a very light cloud over the relation between the friends. It did not prevent their friendly greet- ings of each other, but Addison was then within a few months of his death. He died on the 17th of June, 1719, aged forty-seven, and after his death Steele missed no opportunity of paying open love and honour to his memory. In the following year the Lord Chamberlain punished Steele for opposing the Peerage Bill (which was thrown out) by depriving him of his patent as Governor of Drury Lane. The sudden fine of £700 a year caused money embarrassments. Sir Robert Walpole, who had gone out of office in 1717, returned to power in April, 1721, and in May of that year Steele was restored to his office in the theatre and its emoluments. In 1722 he produced his fourth play, “The Conscious Lovers.” In 1723 he began two other comedies, but his health failing, he went to Bath, and thence to Wales. Soon afterwards he withdrew wholly to Wales, and lived near Car- marthen in a pleasant house---now a farmhouse— upon a height overlooking the vale of the Towy. There he died on the 1st of September, 1729, aged fifty-eight. “I was told,” wrote Mr. Victor, “he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last, and would often be carried out of a summer's evening, when the country lads and lasses were assembled at their rural sports, and with his pencil give an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer.” Two daughters survived Steele. He had lost a son Richard in 1716, and a son Eugene in 1723; his youngest child, his daughter Mary, died of consumption in the year after her father's death. There remained the eldest of Steele's children, his daughter Elizabeth, who married the Hon. John Trevor, a Welsh judge, afterwards the third Lord Trevor. - ---- - - - Jonathan Swift's mother died in 1710, when he was in his forty-third year, and he wrote in his note- book, “I have now lost my barrier between me and death. God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to have been. If the way to heaven be through piety, truth, justice, and charity, she is there.” In September of that year Swift was lodging in Bury Street, next door to Mrs. Van Homrigh. Bartholomew Van Homrigh was a Dutch merchant of Amsterdam who went to Dublin at the Revolution, and was appointed by 1 See in this Library “English Plays,” pages 412–415, To A.D. 1723.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 249 William III. Commissioner of the Revenue. He married an Irishwoman of low birth, and left at his death, in 1703, about £16,000 in equal division to his wife, his two sons, and his two daughters, Esther and Mary. The family was sickly. The sons went abroad. The elder died beyond sea, and the younger died soon after. The widow and two daughters spent money in London till the widow died; in London Swift became acquainted with them, and undertook to play tutor to Esther, whose education had been neglected, who, says Lord Orrery, was “far from being either beautiful or genteel,” and who was certainly obtrusive. She fell in love with Swift, and told him she had done so. This was at the end of Queen Anne's reign. Swift was made, in 1713, Dean of St. Patrick's, and he wrote for Miss Van Homrigh a poem on her declaration to him, his title of Dean, Decanus, twisted round into Cadenus— Cadenus and Vanessa—in which he expressed his surprise and pointed out her error, but made his bitter pill so small and covered it with so much sugar that she took the dose for a sugar-plum. Swift went to his Deanery in Dublin after the change of reign which placed the Whigs again in power, and did his duty by the Church. There is reason to think that in 1716 he was married privately to Esther Johnson (Stella) in the Deanery garden. If so, it was at her wish for the private satisfaction of her mind. If he had not felt that he must forego marry- ing as others marry, while he yet desired to join himself in daily converse of mind to the woman whom he wholly loved, he would have married Esther Johnson years before. But there was that within which made Swift, in later life, keep his birth- days by reading to himself the third chapter of Job, which begins, “After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish in which I was born.” The attacks of giddiness and deafness could not be continuously misinterpreted, nor the shadow of the coming end in many a mood of inner consciousness. He would not transmit the curse to a child, yet the star of his life was indeed Esther Johnson. In 1717 Esther and Mary Van Homrigh, after their mother's death, came to live about ten miles from Dublin, in a house they had, Marley Abbey, near Cellbridge. Swift did not visit them. But in 1720, in which year Swift published proposals for the universal use of Irish linen manufactures by the Irish people, Mary Van Homrigh became dangerously ill. Then Swift, in simple kindness, called on the sisters. Mary died, and Swift did not withdraw himself from Vanessa, but again unwisely humoured her, the last survivor of a sickly house, herself not marked for a long life, until she presumed so far as to write to Esther Johnson and ask what were her relations with the . Dean. When this was sent on to Swift, he rode in anger to Marley Abbey, placed the letter upon the table before Miss Van Homrigh, left her without a word, and never saw her again. That was in 1720. Miss Van Homrigh died in 1723, and left evidence of the diseased state of her mind by requiring that “Cadenus and Vanessa,” with Swift's letters to her, should be published. The scandal-loving public pro- ceeded to the manufacture of a large stock of false sentiment that even to this day finds currency. Stella left Dublin for a time to escape from it, but when somebody said to her that the Dean must have cared for Miss Van Homrigh very much to write so beautifully as he did in “Cadenus and Vanessa,” she replied, “It is very well known that the Dean can write beautifully on a broomstick.” It was in the year after Miss Van Homrigh's death that Swift won immense popularity in Ireland by an attack upon the copper coinage that the English Government was then introducing. Coins of Small value had become so scarce in Ireland that it was often difficult to give change to a customer. The Government ordered a supply of copper money, and gave to Mr. Wood, an ironmaster at Wolverhamp- ton, the contract for making it. When the outcry was led by Swift against the coins thus introduced, Sir Isaac Newton was the Master of the Mint. He was asked to examine the new coinage, and certified that in intrinsic value it was rather better than that current in England. Swift's letters against it, signed M. B. Drapier, because in the character of Drapier he had recommended the use of Irish linen by the Irish, are amusing for their ingenious but quite honest extravagance. This is the first of them. L E T T E R Shopkeepers, Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common People OF I Aº Aº A. A. AV /), CONCERNING THE BRASS-HALF-PENCE Coined by one WILLIAM WOOD, . Hard-ware-Man, With a D F SIGN to have them pass in this KIN G D O M . Wherein is Shewn The Power of his PATENT, the Value of his HALF- PENCE, and how far every Person may be obliged to take the same in Payments, and how to behave him- self in Case such an Attempt should be made by Wood, or any other Person. (Very proper to be kept in every Family.) By M. B. D R A PIE R. LETTER. I. To the Tradesmen, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Country People in general, of the kingdom of Ireland. BRETHREN, FRIENDs, CountryMEN, AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS, What I intend now to say to you is, next to your duty to God, and the care of your salvation, of the greatest concern 208 250 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1723 to yourselves and your children; your bread and clothing, and every common necessary of life entirely depend upon it. Therefore I do most earnestly exhort you as men, as Christians, as parents, and as lovers of your country, to read this paper with the utmost attention, or get it read to you by others; which, that you may do at the less expense, I have ordered the printer to sell it at the lowest rate. It is a great fault among you, that when a person writes with no other intention than to do you good, you will not be at the pains to read his advices. One copy of this paper may serve a dozen of you, which will be less than a farthing apiece. It is your folly that you have no common or general interest in your view, not even the wisest among you; neither do you know, or enquire, or care who are your friends, or who are your enemies. About four years ago a little book was written to advise all people to wear the manufactures of this our own dear country. It had no other design, said nothing against King or Parliament, or any person whatsoever; yet the poor printer was prosecuted two years with the utmost violence; and even some weavers themselves, for whose sake it was written, being upon the jury, found him guilty. This would be enough to discourage any man from endeavouring to do you good, when you will either neglect him, or fly in his face for his pains; and when he must expect only danger to him- self, and to be fined and imprisoned, perhaps to his ruin. However, I cannot but warn you Once more of the mani- fest destruction before your eyes, if you do not behave your- selves as you ought. I will therefore first tell you the plain story of the fact; and then I will lay before you how you ought to act, in common prudence, and according to the laws of your country. The fact is thus: It having been many years since copper halfpence or farthings were last coined in this kingdom, they have been for some time very scarce, and many counterfeits passed about under the name of “raps.” Several applications were made to England that we might have liberty to coin new ones, as in former times we did; but they did not suc- ceed. At last one Mr. Wood, a mean ordinary man, a hard- ware dealer, procured a patent under his Majesty's broad seal, to coin £108,000 in copper for this kingdom ; which patent, however, did not oblige any one here to take them unless they pleased. Now, you must know that the halfpence and farthings in England pass for very little more than they are worth; and if you should beat them to pieces, and sell them to the brazier, you would not lose much above a penny in a shilling. But Mr. Wood made his halfpence of such base metal, and so much smaller than the English ones, that the brazier would hardly give you above a penny of good money for a shilling of his ; so that this sum of £108,000, in good gold and silver, must be given for trash that will not be worth above eight or nine thousand pounds real value. But this is not the worst; for Mr. Wood, when he pleaseth, may by stealth send over another £108,000, and buy all our goods for eleven parts in twelve under the value. For example, if a hatter sells a dozen of hats for five shillings apiece, which amounts to three pounds, and receives the pay. ment in Wood's coin, he really receives only the value of five shillings. Perhaps you will wonder how such an ordinary fellow as this Mr. Wood could have so much interest as to get his Majesty's broad seal for so great a sum of bad money to be sent to this poor country; and that all the nobility and gentry here could not obtain the same favour, and let us make our own halfpence as we used to do. Now I will make that matter very plain: We are at a great distance from the King's court, and have nobody there to solicit for us, although a great number of lords and squires, whose estates are here, and are our countrymen, spend all their lives and fortunes there. But this same Mr. Wood was able to attend constantly for his own interest. He is an Englishman, and had great friends, and, it seems, knew very well where to give money to those that would speak to others that could speak to the King, and would tell a fair story. And his Majesty, and perhaps the great lord or lords who advised him, might think it was for our country's good; and so, as the lawyers express it, the King was deceived in his grant, which often happens in all reigns. And I am sure, if his Majesty knew that such a patent—if it should take offect according to the desire of Mr. Wood—would utterly ruin this kingdom, which hath given such great proofs of its loyalty, he would immediately recall it, and perhaps show his displeasure to somebody or other; but a word to the wise is enough. Most of you have heard with what anger our honourable House of Commons received an account of this Wood's patent. There were several fine speeches made upon it, and plain proofs that it was all a wicked cheat from the bottom to the top: and several smart votes were printed, which that same Wood had the assurance to answer likewise in print, and in so confident a way, as if he were a better man than our whole Parliament put together. This Wood, as soon as his patent was passed, or soon after, sends over a great many barrels of those halfpence to Cork and other seaport towns, and to get them off, offered an hundred pounds in his coin for seventy or eighty in silver; but the collectors of the King's customs very honestly refused to take them, and so did almost everybody else. And since the Parliament has condemned them, and desired the King that they might be stopped, all the kingdom do abominate them. - But Wood is still working underhand to force his halfpence upon us; and if he can, by the help of his friends in England, prevail so far as to get an order that the commissioners and collectors of the King's money shall receive them, and that the army is to be paid with them, then he thinks his work shall be done. And this is the difficulty you will be under in such a case: for the common soldier, when he goes to the market or ale-house, will offer this money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will swagger and hector, and threaten to beat the butcher or ale-wife, or take the goods by force, and throw them the bad halfpence. In this and the like cases, the shopkeeper, or victualler, or any other tradesman, has no more to do than to demand ten times the price of his goods, if it is to be paid in Wood's money; for example, twenty pence of that money for a quart of ale, and so in all things else, and not part with his goods till he gets the money. - For suppose you go to an ale-house with that base money, and the landlord gives you a quart for four of those half- pence, what must the victualler do P. His brewer will not be paid in that coin; or, if the brewer should be such a fool, the farmers will not take it from them for their beer, because they are bound by their leases to pay their rents in good and lawful money of England, which this is not, nor of Ireland neither; and the Squire, their landlord, will never be so bewitched to take such trash for his land; so that it must certainly stop somewhere or other, and wherever it stops it is the same thing, and we are all undone. The common weight of these halfpence is between four and five to an ounce. Suppose five; then three shillings and fourpence will weigh a pound, and consequently twenty * Beer. First-English “bere,” barley, TO A.D. 1724.] 251 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. shillings will weigh six pounds butter weight. Now there are many hundred farmers who pay two hundred pounds a year rent; therefore, when one of these farmers comes with his half-year's rent, which is one hundred pounds, it will be at least six hundred pounds weight, which is three horses’ load. If a squire has a mind to come to town to buy clothes, and wine, and spices, for himself and family, or perhaps to pass the winter here, he must bring with him five or six horses laden with sacks, as the farmers bring their corn; and when his lady comes in her coach to our shops, it must be followed by a car loaded with Mr. Wood's money. And I hope we shall have the grace to take it for no more than it is worth. They say Squire Conolly has sixteen thousand pounds a year. Now if he sends for his rent to town, as it is likely he does, he must have two hundred and fifty horses to bring up his half-year's rent, and two or three great cellars in his house for stowage. tell; for I am assured that some great bankers keep by them forty thousand pounds in ready cash to answer all payments, which sum, in Mr. Wood's money, would require twelve hundred horses to carry it. For my own part, I am already resolved what to do. I have a pretty good shop of Irish stuffs and silks, and instead of taking Mr. Wood's bad copper, I intend to truck with my neighbours the butchers, and bakers, and brewers, and the rest, goods for goods; and the little gold and silver I have I will keep by me, like my heart's blood, till better times, or until I am just ready to starve, and then I will buy Mr. Wood's money, as my father did the brass money in King James's time, who could buy ten pounds of it with a guinea ; and I hope to get as much for a pistole, and so purchase bread from those who will be such fools as to sell it me. These halfpence, if they once pass, will soon be counter- feited, because it may be cheaply done, the stuff is so base. The Dutch likewise will probably do the same thing, and send them over to us to pay for our goods; and Mr. Wood will never be at rest, but coin on ; so that in some years we shall have at least five times £108,000 of this lumber. Now the current money of this kingdom is not reckoned to be above four hundred thousand pounds in all; and while there is a silver sixpence left, these blood-suckers will never be quiet. When once the kingdom is reduced to such a condition, I will tell you what must be the end. The gentlemen of estates will turn off their tenants for want of payment; because, as I told you before, the tenants are obliged by their leases to pay sterling, which is lawful current money of England. Then they will turn their own farmers, as too many of them do already, run all into sheep where they can, keeping only such other cattle as are necessary. Then they will be their own merchants, and send their wool, and butter, and hides, and linen beyond sea, for ready money, and wine, and spices, and silks. They will keep only a few miserable cottagers; the farmers must rob or beg, or leave their country; the shopkeepers in this and every other town must break and starve; for it is the landed man that maintains the merchant, and shopkeeper and handicraftsman. - But when the squire turns farmer and merchant himself, all the good money he gets from abroad he will hoard up to send for England, and keep some poor tailor or weaver, and the like, in his own house, who will be glad to get bread at any rate. I should never have done if I were to tell you all the miseries that we shall undergo, if we be so foolish andwicked as to take this cursed coin. It would be very hard if all Ireland should be put into one scale, and this sorry fellow Wood into the other, that Mr. Wood should weigh down this But what the bankers will do I cannot whole kingdom, by which England gets above a million of good money every year clear into their pockets; and that is more than the English do by all the world besides. But your great comfort is, that as his Majesty’s patent doth not oblige you to take this money, so the laws have not given the Crown a power of forcing the subject to take what money the King pleases; for then, by the same reason, we might be bound to take pebble-stones, or cockle-shells, or stamped leather, for current coin, if ever we should happen to live under an ill prince, who might likewise, by the same power, make a guinea pass for ten pounds, a shilling for twenty shillings, and so on, by which he would in a short time get all the silver and gold of the kingdom into his own hands, and leave us nothing but brass or leather, or what he pleased. Neither is anything reckoned more cruel and oppressive in the French Government than their common practice of calling in all their money after they have sunk it very low, and then coining it anew at a much higher value, which, however, is not the thousandth part so wicked as this abominable project of Mr. Wood. For the French give their subjects silver for silver, and gold for gold; but this fellow will not so much as give us good brass or copper for our gold and silver, nor even a twelfth part of their worth. Having said this much, I will now go on to tell you the judgment of some great lawyers on this matter, wilom. I fee’d on purpose for your sakes, and got their opinions under their hands, that I might be sure I went upon good grounds. A famous law book, called the “Mirror of Justice,” dis- coursing of the charters, or laws, ordained by our ancient kings, declares the law to be as follows: “It was ordained that no king of this realm should change or impair the money, or make any other money than of gold or silver, without the assent of all the counties; that is, as my Lord Coke says, without the assent of Parliament.” This book is very ancient, and of great authority for the time in which it was wrote, and with that character is often quoted by that great lawyer, my Lord Coke. By the laws of England several metals are divided into lawful or true metal, and unlawful or false metal. The former comprehends silver or gold, the latter all baser metals. That the former is only to pass in payments appears by an Act of Parliament made the twentieth year of Edward the First, called “The Statute concerning the passing of Pence,” which I give you here as I got it translated into English, for some of our laws at that time were, as I am told, writ in Latin:—“Whoever in buying or selling presumes to refuse an halfpenny or farthing of lawful money, bearing the stamp which it ought to have, let him be seized on as a contemner of the King's Majesty, and cast into prison.” By this statute, no person is to be reckoned a contemner of the King's Majesty, and for that crime to be committed to prison, but he who refuseth to accept the King's coin made of lawful metal, by which, as I observed before, silver and gold only are intended. That this is the true construction of the Act appears not only from the plain meaning of the words, but from my Lord Coke's observation upon it. “By this Act,” says he, “it appears that no subject can be forced to take in buying or selling, or other payment, any money made but of lawful metal; that is, of silver or gold.” The law of England gives the King all mines of gold and silver, but not the mines of other metals; the reason of which prerogative or power, as it is given by my Lord Coke, is because money can be made of gold and silver, but not of other metals. Pursuant to this opinion, halfpence and farthings were anciently made of silver; which is evident from the Act of 252 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1723 Parliament of Henry the Fourth, chap. 4, whereby it is enacted as follows: “Item, for the great scarcity that is at present within the realm of England of halfpence and farthings of silver, it is ordained and established that the third part of all the money of silver plate which shall be brought to the bullion shall be made in halfpence and farthings.” This shews that by the words halfpenny and farthing of lawful money, in that statute concerning the passing of pence, is meant a small coin in halfpence and farthings of silver. This is further manifest from the statute of the ninth year of Edward the Third, chap. 3, which enacts:—“That no ster- ling halfpenny or farthing be molten for to make vessels or any other thing, by the goldsmiths nor others, upon forfeiture of the money so molten (or melted).” By another Act in this King's reign, black money was not to be current in England; and by an Act made in the eleventh year of his reign, chap. 5, galley halfpence were not to pass. What kind of coin these were I do not know, but I presume they were made of base metal. And these Acts were no new laws, but further declarations of the old laws relating to the coin. Thus the law stands in relation to coin. Nor is there any example to the contrary, except one in Davis's Reports, who tells us that, in the time of Tyrone's rebellion, Queen Eliza- beth Ordered money of mixed metal to be coined in the Tower of London, and sent over hither for the payment of the army, obliging all people to receive it, and commanding that all silver money should be taken only as bullion—that is, for as much as it weighed. Davis tells us several particulars in this matter, too long here to trouble you with, and that the Privy Council of this kingdom obliged a merchant in England to receive this mixed money for goods transmitted hither. But this proceeding is rejected by all the best lawyers as contrary to law, the Privy Council here having no such legal power. And besides, it is to be considered that the Queen was then under great difficulties, by a rebellion in this king- dom, assisted from Spain; and whatever is done in great exigencies and dangerous times should never be an example to proceed by in Seasons of peace and quietness. I will now, my dear friends, to save you the trouble, set before you in short what the law obliges you to do, and what it does not oblige you to. First, you are obliged to take all money in payments which is coined by the King, and is of the English standard or weight, provided it be of gold or silver. Secondly, you are not obliged to take any money which is not of gold or silver; not only the halfpence or farthings of England, but of any other country. And it is merely for convenience or ease that you are content to take them ; because the custom of coining silver halfpence and farthings hath long been left off; I suppose on account of their being subject to be lost. Thirdly, much less are we obliged to take those vile half- pence of that same Wood, by which you must lose almost elevenpence in every shilling. Therefore, my friends, stand to it one and all : refuse this filthy trash. It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood, His Majesty, in his patent, obliges nobody to take these half. pence : our gracious prince hath no such ill advisers about him ; or, if he had, yet you see the laws have not left it in the King's power, to force us to take any coin but what is lawful, of right standard, gold and silver. Therefore you have nothing to fear. And let me, in the next place, apply myself particularly to you who are the poorer sort of tradesmen. Perhaps you may think you will not be so great losers as the rich, if these halfpence should pass; because you seldom see any silver, and your customers come to your shops or stalls with nothing but brass, which you likewise find hard to be got. But you may take my word, whenever this money gains footing among you, you will be utterly undone. If you carry these halfpence to a shop for tobacco, or brandy, or any other thing that you want, the shopkeeper will advance his goods accordingly, or else he must break, and leave the key under the door : Do you think I will sell you a yard of tenpenny stuff for twenty of Mr. Wood's half- pence 2 No, not under two hundred at least; neither will I be at the trouble of counting, but weigh them in a lump. I will tell you one thing further, that if Mr. Wood’s project should take, it would ruin even our beggars; for when I give a beggar a halfpenny, it will quench his thirst, or go a good way to fill his belly; but the twelfth part of a halfpenny will do him no more service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve. In short, these halfpence are like the accursed thing, which, as the Scripture tells us, the children of Israel were forbidden to touch. They will run about like the plague, and destroy every one who lays his hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told the King, that he had invented a way to torment people, by putting them into a bull of brass with fire under it. But the prince put the projector first into his brazen bull to make the experiment. This very much resembles the project of Mr. Wood; and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood's fate; that the brass he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may prove his own torment, and his destruction at last. N.B.-The author of this paper is informed by persons, who have made it their business to be exact in their observa- tions on the true value of these halfpence, that any person may expect to get a quart of twopenny ale for thirty-six of them. I desire that all families may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh their memories whenever they shall have farther notice of Mr. Wood's halfpence, or any other the like imposture. The fourth letter was considered by the Govern- ment to pass the bounds of law, and the printer was proceeded against. A grand jury ignored the bill, after each member of the jury had received a pam- phlet of “Seasonable Advice” from Swift, this text being also circulated : “And the people said unto Saul, shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel'ſ God forbid ; as the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan that he died not.” Swift had his will. Wood's halfpence were with- drawn, the Dean became for a time the most popular man in Ireland, and the Drapier's head was a tap- house sign. At the Drapier's head in Truck Street, Dublin, this was the first verse of a song written upon the great occasion — With brisk merry lays, We'll sing to the praise Of that honest patriot the Drapier; Who, all the world knows, Confounded our foes With nothing but pen, ink, and paper. TO A.D. 1724.] 253 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. And another bard began in this fashion — Now we’re free by nature, Let us all our power exert : Since each human creature May his right assert. (Chorus) Fill bumpers to the Drapier, Whose convincing paper Set us, gloriously, From Brazen Fetters free. Nearly at the same time with Swift's “Drapier's Letters” appeared Bernard Mandeville’s “Fable of the Bees,” with the great addition of prose commen- tary that enlarged a poem of five hundred lines into two substantial octavos. Bernard Mandeville, born at Dort, in Holland, about 1670, a year or two older than Steele and Addison, became doctor of medicine, and practised in England. He was a bold thinker and plain speaker. His first book, in 1709, was coarse ; his second, in 1711, included attack on follies of the doctors; and in 1714 he published the poem which afterwards served as text for his two volumes, as “The Grumbling Hive; or, the Knaves turned Honest.” It represented strongly the increas- ing tendency to dwell upon the evils of society as a result of over-civilisation, and anticipated the teach- ing of those philosophers who saw no hope of a return to innocence but by returning to the state of nature. In a hive, he said, bees are as men and women with their ranks and fashions, industries and vices. Once on a time every bee in a hive was so convinced, not of his own knavery, but of the knavery of all his neighbours, that there was a general cry for an honest hive. Jove gave them their prayer, and the knaves turned honest. Then there was an end of quarrel and of lawyers, of un- sound living and of doctors, of vanity and luxury, and of all who by trade and commerce satisfy false needs. The hive grew virtuous and poor; desiring no conquest, it put down its army, and was then invaded by neighbours; it repelled invasion by the public spirit of each bee in defence of the common hive, but came to learn that even the hive was needless, whereupon the Bees all flew off to lodge in a hollow tree, as poor and honest as they had been made by nature. In expanding the thought of this poem by appended essays in 1723, when he first gave to the whole work the name of “The Fable of the Bees,” Mande- ville argued, not, like Shaftesbury, that all is for good, but that the world is bad, and its whole civilisation fed by evil appetites and evil deeds. The work was, indeed, a first sign of the strength of the reaction that gathered force year after year, until it struck on Europe with the shock of Revo- lution. But there was nothing in Bernard Mande- ville of the fine yearning for a higher life that was to rise above the ruins of all that had been based on human wrong. It was enough for him to main- tain steadily that evil was man's good. This is one of the essays forming his appendix to “The Fable of the Bees.” AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF MORAL VIRTUE. All untaught animals are only solicitous of pleasing them- selves, and naturally follow the bent of their own inclina- tions, without considering the good or harm that from their being pleased will accrue to others. This is the reason, that in the wild state of nature those creatures are fittest to live peaceably together in great numbers, that discover the least of understanding, and have the fewest appetites to gratify; and consequently no species of animals is, without the curb of government, less capable of agreeing long together in multitudes than that of man; yet such are his qualities, whether good or bad, I shall not determine, that no creature besides himself can ever be made sociable: but being an extraordinary selfish and headstrong, as well as cunning animal, however he may be subdued by superior strength, it is impossible by force alone to make him tractable, and receive the improvements he is capable of. The chief thing, therefore, which lawgivers and other wise men, that have laboured for the establishment of society, have endeavoured, has been to make the people they were to govern, believe that it was more beneficial for everybody to conquer than indulge his appetites, and much better to mind the public than what seemed his private interest. As this has always been a very difficult task, so no wit or eloquence has been left untried to compass it; and the moralists and philosophers of all ages employed their utmost skill to prove the truth of so useful an assertion. But whether mankind would have ever believed it or not, it is not likely that any body could have persuaded them to disapprove of their natural inclinations, or prefer the good of others to their own, if at the same time he had not shewed them an equiva- lent to be enjoyed as a reward for the violence, which by so doing they of necessity must commit upon themselves. Those that have undertaken to civilise mankind, were not ignorant of this; but being unable to give so many real rewards as would satisfy all persons for every individual action, they were forced to contrive an imaginary one, that as a general equivalent for the trouble of self-denial should serve on all occasions, and without costing anything either to themselves or others, be yet a most acceptable recompense to the receivers. They thoroughly examined all the strength and frailties of our nature, and observing that none were cither so savage as not to be charmed with praise, or so despicable as patiently to bear contempt, justly concluded that flattery must be the most powerful argument that could be used to human creatures. Making use of this bewitching engine, they extolled the excellency of our nature above other animals, and setting forth with unbounded praises the wonders of our sagacity and vastness of understanding, bestowed a thousand encomiums on the rationality of our souls, by the help of which we were capable of performing the most noble achievements. Having by this artful way of flattery in- sinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct them in the notions of honour and shame; re- presenting the one as the worst of all evils, and the other as the highest good to which mortals could aspire: which being done, they laid before them how unbecoming it was the dignity of such sublime creatures to be solicitous about gratifying those appetites, which they had in common with brutes, and at the same time unmindful of those higher qualities that gave them the pre-eminence over all visible beings. They indeed confessed, that those impulses of nature were very pressing; that it was troublesome to resist, and very difficult wholly to subdue them. But this they only used as an argument to demonstrate, how glorious the con- quest of them was on the one hand, and how scandalous on the other not to attempt it. To introduce, moreover, an emulation amongst men, they divided the whole species into two classes, vastly differing 254 [A.D. 1723. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. * from one another: the one consisted of abject, low-minded people, that always hunting after immediate enjoyment, were wholly incapable of self-denial, and without regard to the good of others, had no higher aim than their private advantage; such as being enslaved by voluptuousness, yielded without resistance to every gross desire, and make no use of their rational faculties but to heighten their sensual pleasure. These vile grovelling wretches, they said, were the dross of their kind, and having only the shape of men, differed from brutes in nothing but their outward figure. But the other class was made up of lofty high-spirited creatures, that free from Sordid selfishness, esteemed the improvements of the mind to be their fairest possessions ; and setting a true value upon themselves, took no delight but in embellishing that part in which their excellency con- sisted; such as despising whatever they had in common with irrational creatures, opposed by the help of reason their most violent inclinations; and making a continual war with them- selves to promote the peace of others, aimed at no less than the public welfare and the conquest of their own passion. Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Maemia 1 These they called the true representatives of their sublime species, exceeding in worth the first class by more degrees, than that itself was superior to the beasts of the field. As in all animals that are not too imperfect to discover pride, we find, that the finest and such as are the most beautiful and valuable of their kind, have generally the greatest share of it ; so in man, the Blost perfect of animals, it is so inseparable from his very essence (how cunningly Goever some may learn to hide or disguise it) that without it the compound he is made of would want one of the chiefest ingredients: which, if we consider, it is hardly to be doubted but lessons and remonstrances, so skilfully adapted to the good opinion man has of himself, as those I have mentioned, must, if scattered amongst a multitude not only gain the assent of most of them, as to the speculative part, but like- wise induce several, especially the fiercest, most resolute, and best among them, to endure a thousand inconveniences, and undergo as many hardships, that they may have the pleasure of counting themselves men of the second class, and con- Sequently appropriating to themselves all the excellences they have heard of it. From what has been said, we ought to expect in the first place that the heroes who took such extraordinary pains to master some of their natural appetites, and preferred the good of others to any visible interest of their own, would not recede an inch from the fine motions they had received con- cerning the dignity of rational creatures; and having ever the authority of the government on their side, with all imaginable vigour assert the esteem that was due to those of the second class, as well as their superiority over the rest of their kind. In the second, that those who wanted a sufficient stock of either pride or resolution to buoy them up in mortifying of what was dearest to them, followed the sensual dictates of nature, would yet be ashamed of confess- ing themselves to be those despicable wretches that belonged to the inferior class, and were generally reckoned to be so little removed from brutes; and that therefore in their own defence they would say, as others did, and hiding their own imperfections as well as they could, cry up self-denial and public-spiritedness as much as any : for it is highly probable, that some of them, convinced by the real proofs of fortitude and self-conquest they had seen, would admire in others what 1 More strength has he who self can overthrow Than he who lays the strongest towers low. they found wanting in themselves; others be afraid of the resolution and prowess of those of the second class, and that all of them were kept in awe by the power of their rulers; wherefore it is reasonable to think, that none of them (what- ever they thought in themselves) would dare openly con- tradict, what by every body else was thought criminal to doubt of. This was (or at least might have been) the manner after which savage man was broke; from whence it is evident, that the first rudiments of morality, broached by skilful politicians, to render men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the ambitious might reap the more benefit from, and govern vast numbers of them with the greater ease and security. This foundation of politics being once laid, it is impossible that man should long remain uncivilised: for even those who only strove to gratify their appetites, being continually crossed by others of the same stamp, could not but observe, that whenever they checked their inclinations or but followed them with more circumspection, they avoided a world of troubles, and often escaped many of the calamities that generally attended the too eager pursuit after pleasure. First, they received, as well as others, the benefit of those actions that were done for the good of the whole society, and consequently could not forbear wishing well to those of the superior class that performed them. Secondly, the more intent they were in seeking their own advantage, without regard to others, the more they were hourly convinced, that none stood so much in their way as those that were most like themselves. It being the interest then of the very worst of them, more than any, to preach up public-spiritedness, that they might reap the fruits of the labour and self-denial of others, and at the same time indulge their own appetites with less disturbance, they agreed with the rest, to call everything, which, without regard to the public, man should commit to gratify any of his appetites, vice; if in that action there could be observed the least prospect, that it might either be injurious to any of the society, or ever rendered himself less serviceable to others: and to give the name of virtue to every performance, by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the con- quest of his own passions out of a rational ambition of being good. It shall be objected, that no society was ever any ways civilised before the major part had agreed upon some worship or other of an over-ruling power, and consequently that the notions of good and evil, and the dist.:ction between virtue and vice, were never the contrivance of politicians, but the pure effect of religion. Before I answer this objection, I must repeat what I have said already, that in this enquiry into the origin of moral virtue, I speak neither of Jews or Christians, but man in his state of nature and ignorance of the true deity; and then I affirm, that the idolatrous super- stitions of all other nations, and the pitiful notions they had of the supreme being, were incapable of exciting man to virtue, and good for nothing but to awe and amuse a rude and unthinking multitude. It is evident from history, that in all considerable societies, how stupid or ridiculous soever people's received notions have been, as to the deities they worshipped, human nature has ever exerted itself in all its branches, and that there is no earthly wisdom or moral virtue, but at one time or other men have excelled in it in all monarchies and commonwealths, that for riches and power have been any ways remarkable. The Egyptians, not satisfied with having deified all the ugly monsters they could think on, were so silly as to adore the A.D. 1723.] 255 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. onions of their own sowing; yet at the same time their country was the most famous nursery of arts and sciences in the world, and themselves more eminently skilled in the deepest mysteries of nature than any nation has been since. No states or kingdoms under heaven have yielded more or greater patterns in all sorts of moral virtues than the Greek and Roman empires, more especially the latter; and yet how loose, absurd and ridiculous were their sentiments as to sacred matters ? For without reflecting on the extravagant number of their deities, if we only consider the infamous stories they fathered upon them, it is not to be denied but that their religion, far from teaching men the conquest of their passions, and the way to virtue, seemed rather contrived to justify their appetites, and encourage their vices. But if we would know what made them excel in fortitude, courage and magnanimity, we must cast our eyes on the pomp of their triumphs, the magnificence of their monuments and arches; their trophies, statues, and inscriptions; the variety of their military crowns, their honours decreed to the dead, public encomiums on the living, and other imaginary rewards they bestowed on men of merit; and we shall find, that what carried so many of them to the utmost pitch of self-denial, was nothing but their policy in making use of the most effectual means that human pride could be flattered with. It is visible then that it was not any heathen religion or other idolatrous superstition, that first put man upon crossing his appetites and subduing his dearest inclinations, but the skilful management of wary politicians; and the nearer we search into human nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride. There is no man of what capacity or penetration soever, that is wholly proof against the witchcraft of flattery, if artfully performed, and suited to his abilites. Children and fools will swallow personal praise, but those that are more cunning, must be managed with greater circumspection ; and the more general the flattery is, the less it is suspected by those it is levelled at. What you say in commendation of a whole town is received with pleasure by all the inhabitants: Speak in commendation of letters in general, and every man of learning will think himself in particular obliged to you. You may safely praise the employment a man is of, or the country he was born in; because you give him an opportunity of screening the joy he feels upon his own account, under the esteem which he pretends to have for others. It is common among cunning men, that understand the power which flattery has upon pride, when they are afraid they shall be imposed upon, to enlarge, though much against their conscience, upon the honour, fair dealing and integrity of the family, country, or sometimes the profession of him they suspect; because they know that men often will change their resolution, and act against their inclination, that they may have the pleasure of continuing to appear in the opinion of some, what they are conscious not to be in reality. Thus sagacious moralists draw men like angels, in hopes that the pride at least of some will put them upon copying after the beautiful originals which they are represented to be. When the incomparable Sir Richard Steele, in the usual elegance of his easy style, dwells on the praises of his sublime species, and with all the embellishments of rhetoric sets forth the excellency of human nature, it is impossible not to be charmed with his happy turns of thought, and the politeness of his expressions. But though I have been often moved by the force of his eloquence, and ready to swallow the ingenious sophistry with pleasure, yet I could never be so serious, but reflecting on his artful encomiums I thought on the tricks made use of by the women that would teach children to be mannerly. When an awkward girl, before she can either speak or go, begins after many entreaties to make the first rude essays of curtsying, the nurse falls in an ecstacy of praise. There’s a delicate curtsy J O fine miss 1 there's a pretty lady / Mamma 1 miss can make a better curtsy than her sister Molly The same is echoed over by the maids, whilst mamma almost hugs the child to pieces; only Miss Molly, who being four years older, knows how to make a very handsome curtsy, wonders at the perverseness of their judgment, and swelling with indignation, is ready to cry at the injustice that is done her, till, being whispered in the ear that it is only to please the baby, and that she is a woman, she grows proud at being let into the secret, and rejoicing at the superiority of her understanding, repeats what has been said with large additions, and insults over the weakness of her sister, whom all this while she fancies to be the only bubble among them. These extravagant praises would by any one, above the capacity of an infant, be called fulsome flatteries, and, if you will, abominable lies; yet experience teaches us, that by the help of such gross en- comiums, young misses will be brought to make pretty curtsies, and behave themselves womanly much sooner, and with less trouble, than they would without them. 'Tis the same with boys, whom they'll strive to persuade, that all fine gentlemen do as they are bid, and that none but beggar boys are rude, or dirty their clothes; nay, as soon as the wild brat with his untaught fist begins to fumble for his hat, the mother, to make him pull it off, tells him before he is two years old, that he is a man; if he repeats that action when she desires him, he's presently a captain, a lord mayor, a king, or something higher if she can think of it, till egg'd on by the force of praise, the little urchin endeavours to imitate man as well as he can, and strains all his faculties to appear what his shallow noddle imagines he is believed to be. The meanest wretch puts an inestimable value upon him- self, and the highest wish of the ambitious man is to have all the world, as to that particular, of his opinion : so that the most insatiable thirst after fame that ever hero was inspired with, was never more than an ungovernable greediness to engross the esteem and admiration of others in future ages as well as his own; and (what mortification soever this truth might be to the second thoughts of an Alexander or a Caesar) the great recompense in view, for which the most exalted minds have with so much alacrity sacrificed their quiet health, sensual pleasures, and every inch of themselves, has never been anything else but the breath of man, the aerial coin of praise. Who can forbear laughing when he thinks on all the great men that have been so serious on the subject of that Macedonian madman, his capacious soul, that mighty heart, in one corner of which, according to Lorenzo Gratian, the world was so commodiously lodged, that in the whole there was room for six more ? Who can forbear laugh- ing, I say, when he compares the fine things that have been said of Alexander, with the end he proposed to himself from his vast exploits, to be proved from his own mouth : when the vast pains he took to pass the Hydaspes forced him to cry out: Oh ye Athenians, could you believe what dangers I expose myself to, to be praised by you ! To define then the reward of glory in the amplest manner, the most that can be said of it, is, that it consists in a superlative felicity which a man, who is conscious of having performed a noble action, enjoys in self-love, whilst he is thinking on the applause he expects of others. But here I shall be told, that besides the noisy toils of war and public bustle of the ambitious, there are noble and generous actions that are performed in silence; that virtue being its own reward, those who are really good have a 256 ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1723 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF satisfaction in their consciousness of being so, which is all the recompense they expect from the most worthy perform- ances; that among the heathens there have been men, who, when they did good to others, were so far from covoting thanks and applause, that they took all imaginable care to be for ever concealed from those on whom they bestowed their benefits, and consequently that pride has no hand in spurring man on to the highest pitch of self-denial. In answer to this I say, that it is impossible to judge of a man's performance, unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the principle and motive from which he acts. Pity, though it is the most gentle and the least mischievous of all our passions, is yet as much a frailty of our nature, as anger, pride, or fear. The weakest minds have generally the greatest share of it, for which reason none are more com- passionate than women and children. It must be owned, that of all our weaknesses it is the most amiable, and bears the greatest resemblance to virtue; nay, without a consider- able mixture of it the society could hardly subsist : but as it is an impulse of nature, that consults neither the public interest nor our own reason, it may produce evil as well as good. It has helped to destroy the honour of virgins, and corrupted the integrity of judges; and whoever acts from it as a principle, what good soever he may bring to the society, has nothing to boast of but that he has indulged a passion that has happened to be beneficial to the public. There is no merit in saving an innocent babe ready to drop into the fire : the action is neither good nor bad, and what benefit soevor the infant received, we only obliged ourselves; for to have seen it fall, and not strove to hinder it, would have caused a pain, which self-preservation compelled us to prevent : Nor has a rich prodigal, that happens to be of a commiscrat- ing temper, and loves to gratify his passions, greater virtue to boast of when he relieves an object of compassion with what to himself is a trifle. But such men, as without complying with any weakness of their own, can part from what they value themselves, and, from no other motive but their love to goodness, perform a worthy action in silence: Such men, I confess, have acquired more refined notions of virtue than those I have hitherto spoke of ; yet even in these (with which the world has yet never swarmed) we may discover no small symptoms of pride, and the humblest man alive must confess, that the reward of a virtuous action, which is the satisfaction that ensues upon it, consists in a certain pleasure he procures to himself by contemplating on his own worth : Which pleasure, together with the occasion of it, are as certain signs of pride, as looking pale and trem- bling at any imminent danger, are the symptoms of fear. If the too scrupulous reader should at first view condemn these notions concerning the origin of moral virtue, and think them perhaps offensive to Christianity, I hope he'll forbear his censures, when he shall consider that nothing can render the unsearchable depth of the divine wisdom more conspicuous, than that man, whom providence had designed for society, should not only by his own frailties and imperfections be led into the road to temporal happiness, but likewise receive, from a seeming necessity of natural causes, a tincture of that knowledge, in which he was after- wards to be made perfect by the true religion, to his eternal welfare. In his attacks upon Sir Robert Walpole, Boling. broke was unsparing in his suggestions of corruption. His “Dissertations upon Parties,” republished from The Craftsman, had a frontispiece which represented Walpole as the all-powerful Minister setting man against man by his corrupt use of power. Boling- broke, who had fallen at the death of Anne, never again to rise to political power himself, was pursuing Walpole with such feud as he condemned, and Sir OLYMPIAN WAT, POLE, Frontispiece to Bolingbroke’s “Dissertations upon Parties.” Robert Walpole was not a dishonest man. But the tide ran strongly in favour of that form of attack, and there was much in public life that justified it. The Craftsman was a paper established by William Pulteney, who had been a zealous Whig and a col- league of Walpole's. On the accession of George I. he was made Privy Councillor and Secretary at War. When Walpole returned to office in 1721, Pulteney, dissatisfied with the arrangements that concerned himself, went into Opposition. As Walpole's per- sonal ascendancy increased, Pulteney, aided quietly by Bolingbroke, became leader of the Opposition. Bolingbroke, ill-used by the Pretender, whom he had desired to serve, could, in his forced retirement from political life, put the lost cause aside, and aid a new cry led by a disaffected Whig against the Minister whom he accused of governing by a corrupt use of money, and whom he hoped in good time to supplant. Bolingbroke led the attacks on the Minister in the To A.D. 1728.] 257 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. name of public virtue, won young Whigs to share his philosophical aspiration towards patriotic purity, and was indeed, as far as he knew, honestly swim- ming with the stream, while hoping to profit in good time by the reaction in which he took a fore- most place. There was power in his pen, and when Pulteney began, under the name of Caleb D'Anvers, of Gray's Inn, Esquire, his series of periodical papers called The Craftsman, chiefly levelled against Wal- pole, Bolingbroke became the writer of its most vigorous essays. The first number of The Craftsman was published on the 5th of December, 1726, and it appeared every Monday and Friday until the 17th of April, 1736. From among its essays I take one that looks at the political side of the “Beggar's Opera,” which was first produced on the 29th of January, 1728, and of which Gay himself said, when publishing its sequel, “Polly;” that he meant to express through it his sense of the corruption of Society." A year or two earlier the same note had been struck more forcibly, with a wit that had so much in it of kindly playfulness as to make it to this day dear to a child, by Swift in his “Gulliver's Travels.” For the state of innocence Swift did not go back even to the state of nature, man in a state of nature was a Yahoo ; for innocence and honest life one must go farther back yet. They might be found among brute beasts, but not in man. No. 85. SATURDAY, February 17, 1727–8. Totus mundws agit Histriomem. Anglice. The stage turns all the world to ridicule. 5 r SIR, To CALEB D’ANVERs, Esq. I sent you, some months ago, an account of the declining state of the Royal British Academy, occasioned by the dis- putes between the two famous rival queens and their con- tending factions, whether the first part in the opera belonged to Cuzzoni or Faustina;” which have been since carried to 1 See in this Library “English Plays,” pages 416, 417. * Cuzzoni or Faustina. From 1714 to 1724, when the Earl of Peter- borough married her and took her from the stage, the prima donna in Handel's operas was Anastasia Robinson. Handel had begun his career in London with “Rinaldo’’ in 1711, in the days of Steele and Addison's Spectator. In 1723, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, made her first appearance in London, in Handel’s opera. “Ottone.” Her success was so great on the first night that she was engaged for the season at a salary of two thousand guineas, and on her second appearance the price of each ticket was raised to four guineas. The lady's voice was exquisite, but she was ill-looking, freakish, and impertinent. Handel wrote some of his best airs to display her voice, but suffered so much worry from the airs she gave herself that it was a satisfaction to him when a Venetian singer of high repute abroad, Faustina Bardoni, made her first appearance in his “Alexander” in May, 1726. Faustina had beauty, prudence, and good temper in her favour. As a singer she excelled in brilliant articulate execution; while Cuzzoni's voice had a tone so soft and sympathetic that she could in a touching passage move her audience to tears. But her character was not soft. She looked on the new-comer as a rival, and hated her. Each singer had a party following, the Countess of Pembroke leading the one, and the Countess of Burlington the other. The house of the premier was divided against itself, for as Sir Robert Walpole favoured Faustina, his lady patronised Cuzzoni. On the 20th of June, 1727, the two prime donne were to be upon the stage together. When they appeared, the partisans of each gave loose to their spirit of faction, and there was a riot in the house. Not long afterwards Cuzzoni assaulted her rival, and the ladies tried their nails upon each other's faces. The after lives of the ladies were such an height, that, like most other animosities, they have almost brought that mighty state itself into contempt. We have seen it dwindle by degrees for a year or two past, till it is, at length, in a manner deserted even by its greatest quondam admirers, subscribers, and directors. O ! tempora ! 0 1 mores 1 that ever the theatre in the Haymarket should be obliged to yield to that in Lincoln's Inn Fields! that the coarse ribaldry and vulgar catches of a Newgate hero should prevail over the melodious enchantments of Senesino whilst the once celebrated Cuzzoni and Faustina lay aside their former emulation, and, with united resentment, behold the palm of precedence given to pretty Miss Polly Peachum— With a P 13 I hope the beaumonde will give me leave to observe, which nothing but the present melancholy occasion could extort from me, that this is an undeniable mark of a vitiated taste and a degenerate licentious age, which delights in seeing things of the greatest importance turned to ridicule. Who can help being surprised to find two of his Majesty's theatres prostituted in this manner, and made the popular engines for conveying not only scandal and scurrility, but even sedition and treason through the kingdom P. Have we not lately seen the awful solemnity of a coronation openly burlesqued at both theatres P. Have not the nobles, the prelates, the judges and magistrates of the land been per- sonated by Miller, Johnson, and Harper at one house, and by Harlequin and his associates at the other?” Have not some persons in a certain honourable assembly been traduced for almost thirty nights together in the character of a wrong-headed country knight, of mean intellects and a broken fortune 2 And lastly, is not the opera state itself become the subject of mirth and derision to crowded and clapping audiences P Though I am a constant spectator of the “Beggar's Opera,” which affords me a nightly entertainment, and have always had a great respect for Mr. R ch, yet I am surprised at the late unprecedented insolence and audacious- ness of that gentleman, and have often wondered that such entertainments are suffered to be exhibited night after night to the whole town with impunity. How could it enter into his head to turn the fine songs of the opera into such high ridicule P He knows very well who goes to and takes delight in those diversions. It was impossible to think that all the disappointments in the world could have transported him to this degree; but as the best actions are liable to malicious and invidious turns, this innocent amusement of the k—g must not escape the ridicule of righteous Mr. R––ch. Did he mean to insinuate by this that nothing but sing-song, empty sound and gesticulation, please and recommend at an opera P Or did he hope that other harsh inferences would be made by the disaffected, which I detest, and he dares not name? It will, I know, be said by these libertine stage-players that the satire is general, and that it discovers a conscious- ness of guilt for any particular man to apply it to himself. of their own making. Cuzzoni married a harpsichord maker, whom she was afterwards said to have poisoned, and she died miserably in a hospital in 1770; and Faustima married a harpsichord player, to whom she was first drawn by his music, and lived a long and happy life with her husband, dying in the same year with him when One was 83, the other 84 years old. 8 Peachum with a P, for the more aristocratic Beauchamp with a B. The original Polly was Lavinia Fenton, who achieved a conquest of the Duke of Bolton, and became his second Duchess, twenty-three years after he had eloped with her. - * The Coronation procession of George II. in 1727 was produced at Drury Lane as an incident to Banks’s play of “Anna Bullen,” and added as a show when other plays were acted. Rich, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, then set up “Harlequim Amma Bulien.” 209 258 ENGLISH LITERATURE. LA.D. 1728 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF But they seem to forget that there are such things as innuendos, a never-failing method of explaining libels, and that when all the town sees through their design, it is un- reasonable to suppose those persons only incapable of under- standing it to whom it belongs to punish such enormities. Nay, the very title of this piece and the principal character, which is that of an highwayman, sufficiently discover the mischievous design of it, since by this character everybody will understand one who makes it his business arbitrarily to levy and collect money on the people for his own use, of which he always dreads to give any account. Is not this squinting with a vengeance, and wounding persons in authority through the sides of a common malefactor? But I shall go still deeper into this affair, and undertake to prove, beyond all dispute, that the “Beggar's Opera’’ is the most venomous allegorical libel against the Government that hath appeared for many years past. There are some persons who esteem Lockit, the keeper or prime minister of Newgate, to be the hero of the piece; 1 to justify which opinion, they take notice that he is set forth on the stage in the person of Mr. Hall as a very corpulent bulky man, and that he hath a brother named Peachum,” who, as represented by Mr. Hippesly, appears to be a little, awkward, Slovenly fellow. They observe farther, that these two brothers have a numerous gang of thieves and pick- pockets under their direction, with whom they divide the plunder, and whom they either screen or tuck up, as their own interest and the present occasion requires. But I am obliged to reject this interpretation as erroneous, however plausible it may be, and to embrace another, which is more generally received, viz., that Captain Macheath, who hath also a goodly presence, and hath a tolerable bronze upon his face, is designed for the principal character, and drawn to asperse somebody in authority. He is represented at the head of a gang of robbers, who promise to stand by him against all the enquiries and coercive force of the law. He is often called a great man, particularly in the two following passages, viz., “It grieves one's heart to take off a great man.” “What a moving thing it is to see a great man in distress; ” which, by-the-bye, seems to be an innuendo that some great man will speedily fall into distress. Soon after his first appearance on the stage he is taken up and confined for a certain slippery prank on the road, but hath the good fortune to escape that time by the help of a trusty friend. He is afterwards retaken in much better plight and apparel than before, and ordered for execution, which is prevented for no other reason that I can see, than that the poet is afraid of offending the critics, by making an opera end with a tragical catastrophe, for he plainly tells us that this observance of dramatic rules in one point hath made him violate poetical justice in another, and spoil a very good moral, viz., that the lower people have their vices in a degree as well as the rich, and are punished for them— innuendo, that rich people never are. But herein, I confess, the author seems to be somewhat inconsistent, by ranking his hero Macheath, whom he had * Lockit's song, “When you Censure the Age,” was encored vociferously on the first night as a hit at the premier, Sir Robert Walpole. Walpole, who was present, followed its repetition with a loud “encore” of his own, and had a round of applause for his good humour. The Craftsman here amuses its readers by identifying Walpole with Macheath. * Lord Townshend, Walpole's brother-in-law, was joined with him in the administration until 1730, when they quarrelled, Townshend resigned, and Walpole became sole master. The dates, of course, contradict those who have found a reference to the quarrel between Walpole and Townshend in Gay's quarrel scene between Lockit, and Peachum. before called a great man, amongst the lower people. But this, perhaps, might be done for a blind; and then, no doubt, the reprieve was brought in to inculcate the same moral in a stronger manner, viz., by an example of a great man and a notorious offender, who escapes with impunity. His satirical strokes upon ministers, courtiers, and great men in general abound in every part of this most insolent performance. In one place, where Polly Peachum acknow- ledges her match with Captain Macheath, her father breaks out in a passion with these words: What, marry an high- wayman why he'll make as bad a husband as a lord— innuendo, that all lords make bad husbands. Soon after, when Miss Polly questions her spouse's constancy, he tells her that you might sooner tear a pension out of the hands of a courtier than tear him from her—innuendo, that all courtiers have pensions. In the very first song the employ- ment of a statesman is, by innuendo, made as bad or worse than that of Jonathan Wild, represented under the character of Peachum, which he introduces by a general libel on men of all professions, even the most sacred, in order to make that of a statesman more black and vile:— . Through all the employments of life, Each neighbour abuses his brother, Whore and rogue they call husband and wife ; All professions be-rogue one another. The priest calls the lawyer a cheat, The lawyer be-knaves the divine; And the statesman, because he’s so great, Thinks his trade as honest as mine. The second act begins with a scene of highwaymen drink- ing together, who solemnly promise never to betray one another for interest or any other motive, upon which one of them gets up and says, Shew me a gang of courtiers who can say as much—innuendo, that courtiers have less honesty than highwaymen. In another place it is said that our gang can’t trust one another any more than other people —innuendo— In a scene between Peachum and his brother Lockit, Peachum takes upon him to say that he does not like these long arrears of the Government—innuendo, that the Govern- ment is in arrear. Again, says he, Can it be expected that we should hang our acquaintance for nothing, when our betters will hardly save theirs without being paid for it— innuendo, that some persons have been well paid for Saving or screening their former acquaintance. He says farther, that unless the people in employment pay better (innuendo, that they pay very badly), he shall let other rogues live besides theirs—innuendo, that there are other rogues. He goes on with observing that, in one respect, their employment may be reckoned dishonest, because, like great statesmen, they encourage those who betray their friends, which contains, by innuendo, a confirmation of that ridicu- lous as well as scandalous vulgar error, that great statesmen frequently betray their friends. Upon this Lockit advises him to be more guarded, and sings the following air : — When you censure the age Becautious and Sage, Lest the courtiers offended should be. If you mention vice or bribe, 'Tis so pat to all the tribe, Each cries—That was levell'd at me. I submit it, whether this is not a plain innuendo that every courtier is corrupted either with vice or a bribe, or with both P. The same infamous design is carried on in the two following songs, the first of which is sung by Lockit, and the second by Macheath. To A.D. 1740.] 259 SHORTER PROSE woRKS Ourselves, like the great, to secure a retreat, When matters require it must give up our gang; And good reason why, For, instead of the fry, Even Peachum and I Like poor pretty rascals might hang, hang, Like poor pretty rascals might hang. Since laws were made for every degree, To curb vice in others, as well as in me, I wonder we han’t better company Upon Tyburn Tree But gold from law can take out the sting, And if rich men like us were to Swing, 'Twould thin the land such numbers to string Upon Tyburn Tree' For my part, if any of the persons who are thus malevo- lently treated in this piece will think fit to employ me, I will undertake to do them justice, notwithstanding the aspersions which have been cast upon me as an enemy to great men ; and I think that I have still law enough left to ground a valid information upon it. This is, I think, sufficient to demonstrate the malignant tendency of this piece, and my own good intentions. What reasons induce the G. t to be thus passive under such repeated insults I do not take upon me to determine. But though I am far from wishing, as I know it will be objected, to see the liberty of the stage entirely abolished, yet I think such licentious invectives on the most polite and fashionable vices require some immediate restraint; for if they should continue to be allowed, the theatre will become the censor of the age, and no man, even of the first quality or distinction, will be at liberty to follow his pleasures, inclinations, or interest, which is certainly the birthright of every free Briton, without danger of becoming the May-game of the whole town. I submit this to your Sage judgment, And am, Sir, Your constant reader and humble servant, PHIL-HARMONICUs. Henry Fielding afterwards played with Sir Robert Walpole in his dramatic satire, “The Historical Register for 1736,” and by so doing provoked the Licensing Act of 1737, which inflicted the Lord Chamberlain on English dramatic literature. Lord Chesterfield's best speech in the House of Lords was made for the rescue of wit from the imposition of this weakest and clumsiest of tyrannies. He suggested with a quiet irony that it was an attack not only upon liberty, but also upon property. “Wit, my lords, is a sort of property. It is the property of those that have it, and too often the only property they have to depend on. It is, indeed, but a precarious dependence. Thank God we, my lords, have a dependence of another kind; we have a much less precarious support, and therefore cannot feel the inconveniences of the bill now before us; but it is our duty to encourage and protect wit, whosoever's property it may be.” Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694, and after a fashionable education at home and abroad, and some experience in the House of Commons, he succeeded to the earldom in 1726. He was sworn a Privy Councillor, and held various public offices after the accession of George II. As an opponent of Sir Robert Walpole he also was a writer in The Craftsman. He had good wit with its health spoilt by bad cultivation, according to the fashion of the time, and in his Letters to his Son there is characteristic mixture of a father's love with the wit, wisdom, and weakness of a shrewd man of the world who has submitted his soul to society. In 1740, when he was forty-six years old, thus wrote— LoRD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON, Aged Eight. DEAR Boy, Saturday. Since you choose the name of Polyglot, I hope you will take care to deserve it; which you can only do by care and application. I confess the names of Frisky, and Colas, are not quite so honourable; but then, remember too, that there cannot be a stronger ridicule, than to call a man by an honourable name, when he is known not to deserve it. For example; it would be a manifest irony to call a very ugly fellow an Adonis, (who, you know, was so handsome, that Venus herself fell in love with him), or to call a cowardly fellow an Alexander, or an ignorant fellow Polyglot; for everybody would discover the sneer: and Mr. Pope observes very truly, that - “Praise undeserv'd is satire in disguise.” Next to the doing of things that deserve to be written, there is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure, than to write things that deserve to be read. The younger Pliny, (for there were two Plinys, the uncle and the nephew), expresses it thus: Equidem beatos puto, quibus Deorum munere datum est, aut facere scribenda, aut legenda scribere; beatissimos vero quibus utrumque." Pray mind your Greek particularly; for to know Greek very well is to be really learned: there is no great credit in knowing Latin, for everybody knows it; and it is only a shame not to know it. Besides that, you will understand Latin a great deal the better for understanding Greek very well; a great number of Latin words, especially the techni- cal words, being derived from the Greek. Technical words, mean such particular words as relate to any art or science; from the Greek word rexvn, which signifies art, and Texvikos, which signifies artificial. Thus, a dictionary, that explains the terms of art, is called a lexicon technicum, or a technical dictionary. Adieu. DEAR BOY, Longford, June the 9th, 1740. I write to you now, in the supposition that you continue to deserve my attention, as much as you did when I left London; and that Mr. Maittaire would commend you as much now, as he did the last time he was with me; for otherwise, you know very well that I should not concern myself about you. Take care, therefore, that when I come to town, I may not find myself mistaken in the good opinion I entertained of you in my absence. I hope you have got the linnets and bulfinches you so much wanted; and I recommend the bulfinches to your imitation. Bulfinches, you must know, have no natural note of their own, and never sing, unless taught ; but will learn tunes better than any other birds. This they do by attention and memory; and you may observe, that, while they are taught, they listen with great care, and never jump about and kick their heels. Now I really think it would be a great shame for you to be outdone by your own bulfinch. I take it for granted, that, by your late care and attention, you are now perfect in Latin verses; and that you may at 1 I think those happy to whom it is given by the gods, either to do what is worth writing, or to write what is worth reading; but they are happiest to whom it is given to do both, 260 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. {A.D. 1740. present be called what Horace desired to be called, Romande ſidicen Lyrae." Your Greek too, I dare say, keeps pace with your Latin ; and you have all your paradigms ad unguem. You cannot imagine what alterations and improvements I expect to find every day, now that you are more than Octennis.” And, at this age, non progredi would be regredi,” which would be very shameful. . Adieu ! Do not write to me; for I shall be in no settled place to receive letters, while I am in the country. DEAR BOY London, June the 25th, 1740. As I know you love reading, I send you this book for your amusement, and not by way of task or study. It is an his- torical, chronological, and geographical dictionary; in which you may find almost everything you can desire to know, whether ancient or modern. As historical, it gives you the history of all remarkable persons and things; as chronologi- cal, it tells you the time when those persons lived, and when LORD CHESTERFIELD. published by Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope.) (From the Edition of his “Letters ” those things were done; and as geographical, it describes the situation of countries and cities. For example; would you know who Aristides the Just was, you will find there that he was of Athens; that his distinguished honesty and integrity acquired him the name of Just ; the most glorious appellation a man can have. You will likewise find, that he commanded the Athenian army, at the battle of Plataea, where Mardonius, the Persian General, was defeated, and his army of three hun- dred thousand men utterly destroyed; and that, for all these virtues, he was banished Athens by the Ostracism. You will then (it may be) be curious to know what the Ostracism is. If you look for it, you will find that the Athenians, being very jealous of their liberties, which they thought were the most in danger from those whose virtue and merit made them the most popular (that is, recommended them most to the favour of the people), contrived this Ostracism; by which, if six hundred people gave in the name of any one man, written upon a shell, that person was immediately banished for ten years. As to chronology, would you know when Charlemain was * Ode IV. iii. 23. A minstrel of the Roman lyre. * Octennis, eight years old. § Not to advance, is to go back, made Emperor of the West; look for the article of Charle- magne; and you will find, that, being already master of all Germany, France, and great part of Spain and Italy, he was declared Emperor, in the year 800. As to the geographical part, if you would know the situation of any town, or country, that you read of ; as for instance, Persepolis; you will find where it was situated, by whom founded, and that it was burnt by Alexander the Great, at the instigation of his mistress, Thais, in a drunken riot. In short, you will find a thousand entertaining stories to divert you, when you have leisure from your studies, or your play : for one must always be doing something, and never lavish away so valuable a thing as time; which if once lost, can never be regained. Adieu. The next letter was written seven years later : DEAR Boy, London, March the 6th, O.S. 1747. Whatever you do, will always affect me, very sensibly, one way or another; and I am now most agreeably affected by two letters, which I have lately seen from Lausanne, upon your subject; the one was from Madame St. Germain, the other from Monsieur Pampigny: they both give so good an account of you, that I thought myself obliged, in justice both to them and to you, to let you know it. Those who deserve a good character ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write, that you are not only décrotté, but tolerably well bred : and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness, (of which, by the bye, you had your share) is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it ; for, as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good-breeding, a genteel behaviour and address, are of infinitely more advan- tage, than they are generally thought to be, especially here in England. Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value; but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre : and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What a number of sins does the cheerful, easy good-breeding of the French frequently cover ? Many of them want common sense, many more common learning; but, in general, they make up so much, by their manner, for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered. I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning, and good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. This perfection you may, if you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You know what virtue is: you may have it if you will; it is in every man's power; and miserable is the man who has it not. Good sense, God has given you. Learning, you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need have. With this, you are thrown out early into the world, where it will be your own fault if you do not acquire all the other accomplishments necessary to complete and adorn your character. You will do well to make your com- pliments to Madame St. Germain and Monsieur Pampigny; and tell them, how sensible you are of their partiality to you, in the advantageous testimonies which, you are informed, they have given of you here. Adieu ! Continue to deserve such testimonies; and then you will not only deserve, but enjoy, my truest affection. David Hume was thirty one years old when he published at Edinburgh, in 1742, his “Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary.” He had been born To A.D. 1742.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 261 at Edinburgh in 1711, and bred to the law, for which he had no liking. In 1734 he became clerk in a commercial house at Bristol, but two years later he gave up all visible means of earning, followed the bent of his mind and went to France that he might live frugally, while giving himself to contemplation and pursuit of literature. He was in France three years, and in January, 1739, published two volumes of “A Treatise of Human Nature,” dealing with the Understanding and the Passions. He then went to his mother and brother—his father had been long dead—and in the home of the family, called Nine- wells, just over the Scottish Border, wrote the Essays published in 1741 and 1742, of which this is one. OF THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE. There are certain sects which secretly form themselves in the learned world as well as in the political, and though sometimes they come not to an open rupture, yet they give a different turn to the ways of thinking of those who have taken party on either side. The most remarkable of this kind are the sects, that are founded on the different senti- ments with regard to the dignity of human nature, which is a point that seems to have divided philosophers and poets as well as divines, from the beginning of the world to this day. Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demi-god, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent. Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise. If an author possesses the talent of rhetoric and declamation, he commonly takes party with the former; if his turn lies towards irony and ridicule, he naturally throws himself into the other extreme. I am far from thinking that all those who have depreciated human nature have been enemies to virtue, and have exposed the frailties of their fellow creatures with any bad intention. On the contrary, I am sensible that a very delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with somewhat of the misanthrope, is apt to give a man a disgust of the world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much spleen and indignation. I must, however, be of opinion that the sentiments of those who are inclined to think favourably of mankind are much more advantageous to virtue than the contrary principles, which give us a mean opinion of our nature. When a man is possessed of a high notion of his rank and character in the creation, he will naturally endeavour to act up to it, and will scorn to do a base or vicious action which might sink him below that figure which he makes in his own imagination. Accordingly we find that all our polite and fashionable moralists insist upon this topic, and endeavour to represent vice as unworthy of man, as well as odious in itself. Women are generally much more flattered in their youth than men, which may proceed from this reason, among others, that their chief point of honour is considered as much more difficult than ours, and requires to be supported by all that decent pride which can be instilled into them. We find very few disputes which are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression; and I am persuaded that the present dispute concerning the dignity of human nature is not more exempt from it than any other. It may, therefore, be worth while to consider what is real and what is only verbal in this controversy. That there is a natural difference between merit and demerit, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, no reasonable man will deny: but yet it is evident that in affixing the term which denotes either our approbation or blame, we are com- monly more influenced by comparison than by any fixed un- alterable standard in the nature of things. In like manner, quantity, and extension, and bulk are by every one acknow- ledged to be real things. But when we call any animal great or little, we always form a secret comparison between that animal and others of the same species; and it is that comparison which regulates our judgment concerning its greatness. A dog and a horse may be of the very same size, while the one is admired for the greatness of its bulk, and the other for its smallness. When I am present, therefore, at any dispute, I always consider with myself whether it be a question of comparison or not that is the subject of the controversy; and if it be, whether the disputants compare the same objects together, or talk of things that are widely different. As the latter is commonly the case, I have long since learned to neglect such disputes as manifest abuses of leisure, the most valuable present that could be made to mortals. - Informing our notions of human nature, we are very apt to make a comparison between men and animals, which are the only creatures endowed with thought that fall under our senses. Certainly this comparison is very favourable to mankind. On the one hand we see a creature whose thoughts are not limited by any narrow bounds, either of place or time, who carries his researches into the most distant regions of this globe, and beyond this globe to the planets and heavenly bodies; looks backward to consider the first origin, at least, the his- tory of human race; casts his eyes forward to see the influ- ence of his actions upon posterity, and the judgments which will be formed of his character a thousand years hence; a creature who traces causes and effects to a great length and intricacy, extracts general principles from particular appear- ances, improves upon his discoveries, corrects his mistakes, and makes his very errors profitable. On the other hand, we are presented with a creature the very reverse of this; limited in its observations and reasonings to a very few sensible objects which surroundit; without curiosity, without foresight; blindly conducted by instinct, and attaining in a very short time its utmost perfection, beyond which it is never able to advance a single step. What a wide difference is there between these creatures' And how exalted a notion must we entertain of the former in comparison of the latter! There are two means commonly employed to destroy this conclusion. First, by making an unfair representation of the case, and insisting only upon the weaknesses of human nature; and secondly, by forming a new and secret com- parison between man and beings of the most perfect wisdom. Among the other excellencies of man this is remarkable, that he can form an idea of perfections much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue. He can easily exalt his motions, and conceive a degree of knowledge which, when compared to his own, will make the latter appear very contemptible, and will cause the difference between that and the sagacity of animals in a manner to disappear and vanish. Now this being a point in which all the world is agreed, that human understanding falls infinitely short of perfect wisdom, it is proper we should know when this comparison takes place, that we may not dispute where there is no real difference in our sentiments. Man falls much more short of perfect wisdom, and even of his own ideas of perfect wisdom, than animals do of man ; but yet the latter difference is so con- siderable, that nothing but a comparison with the former can make it appear of little moment. 262 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1742 It is also very usual to compare one man with another, and finding very few whom we can call wise or virtuous, we are apt to entertain a contemptible notion of our species in general. That we may be sensible of the fallacy of this way of reasoning, we may observe that the honourable appel- lations of wise and virtuous are not annexed to any parti- cular degree of those qualities of wisdom and virtue, but arise altogether from the comparison we make between one man and another. When we find a man who arrives at such a pitch of wisdom as is very uncommon, we pronounce him a wise man. So that to say there are few wise men in the world is really to say nothing, since it is only by their scarcity that they merit that appellation. Were the lowest of our species as wise as Tully, or my Lord Bacon, we should still have reason to say that there are few wise men. For in that case we should exalt our notions of wisdom, and should not pay a singular honour to any one who was not singularly distinguished by his talents. In like manner, I have heard it observed by thoughtless people, that there are few women possessed of beauty, in comparison of those who want it; not considering that we bestow the epithet of beautiful only on such as possess a degree of beauty that is common to them with a few. The same degree of beauty in a woman is called deformity, which is treated as real beauty in one of our sex. As it is usual in forming a notion of our species to compare it with the other species above or below it, or to compare the individuals of the species among themselves, so we often compare together the different motives or actuating prin- ciples of human nature in order to regulate our judgment concerning it. And, indeed, this is the only kind of compa- rison which is worth our attention, or decides anything in the present question. Were our selfish and vicious principles so much predominant above our social and virtuous, as is asserted by some philosophers, we ought undoubtedly to entertain a contemptible notion of human nature. There is much of a dispute of words in all this controversy. When a man denies the sincerity of all public spirit or affec- tion to a country and community, I am at a loss what to think of him. Perhaps he never felt this passion in so clear and distinct a manner as to remove all his doubts concerning its force and reality. But when he proceeds afterwards to reject all private friendship, if no interest or self-love intermixes itself, I am then confident that he abuses terms, and con- founds the ideas of things, since it is impossible for anyone to be so selfish, or rather so stupid, as to make no difference between one man and another, and give no preference to qualities which engage his approbation and esteem. Is he also, say I, as insensible to anger as he pretends to be to friendship P And does injury and wrong no more affect him than kindness or benefits. Impossible: He does not know himself. He has forgot the movements of his mind, or rather he makes use of a different language from the rest of his countrymen, and calls not things by their proper names. What say you of natural affection ? (I subjoin) Is that also a species of self-love P Yes; all is self-love. Your children are loved only because they are yours; your friend for a like reason; and your country engages you only so far as it has a connection with yourself. Were the idea of self removed, nothing would affect you. You would be altogether inactive and insensible ; or, if you ever gave yourself any movement, it would only be from vanity, and a desire of fame and repu- tation to this same self. I am willing, reply I, to receive your interpretation of human actions, provided you admit the facts. That species of, self-love which displays itself in kindness to others, you must allow to have great influence, and even greater on many occasions, than that which remains in its original shape and form. For how few are there who, having a family, children, and relations, do not spend more on the maintenance and education of these than on their own pleasures? This, indeed, you justly observe, may proceed from their self-love, since the prosperity of their family and friends is one, or the chief of their pleasures, as well as their chief honour. Be you also one of the selfish men, and you are sure of everyone's good opinion and good will; or not to shock your nice ears with these expressions, the self-love of everyone, and mine amongst the rest, will then incline us to serve you, and speak well of you. In my opinion, there are two things which have led astray those philosophers who have insisted so much on the selfish- ness of man. In the first place they found that every act of virtue or friendship was attended with a secret pleasure, from whence they concluded that friendship and virtue could not be disinterested. But the fallacy of this is obvious. The virtuous sentiment or passion produces the pleasure, and does not arise from it. I feel a pleasure in doing good to my friend because I love him, but do not love him for the sake of that pleasure. In the second place, it has always been found that the virtuous are far from being indifferent to praise, and there- fore they have been represented as a set of vain-glorious men, who had nothing in view but the applauses of others. But this also is a fallacy. It is very unjust in the world, when they find any tincture of vanity in a laudable action, to depreciate it upon that account, or ascribe it entirely to that motive. The case is not the same with vanity as with other passions. Where avarice or revenge enters into any seem- ingly virtuous action it is difficult for us to determine how far it enters, and it is natural to suppose it the sole actuating principle. But vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection, and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former. Accordingly we find that this passion for glory is always warped and varied, according to the parti- cular taste or sentiment of the mind on which it falls. Nero had the same vanity in driving a chariot, that Trajan had in governing the empire with justice and ability. To love the glory of virtuous actions is a sure proof of the love of virtuous actions. Henry Fielding was grandson to the second son of the first Earl of Denbigh. His father, Edmund Fielding, served under Marlborough, and obtained the rank of lieutenant-general when his son Henry was about twenty-three years old. Edmund Fielding married twice, and had by his first marriage, to the daughter of Sir Henry Gould, a judge of the King's Bench, six children. There were two boys, one of whom became a sailor and died young; the other, Henry, was the novelist; and one of the four girls, Sarah, wrote also two good novels, “David Simple” and “Ophelia.” Fielding was born on the 22nd of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, and, until he went to Eton, was trained at home under Mr. Oliver, the family chaplain. Sharpham Park, in Elizabeth's time the residence of Sir Edward Dyer, Philip Sidney's friend," was built as a manor of the abbots of Glastonbury, and is now a farmhouse looking through its trees across the flat of meadow land, once marsh, to Glastonbury Tor, 1 See “Shorter English Poems,” page 218, in this Library. To A.D. 1743.] SHORTER PROSE works. 263 āşºs šºsa-s ~~£235 ºxº & Zºº.J." * - #Aº, 2, 4-, GLASTONBURY. crowned by its tower, and the hill on which Glaston- bury—the Avalon of Romance—was once lifted above the waters of the Bristol Channel that came in with the tide where now there is a wide stretch of marsh and meadow. From his home, parted only from Glastonbury by a walk of a mile or less over the meadows, Fielding went to Eton, and from Eton to the University of Leyden. From Leyden he was sent into the world, for his father, who lived wastefully, had married again and had a second family to care for. In February, 1728, when he was not quite twenty-one, Fielding began his life as a writer, with a comedy. In 1735 he married, and it was after his marriage that he set up “the Great Mogul's Company of Comedians,” and produced those dramatic satires upon polite and political life that were repressed by the Licensing Act of 1737. In 1739 and 1740 Fielding con- tributed some admirable papers to a series of essays published three times a week under the name of The Champion. In June, 1740, Fielding was called to the bar, and in July, 1741, his father died, aged sixty-five, the son's age being then five-and-thirty. Richardson’s “Pamela’ had appeared at the close of 1740, and a playful sense of its weak point set Fielding writing “Joseph Andrews,” his first novel, which was published in 1742. Fielding's larger work as a novelist will be illustrated in another volume of this Library. From his “Miscellanies,” published in 1743, the next two pieces are taken. The first of them caricatures a really valuable paper, entitled “Memoirs on Fresh-water Polypes,” by a learned naturalist, Abraham Trembley. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. FOR THE YEAR 1742–3. CoNTENTs.—Several Papers relating to the Terrestrial CHRY- SIPUs, GoLDEN Foot, or GUINEA, an insect, or vegetable Several pieces, each piece lives, and in a short time becomes as perfect an insect or vegetable as that of which it was originally only a part. Abstract of part of a letter from the Heer Rottenscratch in Germany, communicating observations on the CHRYSIPUs. SIR,--Some time since died here of old age, one Petrus Gualterus, a man well known in the learned world, and famous for nothing so much as for an extraordinary collection which he had made of the Chrysipi, an animal or vegetable, of which I doubt not but there are still some to be found in England; however, if that should be diffi- cult, it may be easy to send Some over to you, as they are at present very plentiful in these parts. I can answer for the truth of the facts contained in the paper I send you, as there is not one of them but what I have seen repeated above twenty times; and I wish others may be encouraged to try the experiments over again, and satisfy themselves of the truth of their own eyes. The accounts of the Chrysipi, as well as the collection itself, were found in the cabinet of the above-mentioned Petrus, for he could never be prevailed on to communicate a sight of either while alive. I am, Sir, &c. THE FIGURE OF THE TERRESTRIAL CHRYSIPUS STICKING TO A FINGER. Observations and Experiments upon the TERRESTRIAL CHRY- SIPUs, or GUINEA, by Mynheer Petrus Gualterus. Translated from the FRENCH by P. H. I. Z. C. G. S. The animal in question is a terrestrial vegetable or insect of which mention is made in the Philosophical Transactions for several years, as may be seen in No. 000, Art. 0000, and No. 00, Art. 002, and No.—, Art. 18. This animal or vegetable is of a rotund, orbicular, or round form, as represented in the figure annexed, in which A denotes the ruffle; B, the hand; g, the thumb of that which has this surprising Property, that being cut into hand; d, the finger; e, the part of that finger to which the 264 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. 1743. ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHRYSIPUs sticks; f, f, f, f, four tubes, representing the IIéos sº wº The mouth of the chrysipus is in this anterior middle, it opens into the stomach, which takes up the whole length of the body. The whole body forms but one pipe, a sort of gut, which can be opened but at one end, i.e., at letter C. The size of the body of a chrysipus varies according to its different species. I know two species only, differing in extent almost one- half; which, for distinction sake, I call the whole Chrysipus and the hemi-Chrysipus. The latter of these is by no means so valuable as the former. The length of the IIeſi differ like- wise in proportion to the different size or extension of these two. The IIeſ of those of a modern growth are so imperfect and invisible to the naked eye that it is much to be feared the species will soon be entirely lost among us; and, indeed, in England they are observed of late to be much rarer than formerly, especially in the country, where at present there are very few of them to be found; but at the same time it is remarked that in some places of the Continent, particularly in a certain part of Germany, they are much plentier, being found in great numbers where formerly there were scarce any to be met with. I have not, after the minutest observation, been able to settle, with any degree of certainty, whether this be really an animal or a vegetable, or whether it be not strictly neither, or rather both. For as I have, by the help of my microscope, discovered some of its parts to resemble those of a lion, I have at other times taken notice of something not unlike the flower-de-luce, not to repeat those parts above- mentioned which bear great analogy to the aíðota of the human body. On their extremities (if they are not very old) may be seen certain letters forming the names of several of our kings, whence I have been almost inclined to conclude that these are the flowers mentioned by Virgil, and which appear to have been so extremely scarce in his time :– Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum Nascuntur flores.1 Particularly as he adds, — Et Phyllida solus habeto.” Of which we shall take notice hereafter when we come to speak of its properties. What hath principally dissuaded me from an opinion of its being an animal is, that I could never observe any symptoms of voluntary motion; but indeed the same may be said of an oyster, which I think is not yet settled by the learned to be absolutely a vegetable. But though it hath not, or seems not to have, any progres- sive motion of its own, yet is it very easy to communicate a motion to it. Indeed, some persons have made them fly all over the town with great velocity. What is said of the polypus in a late excellent paper communicated to the Royal Society, is likewise applicable to the chrysipus:– “They make use of their progressive motion, when com- municated to them, to place themselves conveniently, so as to catch their prey. They are voracious animals; their IIeſ, are so many snares which they set for numbers of small insects. As soon as any of them touches one of the IIeſ, it is caught.” 1 Eclogue iii. 106. “Nay, tell me first in what new region springs A flower that bears inscribed the name of kings.” Dryden's Translation. * And thou alone have Phyllis. (See “Thirdly” on page 266.) But then it differs from the polypus in the consequence; for, instead of making the insect its prey, it becomes itself a prey to it, and instead of conveying an insect twice as large as its own mouth into it, in imitation of the polypus, the poor chrysipus is itself conveyed into the loculus or pouch of an insect a thousand times as large as itself. Notwithstanding which this wretched animal (for so I think we may be allowed to call it) is so eager after its prey, that if the insect (which seldom happens) makes any resistance it summons other chrysipi to its aid, which in the end hardly ever fail of subduing it and getting into its pouch. The learned Gualterus goes on in these words:—“A chrysipus, by the simple contact of my own finger, has so closely attached itself to my hand, that, by the joint and indefatigable labour of several of my friends, it could by no means be severed, or made to quit its hold.” Gualterus judiciously remarks: “I have,” says he, “some of them that have greatly multiplied under my eyes, and of which I might almost say that they have produced young ones from all the exterior parts of their body. “I have learned, by a continual attention to the two species of them, that all the individuals of these species produce young ones. “I have for sixty years had under my eye thousands of them, and I have observeD THEM constANTLY, and with ATTENTION, so as to watch them might and day. “I tried at first two of them, but these I found would not produce a complete chrysipus; at least I had reason to think the operation would be so slow that I must have waited some years for its completion. Upon this I tried a hundred of them together; by whose marvellous union (whether it be that they mix total, like those heavenly spirits mentioned by Milton, or by any other process not yet revealed to human wit) they were found in the year's end to produce, three, four, and sometimes five chrysipi. I have indeed often made them in that space produce ten or twenty; but this hath been by some held a dangerous experiment, not only to the parent chrysipi themselves, which have by these means been utterly lost and destroyed, but even to the philosopher who hath attempted it; for, as some curious persons have, by hermetic experiments, endan- gered the loss of their teeth, so we, by too intense application to this chrysipean philosophy, have been sometimes found to endanger our ears.” He then proceeds thus:– “Another fact which I have observed has proved to me that they have the faculty of multiplying before they are severed from their parent. I have seen a chrysipus, still adhering, bring forth young ones; and those young ones themselves have also brought forth others.” I now proceed to the singularities resulting from the operation I have tried upon them. A chrysipus of the larger kind may be divided into one- and-twenty substances (whether animal or vegetable we determine not), every substance being at least as large as the original chrysipus. These may again be subdivided, each of them into twenty-four, and, what is very remarkable, every one of these parts is heavier and rather larger than the first chrysipus. The only difference in this change is that of the colour; for the first sort are yellow, the second white, and the third resemble the complexion and substance of many human faces. -* These subdivided parts are by some observed to lose in a great degree their adherescent quality; notwithstanding which Gualterus writes that, from the minutest observations upon his own experience, they all adhered with equal tenacity to his own fingers. The manner of dividing a chrysipus differs, however, A.D. 1743.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 265 greatly from that of the polypus, for, whereas we are taught in that excellent treatise above mentioned, that “If the body of a polypus is cut into two parts trans- versely, each of these parts becomes a complete polypus : on the very day of the operation, the first part or anterior end of the polypus, that is, the head, the mouth, and the arms —this part, I say, lengthens itself, it creeps and eats. “The second part, which has no head, gets one; a mouth forms itself at the anterior end, and shoots forth arms. This reproduction comes about more or less quickly, according as the weather is more or less warm. In summer I have seen arms begin to sprout out twenty-four hours after the operation, and the new head perfected in every respect in a few days. “Each of those parts thus becomes a perfect polypus, per- forms absolutely all its functions. It creeps, it eats, it grows, and it multiplies; and all that as much as a polypus which never had been cut. “In whatever place the body of a polypus is cut, whether in the middle or more or less near the head or the posterior part, the experiment has always the same success. “If a polypus is cut transversely at the same moment into three or four parts, they all equally become so many complete OIlêS. “The animal is too small to be cut at the same time into a great number of parts; I therefore did it successively. I first cut a polypus into four parts and let them grow ; next, I cut those quarters again; and at this rate I proceeded until I had made fifty out of one single one; and here I stopped, for there would have been no end of the experiment. “I have now actually by me several parts of the same polypus cut into pieces above a year ago, since which time they have produced a great number of young ones. “A polypus may also be cut in two lengthways. Begin- ning by the head, one first splits the said head and after- wards the stomach : the polypus being in the form of a pipe, each half of what is thus cut lengthways forms a half pipe, the anterior extremity of which is terminated by the half of the head, the half of the mouth, and part of the arms. It is not long before the two edges of those half pipes close after the operation; they generally begin at the posterior part, and close up by degrees to the anterior part. Then each half pipe becomes a whole one complete; a stomach is formed in which nothing is wanting, and out of each half mouth a whole one is formed also. “I have seen all this done in less than an hour; and that the polypus produced from each of those halves at the end of that time did not differ from the whole ones, except that it had fewer arms; but in a few days more grew out. “I have cut a polypus lengthways between seven and eight in the morning, and between two and three in the afternoon each of the parts has been able to eat a worm as long as itself. “If a polypus is cut lengthways, beginning at the head, and the section is not carried quite through, the result is a polypus with two bodies, two heads, and one tail. Some of those bodies and heads may again be cut lengthways soon after. In this manner I have produced a polypus that had several bodies, as many heads, and one tail. I afterwards at once cut off the seven heads of this new hydra ; seven others grew again, and the heads that were cut off became each a complete polypus. “I cut a polypus transversely into two parts; I put these two parts close to each other again, and they reunited where they had been cut. The polypus thus reunited ate the day after it had undergone this operation: it is since grown, and has multiplied. º “I took the posterior part of one polypus and the anterior of another, and I have brought them to reunite in the same manner as the foregoing. Next day the polypus that resulted ate: it has continued well these two months since the operation: it has grown and has put forth young ones from each of the parts of which it was formed. The two foregoing experiments do not always succeed; it often hap- pens that the two parts will not join again. “In order to comprehend the experiment I am now going to speak of, one should recollect that the whole body of a polypus forms only one pipe, a sort of gut or pouch. “I have been able to turn that pouch, that body of the polypus INSIDE ouTWARDS, As ONE MAY TURN A STOCKING. “I have several by me that have remained turned in this manner; THEIR INSIDE IS BECOME THEIR OUTSIDE AND THEIR oUTSIDE THEIR INSIDE: they eat, they grow, and they mul- tiply as if they had never been turned.” Now, in the division and subdivision of our chrysipus, we are forced to proceed in quite a different manner—namely, by the metabolic or mutative, not by the Schystic or divisive. Some have indeed attempted this latter method, but, like that great philosopher, the elder Pliny, they have perished in their disquisitions, as he did by suffocation. Indeed, there is a method called the kleptistic, which hath been preferred to the metabolic, but this is too dangerous; the ingenious Gualterus never carried it farther than the metabolic, con- tenting himself sometimes to divide the original chrysipus into twenty-two parts, and again to subdivide these into twenty-five; but this requires great art. It can’t be doubted but that Mr. Trembley will, in the work he is pleased to promise us, give some account of the longevity of the polypus. As to the age of the chrysipus, it differs extremely; some being of equal duration with the life of man, and some of scarce a moment’s existence. The best method of preserving them is, I believe, in bags or chests in large numbers, for they seldom live long when they are alone. The great Gualterus says he thought he could never put enough of them together. If you carry them in your pocket singly or in pairs, as some do, they will last a very little while, and in some pockets not a day. We are told of the polypus, “That they are to be looked for in such ditches whose water is stocked with small insects. Pieces of wood, leaves, aquatic plants, in short, everything is to be taken out of the water that is met with at the bottom or on the surface of the water, on the edges, and in the middle of the ditches; what is thus taken out must be put into a glass of clear water, and these insects, if there are any, will soon discover themselves, especially if the glass is let stand a little without moving it; for thus insects which contract themselves when they are first taken out, will again extend themselves when they are at rest, and become thereby so much the more remarkable.” - The chrysipus is to be looked for in scrutoires and behind wainscots in old houses. In searching for them, particular regard is to be had to the persons who inhabit or have inhabited in the same houses, by observing which rule you may often prevent throwing away your labour. They love to be rather with old than young persons, and detest finery so much that they are seldom to be found in the pockets of laced clothes, and hardly ever in gilded palaces. They are sometimes very difficult to be met with, even though you know where they are, by reason of pieces of wood, iron, &c., which must be removed away before you can come at them. There are, however, several sure methods of procuring them, which are all ascertained in a treatise on that subject com- posed by Petrus Gualterus, which, now he is dead, will shortly see the light. I come now in the last place to speak of the virtues of the chrysipus : in these it exceeds not only the polypus, of which not one single virtue is recorded, but all 210 266 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. IA.D. 1743. other animals and vegetables whatever. Indeed, I intend here only to set down some of its chief qualities; for to enumerate them all would require a large volume. First, then, a single chrysipus stuck on to the finger will make a man talk for a full hour, nay, will make him Say whatever the person who sticks it on desires; and again, if you desire silence, it will as effectually stop the most loqua- cious tongue. Sometimes, indeed, one or two, or even twenty, are not sufficient; but if you apply the proper number they seldom or never fail of success. It will like- wise make men blind or deaf as you think proper; and all this without doing the least injury to the Several organs. Secondly, it hath a most miraculous quality of turning black into white or white into black. Indeed, it hath the powers of the prismatic glass, and can, from any object, reflect what colour it pleases. Thirdly, it is the strongest love-powder in the world, and hath such efficacy on the female sex that it hath often pro- duced love in the finest women to the most worthless and ugly, old and decrepit, of our sex. To give the strongest idea in one instance of the salubrious quality of the chrysipus: it is a medicine which the physi- cians are so fond of taking themselves, that few of them care to visit a patient without swallowing a dose of it. To conclude, facts like these I have related, to be admitted, require the most convincing proofs. I venture to say I am able to produce such proofs. In the meantime, I refer my curious reader to the treatise I have above mentioned, which is not yet published, and perhaps never may. PosTSCRIPT.—Since I composed the above treatise I have been informed that these animals swarm in England all over the country, like the locusts, once in seven years; and, like them too, they generally cause much mischief and greatly ruin the country in which they have swarmed. The next is also from Fielding’s “Miscellanies,” published in 1743. AN ESSAY ON NOTHING. THE INTRoDUCTION. It is surprising that, while such trifling matters employ the masterly pens of the present age, the great and noble subject of this essay should have passed totally neglected; and the rather, as it is a subject to which the genius of many of those writers who have unsuccessfully applied themselves to politics, religion, &c., is most peculiarly adapted. Perhaps their unwillingness to handle what is of such importance may not improperly be ascribed to their modesty; though they may not be remarkably addicted to this vice on every occasion. Indeed I have heard it predicted of some, whose assurance in treating other subjects hath been suf- ficiently notable, that they have blushed at this. For such is the awe with which this Nothing inspires mankind, that I believe it is generally apprehended of many persons of very high character among us, that were title, power, or riches to allure them, they would stick at it. But, whatever be the reason, certain it is, that, except a hardy wit” in the reign of Charles II., none ever hath dared to write on this subject: I mean openly and avowedly; for it must be confessed that most of our modern authors, however foreign the matter which they endeavour to treat may seem at their first setting out, they generally bring the work to this in the end. I hope, however, this attempt will not be imputed to me as 1 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, pages 336, 337. See “Shorter English Poems,” an act of immodesty; since I am convinced there are many persons in this kingdom who are persuaded of my fitness for what I have undertaken. But as talking of a man’s self is generally suspected to arise from vanity, I shall, without any more excuse or preface, proceed to my Essay. SECTION I. Of the antiquity of Nothing. There is nothing falser than that old proverb which (like many other falsehoods) is in every one's mouth : Ea: nihilo nihil fit. Thus translated by Shakspeare, in Lear: Nothing can come of nothing. Whereas, in fact, from Nothing proceeds everything. And this is a truth confessed by the philosophers of all sects: the only point in controversy between them being, whether Something made the world out of Nothing, or Nothing out of Something. A matter not much worth debating at present, since either will equally serve our turn. Indeed, the wits of all ages seem to have ranged themselves on each side of this question, as their genius tended more or less to the spiritual or material substance. For those of the more spiritual species have inclined to the former, and those whose genius hath partaken more of the chief properties of matter, such as solidity, thickness, &c., have embraced the latter. But, whether Nothing was the artifex or materies only, it is plain in either case it will have a right to claim to itself the origination of all things. And farther, the great antiquity of Nothing is apparent from its being so visible in the accounts we have of the beginning of every nation. This is very plainly to be dis- covered in the first pages, and sometimes books, of all general historians; and, indeed, the study of this important subject fills up the whole life of an antiquary, it being always at the bottom of his inquiry, and is commonly at last discovered by him with infinite labour and pains. SECTION II. Of the mature of Nothing. Another falsehood which we must detect in the pursuit of this essay is an assertion “That no one can have an idea of Nothing : ” but men who thus confidently deny us this idea either grossly deceive themselves, or would impose a down- right cheat on the world; for so far from having none, I believe there are few who have not many ideas of it; though perhaps they may mistake them for the idea of Something. For instance, is there any one who hath not an idea of immaterial substance P” Now what is immaterial substance more than Nothing P But here we are artfully deceived by the use of words: for, were we to ask another what idea he had of immaterial matter or unsubstantial substance, the absurdity of affirming it to be Something would shock him, and he would immediately reply it was Nothing. Some persons perhaps will say, “Then we have no idea of it; ” but, as I can support the contrary by such undoubted authority, I shall, instead of trying to confute such idle opinions, proceed to show, first, what Nothing is ; secondly, I shall disclose the various kinds of Nothing; and, lastly, shall prove its great dignity, and that it is the end of everything. As it is extremely hard to define Nothing in positive terms, I shall therefore do it in negative. Nothing then is not Something. And here I must object to a third error 1 The author would not be here understood to speak against the doctrine of immateriality, to which he is a hearty well-wisher; but to point at the stupidity of those who, instead of immaterial essence, which would convey a rational meaning, have substituted immaterial substance, which is a contradiction in terms.-Note by Fielding, A.D. 1743.] 267 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. concerning it, which is, that it is in no place; which is an indirect way of depriving it of its existence; whereas indeed it possesses the greatest and noblest place on this earth, viz. the human brain. But indeed this mistake hath been sufficiently refuted by many very wise men; who, having spent their whole lives in the contemplation and pursuit of Nothing, have at last gravely concluded—that there is Nothing in this world. Farther, as Nothing is not Something, so everything which is not Something is Nothing; and wherever Something is not Nothing is: a very large allowance in its favour, as must appear to persons well skilled in human affairs. For instance, when a bladder is full of wind, it is full of something; but when that is let out we aptly say there is nothing in it. The same may be as justly asserted of a man as of a bladder. However well he may be bedaubed with lace or with title, yet, if he have not something in him, we may predicate the same of him as of an empty bladder. But if we cannot reach an adequate knowledge of the true essence of Nothing, no more than can we of matter, let us, in imitation of the experimental philosophers, examine some of its properties or accidents. And here we shall see the infinite advantages which Nothing hath over Something; for, while the latter is confined to one sense, or two perhaps at the most, Nothing is the object of them all. For, first, Nothing may be seen, as is plain from the re- lation of persons who have recovered from high fevers, and perhaps may be suspected from some at least of those who have seen apparitions, both on earth and in the clouds. Nay, I have often heard it confessed by men, when asked what they saw at such a place and time, that they saw Nothing. Ad- mitting then that there are two sights, viz. a first and second sight, according to the firm belief of some, Nothing must be allowed to have a very large share of the first, and as to the second, it hath it all entirely to itself. Secondly, Nothing may be heard, of which the same proofs may be given as of the foregoing. The Argive mentioned by Horace" is a strong instance of this:— —Fwit hawd ignobilis Argis Qwise credebat miros awdire Tragaedos In vacwo lastus sessor, plausorque Theatro. That Nothing may be tasted and smelt is not only known to persons of delicate palates and nostrils. How commonly do we hear that such a thing smells or tastes of nothing ! The latter I have heard asserted of a dish compounded of five or six savoury ingredients. And as to the former, I remember an elderly gentlewoman who had a great antipathy to the smell of apples, who, upon discovering that an idle boy had fastened some mellow apple to her tail, contracted a habit of smelling them whenever that boy came within her sight, though there were then none within a mile of her. Lastly, feeling: and sure, if any sense seems more parti- cularly the object of matter only, which must be allowed to be Something, this doth. Nay, I have heard it asserted, and with a colour of truth, of several persons, that they can feel nothing but a cudgel. Notwithstanding which, some have felt the motions of the spirit, and others have felt very bitterly the misfortunes of their friends, without endeavouring to relieve them. Now these seem two plain instances that Nothing is an object of this sense. Nay, I have heard a surgeon declare, while he was cutting off a patient’s leg, that he was sure he felt Nothing. Nothing is as well the object of our passions as our senses. 1 Epist. II. ii. 128–130:—That Argive was no mean fellow, who thought himself to be hearing wondrous tragedies as he sat happy and applauded in the empty theatre, Thus there are many who love Nothing, some who hate Nothing, and some who fear Nothing, &c. We have already mentioned three of the properties of a noun to belong to Nothing ; we shall find the fourth likewise to be as justly claimed by it, and that Nothing is as often the object of the understanding as of the senses. Indeed some have imagined that knowledge, with the adjective human placed before it, is another word for Nothing. And one of the wisest men in the world declared he knew Nothing. - But, without carrying it so far, this I believe may be allowed, that it is at least possible for a man to know Nothing. And whoever hath read over many works of our ingenious moderns, with proper attention and emolument, will, Ibelieve, confess that, if he understands them right, he understands Nothing. This is a secret not known to all readers, and want of this knowledge hath occasioned much puzzling; for where a book or chapter or paragraph hath seemed to the reader to contain Nothing, his modesty hath sometimes persuaded him that the true meaning of the author hath escaped him, instead of concluding, as in reality the fact was, that the author in the said book, &c., did truly and bond ſide mean Nothing. I remember once, at the table of a person of great eminence, and one no less distinguished by superiority of wit than fortune, when a very dark passage was read out of a poet famous for being so sublime that he is often out of the sight of his reader, some persons present declared they did not understand the meaning. The gentleman himself, casting his eye over the performance, testified a surprise at the dulness of his company, seeing Nothing could, he said, possibly be plainer than the meaning of the passage which they stuck at. This set all of us to puzzling again, but with like success; we frankly owned we could not find it out, and desired he would explain it. “Explain it !” said the gentleman, “why, he means Nothing.” In fact, this mistake arises from a too vulgar error among persons unacquainted with the mystery of writing, who imagine it impossible that a man should sit down to write without any meaning at all! whereas, in reality, nothing is more common : for, not to instance in myself, who have con- fessedly set down to write this essay with Nothing in my head, or which is much the same thing, to write about Nothing, it may be incontestably proved, ab effectu, that Nothing is commoner among the moderns. The inimitable author of a preface to the Posthumous Eclogues of a late ingenious young gentleman says, “There are men who sit down to write what they think, and others to think what they shall write. But indeed there is a third and much more numerous Sort, who never think either before they sit down or afterwards, and who, when they produce on paper what was before in their heads, are sure to produce Nothing.” Thus we have endeavoured to demonstrate the nature of Nothing, by showing first, definitely, what it is not ; and, secondly, by describing what it is. The next thing therefore proposed is to show its various kinds. Now some imagine these several kinds differ in name only. But, without endeavouring to confute so absurd an opinion, especially as these different kinds of Nothing occur frequently in the best authors, I shall content myself with setting them down, and leave it to the determination of the distinguished reader, whether it is probable, or indeed possible, that they should all convey one and the same meaning. These are, Nothing perse Nothing; Nothing at all; Nothing in the least; Nothing in nature; Nothing in the world; Nothing in the whole world; Nothing in the whole universal world. And perhaps many others of which we say—Nothing. 268 CASSETIL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1743 SECTION III. Of the dignity of Nothing ; and an endeavour to prove that it is the end as well as beginning of all things. Nothing contains so much dignity as Nothing. Ask an infamous worthless nobleman (if any such be) in what his dignity consists? It may not be perhaps consistent with his dignity to give you an answer: but suppose he should be willing to condescend so far, what could he in effect Say? Should he say he had it from his ancestors, I apprehend a lawyer would oblige him to prove that the virtues to which this dignity was annexed descended to him. If he claims it as inherent in the title, might he not be told that a title originally implied dignity, as it implied the presence of those virtues to which dignity is inseparably annexed; but that no implication will fly in the face of downright positive proof to the contrary. In short, to examine no farther, since his endeavour to derive it from any other fountain would be equally impotent, his dignity arises from Nothing, and in reality is Nothing. Yet, that this dignity really exists, that it glares in the eyes of men, and produces much good to the person who wears it, is, I believe, incontestable. Perhaps this may appear in the following syllogism. The respect paid to men on account of their titles is paid at least to the supposal of their superior virtues and abilities, or it is paid to Nothing. But when a man is a motorious knave or fool it is impossible there should be any such supposal. The conclusion is apparent. Now, that no man is ashamed of either paying or receiv- ing this respect I wonder not, since the great importance of Nothing seems I think to be pretty apparent: but that they should deny the Deity worshipped, and endeavour to represent Nothing as Something, is more worthy reprehension. This is a fallacy extremely common. I have seen a fellow, whom all the world knew to have Nothing in him, not only pretend to Something himself, but supported in that pretension by others who have been less liable to be deceived. Now, whence can this proceed but from their being ashamed of Nothing f A modesty very peculiar to this age. But, notwithstanding all such disguises and deceit, a man must have very little discernment who can live long in courts or populous cities without being convinced of the great dignity of Nothing; and though he should, through corruption or necessity, comply with the vulgar worship and adulation, he will know to what it is paid; namely, to Nothing. The most astonishing instance of this respect, so frequently paid to Nothing, is when it is paid (if I may so express myself) to something less than Nothing; when the person who receives it is not only void of the quality for which he is respected, but is in reality notoriously guilty of the vices directly opposite to the virtues whose applause he receives. This is, indeed, the highest degree of Nothing, or (if I may be allowed the word), the Nothingest of all Nothings. Here it is to be known that respect may be aimed at Some- thing and really light on Nothing. For instance, when mis- taking certain things called gravity, canting, blustering, osten- tation, pomp, and such like, for wisdom, piety, magnanimity, charity, true greatness, &c., we give to the former the honour and reverence due to the latter. Not that I would be understood so far to discredit my subject as to insinuate that gravity, canting, &c., are really Nothing; on the contrary, there is much more reason to suspect (if we judge from the practice of the world) that wisdom, piety, and other virtues, have a good title to that name. But we do not, in fact, pay our respect to the former but to the latter: in other words, we pay it to that which is not, and consequently pay it to Nothing. So far then for the dignity of the subject on which I am treating. I am now to show that Nothing is the end as well as beginning of all things. That everything is resolvable, and will be resolved into its first principles, will be, I believe, readily acknowledged by all philosophers. As, therefore, we have sufficiently proved the world came from Nothing, it follows that it will like- wise end in the same: but, as I am writing to a nation of Christians, I have no need to be prolix on this head ; since every one of my readers, by his faith, acknowledges that the world is to have an end, i.e. is to come to Nothing. And as Nothing is the end of the world, so is it of every- thing in the world. Ambition, the greatest, highest, noblest, finest, most heroic and godlike of all passions, what doth it end in 2–Nothing. What did Alexander, Caesar, and all the rest of that heroic band who have plundered and massacred so many millions, obtain by all their care, labour, pain, fatigue, and danger ?—Could they speak for themselves, must they not own that the end of all their pursuit was Nothing? Nor is this the end of private ambition only. What is become of that proud mistress of the world—the Caput triumphati orbis 1–that Rome of which her own flatterers so liberally prophesied the immortality In what hath all her glory ended ? Surely in Nothing. Again, what is the end of avarice? Not power, or pleasure, as some think ; for the miser will part with a shilling for neither : nor ease or happiness; for the more he attains of what he desires, the more uneasy and miserable he is. If every good in this world was put to him, he could not say he pursued one. Shall we say then he pursues misery only * That surely would be contradictory to the first principles of human nature. May we not therefore, nay, must we not confess, that he aims at Nothing ; especially if he be himself unable to tell us what is the end of all this bustle and hurry, this watching and toiling, this self-denial and self-constraint P It will not, I apprehend, be sufficient for him to plead that his design is to amass a large fortune, which he never can nor will use himself, nor would willingly quit to any other person: unless he can show us some substantial good which this fortune is to produce, we shall certainly be justified in concluding that his end is the same with that of ambition. The great Mr. Hobbes so plainly saw this, that, as he was an enemy to that notable immaterial substance which we have here handled, and therefore unwilling to allow it the large province we have contended for, he advanced a very strange doctrine, and asserted truly,–That in all these grand pursuits the means themselves were the end proposed, viz., to ambition —plotting, fighting, danger, difficulty, and such like: to avarice—cheating, starving, watching, and the numberless painful arts by which this passion proceeds. However easy it may be to demonstrate the absurdity of this opinion, it will be needless to my purpose, since if we are driven to confess that the means are the only end attained, I think we must likewise confess that the end proposed is absolutely Nothing. As I have shown the end of our two greatest and noblest pursuits, one or other of which engages almost every indi- vidual of the busy part of mankind, I shall not tire the reader with carrying him through all the rest, since I believe the same conclusion may be easily drawn from them all. I shall therefore finish this Essay with an inference, which aptly enough suggests itself from what hath been said: seeing that such is its dignity and importance, and that it is really the end of all those things which are supported with so much pomp and solemnity, and looked on with such respect * Ovid, Amorum I. xv. 26. Head of the conquered world. To A.D. 1745.] 269 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. and esteem, surely it becomes a wise man to regard Nothing with the utmost awe and adoration; to pursue it with all his parts and pains; and to sacrifice to it his ease, his innocence, and his present happiness. To which noble pursuit we have this great incitement, that we may assure ourselves of never being cheated or deceived in the end proposed. The virtuous, wise, and learned may then be unconcerned at all the changes of ministries and of government; since they may be well satis- fied that, while ministers of state are rogues themselves, and have inferior knavish tools to bribe and reward, true virtue, wisdom, learning, wit, and integrity, will most certainly bring their possessors—Nothing. In September, 1745, news came to London of the landing of the young Pretender. The rebellion was gathering strength when Fielding used his pen against it, by establishing a periodical paper of the form invented by Steele. It was called The True Patriot, and its first number appeared on the 5th of November, 1745. On the 17th of December Fielding contributed a paper in the name of the most delightful character in his first novel. A LETTER FROM PARSON ADAMS. No. 7. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1745. TO THE TRUE PATRIOT. MY worTHY FRIEND,--I received your paper, intituled the True Patriot, numbers one and two, inclosed in the franks of my great and most honoured patron, for which I have the highest thanks for you both. I am delighted, and that greatly, with many passages in these papers. The modera- tion which you profess towards all parties perfectly becomes a Christian. Indeed I have always thought that moderation in the shepherd was the best, if not only, way to bring home all the straggling sheep to his flock. I have intimated this at the vestry, and even at visitation before the archdeacon : Sed Cassandrae mom creditwm est. I like your method of placing a motto from the classics at the head of every paper. It must give some encouragement to your readers that the author understands, at least, one line of Latin, which is perhaps more than can be safely predicated of every writer in this age. You desire me, sir, to write you something proper to be seen et guidem by the public; as therefore a subject worthy their most serious attention now offers itself, viz. the ensuing fast ordained by authority, I have communicated my thoughts to you thereon, which you may suppress or publicate as you think meet. * g 3 ºr - ——spxeu er epyov ©eotoruv čTrevéauevos rexéoraw. —— Go upon the work, Having first prayed to the gods for success. PYTHAGORAs. As it is impossible for any man to reflect seriously on the progress of the present unnatural rebellion without imputing such unparalleled success to some other cause than has yet appeared, some other strength than what any visible human means hath placed in the hands of the rebels; so will it be extremely difficult to assign any adequate cause whatsoever, without recurring to one of whose great efficacy we have frequent examples in sacred history; I mean the just judg- ment of God against an offending people. And that this is really so, we may conclude from these two considerations: first, from the rapidity of the rebels' progress, so unaccountable from all human means; for can history produce an instance parallel to this, of six or seven men landing in a great and powerful nation, in opposition to the inclination of the people, in defiance of a vast and mighty army?—for though the greater part of this army was not then in the kingdom, it was so nearly within call that every man of them might, within the compass of a few days or weeks at farthest, have been brought home and landed in any part of it? If we consider, I say, this handful of men landing in the most desolate corner, among a set of poor, naked, hungry, disarmed slaves, abiding there with impunity till they had, as it were in the face of a large body of his majesty's troops, collected a kind of army or rather rabble together; if we view this army intimidating the king's forces from approaching them by their situation; soon afterwards quitting that situation, marching directly up to the northern capital, and entering it without surprise or without a blow. If we again view this half-armed, half-disciplined mob, without the assistance of a single piece of artillery, march up to, attack, and smite' a superior number of the king's regular troops, with cannon in their front to defend them. If we consider them returning from this complete victory to the capital, which they had before taken, there remaining for near two months in contempt of twelve millions of people, above a hundred thousand of which have arms in their hands, and one half of these the best troops in Europe. If we con- sider them afterwards at the approach of a large army under a general of great experience and approved merit, bending their course, though not in a direct line, towards this army; and then, by long and painful marches over almost inaccessible mountains, through the worst of roads in the worst of seasons; by those means, I say, slipping that army and leaving it behind them. If we view them next march on towards another army, still greater, under a young, brave, vigilant, and indefatigable prince, who were advancing in their front to meet, as the others were in their rear to pursue them. If we consider, I say, these banditti, not yet increased to full 6,000, and above a third of these old men and boys not to be depended on, proceeding without a check through a long tract of country, through many towns and cities, which they plundered, at least to a degree, up within a few miles of this third army sent to oppose them; then, by the advantage of a dark night, passing by this army likewise, and by a most incredible march getting between that and the metropolis, into which they struck a terror scarce to be credited,—though, besides the two armies at their heels, there was still one in this very metropolis infinitely superior to these rebels, not only in arms and discipline, but in numbers: who, I say, can consider such things as these, and retain the least doubt whether he shall impute them to a judgment inflicted on this sinful nation; especially when, in the second place, we must allow such judgment to be most undoubtedly our due * To run through every species of crimes with which our Sodom abounds would fill your whole paper. Indeed, such monstrous impieties and iniquities have I both seen and heard of, within these three last years, during my sojourning in what is called the world, particularly the last winter, while I tarried in the great city, that while Iverily believe we are the silliest nation under the heaven in every other light, we are wiser than Sodom in wickedness. If we would avoid, there- fore, that final judgment which was denounced against that city; if we would avoid that total destruction with which we are threatened, not remotely and at a distance, but imme- diately and at hand; if we would pacify that vengeance which hath already begun to operate by sending rebels, foreign enemies, pestilence, the forerunner of famine and poverty, among us; if we would pacify that vengeance which seems 1 Battle of Preston-pans, Sept. 21, 1745. 270 [A.D. 1745 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. already bent to our destruction, by breathing the breath of folly as well as perfidy, into the nostrils of the great : what have we to do but to set about THE work recommended by the wise and pious, though heathen philosopher, in my motto ? And what is THIs work but a thorough amendment of our lives, a perfect alteration of our ways P. But before we begin this, let us in obedience to the rule of that philo- sopher, prescribed above, first apply ourselves by fasting and prayer to the throne of offended grace. My lords the bishops have wisely set apart a particular day for this solemn service—a day which I hope will be kept universally through this kingdom, with all those marks of true piety and repent- ance which our present dreadful situation demands. Indeed, the wretch whose hard heart is not seriously in earnest on this occasion deserves no more the appellation of a good Englishman than of a good churchman or a true Christian. All sober and wise nations have, in times of public danger, instituted certain solemn sacrifices to their gods: now the Christian sacrifices are those of fasting and prayer; and if ever these were in a more extraordinary manner neces- sary, it is surely now, when the least reflection must con- vince us that we do in so eminent a manner deserve the judgment of God, and when we have so much reason to apprehend it is coming upon us. I hope, therefore (I repeat it once more), that this day will be kept by us ALL in the most solemn manner, and that not a man will dare refuse complying with those duties which the state requires of us; but I must at the same time recommend to my countrymen a caution, that they would not mistake THE work itself for what is only the beginning of or preface to it. Let them not vainly imagine that, when they have fasted and prayed for a day, may even for an age, that THE work is done. It is a total amendment of life, a total change of manners, which can bring THE WORK to a conclusion, or produce any good effects from it. Here again, to give particular instances would be to enumerate all those vices which I have already declined recounting, and would be too prolix. They are known, they are obvious; and few men who resolve to amend their lives will, I believe, want any assistance to discover what parts of them stand in need of amendment. I shall, however, point out two or three particulars, which I the rather single out, because I have heard that there are some who dispute whether they are really vices or no, though every polity, as well as the Christian, have agreed in condemning them as such. The first of these is lying. The devil himself is, in Scripture, said to be the father of lies; and liars are, perhaps, some of the vilest and wickedest children he has. Nay, I think the morals of all civilised nations have denied even the character of a gentleman to a liar. So heinous is this vice, that it has not only stigmatised particular persons, but whole communi- ties, with infamy. And yet have we not persons, ay, and very great persons too, so famous for it, that their credit is a jest and their words mere wind P I need not point them out, for they take sufficient care to point out themselves. Luxury is a second vice which is so far from being acknowledged as criminal, that it is ostentatiously affected. Now this is not only a vice in itself, but it is in reality a privation of all virtue. For, first, in lower fortunes, it prevents men from being homest; and in higher situations it excludes that virtue without which no man can be a Christian, namely, charity. For, as surely as charity covereth a multitude of sins, so must a multitude of dishes, pictures, jewels, houses, horses, servants, &c., cover all charity. I remember dining last winter at a great man's table, where we had among many others, one dish the expense of which would have provided very liberally for a poor family a whole twelvemonth. In short I never saw, during my abode in the great city, a single man who gave me reason to think that he would have enabled himself to be charitable by retrenching the most idle superfluity of his expense. Perhaps the large subscriptions which have pre- vailed all over the kingdom at this season may be urged as an instance of charity. To this I answer, in the words of a very great and generous friend of mine, who disclaimed all merit from a very liberal subscription, saying, “It was rather sense than goodness to sacrifice a small part for the security of the whole.” Now, true charity is of another kind; it has no Self-interested motives, pursues no immediate return nor worldly good, well knowing that it is laying up a much surer and much greater reward for itself. But, indeed, who wonders that men are so backward in sacrificing any of their wealth to their consciences, who before had sacrificed their consciences to the acquisition of that very wealth P Can we expect to find charity in an age when scarce any refuse to own the most profligate rapaciousness P when no man is ashamed of avowing the pursuit of riches through every dirty road and track 2 To speak out, in an age when everything is venal; and when there is scarce one among the mighty who would not be equally ashamed at being thought not to set some price on himself as he would at being imagined to set too low a one P This is an assertion whose truth is too well known. Indeed, my four years' knowledge of the world hath scarce furnished me with examples of any other kind. I believe I have already exceeded my portion of hourglass; I shall therefore reserve what I have farther to say on this subject to some other opportunity.—I am, &c. ABRAHAM ADAMs. Parson Adams's letter is referred to in the follow- ing, which is another of Fielding's papers in The True Patriot. A LETTER FROM STEPHEN GRUB. No. 11. TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1746. Tà Xpijuat' avépôtrotoruv rupuwörata Avvap.tv Te TAetormv Tov čv &v6ptótots xet. EURIP, IN PHOENISS.1 To THE TRUE PATRIOT. SIR,--I am a citizen, a haberdasher by trade, and one of those persons to whom the world allow the epithets of wise and prudent. And I enjoy this character the more as I can fairly assure myself I deserve it; nor am indebted on this account to anything but my own regular conduct, unless to the good instructions with which my father launched me into the world, and upon which I formed this grand principle, “That there is no real value in anything but money.” The truth of this proposition may be argued from hence, that it is the only thing in the value of which mankind are agreed; for, as to all other matters, while they are held in high estimation by some, they are disregarded and looked on as cheap and worthless by others. Nay, I believe it is diffi- cult to find any two persons who place an equal valuation on any virtue, good or great quality, whatever. Now, having once established this great rule, I have, by reference to it, been enabled to set a certain value on everything else; in which I have governed myself by two cautions: 1st, Never to purchase too dear; and, 2ndly (which is a more uncommon degree of wisdom), Never to overvalue what I am to sell; by which latter misconduct I have observed many persons guilty of great imprudence. It is not my purpose to trouble you with exemplifications I An old saying quoted by Polymices to Jocasta : “Of human honours, riches are the source, And rule with power supreme the tribes of men.” Woodhull’s Translation. To A.D. 1746.] 27] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. of the foregoing rule in my ordinary calling: I shall proceed to acquaint you with my conduct concerning those things which some silly people call invaluable, such as reputation, virtue, sense, beauty, &c., all which I have reduced to a certain standard: “for,” as your friend Mr. Adams says in his letter on the late fast, “I imagine every man, woman, and thing, to have their price.” His astonishment at which truth made me smile, as I dare swear it did you; it is, indeed, agreeable enough to the simplicity of his character. But to proceed:—In my youth I fell violently in love with a very pretty woman. She had a good fortune; but it was £500 less than I could with justice demand (I was heartily in love with her, that's the truth of it); I therefore took my pen and ink (for I do nothing without them), and set down the particulars in the following manner:— Mrs. Amey Fairface debtor to Stephen Grub. # 8. d. For fortune, as per marriage 5000 00 00 Per contra creditor. Imprimis, to cash 4500 00 00 Item, to beauty (for she had a great deal, and I had a great value for it) . Item, to wit as per conversation . - e 2 10 00 Item, to her affection for me - - º 30 00 00 Item, to good housewifery, a sober, chaste education, and being a good workwoman at her needle, in all } 100 00 00 | 50 00 00 Item, to her skill in music . º s o 1 01 00 Item, to dancing . tº e - - e 00 00 06 4683 11 06 Mrs. Amey debtor º - º . 5000 00 00 Per contra creditor º º • º . 4683 11 06 Due to balance 316 08 06 You see, sir, I strained as hard as possible, and placed a higher value perhaps on her several perfections than others would have done; but the balance still remained against her, and I was reduced to the necessary alternative of sacrificing that sum for ever, or of quitting my mistress. You may easily guess on which a prudent man would determine. Indeed, I had sufficient reason to be afterwards pleased with my prudence, as she proved to be a less valuable woman than I imagined; for, two years afterwards, having had a con- siderable loss in trade, by which the balance above was satis- fied, I renewed my addresses, but the false-hearted creature (forsooth) refused to see me. A second occasion which I had for my pen and ink, in this way, was when the situation of my affairs, after some losses, was such that I could clearly have put £1500 in my pocket by breaking. The account then stood thus:— S. d. Stephen Grub, debtor to cash 1500 00 00 Per contra creditor. To danger to soul as per perjury . e ... 105 00 00 To danger to body as per felony . 1000 00 00 To loss of reputation . . . º 500 00 00 To conscience as per injuring others . e 00 02 06 To incidental charges, trouble, &c. e ... 100 00 00 I am convinced you are so good a master of figures that I need not cast up the balance which must so visibly have determined me to preserve the character of an honest man. Not to trouble you with more instances of a life of which you may easily guess the whole by this specimen (for it hath been entirely transacted by my golden rule), I shall hasten to apply this rule, by which I suppose many other persons in this city conduct themselves, to the present times. And here, sir, have we not reason to suppose that some good men, for want of duly considering the danger of their property, &c., from the present rebellion and low state of public credit, have been too tenacious of their money on the present occasion; for, if we admit that the whole is in danger, surely it is the office of prudence to be generous of the lesser part, in order to secure the greater. Let us see how this stands on paper, for thus only we can argue with certainty. Suppose, then, the given sum of your property be £20,000. The value of securing this will be more or less in propor- tion to the danger; for the truth of which I need only appeal to the common practice of insurance. If the chance, then, be twenty to one, it follows that the value of insurance is at an average with £1,000, and propor- tionally more or less as the danger is greater or less. There are, besides, two other articles, which I had like to have forgot, to which every man almost affixes some value. These are religion and liberty. - Suppose, therefore, we set down £ s. d Religion at - 00 15 00 And Liberty at 00 02 06 And I think none but a profligate fellow can value them at a lower rate; it follows that to secure them from the same proportion of danger as above is worth 10#d. Now this last sum may be undoubtedly saved, as it would not be missed or called for if men would only seriously con- sider the preservation of what is so infinitely more valuable, their property, and advance their money in its defence in due proportion to the degree of its danger. And as there is nothing so pleasant as clear gain, it must give some satisfac- tion to every thinking man that, while he risks his money for the preservation of his property, his religion and liberty are tossed him into the bargain. You see, sir, I have fairly balanced between those hot- headed zealots who set these conveniences above the value of money, and those profligate wicked people who treat them as matters of no concern or moment. I have therefore been a little surprised at the backward- ness of Some very prudent men on this occasion; for it would be really doing them an injury to suspect they do not Set a just value on money, while every action of their lives demonstrates the contrary. I can therefore impute this con- duct only to a firm persuasion that there will be foolish people enow found who from loyalty to their king, zeal for their country, or some other ridiculous principle, will sub- scribe sufficient sums for the defence of the public; and so they might save their own money, which will still increase in value in proportion to the distress and poverty of the nation. This would be certainly a wise and right way of reasoning, and such a conduct must be highly commendable if the fact supposed was true; for, as nothing is so truly great as to turn the penny while the world suspects your ruin, so to convert the misfortunes of a whole community to your own emolument, must be a thing highly eligible by every good man, i.e., every Plumb." But I am afraid this rule will reach only private persons at most, and cannot extend to those whose examples, while they keep their own purses shut, lock up the purses of all their neighbours. A fallacy of the same kind I am afraid we fallinto when we refuse to lend our money to the Government at a moderate interest, in hopes of extorting more from the public purse; with which thought a very good sort of man, a Plumb, seemed yesterday to hug himself, in a conversation which we had * Plwmb. A man, or fortune, of £100,000. 272 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1746 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF upon this subject; but upon the nearest computation I could make with my pen, which I handled the moment he left me, I find that this very person, who proposed to gain 1 per cent. in £20,000, would, by the consequential effect on the public credit, be a clear loser of 2%. In short, I am afraid certain persons may at this time run the hazard of a fate which too often attends very wise men, who have not on all occasions a recourse to figures, and may incur the censure of an old proverb, by being ‘‘penny wise and pound foolish.” And since I may be involved against my will in the calamity, I shall be obliged to you if you will publish these cautions from, sir, your humble servant, STEPHEN GRUB. N.B.—As your paper supplies the place of three Evening Posts, I save 1+4. per week by it, for which pray accept my acknowledgments. Fielding's greatest novel, “Tom Jones,” was pub- lished in 1749; his last, “Amelia,” in 1751. On the 4th of January, 1752, appeared the first number of another series of essays devised by him, The Covent Garden Journal. His health was then HENRY FIELDING. (From the Portrait by Hoga, th:) failing, and he died in 1754. I take from The Covent Garden Journal one more paper to illus- trate the genius of Fielding as an essayist, and the spirit in which alone a healthy, well-trained mind can look upon Literature. GOOD TASTE IN LITERATURE. No. 10. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1752. At nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros et Laudavere sales; mimium patienter utrumque, Ne dicam stulte, mirati. [HoRACE, “Ars Poetica,” 270–2.] MOTYERN ISED. In former times this tasteless, silly town Too fondly prais'd Tom D'Urfey and Tom Brown. The present age seems pretty well agreed in an opinion, that the utmost scope and end of reading is amusement only : and such, indeed, are now the fashionable books, that a reader can propose no more than mere entertainment, and it is some- times very well for him if he finds even this in his studies. Letters, however, were sure intended for a much more noble and profitable purpose than this. Writers are not, I presume, to be considered as mere jack-puddings, whose busi- ness it is only to excite laughter: this, indeed, may sometimes be intermixed and served up with graver matters, in order to titillate the palate, and to recommend wholesome food to the mind; and for this purpose it hath been used by many excel- lent authors: “ for why,” as Horace says, “should not any- one promulgate truth with a smile on his countenance f" Ridicule, indeed, as he again intimates, is commonly a stronger and better method of attacking vice than the severer kind of satire. When wit and humour are introduced for such good pur- poses, when the agreeable is blended with the useful, then is the writer said to have succeeded in every point. Plea- Santry (as the ingenious author of Clarissa says of a story) should be made only the vehicle of instruction; and thus romances themselves, as well as epic poems, may become worthy the perusal of the greatest of men : but when no moral, no lesson, no instruction is conveyed to the reader, where the whole design of the composition is no more than to make us laugh, the Writer comes very near to the character of a buffoon ; and his admirers, if an old Latin proverb be true, deserve no great compliments to be paid to their wisdom. After what I have here advanced, I cannot fairly, I think, be represented as an enemy to laughter, or to all those kinds of writing that are apt to promote it. On the contrary, few men, I believe, do more admire the works of those great masters who have sent their satire (if I may use the expres- sion) laughing into the world. Such are the great trium- virate, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift. These authors I shall ever hold in the highest degree of esteem ; not indeed for that wit and humour alone which they all so eminently pos- sessed, but because they all endeavoured, with the utmost force of their wit and humour, to expose and extirpate those follies and vices which chiefly prevailed in their several countries. I would not be thought to confine wit and humour to these writers. Shakspeare, Molière, and some othor authors, have been blessed with the same talents, and have employed them to the same purposes. There are some, however, who, though not void of these talents, have made so wretched a use of them, that, had the consecration of their labours been com- mitted to the hands of the hangman, no good man would have regretted their loss; nor am I afraid to mention Rabe- lais, and Aristophanes himself, in this number. For, if I may speak my opinion freely of these last two writers, and of their works, their design appears to me very plainly to have been to ridicule all sobriety, modesty, decency, virtue, and religion out of the world. Now, whoever reads over the five great writers first mentioned must either have a very bad head or a very bad heart if he doth not become both a wiser and a better man. In the exercise of the mind, as well as in the exercise of the body, diversion is a secondary consideration, and designed only to make that agreeable which is at the same time useful to such noble purposes as health and wisdom. But what should we say to a man who mounted his chamber-hobby, or fought with his own shadow, for his anusement only How much more absurd and weak would he appear who swallowed poison because it was sweet 2 How differently did Horace think of study from our modern readers' Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum : Condo et compono, quae mox depromere possim. To A.D. 1750.] 273 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. “Truth and decency are my whole care and inquiry. In this study I am entirely occupied; these I am always laying up, and so disposing that I can at any time draw forth my stores for my immediate use.” The whole epistle, indeed, from which I have paraphrased this passage" is a comment upon it, and affords many useful lessons of philosophy. When we are employed in reading a great and good author, we ought to consider ourselves as searching after treasures, which, if well and regularly laid up in the mind, will be of use to us on sundry occasions in our lives. If a man, for instance, should be overloaded with prosperity or adversity (both of which cases are liable to happen to us), who is there so very wise or so very foolish, that, if he was a master of Seneca and Plutarch, could not find great matter of comfort and utility from their doctrines? I mention these rather than Plato and Aristotle, as the works of the latter are not, I think, yet completely made English,” and conse- quently are less within the reach of most of my countrymen. But perhaps it may be asked, Will Seneca or Plutarch make us laugh? Perhaps not ; but if you are not a fool, my worthy friend, which I can hardly with civility suspect, they will both (the latter especially) please you more than if they did. For my own part I declare I have not read even Lucian himself with more delight than I have Plutarch ; but surely it is astonishing that such scribblers as Tom Brown, Tom D'Urfey, and the wits of our age should find readers, while the Writings of so excellent, so entertaining, and so volu- minous an author as Plutarch remain in the world, and, as I apprehend, are very little known. The truth I am afraid is, that real taste is a quality with which human nature is very slenderly gifted. It is, indeed, So very rare, and so little known, that scarce two authors have agreed in their notions of it, and those who have endea- voured to explain it to others seem to have succeeded only in showing us that they know it not themselves. If I might be allowed to give my own sentiments, I should derive it from a nice harmony between the imagination and the judgment; and hence perhaps it is that so few have ever possessed this talent in any eminent degree. Neither of these will alone bestow it; nothing is indeed more common than to see men of very bright imaginations, and of very accurate learning (which can hardly be acquired without judgment), who are entirely devoid of taste, and Longinus, who of all men seems most exquisitely to have possessed it, will puzzle his reader very much if he should attempt to decide whether imagina- tion or judgment shine the brighter in that inimitable critic. But as for the bulk of mankind, they are clearly void of any degree of taste. It is a quality in which they advance very little beyond a state of infancy. The first thing a child is fond of in a book is a picture, the second is a story, and the third a jest. Here then is the true Pons Asinorum, which very few readers ever get over. From what I have said it may perhaps be thought to appear that true taste is the real gift of nature only; and if so, some may ask to what purpose have I endeavoured to show men that they are without a blessing which it is impos- sible for them to attain P Now, though it is certain that to the highest consumma- tion of taste, as well as of every other excellence, nature must lend much assistance, yet great is the power of art, almost of itself, or at best with only slender aids from nature; and to say the truth, there are very few who have not in their minds some small seeds of taste. “All men,” says 1 The first of the first book. * Plato is now made English by Professor Jowett, in a manner for which Fielding would have thanked him. Cicero, “have a sort of tacit sense of what is right or wrong in arts and sciences, even without the help of arts.” This surely it is in the power of art very greatly to improve. That most men, therefore, proceed no farther than as I have above declared, is owing either to the want of any, or (which is perhaps yet worse) to an improper education. I shall probably, therefore, in a future paper endeavour to lay down some rules by which all men may acquire at least some degree of taste. In the meanwhile, I shall (according to the method observed in inoculation) recommend to my readers, as a preparative for their receiving my instructions, a total abstinence from all bad books. I do therefore most earnestly entreat all my young readers that they would cautiously avoid the perusal of any modern book till it hath first had the sanction of some wise and learned man; and the same caution I propose to all fathers, mothers, and guardians. “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” is a quota- tion of St. Paul from Menander. Evil books corrupt at once both our manners and 020' taste. The masterly simplicity of style that clothes vigorous thought in Fielding, may be usefully compared with the contemporary style of Johnson's Rambler. Samuel Johnson is one of the chief heroes of English literature, and his style in later prose written by him, as in the Lives of the Poets, had advanced with the time. In The Rambler he worked out honestly the theory of critics in his day, that dignity was to be obtained by the avoidance of words subject to association of ideas with the common things of life. He developed also in these days of his earlier style, the fashion of balancing sentences and rounding them into sonorous periods. But it should not be overlooked that whatever the historical origin of Johnson's words, long or short, they represented faithfully the thoughts they had to utter. In relation to the meaning they had to convey, they were as faithful and true as the nature of their writer. THE RAMBLER. No. XXIII. TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1750. Tres mihi conviva prope dissentire videntur; Proscentur vario multum diversa palato. HOR. Three guests I have, dissenting at my feast, Requiring each to gratify his taste With different food. That every man should regulate his actions by his own conscience, without any regard to the opinions of the rest of the world, is one of the first precepts of moral prudence ; justified not only by the suffrage of reason, which declares that none of the gifts of heaven are to lie useless, but by the voice likewise of experience, which will soon inform us, that if we make the praise or blame of others the rule of our conduct, we shall be distracted by a boundless variety of irre- concilable judgments, be held in perpetual suspense between contrary impulses, and consult for ever without determination. I know not whether, for the same reason, it is not neces- sary for an author to place some confidence in his own skill, and to satisfy himself in the knowledge that he has not deviated from the established laws of composition, without submitting his works to frequent examinations before he gives them to the public, or endeavouring to secure success by a solicitous conformity to advice and criticism. It is, indeed, quickly discoverable, that consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary FRANCIS. 211 274 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1748 performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abili- ties as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting hetero- geneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions. Of all authors, those who retail their labours in periodical sheets would be most unhappy, if they were much to regard the censures or the admonitions of their readers: for, as their works are not sent into the world at once, but by small parts in gradual succession, it is always imagined by those who think themselves qualified to give instructions, that they may yet redeem their former failings by hearkening to better judges, and supply the deficiencies of their plan by the help of the criticisms which are so liberally afforded. I have had occasion to observe sometimes with vexation, and sometimes with merriment, the different temper with which the same man reads a printed and manuscript per- formance. When a book is once in the hands of the public, it is considered as permanent and unalterable; and the reader, if he be free from personal prejudices, takes it up with no other intention than of pleasing or instructing himself; he accommodates his mind to the author's design; and, having no interest in refusing the amusement that is offered him, never interrupts his own tranquillity by studied cavils, or destroys his satisfaction in that which is already well, by an anxious enquiry how it might be better: but is often con- tented without pleasure, and pleased without perfection. But if the same man be called to consider the merit of a production yet unpublished, he brings an imagination heated with objections to passages which he has never yet heard; he invokes all the powers of criticism, and stores his memory with taste and grace, purity and delicacy, manners and unities; sounds which, having been once uttered by those that under- stood them, have been since re-echoed without meaning, and kept up to the disturbance of the world, by a constant reper- cussion from one coxcomb to another. He considers himself as obliged to show, by some proof of his abilities, that he is not consulted to no purpose, and therefore watches every opening for objection, and looks round for every opportunity to propose some specious alteration. Such opportunities a very small degree of sagacity will enable him to find; for, in every work of imagination, the disposition of parts, the insertion of incidents, and use of decorations, may be varied a thousand ways with equal propriety; and, as in things nearly equal, that will always seem best to every man which he himself produces, the critic, whose business is only to pro- pose, without the care of execution, can never want the satis- faction of believing that he has suggested very important improvements, nor the power of enforcing his advice by arguments, which as they appear convincing to himself, either his kindness or his vanity will press obstinately and importunately, without suspicion that he may possibly judge too hastily in favour of his own advice, or enquiry whether the advantage of the new scheme be proportionate to the labour. It is observed by the younger Pliny, that an orator ought not so much to select the strongest arguments which his cause admits, as to employ all which his imagination can afford : for, in pleading, those reasons are of most value which will most affect the judges; and the judges, says he, will be always much touched with that which they had before conceived. Every man who is called to give his opinion of a performance, decides upon the same principle ; he first suffers himself to form expectations, and then is angry at his dis- appointment. He lets his imagination rove at large, and wonders that another, equally unconfined in the boundless ocean of possibility, takes a different course. But, though the rule of Pliny be judiciously laid down, it is not applicable to the writer's cause, because there always lies an appeal from domestic criticism to a higher judicature; and the public, which is never corrupted, nor often deceived, is to pass the last sentence on literary claims. Of the great force of preconceived opinions I had many proofs when I first entered upon this weekly labour. My readers having, from the performances of my predecessors, established an idea of unconnected essays, to which they believed all future authors under a necessity of conforming, were impatient of the least deviation from their system; and numerous remonstrances were accordingly made by each, as he found his favourite subject omitted or delayed. Some were angry that the Rambler did not, like the Spectator, introduce himself to the acquaintance of the public, by an account of his own birth and studies, an enumeration of his adventures, and a description of his physiognomy. Others soon began to remark that he was a solemn, serious, dictatorial writer, without sprightliness or gaiety, and called out with vehemence for mirth and humour. Another admonished him to have a special eye upon the various clubs of this great city; and informed him, that much of the Spectator's vivacity was laid out upon such assemblies. He has been censured for not imitating the politeness of his predecessors, having hitherto neglected to take the ladies under his protection, and give them rules for the just opposition of colours, and the proper dimensions of ruffles and pinners. He has been re- quired by one to fix a particular censure upon those matrons who play at cards with spectacles. And another is very much offended whenever he meets with a speculation in which naked precepts are comprised without the illustration of examples and characters. I make not the least question that all these monitors intend the promotion of my design, and the instruction of my readers; but they do not know, or do not reflect, that an author has a rule of choice peculiar to himself; and selects those subjects which he is best qualified to treat, by the course of his studies, or the accidents of his life; that some topics of amusement have been already treated with too much success to invite a competition; and that he who endeavours to gain many readers must try various arts of invitation, essay every avenue of pleasure, and make frequent changes in his methods of approach. I cannot but consider myself, amidst this tumult of criti- cism, as a ship in a poetical tempest, impelled at the same time by opposite winds, and dashed by the waves from every quarter, but held upright by the contrariety of the assailants, and secured, in some measure, by multiplicity by distress. Had the opinion of my censurers been unanimous, it might perhaps have overset my resolution; but since I find them at variance with each other, I can, without scruple, neglect them, and endeavour to gain the favour of the public by following the direction of my own reason, and indulging the sallies of my own imagination. Smollett's second novel, “Peregrine Pickle,” was published in 1751. It contains a chapter, complete in itself, whimsically describing a dinner after the manner of the ancients, which was probably sug- gested to him by that jest of Dr. William King's upon Dr. Lister's edition of “Apicius,” which has already been quoted." * See in this volume pages 229–232. To A.D. 1750.] 275 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Tobias George Smollett was born in 1721, in the parish of Cardross. His grandfather was Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, who married a daughter of Sir Aulay Macaulay. His father was Sir James's fourth and youngest son, Archibald, upon whom was settled the house and farm of Dalquhurn, on the banks of the Leven, in Cardross, with an annuity that raised his income to £300 a year. Archibald died when his children, two sons and a daughter, were still very young, and left them to the care of their grand- father. Tobias was sent to the grammar school of Dumbarton, then to the University of Glasgow. He was apprenticed at Glasgow to Mr. Gordon, a surgeon in good practice, whom he referred to in later life as “a patriot of a truly noble spirit, who is father of the linen manufactory in that place, and was the great promoter of the city workhouse, infirmary, and other works of public utility. Had he lived in ancient Rome, he would have been honoured with a statue at the public expense.” Gordon was not blind to the worth of his frolicsome and idle appren- tice. When a brother practitioner commended the steadiness of his quiet, industrious apprentice, Mr. Gordon's reply was, “It may be all very true, but give me before them all my own bubbly-nosed callant, with the stane in his pouch.” When young Smollett came to be eighteen his grandfather died, and he was left to fashion his own future. At nineteen, when he had completed his apprenticeship, he went to London with a tragedy that he had written. His tragedy not being accepted, he went out as surgeon's mate on board a ship of the line, and was in the expedition to Carthagena in 1741. The following narrative of his experience Smollett inserted in his first novel, “Roderick Random * pub- lished in 1748 :— THE ATTACK ON CARTHAGENA. Our fleet, having joined another that waited for us, lay at anchor about a month in the harbour at Port Royal in Jamaica, during which time something of consequence was certainly transacted, notwithstanding the insinuations of Some who affirmed we had no business at all in that place; that, in order to take the advantage of the season proper for our enterprise, the West India squadron, which had previous notice of our coming, ought to have joined us at the west end of Hispaniola with necessary stores and refreshments, from whence we could have sailed directly for Carthagena, before the enemy could put themselves in a good posture of defence, or, indeed, have an inkling of our design. Be this as it will, we sailed from Jamaica, and in ten days or a fortnight beat up against the wind as far as the Isle of Vache, with an intention, as was said, to attack the French fleet, then supposed to be lying near that place ; but before we arrived they had sailed for Europe, having first despatched an advice boat to Carthagena, with an account of our being in those seas, as also of our strength and destination. We loitered here some days longer, taking in wood, and brackish Water, in the use whereof, however, our admiral seemed to consult the health of the men, by restricting each to a quart a day. At length we set sail, and arrived in a bay to the windward of Carthagena, where we came to an anchor, and lay at our ease ten days longer. Here again certain malicious people took occasion to blame the conduct of their superiors, by saying that in so doing they not only unprofitably wasted -ms time, which was very precious, considering the approach of the rainy season, but also allowed the Spaniards to recollect themselves from the terror occasioned by the approach of an English fleet, at least three times as numerous as ever appeared in that part of the world before. But, if I might be allowed to give my opinion of the matter, I would ascribe this delay to the generosity of our chiefs, who scorned to take any advantage that fortune might give them, even over an enemy. At last, however, we weighed, and anchored again somewhat nearer the harbour's mouth, where we made shift to land our marines, who encamped on the beach in despite of the enemy's shot, which knocked a good many of them on the head. This piece of conduct in choosing a camp under the walls of an enemy's fortification, which I believe never happened before, was practised, I presume, with a view of accustoming the soldiers to stand fire, who were not as yet much used to discipline, most of them having been taken from the plough-tail a few months before. This expedient again has furnished matters for censure against the Ministry, for sending a few raw recruits on such an important enterprise, while so many veteran regiments lay inactive at home. But surely our governors had their reasons for so doing, which possibly may be disclosed with other Secrets of the deep. Perhaps they were loth to risk their best troops on such desperate service; or the colonel and field officers of the old corps—who, generally speaking, enjoyed their commissions as sinecures or pensions for some domestic services tendered to the court—refused to embark in such a dangerous and precarious undertaking, for which refusal, no doubt, they are much to be commended. Our forces, being landed and stationed as I have already mentioned, set about erecting a fascine battery to cannonade the principal fort of the enemy, and in something more than three weeks it was ready to open. That we might do the Spaniards as much honour as possible, it was determined in a council of war that five of our largest ships should attack the fort on one side, while the battery, strengthened by two mortars and twenty-four cohorns, should ply it on the other. Accordingly the signal for our ship to engage, among others, was hoisted, we being advertised the night before to make everything clear for that purpose, and in so doing a difference happened between Captain Oakum and his well- beloved cousin and counsellor Mackshane, which had well- nigh terminated in an open rupture. The doctor, who had imagined there was no more danger of being hurt by the enemy's shot in the cockpit than in the centre of the earth, was lately informed that a surgeon’s mate had been killed in that part of the ship by a cannon-ball from two small redoubts that were destroyed before the disembarkation of our soldiers, and therefore insisted upon having a platform raised for the convenience of the sick and wounded in the after-hold, where he deemed himself more secure than on the deck above. The captain, offended at this extraordinary proposal, accused him of pusillanimity, and told him there was no room in the hold for such an occasion, or, if there was, he could not expect to be indulged more than the rest of the surgeons of the navy, who used the cockpit for that purpose. Fear rendering Mackshane obstinate, he persisted in his demand, and showed his instructions, by which it was authorised. The captain swore these instructions were dictated by a parcel of lazy poltroons who were never at sea ; nevertheless, he was obliged to comply, and sent for the carpenter to give him orders about it, but before any such measure could be taken our signal was thrown out, and the doctor compelled to trust his carcase in the cockpit, where Morgan and I were busy in putting our instruments and dressings in order. 276 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1748. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF Our ship, with others destined for this service, immediately weighed, and in less than half an hour came to an anchor before the castle of Boca Chica, with a spring upon our cable; and the cannonading (which, indeed, was terrible) began. The surgeon, after having crossed himself, fell flat on the deck; and the chaplain and purser, who were stationed with us in quality of assistants, followed his example, while the Welshman and I sat upon a chest looking at one another with great discomposure, scarce able to refrain from the like prostration; and, that the reader may know it was not a common occasion that alarmed us thus, I must inform him of the particulars of this dreadful din that astounded us. The fire of the Spaniards proceeded from eighty-four great guns, besides a mortar and small arms, in Boca Chica, thirty-six in Fort St. Joseph, twenty in two fascine batteries, and four men-of-war, mounting sixty-four guns each. This was answered by our land battery, mounted with twenty-one cannon, two mortars, and twenty-four cohorns, and five great ships of eighty or seventy guns, that fired without inter- mission. We had not been many minutes engaged when one of the sailors brought another on his back to the cockpit, where he tossed him down like a bag of oats, and pulling out his pouch, put a large chew of tobacco in his mouth with- out speaking a word. Morgan immediately examined the condition of the wounded man, and cried out, “As I shall answer now, the man is as tead as my great-grandfather.” “Dead ' " said his comrade, “he may be dead now, for aught I know, but I’ll be d–d if he was not alive when I took him up.” So saying, he was about to return to his quarters, when I bade him carry the body along with him and throw it overboard. “I)—n the body!” said he, “I think 'tis fair enough if I take care of my own.” My fellow-mate, snatching up the amputation knife, pursued him half-way up the cock- pit ladder, crying, “You rascal, is this the churchyard, or the charnel-house, or the sepulchre, or the Golgotha of the ship P” but was stopped in his career by one calling, “Yo ho, avast there—scaldings.” “Scaldings ” answered Morgan, “Got knows, 'tis hot enough indeed; who are you?” “Here’s one,” replied the voice; and I immediately knew it to be that of my honest friend, Jack Rattlin, who, coming towards me, told me with great deliberation he was come to be docked at last, and discovered the remains of one hand which had been shattered to pieces with a grape shot. I lamented with unfeigned sorrow his misfortune, which he bore with heroic courage, observing that every shot had its commission. It was well it did not take him in the head, or, if it had, what then P he should have died bravely fighting for his king and country; death was a debt which every man owed and must pay, and that now was as well as another time. I was much pleased and edified with the maxims of this sea philosopher, who endured the amputation of his left hand without shrinking, the operation being performed at his request by me, after Mackshane, who was with difficulty prevailed to lift his head from the deck, had declared there was a necessity for his losing the limb. While I was em- ployed in dressing the stump I asked Jack's opinion of the battle, who, shaking his head, frankly told me he believed we should do no good; “for why? because instead of drop- ping anchor close under shore, where we should have had to deal with one corner of Boca Chica only, we had opened the harbour, and exposed ourselves to the whole fire of the enemy from their shipping and Fort St. Joseph, as well as from the castle we intended to cannonade; that, besides, we lay at too great a distance to damage the walls, and three parts in four of our shot did not take place, for there was Scarce anybody on board who understood the pointing of a gun. Ah, God help us !” continued he, “if your kinsman Lieutenant Bowling had been here we should have had other guess work.” By this time our patients had increased to such a number that we did not know which to begin with ; and the first mate plainly told the surgeon that if he did not get up immediately and perform his duty he would complain of his behaviour to the admiral, and make application for his warrant. This remonstrance effectually aroused Mackshane, who was never deaf to an argument in which he thought his interest was concerned. He therefore rose up, and in order to strengthen his resolution had recourse more than once to a case-bottle of rum, which he freely communicated to the chaplain and purser, who had as much need of such extraordinary inspiration as himself. Being thus supported he went to work, and arms and legs were hewed down with- out mercy. The fumes of the liquor, mounting into the parson's brain, conspired with his former agitation of spirits to make him quite delirious. He stripped himself to the skin, and besmearing his body with blood, could scarce be withheld from running upon deck in that condition. Jack Rattlin, scandalised at this deportment, endeavoured to allay his transports with reason, but finding all he said ineffectual, and great confusion occasioned by his frolics, he knocked him down with his right hand, and by threats kept him quiet in that state of humiliation. But it was not in the power of rum to elevate the purser, who sat on the floor wringing his hands, and cursing the hour in which he left his peaceable profession of a brewer in Rochester to engage in such a life of terror and disquiet. While we diverted ourselves at the expense of this poor devil a shot happened to take us between wind and water, and its course being through the purser's store-room made a terrible havoc and noise among the jars and bottles in its way, and dis- concerted Mackshane so much that he dropped his scalpel, and falling down on his knees, pronounced his paternoster aloud; the purser fell backward, and lay without sense or motion ; and the chaplain grew so outrageous that Rattlin with one hand could not keep him under, so that we were obliged to confine him in the surgeon's cabin, where he was no doubt guilty of a thousand extravagances. Much about this time my old antagonist Crampley came down with express orders, as he said, to bring me up to the quarter- deck to dress a slight wound the captain had received by a splinter; his reason for honouring me in particular with this piece of service being that, in case I should be killed or dis- abled by the way, my death or mutilation would be of less consequence to the ship's company than that of the doctor or his first mate. At another time, perhaps, I might have disputed this order, to which I was not bound to pay the least regard; but as I thought my reputation depended upon my compliance, I was resolved to convince my rival that I was no more afraid than he of exposing myself to danger. "With this view I provided myself with dressings, and fol- lowed him immediately to the quarter-deck, through a most infernal scene of slaughter, fire, smoke, and uproar! Captain Oakum, who leaned against the mizen-mast, no sooner saw me approach in my shirt, with the sleeves tucked up to my arm-pits, and my hands dyed with blood, than he signified his displeasure by a frown, and asked why the doctor himself did not come. I told him Crampley had singled me out, as if by express command, at which reply he seemed surprised, and threatened to punish the midshipman for his presump- tion after the engagement. In the meantime I was sent back to my station, and ordered to tell Mackshane that the captain expected him immediately. I got safe back, and delivered my commission to the doctor, who flatly refused to quit the post assigned to him by his instructions; where- A.D. 1748.] 277 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. upon Morgan, who I believe was jealous of my reputation for courage, undertook the affair, and ascended with great intrepidity. The captain, finding the surgeon obstinate, suffered himself to be dressed, and swore he would confine Mackshane as soon as the service should be over. Having cannonaded the fort, during the space of four hours, we were all ordered to slip our cables and sheer off; but next day the engagement was renewed, and continued from the morning till the afternoon, when the enemy's fire from Boca Chica slackened, and towards evening was quite silenced. A breach being made on the other side by our land battery, large enough to admit a middle-sized baboon, provided he could find means to climb up to it, our general proposed to give the assault that very night, and actually ordered a detachment on that duty. Providence stood our friend upon this occasion, and put it into the hearts of the Spaniards to abandon the fort, which might have been main- tained by resolute men till the Day of Judgment, against all the force we could exert in the attack; and while our soldiers took possession of the enemy's ramparts without resistance, the same good luck attended a body of sailors, who made themselves masters of Fort St. Joseph, the fascine batteries, and one Spanish man-of-war; the other three being burnt or sunk by the foe, that they might not fall into our hands. The taking of these forts, in the strength of which the Spaniards chiefly confided, made us masters of the outward harbour, and occasioned great joy among us; as we laid our accounts with finding little or no opposition from the town : and, indeed, if a few great ships had sailed up immediately, before they had recovered from the confusion and despair that our unexpected success had produced among them, it is not impossible that we might have finished the affair to our satisfaction, without any more bloodshed; but this step our heroes disdained, as a barbarous insult over the enemy’s distress, and gave them all the respite they could desire, in order to recollect themselves. In the meantime, Mackshane, taking the advantage of this general exultation, waited on our captain, and pleaded his cause so effectually, that he was re-established in his good graces; and as for Crampley, there was no more notice taken of his behaviour towards me during the action. But of all the consequences of the victory, none was more grateful than plenty of fresh water, after we had languished five weeks on the allowance of a purser's quart per diem for each man, in the torrid zone, where the sun was vertical, and the expense of bodily fluid so great that a gallon of liquor could scarce supply the waste of twenty-four hours; especially as our provisions consisted of putrid salt beef, to which the sailors gave the name of Irish horse ; Salt pork of New England, which, though.neither fish nor flesh, savoured of both ; bread from the same country, every biscuit whereof, like a piece of clock-work, moved by its own internal impulse, occasioned by the myriads of insects that dwelt within it; and butter served out by the gill, that tasted like train-oil thickened with salt. Instead of small beer, each man was allowed three half-quarterns of brandy or rum, which were distributed every morning, diluted with a certain quantity of his water, without either sugar or fruit to render it palatable; for which reason this composition was, by the sailors, not unaptly styled Necessity. Nor was this limitation of simple element owing to a scarcity of it on board, for there was at this time water enough in the ship for a voyage of six months, at the rate of half a gallon per day to each man : but this fast must, I suppose, have been enjoined by way of penance on the ship's company for their sins; or rather with a view to mortify them into a contempt of life, that they might thereby become more resolute and regardless of danger. How simply, then, do those people argue who ascribe the mortality among us to our bad provision and want of water, and affirm that a great many valuable lives might have been saved if the useless transports had been employed in fetching fresh stock, turtle, fruit, and other refreshments from Jamaica, and other adjacent islands, for the use of the army and fleet ! seeing, it is to be hoped, that those who died went to a better place, and those who survived were the more easily main- tained. After all, a sufficient number remained to fall before the walls of St. Lazar, where they behaved like their own country mastiffs, which shut their eyes, run into the jaws of a bear, and have their heads crushed for their valour. But to return to my narration. After having put garrisons into the forts we had taken, and re-embarked our soldiers and artillery, a piece of service that detained us more than a week, we ventured up to the mouth of the inner harbour, guarded by a large fortification on one side, and a small redoubt on the other, both of which were deserted before our approach, and the entrance of the harbour blocked up by several old galleons, and two men-of-war that the enemy had sunk in the channel. We made shift, however, to open a passage for Some ships, that favoured a second landing of our troops, at a place called La Quinta, not far from the town, where, after a faint resistance from a body of Spaniards who opposed their disembarkation, they encamped with a design of besieging the castle of St. Lazar, which overlooked and commanded the city. Whether our renowned general had nobody in his army who knew how to approach it in form, or that he trusted entirely to the fame of his arms, I shall not deter- mine; but, certain it is, a resolution was taken in a council of war to attack the place with musketry only. This was put in execution, and succeeded accordingly; the enemy giving them such a hearty reception, that the greatest part of the detachment took up their everlasting residence on the spot. Our chief, not relishing this kind of complaisance in the Spaniards, was wise enough to retreat on board with the remains of his army, which, from eight thousand able men landed on the beach, near Boca Chica, was now reduced to fifteen hundred fit for service. The sick and wounded were squeezed into certain vessels, which thence obtained the name of hospital ships, though methinks they scarce deserved such a creditable title, seeing few of them could boast of their surgeon, nurse, or cook; and the space between decks was so confined that the miserable patients had not room to sit upright in their beds. Their wounds and stumps, being neglected, contracted filth and putrefaction, and millions of maggots were hatched amidst the corruption of their sores. This inhuman disregard was imputed to the scarcity of surgeons, though it is well known that every great ship in the fleet could have spared one at least for this duty; an expedient which would have been more than sufficient to remove this shocking inconvenience. But, perhaps, the general was too much of a gentleman to ask a favour of this kind from his fellow-chief, who, on the other hand, would not derogate so much from his own dignity as to offer such assistance unasked; for I may venture to affirm that, by this time, the demon of Discord, with her sooty wings, had breathed her influence upon our counsels; and it might be said of these great men (I hope they will pardon the com- parison) as of Caesar and Pompey, the one could not brook a superior, and the other was impatient of an equal; so that, between the pride of one and insolence of another, the enter- prise miscarried, according to the proverb, “Between two stools . . . . .” . . . . A day or two after the attempt on St. Lazar, the admiral ordered one of the Spanish men-of-war we had taken to be 278 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1748 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF mounted with sixteen guns, and manned with detachments from our great ships, in order to batter the town. Ac- cordingly she was towed into the inner harbour in the night, and moored within half a mile of the walls, against which she began to fire at day-break; and con- tinued about six hours exposed to the opposition of at least thirty pieces of cannon, which at length obliged our men to set her on fire, and get off as well as they could in their boats. This piece of conduct afforded matter of specu- lation to all the wits either in the army or navy, who were at last fain to acknowledge it was a stroke of policy above their comprehension. Some entertained such an irreverent opinion of the admiral's understanding, as to think he expected the town would surrender to his floating battery of sixteen guns. Others imagined that his sole intention was to try the enemy's strength, by which he should be able to compute the number of great ships that would be necessary to force the town to a capitulation. But this last conjecture Soon appeared groundless, inasmuch as no ships of any kind whatever were afterwards employed on that service. A third sort swore that no other cause could be assigned for this undertaking than that which induced Don Quixote to attack the windmill. A fourth class, and that the most numerous, though without doubt composed of the Sanguine and malicious, plainly taxed this commander for want of honesty, as well as sense ; and alleged that he ought to have sacrificed private pique to the interest of his country; that, where the lives of so many brave fellow-citizens were con- cerned, he ought to have concurred with the general, without being solicited, or even desired, towards their preservation and advantage; that, if his arguments could not dissuade him from a desperate enterprise, it was his duty to have rendered it as practicable as possible, without running ex- treme hazard; that this could have been done, with a good prospect of success, by ordering five or six large ships to batter the town, while the land forces stormed the castle; by these means a considerable diversion would have been made in favour of those troops, who, in their march to the assault, and in their retreat, suffered much more from the town than from the castle ; that the inhabitants, seeing themselves vigorously attacked on all hands, would have been divided, distracted, and confused, and, in all probability, unable to resist the assailants. But all these suggestions surely proceeded from ignorance and malevo- lence, or else the admiral would not have found it such an easy matter, at his return to England, to justify his conduct to a Ministry at once so upright and discerning. True it is that those who undertook to vindicate him on the spot, asserted that there was not water enough for our great ships near the town ; though this was a little unfortunately urged, because there happened to be pilots in the fleet perfectly well acquainted with the soundings of the harbour, who affirmed there was water enough for five eighty-gun ships to lie abreast, almost up at the very walls. The disappoint- ments we suffered occasioned a universal dejection, which was not at all alleviated by the objects that daily and hourly entertained our eyes, nor by the prospect of what must have inevitably happened, had we remained much longer in this place. Such was the economy in some ships that, rather than be at the trouble of interring the dead, the commanders ordered their men to throw their bodies overboard, many without either ballast or winding- sheet; so that numbers of human carcases floated in the harbour, until they were devoured by sharks and carrion crows, which afforded no agreeable spectacle to those who survived. At the same time the wet season began, during which a deluge of rain falls from the rising to the setting of *-*-*-*º the sun, without intermission; and that no sooner ceases than it begins to thunder and lighten with such continual flashing, that one can see to read a very Small print by the illumination. The change of the atmosphere, occasioned by this phe- nomenon, conspired with the stench that surrounded us, the heat of the climate, our own constitutions impoverished by bad provisions, and our despair, to introduce the bilious fever among us, which raged with such violence that three-fourths of those whom it invaded died in a deplorable manner; the colour of their skin being, by the extreme putrefaction of the juices, changed into that of soot. Our conductors, finding things in this situation, perceived it was high time to relinquish our conquests; and this we did, after having rendered their artillery useless, and blown up their walls with gunpowder. The fleet sailed to Jamaica, where, stricken him- self with sickness, Smollett remained, and became acquainted with Miss Anne Lascelles, whom he afterwards married. He returned to London in 1746, soon after the battle of Culloden, and deplored the cruelties that followed in a poem called “The Tears of Scotland.” He soon afterwards married Miss Lascelles, and spent the greater part of her small Jamaica fortune of £3,000 in the lawsuit necessary to obtain it. Then he began his career as ToBIAs SMOLLETT. (From the Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.) novelist with “Roderick Random,” in 1748. In 1750 he graduated as a physician at Marischal Col- lege, Aberdeen, and, without success, tried medical practice. In the summer of 1750 he paid a visit to Paris, where he wrote “Peregrine Pickle.” There he met the painter who appeared in his novel as “Pallet,” and took part in the imaginary dinner given by a learned doctor, in whom Smollett is said to have caricatured Mark Akenside, physician, and author of “The Pleasures of Imagination.” Akenside was a somewhat pompous man, ashamed of humble origin, who quoted Latin when he could. To A.D. 1751.] 279 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. A DINNER, AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. In a word, our young gentleman, by his insinuating beha- viour, acquired the full confidence of the doctor, who invited him to an entertainment, which he intended to prepare in the manner of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea, eagerly embraced the proposal, which he honoured with many encomiums, as a plan in all respects worthy of his genius and apprehension ; and the day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have leisure to compose certain pickles and confections, which were not to be found among the culinary preparations of these degenerate days. With a view of rendering the physician’s taste more con- spicuous, and extracting from it the more diversion, Peregrine proposed that some foreigners should partake of the ban- quet; and the task being left to his care and discretion, he actually bespoke the company of a French marquis, an Italian count, and a German baron, whom he knew to be egregious coxcombs, and therefore more likely to enhance the joy of the entertainment. Accordingly, the hour being arrived, he conducted them to the hotel where the physician lodged, after having regaled their expectations with an elegant meal in the genuine old Roman taste; and they were received by Mr. Pallet, who did the honours of the house, while his friend superintended the cook below. By this communicative painter, the guests un- derstood that the doctor had met with numerous difficulties in the execution of his design ; that no fewer than five cooks had been dismissed, because they could not prevail upon their own consciences to obey his directions in things that were contrary to the present practice of their art; and that although he had at last engaged a person, by an extraordi- nary premium, to comply with his orders, the fellow was so astonished, mortified, and incensed at the commands he had received, that his hair stood on end, and he begged, on his knees, to be released from the agreement he had made ; but finding that his employer insisted upon the performance of his contract, and threatened to introduce him to the commis- saire, if he should flinch from the bargain, he had, in the discharge of his office, wept, sung, cursed, and capered, for two whole hours without intermission. While the company listened to this odd information, by which they were prepossessed with strange notions of the dinner, their ears were invaded by a piteous voice, that ex- claimed in French, “For the love of God! dear sir! for the passion of Jesus Christ spare me the mortification of the honey and oil l’” Their ears still vibrated with the sound, when the doctor entering, was by Peregrine made acquainted with the strangers, to whom he, in the transports of his wrath, could not help complaining of the want of complaisance he had found in the Parisian vulgar, by which his plan had been almost entirely ruined and set aside. The French marquis, who thought the honour of his nation was con- cerned at this declaration, professed his sorrow for what had happened, so contrary to the established character of the people, and undertook to see the delinquents severely punished, provided he could be informed of their names or places of abode. The mutual compliments that passed on this occasion were scarce finished, when a servant, coming into the room, announced dinner; and the entertainer led the way into another apartment, where they found a long table, or rather two boards joined together, and furnished with a variety of dishes, the steams of which had such evident effect upon the nerves of the company, that the marquis made frightful grimaces, under pretence of taking snuff; the Italian’s eyes watered, the German's visage under- went several distortions of feature; our hero found means to exclude the odour from his sense of smelling, by breathing. only through his mouth ; and the poor painter, running into another room, plugged his nostrils with tobacco. The doctor himself, who was the only person then present whose organs were not discomposed, pointing to a couple of couches placed on each side of the table, told his guests that he was sorry he could not procure the exact triclinia of the ancients, which were somewhat different from these conveniences, and desired they would have the goodness to repose themselves without ceremony, each in his respective couchette, while he and his friend Mr. Pallet would place themselves upright at the ends, that they might have the pleasure of serving those that lay along. This disposition, of which the strangers had no pre- vious idea, disconcerted and perplexed them in a most ridicu- lous manner; the marquis and baron stood bowing to each other, on pretence of disputing the lower seat, but in reality with a view of profiting by the example of each other, for neither of them understood the manner in which they were to loll; and Peregrine, who enjoyed their confusion, handed the count to the other side, where, with the most mischievous politeness, he insisted upon his taking possession of the upper place. In this disagreeable and ludicrous suspense, they continued acting a pantomime of gesticulations, until the doctor ear- nestly entreated them to waive all compliment and form, lest the dinner should be spoiled before the ceremonial could be adjusted. Thus conjured, Peregrine took the lower couch on the left-hand side, laying himself gently down, with his face towards the table. The marquis, in imitation of this pattern, though he would have much rather fasted three days than run the risk of discomposing his dress by such an attitude, stretched himself upon the opposite place, reclining upon his elbow in a most painful and awkward situation, with his head raised above the end of the couch, that the economy of his hair might not suffer by the projection of his body. The Italian, being a thin limber creature, planted himself next to Pickle, without sustaining any misfortune, but that of his stocking being torn by a ragged nail of the seat, as he raised his legs on a level with the rest of his limbs. But the baron, who was neither so wieldy nor supple in his joints as his companions, flounced himself down with such precipitation, that his feet, suddenly tilting up, came in furious contact with the head of the marquis, and demolished every curl in a twinkling, while his own skull, at the same instant, descended upon the side of his couch with such violence, that his periwig was struck off, and the whole room filled with pulvilio. The drollery of distress that attended this disaster entirely vanquished the affected gravity of our young gentleman, who was obliged to suppress his laughter by cramming his hand- kerchief in his mouth ; for the bareheaded German asked pardon with such ridiculous confusion, and the marquis ad- mitted his apology with such rueful complaisance, as were sufficient to awake the mirth of a Quietist. This misfortune being repaired as well as the circumstances of the occasion would permit, and every one settled according to the arrangement already described, the doctor graciously undertook to give some account of the dishes as they oc- curred, that the company might be directed in their choice; and, with an air of infinite satisfaction, thus began, “This here, gentlemen, is a boiled goose, served up in a sauce com- posed of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies, and oil | I wish, for your sakes, gentlemen, it was one of the geese of Ferrara, so much celebrated among the ancients for the magnitude of their livers, one of which is said to have weighed upwards of two pounds; with this food, exquisite as it was, did the tyrant Heliogabulus regale his hounds. But I beg pardon, I had almost forgot the soup, which I hear 280 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1751 is so necessary an article at all tables in France. At each end there are dishes of the Salacacabia of the Romans; one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pinetops, honey, vinegar, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions, and hen livers; the other is much the same as the soup-maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of boiled veal with fennel and caraway seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey, and flour, and a curious hashis of the lights, liver, and blood of a hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le baron, shall I help you to a plate of this soup P” The German, who did not at all disapprove of the ingredients, assented to the proposal, and seemed to relish the composition ; while the marquis being asked by the painter which of the silly-kickabys he chose, was, in consequence of his desire, accommodated with a portion of the soup-maigre ; and the count, in lieu of spoon meat, of which he said he was no great admirer, supplied himself with a pigeon, therein conforming to the choice of our young gentleman, whose example he determined to follow through the whole course of the entertainment. The Frenchman having swallowed the first spoonful, made a full pause, his throat swelled as if an egg had stuck in his gullet, his eyes rolled, and his mouth underwent a series of involuntary contractions and dilatations. Pallet, who looked stedfastly at this connoisseur, with a view of consulting his taste, before he himself would venture upon the soup, began to be disturbed at these emotions, and observed, with some con- cern, that the poor gentleman seemed to be going into a fit; when Peregrine assured him, that these were symptoms of ecstacy, and, for further confirmation, asked the marquis how he found the soup. It was with infinite difficulty that his complaisance could so far master his disgust, as to enable him to answer, “Altogether excellent, upon my honour ! And the painter being certified of his approbation, lifted the spoon to his mouth without scruple; but far from justifying the eulogium of his taster, when this precious composition diffused itself upon his palate, he seemed to be deprived of all sense and motion, and sat like the leaden statue of some river god, with the liquor flowing out at both sides of his mouth. The doctor, alarmed at this indecent phenomenon, earnestly inquired into the cause of it; and when Pallet recovered his recollection, and swore that he would rather swallow porridge made of burning brimstone, than such an infernal mess as that which he had tasted, the physician, in his own vindica- tion, assured the company, that, except the usual ingredients, he had mixed nothing in the soup but some sal-ammoniac, instead of the ancient nitrum, which could not now be pro- cured ; and appealed to the marquis whether such a succeda- neum was not an improvement on the whole. The unfortunate petit-maitre, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to be a masterly refinement; and deeming himself obliged, in point of honour, to evince his sentiments by his practice, forced a few more mouthfuls of this disagree- able potion down his throat, till his stomach was so much offended, that he was compelled to start up of a sudden, and, in the hurry of his elevation, overturned his plate into the bosom of the baron. The emergency of his occasions would not permit him to stay and make apologies for this abrupt behaviour; so that he flew into another apartment, where Pickle found him puking, and crossing himself with great devotion; and a chair, at his desire, being brought to the door, he slipped into it more dead than alive, conjuring his friend Pickle to make his peace with the company, and, in particular, excuse him to the baron, on account of the violent fit of illness with which he had been seized. It was not without reason that he employed a mediator; for when our hero returned to the dining-room, the German got up, and was under the hands of his own lackey, who wiped the grease from a rich embroidered waistcoat, while he, almost frantic with his misfortune, stamped upon the ground, and, in High Dutch, cursed the unlucky banquet, and the imper- tinent entertainer, who, all this time, with great delibera- tion, consoled him for the disaster, by assuring him that the damage might be repaired with some oil of turpentine, and a hot iron. Peregrine, who could scarce refrain from laughing in his face, appeased his indignation, by telling him how much the whole company, and especially the marquis, was mortified at the accident; and the unhappy salacacabia being removed, the places were filled with two pies—one of dormice, liquored with syrup of white poppies, which the doctor had substituted in the room of toasted poppy-seed, formerly eaten with honey, as a dessert; and the other, composed of an hock of pork baked in honey. Pallet hearing the first of these dishes described, lifted up his hands and eyes, and, with signs of loathing and amaze- ment, pronounced, “A pie made of dormice and syrup of poppies! — Lord in heaven what beastly fellows those Romans were !” His friend checked him for his irreverent exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, of which he himself cheerfully ate, with such encomiums to the company, that the baron resolved to imitate his example, after having called for a bumper of Burgundy, which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing nothing else upon the table which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had recourse to the veal also ; although he could not help saying, that he would not give one slice of the roast beef of Old England for all the dainties of a Roman emperor's table. But all the doctor's invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hashis and the goose; and that course was succeeded by another, in which he told them were divers of those dishes, which, among the ancients, had obtained the appellation of politeles, or magnificent. “That which smokes in the middle,” said he, “is a sow's stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hog's brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic, aniseed, rue, ginger, oil, wine, and pickle. On the right-hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left, is a fricassee of snails, fed, or rather purged with milk. At that end, next Mr. Pallet, are fritters of pompions, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.” The painter, who had, by wry faces, testified his abhorrence of the sow's stomach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails, which had undergone purgation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets, than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl; upon which the doctor desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly sent them round, while Mr. Pallet tucked the tablecloth under his chin, and brandished his knife and fork with singular address; but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he called aloud, in a manifest disorder, “Zounds ! this is the essence of a whole bed of garlic I’” That he might not, however, disappoint or disgrace the entertainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds; and, when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that, without staying to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away, with an exclamation of “Lord Jesus!” and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin, and confusion. Before Pickle could accomplish his escape, he was sauced with a syrup of the dormice pie, which went to pieces in the general wreck. And as for the Italian count, he was over- whelmed by the sow's stomach, which, bursting in the fall, TO A.D. 1753.] 281 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. discharged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably, that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect. The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at all displeased at seeing his companions involved in such a calamity as that which he had already shared; but the doctor was confounded with shame and vexation. After having prescribed an application of oil to the count's leg, he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure, which he openly ascribed to want of taste and prudence in the painter, who did not think proper to return, and make an apology in person; and protested that there was nothing in the fowls which could give offence to a sensible nose, the stuffing being a mixture of pepper, lovage, and assafoetida, and the sauce, consisting of wine and herring-pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Romans; that famous pickle having been prepared sometimes of the scombri, which were a sort of tunny fish, and sometimes of the silurus, or shad fish ; nay, he observed that there was a third kind, called garum hamation, made of the guts, gills, and blood of the thynnus. The physician, finding it would be impracticable to re- establish the order of the banquet, by presenting again the dishes which had been discomposed, ordered everything to be removed, a clean cloth to be laid, and the dessert to be brought in. Meanwhile, he regretted his incapacity to give them a specimen of the alieus, or fish-meals of the ancients—such as the jus diabaton, the conger-eel, which, in Galen's opinion, is hard of digestion; the cornuta, or gurnard, described by Pliny, in his Natural History, who says, the horns of many of them were a foot and a half in length ; the mullet and lamprey, that were in the highest estimation of old, of which last Julius Caesar borrowed six thousand for one triumphal supper. He observed, that the manner of dressing them was described by Horace, in the account he gives of the enter- tainment to which Maecenas was invited by the epicure Nasidienus, “Affertur squillas inter murena matantes,” &c.," and told them, that they were commonly eaten with the thus Syriacum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which quali- fied the purgative nature of the fish. Finally, this learned physician gave them to understand, that, though this was reckoned a luxurious dish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means comparable, in point of expense, to some preparations in vogue about the time of that absurd volup- tuary Heliogabulus, who ordered the brains of six hundred ostriches to be compounded in one mess. By this time the dessert appeared, and the company were not a little rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water. But what the master of the feast valued himself upon was, a sort of jelly, which he affirmed to be preferable to the hypo- trimma of Hesychius, being a mixture of vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to a proper consistence, and candied assafoetida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Aumelbergius and Lister, was no other than the laser Syriacum, so precious as to be sold among the ancients to the weight of a silver penny. The gentlemen took his word for the excellency of this gum, but contented themselves with the olives, which gave such an agreeable relish to the wine, that they seemed very well dis- posed to console themselves for the disgraces they had endured; 1 Satires II. viii. 42. The whole satire describes a supper given by Nasidienus Rufus, a vain, rich man, who affects gastronomy. The narrative is supposed by Horace to come from a comic poet, Fun- danius, who was present. Smollett draws from it some of his gastronomic lore. and Pickle, unwilling to lose the least circumstance of en- tertainment that could be enjoyed in their company, went in quest of the painter, who remained in his penitentials in another apartment, and could not be persuaded to re-enter the banqueting-room, until Peregrine undertook to procure his pardon from those whom he had injured. Having assured him of this indulgence, our young gentleman led him in like a criminal, bowing on all hands with an air of humility and contrition ; and particularly addressing himself to the count, to whom he swore in English, as God was his Saviour, he had no intent to affront man, woman, or child; but was fain to make the best of his way, that he might not give the honourable company cause of offence, by obeying the dictates of nature in their presence. When Pickle interpreted this apology to the Italian, Pallet was forgiven in very polite terms, and even received into favour by his friend the doctor, in consequence of our hero's intercession; so that all the guests forgot their chagrin, and paid their respects so piously to the bottle, that, in a short time, the champagne produced very evident effects in the behaviour of all present. On the 4th of January, 1753, appeared the first number of a series of essays called The World, by Adam Fitz Adam, which appeared once a week, on Thursdays, until the end of 1756. The writers included persons of fashion, and the editor was IEdward Moore, author of the successful tragedy, “The Gamester.” He was the son of a dissenting minister at Abingdon, and began his own world as a linendraper, but was drawn aside to literature, and wrote in 1744 “Fables for the Female Sex,” which gained him credit and the patronage of Lord Lyttel- ton. When he began his series of essays, The World, after he had written the first five numbers himself, Horace Walpole began to contribute papers, and papers followed from Lord Lyttelton, Lord Chester- field, Archbishop Hering, the Earl of Cork, the Hon. Mr. Boyle, Sir David Dalrymple, Soame Jenyns. The first of the four volumes of the collected edition opened with a dedication to Lord Chesterfield, as one who had honoured the paper with his correspondence, It was in The World that Lord Chesterfield, who had neglected Johnson when he dedicated to him the prospectus of his Dictionary, thus bestowed cheap patronage upon the completed labour, when the Dictionary was upon the point of publication. LoRD CHESTERFIELD ON JOHNSON's DICTIONARY. I heard the other day with great pleasure from my worthy friend Mr. Dodsley, that Mr. Johnson's English Dictionary, with a grammar and history of our language prefixed, will be published this winter, in two large volumes in folio. I had long lamented that we had no lawful standard of our language set up, for those to repair to who might choose to speak and write it grammatically and correctly: and I have as long wished that either some one person of distinguished abilities would undertake the work singly, or that a certain number of gentlemen would form themselves, or be formed by the Government, into a society for that purpose. The late ingenious Doctor Swift proposed a plan of this nature to his friend (as he thought him) the Lord Treasurer Oxford, but without success; precision and perspicuity not being in general the favourite objects of ministers, and perhaps still less so of that minister than any other. 212 282 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1753 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF Many people have imagined that so extensive a work would have been best performed by a number of persons, who should have taken their several departments of examining, sifting, winnowing (I borrow this image from the Italian Crusca), purifying, and finally fixing our language, by incorporating their respective funds into one joint stock. But whether this opinion be true or false, I think the public in general, and the republic of letters in particular, greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson, for having undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various works of Mr. Johnson, already published, we have good reason to believe that he will bring this as near to perfection as any one man could do. The plan of it which he published some years ago, seems to me to be a proof of it. Nothing can be more rationally imagined, or more accurately and elegantly expressed. I therefore re- commend the previous perusal of it to all those who intend to buy the dictionary, and who, I suppose, are all those who can afford it. The celebrated dictionaries of the Florentine and French academies owe their present size and perfection to very small beginnings. Some private gentlemen of Florence, and some at Paris, had met at each other's houses to talk over and consider their respective languages: upon which they pub- lished some short essays, which essays were the embryos of those perfect productions, that now do so much honour to the two nations. Even Spain, which seems not to be the soil where, of late at least, letters have either prospered, or been cultivated, has produced a dictionary, and a good one too, of the Spanish language, in six large volumes in folio. I cannot help thinking it a sort of disgrace to our nation, that hitherto we have had no such standard of our language; our dictionaries at present being more properly what our neighbours the Dutch and the Germans call theirs, worD- Books, than dictionaries in the Superior sense of that title. All words, good and bad, are there jumbled indiscriminately together, insomuch that the injudicious reader may speak, and write as inelegantly, improperly, and vulgarly as he pleases, by and with the authority of one or other of our word- BOOKS. It must be owned that our language is at present in a state of anarchy; and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been imported, adopted, and naturalized from other languages, which have greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve what real strength and beauty it may have borrowed from others, but let it not, like the Tarpeian maid, be overwhelmed and crushed by unnecessary ornaments. The time for discrimination seems now to be come. Toleration, adoption, and naturalization have run their lengths. Good order and authority are now necessary. But where shallwe find them, and at the same time the obedience due to them P. We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this principle I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more; I will not only obey him like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair; but no longer. More than this he cannot well require; for I presume that obedience can mever be expected when there is neither terror to enforce, nor interest to invite it. I confess that I have so much honest English pride, or perhaps prejudice about me, as to think myself more con- siderable for whatever contributes to the honour, the advan- tage, or the ornament of my native country. I have therefore a sensible pleasure in reflecting upon the rapid progress which our language has lately made, and still continues to make all over Europe. It is frequently spoken, and almost universally understood, in Holland; it is kindly entertained as a relation in the most civilized parts of Germany; and it is studied as a learned language, though yet little spoken, by all those in France and Italy, who either have, or pretend to have, any learning. The spreading the French language over most parts of Europe, to the degree of making it almost an universal one, was always reckoned among the glories of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. But be it remembered, that the success of his arms first opened the way to it; though at the same time it must be owned, that a great number of most excellent authors who flourished in his time, added strength and velocity to its progress. Whereas our language has made its way singly by its own weight and merit, under the conduct of those leaders, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Locke, Newton, Swift, Pope, Addison, &c. A nobler sort of conquest, and a far more glorious triumph, since graced by none but willing captives | These authors, though for the most part but indifferently translated into foreign languages, gave other nations a sample of the British genius. The copies, imperfect as they were, pleaded, and excited a general desire of seeing the originals; and both our authors and our language soon became classical. But a grammar, a dictionary, and a history of our language, through its several stages, were still wanting at home, and importunately called for from abroad. Mr. Johnson's labours will now, and, I dare say, very fully, supply that want, and greatly contribute to the farther spreading of our language in other countries. Learners were discouraged by finding no standard to resort to, and consequently thought it incapable of any. They will now be undeceived and encouraged. There are many hints and considerations relative to our language, which I should have taken the liberty of suggesting to Mr. Johnson, had I not been convinced that they have equally occurred to him: but there is one, and a very material one it is, to which perhaps he may not have given all the necessary attention. I mean the genteeler part of our lan- guage, which owes both its rise and progress to my fair countrywomen, whose natural turn is more to the copiousness, than to the corréction of diction. I would not advise him to be rash enough to prescribe any of those happy redundances, and luxuriances of expression, with which they have enriched our language. They willingly inflict fetters, but very un- willingly submit to wear them. In this case his task will be so difficult, that I design as a common friend, to propose in some future paper, the means which appear to me the most likely to reconcile matters. P.S.—I hope that none of my courteous readers will upon this occasion be so uncourteous, as to suspect me of being a hired and interested puff of this work; for I most solemnly protest that neither Mr. Johnson, nor any person employed by him, nor any bookseller or booksellers concerned in the success of it, have ever offered me the usual compliment of a pair of gloves or a bottle of wine; nor has even Mr. Dodsley, though my publisher, and, as I am informed, deeply interested in the sale of this dictionary, so much as invited me to take a bit of mutton with him. The first edition of “Johnson's Dictionary” ap- peared in two folio volumes in 1755; with this renunciation of his lordship's genteel patronage:– TO A.D. 1755.1 283 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, SAMUEL JOHNSON's LETTER. To LoRD CHESTERFIELD. MY LORD,--I have lately been informed by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de !a terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When once I had addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could ; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one fact of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached the ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and-cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations when no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Provi- dence has enabled me to do for myself. Having carried on my work thus far with so little obliga- tion to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have long been wakened from that dream of hope, in which I Once boasted myself with so much exultation, my Lord, your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, SAMUEL JoHNsox. In these days the poet William Shenstone, who died in 1763, was consuming his substance in the elegant enjoyment of his garden at the Leasowes;" writing graceful verse with a real sense of nature, obscured by the weak notions of “taste” which then supplied the cant of polite life and literature. He was writing also prose essays abounding in good thought, and bearing witness to a power that wanted only the strength won by wrestle with the world. With a view to their incorporation in future essays, he would put down also detached thoughts in prose. Here is a selection from them. EGOTISMIS. I hate maritime expressions, similes, and allusions; my dislike, I suppose, proceeds from the unnaturalness of * See in this Library “Shorter English Poems,” pages 273–275. shipping, and the great share which art ever claims in that practice. I am thankful that my name is obnoxious to no pun. Inanimates, toys, utensils, seem to merit a kind of affec- tion from us, when they have been our companions through various vicissitudes. I have often viewed my watch, standish, snuff-box, with this kind of tender regard; allotting them a degree of friendship which there are some men who do not deserve. It is with me in regard to the earth itself, as it is in regard to those that walk upon its surface. I love to pass by crowds, SHENSTONE FAVOURED BY APOLLO. From the Edition of his Works published in 1764. and to catch distant views of the country as I walk along; but I insensibly choose to sit where I cannot see two yards before IIlê. It is a miserable thing to love where one hates; and yet it is not inconsistent. • It is some loss of liberty to resolve on schemes before hand. - X- There are a sort of people to whom one would allot good wishes and perform good offices; but they are sometimes those, with whom one would by no means share one's time. I cannot avoid comparing the ease and freedom I enjoy to the ease of an old shoe; where a certain degree of shabbiness is joined with the convenience. Not Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, nor even the Chinese language, seems half so difficult to me as the language of refusal. 284 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1746 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF Had I a fortune of £8,000 or £10,000 a year, I would me- thinks make myself a neighbourhood. I would first build a village with a church, and people it with inhabitants of some branch of trade that was suitable to the country round. I would then at proper distances erect a number of genteel boxes of about a £1,000 apiece, and amuse myself with giving them all the advantages they could receive from taste. These would I people with a select number of well-chosen friends, assigning to each annually the sum of £200 for life. The salary should be irrevocable, in order to give them inde- pendency. The house, of a more precarious tenure, that, in cases of ingratitude, I might introduce another inhabitant. How plausible soever this may appear in speculation, perhaps a very natural and lively novel might be founded upon the inconvenient consequences of it, when put in execution. What pleasure is it to pay one's debts I remember to have heard Sir T. Lyttelton make the same observation. It seems to flow from a combination of circumstances, each of which is productive of pleasure. In the first place it removes that uneasiness, which a true spirit feels from dependence and obligation. It affords pleasure to the creditor, and therefore gratifies our social affection. It promotes that future confi- dence, which is so very interesting to an honest mind. It opens a prospect of being readily supplied with what we want on future occasions. It leaves a consciousness of our own virtue : and it is a measure we know to be right, both in point of justice and of Sound economy. Finally, it is a main support of simple reputation. ON DRESS. Dress, like writing, should never appear the effect of too much study and application. On this account, I have seen parts of dress in themselves extremely beautiful, which at the same time subject the wearer to the character of foppishness and affectation. * It is a point out of doubt with me, that the ladies are most properly the judges of the men's dress, and the men of that of the ladies. I think till thirty, or with some a little longer, people should dress in a way that is most likely to procure the love of the opposite sex. There are many modes of dress which the world esteems handsome, which are by no means calculated to show the human figure to advantage. Love can be founded upon nature only ; or the appearance of it;-for this reason, however a peruke may tend to soften the human features, it can very seldom make amends for the mixture of artifice which it discovers. A rich dress adds but little to the beauty of a person. It may possibly create a deference, but that is rather an enemy to love. Non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur Majestas et Amor."—OvID. A person's manner is never easy, while he feels a conscious- ness that he is fine. The country fellow considered in some lights appears genteel; but it is not when he is dressed on Sundays with a large nosegay in his bosom. It is when he is reaping, making hay, or when he is hedging in his hurden frock. It is then he acts with ease, and thinks himself equal to his apparel. Methinks apparel should be rich in the same proportion as it is gay; it otherwise carries the appearance of somewhat unsubstantial; in other words, of a greater desire than ability to make a figure. ! I'll sit together Majesty and Love, ON WRITING AND BOOKS. Fine writing is generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts, and a laboured style. Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house. The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters. Instead of whining complaints concerning the imagined cruelty of their mistresses, if poets would address the same to their muse, they would act more agreeably to nature and to truth. Superficial writers, like the mole, often fancy themselves deep, when they are exceedingly near the surface. It is often observed of wits, that they will lose their best friend for the sake of a joke. Candour may discover, that it is their greater degree of the love of fame, not the less degree of their benevolence, which is the cause. People in high or in distinguished life ought to have a greater circumspection in regard to their most trivial actions. For instance, I saw Mr. Pope—and what was he doing when you saw him P-why, to the best of my memory, he was pick- ing his nose. A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment. “Great wits have short memories” is a proverb ; and as such has undoubtedly some foundation in nature. The case seems to be, that men of genius forget things of common. concern, unimportant facts and circumstances, which make no slight impression in every-day minds. But sure it will be found that all wit depends on memory—i.e., on the recollec- tion of passages, either to illustrate, or contrast with, any present occasion. It is probably the fate of a common under- standing to forget the very things which the man of wit re- members. But an oblivion of those things which almost every One remembers renders his case the more remarkable, and thus explains the mystery. Some men use no other means to acquire respect, than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman’s in regard to money. Every single observation that is published by a man of genius, be it ever so trivial, should be esteemed of importance because he speaks from his own impressions; whereas common men publish common things, which they have, perhaps, gleaned from frivolous writers. Every good poet includes a critic ; the reverse will not hold. Necessity may be the mother of lucrative invention; but is the death of poetical. The question is, whether you distinguish me, because you have better sense than other people; or whether you seem to have better sense than other people, because you distinguish Iſle, To endeavour, all one's days, to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend so much in armour that one has nothing left to defend. BOOKS, ETC. Similes drawn from odd circumstances and effects strangely accidental, bear a near relation to false wit. The best instance of the kind is that celebrated line of Waller: “He grasped at love, and filled his hand with bays.” Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what To A.D. 1760.] 285 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. texts of Scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones. Hope is a flatterer; but the most upright of all parasites, for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior. OF MEN AND MANNERS. It is happy enough that the same vices which impair one's fortune, frequently ruin our constitution, that the one may not survive the other. Dancing in the rough is one of the most natural expressions of joy, and coincides with jumping. When it is regulated, it is merely “cum ratione insanire.” A man of genius mistaking his talent loses the advantage of being distinguished; a fool of being undistinguished. What some people term freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things. It is but carrying the notion a little higher, and it would require us to break and have a head broken reciprocally without offence. I cannot see why people are ashamed to acknowledge their passion for popularity. The love of popularity is the love of being beloved. Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it. In a heavy oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends. People frequently use this expression, “I am inclined to think so and so;” not considering that they are then speaking the most literal of all truths. The first part of a newspaper which an ill-natured man examines, is, the list of bankrupts, and the bills of mortality. Ask to borrow sixpence of the Muses, and they tell you at present they are out of cash, but hereafter they will furnish you with five thousand pounds. Few men, that would cause respect and distance merely, can say anything by which their end will be so effectually answered as by silence. There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is, that people can commend it without envy. Although a man cannot procure himself a title at pleasure, he may vary the appellation he goes by considerably. As, from Tom, to Mr. Thomas, to Mr. Musgrove, to Thomas Musgrove, Esquire. And this by a behaviour of reserve, or familiarity. A proud man's intimates are generally more attached to him, than the man of merit and humility can pretend his to be. The reason is, the former pays a greater compliment in his condescension. Third thoughts often coincide with the first, and are gene- rally the best grounded. We first relish nature and the country, then artificial amusements and the city; then become impatient to retire to the country again. A man has generally the good or ill qualities which he attri- butes to mankind. A mere relater of matters of fact is fit only for an evidence in a court of justice. A writer who pretends to polish the human understanding may beg by the side of Rutter's chariot who sells a powder for the teeth. The difference there is betwixt honour and honesty seems to be chiefly in the motive. The mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honour does for the sake of character. A man sooner finds out his own foibles in a stranger than any other foibles. A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like a falsehood. Fools are very often found united in the strictestintimacies, as the lighter kinds of woods are the most closely glued to- gether. Avarice is the most opposite of all characters to that of God Almighty; Whose alone it is to give and not receive. A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich. When a person is so far engaged in a dispute as to wish to get the victory, he ought ever to desist. The idea of con- quest will so dazzle him that it is hardly possible he should discern the truth. People say, “Do not regard what he says now he is in liquor.” Perhaps it is the only time he ought to be regarded. Some men are called Sagacious, merely on account of their avarice : whereas a child can clench its fist the moment it is born. Wit is the refractory pupil of judgment. Think when you are enraged at any one, what would pro- bably become your sentiments should he die during the dispute. - A person, elevated one degree above the populace, assumes more airs of superiority than one that is raised ten. The reason is somewhat obvious. His superiority is more contes- table. The state of man is not unlike that of a fish hooked by an angler. Death allows us a little line. We flounce, and sport, and vary our situation. But when we would extend our schemes we discover our confinement, checked and limited by a superior hand, who drags us from our element whenso- ever he pleases. It is possible to discover in some faces the features nature intended, had she not been somehow thwarted in her opera- tions. It is not easy to remark the same distortion in some minds? There is a phrase pretty frequent amongst the vulgar, and which they apply to absolute fools—that they have had a rock too much in their cradles. With me, it is a most expressive idiom to describe a dislocated understanding: an understanding, for instance, which, like a watch, discovers a multitude of such parts, as appear obviously intended to belong to a system of the greatest perfection; yet which, by some unlucky jumble, falls infinitely short of it. Let us now read some old letters. Thomas Gray, the poet," was a delightful letter-writer. His two chief friendships as an Eton boy were with Horace Walpole, youngest son of Sir Robert, and Richard West, son of a Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Gray and West were both designed for the study of the law, and both drawn aside from it by other tastes. West died early in 1742, and was lamented by Gray in this sonnet — In vain to me the Smiling mornings shine, And redd’ning Phoebus lifts his golden fire: The birds in vain their amorous descant join; Or cheerful fields resume their green attire : These ears, alas ! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require : My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. 1 See “Shorter English Poems,” pages 368–371. 286 CASSÉLL'S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH IITERATURE. [A.D. 1740 Yet morning Smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men: The fields to all their wonted tribute bear: To warm their little loves the birds complain: I fruitless mourn to him, that cannot hear, And weep the more, because I weep in vain. When the two friends were young men of four- and-twenty, Gray, who was abroad in Italy, a travel- ling companion with young Horace Walpole, received and answered the following letter from West — RICHARD WEST TO THOMAS GRAY. Bond Street, June 5, 1740. I lived at the Templetill I was sick of it : I have just left it, and find myself as much a lawyer as I was when I was in it. It is certain, at least, I may study the law here as well as I could there. My being in chambers did not signify to me a pinch of Snuff. They tell me my father was a lawyer, and, as you know, eminent in the profession; and such a circum- stance must be of advantage to me. My uncle too makes Some figure in Westminster Hall; and there's another advan- tage : then my grandfather's name would get me many friends. Is it not strange that a young fellow, that might enter the world with so many advantages, will not know his own interest ? &c. &c.—What shall I say in answer to all this? For money, I neither doat upon it nor despise it ; it is a necessary stuff enough. For ambition, I do not want that neither; but it is not to sit upon a bench. In short, is it not a disagreeable thing to force one's inclination, especially when one's young P not to mention that one ought to have the strength of a Hercules to go through our common law ; which, I am afraid, I have not. Well! but then, say they, if one profession does not suit you, you may choose another more to your inclination. Now I protest I do not yet know my own inclination, and I believe, if that was to be my direction, I should never fix at all: there is no going by a weather- cock.--I could say much more upon this subject ; but there is no talking téte-à-téte across the Alps. Oh, the folly of young men, that never know their own interest they never grow wise till they are ruined and then nobody pities them, nor helps them.—Dear Gray ! consider me in the condition of one that has lived these two years without any person that he can speak freely to. I know it is very Seldom that people trouble themselves with the sentiments of those they converse with; so they can chat about trifles, they never care whether your heart aches or no. Are you one of these ? I think not. But what right have I to ask you this question ? Have we known one another enough, that I should expect or demand sincerity from you? Yes, Gray, I hope we have ; and I have not quite such a mean opinion of myself, as to think I do not deserve it.—But, Signor, is it not time for me to ask something about your further intentions abroad? Where do you propose going next P an in Apuliam P nam illó si adveneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum meminem. Vale.” So Cicero prophesies in the end of one of his letters—and there I end. Yours, &c. 1 The reference is to the last letter in the first book of Cicero's “Letters to Familiar Friends.” It is addressed to Valerius, a lawyer, who is travelling, and it notes chiefly how little he is or can be under- stood among strangers, how much his pleasant fellowship is sought by those who know him. “I)o not go,” says Cicero, “into Apulia | For if you come there, like Ulysses, you will know none of your friends. Farewell.” THOMAS GRAY TO RICHARD WEST. Florence, July 16, 1740. You do yourself and me justice, in imagining that you merit, and that I am capable of sincerity. I have not a thought, or even a weakness, I desire to conceal from you; and consequently on my side deserve to be treated with the same openness of heart. My vanity perhaps might make me more reserved towards you, if you were one of the heroic race, superior to all human failings; but as mutual wants are the ties of general society, so are mutual weaknesses of private friendships, supposing them mixed with some propor- tion of good qualities; for where one may not sometimes blame, one does not much care ever to praise. All this has the air of an introduction designed to soften a very harsh reproof that is to follow ; but it is no such matter : I only meant to ask, Why did you change your lodging P Was the air bad, or the situation melancholy P If so you are quite in the right. Only, is it not putting yourself a little out of the way of a people, with whom it seems necessary to keep up Some sort of intercourse and conversation, though but little for your pleasure or entertainment (yet there are, I believe, such among them as might give you both), at least for your information in that study, which, when I left you, you thought of applying to ? for that there is a certain study neces- sary to be followed, if we mean to be of any use in the world, I take for granted; disagreeable enough (as most necessities are), but, I am afraid, unavoidable. Into how many branches these studies are divided in England, everybody knows; and between that which you and I had pitched upon, and the other two, it was impossible to balance long. Examples show one that it is not absolutely necessary to be a blockhead to succeed in this profession. The labour is long, and the elements dry and unentertaining; nor was ever anybody (especially those that afterwards made a figure in it) amused, or even not disgusted in the beginning; yet upon a further acquaintance, there is surely matter for curiosity and reflec- tion. It is strange if, among all that huge mass of words, there be not somewhat intermixed for thought. Laws have been the result of long deliberation, and that not of dull men, but the contrary ; and have so close a connection with history, nay, with philosophy itself, that they must partake a little of what they are related to so nearly. Besides, tell me, have you ever made the attempt P Was not you frighted merely with the distant prospect P Had the Gothic character and bulkiness of those volumes (a tenth part of which perhaps it will be no further necessary to consult, than as one does a dictionary) no ill effect upon your eye? Are you sure, if Coke had been printed by Elzevir, and bound in twenty neat pocket volumes, instead of one folio, you should never have taken him up for an hour, as you would a Tully, or drank your tea over him? I know how great an obstacle ill spirits are to resolution. Do you really think, if you rid ten miles every morning, in a week's time you should not entertain much stronger hopes of the Chan- cellorship, and think it a much more probable thing than you do at present P The advantages you mention are not nothing; our inclinations are more than we imagine in our own power; reason and resolution determine them, and support under many difficulties. To me there hardly appears to be any medium between a public life and a private one; he who prefers the first, must put himself in a way of being serviceable to the rest of mankind, if he has a mind to be of any consequence among them : nay, he must not refuse being in a certain degree even dependent upon some men who already are so. If he has the good fortune to light on such as will make no ill use of his humility, there To A.D. 1759.] 287 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. is no shame in this: if not, his ambition ought to give place to a reasonable pride, and he should apply to the cultiva- tion of his own mind those abilities which he has not been permitted to use for others' service. Such a private hap- piness (supposing a small competence of fortune) is almost always in every one's power, and the proper enjoyment of age, as the other is the employment of youth. You are yet young, have some advantages and opportunities, and an undoubted capacity, which you have never yet put to the trial. Set apart a few hours, see how the first year will agree with you, at the end of it you are still the master; if you change your mind, you will only have got the know- ledge of a little somewhat that can do no hurt, or give you cause of repentance. If your inclination be not fixed upon anything else, it is a symptom that you are not absolutely determined against this, and warns you not to mistake mere indolence for inability. I am sensible there is nothing stronger against what I would persuade you to, than my own practice; which may make you imagine I think not as I speak. Alas! it is not so ; but I do not act what I think, and I had rather be the object of your pity, than that you should be that of mine; and, be assured, the advan- tage I may receive from it does not diminish my concern in hearing you want somebody to converse with freely, whose advice might be of more weight, and always at hand. We have sometime since come to the southern period of our voyages; we spent about nine days at Naples. It is the largest and most populous city, as its environs are the most deliciously fertile country of all Italy. We sailed in the bay of Baiae, sweated in the Solfatara, and died in the grotto del Cane, as all strangers do; saw the Corpus Christi proces- sion, and the King and the Queen and the city underground (which is a wonder I reserve to tell you of another time), and so returned to Rome for another fortnight; left it (left Rome!) and came hither for the summer. You have seen! an Epistle to Mr. Ashton, that seems to me full of spirit and thought, and a good deal of poetic fire. I would know your opinion. Now I talk of verses, Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spenser, published last year by a name- sake of yours,” with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed. After 1742 Gray lived chiefly at Cambridge. The following letter, written to Dr. Wharton in 1744, plays with his own love of leisure, that meant freedom to work as he pleased, and includes a com- ment upon Akenside's “Pleasures of Imagination,” first published in that year, with great success, when its author's age was twenty-three. By after elaboration Akenside increased the weakness of the poem. - Peterhouse, April 26, 1744. You write so feelingly to Mr. Brown, and represent your abandoned condition in terms so touching, that what grati- tude could not effect in several months, compassion has brought about in a few days; and broke that strong attachment, or rather allegiance, which I and all here owe to our sovereign Lady and Mistress, the President of Presidents and Head of Heads (if I may be permitted to pronounce her name, that ineffable Octogrammaton), the power of Laziness. You must know she had been pleased to appoint me (in preference 1 In Dodsley’s Miscellany, and also amongst Horace Walpole's Fugitive Pieces. * Gilbert West. This poem, “On the Abuse of Travelling,” is also in Dodsley's Miscellany. to so many old servants of hers who had spent their whole lives in qualifying themselves for the office) Grand Picker of Straws and Push-pin Player to her Supinity (for that is her title). The first is much in the nature of Lord President of the Council; and the other like the Groom-Porter, only without the profit; but as they are both things of very great honour in this country, I considered with myself the load of envy attending such great charges; and besides (between you and me) I found myself unable to support the fatigue of keeping up the appearance that persons of such dignity must do, so I thought proper to decline it, and excused myself as well as I could. However, as you see such an affair must take up a good deal of time, and it has always been the policy of this court to proceed slowly, like the Imperial and that of Spain, in the dispatch of business, you will on this account the easier forgive me, if I have not answered your letter before. You desire to know, it seems, what character the poem of your young friend bears here. I wonder that you ask the opinion of a nation, where those, who pretend to judge, do not judge at all; and the rest (the wiser part) wait to catch the judgment of the world immediately above them; that is, Dick's and the Rainbow Coffee-houses. Your readier way would be to ask the ladies that keep the bars in those two theatres of criticism. However, to show you that I am a judge, as well as my countrymen, I will tell you, though I have rather turned it over than read it (but no matter; no more have they), that it seems to me above the middling; and now and then, for a little while, rises even to the best, particularly in description. It is often obscure, and even unintelligible; and too much infected with the Hutchinson jargon. In short, its great fault is, that it was published at least nine years too early. And so methinks in a few words, “a la mode du Temple,” I have very pertly dis- patched what perhaps may for several years have employed a very ingenious man worth fifty of myself. You are much in the right to have a taste for Socrates; he was a divine man. I must tell you, by way of news of the place, that the other day a certain new Professor made an apology for him an hour long in the schools; and all the world brought in Socrates guilty, except the people of his own college. The Muse is gone, and left me in far worse company; if she returns, you will hear of her. As to her child (since you are so good as to inquire after it) it is but a puling chit yet, not a bit grown to speak of ; I believe, poor thing, it has got the worms that will carry it off at last. Mr. Trollope and I are in a course of tar-water; he for his present, and I for my future distempers. If you think it will kill me, send away a man and horse directly; for I drink like a fish. Yours, &c. In 1753 an Act of Parliament authorised the ac- ceptance of an offer made by the will of Sir Hans Sloane to transfer to the nation for £20,000 collec- tions that he had made at an expense of £50,000. Sir Hans Sloane's collection and the Cottonian and Harleian collections of MSS. were then vested in trustees, who were to be called Trustees of the British Museum. Montague House was bought from Lord Halifax in 1754, and transformed into a museum. This was opened to the public as the British Museum on January 15th, 1759. In the following summer Gray visited London, and took a lodging in Southampton Row, that he might explore the literary treasures which had thus been made 288 [A.D. 1748 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. accessible. The following letter to a clergyman who was among his correspondents, the rector of Palgrave and Thrandeston, in Suffolk, suggests changes of time, and has a touch of wisdom at the close – GRAY IN SOUTHAMPTON ROW. London, July 24, 1759. I am now settled in my new territories commanding Bedford gardens, and all the fields as far as Highgate and Hampstead, with such a concourse of moving pictures as would astonish you; so rus-in-urbe-ish that I believe I shall stay here, except little excursions and vagaries, for a year to come. What though I am separated from the fashionable world by broad St. Giles's, and many a dirty court and alley, yet here is air, and sunshine, and quiet, however, to comfort you : I shall confess that I am basking with heat all the summer, and I suppose shall be blown down all the winter, besides being robbed every night; I trust, however, that the Musaeum, with all its manuscripts and rarities by the cart-load, will make ample amends for all the aforesaid inconveniences. I this day passed through the jaws of a great leviathan into the den of Dr. Templeman, superintendant of the reading-room, who congratulated himself on the sight of so much good company. We were, first, a man that writes for Lord Royston; 2dly, a man that writes for Dr. Burton, of York; 3dly, a man that writes for the Emperor of Germany, or Dr. Pocock, for he speaks the worst English I ever heard; 4thly, Dr. Stukely, who writes for himself, the very worst person he could write for ; and lastly, I, who only read to know if there be anything worth writing, and that not with- out some difficulty. I find that they printed 1000 copies of the Harleian Catalogue, and have sold only fourscore; that they have 900l. a year income, and spend 1300, and are building apartments for the under-keepers; so I expect in winter to see the collection advertised and set to auction. Have you read Lord Clarendon's Continuation of his History P Do you remember Mr. * *'s account of it before it came out P. How well he recollected all the faults, and how utterly he forgot all the beauties: surely the grossest taste is better than such a sort of delicacy. Samuel Richardson, the novelist, was an inde- fatigable letter-writer. He was born in 1689, the son of a joiner in Derbyshire. He wrote afterwards of himself —“From my earliest youth, I had a love of letter-writing: I was not eleven years old when I wrote, spontaneously, a letter to a widow of near fifty, who, pretending to a zeal for religion, and being a constant frequenter of church ordinances, was con- tinually fermenting quarrels and disturbances, by backbiting and scandal, among all her acquaintance. I collected from the Scripture texts that made against her. Assuming the style and address of a person in years, I exhorted her, I expostulated with her. But my handwriting was known. I was challenged with it, and owned the boldness; for she complained of it to my mother with tears. My mother chid me for the freedom taken by such a boy with a woman of her years; but knowing that her son was not of a pert or forward nature, but, on the contrary, shy and bashful, she commended my principles, though she censured the liberty taken.” He tells us also that at thirteen he wrote love-letters for girls of his native place, and had their confidences. In 1706 Richardson was apprenticed, as a printer, to Mr. John Wilde, of Stationers' Hall. Then he rose in his business by steady application, married Allington Wilde, his master's daughter, who died in 1731, obtained the printing of the journals of the House of Commons, in 1754 became Master of the Stationers' Company, and in 1760 obtained a moiety of the patent of law printer to his Majesty. Richardson's first novel, “Pamela,” published in 1740, was de- veloped from a suggestion that he should write a series of Familiar Letters, adapted to a variety of Occasions. His three novels were all made to consist wholly of letters written by the persons of the story. “Pamela’’ was followed in 1748 by “Clarissa Har- lowe,” Richardson's best novel, of which an account will be given in the volume of this Library which treats of the larger works in English Literature. There was an interval between the publication of the first and last four volumes of this eight-volumed book, during which Richardson was urgently besought, by the fair correspondents whose worship delighted him, to make Clarissa happy. Conspicuous among these correspondents was a Lady Bradshaigh, of Haigh, in Lincolnshire, who wrote the following letter under the feigned name of Belfour, and requested an answer by a few lines inserted in the Whitehall Evening Post. Richardson replied through the newspaper, and then a correspondence was continued on the subject, “Mrs. Belfour” dating from Exeter, and directing letters to herself “to be left at the Post Office in Exeter till called for.” THE MYSTERIOUS LADY TO MR. RICHARDSON. October 10, 1748. I am pressed, sir, by a multitude of your admirers, to plead in behalf of your amiable Clarissa; having too much reason, from hints given in your four volumes, from a certain advertisement, and from your forbearing to write, after pro- mising all endeavours should be used towards satisfying the discontented; from all these, I say, I have but too much reason to apprehend a fatal catastrophe. I have heard that some of your advisers, who delight in horror (detestable wretches (), insisted upon rapes, ruin, and destruction; others, who feel for the virtuous in distress (blessings for ever attend them :), pleaded for the contrary. Could you be deaf to these, and comply with those ? Is it possible, that he who has the art to please in softness, in the most natural, easy, humorous, and sensible manner, can resolve to give joy only to the ill- natured reader, and heave the compassionate breast with tears for irremediable woes P Tears I would choose to shed for virtue in distress; but still would suffer to flow, in greater abundance, for unexpected turns of happiness, in which, sir, you excel any other author I ever read! where nature ought to be touched, you make the very soul feel. Which consideration (amongst many others) will, I hope, induce you not to vary from what has given your good- natured and judicious readers so much pleasure. It is not murder, or any other horrid act, but the preceding distresses, which touch and raise the passions of those, at least, whom an author would wish to please, supposing him to be such a one as I take you to be. Therefore, sir, after you have brought the divine Clarissa to the very brink of destruction, let me intreat (may I say, insist upon) a turn, that will make your almost despairing readers half mad with joy. I know you cannot help doing it, to give yourself satisfaction; for I A.D. 1748.] 289 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. pretend to know your heart so well, that you must think it a crime, never to be forgiven, to leave vice triumphant, and virtue depressed. If you think, by the hints given, that the event is too generally guessed at, and for that reason think it too late to alter your scheme, I boldly assert—not at all; write a little excuse to the reader, “that you had a design of concluding so and so, but was given to understand it would disappoint so many of your readers, that, upon mature deliberation and advice of friends, you had resolved on the contrary.” Now, sir, I must inform you, that I do blush most im- moderately, which I rejoice to feel; for I must be mistress of a consummate assurance, in offering to put words in the mouth of the ingenious Mr. Richardson, without a blush of the deepest dye. LADY BRADSHAIGH. From an Original Portrait engraved for Mrs. Barbauld's “Correspondence of Samuel Richardson.” I have all this time pleaded only in behalf of Clarissa; but you must know (though I shall blush again), that if I was to, die for it, I cannot help being fond of Lovelace, A Sad dog! why would you make him so wicked, and yet so agreeable? He says, sometime or other he designs being a good man, from which words I have great hopes; and, in excuse for my liking him, I must say, I have made him so, up to my own heart's wish; a faultless husband have I made him, even without danger of a relapse. A foolish rake may die one; but a sensible rake must reform, at least in the hands of a sensible author it ought to be so, and will, I hope. If you disappoint me, attend to my curse :—May the hatred of all the young, beautiful, and virtuous for ever be your portion 1 and may your eyes never behold anything but age and deformity may you meet with applause only from envious old maids, surly bachelors, and tyrannical parents' may you be doomed to the company of such and, after death, may their ugly souls haunt you! Now make Lovelace and Clarissa unhappy if you dare. Perhaps you may think all this proceeds from a giddy girl of sixteen, but know I am past my romantic time of life, though young enough to wish two lovers happy in a married state. As I myself am in that class, it makes me still more anxious for the lovely pair. I have common understanding and middling judgment for one of my sex, which I tell you for fear you should not find it out; but if you take me for a fool, I do not care a straw. What I have said is without the least vanity, not but modesty would have forbid; but that you only know me by the name of |BELFour. TO MR. RICHARDSON. DEAR SIR,-Let me intreat only suppose all the good- natured, compassionate, and distressed on their knees at your feet, can you let them beg in vain? I have sometimes a faint glimmering of hope, at other times am in despair, which almost makes me mad, and so, sir, you have reason to think me; but you have given me so great a proof of your good-nature and complaisance, that I depend upon being excused for continuing to trespass upon your time and patience. I must add, that I am in a house full of company, who are wondering at my frequent retirements; so that I can only now and then snatch half an hour to write what at that time comes into my head. Wonder not, therefore, at the inco- herence of this tedious epistle; but write I must, or die, for I can neither eat or sleep till I am disburdened of my load. That it is to fall upon you, sir, I am sorry; but through an unlucky necessity it must be so. Had you not favoured me with your's, you never had been troubled with this; and I own it hard you should suffer for your being so infinitely obliging. I will not say this shall be the last, I hope not; I will flatter myself that I may think a letter of thanks necessary. The reason of my concealing my name is not for want of confidence in you, but really and truly out of a principle of modesty; for well may I be ashamed to write in the manner I have done ! I have now, sir, been very grave with you, and must beg pardon for my last airy epistle, in which I took the liberty to use many hard sentences, and even curses; but I hope I shall have reason to turn them into blessings, from the bottom of my heart. Think not I expect an answer to all this, indeed I do not. I should be glad if you would order Mr. Rivington just to tell me he has delivered this to you; and, O what I shall feel, when I read—“This day is published, a continuation of The History of Miss Clarissa Harlowe l’” I am ashamed to say how much I shall be affected; but be it as it will, I shall ever acknowledge myself, Sir y Your obliged humble servant, BELFour. If you should think fit to alter your scheme, I will promise to read your history over, at least once in two years, as long as I live; and my last words are, be merciful. TO MRS. BELFOUR. October 6th, 1748. MADAM,-There was no need to bespeak my patience, nor anything but my gratitude, on reading such a letter as you have favoured me with. Indeed, I admire it, and have reason to plume myself upon the interest you take in my story. I should be utterly inexcusable, in my opinion, if I took not early and grateful notice of it; yet cannot but say, that if there were no other reason but the condescending one you are pleased to mention in the latter part of your letter, to deny me, I should be proud to know to whom I have the honour of addressing myself by pen and ink. You cannot imagine, how sensibly I am grieved for the pain the unexpected turn of my story has given you. God 213 290 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1748. forbid that anything unhappy, or disastrous, should ever fall to the lot of a lady so generously sensible to the woes of others, as she must be who can thus be affected by a moral tale, though the character (however presumed to be in nature) existed not in life. Indeed you are not particular in your wishes for a happy ending, as it is called. Nor can I go through some of the scenes myself without being sensibly touched. (Did I not say | | º .." º | || || SAMUEL RICHARDSON. - From the Painting of which he had a private Engraving made for circulation among friends.1 that I was another Pygmalion ?) But yet I had to show, for example sake, a young lady struggling nobly with the greatest difficulties, and triumphing from the best motives, in the course of distresses, the tenth part of which would have sunk even manly hearts; yet tenderly educated, born to affluence, natu- rally meek, although, where an exertion of spirit was neces- Sary, manifesting herself to be a true heroine. And what, madam, is the temporary happiness we are so fond of P What the long life we are so apt to covet 2 The more irksome these reflections are to the young, the gay, and the healthy, the more necessary are they to be inculcated. A verse may find him who a sermon flies, And turn delight into a sacrifice.2 Of this nature is my design. Religion never was at so low an ebb as at present. And if my work must be supposed of the novel kind, I was willing to try if a religious novel would do good. And did you not perceive that in the very first letter of Lovelace, all those seeds of wickedness were thick sown, which * At his elbow is the elbow of the chair he wrote in. It was fitted, as the picture shows, with an ink-bottle. The portrait was by Pygmalion’s friend Highmore. * From George, Herbert's “Temple.” lines 5, 6. The “Church Porch,” sprouted up into action afterwards in his character? Pride, revenge, a love of intrigue, plot, contrivance And who is it that asks, “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles #" On this consideration it has been matter of sur- prise to me, and indeed of some concern, that this character has met with so much favour from the good and virtuous, even as it stands from his two or three first letters; and in some measure convinced me of the necessity of such a catastrophe as I have made. Had I drawn my heroine reconciled to relations unworthy of her, nobly resisting the attacks of an intrepid lover, over- coming her persecutors, and baffling the wicked designs formed against her honour; marrying her Lovelace, and that on her own terms; educating properly, and instructing her own children; what, however useful, however pleasing the lesson, had I done more than I had done in Pamela 2 And it is hoped, that there are many mothers, many wives, who, though they have not been called upon to many trials, thus meritoriously employ themselves in their families. And as to reforming and marrying Lovelace, and the example to be given by it, what but this that follows, would it have been, instead of the amiable one your good nature and humanity point out 2 “Here,” says another Lovelace, “may I pass the flower and prime of my youth, in forming and pursuing the most insidious enterprises. As many of the daughters and sisters of worthy families as I can seduce, may I seduce—scores perhaps in different climates; and on their weakness build my profligate notions of the whole sex. I may at last meet with, and attempt, a Clarissa, a lady of peerless virtue. I may try her, vex her, plague and torment her worthy heart. I may fit up all my batteries against her virtue; and if I find her proof against all my machinations, and myself tired with rambling, I may then reward that virtue; I may graciously extend my hand—she may give me hers, and rejoice, and thank heaven for my condescension in her favour. The Almighty, I may suppose, at the same time, to be as ready with his mercy, foregoing his justice on my past crimes, as if my nuptials with this meritorious fair one were to atone for the numerous distresses and ruins I have occasioned in other families: and all the good-natured, the worthy, the humane part of the world, forgiving me too, because I am a handsome and a humorous fellow, will clap their hands with joy, and cry out, Happy, happy, happy pair' None but the rake deserves the fair!” 3 There cannot be a more permicious notion, than that which is so commonly received, that a reformed rake makes the best husband. This notion it was my intent to combat and expose, as I mentioned so early as in the preface to my first volume. And how could I have answered this end, had I pursued the plan your benevolent heart wishes I had pursued P Indeed, indeed, madam, reformation is not, cannot, be an easy, a sudden thing, in a man long immersed in vice. The tempta- tion to it, as from sex to sex, so natural; constitution, as in such a character as Lovelace, so promotive ; a love of intrigue so predominant ; so great a self-admirer; so much admired by others; and was it not nature that I proposed to follow P You suppose me, madam, to be one who can believe that there is felicity in marriage. Indeed I honour the state; I have reason to do so. I have been twice married, and both times happily. But as to Clarissa, whom you wish to be joined to a man of her own reforming, “new modelled,” as you say, “and by her made perfect as herself,” let me say, if I had designed her to shine in the married life, I would have given her a man whose reflections upon his past life 3 Dryden. “Alexander's Feast,” with “rake" for “brave.” A.D. 1748.1 291 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. should have sat easier upon him; both for his sake, and for the sake of her pious heart, than those of a wicked man could do, who had been the ruin of many innocents before he became hers. Great abatements to a well-founded happiness surely in these reflections ! I would not have confirmed the pernicious notions above-mentioned of the reformed rake. A man who knows so much of his duty, as he is supposed to know, and who is, nevertheless, wicked upon principle, must be an abandoned man; and even should he reform, an uneasy, and therefore an unhappy one. But why, as I asked in my former, is death painted in such shocking lights, when it is the common lot ? If it is become so terrible to human nature, it is time to familiarize it to us. Hence another of my great ends, as I have hinted. “Don’t we lead back,” says Clarissa, on a certain occasion, which had shocked those about her, “a starting steed to the object he is apt to start at, in order to familiarize him to it, and cure his starting P” Who but the persons concerned should choose for them- selves what would make them happy? If Clarissa think not an early death an evil, but on the contrary, after an exem- plary preparation, looks upon it as her consummating perfec- tion, who shall grudge it her ? who shall punish her with life? “There is no inquisition in the grave,” as she quotes, “whe- ther we have lived ten or an hundred years, and the day of death is better than the day of our birth.” With regard to such catastrophes in general as are accounted unhappy, let me refer you, madam, to what an excellent judge, and sound Christian, Mr. Addison I mean, has written in his Spectator. Vol. I., No. 40." But, after all, it is the execution must either condemn or acquit me. I am, however, discouraged and mortified at what you tell me, that you cannot think of accepting of the volumes when completed, if the catastrophe be not as you wish. I am pained for your apprehended pain, were you to read to the end; and the more so, I own, that I have lost my aim, and judge wrongly from my own heart and eyes, if there are not scenes to come that will affect so tender a heart as yours. That fifth volume is finished; I will send it directed to Mrs. Belfour (I must not dare to hope for the honour of a more welcome address) to the bookseller at Exeter. And if you will favour me with a letter upon it—yet you must take care how you favour me too—men are naturally encroachers. And it would be difficult in me to deny myself the hope of such a correspondent to the end of my life. I love Miss Howe next to Clarissa; and I see very evidently in your letters that you are the twin sister of that lady. And indeed I adore your spirit and your earnestness, And am, Madam, with the greatest respect, Your most sincere admirer and humble servant, S. RICHARDSON. This is a later letter from Richardson in reply to the continued pleadings of his unknown correspon- dent – * Writing of tragedies, Addison quotes Aristotle in this paper, and says, he observes “that those which ended unhappily had always pleased the people and carried away the prize, in the public disputes of the stage, from those that ended happily. Terror and commisera- tion leave a pleasing anguish in the mind, and fix the audience in such a serious composure of thought as is much more lasting and delightful than any little transient starts of joy and satisfaction. Accordingly we find that more of our English tragedies have suc- ceeded in which the favourites of the audience sink under their calamities, than those in which they recover themselves out of them.”—Spectator, No. 40. TO MRS, BELFOUR. Indeed, my dear madam, I could not think of leaving my heroine short of heaven: nor that I should do well if I punished not so premeditated a violation, and thereby made pity on her account, and terror on his, join to complete my great end, for the sake of example and warning. - “You make a wide difference,” you are pleased to tell me, “between an extreme distress and acts of the utmost horror.” Those acts, madam, may be called acts of horror by tender spirits, which only ought to be called acts of terror and warning. The catastrophe of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet may be truly called horrid. Are not these reflections of Juliet, just before she took the opiate which was to lay her asleep till Romeo came to find her among the tombs of her ancestors, as well as the expedient itself, truly horrid P —How, if, when I am laid into the tomb Iwake before the time that Romeo Comes to redeem me? Or, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, And madly play with my forefathers’ joints, And pluck the mangled Tibalt from his shroud P Or in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, As with a club, dash out my desp'rate brains? I hope I have everywhere avoided all rant, horror, inde- cent images, inflaming descriptions, even when rake writes to rake. Terror, and fear, and pity, are essentials in a tragic performance. - But, dear good madam, why should you run away from, or not care to trust yourself with your own humanity, when your choice, or perhaps but your complaisance, led you to be present at the representations of those scenes, which must have been mismanaged, if they did not soften and mend the heart P. If warning and example be not meant in public re- presentations, as well as entertainment and diversion, what wretched performances, what mere kill-time amusements must they be to thinking minds ! A good comedy is a fine performance. But how few are there that can be called good P Even those that are tolerable are so mixed with indecent levities (at which footmen have a right to insult, by their roars, their ladies in the boxes), that a modest young creature hardly knows how to bear the offence to her ears in the representation, joined with the insults given by the eyes of the young fellows she is sur- rounded by. These indecencies would be unnaturally shock- ing in tragedy, as every one feels in the tragic comedy more especially. But true tragedy we must not bear. “How often,” say you (and I repeat your words with con- cern), “have I been forced to talk all the ridiculous things I could think of, in order to conceal my weakness.” Proud as I should be of the honour of being in your company, I should be sorry to be very near you, madam, on such occasions, unless I was very indifferent about the representation I went to see. - You say, “that you are not affected in the same sensible manner by distresses in unnatural heroics, as you are when they appear purely in nature; where the distresses come nearer one's self.” This is exceedingly well said. This was one of the principal reasons of writing the History of Clarissa. The Orphan, perhaps, owes its success more to this con- sideration than to any other. Its characters are all of a private family; though in high, yet not in princely life. As to the questions which you repeatedly urge, whether Mr. Lovelace might not have been made a penitent, &c., &c., all these might have been answered in the affirmative. But let us suppose the story to end, as you, madam, would have it; what of extraordinary would there be in it P After 292 [A.D. 1748. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH IMITERATURE. infinite trials, difficulties, distresses, and even disgraces, (her delicacy and situation considered) see her married: see her an excellent wife, an excellent mistress, and even an excel- lent mother, struggling through very delicate and very painful circumstances, what though common, not the less painful and delicate for being common: see her foolish and obstinate re- lations reconciled to her: see Mr. Lovelace in his behaviour to her all that can be expected from a tender, a fond husband: what is there unusual in all this? except in the latter case, an example as dangerous as rare What, in a happiness so common and so private (the lady of equal degree with the gentleman, and of superior, at least equal, talents, so not pre- ferred by the marriage as a recompense for her sufferings) worth troubling the world about P How many are the infelicities, how many are the drawbacks upon happiness, that attend upon what is even called a happy married life P Indeed the best of our happiness here is but happiness by competition or comparison. A becalmed life is like a becalmed ship. The very happiness to which we are long accustomed becomes like a stagnated water, rather infectious than salutary. The full stomach loathes the honey- comb. There are sighs that proceed from fullness as well as from emptiness. If happy in ourselves, it is in the power of our very servants, and so much the more, too often, if they find we endeavour to make them happy, to render us not so. Are not the happiest of us continually looking forward to what we have not ? passing by with thankless indifference what we possess P - But not too severely to moralize. Let us attend Clarissa in the issue of her supposed nuptials. We will imagine her to have repeatedly escaped the perils of child-birth. How many children shall we give her ? five, six, seven P. How many, madam? Not less, I hope. Suppose them then grown up; do they, however well instructed, always or generally answer the cultivator's wishes P Will they have nothing of the mortal of a father in them, as he was before his reformation? Even the goddess mother had something to reproach herself with ; the conse- quences of which made her and all her family long unhappy. Will there be nothing of that perverseness, shall I call it 2 Good parents are not sure they shall have good children. But suppose all their children dutiful, prudent, good; and suppose them to continue so, sons and daughters till marriageable years, how then are the cares of the anxious parents increased ? If ever so worthy, may not the daughters marry unworthy men, the sons unworthy women P. How many discomforts may spring from these sources to make fathers and mothers, however happy in each other, unhappy in their offspring; then probably most unhappy, when least able to contend with misfortunes. And is this, even this not unfavourable view, the condition of life to which we are so solicitous to prefer a creature perfected by sufferings, and already ripened for glory. If you are dissatisfied with this view, let me beg of you, madam (you have a charming imagination, and are yourself happy in the nuptial state, let me beg of you), to describe for Clarissa such a state as you would have wished her to shine in before she went to heaven. Clarissa has the greatest of triumphs even in this world. The greatest, I will venture to say, even in and after the out- rage, and because of the outrage, that ever woman had. A writer who follows nature, and pretends to keep the Christian system in his eye, cannot make a heaven in this world for his favourites, or represent this life otherwise than as a state of probation. Clarissa, Ionce more aver, could not be rewarded in this world. To have given her her reward here, as in a happy marriage, would have been as if a poet had placed his catastrophe in the third act of his play, when the audience were obliged to expect two more. What greater moral proof can be given of a world after this, for the re- warding of suffering virtue, and for the punishing of oppres- sive vice, than the inequalities in the distribution of rewards and punishments here below P “How can any one,” say you, “think with pleasure of parting with what he loves, supposing his end ever so glorious? Could you, sir? Have you ever made it your own case ?” Ah, madam ' And do you thus call upon me?—Forgive an interrupting sigh, and allow me a short silence. 3: 36. * + % * + I told you, madam, that I have been twice married—both times happily. You will guess so as to my first, when I tell you that I cherish the memory of my lost wife to this hour; and as to the second, when I assure you, that I can do so without derogating from the merits of, or being disallowed by my present, who speaks of her on all occasions as respectfully and as affectionately as I do myself. By my first wife I had five sons and one daughter; some of them living to be delightful prattlers, with all the appearances of sound health; lovely in their features, and promising as to their minds: and the death of one of them, I doubt, accelerat- ing from grief, that of the otherwise laudably afflicted mother. I have had by my present wife five girls and one boy. I have buried of these the promising boy and one girl. Four girls I have living, all at present good, very good. Their mother, a true and instructing mother to them. Thus have I lost six sons (all my sons ) and two daughters, with every one of which, to answer your question, I parted with great regret. Other heavy deprivations of friends, very near, and very dear, have I also suffered. I am very sus- ceptible, I will venture to say, of impressions of this nature. A father, an honest, a worthy father, I lost by the accident of a broken thigh, snapt by a sudden jerk, endeavouring to recover a slip, passing through his own yard. Two brothers, very dear to me, I lost abroad. A friend more valuable than most brothers was taken from me. No less than eleven affecting deaths attacked me in two years. My nerves were so affected with these repeated blows, that I have been for Seven years past forced, after repeatedly labouring through the whole medical process by direction of eminent physicians, to go into a regimen, not a cure to be expected, but merely as a palliative; and for seven years past have forborne wine, flesh, and fish: and at this time I and my family are in mourning for a good sister, with whom I would not have parted, could I have had my choice. From these affecting dispensations will you not allow me, madam, to remind an unthinking world, immersed in pleasures, what a life this is, of which they are so fond P and to endeavour to arm them against the most affecting changes and chances of it. The case, therefore, is not what we should like to bear, but what (such is the common lot) we must bear, like it or not. And if we can be prepared by remote instances to support ourselves under real afflictions when it comes to our turn to suffer such, is the attempt an unworthy one? O that my own last hour, and the last hour of those I love, may be such as that I have drawn for my Clarissal I asked you, madam, at how many years end (endeared by constant good offices) we are to choose to part with those we love? “I really cannot tell,” answer you; “but you can tell yourself, that it is impossible to wish for, or be perfectly satisfied at, the time of parting, though this time must come. And have you not observed,” proceed you, “that, in a general way, the parting sits easier, and makes a less impres- sion upon those in years, than when it happens at an early A.D. 1748.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - 293 time, though their esteem and love for each other may or may not be in the least diminished?” Indeed, madam, I have not generally, or at all, observed this, where the love has been undiminished, but the contrary. And it is reasonable to suppose that it should be the contrary, and I could easily give more than one instance where the loss of the one partner has, in all appearance, hastened the death of the other. In the early part of life, youth and gay hopes keep the heart alive. I have compared marriage, even where not un- happy, to a journey in a stage coach, six passengers in it. Very uneasy sit they at first, though they know by the number of places taken what they are to expect; one wishing another to take up less room; the slender entitled, as they think, to grudge the more bulky their very size and shape. But when the vehicle moves on, a hearty jolt or two in a rugged way settles them. They then begin to open lips and countenances, compare notes, tell stories, assume consequence, and endea- vour placidly to keep up to the consequence they assume, and are all of a family. I believe no two ever came together who had not each (however pleased in the main) some little matter they wished to be mended, altered, or yielded up; that had not some few jolts as I may call them. The first six, eight, or ten months, may probably pass in settling each to the other their minds, and what the one or what the other shall or will give up, or insist upon. When this is found out, it ends in a composition, a tacit one at least, and then they settle tolerably together. Then love (the intenser, the truer love) increases, if each be satisfied in each other's love: yet a dangerous illness, a fever suppose on the man's side, the par- turient circumstances on the woman's, keep hope and fear alive, and the well party will not be able to forbear looking out for what is to be chosen (were the dreaded worst to happen, though not wishing it should happen) and perhaps for whom. But both arrived at the good old age, which you would have had afforded to Clarissa and her reformed Love- lace, their minds weakened, both domesticated, their views narrowed; company principally for each other, and looking not out of themselves, or their own narrow wicket for comfort; must not a parting then be very grievous? Bodies may be sundered in youth, may be torn from each other, and other bodies may supply the loss, for the loves of youth have more in them of body than of mind, let lovers fancy what they will: but in age, a separation may be called a separation of souls. Joyless, cold to sense, hardly hope left, no near and dear friend to complain to or be soothed by ; yet infirmities daily increasing: relations, as well as others, and with more reason, though with less gratitude, than others, ready to jostle the forlorn survivor off the stage of life, and thinking it time for him or her to follow the departed half. In short, human life is not at best so very desirable a thing as we are apt to imagine it to be, had we not a better to hope for. We find this to be true by retrospecting that part of it we have passed over. And shall we call an early death an untimely one, yet not be able to say at how many years end, or in what situa- tion, we should think the inevitable lot happy P “No wonder;” you say, “that she knew happy days before eighteen; trials seldom come till after that time of life.” The more useful then my story so full of trials, and these so nobly supported. “Do not provoke me,” say you. Will you forgive me, madam, if I own that I really have so much cruelty in my nature, that I should wish to provoke you now and then, if I knew what would do it, consistent with respect and decency? For, as I have often said, I admire you even in the height of that charming spirit which you exert with so much agreeable warmth, in a cause in which you think it becomes a tender and humane nature to exert itself. The faults which proceed from goodness of heart I love beyond the unwilling virtues of the malevolent. “Women to be generally thought a trifling part of the creation.” May those who think them so never be blest with a sensible woman You must see that the tendency of all I have written is to exalt the Sex. You say, “you suppose that I designed my fair readers should find out what was worthy and agreeable in Lovelace.” I did, madam; and I told you in my first letter that he had some good qualities given him, in compliment to the eye and ear of Clarissa. But little did I think at the time that those qualities would have given women of virtue and honour such a liking to him, as I have found to be the case with many. I thought I had made him too wicked, too intriguing, too revengeful (and that in his very first letters), for him to obtain the favour and good wishes of any worthy heart of either sex. I tried his character, as it was first drawn, and his last exit, on a young lady of seventeen. She showed me by her tears at the latter, that he was not very odious to her for his vagaries and inventions. I was surprised ; and for fear such a wretch should induce pity, I threw into his character some deeper shades. And as he now stands, I verily think that had I made him a worse man, he must have been a devil—for devils believe and tremble. “You cannot agree with me, that Lovelace ought to have done all in his power to repair the wrongs of some one of those whom he had deluded.” The Manse laws are with me in this point. Pity they are not in force throughout the British, and all Christian dominions. But let me allow with you, that this may depend upon particular circumstances. And yet there are circumstances so particular in some seductions, that a man ought, upon the common principles of honour, whether reformed or not, to marry the woman whom he has betrayed; yea, supposing such to have been an easy prey to him. Perhaps I ought to be excused, by a lady, at least, if I affirm that no one case can be put where a man's solemn promise should be dispensed with, and he has reaped the fruits of it. If a woman be very culpably forward and frail, there need be no promise of marriage made her; the man may obtain his end without. Yet multitudes of those very yielding persons would have been virtuous and good women, were they not to have been tempted, stimulated, and betrayed by wretches who have equal title with Lovelace to tempt, to try, to doubt their mistresses’ virtue. “They who are so weak,” say you, “as to be tempted by so old a bait as a promise of marriage, deserve not that justice.” But if it be justice, and justice surely it is to a poor creature who has risked body, soul, and reputation, upon the credit she gives to the vows of her lover, however inexcusably weak she may be for her affiance to him, she has a title to it. Nor as it may happen, will she want punishment for her easy folly, were he, who has found her so weak, actually to make good his promise. “Had you been a reformed Lovelace,” say you, “with a Clarissa in your view, would you have done what you say he ought to do?—No, no, no—nor any man living,” answer you, with your happy vivacity. What we would do, or what we should do, madam, are two very different things. But as circumstances might have offered, perhaps I could not have given a stronger nor a more proper evidence to the world, and even to heaven, of the sincerity of my reformation, than by doing this justice, I will call it. And were my conscience engaged (honour call it if you please) to effect the delusion, it ought not to have been released, till I had performed the cone dition upon which it was pledged. And this course I should 294 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1748 be the more bound to take, if the poor creature was likely to be finally lost by the consequence of my perfidy. What, think you, has not Mr. Grimes to answer for in the ruin of Constantia Philips, when but eleven years of age, and abandoning her to the town in two months; if the story she tells be true P What ruins, the consequences of her ruin, may not be laid at his door? You will before now have the whole work courting your acceptance and perusal. If it may not have the honour of the latter you must not, however, deny it that of the former. Be pleased in this case to honour the volumes with a place with your Taylor's “Living and Dying,” with your “Practice of Piety,” and Nelson's “Feasts and Festivals,” not as being worthy of such company, but that they may have a chance of being dipped into thirty years hence; for I persuade myself, they will not be found utterly unworthy of such a chance, since they appear in the humble guise of novel only by way of accommodation to the manners and taste of an age over- whelmed with luxury, and abandoned to sound and sense- lessness. I am, Madam, with great truth and respect, Your sincere admirer, and humble servant, S. RICHARDSON. To compensate for having made his handsome pro- fligate attractive to ladies, who said that he had given them nothing else to admire, Richardson un- dertook to paint a man as he should be in Sir Charles Grandison, the hero of his third and last novel. This brought him into more discussions with ladies who were honoured by hearing him read his chapters as they were written. One of them, Miss Mulso, afterwards Mrs. Chapone, who published “Letters on the Improvement of the Mind,” called down upon herself, among many others, these two letters from Richardson containing— DISQUISITIONS UPON LOVE. Sept. 3, 1751. You tell me, my dear Miss Mulso, “that I am really such a bamboozler on the subject of love, that you can’t tell what to make of me.” Sometimes, say you, I am persuaded that “you have a noble and just idea of the noblest kind of love; ” and sometimes I think that “you and I have different ideas of the passion.” In another place, you are offended with the word grati- tude; as if your idea of love excluded gratitude. And further on, you are offended that I call this same passion, “a little selfish passion.” And you say, “that you have known few girls, and still fewer men, whom you have thought capable of being in love.” “By this,” proceed you, “you will see, that my ideas of the word love are different from yours, when you call it a little selfish passion.” Now, madam, if that passion is not little and selfish that makes two vehement souls prefer the gratification of each other, often to a sense of duty, and always to the whole world without them, be pleased to tell me what it is. And pray be so good as to define to me, what the noble passion is, of which so few people of either sex are capable. Give me your ideas of it. - I put not this question as a puzzler, a bamboozler, but purely for information; and that I may make my Sir Charles susceptible of the generous (may I say generous?) flame; and yet know what he is about, yet be a reasonable man. Harriet's passion is founded in gratitude for relief given her in a great exigence. But the man who rescued her is not, it seems, to have such a word as gratitude in his head, in return for her love. I repeat that I will please you if I can ; please you, Miss Mulso I here mean, (before, I meant not you particularly, my dear, but your sex) in Sir Charles's character; and I sincerely declare, that I would rather form his character to your liking, than to the liking of three parts out of four of the persons I am acquainted with. You are one of my best girls, and best judges. Of whom have I the opinion that I have of Miss Mulso on these nice subjects?—I ask therefore repeatedly for your definition of the passion which you dignify by the word noble; and from which you exclude everything mean, little, or selfish. And you really think it marvellous that a young woman should find a man of exalted merit to be in love with ? —Why, truly, I am half of your mind; for how should people find what, in general, they do not seek?—Yet what good creatures are many girls —They will be in love for all that. Why, yes, to be sure, they would be glad of a Sir Charles Grandison, and prefer him even to a Lovelace, were he capable of being terribly in love. And yet, I know one excellent girl who is afraid “that ladies in general will think him too wise.”—Dear, dear girls, help me to a few monkey- tricks to throw into his character, in order to shield him from contempt for his wisdom. “It is one of my maxims,” you say, “that people even of bad hearts will admire and love people of good ones.” Very true !—And yet admiration and love, in the sense before us, do not always shake hands, except at parting, and with an intention never to meet again. I have known women who professed to admire good men; but have chosen to marry men—not so good; when lovers of both sorts have tendered themselves to their acceptance. There is something very pretty in the sound of the word wild, added to the word fellow ; and good sense is a very grateful victim to be sacrificed on the altar of love. Fervour and extravagance in expressions will please. How shall a woman, who, moreover, loves to be admired, know a man's heart, but from his lips ? —Let him find flattery, and she will find credulity. Sweet souls' can they be always contradicting P “You believe it is not in human nature, however depraved, to prefer evil to good in another, whatever people may do in themselves.” Why, no, one would really think so, did not experience convince us that many, very many young women, in the article of marriage, though not before thought to be very depraved, are taken by this green sickness of the Soul, and prefer dirt and rubbish to wholesome diet. The result of the matter is this, with very many young women:—They will admire a good man; but they will marry a bad one.—Are not rakes pretty fellows? But one thing let me add, to comfort you in relation to Harriet’s difficulties: I intend to make her shine by her cordial approbation, as she goes along, of every good action of her beloved. She is humbled by her love (suspense in love is a mortifier) to think herself inferior to his sisters; but I intend to raise her above them, even in her own just opinion; and when she shines out the girl worthy of the man, not exalt, but reward her, and at the same time make him think himself highly rewarded by the love of so frank and so right an heart. There now !—Will that do, my Miss Mulso? I laid indeed an heavy hand on the good Clarissa. But I To A.D. 1751.] 295 SHORTER PROSE works. had begun with her, with a view to the future Saint in her character: and could she, but by sufferings, shine as she does? Do you, my dear child, look upon me as Your paternal friend S. RICHARDson. Sept. 30, 1751. I can't say, my dear Miss Mulso, but you have given a very pretty definition of love. I knew that the love you contended for must be a passion fit to be owned; and I am sorry you think there are very few, either men or women, that are capable of it. By the way, I had the generality of men and women in my eye, and not those few, those very few, that are capable of that true love which you call the highest kind and degree of friendship. But do not all men and women pretend to this sort of love P Do not the many, as well as the few, lay claim to this sort of love, and dignify it by the name of a noble passion ? And do not all the boys and girls around them, when the passionates (forgive the word) break fences, leap from windows, climb walls, swim rivers, defy parents, say, Such a furiosa is in love; ay, and sit down, and form excuses from that single word for the mad-cap ! though neither degree, duty, discretion, nor yet modesty, has been consulted in the rapture. Think you, madam, that a certain monodist did not imagine himself possessed by this purer flame, who, mourning a dead wife of exalted qualities, could bring her to his reader's imagination, on the bridal eve, the hymeneal torch lighted up, Dearer to me, than when thy virgin charms Were yielded to my arms P How many soft souls have been made to sigh over the images here conveyed, and to pity the sensual lover, when they should have lamented with the widower or husband But the love you describe “cannot be call'd selfish, because it must desire the happiness of its object preferably to its own.” Fine talking ! Pretty ideas —Well; and where this is the case we will not call it selfish, I think. And yet what means the person possessed, but to gratify self, or self and proposed company P Is a man who enters into a partnership to be regarded, who declares that his ardent thirst after accumulation is not for himself, for his own thirst; but for his partner's, whom he loves better than himself P or his partner, on the other hand, when he declares the same thing by his partner? This cannot be selfishness, though they combine to cheat father and mother, renounce brother and sister; and having made themselves the world to each other, seek to draw every public and private duty into their own narrow circle. Dear madam, is not the object pretended to be preferred to self a single object P A part of self? And is it not a selfishness to propose to make all the world but two persons, and then these two but one; and, intending to become the same flesh as well as spirit, know no public, no other private P Consider the matter over again, in this its best light. Supposing an opposition founded on reason, from parents or friends, be the flame ever so pure, as well as ardent.—It cannot be called furious. Well then, we will not call it so; and yet constitution is a good deal to be considered in this case; the poet tells us, Love various minds does variously inspire, He stirs in gentle natures gentle fire, Like that of incense on the altar laid; But raging fires tempestuous souls invade, A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows— And not only constitution, but the fervour or gentleness of the opposition is to be considered: a furious opposition will make a furious resistance. Let passage be given to the gentle stream, and it will glide gently on, and in soft complainings only murmur. But seek to imbank, to confine it, the waters will rise, and carry away the opposing mound; an inundation follows, and then it will roar, and with difficulty be once more confined to its natural channel, a good deal of fair meadow having been overflowed by the attempt to restrain it. But “True love is all tenderness, gentleness, and kind- ness—” Yes to the object.—“Ever fearful of offending.”— Yes the object; but nobody else if withstood.—“And un- bounded in the desire of obliging.”—The object.—Yes, so it is, whomever else it happens to disoblige.—And this is not selfish —I am glad of it, with all my heart. How can it 2– My dear papa, my dear mamma, my good uncle, my worthy aunt, my loving cousins, and you my old friends, play-fellows, and intimates, I love not myself, though I can give you up, if you oppose my love; for it is Philander that I love; and nobody else. And he loves me, and only me; I for his sake, he for mine: not either for his or her own sake : and do I not give a convincing proof of my disinterestedness when I can throw off all the regards of duty, of interest, of natural affection, for the sake of a man (not for my own sake) whom perhaps I had never seen or known, had I not been at Ranelagh, at Vauxhall, at the Opera, at a certain critical hour, which is to determine the happiness of my whole life? And, as it may happen, your happiness my dear friends, if your hearts are bound up in me, your grateful Philo-Phi- lander. But, “true love, you say, cannot be called a sanctifier of bad actions and a debaser of good; or a Moloch deity, which requires duty, discretion, all that is most valuable, to be sacrificed to it; because (love being the highest kind of friendship) there can be no such thing as true love, any more than true friendship, that has not virtue for its basis.”—In virtue, I will presume that you include duty; and not only duty, but prudence; and then I will admit that love, such a love, shall be called noble. But you say, my dear, in your former, that very few are capable of such a sort of love. And I, arguing generally, and not to the few exceptions, am not willing that love, indiscriminately taken, should be called noble ; because those persons will then shield a passion under the word, of which they ought to be ashamed, when it be- comes the Moloch deity, and requires our children to pass through its fires. - - “And now, if friendship,” infers my Miss Mulso, “may be dignified by the word noble, why may not love be allowed an equal claim to the epithet?” I will not, without discussion, without examination, allow it an equal claim, for this plain reason. Sense may predominate in the one; it cannot in the other. Those will be found to be the most noble friendships which either flame between persons of the same sex; or where the dross of the passion is thrown out, and the ore purified by the union of minds in matrimony. And I am of opinion that love is but the harbinger to such a friendship; and that friendship therefore is the perfection of love, and superior to love: it is love purified, exalted, proved by ex- perience and a consent of minds. Love, madam, may, and love does, often stop short of friendship. Love is a blazing, crackling, green-wood flame, as much smoke as flame; friendship, married friendship particularly, is a steady, intense, comfortable fire. Love, in courtship, is friendship in hope; in matrimony, friendship upon proof. “Cannot all the natural and right affections of the heart,” ask you, “subsist together ?” They can. “Must one absorb and swallow up the rest ?” It often does in the green-wood love I have been mentioning; and yet very frequently itself 296 [A.D. 1751 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. evaporates in its own smoke, or dies away in embers, warm- ing only its own sticks, and offending every one's eyes and head that sits near it. “Cannot the same man be at the same time, an effective husband (that is, a married lover), a good son, father, friend, and neighbour?”—He can. “If he can,” ask you, “what means your question ** This, my dear Miss Mulso, means my question; that I had before me, love in hope, and not love in proof; love opposed, with reason opposed; and the lovers determined against reason determined. The married lover is an exalted character: but of him we were not debating. We had before us, “two vehement souls, prefer- ring the gratification of each other, often to a sense of duty, always to the whole world, without them; ” and was I so very great a bamboozler, when I put the question upon the selfishness of souls so narrow and so vehement * “You did not,” you say, “mean to exclude gratitude, &c.”— I know you did not; and there I own myself to be designedly a caviller; but in pleasantry too, to make you rise upon me, * * *- *** rº ºº:::: and say right things in your usual beautiful manner. And my end is answered. I suffer.—You shine. As to the severe things I say of the conduct of “unhappy silly women who have married unworthy men,” and all that depends upon these severe things; were not my indignation founded in love of the sex; and had I not an opinion that the cause of virtue and the sex is one; and that such persons betray that of both, I should not be so severe. And these motives make me write so ludicrously sometimes, so angrily at others, on the subject of love; which is really made too generally, may almost universally the sanctifier of bad actions. As to my health—I write, I do anything I am able to do, on purpose to carry myself out of myself; and am not quite so happy, when, tired with my peregrinations, I am obliged to return home. Put me not therefore in mind of myself. My disorder is a chronical one. I am not so bad as I have been. Adieu, my dear Miss Mulso, child of my heart S. RICHARDSON. ſº = º ºf .3 -: RICHARDSON READING THE MS. OF “SIR CHARLEs GRANDISON.” (From a Sketch made at the time by one of the Party.) 1 “Sir Charles Grandison” was published in 1753, and Richardson enjoyed the worship of many women with susceptible hearts until his death in July 1761. One of the pleasantest illustrations of this, very touching in its close, is in the correspondence es- tablished with Richardson by the young enthusiastic wife of the German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klop- stock, who had loved him for the verse of his Messiah. As the girls of Richardson's native village did in his boyhood, when they poured their confidences into his ears, so now does the good tender-hearted young Frau Klopstock, whose artless attempts at English may not be literature, but have that in their nature which it would take a good artist to show by way of imitation. Perhaps we should illustrate the development of sentiment 1 He is in the grotto of his house at North End, Hammersmith. The artist was Miss Highmore. The persons represented in the drawing are, counting from left to right—“(1) Mr. Richardson, in his usual morning dress; (2) Mr. Mulso; (3) Mr. Edw. Mulso ; (4) Miss Mulso, afterwards Mrs. Chapone; (5) Miss Prescott, afterwards Mrs. Mulso ; (6) The Reva. Mr. Duncombe; (7) Miss Highmore, after- Wards Mrs. Duncombe.” that became, after the middle of the eighteenth century, a feature of German life and literature, by giving a translation of an Ode founded on Bichardson’s “Clarissa’’ which was written by the Major Hohorst, of whose death by fever Mrs. Klop- stock will be found to speak: ODE ON THE DEATH OF CIA RISSA. (Translated from the German of Major Hohorst.) Flower, tho’ transplanted, still blooming : fairest associate of Eden's flowers. O ! may'st thou not close in obscuring shades. May no swift decay invade thy bloom. Gentle zephyrs, like those which cherish the earth, for thee are too rough. Ah! a storm arises. Alas! it blasts thee in its first onset. Sweet flower, blighted in thy full-blown glories; beautiful in ruin : we view thee with tears of admiration. How amiable was the living Clarissa In her shone each attractive grace : and even now, in the sleep of death, a more placid red covers her hollow cheeks. Now separated, her exalted soul hastened to the celestial spirits: the kindred spirits joyfully received her. To A.D. 1758.] 297 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. The Empyrean Olympus, through its whole extent, im- mediately resounded, rest, glory, and refulgent crowns, to thy transcendent beauty. Thus triumphs untainted merit. Come, Caroline, let us together keep a festival to the hour of her removal; the hour when she left us her divine pattern. Bring cypress boughs, that I may wreathe the lugubrious garland: whilst thou, affectionate sister, bedevest it with a flood of tears. Here follows the CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MIR. RICHARDSON AND MRS. KLOPSTOCK. To M.R. RICHARDson. Hamburg, Nov. 29, 1757. HoNourED SIR,-Will you permit me to take this oppor- tunity, in sending a letter to Dr. Young, to address myself to you ? It is very long ago, that I wished to do it. Having finished your Clarissa, (oh the heavenly book 1) I would have pray'd you to write the history of a manly Clarissa, but I had not courage enough at that time. I should have it no more to-day, as this is only my first English letter—but I have it ! It may be, because I am now Klopstock's wife, (I believe you know my husband by Mr. Hohorst P) and then I was only the single young girl. You have since written the manly Clarissa, without my prayer: oh you have done it, to the great joy and thanks of all your happy readers! Now you can write no more, you must write the history of an Angel. - Poor Hohorst he is gone. Not killed in the battle, (he was present at two,) but by the fever. The Hungarian hussards have taken your works, with our letters, and all what he was worth, a little time before his death. But the Ring of Prussia recompensed him with a company of cavalry. Poor friend! he did not long enjoy it ! He has made me acquainted with all your lovely daughters. I kiss them all with my best sisterly kiss; but especially Mrs. Martha, of whom he says, that she writes as her father. Tell her in my name, dear sir, if this be true, that it is an affair of conscience, not to let print her writings. Though I am otherwise of that sentiment, that a woman, who writes not thus, or as Mrs. Rowe, should never let print her works. Will you pardon me this first long letter, sir? Will you tell me, if I shall write a second P I am, Honoured Sir, Your most humble servant, M. KLoPSTock. To MRs. KLoPSTOCK. London, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, Dec. 22, 1757. Thanks to you, my dear Mrs. Klopstock, for your exceed- ing kind and exceeding pretty letter; the first, you tell me, you have written in English. I felicitate you upon it; and also your dear Mr. Klopstock on so precious an acquisition as he has made in such a wife Good Mr. Hohorst How much was he respected by all mine, as well as by me ! And how greatly did the news of his death afflict us ! Few such soldiers as Mr. Hohorst, I doubt Pious as brave, had life and opportunity been lent him, he must have shone out the true hero. He used to speak with reverence of his mother. Poor lady! how, if living, does she support the loss of such a son? He spoke to me of several of his worthy German friends: but from you, dear madam, I would hope the brief history of your attachments, your pursuits, your alliances.—Happy may you be in all of them —I was told by two worthy young gentlemen from Göttenburg, who favoured me with visits when in England, of a sister one of them had, and prided himself in her, because of her many fine qualities, and improving genius. The kind brother of that young lady once wished to introduce me to her : but I never had that happiness. Were you ever in England 2 If so, were you the single young girl you so prettily describe, who since has made M. Klopstock one of the happiest of men P Let me know everything a relation would wish to know of my dear Hamburg kindred. Good Dr. Young, who with great concern first gave me an account of Mr. Hohorst's death, has been indisposed for two or three months past ; and has been at Bath for four weeks, for the recovery of his health. God succeed to him the use of the waters there ! which we hold to be so lenient and salutary. I have transmitted to him the letter you inclosed in that you favoured me with. . You do me honour, madam, in your approbation of my Clarissa and Grandison. - My daughters receive in the kindest manner, and return with affectionate respect, the sisterly kiss you are so good as to send them;-my daughter Martha most particularly. “O the good Mr. Hohorst ’’ exclaimed she, (in reading what you mention of the high favour she stood in with him) “How partial to me was he, in the account he gave of me to this good lady ? Thank her, dear sir, in my name, for her opinion, so kindly given in relation to our sex's being ready to make an appearance in print. I am doubly secured from such pre- sumption, by the consciousness of my own want of talents, and by being entirely in this lady's way of thinking in this particular.” You will favour me, madām, with your farther notice, as above requested. Make my best respects acceptable to your dear gentleman: and allow me to be Your affectionate friend and humble servant, S. RICHARDson. To M.R. RICHARDSON. IIamburg, March 14, 1758. You are very kind, sir, to wish to know everything of your Hamburg kindred. Then I will obey, and speak of nothing but myself in this letter. I was not the lady who hath been with two gentlemen from Göttenburg in England. If I had, never would I have waited the cold ceremony of introducing you to me. In your house I had been before you knew that I was in England. That I shall, if ever I am so happy as to come there. We had a pretty project to do it in the spring to come, but I fear that we cannot execute it. The great fiend of friendship, war, will also hinder this, I think. I fear your Antigallicans exceedingly, more than the Gallicans themselves; they, I must confess it, are at least more civil with neutral ships. I pray to God to preserve you and Dr. Young till peace COIſleS. We have a short letter of Dr. Young, in which he com- plains of his health. How does he yet P And you, who are a youth for him, how do you do yourself? You will know all what concerns me. Love, dear sir, is all what me concerns ! and love shall be all what I will tell you in this letter. In one happy night I read my husband's poem, the Messiah. I was extremely touched with it. The next day I 214 298 [A.D. 1758 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. asked one of his friends, who was the author of this poem P and this was the first time I heard Klopstock's name. I believe, I fell immediately in love with him. At the least, my thoughts were ever with him filled, especially because his friend told me very much of his character. But I had no hopes ever to see him, when quite unexpectedly I heard that he should pass through Hamburg. I wrote immediately to the same friend, for procuring by his means that I might see the author of the Messiah, when in Hamburg. He told him that a certain girl at Hamburg wished to see him, and, for all recommendation, showed him some letters, in which I made bold to criticise Klopstock’s verses. Klopstock came, and came to me. I must confess, that, though greatly pre- possessed of his qualities, I never thought him the amiable youth whom I found him. This made its effect. After having seen him two hours, I was obliged to pass the evening in a company, which never had been so wearisome to me. I could not speak, I could not play; I thought I saw nothing but Klopstock. I saw him the next day, and the following, and we were very seriously friends. But the fourth day he departed. It was a strong hour the hour of his departure He wrote soon after, and from that time our correspondence began to be a very diligent one. I sincerely believed my love to be friendship. I spoke with my friends of nothing but Klopstock, and showed his letters. They rallied at me, and said I was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued eight months, in which time my friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last Klopstock said plainly, that he loved; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered that it was no love, but friendship, as it was what I felt for him ; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love must have more time than friendship !). This was sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one another the first time. We saw, we were friends, we loved; and we believed that we loved; and a short time after I could even tell Klopstock that I loved; but we were obliged to part again, and wait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let marry me a stranger. I could marry then without her consentment, as by the death of my father my fortune depended not on her; but this was an horrible idea for me; and thank heaven that I have pre- vailed by prayers' At this time knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world. In some few months it will be four years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon Klopstock as if he was my bridegroom. If you knew my husband, you would not wonder. If you knew his poem, I could describe him very briefly, in saying he is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I can say with all wifely modesty . . . . But I dare not to speak of my husband; I am all raptures when I do it. And as happy as I am in love, so happy am I in friendship, in my mother, two elder sisters, and five other women. How rich I am | Sir, you have willed that I should speak of myself, but I fear I have done it too much. Yet you see how it interests Iſle. I have the best compliments for you of my dear husband. My compliments to all yours. Will they increase my treasure of friendship F º I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, M. KLOPSTock. To M.R. RICHARDSON. Bamburg, May 6, 1758. It is not possible, sir, to tell you what a joy your letters give me. My heart is very able to esteem the favour that you, my dear Mr. Richardson, in your venerable age, are so condescending good, to answer so soon the letters of an un- known young woman, who has no other merit than a heart full of friendship—and of all those sentiments which a reason- able soul must feel for Richardson, though at so many miles of distance. It is a great joyful thought, that friendship can extend herself so far, and that friendship has no need of seeing, though this seeing would be celestial joy to hearts like ours, (shall I be so proud to say as ours ?) and what will it be, when so many really good souls, knowing or not know- ing in this world, will see another in the future, and be then friends ! It will be a delightful occupation for me, to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published; being always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin always by fragments here and there, of a subject of which his soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. You may think that persons who love as we do, have no need of two chambers; we are always in the same. I, with my little work, still, still, only regarding sometimes my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time ! with tears of devotion and all the sublimity of the subject. My husband reading me his young verses and suffering my criticisms. Ten books are published, which I think probably the middle of the whole. I will, as soon as I can, translate you the arguments of these ten books, and what besides I think of them. The verses of the poem are without rhymes, and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has been the first to introduce in our language; we being still closely attached to rhymes and iambics. I suspect the gentleman who has made you acquainted with the Messiah, is a certain Mr. Kaiser, of Göttingen, who has told me at his return from England what he has done; and he has a sister like her whom you describe in your first letter. And our dear Dr. Young has been so ill? But he is better, I thank God along with you. Oh that his dear instructive life may be extended !—if it is not against his own wishes. I read lately in the newspapers, that Dr. Young was made Bishop of Bristol; I must think it is another Young. How could the king make him only Bishop ! and Bishop of Bristol while the place of Canterbury is vacant I think the king knows not at all that there is a Young who illustrates his reign. And you, my dear, dear friend, have not hope of cure of a severe nervous malady ? How I trembled as I read it! I pray to God to give you at the least patience and alleviation. I thank you heartily for the cautions you gave me and my dear Klopstock on this occasion. Though I can read very well your handwriting, you shall write no more if it is incommodious to you. Be so good to dictate only to Mrs. Patty; it will be very agreeable to me to have so amiable a correspondent. And then I will, still more than now, pre- serve the two of your own hand-writing as treasures. I am very glad, sir, that you will take my English as it is. I knew very well that it may not always be English, but I thought for you it was intelligible : my husband asked, as I was writing my first letter, if I would not write French P No, said I, I will not write in this pretty but fade language to Mr. Richardson (though so polite, so cultivated, and no To A.D. 1760.] 299 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. longer fade in the mouth of a Bossuet). As far as I know, neither we, nor you, nor the Italians have the word fade. How have the French found this characteristic word for their nation ? Our German tongue, which only begins to be cultivated, has much more conformity with the English than the French. I wish, sir, I could fulfil your request of bringing you acquainted with so many good people as you think of. Though I love my friends dearly, and though they are good, I have however much to pardon, except in the single Klopstock alone. He is good, really good, good at the bottom, in all his actions, in all the foldings of his heart. I know him ; and sometimes I think if we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find them. For it may be that an action displeases us which would please us, if we knew its true aim and whole extent. No one of my friends is so happy as I am ; but no one has had courage to marry as I did. They have married,—as people marry ; and they are happy, as people are happy. Only one as I may say, my dearest friend, is unhappy, though she had as good a purpose as I myself. She has married in my absence : but had I been present, I might, it may be, have been mistaken in her husband, as well as she. How long a letter this is again but I can write no short ones to you. Compliments of my husband, and compliments to all yours, always, even though I should not say it. M. KLOPSTOCK. The last letter is made touching by the fact that the flattering hopes of the young wife looked to the event that was really to take her from the earthly to the heavenly joy. She died in childbirth. To MR. RICHARDSON. IIamburg, Aug. 26, 1758. Why think you, sir, that I answer so late 2 I will tell you my reasons. . . But before all, how does Miss Patty and how do yourself ; Have not you guessed that I, summing up all my happinesses, and not speaking of children, had none * Yes, sir, this has been my only wish ungratified for these four years. I have been more than once unhappy with disappointments: but yet, thanks to God! I am in full hope to be mother in the month of November. The little prepara- tions for my child and child-bed (and they are so dear to me!) have taken so much time, that I could not answer your letter, nor give you the promised scenes of the Messiah. This is likewise the reason wherefore I am still here, for properly we dwell in Copenhagen. Our staying here is only a visit (but a long one) which we pay my family. I not being able to travel yet, my husband has been obliged to make a little voyage alone to Copenhagen. He is yet absent —a cloud over my happiness He will soon return. . . But what does that help? he is yet equally absent We write to each other every post. . . But what are letters to presence # but I will speak no more of this little cloud; I will only tell my happiness! but I cannot tell how I rejoice A son of my dear Klopstock Oh, when shall I have him . It is long since that I have made the remark, that geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad sons, Or, at the most, lovely daughters, like you and Milton. But a daughter or a son, only with a good heart, without genius, I will nevertheless love dearly. I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait on you. His name is von Win!hem, a young rich merchant, who has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty years older than I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She had an excellent character, but is long dead. This is no letter, but only a newspaper of your Hamburg daughter. When I have my husband and my child, I will write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will think that I shall be not a mother only, but nurse also: though the latter (thank God! that the former is not so too) is quite against fashion and good-breeding, and though nobody can think it possible to be always with the child at M. KLopsTock. Wºlfill"ºº"Wºź <º home ! &z. ſº sº *...* º º ::::::::::: (From the Ideal by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1761.) THE INFANT JoHNSON. CHAPTER IX. FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. TO THE FRENCH REvoluTION.—A.D. 1760 TO A.D. 1789. FREDERICK Prince of Wales, the son of George II., having died in 1751, the Prince's son became King George III. upon the death of his grandfather in October, 1760. The old king died in his seventy- seventh year; his successor, well-disposed but ill- educated and without natural ability, was not yet twenty-three. About a year after his accession, the young king married the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. John Stuart, Earl of Bute, who had been Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince Frederick, retained the confidence of the Princess Dowager. He used his influence after the death of George II. to drive William Pitt from office, and reverse his policy, which then triumphed in Europe. Pitt became a private member of the House of Com mons, Bute Secretary of State, and, in May, 1762, First Lord of the Treasury. He at once gave places to Scotch friends, and displeased the nation by making a peace with France and Spain, of which the prelimi- 300 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1760 naries were signed at Fontainebleau on the 3rd of November, 1763. Lord Bute in the place of William Pitt, and sudden peace in the place of successful war, were widely unpopular. John Wilkes had entered the House of Commons in 1757 as member for Aylesbury. On the 29th of May, 1762, when the Earl of Bute was nominated First Lord of the Treasury, Tobias Smollett set up a periodical called The Briton, to support his government. John Wilkes, on the following Saturday, the 5th of June, set up another periodical, The North Briton, to reply to it, and to attack Lord Bute. The two papers battled together. The Briton came to an end on the 12th of February, 1763; Lord Bute resigned on the 8th of April ; and The Worth Briton, of which No. 44 had appeared on the 2nd of April, ended its course with the publication of No. 45 on the 23rd of April. That number criticised a Ring's Speech, and was interpreted as treason by the Government. Wilkes was seized, and committed to the Tower under a general warrant from a Secre- tary of State. A few days later the Chief Justice of Common Pleas decided that general warrants were illegal, and Wilkes was set free, to the delight of the populace. In November, when the Government caused No. 45 of The Worth Briton to be burnt by the hangman, that act was the cause of a riot. This is, with the notes that were added when the whole series of papers was re-published as a volume in 1764, NO. XLV. OF THE NORTH BRITON.” The following advertisement appeared in all the papers on the 13 of April. The NoFTH BRITON makes his appeal to the good sense, and to the candour of the ENGLISH nation. In the present unsettled and fluctuating state of the administration, he is really fearful of falling into involuntary errors, and he does not wish to mislead. All his reasonings have been built on the strong foundation of facts ; and he is not yet informed of the whole interior state of government with such minute pre- cision, as now to venture the submitting his crude ideas of the present political crisis to the discerning and impartial public. The Scottish minister has indeed retired. Is HIs influence at an end ? or does he still govern by the + three wretched tools of his power, who to their indelible infamy, have sup- ported the most odious of his measures, the late ignominious Peace, and the wicked extension of the arbitrary mode of Excise 2 The NoFTH BRITON has been steady in his oppo- sition to a single, insolent, incapable, despotic minister; and is equally ready, in the service of his country, to combat the triple-headed, Cerberean administration, if the Scot is to assume that motley form. By HIM every arrangement to this hour has been made, and the notification has been as regularly sent by letter under HIs HAND. It therefore seems clear to a demonstration, that IIE intends only to retire into that situation, which HE held before HE first took the seals; I mean the dictating to every part of the king's administration. The North BRITON desires to be understood, as having pledged himself a firm and intrepid assertor of the rights of his fellow- subjects, and of the liberties of WHIGs and TNGLISHMEN. * The passages included within the inverted commas are the only passages to which any objection is made in the INFORMATION filed in the King's-Bench by the Attorney General against the publisher, Mr. George Kearsley. f The earls of Egremºnt and Halifaa, and G. Grenville, Esq. Genus or ATIONIs atroa, & vehemens, cui opponitur lenitatis & mansue- tudimis. CICERo. “The King's Speech has always been considered by the “legislature, and by the public at large, as the Speech of the “Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every “session of parliament, been referred by both houses to the “consideration of a committee, and has been generally can- “vassed with the utmost freedom, when the minister of the “crown has been obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of “this free country, conscious of the undoubted privileges of “so spirited a people, and with the terrors of parliament before “their eyes, have ever been cautious, no less with regard to “the matter, than to the expressions, of speeches, which they “have advised the sovereign to make from the throne, at the “opening of each session. They well knew, that an $ honest “house of parliament, true to their trust, could not fail to “ detect the fallacious arts, or to remonstrate against the “daring acts of violence, committed by any minister. The “Speech at the close of the session has ever been considered “as the most secure method of promulgating the favourite “court creed among the vulgar; because the parliament, “which is the constitutional guardian of the liberties of the “people, has in this case no opportunity of remonstrating, “ or of impeaching any wicked servant of the crown. “This week has given the public the most abandoned in- “stance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed “on mankind. The minister's speech of last Tuesday, is not “to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am in “doubt, whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign, “ or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament “that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom “England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction “of his sacred name to the most odious measures, and to the “most unjustifiable, public declarations, from a throne ever “renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue.” I am sure, all foreigners, especially the king of Prussia, will hold the minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our sovereign declare, My eaſpectations have been fully answered by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown have de- rived from this salutary measure of the definitive Treaty. The powers at war with any good brother the King of Prussia have been induced to agree to such terms of accommodation as that great prince has approved; and the success which has attended my negotiation, has necessarily and immediately diffused the f Anno 14 G. II. 1740. Duke of Argyle. The King's Speech is always in this House considered as the Speech of the Ministers. LoRDs Debates, vol. 7, p. 413. Lord Carteret. When we take his Majesty's Speech into comsideration, though ace have heard it from his own mouth, yet we do not consider it as his Majesty’s speech, but as the speech of his ministers, p. 425. Anno 7 Geo. II. 1733. Mr. Shippen. I believe it has always been granted, that the speeches from the Throne are the compositions of ministers of state; upon that supposition we have always thought ourselves at liberty to ea'amime every proposition contained in them, ; even without doors people are pretty free in their remarks upon them : I believe no Gentleman here is ignoramt of the reception the speech from the Throme, at the close of last session, met with from the nation in general. Commons Debates, vol. 8, p. 5. Anno 13 Geo. II. 1739. Mr. Pulteney, now earl of Bath. His Majesty mentions heats and animosities. Sir, I don’t know who drew up this speech; but whoever he was, he should have spared that expression : I wish he had drawn a veil over the heats and animosities that must be owned onCE subsisted upon this head; for I AMI SURE NoNE Now subsist, vol. 11, p. 96. § The House of Commons in 1715 exhibited, Articles of impeachment of high treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, against Robert Earl of Oxford, and Earl MoRTIMER. Article 15 is fºr having corrupted the sacred fountain of truth, and put falsehoods into the mouth of Majesty, in several speeches made to parliament. Wide Wol. III. and Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 18, p. 214. To A.D. 1763.] 301 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. blessings of peace through every part of Europe. The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind: for it is known, that the King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dictated, as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous prince from our negotiation, but he was basely deserted by the Scottish prime minister of England. He was known by every court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms of friendship here, than at Vienna ; and he was betrayed by us in the treaty of peace. What a strain of insolence, therefore, is it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious all his efforts tended to prevent, and meanly to arrogate to himself a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest princes the world has ever seen P. The king of Prussia, however, has gloriously kept all his former conquests, and stipulated security for all his allies, even for the elector of Hanover. I know in what light this great prince is considered in Europe, and in what manner he has been treated here; among other reasons, perhaps, from some contemptuous ex- pressions he may have used of the Scot : expressions which are every day echoed by the whole body of Englishmen through the Southern part of this island. The Preliminary Articles of Peace were such as have drawn the contempt of mankind on our wretched negotiators. All our most valuable conquests were agreed to be restored, and the East-India company would have been infallibly ruined by a single article of this fallacious and baneful negotiation. No hireling of the minister has been hardy enough to dispute this; yet the minister himself has made our sovereign declare, the satisfaction which he felt at the approaching re-establishment of peace upon conditions so honourable to his crown, and so bene- ficial to his people. As to the entire approbation of parliament, which is so vainly boasted of, the world knows how that was obtained. The large debt on the Civil List, already above half a year in arrear, shews pretty clearly the transactions of the winter. It is, however, remarkable, that the minister's speech dwells on the entire approbation given by Parliament to the Preliminary Articles, which I will venture to say, he must by this time be ashamed of; for he has been brought to confess the total want of that knowledge, accuracy and precision, by which such immense advantages both of trade and territory, were sacrificed to our inveterate enemies. These gross blunders are, indeed, in some measure set right by the Definitive Treaty; yet, the most important articles, relative to cessions, commerce, and the FISHERY, remain as they were, with respect to the French. The proud and feeble Spaniard too does not RE- NoUNCE, but only DESISTS from all pretensions, which he may have formed, to the right of Fishing—where P only about the island of NEW Foux DLAND–till a favourable opportunity arises of insisting on it, there, as well as elsewhere. “The minister cannot forbear, even in the King's Speech, “insulting us with a dull repetition of the word aconomy. “I did not expect so soon to have seen that word again, “after it had been so lately exploded, and more than once, “by a most numerous audience, hissed off the stage of our “ English theatres. It is held in derision by the voice of the “people, and every tongue loudly proclaims the universal con- “tempt in which these empty professions are held by this “nation. Let the public be informed of a single instance of “aeconomy, except indeed in the household.” Is a regiment, which was completed as to its compliment of officers on the Tuesday, and broke on the Thursday, a proof of oeconomy 2 Is the pay of the Scottish Master Elliot to be voted by an Bnglish parliament, under the head of aeconomy 2 Is this, among a thousand others, one of the convincing proofs of a firm resolution to form government on a plan of strict aeconomy 2 Is it not notorious, that in the reduction of the army, not the least attention has been paid to it. Many unnecessary ex- penses have been incurred, only to increase the power of the crown, that is, to create more lucrative jobs for the creatures of the minister P The staff indeed is broke, but the discerning part of mankind immediately comprehended the mean subter- fuge, and resented the indignity put upon so brave an officer, as marshal Ligonier. That step was taken to give the whole power of the army to the crown, that is, to the minister. Lord Ligonier is now no longer at the head of the army; but lord Bute in effect is: I mean that every preferment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained by his enormous influence, and to be bestowed only on the creatures of the Scottish faction. The nation is still in the same deplorable state, while he governs, and can make the tools of his power pursue the same odious measures. Such a retreat, as he in- tends, can only mean that personal indemnity, which, I hope, guilt will never find from an injured nation. The negotia- tions of the late inglorious peace, and the excise, will haunt him, wherever he goes, and the terrors of the just resentment, which he must be to meet from a brave and insulted people, and which must finally crush him, will be for ever before his eyes. “In vain will such a minister, or the foul dregs of his “power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up “in the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the “ laws, which is essential to good order. They have sent the “spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophecy, that “it will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their “power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the “PEACE and ExcISE thro' this nation ? Is it to be expected “between an insolent ExcISEMAN, and a peer, gentleman, free- “holder, or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable “to be entered and searched at pleasure ? Gloucestershire, “Herefordshire, and in general all the Cyder countries, are “not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the “speech. The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among “ them; but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition “has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. “A nation as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit “of concord, when they are oppressed, means a tame submis- “sion to injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to “arise, and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight “of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary “tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable “resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution. “A despotic minister will always endeavour to dazzle his “prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honour “of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of “firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the “kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a “manner truly becoming Royalty. I lament to see it sunk “even to prostitution. What a shame was it to see the “security of this country, in point of military force, compli- “mented away, contrary to the opinion of Royalty itself, and “sacrificed to the prejudices and to the ignorance of a set of “people, the most unfit from every consideration to be con- “sulted on a matter relative to the security of the house of “ Hanover ?” I wish to see the honour of the crown religiously asserted with regard to our allies, and the dignity of it scru- pulously maintained with regard to foreign princes. Is it possible such an indignity can have happened, such a sacrifice of the honour of the crown of England, as that a minister should already have kissed his majesty's hand on being appointed to the most insolent and ungrateful court in the world, without a previous assurance of that reciprocal nomination which the meanest court in Europe would insist upon, before she pro- ceeded to an act otherwise so derogatory to her honour P 302 [A.D. 1759 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. * But Electoral Policy has ever been obsequious to the court of Vienna, and forgets the insolence with which count Colloredo left England. Upon a principle of dignity and acconomy, lord Stormont, a Scottish peer of the loyal house of Murray, kissed his majesty's hand, I think, on Wednesday in the Easter week; but this ignominious act has not yet disgraced the nation in the London Gazette. The ministry are not ashamed of doing the thing in private ; they are only afraid of the publication. Was it a tender regard for the honour of the late king, or of his present majesty, that invited to court lord George Sackville, in these first days of Peace, to share in the general satisfaction, which all good courtiers re- ceived in the indignity offered to lord Ligonier, and on the advancement of ? Was this to shew princely gratitude to the eminent services of the accomplished general of the house of Brunswic, who has had so great a share in rescuing Europe from the yoke of France ; and whose nephew we hope soon to see made happy in the possession of the most amiable princess in the world? Or, is it meant to assert the honour of the crown only against the united wishes of a loyal and affectionate people, founded in a happy experience of the talents, ability, integrity, and virtue of those, who have had the glory of redeeming their country from bondage and ruin, in order to support, by every art of corruption and intimida- tion, a weak, disjointed, incapable set of—I will call them any thing but ministers—by whom the Favourite still medi- tates to rule this kingdom with a rod of iron. The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to endeavour to reduce them into practice : but the English nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment on the ancient liberties of this kingdom. “The King of England “is only the * first magistrate of this country; but is invested “by law with the whole executive power. . He is, however, “responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal “functions, in the choice of ministers, &c. equally with the “meanest of his subjects in his particular duty.” The per- sonal character of our present amiable sovereign makes us Casy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but the favourite has given too just cause for him to escape the general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way, not of blind favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the Spirit of our constitution. The people too have their pre- rogative, and, I hope, the fine words of DRYDEN will be engraven On our hearts, Freedom is the English subject's Prerogative. It was in the first year of the reign of George III. that Rousseau, in France, published his “ Nouvelle Héloise,” and in 1762 appeared his “Contrat Social” and his “Emile.” These books energetically repre- sented one side of the reaction that grew yearly in power until, in 1789, the great French Revolution gave warning to Europe of the force it had acquired. Impatience of authority supported by and supporting dead forms of social, political, and even religious life, became in fervid minds an impatience of all authority as force from without controlling impulses of nature from within. An unsubstantial sentiment served * In the first speech of James I. to his English parliament, March 22, 1603, are the following words, That I am a SERVANT is most true—I will never be ashamed to confessit, My principal honour, to be the GREAT SERVANT of the commonwealth. Journals of the House of Commons, Vol. I, p. 145. for the life of no small part of literature. Its origin was a disease of the soul in men of genius that became epidemic, spread like the Black Death in the Middle Ages, prostrated the weak minds, and laid hold especially upon the young. Like epidemics of a physical disease, its cause was to be found in unwholesome conditions of life. The cleverest man in England who became a victim to this epidemic— a clever man morally weak—was Laurence Sterne, whose “Sentimental Journey” appeared in the year of his death, 1768, and is clearly a product of those tendencies of thought which had been represented partly by the writings of Rousseau. Sterne's “Tris- tram Shandy” was appearing in the first year of the reign of George III., and in its whimsical irregu- larities Sterne followed a rule of his time by defying rule. - Laurence Sterne was born in Clonmel Barracks on the 24th of November, 1713. Roger, his father, was a lieutenant in the 34th Foot, and grandson to Richard Sterne, who died Archbishop of York in 1683. Laurence's grandfather had been eldest son of the archbishop, a Simon Sterne, who married Mary Jaques, heiress of Elvington, five miles from York. Roger Sterne was the seventh child of Simon. His eldest brother, Richard, was heir of Elvington, and lived at Woodhouse, also his property, a mile and a half out of Halifax. The second son of the family was Jaques Sterne, who throve by church interest, and died an archdeacon in 1759. In 1711, when he was with the army in Flanders, Roger Sterne, then an ensign with 3s. 2; d. a day for his pay, married Agnes, widow of Captain Hebert, and daughter of an Irish army sutler. The first child of the marriage, Mary, was born at Lisle in July, 1712. Then followed Laurence, in November, 1713, when the regiment was in barracks at Clonmel. It was the year of the Peace of Utrecht. All regiments raised since the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, except two, were broken. Roger Sterne's regiment was disbanded, and he went home with his two babies to Yorkshire. After a few months the regiment was established again, and Ensign Sterne, with his family, joined it at Dublin in the winter of 1714. Presently they moved with the regiment to Exeter. A third child, named Joram, was born. After about a year at Exeter, they returned to Dublin, and Roger Sterne there ceasing to live in barrack, furnished a house, and occupied it three years. He was then ordered to join the Vigo expedition. Joram died of small-pox ; a girl, Anne, was born. The family was for a time in the Isle of Wight, then went to Wick- low Barracks, where, in 1720, a son, Devisher, was born. For six months the family lived with a relation of Mrs. Sterne's who was vicar of Anamoe, seven miles from Wicklow. In 1721 they were for a year in Dublin Barracks, where the child Anne died. In 1724 a Catherine was born, who survived, with Mary and Laurence, the youngest and two eldest. Mary afterwards married a scamp, of whom her brother tells that he “used her unmercifully, spent his subsistence, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself, which she was able to do but for a few months; for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken To A.L. 1763.] 303 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. heart; ” that is to say, died unhappy. In 1725 Ensign Sterne got leave of absence to take his son Laurence, then eleven or twelve years old, to school at Halifax, near which town Richard, the eldest of Laurence's uncles, lived at Woodhouse as head of the family, a gentleman of means. In 1727 Laurence's father went to Jamaica, and his son saw him no more. While in Jamaica he died of yellow fever, in March, 1731. In 1732 Laurence's uncle Richard sent him, aged eighteen or nineteen, to Jesus College, Cambridge, as a sizar. While at Cambridge there was the first distinct evidence of that disease of the lungs which thenceforth sapped his life. He was small and thin, he spat blood at college, and a cough afterwards stuck by him. Having taken his B.A. degree, Laurence Sterne was ordained deacon in 1736, priest in August, 1738, and in the same month, through family influence, as great-grandson of a preceding Archbishop of York, he obtained the vicarage of Sutton-on-the-Forest, which was in the gift of the Archbishop of that day. His uncle Jaques was then Canon Residentiary, Pre- bendary, and Precentor of York Minster, and held two small Yorkshire rectories. He had at York a bachelor house in the Minster Yard, and Laurence's uncle Richard had also a house in Castlegate. In 1740 Laurence Sterne graduated as M.A., and in 1741, after two years' courtship, he married Eliza- beth, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Lumley, rector of Bedal, Staffordshire. Sterne was then in his twenty- eighth year. His bride had been lodging in York, and was in ill-health. In the same year he obtained one of the twenty-six prebends in York Minster, with £40 a year and a house in Stonegate. His wife had also £40 a year, and a friend with the gift of York preferment in his power. Sterne had a taste for playing the bass viol, and for drawing. In 1743 came the gift from his wife's friend of the prebendal stall and living of Stillington, worth about £50 a year. In 1745 a first daughter was born, and named Lydia. She was born and baptised on the 1st of October, and died on the 2nd. Laurence Sterne had genius with a weakness of character, due partly to a shifty home-life and imperfect training in his earlier years, and partly to the weakness of his body. He yielded himself to the influences of his time, and in this earlier part of his career, when there was open way for him in the Church, one of his chief friends was Hall Stevenson, of Skelton Castle, near Guisbro', who in the name of wit defied decency. Sterne's letters show that he weakly accommodated his own wit to the tone of his friend's. It was the price paid for the flattery he prized. Sterne's mother, who kept a school, was ruined by the extravagance of her daughter Catherine, and saved from gaol by a subscription among parents of pupils. Sterne was estranged from his sister. In December, 1747, a daughter was again born to Sterne, and again named Lydia. She was his only child, and she survived him. In 1758 Sterne's mother was at York, and he was helping to arrange her affairs. At the same time he was weakly sentimentalising with a Miss Catherine de Fourmentelle. His was a very weak form of the sentimental epidemic, as writing of his like this may show : “Whenever it falls out that an earthly goddess is so much this and that and t'other, that I cannot eat my breakfast for her, and that she careth not three-halfpence whether I eat any breakfast or no, curse on her ; and so I send her to Tartary, and from Tartary to Terra del Fuego, &c. But as the heart is tender, and the passions in those tides ebb and flow ten times in a minute, I instantly bring her back again.” In 1758, also, there broke out at York a controversy as to the right of a Dr. Topham's son to the inheritance of a patent office in the cathedral. The Rev. Laurence Sterne took part in the controversy with a humorous pamphlet that figured the office in question as “The Good Warm Watch-coat.” It was published in 1759. In the same year he had begun “Tristram Shandy.” On the 77th page of the first volume thereof he speaks of a remark as struck out “on this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, between nine and ten in the morning.” At the end of December, 1759, Sterne's age then being 46, the first section of “Tristram Shandy" was published at York in two volumes for five shillings. There was much local satire, and in a couple of days two hundred copies were sold in the town. Sterne sent copies to London, took what measures he could to make his book known to the larger public, and in March, 1760, went himself to London to look after it. He took lodgings in Pall Mall, which he described as “the genteelest in town,” and wrote letters to Miss Fourmentelle as “Dear, dear Jenny.” “Tristram Shandy” rose into fame, and gave its name to a new game of cards. Sterne was to be seen at Ranelagh Gardens, sat for his portrait to Sir Joshua Reynolds, made friendly acquaintance with David Garrick, and with Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, who called him the English Rabelais. The poet Gray wrote “one is invited to dinner where he dines a fortnight beforehand.” But Oliver Goldsmith, who was then writing the “Citizen of the World,” condemned the large alloy of base metal that is in “Tristram Shandy” blended with the true. Many of Sterne's readers in those days enjoyed as wit what Goldsmith rightly described as indecency and pert- ness, and it still needs more thought than commonly goes with the act of reading to distinguish the wheat from the chaff where both abound. Sterne failed through weakness of character to make the best use of his talent. Through the same weakness of character his life became a wreck. He craved for the wretched flatteries of the frivolous, sunk to the position of a piece of fashionable dinner furniture, and having taken to himself out of Hamlet the name of Yorick, and written a fancy sketch of himself under that name in his first volumes of “Tristram Shandy,” he announced, together with the second edition of those volumes, “The Sermons of Mr. Yorick.” This is Sterne's suggestion of an ideal for himself as- YORICK. Yorick was this parson's name, and what is very remark- able in it, (as appears from a most antient account of the family wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect preser- vation) it had been exactly so spelt for near, I was within an ace of saying, nine hundred years;–but I would not 304 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1759 shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however in- disputable in itself;-and therefore I shall content myself with only saying, it had been exactly so spelt, without the least variation or transposition of a single letter, for I do not know how long; which is more than I would venture to say of one-half of the best surnames in the kingdom ; which, in a course of years, have generally undergone as many chops and changes as their owners.——Has this been owing to the pride, or to the shame of their respective proprietors?—In honest truth, I think sometimes to the one and sometimes to the other, just as the temptation has wrought. But a villainous affair it is, and will one day so blend and confound us all together, that no one shall be able to stand up and swear, “that his own great-grand-father was the man who did either this or that.” This evil had been sufficiently fenced against by the prudent care of the Yorick family, and their religious preservation of these records I quote, which do further inform us, that the family was originally of Danish extrac- tion, and had been transplanted into England as early as in the reign of Horwendillus, king of Denmark, in whose court it seems, an ancestor of this Mr. Yorick's, and from whom he was lineally descended, held a considerable post to the day of his death. Of what nature this considerable post was, this record saith not, it only adds, That for near two centuries, it had been totally abolished as altogether unnecessary, not only in that court, but in every other court in the Christian world. It has often come into my head, that this post could be no other than that of the king's chief Jester;-and that Hamlet's Yorick in our Shakespeare, many of whose plays, you know, are founded upon authenticated facts, was certainly the very Iſla Il. I have not the time to look into Saxo Grammaticus's Danish history, to know the certainty of this;–but if you have leisure, and can easily get at the book, you may do it full as well yourself. I had just time in my travels through Denmark with Mr. Noddy's eldest son, whom, in the year 1741, I accompanied as governor, riding along with him at a prodigious rate thro' most parts of Europe, and of which original journey per- formed by us two, a most delectable narrative will be given in the progress of this work. I had just time, I say, and that was all, to prove the truth of an observation made by a long sojourner in that country;--namely, “That nature was neither very lavish, nor was she very stingy in her gifts of genius and capacity to its inhabitants;–but, like a discreet parent, was moderately kind to them all; observing such an equal tenor in the distribution of her favours, as to bring them, in those points, pretty near to a level with each other; so that you will meet with few instances in that kingdom of refin'd parts; but a great deal of good plain houshold under- standing amongst all ranks of people, of which every body has a share;” which is, I think, very right. With us, you see, the case is quite different;——we are all ups and downs in this matter;—you are a great genius; ——or ’tis fifty to one, sir, you are a great dunce and a blockhead;—not that there is a total want of intermediate steps, no, we are not so irregular as that comes to ;—but the two extremes are more common, and in a greater degree in this unsettled island, where nature in her gifts and dis- positions of this kind, is most whimsical and capricious; fortune herself, not being more so in the bequest of her goods and chattels than she. This is all that ever stagger'd my faith in regard to Yorick's extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seemed not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years it might possibly have all run out:—I will not philosophize one moment with you about it; for happen how it would, the fact was this:——That instead of that cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours, you would have look'd for in one so extracted, —he was on the contrary, as mercurial and sublimated a composition,--as heteroclite a creature in all his declensions ——with as much life, and whim, and gaité de casur about him, as the kindliest climate could have engendered and put together. With all this sail, poor Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was utterly unpractised in the world; and at the age of twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his course in it, as a romping unsuspicious girl of thirteen : So that upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul ten times in a-day of some body's tackling; and as the grave and more slow-paced were oftenest in his way, you may likewise imagine 'twas with such he generally had the ill luck to get the most entangled. For aught I know, there might be some mixture of unlucky wit at the bottom of such fracas —For, to speak the truth, Yorick had an invincible dislike and opposition in his nature to gravity;-not to gravity as such—for where gravity was wanted, he would be the most grave and serious of mortal men for days and weeks together; but he was an enemy to the affectation of it, and de- clared open war against it, only as it appeared a cloke for ignorance, or for folly; and then, whenever it fell in his way, however sheltered and protected, he seldom gave it much quarter. Sometimes, in his wild way of talking, he would say, that gravity was an arrant scoundrel; and he would add, of the most dangerous kind too, -because a sly one; and that he verily believed, more honest well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve- month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven. In the naked temper which a merry heart discovered, he would say, there was no danger—but to itself:—whereas the very essence of gravity was design, and consequently deceit;- 'twas a taught trick, to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth ; and that, with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it, viz. A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind;—which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be wrote in letters of gold. But, in plain truth, he was a man unkackneyed and un- practised in the world, and was altogether as indiscreet and foolish on every other subject of discourse, where policy is wont to impress restraint. Yorick had no impression but one, and that was what arose from the nature of the deed spoken of ; which impression he would usually translate into plain English without any periphrasis, and too oft without much distinction of either personage, time, or place; —so that when mention was made of a pitiful or an un- generous proceeding, he never gave himself a moment's time to reflect who was the Hero of the piece what his station——or how far he had power to hurt him hereafter; but if it was a dirty action,--without more ado, The man was a dirty fellow—and so on. And as his comments had usually the ill fate to be terminated either in a bon mot, or to be enlivened throughout with some drollery or humour of expression, it gave wings to Yorick's indis- cretion. In a word, though he never sought, yet at the same time, as he seldom shunned occasions of saying what came uppermost, and without much ceremony, —he had but too many temptations in life, of scattering his wit and his To A.D. 1760.] 305 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. humour, his gibes and his jests about him.—They were not lost for want of gathering. What were the consequences, and what was Yorick's catastrophe thereupon, you will read in the next chapter. The Mortgager and the Mortgagee differ the one from the other, not more in length of purse, than the Jester and Jestee do in that of memory. But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all four ; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more, than some of the best of Homer's can pretend to ;-namely, That the one raises a sum and the other a laugh at your expence, and think no more about it. Interest, however, still runs on in both cases; the periodical or accidental payments of it, just serving to keep the memory of the affair alive; till at length, in some evil hour—pop comes the creditor upon each, and by demanding principal upon the spot, together with full interest to the very day, makes them both feel the full extent of their obligations. As the reader (for I hate your ifs) has a thorough know- ledge of human nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my Hero could not go on at this rate, without some slight experience of these incidental memento's. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small book debts of this stamp, which, notwithstanding Eugenius's frequent advice, he too much disregarded; think- ing that as not one of them was contracted thro’ any malig- nancy—but, on the contrary, from an honesty of mind, and a mere jocundity of humour, they would all of them be crossed out in course. Eugenius would never admit this, and would often tell him, that one day or other he would certainly be reckoned with ; and he would often add in an accent of sorrowful apprehension—to the uttermost mite. To which Yorick, with his usual carelessness of heart, would as often answer with a pshaw 1–and if the subject was started in the fields— with a hop, skip, and a jump, at the end of it; but if close pent up in the social chimney corner, where the culprit was barricado'd in, with a table and a couple of arm chairs, and could not so readily fly off in a tangent, — Eugenius would then go on with his lecture upon discretion, in words to this purpose, though somewhat better put together. Trust me, dear Yorick, this unwary pleasantry of thine will sooner or later bring thee into scrapes and difficulties, which no after-wit can extricate thee out of.-In these sallies, too oft, I see it happens, that a person laughed at, considers himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou viewest him in that light too, and reckonest up his friends, his family, his kindred, and allies, and musterest up with them the many recruits which will list under him from a sense of common danger;—’tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thy ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so. I cannot suspect it in the man whom I esteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these sallies, I believe and know them to be truly honest and sportive:—but consider, my dear lad, that fools cannot dis- tinguish this, and that knaves will not; and thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other;-whenever they associate for mutual defence, depend upon it, they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily sick of it, and of thy life too. REvex GE from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.—The fortunes of thy house shall totter, thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it, thy faith questioned, thy works loelied,—thy wit forgotten,_thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and CowARDICE, twin-ruffians, hired and set on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes: —the best of us, my dear lad, lie open there ;-and trust me, —trust me, Yorick, When to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an easy matter to pick up sticks enow from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with. Yorick scarce ever heard this sadvaticination of his destiny read over to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his tit with more sobriety.— But, alas, too late —a grand confederacy, with ***** and ***** at the head of it, was formed before the first prediction of it. —The whole plan of the attack, just as Eugenius had fore- boded, was put in execution all at once,—with so little mercy on the side of the allies, and so little suspicion in Yorick, of what was carrying on against him—that when he thought, good easy man full surely preferment was o'ripening, L they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him. Yorick, however, fought it out with all imaginable gal- lantry for some time; till, over-power'd by numbers, and worn out at length by the calamities of the war, but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which it was carried on, he threw down the sword; and though he kept up his spirits in appearance to the last,--he died, nevertheless, as was generally thought, quite broken hearted. What inclined Eugenius to the same opinion was as follows: A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an intent to take his last sight and last fare- well of him : Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand;—and, after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again, he told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever.—I hope not, answered Euge- nius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the ten- derest tone that ever man spoke, I hope not, Yorick, said he. —Yorick replied, with a look up, and a gentle Squeeze of Eugenius's hand, and that was all,—but it cut Eugenius to his heart.—Come, come, Yorick, quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him, my dear lad, be comforted,—let not all thy spirits and fortitude for- sake thee at this crisis, when thou most wantest them;-- who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee P Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head.—For my part, continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words,--I declare I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee;--——and would gladly flatter my hopes, added Eugenius, chearing up his voice, that there is still enough left of thee to make a bishop,-and that I may live to see it.—I beseech thee, Eugenius, quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand,-his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius, I beseech thee to take a view of my head.—I see nothing that ails it, replied Eugenius. Then, alas! my friend, said Yorick, let me tell you, that 'tis so bruised and mis-shapen'd with the blows which ***** and 215 306 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1760 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF *****, and some others have so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Pancha, that should I recover, and “Mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down “from heaven as thick as hail, not one of 'em would fit it.”— Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart, as he uttered this, yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone;—and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes; faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakespeare said of his ancestor) were wont to set the table in a roar! Eugenius was convinced from this, that the heart of his friend was broke ; he squeezed his hand,- and then walk’d softly out of the room, weeping as he walk'd. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door, he then closed them,-and never opened them more. He lies buried in a corner of his church-yard, in the parish of ———, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy: Alas, poor Y O RIC K Ten times in a day has Yorick’s ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over, with such a variety of plaintive tones, as denote a general pity and esteem for him ; ——a foot-way crossing the church- yard close by the side of his grave, not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it, and sighing as he walks on, Alas, poor Y O RICK! To this we may add a short autobiographical sketch written by Sterne for his daughter Lydia, with, in slight degree, also the public in view. MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND FAMILY OF THE LATE REV. M.R. LAURENCE STERNE. Roger Sterne, (grandson to Archbishop Sterne) Lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family: her family name was (I believe) Nuttle—though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Ann's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in Sep- tember 25, 1711, Old Stile.—This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother—a fine person of a man but a graceless whelp —what became of him I know not.—The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel in the south of Ireland, at which town I was born November 24th, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk.-My birth-day was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers broke, and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife and two children—the elder of which was Mary; she was born in Lisle in French Flanders, July the tenth, one thousand seven hundred and twelve, New Stile.—This child was most unfortunate—she married one Weemans in Dublin—who used her most unmercifully—spent his substance, became a bankrupt, and left my poor sister to shift for herself, which she was able to do but for a few months, for she went to a friend's house in the country, and died of a broken heart. She was a most beautiful woman– of a fine figure, and deserved a better fate.——The regiment, in which my father served, being broke, he left Ireland as soon as I was able to be carried, with the rest of his family, and came to the family seat at Elvington, near York, where his mother lived. She was daughter to Sir Roger Jaques, and an heiress. There we sojourned for about ten months, when the regiment was established, and our household decamped with bag and baggage for Dublin. Within a month of our arrival, my father left us, being ordered to Exeter, where, in a sad winter, my mother and her two children followed him, travelling from Liverpool by land to Plymouth. (Melancholy description of this journey not necessary to be transmitted here.) In twelve months we were all sent back to Dublin. —My mother, with three of us (for she laid in at Plymouth of a boy, Joram), took ship at Bristol, for Ireland, and had a narrow escape from being cast away by a leak springing up in the vessel.—At length, after many perils, and struggles, LAURENCE STERNE. From the Portrait prefixed to Vol. I. of his “Sermons’’ (1765). we got to Dublin.—There my father took a large house, furnished it, and in a year and a half’s time spent a great deal of money.--—In the year one thousand seven hundred and nineteen, all unhing'd again; the regiment was ordered, with many others, to the Isle of Wight, in order to embark for Spain in the Vigo Expedition. We accompanied the regiment, and was driven into Milford Haven, but landed at Bristol, from thence by land to Plymouth again, and to the Isle of Wight—where T remember we stayed encamped some time before the embarkation of the troops—(in this expedition from Bristol to Hampshire we lost poor Joram—a pretty boy, four years old, of the Small-pox), my mother, sister, and myself, remained at the Isle of Wight during the Vigo Expedition, and until the regiment had got back to Wicklow in Ireland, from whence my father sent for us.—We had poor Joram's loss supplied during our stay in the Isle of Wight, by the birth of a girl, Anne, born September the twenty-third, one thousand Seven hundred and nineteen.— This pretty blossom fell at the age of three years, in the Barracks of Dublin—she was, as I well remember, of a fine delicate frame, not made to last long, as were most of my father's babes.—We embarked for Dublin, and had all been cast away by a most violent storm; but through the inter- cessions of my mother, the captain was prevailed upon to turn back into Wales, where we stayed a month, and at To A.D. 1768.] 307 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. length got into Dublin, and travelled by land to Wicklow, where my father had for some weeks given us over for lost. We lived in the barracks at Wicklow, one year, (one thousand seven hundred and twenty) when Devijeher (so called after Colonel Devijeher), was born; from thence we decamped to stay half a year with Mr. Fetherston, a clergyman, about seven miles from Wicklow, who being a relation of my mother's, invited us to his parsonage at Animo-It was in this parish, during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt—the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland—where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me.—From hence we followed the regiment to Dublin, where we lay in the barracks a year.—In this year, one thousand seven hundred and twenty- one, I learned to write, &c.—The regiment, ordered in twenty-two, to Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland; we all decamped, but got no further than Drogheda, thence ordered to Mullengar, forty miles west, where by Providence we stumbled upon a kind relation, a collateral descendant from Archbishop Sterne, who took us all to his castle and kindly entreated us for a year—and sent us to the regiment at Carrickfergus, loaded with kindnesses, &c.—a most rueful and tedious journey had we all, in March, to Carrickfergus, whore we arrived in six or seven days—little Devijeher here died, he was three years old—He had been left behind at nurse at a farm house near Wicklow, but was fetched to us by my father the summer after—another child sent to fill his place, Susan; this babe too left us behind in this weary journey—The autumn of that year, or the spring afterwards, (I forget which) my father got leave of his colonel to fix me at school—which he did near Halifax, with an able master; with whom I stayed some time, ’till by God's care of me my cousin Sterne, of Elvington, became a father to me, and sent me to the university, &c. &c. To pursue the thread of our story, my father's regiment was the year after ordered to Londonderry, where another sister was brought forth, Catherine, still living, but most unhappily estranged from me by my uncle's wickedness, and her own folly—from this station the regiment was sent to defend Gibraltar, at the siege, where my father was run through the body by Captain Phillips, in a duel, (the quarrel begun about a goose) with much difficulty he survived—tho' with an impaired constitu- tion, which was not able to withstand the hardships it was put to—for he was sent to Jamaica, where he soon fell by the country fever, which took away his senses first, and made a child of him, and then, in a month or two, walking about continually without complaining, till the moment he sat down in an arm chair, and breathed his last—which was at Port Antonio, on the north of the island.—My father was a little Smart man—active to the last degree, in all exercises— most patient of fatigue and disappointments, of which it pleased God to give him full measure—he was in his temper somewhat rapid, and hasty—but of a kindly, sweet disposi- tion, void of all design; and so innocent in his own inten- tions, that he suspected no one; so that you might have cheated him ten times in a day, if nine had not been sufficient for your purpose—my poor father died in March 1731—I re- mained at Halifax 'till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself, and school- Inaster–He had had the ceiling of the school-room new white-washed—the ladder remained there—I one unlucky day mounted it, and wrote with a brush in large capital letters, LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to family of the C preferment—this express made me forget the stripes I had received—In the year thirty-two my cousin sent me to the university, where I staid some time. 'Twas there that I commenced a friendship with Mr. H . . . which has been most lasting on both sides—I then came to York, and my uncle got me the living of Sutton—and at York I become acquainted with your mother, and courted her for two years —she owned she liked me, but thought herself not rich enough, or me too poor, to be joined together—she went to her sister's in S , and I wrote to her often—I believe then she was partly determined to have me, but would not say so—at her return she fell into a consumption—and one evening that I was sitting by her with an almost broken heart to see her soill, she said, “my dear Lawrey, I can never be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live—but I have left you every shilling of my fortune;”—upon that she shewed me her will—this generosity overpowered me.—It pleased God that she recovered, and I married her in the year 1741. My uncle and myself were then upon very good terms, for he soon got me the Prebendary of York—but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the newspapers—though he was a party-man, I was not, and detested such dirty work: thinking it beneath me—from that period, he became my bitterest enemy.—By my wife's means I got the living of Stillington—a friend of her's in the South had promised her, that if she married a clergyman in Yorkshire, when the living became vacant, he would make her a compliment of it. I remained near twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places—I had then very good health.-Books, painting, fiddling, and shooting were my amusements; as to the "Squire of the parish, I cannot say we were upon a very friendly footing—but at Stillington, the s shewed us every kindness—’twas most truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family, who were ever cordial friends—in the year 1760, I took a house at York for your mother and yourself, and went up to London to publish my two first volumes of Shandy. In that year Lord F--- presented me with the curacy of Coxwold—a sweet retirement in comparison of Sutton. In sixty-two I went to France before the peace was concluded, and you both followed me.—I left you both in France, and in two years after I went to Italy for the recovery of my health—and when I called upon you, I tried to engage your mother to return to England, with me—she and yourself are at length come—and I have had the inexpressible joy of seeing my girl everything I wished her. - I have set down these particulars relating to my family, and self, for my Lydia, in case hereafter she might have a curiosity or a kinder motive to know them. - After his first season in London, Sterne went back to a new curacy at Coxwold, sixteen miles from York. In the following year he was ready to come to London with two more volumes of “Shandy,” and before doing so wrote to Hall Stevenson—chiefly because it was the proper thing to say to such a man —that he was “more than ever sick and tired of his wife.” What was least good in the new volumes was most praised. The critics of The Monthly Review said they were tired of Uncle Tobyl Sterne returned after the London season to Coxwold to write more volumes “unless this vile cough kills me;” he neglected his wife; pined for the fleshpots of London and the steam of flattery that drew him to them, and before Christmas again broke a blood- 308 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1760 vessel in his lungs. Then came the publication of the fifth and sixth volumes of “Tristram Shandy,” which included the story of “Le Fevre.” In these and the following volumes, Sterne's vanity sought additional gain by giving the author's signature upon the title- page. Sterne came to London as usual, to breathe incense after the publication of his new volumes. Failure of health then caused him to visit France. He was lionised in Paris; wrote to Garrick of an agreement with Crebillon that each should advertise the other by condemning his indecencies; was joined in July, 1762, by his wife and his daughter Lydia, who had “a vile asthma;” made an unduly expensive journey to Lyons, Avignon, and to Toulouse, where they remained, and where Sterne finished another “Shandy’ volume. Questions of economy arose between Sterne and his wife, and of money between Sterne and his banker. He obtained from his Bishop an extended leave of absence from his duty to his parish, left Toulouse for Bagnières in June, 1763, then visited Marseilles; by the 5th of October he was at Montpellier. In January or February, 1764, he was told that Montpellier would not suit him. He was then eager for England. His wife, anxious for their daughter Lydia, stayed at Montauban. Sterne went to Paris, where David Hume was being lionised, and was in London by the end of May. Then followed the mean life in London that to his weak mind seemed great ; some duty done also at Coxwold; in January, 1765, volumes seven and eight of “Tristram Shandy;” in London stifling with bad incense until April ; then Bath; then scandal in London; then cough and spitting of blood. In September, 1765, Sterne was obliged to leave England again, passed through France, went twice to Paris, went to Turin and Rome, the sickly fruit of this time of travel being his “Sentimental Journey.” He was back in London again, and lodging at 41, Old Bond Street, in January, 1767, when the ninth and last published volume of “Tristram Shandy” appeared. “Shandy” was unfinished, and might have extended to nine hundred volumes or nine thousand, if Sterne's life had been unlimited and wisdom had not grown with his years. At this time, Sterne being within a year of death, a Mrs. Draper had come, out of health, from India with her husband. The Rev. Mr. Sterne senti- mentalised with Mrs. Draper as Eliza, and caused a scandal that reached Mrs. Sterne. When Mrs. Draper was about to leave England for India, Sterne began to write silly letters to her which were after- wards published. Then there was again a broken blood-vessel. After this Sterne was at Coxwold again. In September his wife and his daughter Lydia returned to him. They were to winter at York, and Mrs. Sterne and Lydia were to go back to France in the spring. Again came the spitting of blood. After Christmas Day, Sterne went to London, leaving his wife and daughter at York. On the 26th of February, 1768, his “Sentimental Journey” was published. On the 18th of the following month Sterne died, with no wife or child by his side, in his Bond Street lodgings. A footman sent from a dinner-party in Clifford Street to ask how Mr. Sterne was, had been bidden by the landlady to walk up to his room, and saw him die. He then returned to his master with the latest news of the great social Merry Andrew. His publisher and one friend followed Sterne's body to the grave. It was marked as a friendless body by the resurrection men, dug up and delivered to a professor of anatomy at Cambridge. Sterne died in debt. His widow sacrificed her own little estate of £40 a year, to save his memory from discredit, and at the next York races the hat was sent round for the family of Yorick. Censure is lost in pity, but the truth remains that Sterne is one of the very few— perhaps he and Byron are the only two—men of real genius who, however faulty in their lives, have in their writings not sought to be faithful to the highest truth they knew. It was far otherwise with Goldsmith, who even from the sense of his weakness drew strength of experience that gave worth to his wit, and wisdom to his lightest written word. At the accession of George III., Goldsmith was at the beginning of his independent life as a man of genius. His father had died when Oliver Goldsmith was a poor student at Trinity College, Dublin; his mother had left the little parsonage home for a lodging in Ballymahon. He had taken his B.A. degree in 1749, and after several false starts in pursuit of a profession by which he could live, Goldsmith had continued at Leyden the study of medicine begun in Edinburgh, had rambled on foot about Europe, and returned to England destitute in February, 1756, being then about twenty-seven years old. Through many struggles he had passed into slavery as a hack-writer for The Monthly Review. In 1759 Goldsmith published his first piece of independent work, “An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.” Later in the same year he began for a publisher a series of weekly papers called The Bee, which only lived eight weeks, but drew on him the attention of some who had won their way as men of letters. Smollett found work for Goldsmith in The British Magazine or Monthly Repository, of which the first number appeared on the 1st of January, 1760. To this magazine Smollett contributed his story of “Sir Launcelot Greaves,” and Goldsmith, aged thirty-two, contributed his reverie at the “Boar's Head” in Eastcheap, and other charming essays. Twelve days after the first appearance of The British Magazine, appeared the first number of The Public Ledger, a daily newspaper, price two-pence halfpenny, projected by John Newbery, a publisher of children's books, and edited by Mr. Griffith Jones, a writer of children's books. In this newspaper Goldsmith was to write an essay twice a week at the price of a guinea for each article. He imagined a philosophical Chinaman, Lien Chi Altangi, native of Homan, who had learned English when he was a mandarin among the merchants of Canton, but was a stranger to our native manners and customs. Lien Chi visits England as a philo- sophical wanderer, a citizen of the world, and de- scribes his experiences in letters chiefly addressed to the wise Fum Hoam, first President of the Cere- monial Academy at Pekin. In the letters, which were collected into a volume in 1762 as “The Citizen of the World,” Goldsmith took a point of view which enabled him to paint English society with a To A.D. 1762.] 309 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, kindly humour that insensibly lifted the minds of his readers by a constant separation of the accidents of life from its essentials. These papers are from Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World.” BEAU TIBBS ABROAD. Though naturally pensive, yet I am fond of gay company, and take every opportunity of thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this motive I am often found in the centre of a crowd: and wherever pleasure is to be sold, am always a purchaser. In those places, without being remarked by any, I join in whatever goes forward, work my passions into a similitude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, and condemn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for a while below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour. Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately went to gaze upon the company in one of the public walks near the city. Here we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beauty of such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing else to recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for some time, when stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, and led me out of the public walk; I could perceive by the quickness of his pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attempting to avoid somebody who followed : we now turned to the right, then to the left; as we went forward he still went faster, but in vain; the person whom he attempted to escape hunted us through every doubling, and gained upon us each moment; so that at last we fairly stood still, resolving to face what we could not avoid. Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of an old acquaintance. “My dear Drybone,” cries he, shaking my friend's hand, “where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively I had fancied you were gone down to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the country.” During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveying the appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with peculiar Smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his neck he wore a broad black ribbon, and in his bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was trim- med with tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black hilt, and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the taste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance. “Psha, psha, Will!” cried the figure, “no more of that if you love me: you know I hate flattery, on my soul I do ; and yet to be sure an intimacy with the great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison will fatten; and yet, faith, I despise the great as much as you do; but there are a great many damn’d honest fellows among them; and we must not quarrel with one half because the other wants weeding. If they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one of the most good-natured creatures that ever Squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of Piccadilly's; my lord was there. Ned, says he to me, Ned, says he, I’ll hold gold to silver I can tell where you were poaching last night. Poaching, my lord? says I, faith you have missed already; for I stayed at home, and let the girls poach for me. That's my way; I take a fine woman as some animals do their prey; stand still, and swoop, they fall into my mouth.” - “Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow,” cried my companion, with looks of infinite pity; “I hope your fortune is as much improved as your understanding in such company 2" “Im- proved ſº replied the other, “you shall know—but let it go no farther, a great secret,_five hundred a year to begin with.-My lord’s word of honour for it—his lordship took me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tête-à-tête dinner in the country, where we talked of nothing else.” “I fancy you forget, sir,” cried I, “you told us but this moment of your dining yesterday in town : " “Did I say so?” replied he, coolly, “to be sure, if I said so, it was so—dined in town: egad, now I do remember, I did dine in town; but I dined in the country too; for you must know, my boys, I eat two dinners. By-the-by, I am grown as nice as the devil in my eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that: we were a select party of us to dine at Lady Grogram’s, an affected piece, but let it go no farther; a secret: well, there happened to be no asafoetida in the sauce to a turkey; upon which says I, I’ll hold a thousand guineas, and say done first, that—but dearl)rybone, you are an honest creature, lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just till—but hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget to pay you.” When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon so extraordinary a character. His very dress, cries my friend, is not less extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him this day, you find him in rags; if the next, in embroidery. With those persons of distinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, he has scarcely a coffee-house acquain- tance. However, both for the interests of society, and per- haps for his own, heaven has made him poor, and while all the World perceive his wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. An agreeable companion, because he understands flattery, and all must be pleased with the first part of his conversation, though all are sure of its ending with a demand on their purse. While his youth countenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarious subsistence; but when age comes on, the gravity of which is incompatible with buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken by all. Condemned in the decline of life to hang upon some rich family whom he once despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of studied contempt, to be employed only as a spy upon the servants, or a bugbear to fright the children into obedience. Adieu ! BEAU TIBBS AT HOME. I am apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance, whom it will be no easy matter to shake off. My little beau yesterday overtook me again in one of the public walks, and slapping me on the shoulder, saluted me with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress was the same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a dirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. As I knew him to be an harmless amusing little thing, I could not return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward on terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all the usual topics preliminary to particular conversation. The oddities that marked his character, however, soon began to appear; he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who, by their manner of returning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he drew out a pocket-book, seeming to take memorandums before all the company, with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absur- dities, and fancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator. * = 310 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1762. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF When we were got to the end of our procession, “Blast me,” cries he with an air of vivacity, “I never saw the park so thin in my life before; there's no company at all to-day; not a single face to be seen.” “No company 1 ° interrupted I, peevishly; “no company where there is such a crowd why man, there's too much. What are the thousands that have been laughing at us but company ” “Lard, my dear,” returned he with the utmost good-humour, “you seem immensely chagrined; but blast me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and so we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a thousand things for the joke. But I see you are grave, and if you are a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my wife to-day, I must insist on't: I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, a lady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred, but that's between ourselves, under the inspection of the Countess of All-night. A charming body of voice, but no more of that, she will give us a song. You shall see my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelma Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature; I design her for my Lord Drumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go no farther; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that language purposely to instruct her ; but let that be a secret.” Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways; for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particular aversion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to the door of a dismal-looking house in the outlets of the town, where he informed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking staircase, when, as he mounted to show me the way, he demanded whether I delighted in prospects, to which answer- ing in the affirmative, “Then,” says he, “I shall show you one of the most charming in the world out of my windows; we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country for twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for such an one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may see me the oftener.” By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's there P My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satis- fying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand: to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady? “Good troth,” replied she, in a peculiar dialect, “she's washing your two shirts at the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending out the tub any longer.” “My two shirts,” cries he in a tone that faltered with confusion, “what does the idiot mean : * “I ken what I mean well enough,” replied the other, “she's washing your two shirts at the next door, because—” “Fire and fury! no more of thy stupid explanations,” cried he, “Go and inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in the family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is very surprising too, as I had her from a parliament man, a friend of mine, from the highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but that’s a secret.” We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval I had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he assured me were his wife's em- broidery ; a square table that had been once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head were stuck over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry, un- framed pictures, which, he observed, were all his own drawing. “What do you think, sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for its fellow : I refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you know.” The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquette; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped to be excused, as she had stayed out all night at the gardens with the countess, who was exces- sively fond of the horns. “And, indeed, my dear,” added she, turning to her husband, “his lordship drank your health in a bumper.” “Poor Jack,” cries he, “a dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there are but three of us, something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, an ortolan, or a-—” “Or what do you think, my dear,” interrupts the wife, “of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own sauce.”—“The very thing,” replies he, “it will eat best with some smart bottled beer: but be sure to let's have the sauce his grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat, that is country all over; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least acquainted with high life.” By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase; the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement, and after having shown my respect to the house, according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old servant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs assuring me that dinner, if I stayed, would be ready at least in less than two hours. WITH MIR, AND MRS. TIBBS AT WAUXHALL. The people of London are as fond of walking as our friends at Pekin of riding; one of the principal entertainments of the citizens here in summer is to repair about nightfall to a garden not far from town, where they walk about, show their best clothes and best faces, and listen to a concert provided for the occasion. I accepted an invitation a few evenings ago from my old friend, the man in black, to be one of a party that was to sup there; and at the appointed hour waited upon him at his lodgings. There I found the company assembled and ex- pecting my arrival. Our party consisted of my friend, in superlative finery, his stockings rolled, a black velvet waist- coat which was formerly new, and a grey wig combed down in imitation of hair; a pawnbroker's widow, of whom, by- the-by, my friend was a professed admirer, dressed out in green damask, with three gold rings on every finger; Mr. Tibbs, the second-rate beau I have formerly described, toge- ther with his lady, in flimsy silk, dirty gauze instead of linen, and a hat as big as an umbrella. * Our first difficulty was in settling how we should set out. A.D. 1762.] 311 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. Mrs. Tibbs had a natural aversion to the water, and the widow being a little in flesh, as warmly protested against walking; a coach was therefore agreed upon, which being too Small to carry five, Mr. Tibbs consented to sit in his wife's lap. - In this manner, therefore, we set forward, being entertained by the way with the bodings of Mr. Tibbs, who assured us, he did not expect to see a single creature for the evening above the degree of a cheesemonger; that this was the last night of the gardens, and that consequently we should be pestered with the nobility and gentry from Thames-street and Crooked-lane, with several other prophetic ejaculations, probably inspired by the uneasiness of his situation. The illuminations began before we arrived, and I must confess, that upon entering the gardens, I found every sense overpaid with more than expected pleasure; the lights every- where glimmering through the scarcely-moving trees, the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the night, the natural concert of the birds in the more retired part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by art; the company gaily dressed looking satisfaction, and the tables spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagination with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and lifted me into an ecstacy of admiration. “Head of Confucius,” cried I to my friend, “this is fine ! this unites rural beauty with courtly magnificence; if we except the virgins of immortality that hang on every tree, and may be plucked at every desire, I do not see how this falls short of Mahomet's Paradise !” “As for virgins,” cries my friend, “it is true, they are a fruit that do not much abound in our gardens here; but if ladies, as plenty as apples in autumn, and as complying as any houris of them all, can content you, I fancy we have no need to go to Heaven for Paradise.” I was going to second his remarks, when we were called to a consultation by Mr. Tibbs and the rest of the company to know in what manner we were to lay out the evening to the greatest advantage. Mrs. Tibbs was for keeping the genteel walk of the garden, where she observed there was always the very best company; the widow, on the contrary, who came but once a season, was for securing a good standing-place to See the water-works, which she assured us would begin in less than an hour at farthest; a dispute therefore began, and as it was managed between two of very opposite characters, it threatened to grow more bitter at every reply. Mrs. Tibbs wondered how people could pretend to know the polite world who had received all their rudiments of breeding behind a counter; to which the other replied, that though some people sat behind counters, yet they could sit at the head of their own tables too, and carve three good dishes of hot meat when- ever they thought proper, which was more than some people could say for themselves, that hardly knew a rabbit and onions from a green goose and gooseberries. It is hard to say where this might have ended, had not the husband, who probably knew the impetuosity of his wife's disposition, proposed to end the dispute by adjourning to a box, and try if there was anything to be had for supper that was supportable. To this we all consented, but here a new distress arose; Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs would sit in none but a genteel box, a box where they might see and be seen; one, as they expressed it, in the very focus of public view: but such a box was not easy to be obtained, for though we were per- fectly convinced of our own gentility, and the gentility of our appearance, yet we found it a difficult matter to persuade the keepers of the boxes to be of our opinion; they chose to reserve genteel boxes for what they judged more genteel company. At last, however, we were fixed, though somewhat obscurely, and supplied with the usual entertainment of the place. The widow found the supper excellent, but Mrs. Tibbs thought everything detestable. “Come, come, my dear,” cries the husband, by way of consolation,” to be sure we can’t find such dressing here as we have at lord Crump's or lady Crimp's; but for Vauxhall dressing it is pretty good; it is not their victuals indeed I find fault with, but their wine; their wine,” cries he, drinking off a glass, “indeed, is most abominable.” By this last contradiction the widow was fairly conquered in point of politeness. She perceived now that she had no pretensions in the world to taste, her very senses were vulgar, since she had praised detestable custard, and smacked at wretched wine; she was therefore content to yield the victory, and for the rest of the night to listen and improve. It is true, she would now and then forget herself, and confess she was pleased, but they soon brought her back again to miserable refinement. She once praised the painting of the box in which we were sitting, but was soon convinced that such paltry pieces ought rather to excite horror than satis- faction; she ventured again to commend one of the singers, but Mrs. Tibbs soon let her know, in the style of a connois- seur, that the singer in question had neither ear, voice, nor judgment. Mr. Tibbs, now willing to prove that his wife's pretensions to music were just, intreated her to favour the company with a song; but to this she gave a positive denial, “for you know very well my dear,” says she, “that I am not in voice to- day, and when one's voice is not equal to one's judgment, what signifies singing P besides, as there is no accompaniment it would be but spoiling music.” All these excuses, however, were over-ruled by the rest of the company, who, though one would think they already had music enough, joined in the intreaty. But particularly the widow, now willing to con- vince the company of her breeding, pressed so warmly, that she seemed determined to take no refusal. At last then the lady complied, and after humming for some minutes, began with such a voice, and such affectation, as I could perceive gave but little satisfaction to any except her husband. He sat with rapture in his eye, and beat time with his hand on the table. - You must observe, my friend, that it is the custom of this country, when a lady or gentleman happens to sing, for the company to sit as mute and motionless as statues. Every feature, every limb, must seem to correspond in fixed atten- tion, and while the song continues, they are to remain in a state of universal petrifaction. In this mortifying situa- tion we had continued for some time, listening to the song, and looking with tranquillity, when the master of the box came to inform us that the water-works were going to begin. At this information I could instantly perceive the widow bounce from her seat ; but correcting herself, she sat down again, repressed by motives of good breeding. Mrs. Tibbs, who had seen the water-works a hundred times, resolving not to be interrupted, continued her song without any share of mercy, nor had the smallest pity on our impatience. The widow's face, I own, gave me high entertainment; in it I could plainly read the struggle she felt between good breed- ing and curiosity; she talked of the water-works the whole evening before, and seemed to have come merely in order to see them; but then she could not bounce out in the very middle of a song, for that would be forfeiting all pretensions to high life, or high-lived company, ever after. Mrs. Tibbs therefore kept on singing, and we continued to listen, till at last, when the song was just concluded, the waiter came to inform us that the water-works were over. “The water-works over !” cried the widow: “the water- works over already ? that's impossible, they can't be over so 312 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1762. Soon l’” “It is not my business,” replied the fellow, “to contradict your ladyship, I’ll run again and see;” he went, and soon returned with a confirmation of the dismal tidings. No ceremony could now bind my friend's disappointed mistress, she testified her displeasure in the openest manner; in short, she now began to find fault in turn, and at last, insisted upon going home, just at the time that Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs assured the company that the polite hours were going to begin, and that the ladies would instantaneously be enter- tained with the horns. - Adieu ! FORTITUDE OF THE POOR. The misfortunes of the great, my friend, are held up to engage our attention, are enlarged upon in tones of declama- tion, and the world is called upon to gaze at the noble sufferers; they have at once the comfort of admiration and pity. Yet where is the magnanimity of bearing misfortunes when the whole world is looking on ? Men in such circumstances can act bravely even from motives of vanity. He only who, in the vale of obscurity, can brave adversity, who, without friends to encourage, acquaintances to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his distresses, can behave with tranquillity and indifference, is truly great: whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect. The miseries of the poor are, however, entirely disregarded; though some undergo more real hardships in one day, than the great in their whole lives. It is, indeed, inconceivable what difficulties the meanest English sailor or soldier endures without murmuring or regret. Every day is to him a day of misery, and yet he bears his hard fate without repining. With what indignation do I hear the heroes of tragedy complain of misfortunes and hardships, whose greatest calamity is founded in arrogance and pride Their severest distresses are pleasures, compared to what many of the adventuring poor every day sustain without murmuring. These may eat, drink, and sleep, have slaves to attend them, and are sure of subsistence for life; while many of their fellow-creatures are obliged to wander, without a friend to comfort or to assist them, find enmity in every law, and are too poor to obtain even justice. I have been led into these reflections from accidentally meeting some days ago a poor fellow begging at one of the outlets of this town, with a wooden leg. I was curious to learn what had reduced him to his present situation; and after giving him what I thought proper, desired to know the history of his life and misfortunes, and the manner in which he was reduced to his present distress. The disabled soldier, for such he was, with an intrepidity truly British, leaning on his crutch, put himself into an attitude to comply with my request, and gave me his history as follows:– “As for misfortunes, sir, I cannot pretend to have gone through more than others. Except the loss of my limb, and my being obliged to beg, I don't know any reason, thank Heaven, that I have to complain: there are some who have lost both legs and an eye; but, thank Heaven, it is not quite so bad with me. “My father was a labourer in the country, and died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born; so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third; till at last it was thought I belonged to no parish at all. At length, however, they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and had actually learned my letters; but the master of the workhouse put me to business as soon as I was able to handle a mallet. “Here I lived an easy kind of a life for five years; I only wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir far from the house, for fear I should run away : but what of that? I had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door, and that was enough for me. “I was next bound out to a farmer, where I was up both early and late, but I ate and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till he died. Being then obliged to provide for myself, I was resolved to go and seek my fortune. Thus I lived, and went from town to town, working when I could get employment, and starving when I could get none; and might have lived so still; but happening one day to go through a field belonging to a magistrate, I spied a hare crossing the path just before me. I believe the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it : well, what will you have on it PI killed the hare, and was bringing it away in triumph, when the Justice himself met me; he called me a villain, and collaring me, desired I would give an account of myself. I began immediately to give a full account of all that I knew of my breed, seed, and generation ; but though I gave a very long account, the Justice said I could give no account of myself; so I was indicted, and found guilty of being poor, and sent to Newgate, in order to be transported to the Plantations. - “People may say this and that of being in gaol; but for my part I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in in all my life. I had my belly-full to eat and drink, and did no work; but alas, this kind of life was too good to last for ever ! I was taken out of prison after five months, put on board of a ship, and sent off with two hundred more. Our passage was but indifferent, for we were all confined in the hold, and died very fast for want of sweet air and provisions; but for my part I did not want meat, because I had a fever all the way; Providence was kind; when provisions grew short it took away my desire of eating. When we came ashore, we were sold to the planters. I was bound for seven years, and as I was no scholar, for I had forgot my letters, I was obliged to work among the negroes, and served out my time, as in duty bound to do. “When my time was expired, I worked my passage home, and glad I was to see Old England again, because I loved my country. O liberty, liberty, liberty, that is the property of every Englishman, and I will die in its defence; I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the country, but kept about town, and did little jobs when I could get them. I was very happy in this manner for some time; till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me down, and then desired me to stand still. They belonged to a press-gang; I was carried before the Justice, and as I could give no account of myself (that was the thing that always hobbled me), I had my choice left, whether to go on board a man-of-war, or list for a soldier. I chose to be a soldier; and in this post of a gentle- man I served two campaigns, was at the battle in Flanders, and received but one wound through the breast, which is troublesome till this day. “When the peace came on, I was discharged; and as I could not work, because my wound was sometimes painful, I listed for a landman in the East India Company’s service. I here fought the French in six pitched battles, and verily believe that if I could read or write our captain would have given me promotion, and have made me a corporal. But that was not my good fortune; I soon fell sick, and when I be- came good for nothing, got leave to return home, with forty A.D. 1762.] 313 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. pounds in my pocket, which I saved in the service. This was at the beginning of the present war, so I hoped to be set on shore, and to have the pleasure of spending my money; but the government wanted men, and I was pressed again before ever I could set foot on shore. “The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow ; he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I pretended sickness merely to be idle: God knows I knew nothing of sea business; he beat me without considering what he was about. But still my forty pounds was some comfort to me under every beating; the money was my comfort, and the money I might have had to this day; but that our ship was taken by the French, and so I lost it all. “Our crew was carried into a French prison, and many of them died, because they were not used to live in a gaol: but for my part, it was nothing to me, for I was seasoned. One night, however, as I was sleeping on the bed of boards, with a warm blanket about me (for I always loved to lie well) I was awaked by the boatswain, who had a dark lantern in his hand. “Jack, says he to me, “will you knock out the French sentry's brains?’ ‘I don't care,’ says I, striving to keep myself awake, ‘if I lend a hand.’ ‘Then follow me,’ says he, ‘and I hope we shall do business.’ So up I got, and tied my blanket, which was all the clothes I had, about my middle, and went with him to fight the Frenchman: we had no arms: but one Englishman is able to beat five French at any time; so we went down to the door, where both the sentries were posted, and rushing upon them, seized their arms in a moment and knocked them down. From thence, nine of us ran toge- ther to the quay, and seizing the first boat we met, got out of the harbour, and put to sea. We had not been here three days before we were taken up by an English privateer, who was glad of So many good hands; and we consented to run our chance. However, we had not so much luck as we expected. In three days we fell in with a French man-of- war, of forty guns, while we had but twenty-three; so to it we went. The fight lasted for three hours, and I verily believe we should have taken the Frenchman, but unfor- tunately, we lost almost all our men, just as we were going to get the victory. I was once more in the power of the French, and I believe it would have gone hard with me had I been brought back to my old gaol in Brest ; but by good fortune, we were re-taken, and carried to England once more. “I had almost forgot to tell you that in this last engage- ment I was wounded in two places; I lost four fingers of the left hand, and my leg was shot off. Had I the good fortune to have lost my leg and use of my hand on board a king's ship, and not a privateer, I should have been entitled to clothing and maintenance during the rest of my life, but that was not my chance; one man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and another with a wooden ladle. However, blessed be God, I enjoy good health, and have no enemy in this world that I know of but the French, and the Justice of Peace.” Thus saying, he limped off, leaving my friend and me in admiration of his intrepidity and content; nor could we avoid acknowledging that an habitual acquaintance with misery is the truest school of fortitude and philosophy. Adieu ! A little of Beau Tibbs without his poverty was in Horace Walpole, to whom poverty and low birth would have been blessings. As youngest son of the great minister Sir Robert, life was made easy to him. At seven-and-twenty he wrote to his cousin and life- long friend, Henry Seymour Conway, “My places" * Usher of the Exchequer, Comptroller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats in the Exchequer. bring me in near two thousand pounds a year. I have no debts, no connections; indeed, no way to dispose of it particularly. By living with my father, I have little real use for a quarter of it. I have always flung it away all in the most idle manner.” But he wrote this when he was desiring to press money on his friend, and added in the same letter, “I am sensible of having more follies and weak- nesses and fewer real good qualities than most men. I sometimes reflect on this, though I own too seldom. I always want to begin acting like a man, and a sensible one, which I think I might be if I would.” The long series of his letters extends over more than half a century, and leaves on their reader the sense of companionship with a mind capable of more than it achieved, but weakened by the feebleness of its surroundings. Horace Walpole could see through the vanities of the small fashionable world in which he lived with enjoyment of its life. Historical events are seen in his letters through an atmosphere of small talk, and the lively wit that retails the tattle often expresses a philosophy that sees the events to be no greater than the talk about them. George II. is buried, and there is a fashionable show ; there are more shows at the marriage and coronation of George III. Horace Walpole is al- lowed behind the scenes, and earthly glory has its measure taken. The reader thinks there is a wisdom in himself that reads between the lines, but he draws more of it than he knows from the mind of the writer. When the cannons fire for a victory, Horace Walpole, indifferent to the vanities of war, is deeply concerned for news of his cousin Conway, whose career is arms, who comes to be a general, but who may fall in any battle. His indifference to the vain glory of war is not that of a more exalted Tibbs, whose serenity is above or below interest in human struggles; a philosophical sense of the false estimates of right and wrong in courts and camps, such as might be in Lien Chi Altangi, Citizen of the World, underlies his comments. Horace Walpole, eager for the last news, despised newspapers, and never ac- counted a fact known—no, not even the death of his dear friend the poet Gray—until it came to him from some private informant; a fashionable collector of the trifles of antiquity, he poured his contempt on the dead learning of the antiquaries, and all that they published in the Archaeologia, except the pic- tures. He dabbled in authorship, and had a fashion- able scorn for men who gave their whole minds to such work. He was more proud to be his father's son because he reverenced his father's liberal opinions and his political energy, than because his birth gave him position in the world of fashion. He reverenced his father's memory, thought tenderly of his mother, held by his friends with constant loving-kindness. When he became Earl of Orford late in life, he said playfully that he felt himself being called names in his old age. He never took his seat in the House of Lords. He loved his flowers, and would sit up of nights to hear the nightingales, and bear with kindly patience his attack of gout. When laid up with fever and gout in Arlington Street, away from his home by the Thames, he brought roses and a bird into his chamber. Strawberry Hill, with its 216 314 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1761 imitation Gothic, its curiosities of art and trellises of flowers, and the beauty of Thames scenery at hand, was characteristic of its owner, everywhere indicat- ing taste, and powers bounded by the narrowness of a too easy fortune. There was a healthy appetite for life made queasy by contact with the film of well- born ill-bred idlers, scum of the world that in every generation floats atop and calls itself the cream. It is easy enough to find the weak side of Horace Walpole, but it is the weak side of a man who had more than wit to recommend him, who had wisdom enough to measure his own weaknesses, who had latent strength enough for the winning of laurels if it had been his good fortune to be born into a life of toil. He said in his last published letter, written six weeks before death to a friend who had praised him, “Pray send me no more such laurels . . . . I shall be quite content with a sprig of rosemary thrown after me, when the parson of the parish commits my dust to dust.” Horace Walpole, after his education at Eton, where he was the friend of Gray and West, and at King's College, Cambridge, went into Parliament in 1741, and was in Parliament during the first years of the reign of George III. He withdrew wholly from political life in 1768. He had printed in 1758, at the private press which was one of the fancies of Strawberry Hill, his “Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England; ” and the five volumes of his “Anecdotes' of Painting in England ” were printed at Strawberry Hill between 1762 and 1771. In 1765 he published his romance of “The Castle of Otranto;” in 1768 his “Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III.,” and a tragedy called “The Mysterious Mother.” Horace Walpole left also historical memoirs of the reigns of George II. and George III. from 1751 to 1783, but he is chiefly remembered for his Letters. The first of the follow- ing letters was written when on a visit, in 1761, to the great house at Houghton, which had been built by his father, with a hope inscribed on its foundation- stone “that after its master, to a mature old age, had long enjoyeditin perfection, his latest descendants may safely possess it to the end of time.” Sir Robert died in 1745, three years after he had been created Baron of Houghton, and Viscount Walpole, in Norfolk, and Earl of Orford, in Suffolk. This earldom, first created in 1697 for a Russell, had become extinct in 1727. Sir Robert Walpole's eldest son Robert succeeded to the title and estates, and died in 1751, leaving a son George, who inherited the earldom, and became for a time insane. Under him the honours of the house were dimmed, and Houghton fell into decay. In 1773 Walpole wrote from Houghton to his cousin Conway, “Except the pictures, which are in the finest preservation, and the woods, which are become forests, all the rest is ruin, desolation, confusion, dis- order, debts, mortgages, sales, pillage, villainy, waste, folly, and madness.” It was upon George Walpole's death in 1791, without any direct heir, that his uncle Horace, the only surviving son of Sir Robert, took the earldom. He was unmarried, and at his death in 1797 the earldom of Orford became again extinct; but it was revived in favour of Horace Walpole's nearest heir in 1806. FIVE of HoRACE WALPOLE’s LETTERS. To GEORGE MoMTAGU, Esq. Boughton, March 25, 1761. Here I am at Houghton and alonel in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think, what a crowd of reflections! No, Gray and forty churchyards could not furnish so many; nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the last time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church—that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me ! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it ! There, too, lies he, who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets. The surprise the pictures gave me is again renewed; accus- tomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don’t I grow old? My young imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now P Doth great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes P. In one respect, I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived, just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women in riding-dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough ; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers ; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a market- piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations ! not a picture here but recalls a history ! not one but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers! When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure those groves, those allées, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or overgrown—many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares . In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to call it, a monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I do not want to be preached to; I have long considered how every Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants wanted to lay me in the great apartment—what, to make me pass my night as I have done my evening ! It were like proposing to Margaret Roper to 1 The Ruins of Balbec, otherwise Heliopolis. 1757. By Robert Wood. Atlas fol., 46 plates, TO A.D. 1762.] 315 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. be a duchess in the court that cut off her father's head, and imagining it would please her. I have chosen to sit in my father's little dressing-room, and am now by his scrutoire, where, in the height of his fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us, with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and how weak! For what has he built Houghton P for his grandson to annihilate, or for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh could rise and view his representative driving the Hatfield stage, he would feel as I feel now. Poor little Strawberry! at least it will not be stripped to pieces by a descendant : You will find all these fine meditations dictated by pride, not by philosophy. Pray consider through how many mediums philosophy must pass before it is purified— “—— how often must it weep, how often burn!” My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images, of very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne. Epping, Monday night, thirty first.—No, I have not seen him; he loitered on the road, and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday morning. It is plain. I never knew for how many trades I was formed, when at this time of day I can begin electioneering, and succeed in my new vocation. Think of me, the subject of a mob, who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing them in the town-hall, riding at the head of two thousand people through such a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them amid bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finishing with country dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk! I have borne it all cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and reasonable, and civi- lised; their very language is polished since I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good roads and post-chaises, which, if they have abridged the king's domi- nions, have at least tamed his subjects. Well, how comfort- able it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously . The Heraclitus of the beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finishing it to sign himself your old friend, DEMOCRITUs. P.S.. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, “Child, you have done a thing to-day that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you, he always stood the whole time.” “Madam,” said I, “when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones.” I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost the instant they meet. To GEORGE MonTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, Feb. 2, 1762. I scolded you in my last, but I shall forgive you if you return soon to England, as you talk of doing; for though you are an abominable correspondent, and only write to beg letters, you are good company, and I have a notion I shall still be glad to see you. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived; I have seen her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity are all increased. Her dress, like her languages, is a galimatias of several countries; the ground-work rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman's coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a dimity petticoat is deputy and officiates for the fourth, and slippers act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she was expected there, we were drawing Sortes Virgilianas for her; we literally drew Insanam watem aspicies.” It would have been a stronger prophecy now, even than it was then. You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton, and I have a great mind to be as coolly indolent about our famous ghost in Cock-lane. Why should one steal half an hour from one's amusements to tell a story to a friend in another island P I could send you volumes on the ghost, and I believe if I were to stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my Lord Dartmouth, by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on without Saving the least appearances. The archbishop, who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the methodists, permits this farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland-house, the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and I, all in one hackney-coach, and drove to the spot; it rained torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in; at last, they discovered it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such in- sufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked, if we were to have rope-dancing be- tween the acts P. We had nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only 'prentices and old women. We staid however till half-an- hour after one. The methodists have promised them con- tributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the taverns and ale-houses in the neighbourhood make fortunes. The most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be found out—as if there was any thing to find out—as if the actors would make their noises when they can be discovered. However, as this pantomime cannot last much longer, I hope Lady Fanny Shirley will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and then you shall hear one. The methodists, as Lord Aylesford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at Lord Dacre's, have attempted ghosts three times in Warwickshire. There, how good I am! Yours ever. 1 “Aneid,” III, 443, “You shall see the insane prophetess,” 316 [A.D. 1762 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. To GEORGE MonTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, April 5, 1765. I sent you two letters tºother day from your kin, and might as well have written then as now, for I have nothing to tell you. Mr. Chute has quitted his bed to-day the first time for above five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. He was near relapsing; for old Mildmay, whose lungs, and memory, and tongue, will never wear out, talked to him t'other night from eight till half-an-hour after ten, on the Poor-bill; but he has been more comfortable with Lord Dacre and me this evening. I have read the Siege of Calais, and dislike it extremely, though there are fine lines, but the conduct is woful. The outrageous applause it has received at Paris was certainly political, and intended to stir up their spirit and animosity against us, their good, merciful, and forgiving allies. They will have no occasion for this ardour; they may smite one cheek, and we shall turn tºother. Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to tell you two bon-mots of Quin, to that turn-coat hypocrite infidel, Bishop Warburton. That saucy priest was haranguing at Bath in behalf of prerogative: Quin said, “Pray, my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican; and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the First might be justified.”—“Aye!” said Warburton, “by what law P” Quin replied, “By all the laws he had left them.” The bishop would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember that all the regi- cides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. “I would wot advise your lordship,” said Quin, “to make use of that in- ference, for if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles.” There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy couched in eight mono- syllables, and comprehends at once the king's guilt and the justice of punishing it. The more one examines it, the finer it proves. One can say nothing after it, so good night. Yours ever. Horace Walpole's estimate of Warburton in this letter is nearly as superficial as his false estimate of Wesley in the next. To JoHN CHUTE, Esq. Bath, Oct. 10, 1766. I am impatient to hear that your charity to me has not ended in the gout to yourself—all my comfort is, if you have it, that you have good Lady Brown to nurse you. My health advances faster than my amusement. However, I have been at one opera, Mr. Wesley's. They have boys and girls with charming voices, that sing hymns, in parts, to Scotch ballad tunes; but indeed so long, that one would think they were already in eternity, and knew how much time they had before them. The chapel is very neat, with true Gothic windows (yet I am not converted); but I was glad to see that luxury is creeping in upon them before persecution: they have very neat mahogany stands for branches, and brackets of the same in taste. At the upper end is a broad hautpas of four steps, advancing in the middle : at each end of the broadest part are two of my eagles, with red cushions for the parson and clerk. Behind them rise three more steps, in the midst of which is a third eagle for pulpit. Scarlet armed chairs to all three. On either hand, a balcony for elect ladies. The rest of the congregation sit on forms. Behind the pit, in a dark niche, is a plain table within rails; so you see the throne is for the apostle. Wesley is a lean elderly man, fresh-coloured, his hair smoothly combed, but with a soupçon of curl at the ends. Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as Garrick. He spoke his sermon, but so fast, and with so little accent, that I am sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a lesson. There were parts and eloquence in it; but towards the end he exalted his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm; decried learning, and told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his college, who said, “I thanks God for every thing.” Except a few from curiosity, and some honourable women, the congregation was very mean. There was a Scotch Countess of B “**, who is carrying a pure rosy vulgar face to heaven, and who asked Miss Rich, if that was the author of the poets. I believe she meant me and the Noble Authors. The Bedfords came last night. Lord Chatham was with me yesterday two hours; looks and walks well, and is in excellent political spirits. Yours ever. The next letter was written twelve days after the death of Frederick the Great of Prussia. To THE EARL of STRAFFORD. Strawberry-hill, August 29, 1786. Since I received the honour of your lordship's last, I have been at Park-place for a few days. Lord and Lady Frederick Campbell and Mrs. Damer were there. We went on the Thames to see the new bridge at Henley, and Mrs. Damer's colossal masks. There is not a sight in the island more worthy of being visited. The bridge is as perfect as if bridges were natural productions, and as beautiful as if it had been built for Wentworth-castle; and the masks, as if the Romans had left them here. We saw them in a fortunate moment; for the rest of the time was very cold and uncom- fortable, and the evenings as chill as many we have had lately. In short, I am come to think that the beginning of an old ditty, which passes for a collection of blunders, was really an old English pastoral, it is so descriptive of our climate: Three children sliding on the ice All on a summer's day I have been overwhelmed more than ever by visitants to my house. Yesterday I had Count Oginski, who was a pre- tender to the crown of Poland at the last election, and has been stripped of most of a vast estate. He had on a ring of the new king of Prussia—or I should have wished him joy on the death of one of the plunderers of his country. It has long been my opinion that the out-pensioners of Bedlam are so numerous, that the shortest and cheapest way would be to confine in Moorfields the few that remain in their senses, who would then be safe; and let the rest go at large. They are the out-pensioners who are for destroying poor dogs. The whole canine race never did half so much mischief as Lord George Gordon; nor even worry hares, but when hallooed on by men. As it is a persecution of animals, I do not love hunting; and what old writers mention as a commendation makes me hate it the more, its being an image of war. Mercy on us ! that destruction of any species should be a sport or a merit ! What cruel unreflecting imps we are Every body is unwilling to die, yet sacrifices the lives of others to momentary pastime, or to the still emptier vapour, fame ! A hero or a sportsman who wishes for longer life, is desirous of prolonging devastation. We shall be crammed, I suppose, with panegyrics and epitaphs on the king of Prussia.-I am content that he can now have an epitaph. But, alas ! the emperor will write one for him probably in blood! and, while he shuts up convents for the sake of popu- To A.D. 1768.] 317 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. lation, will be stuffing hospitals with maimed soldiers, besides making thousands of widows!—I have just been reading a new published history of the colleges in Oxford by Anthony Wood, and there found a feature in a character that always offended me, that of Archbishop Chicheley, who prompted Henry V. to the invasion of France, to divert him from squeezing the overgrown clergy. When that priest meditated founding All Souls, and “consulted his friends (who seem to have been honest men) what great matter of piety he had best perform to God in his old age, he was advised by them to build an hospital for the wounded and sick soldiers, that daily returned from the wars then had in France; ”—I doubt his grace's friends thought as I do of his artifice; “but,” con- tinues the historian, “disliking those motions, and valuing the welfare of the deceased more than the wounded and diseased, he resolved with himself to promote his design—which was, to have masses said for the king, queen, and himself, &c. while living, and for their souls when dead.” And that mum- mery the old foolish rogue thought more efficacious than oint- ments and medicines for the wretches he had made And of the chaplains and clerks he instituted in that dormitory, one was to teach grammar, and another, prick-song. How his- tory makes one shudder and laugh by turns!—But I fear I have wearied your lordship with my idle declamation, and you will repent having commanded me to send you more letters; and I can only plead that I am Your (perhaps too) obedient humble servant. One of Horace Walpole's letters describes the beauty of Lord Lyttelton's domain at Hagley. George Lord Lyttelton was a noble author, who spent thirty years upon the production of a History of Henry II., which first appeared in 1767. He wrote verse also, and had first made his mark as a writer in 1735 with “Letters from a Persian in England to his Friend at Ispahan.” At the begin- ning of the reign of George III., Lord Lyttelton's “Dialogues of the Dead” were a new book. It was in its fourth edition in 1765. Dr. Johnson said of it and its writer, “That man sat down to write a book, to tell the world what the world had all his life been telling him.” Well, so did Shakespeare when he sat down to write his plays. The wisest does no more. What the world tells a man depends upon the measure of his wisdom. Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues are not at all dramatic. Each of them contains the opinions of Lord Lyttelton set forth didactically in the manner of Lord Lyttelton, although the speakers who meet in the other world are of many different characters, countries, and ages in this world’s life. When duelling was still an institution of high social standing, Lord Lyttelton deserved some credit for the following IXIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. MERCURY—AN ENGLISH DUELLIST-A NoFTH-AMERICAN SAVAGE. The Duellist. Mercury, Charon's boat is on the other side of the water. Allow me, before it returns, to have some conversation with the North-American Savage, whom you brought hither with me. I never before saw one of that species. He looks very grimly.—Pray, sir, what is your name? I understand you speak English. Savage. Yes, I learnt it in my childhood, having been bred for some years among the English of New York. But, before I was a man, I returned to my valiant countrymen, the Mohawks; and having been villanously cheated by one of yours in the sale of some rum, I never cared to have any thing to do with them afterwards. Yet I took up the hatchet for them with the rest of my tribe in the late war against France, and was killed while I was out upon a scalping party. But I died very well satisfied, for my brethren were victorious; and before I was shot I had gloriously scalped seven men, and five women and children. In a former war I had performed still greater exploits. My name is the Bloody Bear: it was given to me to express my fierceness and valour. IJzzellist. Bloody Bear, I respect you, and am much your humble servant. My name is Tom Pushwell, very well known at Arthur's. I am a gentleman by my birth, and by profession a gamester and man of honour. I have killed men in fair fighting, in honourable single combat; but don’t understand cutting the throats of women and children. Savage. Sir, that is our way of making war. Every nation has its customs. But, by the grimness of your countenance, and that hole in your breast, I presume you were killed, as I was, in some scalping party. How happened it that your enemy did not take off your scalp ? Duellist. Sir, I was killed in a duel. A friend of mine had lent me a sum of money. After two or three years, being in great want himself, he asked me to pay him. I thought his demand, which was somewhat peremptory, an affront to my honour, and sent him a challenge. We met in Hyde Park. The fellow could not fence: I was absolutely the adroitest swords- man in England. So I gave him three or four wounds; but at last he ran upon me with such impetuosity, that he put me out of my play, and I could not prevent him from whipping me through the lungs. I died the next day, as a man of honour should, without any Snivelling signs of contrition or repentance: and he will follow me soon; for his surgeon has declared his wounds to be mortal. It is said that his wife is dead of grief, and that his family of seven children will be undone by his death. So I am well revenged, and that is a comfort. For my part, I had no wife—I always hated mar- riage; my [mistress] will take good care of herself, and my children are provided for at the foundling hospital, Savage. Mercury, I won't go in a boat with that fellow. He has murdered his countryman; he has murdered his friend: I say positively, I won’t go in a boat with that fellow. I will swim over the river; I can swim like a duck. Mercury. Swim over the Styx 1 it must not be done; it is against the laws of Pluto's empire. You must go in the boat, and be quiet. Savage. Don't tell me of laws. I am a Savage; I value no laws. Talk of laws to the Englishman; there are laws in his country, and yet you see he did not regard them; for they could never allow him to kill his fellow-subject in time of peace because he asked him to pay a debt. I know indeed that the English are a barbarous nation ; but they cannot possibly be so brutal as to make such things lawful. 318 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1762 Mercury. You reason well against him. But how comes it that you are so offended with murder; you, who have frequently massacred women in their sleep, and children in the cradle? Savage. I killed none but my enemies: I never killed my own countrymen; I never killed my friend.—Here, take my blanket, and let it come over in the boat; but see that the murderer does not sit upon it, or touch it. If he does I will burn it instantly in the fire I see yonder. Farewell.—I am determined to swim over the water. Mercury. By this touch of my wand I deprive thee of all thy strength. Swim now if thou canst. Savage. This is a potent enchanter. Restore me my strength, and I promise to obey thee. Mercury. I restore it; but be orderly, and do as I bid you; otherwise worse will befall you. Luellist. Mercury, leave him to me. I’ll tutor him for you. Sirrah Savage, dost thou pretend to be ashamed of my company ? Dost thou know that I have kept the best company in England P Savage. I know thou art a scoundrel. Not pay thy debts' kill thy friend who lent thee money for asking thee for it! Get out of my sight! I will drive thee into Styx. Mercury. Stop—I command thee. No violence. Talk to him calmly. Savage. I must obey thee. Well, sir, let me know what merit you had to introduce you into good company? what could you do? Luellist. Sir, I gamed, as I told you. Besides, I kept a good table. I eat as well as any man either in England or France. Savage. Eat I did you ever eat the liver of a Frenchman, or his leg, or his shoulder! There is fine eating! I have eat twenty. My table was always well served. My wife was esteemed the best cook for the dressing of man's flesh in all North America, You will not pretend to compare your eating with mine? Luellist. I danced very finely. Savage. I’ll dance with thee for thy ears. I can dance all day long. I can dance the war-dance with more spirit than any man of my nation. Let us see thee begin it. How thou standest like a post Has Mercury struck thee with his enfeebling rod? Or art thou ashamed to let us see how awkward thou art P. If he would permit me I would teach thee to dance in a way that thou hast never yet learnt. But what else canst thou do, thou bragging rascal ? Luellist. O heavens ! must I bear this? fellow 2 I have neither sword nor pistol. seems to be twice as strong as mine, What can I do with this And his shade Mercury. You must answer his questions. It was your own desire to have a conversation with him. He is not well bred; but he will tell you some truths, which you must necessarily hear when you come before Rhadamanthus. He asked you what you could do besides eating and dancing. Duellist. I sang very agreeably. Savage. Let me hear you sing your death song, or the war whoop. I challenge you to sing. Come, begin. This fellow is mute. Mercury, this is a liar. He has told us nothing but lies. Let me pull out his tongue. Duellist. The lie given me! and alas! I dare not resent it. What an indelible disgrace to the family of the Pushwells! This indeed is damnation. Mercury. Here, Charon, take these two Savages to your care. How far the barbarism of the Mohawk will excuse his horrid acts, I leave Minos to judge. But what can be said for the other, for the Englishman? The custom of duelling P A bad excuse at the best but here it cannot avail. The spirit that urged him to draw his sword against his friend is not that of honour; it is the spirit of the Furies, and to them he must go. Savage. If he is to be punished for his wickedness turn him over to me. I perfectly understand the art of tormenting. Sirrah, I begin my work with this kick on your breach. Duellist. O my honour, my honour, to what infamy art thou fallen This is another of Lord Lyttelton's “Dialogues of the Dead.” Louis LE GRAND–PETER THE GREAT. Louis. Who, sir, could have thought, when you were learning the trade of a shipwright in the dockyards of England and Hol- land, that you would ever acquire, as I have done, the sur- name of Great? Peter. Which of us best deserved that title posterity will decide. But my greatness appeared sufficiently in that very act which seemed to you a debasement. Louis. The dignity of a king does not stoop to such mean employ- ments. For my own part, I was careful never to appear to the eyes of my subjects or foreigners but in all the splendour and majesty of royal power. Peter. Had I remained on the throne of Russia, as my ancestors did, environed with all the pomp of barbarous greatness, I should have been idolised by my people as much, at least, as you ever were by the French. My despotism was more absolute, their servitude was more humble. But then I could not have reformed their evil customs; have taught them arts, civility, navigation, and war; have exalted them from brutes in human shapes into men. In this was seen the extra- ordinary force of my genius beyond any comparison with all other kings, that I thought it no degradation, or diminution To A.D. 1769.] 319 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. of my greatness, to descend from my throne, and go and work in the dockyards of a foreign republic; to serve as a private sailor in my own fleets, and as a common soldier in my own army; till I had raised myself by my merit in all the several steps and degrees of promotion, up to the highest command, and had thus induced my nobility to submit to a regular subordination in the sea and land service, by a lesson hard to their pride, and which they would not have learnt from any other master, or by any other method of instruction. Louis. I am forced to acknowledge that it was a great act. When I thought it a mean one my judgment was per- verted by the prejudices arising from my own education, and the ridicule thrown upon it by some of my courtiers, whose minds were too narrow to be able to comprehend the greatness of yours in that situation. Peter. It was an act of more heroism than any ever done by Alexander or Caesar. Nor would I consent to exchange my glory with theirs. They both did great things, but they were at the head of great mations, far superior in valour and military skill to those with whom they contended. I was the king of an ignorant, undisciplined, barbarous people. My enemies were at first so superior to my subjects, that ten thousand of them could beat a hundred thousand Russians. They had formidable navies, I had not a ship. The king of Sweden was a prince of the most intrepid courage, assisted by generals of consummate knowledge in war, and served by Soldiers so disciplined, that they were become the admiration and terror of Europe. Yet I vanquished these soldiers; I drove that prince to take refuge in Turkey; I won battles at Sea, as well as land; I new-created my people; I gave them arts, Science, policy; I enabled them to keep all the powers of the North in awe and dependence, to give kings to Poland, to check and intimidate the Ottoman emperors, to mix with great weight in the affairs of all Europe. What other man has ever done such wonders as these ? Read all the records of ancient and modern times, and find, if you can, one fit to be put in comparison with me ! Louis. Your glory would indeed have been supreme and unequalled if, in civilising your subjects, you had reformed the brutality of your own manners, and the barbarous vices of your nature. But, alas ! the legislator and reformer of the Muscovites was drunken and cruel. Peter'. My drunkenness I confess: nor will I plead to excuse it the example of Alexander. It inflamed the tempers of both, which were by nature too fiery, into furious passions of anger, and produced actions of which our reason, when sober, was ashamed. But the cruelty you upbraid me with may in some degree be excused, as necessary to the work I had to perform. Fear of punishment was in the hearts of my barbarous sub- jects the only principle of obedience. To make them respect the royal authority I was obliged to arm it with all the terrors of rage. You had a more pliant people to govern, a people whose minds could be ruled, like a fine managed horse, with an easy and gentle rein. The fear of shame did more with them than the fear of the knowt could do with the Russians. The humanity of your character and the ferocity of mine were equally suitable to the nations over which we reigned. But what excuse can you find for the cruel violence you employed against your Protestant subjects? They desired nothing but to live under the protection of laws you yourself had confirmed; and they repaid that protection by the most hearty zeal for your service. Yet these did you force by the most inhuman severities, either to quit the reli- gion in which they were bred, and which their consciences still retained, or to leave their native land and endure all the woes of a perpetual exile. If the rules of policy could not hinder you from thus depopulating your kingdom, and trans- ferring to foreign countries its manufactures and commerce, I am surprised that your heart itself did not stop you. It makes one shudder to think that such orders should be sent from the most polished court in Europe, as the most Savage Tartars could hardly have executed without remorse and compassion. Louis. It was not my heart, but my religion, that dictated these severities. My confessor told me they alone would atome for all my sins. Peter. Had I believed in my patriarch as you believed in your priest, I should not have been the great monarch that I was. But I mean not to detract from a prince whose memory is dear to his subjects. They are proud of having obeyed you; which is certainly the highest praise to a king. My people also date their glory from the era of my reign. But there is this capital distinction between us: The pomp and pageantry of state were necessary to your greatness. I was great in myself, great in the energy and powers of my mind, great in the superiority and sovereignty of my soul over all other men. The first letter by the public writer who is known only by his signature of Junius, is said to have ap- peared in The Public Advertiser on the 28th of April, 1767. There are sixty-nine letters signed “Junius,” and these appeared between the 21st of January, 1769, and the 2nd of November, 1771, but there were con- tributions to The Public Advertiser from the same hand under other signatures, the last in January, 1773. Of many persons to whom the authorship of these papers has been ascribed on various grounds, evidence points perhaps most strongly to Sir Philip Francis, who was born at Dublin in 1740, son of the Rev. Dr. Philip Francis, a translator of Horace, and author of two tragedies, who at one time kept a school at Esher, and had Edward Gibbon among his pupils. Philip, the son, was educated at St. Paul's School, and began public life as a clerk in the Secre- tary of State's office. Then he went to Portugal as Secretary to the Embassy, and in 1773 became a member of the Council of Bengal. In India he was bitterly hostile to Warren Hastings, and it was from him that his friend Edmund Burke received the details that put fire into his conduct of the impeach- ment of Hastings. Sir Philip Francis died in 1818, and if he wrote the Letters of Junius he began to write them before he was thirty. Their chief butt was the Duke of Grafton, who had become Secretary of State in 1765 at the age of twenty-nine, and was First Lord of the Treasury from 1766 to 1770, and from 1771 to 1775 Lord Privy Seal. Afterwards he spent the greater part of his life in opposition, and died in 1811. This is THE FIRST LETTER OF JUNIUS. January 21, 1769. SIR,-The submission of a free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with 320 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1769. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF laws which they themselves have enacted. While the national honour is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is im- partially administered at home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and, I might almost say, un- limited. A generous nation is grateful even for the preser- vation of its rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office of a good prince into an affection for his person. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an Englishman, is a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices and passion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length, and, whatever foreigners may imagine, we know that Englishmen have erred as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons and families, as they ever did in defence of what they thought most dear and interesting to themselves. It naturally fills us with resentment, to see such a temper insulted and abused. In reading the history of a free people, whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their cause. Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment, if experience should bring the fatal example home to ourselves' The situation of this country is alarming enough to rouse the attention of every man who pretends to a concern for the public welfare. Appearances justify suspicion; and when the safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of enquiry. Let us enter into it with candour and decency. Respect is due to the station of ministers; and, if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness, as that which has been adopted with moderation. The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon the administration of its government, that, to be acquainted with the merit of a ministry, we need only observe the con- dition of the people. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably presume, that their affairs are conducted by men of experience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see an universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts of the empire, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the government of that country is weak, distracted, and corrupt. The multitude, in all countries, are patient, to a certain point. Ill usage may rouse their indignation, and hurry them into excesses; but the original fault is in govern- ment. Perhaps there never was an instance of a change, in the circumstances and temper of a whole nation, so sudden and extraordinary as that which the misconduct of ministers has, within these few years, produced in Great Britain. When our gracious Sovereign ascended the throne, we were a flourishing and contented people. If the personal virtues of a king could have insured the happiness of his subjects, the Scene could not have altered so entirely as it has done. The idea of uniting all parties, of trying all characters, and distri- buting the offices of state by rotation, was gracious and benevolent to an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many salutary effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the wisdom of such a plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue; nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations. No, sir, it arose from a continued anxiety, in the purest of all possible hearts, for the general welfare. Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that state which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no ex- tremity of distress, which, of itself, ought to reduce a great nation to despair. It is not the disorder, but the physician ; it is not a casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances; it is the pernicious hand of government which alone can make a whole people desperate. Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of observation, we need only mark how the principal departments of the state are bestowed, and look no farther for the true cause of every mischief that befals us. The finances of a nation sinking under its debts and ex- penses, are committed to a young nobleman already ruined by play. Introduced to act under the auspices of Lord Chatham, and left at the head of affairs by that noble- man's retreat, he became minister by accident : but deserting the principles and professions which gave him a moment’s popularity, we see him, from every honourable engagement to the public, an apostate by design. As for business, the world yet knows nothing of his talents or resolution; unless a wayward, wavering inconsistency be a mark of genius, and caprice a demonstration of spirit. It may be said, perhaps, that it is his Grace's province, as surely it is his passion, rather to distribute than to save the public money; and that while Lord North is Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Treasury may be as thoughtless and extravagant as he pleases. I hope, however, he will not rely too much on the fertility of Lord North's genius for finance; his Lordship is yet to give us the first fruits of his abilities. It may be candid to suppose, that he has hitherto voluntarily concealed his talents; intending, perhaps, to astonish the world, when we least expect it, with a knowledge of trade, a choice of expedients, and a depth of resources, equal to the necessities, and far beyond the hopes, of his country. He must now exert the whole power of his capacity, if he would wish us to forget, that, since he has been in office, no plan has been formed, no system adhered to, nor any one im- portant measure adopted for the relief of public credit. If his plan for the service of the current year be not irrevocably fixed on, let me warn him to think seriously of consequences before he ventures to increase the public debt. Outraged and oppressed as we are, this nation will not bear, after a six years' peace, to see new millions borrowed, without an eventual diminution of debt, or reduction of interest. The attempt might rouse a spirit of resentment, which might reach beyond the sacrifice of a minister. As to the debt upon the civil list, the people of England expect that it will not be paid without a strict enquiry how it was incurred. If it must be paid by Parliament, let me advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer to think of some better expedient than a lottery. To support an expensive war, or in circumstances of absolute necessity, a lottery may perhaps be allowable ; but, besides that it is at all times the very worst way of raising money upon the people, I think it ill becomes the royal dignity to have the debts of a king provided for like the repairs of a country bridge, or a decayed hospital. The management of the king's affairs in the House of Commons cannot be more disgraced than it has been. A leading minister repeatedly called down for absolute ignorance, ridi- culous motions ridiculously withdrawn, deliberate plans dis- concerted, and a week's preparation of graceful oratory lost in a moment, give us some, though not adequate, ideas of Lord North's parliamentary abilities and influence. Yet, before he had the misfortune of being Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was neither an object of derision to his enemies, nor of melancholy pity to his friends. A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies A.D. 1769.] 321 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affections to their common country. When Mr. Grenville was placed at the head of the treasury, he felt the impossibility of Great Britain's supporting such an establishment as her former successes had made indispensable, and at the same time of giving any sensible relief to foreign trade, and to the weight of the public debt. He thought it equitable that those parts of the empire which had benefited most by the expenses of the war, should contribute something to the expenses of the peace, and he had no doubt of the constitu- tional right vested in Parliament to raise the contribution. But, unfortunately for this country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed, because he was minister ; and Mr. Bitt and Lord Camden were to be the patrons of America, because they were in opposition. Their declaration gave spirit and argument to the colonies; and while, perhaps, they meant no more than the ruin of a minister, they, in effect, divided one half of the empire from the other." Under one administration the Stamp Act is made; under the second it is repealed; under the third, in spite of all ex- perience, a new mode of taxing the colonies is invented, and a question revived which ought to have been buried in oblivion. In these circumstances a new office is established for the |business of the plantations, and the Earl of Hillsborough called forth, at a most critical season, to govern America. The choice at least announced to us a man of superior capa- city and knowledge. Whether he be so or not, let his dis- patches, as far as they have operated, determine for him. In the former we have seen strong assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and violent censures without dignity or moderation; but neither correctness in the com- position, nor judgment in the design. As for his measures, let it be remembered, that he was called upon to conciliate and unite; and that, when he entered into office, the most refractory of the colonies were still disposed to proceed by the constitutional methods of petition and remonstrance. Since that period they have been driven into excesses little short of rebellion. Petitions have been hindered from reach- ing the throne; and the continuance of one of the principal assemblies rested upon an arbitrary gondition, which consider- ing the temper they were in, it was impossible they should 1 George Grenville succeeded the Earl of Bute as Prime Minister in 1763. The thirteen colonies of America, then had a population of nearly two million, including a large number of slaves and servants. The war with France had burdened England with public debt, and Grenville, Junius writes, “ thought it equitable” to make the colonies bear part of the burden. The colonies had until that time borne taxes for the regulation of trade, but had not been directly taxed for revenues also. In the beginning of 1764, under Grenville's Ministry, Parliament voted that it had a right to tax the colonies. In March, 1764, duties were laid upon sugar and other articles of colonial import. A year later, in March, 1765, followed the Stamp Act, by which all business papers and certificates, as well as newspapers, were taxed with stamp duties as in Great Britain. The jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court was also extended to the exclusion of colonial juries, in many cases that were formerly brought before them, and a quar- tering act imposed upon colonists a duty of providing quarters and supplies for British troops. The colonists denounced this method of taxation as unconstitutional, and the first Congress of the American colonies met on the 7th of October, 1765. It produced on the 19th of October a Declaration of Rights which acknowledged the allegiance due to the Crown, but claimed for the colonists “all the inherent rights and liberties of natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great Britain.” These were held to include taxation by their own assemblies, and trial by their own juries. Agreement of many in England with the sense of the colonists that they were touched in their liberties as English subjects, was by no means de- pendent, as Junius puts it, on the fact that, “unfortunately for this country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he was Minister;” though it is true that, when party feeling runs high, low motives are often assigned to just opinions, and just opinions are often accepted or supported on unworthy grounds. comply with ; and which would have availed nothing as to the general question, if it had been complied with. So violent, and, I believe, I may call it, so unconstitutional, an exertion of the prerogative, to say nothing of the weak, injudicious terms in which it was conveyed, gives us as humble an opinion of his Lordship's capacity as it does of his temper and moderation. While we are at peace with other nations, our military force may, perhaps, be spared to support the Earl of Hillsborough's measures in America. Whenever that force shall be necessarily withdrawn or diminished, the dismission of such a minister will neither console us for his imprudence, nor remove the settled resentment of a people, who, complaining of an act of the legislature, are outraged by an unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, and, supporting their claims by argument, are insulted with declamation. Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable method of appointing the officers of state, compared to a late dispo- sition of the secretary's office. Lord Rochford was acquainted with the affairs and temper of the southern courts; Lord Weymouth was equally unqualified for either department; by what unaccountable caprice has it happened, that the latter, who pretends to no experience whatsoever, is removed to the most important of the two departments, and the former, by preference, placed in an office where his experi- ence can be of no use to him P Lord Weymouth had distinguished himself, in his first employment, by a spirited, if not judicious, conduct. He had animated the civil magis- trate beyond the tone of civil authority, and had directed the operations of the army to more than military execution. Recovered from the errors of his youth, from the distraction of play, and the bewitching smiles of Burgundy, behold him exerting the whole strength of his clear, unclouded faculties in the service of the crown. It was not the heat of midnight excesses, nor ignorance of the laws, nor the furious spirit of the house of Bedford; no, sir, when this respectable minister interposed his authority between the magistrate and the people, and signed the mandate, on which, for aught he knew, the lives of thousands depended, he did it from the deliberate motion of his heart, supported by the best of his judgment. It has lately been a fashion to pay a compliment to the bravery and generosity of the commander-in-chief at the ex- pense of his understanding. They who love him least make no question of his courage, while his friends dwell chiefly on the facility of his disposition. Admitting him to be as brave as a total absence of all feeling and reflection can make him, let us see what sort of merit he derives from the remainder of his character. If it be generosity to accumulate in his own person and family a number of lucrative employments; to provide, at the public expense, for every creature that bears the name of Manners; and, neglecting the merit and services of the rest of the army, to heap promotions upon his favourites and dependants; the present commander-in-chief is the most generous man alive. Nature has been sparing of her gifts to this noble Lord ; but where birth and fortune are united, we expect the noble pride and independence of a man of spirit, not the servile, humiliating complaisance of a courtier. As to the goodness of his heart, if a proof of it be taken from the facility of never refusing, what conclusion shall we draw from the indecency of never performing 2 And if the disci- pline of the army be in any degree preserved, what thanks are due to a man, whose cares, notoriously confined to filling up vacancies, have degraded the office of commander-in-chief into a broker of commissions P With respect to the navy, I shall only say, that this country is so highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, that no expense should be spared to secure to him an honourable and affluent retreat. 217 322 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. 17 ENGIISH LITERATURE. The pure and impartial administration of justice is, perhaps, the firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, and to engage their affections to government. It is not sufficient that questions of private right or wrong are justly decided, nor that judges are superior to the vile- ness of pecuniary corruption. Jefferies himself, when the court had no interest, was an upright judge. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of bias more important and pernicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of individuals and affects the whole community. A judge under the in- fluence of government may be honest enough in the decision of private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be carried for government, or the resentment of a court to be gratified. These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wise and generous people are roused by every appearance of oppressive, unconstitutional measures, whether those measures are Sup- ported only by the power of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and self-preser- vation will oblige the most moderate dispositions to make common cause even with a man whose conduct they censure, if they see him prosecuted in a way which the real spirit of the laws will not justify. The facts on which these remarks are founded are too notorious to require an application. This, sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation over- whelmed with debt; her revenues wasted; her trade de- clining ; the affections of her colonies alienated ; the duty of the magistrate transferred to the soldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow- subjects, mouldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit ; and, in the last instance, the administration of justice become odious and suspected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits of but one addition ; that we are governed by counsels from which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison ; no relief but death. If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom: they will not believe it possible that their ancestors could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, and Lord North Chancellor of the Ex- chequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, a Granby Commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield Chief Criminal Judge of the kingdom. JUNIUs. Tn the autumn of the year when Junius ceased to write, Samuel Johnson paid his visit to the Western Islands of Scotland, induced to it, he says, “by find- ing in Mr. Boswell a companion whose acuteness would help any inquiry, and whose gaiety of con- versation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in coun- tries less hospitable than we have passed.” “On the 18th of August we left Edinburgh,” he says at the beginning of the account of his Journey, which he published in 1774. Of his journey to Edinburgh there is this record among his private letters. FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH WITH DR. JOHNSON. To MRS. THRALE. August 12, 1773. DEAR MADAM, We left London on Friday 5th, not very early, and travelled without any memorable accident through a country which I had seen before. In the evening I was not well, and was forced to stop at Stilton, one stage short of Stamford, where we intended to have lodged. On the 7th we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark, where I had only time to observe that the market-place was uncommonly spacious and neat. In London we should call it a square, though the sides wero neither straight nor parallel. We came at night to Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like this:—“What I gave, that I have ; what I spent, that I had ; what I left, that I lost. So saith Robert of Doncaster, who reigned in the world sixty-seven years, and all that time lived not one.” Here we were invited to dinner, and therefore made no great haste away. We reached York, however, that night; I was much dis- ordered with old complaints. Next morning we saw the minster, an edifice of loftiness and elegance equal to the highest hopes of architecture. I remember nothing but the dome of St. Paul’s that can be compared with the middle walk. The chapter-house is a circular building, very stately, but I think excelled by the chapter-house of Lincoln. I then went to see the ruins of the Abbey, which are almost vanished, and I remember nothing of them distinct. The next visit was to the jail, which they call the castle; a fabric built lately, such is terrestrial mutability, out of the materials of the ruined Abbey. The under jailor was very officious to show his fetters, in which there was no con- trivance. The head jailor came in, and seeing me look I suppose fatigued, offered me wine, and when I went away would not suffer his servant to take money. The jail is accounted the best in the kingdom, and you find the jailor deserving of his dignity. We dined at York, and went on to Northallerton, a place of which I know nothing, but that it afforded us a lodging on Monday night, and about two hundred and seventy years ago gave birth to Roger Ascham. Next morning we changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was per- petual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect. The church is built crosswise, with a fine spire, and might invite a traveller to survey it, but I perhaps wanted vigour, and thought I wanted time. The next stage brought us to Durham, a place of which Mr. Thrale bade me take particular notice. The Bishop's palace has the appearance of an old feudal castle, built upon an eminence, and looking down upon the river, upon which was formerly thrown a drawbridge, as I suppose to be raised at night, lest the Scots should pass it. The cathedral has a massiveness and solidity such as I have seen in no other place; it rather awes than pleases, as it strikes with a kind of gigantic dignity, and aspires to no other praise than that of rocky solidity and indeterminate duration. I had none of my friends resident, and therefore saw but little. The library is mean and Scanty. At Durham, beside all expectation, I met an old friend: Miss Fordyce is married there to a physician. We met, I think, with honest kindness on both sides. I thought her much decayed, and having since heard that the banker had To A.D. 1775.] 323 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. involved her husband in his extensive ruin, I cannot forbear to think that I saw in her withered features more impression of Sorrow than of time. Qua terra patet, fera regnat Erinnys.” He that wanders about the world sees new forms of human misery, and if he chances to meet an old friend, meets a face darkened with troubles. On Tuesday night we came hither; yesterday I took some care of myself, and to-day I am quite polite. I have been taking a view of all that could be shown me, and find that all very near to nothing. You have often heard me complain of finding myself disappointed by books of travels; I am afraid travel itself will end likewise in disappointment. One town, one country, is very like another; civilised nations have the same customs, and barbarous nations have the same nature: there are indeed minute discriminations both of places and of manners, which perhaps are not wanting of curiosity, but which a traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and compare. The dull utterly neglect them, the acute see a little, and supply the rest with fancy and conjecture. I shall set out again to-morrow, but I shall not, I am afraid, see Alnwick, for Dr. Percy is not there. I hope to lodge to-morrow night at Berwick, and the next at Edin- burgh, where I shall direct Mr. Drummond, bookseller at Ossian's head, to take care of my letters. I hope the little dears are all well, and that my dear master and mistress may go somewhither, but wherever you go do not forget 2 Madam, Your most humble servant. I am pretty well. August 15. Thus far I had written at Newcastle. I forgot to send it. I am now at Edinburgh; and have been this day running about. I run pretty well. . To MRS. THRALE. Bdinburgh, August 17, 1773. DEAR MADAM, On the 13th I left Newcastle, and in the afternoon came to Alnwick, where we were treated with great civility by the Duke : I went through the apartments, walked on the wall, and climbed the towers. That night we lay at Bel- ford, and on the next night came to Edinburgh. On Sunday (15th) I went to the English chapel. After dinner, Dr. Robert- son came in, and promised to show me the place. On Monday I saw their public buildings: the cathedral, which I told Robertson I wished to see because it had once been a church, the courts of justice, the parliament house, the advocate's library, the repository of records, the college and its library, and the palace, particularly the cla tower where the king of Scotland seized David Rizzio in the queen's presence. Most of their buildings are very mean ; and the whole town bears Some resemblance to the old part of Birmingham. Boswell has very handsome and spacious rooms; level with the ground on one side of the house, and on the other four stories high. At dinner on Monday were the Duchess of Douglas, an old lady who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen; the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Adolphus Oughton, and many more. At Supper there was such a conflux of company that I could Scarcely support the tumult. I have never been well in the whole journey, and am very easily disordered. This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind * Ovid, “Metamorphoses,” I. 241. “For through the world the fierce Erinnys reigns.”—Samdys's Translation. poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to, by a poor scholar, in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself.” I looked on him with reverence. To-morrow our journey begins; I know not when I shall write again. I am but poorly. I am, &c. In the year of Johnson's publication of his “Jour- ney to the Hebrides,” Edmund Burke made a famous speech on American Taxation, and in the following year, on the 22nd of March, he laid before the House of Commons thirteen resolutions for reconcilement with America, and made another great speech on 2:º 2\º &2:º £º % º zºº Ç w s t h | H | º§ V.§& s ==i Eff ==º i. § § § § § § º = wº º º -->- ===\ 3---- -ms- tº --> s: E --- F. SAMUEL JOHNSON. From the Portrait by Reynolds, prefixed to “The Lives of the Poets” in 1781. American Conciliation. Johnson, in that year 1775, maintained the policy that Burke opposed, and wrote a pamphlet against the resistance of the colonies to Imperial taxation, in which they had not a voice. The pamphlet was called “Taxation no Tyranny.” In June of that year 1775 George Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the United Colonies, and on the 2nd of July, 1776, the American Colonies declared their independence. Then followed war with the Colonies until the Inde- pendence of the United States was recognised by treaties signed on the 3rd of September, 1783. These events are illustrated in our prose literature by the genius of Burke; and we must return to them * Thomas Blacklock was a bricklayer's son, blinded by small pox in his infancy. gº º • * * © , see s • * * * * • * * c e e * * * * • e e s • e ſº tº gº © & © o 324 [A.D. 1775 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. when speaking of Burke's place among our English politicians. Johnson was sixty-nine years old when the booksellers asked him to write lives of the poets since the Commonwealth, that might be prefixed to a new trade issue of their works. They appeared between the years 1779 and 1781, when there was a handsome edition of them in four octavo volumes, only three years before the close of Johnson's life. With strong convictions of his own that made it difficult for him to realise within his own mind opposite opinions, Johnson laboured faithfully to be just and true in his estimates of life and literature. He had felt the hardships of want, and had been softened by them to the kindest human interest in all problems of life that vexed the poverty of men of genius. He had a robust intellect that made him, within the bounds of his own genius, a master critic, and beyond bounds an honest and an earnest one. He had grown with his time, and the defects of style, that were accounted beauties in the middle of the century, had disappeared. The style of “The Lives of the Poets" is not that of The Rambler. This is one of the Lives. SAMUEL BUTLER, Of the great author of “Hudibras” there is a life prefixed to the later editions of his poem by an unknown writer, and therefore of disputable authority; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses the uncertainty of his own narrative; more, however, than they knew can- not now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them. Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire; according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14. His father's condition is variously represented. Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; but Mr. Longueville, the son of Butler's principle friend, says he was an honest farmer with some small estate, who made a shift to educate his son at the grammar-school of Worcester under Mr. Henry Bright, from whose care he removed for a short time to Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford, but at last makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge without knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he lived so long in either University but as belonging to one house or another; and it is still less likely that he could have So long inhabited a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds a-year, still called Butler's tenement. Wood has his information from his brother, whose narra- tive placed him at Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours which sent him to Oxford. The brother's seems the best authority, till, by confessing his inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he was re- solved to bestow on him an academical education, but durst not name a college for fear of detection. He was for some time, according to the author of his Life, clerk to Mr. Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for recreation: his amusements r e © & & : ; : : º were music and painting; and the reward of his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures, said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but when he inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to stop windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate. He was afterwards admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden, that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is well known, was steward to the Countess, and is supposed to have gained much of his wealth by managing her estate. In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's Service, how long he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him afterwards in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers. Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles and practices of the rebels audacious and undisguised in the confidence of SUICCéSS. At length the King returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the Earl of Carbury, President of the Principality of Wales, who conferred on him the stewardship of Ludlow Castle when the Court of the Marches was revived. In this part of his life he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentle- woman of a good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his biographer, but it was lost by bad securities. In 1663 was published the first part containing three cantos of the poem of “ Hudibras,” which, as Prior relates, was made known at Court by the taste and influence of the Earl of Dorset. When it was known, it was necessarily admired; the King quoted, the courtiers studied, and the whole party of the royalists applauded it. Fvery eye watched for the golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his part in the general expectation. In 1664 the second part appeared ; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for “places and employments of value and credit; ” but no such advantages did he ever obtain. It is reported that the King once gave him three hundred guineas, but of this temporary bounty I find no proof. Wood relates that he was Secretary to Williers Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor of Cambridge; this is doubted by the other writer, who yet allows the Duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by Packe, in his account of the “Life of Wycherley,” and from some verses which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's “Remains.” “Mr. Wycherley,” says Packe, “had always laid hold of an opportunity which offered of representing to the Duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable “ Hudibras”; and that it was a reproach to the Court that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. The Duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and, after some time, undertook to recommend his To A.D. 1780.] 325 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. pretensions to his Majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a day when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the ‘Roebuck.’ Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly: the Duke joined them; but, as the d–l would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his Grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them ; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise!” Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude. Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his design; and in 1678 published the third part, which still leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly. To write without reward is sufficiently un- pleasing. He had now arrived at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and perhaps his health might now begin to fail. He died in 1680, and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccess- fully solicited a subscription for his interment in West- minster Abbey, buried him at his own cost in the churchyard of Covent Garden. Dr. Simon Patrick read the service. Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr. Lowndes of the Treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of a hundred pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and I am afraid will never be confirmed. About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, Mayor of London, and a friend to Mr. Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed:— M. S. SAMUELIS BUTLERI, Qui Strenshamiae in agro Vigorm, nat. 1612, obiit Lond. 1680. Wir doctus imprimis, acer, integer; Operibus Ingenii, non item praemiis, felix: Satyrici apud nos Carminis Artifex egregius; Quo simulatae Religionis Larvam detraxit, Et Perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit: Scriptorum in suo genere, Primus et Postremus. Ne, cui vivo deerant ferè omnia, Deesset etiam mortuo Tumulus, Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit JoBANNES BARBER, Civis Londiuensis, 1721. After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous works: I know not by whom collected, or by what authority ascertained; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses in the last col- lection show him to have been among those who ridiculed the institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were for some time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reason it is hard to conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but to produce facts; and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical temerity. In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor. The poem of “ Hudibras” is one of those compositions of which a nation may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestic, the sentiments unborrowed and un- expected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of “ Hudibras” is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the “History of Don Quixote ; ” a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may be indebted without disgrace. Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarised his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events and scenes of impossible existence, goes out in the pride of knighthood, to redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning, too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat his master. The hero of Butler is a Presbyterian Justice, who, in the confidence of legal authority and the rage of zealous ignor- ance, ranges the country to repress superstition and correct abuses, accompanied by an Independent Clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never con- quers him. - - Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and virtue as may preserve our esteem : wherever he is, or whatever he does, he is made by matchless dexterity commonly ridiculous, but never contemptible. But for poor Hudibras his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that any pity should be shown or respect paid him : he gives him up at once to laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect him. In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he knew the notions and manners of a Presbyterian magistrate, and tried to unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he gives him that pedantic ostentation of knowledge which has no relation to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing to his civil dignity. He sends him out a colonelling, and yet never brings him within sight of war. If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the Presbyterians, it is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or useless; for, whatever judg- ment might be passed upon their knowledge or their argu- ments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were not to be despised. The hero thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an Independent enthusiast. Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no 326 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1765 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF judgment can be made. It is probable that the hero was to be led through many luckless adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the bear and fiddle, to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries; like his en- counter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make superstition and credulity contemptible; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law, discover the fraudulent practices of dif- ferent professions. What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to Spenser; the action could not have been one ; there could only have been a succession of incidents each of which might have happened without the rest, and which could not all co-operate to any single conclusion. The discontinuity of the action might however have been easily forgiven, if there had been action enough ; but I believe every reader regrets the paucity of events, and com- plains that in the poem of “ Hudibras,” as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done. The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long conversation. It is indeed much more easy to form dialogues than to contrive adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated and exten- sive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every man who has tried knows how much labour it will cost to form such a combination of circumstances as shall have at once the grace of novelty and credibility and delight fancy without violence to reason. Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging the attention might have been added to it, by quicker reciprocation, by seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach to dramatic sprightliness; without which, fictitious speeches will always tire, however sparkling with sentences and however varie- gated with allusions. The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect ; and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. For this impatience of the present, whoever would please, must make provision. The skilful writer irritat, mulcet, makes a due distribution of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful inter- texture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may be tedious, though all the parts are praised. If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse a page without finding some association of images that was never found before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is delighted, and by a few more strained to astonish- ment; but astonishment is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be diverted. “Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male.”? Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in * “Matho would phrase all finely ; you should speak Well, and sometimes not ill or well, and ill.” MARTIAL, Ep. X., xlvi. vain the power of combination unless study and observation supply materials to be combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his expense; whatever topic employs his mind he shows himself qualified to expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish : he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the bye-paths of literature; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have examined particulars with minute inspection. If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of confronting them with Butler. But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded that great number of sententious distichs which have passed into conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of practical knowledge. When any work has been viewed or admired, the first question of intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed P “Hudibras” was not a hasty effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author’s relics, that he could show something like “Hudibras” in prose. He has in his posses- sion the commonplace book in which Butler reposited, not such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks, similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences as occasion prompted or meditation produced; those thoughts that were generated in his own mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the labour of those who write for immortality. But human works are not easily found without a perish- able part. Of the ancient poets every reader feels the my- thology tedious and oppressive. Of “Hudibras,” the manners being founded on opinions, are temporary and local, and therefore become every day less intelligible and less striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true likewise of wit and humour, that “Time effaces the fictions of opinion, and con- firms the determinations of nature.” Such manners as depend upon standing relations and general passions are co-extended with the race of man; but those modifications of life and peculiarities of practice which are the progeny of error and perverseness, or at best of some accidental influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents. Much therefore of that humour which transported the last century with merriment is lost to us, who do not know the Sour solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy morose- ness, and the stubborn scruples of the ancient Puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and cannot but by recollection and study understand the lines in which they are satirised. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge of the life by contemplating the picture. It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present time, to image the tumult of absurdity and clamour of contradiction which perplexed doctrine, dis- ordered practice, and disturbed both public and private quiet in that age, when subordination was broken and awe To A.D. 1780.] SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. - 327 was hissed away; when any unsettled innovator who could hatch a half-formed notion produced it to the public; when every man might become a preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation. The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the Parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people, when in one of the parliaments summoned by Cromwell it was seriously proposed that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of life should commence anew P 'We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of minced pies and plum porridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would shrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feasts of the Church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him that if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and seasons, he should accept his kindness, but would have none of his superstitious meats or drinks. One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance ; and he that reads Gataker upon “Lots” may see how much learning and reason one of the first scholars of his age thought necessary to prove that it was no crime to throw a die or play at cards, or to hide a shilling for the reckoning. Astrology, however, against which so much of the satire is directed, was not more the folly of the Puritans than of others. It had in that time a very extensive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds which ought to have rejected it with contempt. In hazardous undertakings care was taken to begin under the influence of a propitious planet; and when the king was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, an astrologer was consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape. What effect this poem had upon the public, whether it shamed imposture or reclaimed credulity, is not easily deter- mined. Cheats can seldom stand long against laughter. It is certain that the credit of planetary intelligence wore fast away; though some men of knowledge, and Dryden among them, continued to believe that conjunctions and oppositions had a great part in the distribution of good or evil, and in the government of sublunary things. . Poetical action ought to be probable upon certain supposi- tions, and such probability as burlesque requires is here violated only by one incident. Nothing can show more plainly the necessity of doing something, and the difficulty of finding something to do, than that Butler was reduced to transfer to his hero the flagellation of Sancho, not the most agreeable fiction of Cervantes; very suitable indeed to the manners of that age and nation, which ascribed wonderful efficacy to voluntary penances: but so remote from the practice and opinions of the Hudibrastic time, that judgment and imagination are alike offended. The diction of this poem is grossly familiar, and the numbers purposely neglected, except in a few places where the thoughts by their native excellence secure themselves from violation, being such as mean language cannot express. The mode of versification has been blamed by Dryden, who regrets that the heroic measure was not rather chosen. To the critical sentence of Dryden the highest reverence would be due, were not his decisions often precipitate and his opinions immature. When he wished to change the measure, he probably would have been willing to change more. If he intended that, when the numbers were heroic, the diction should still remain vulgar, he planned a very heterogeneous and unnatural composition. If he preferred a general state- liness both of sound and words, he can be only understood to wish that Butler had undertaken a different work. The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the senti- ments. But such numbers and such diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who, in confidence of the novelty and just- ness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification it will only be said, “Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.” The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together. Nor, even though another Butler should arise would another “ Hudibras” obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the style and the senti- ments, or between the adventitious sentiments and the fundamental subject. It therefore, like all bodies com- pounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural; and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it a while as a strange thing; but, when it is no longer strange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to show that they can be played. Now let us illustrate by his own words some part of the life of a poet. William Cowper, not long recovered from the first attack of insanity, which had been treated in a lunatic asylum at St. Albans, had been received into the house of the Unwins at Hun- tingdon, when he wrote thus to his cousin, Major Cowper, and to the old school friend, Joseph Hill, who was treasurer of the small family fund then raised for his maintenance." He had not yet pub- lished a book. TO MAJOR COWPER. Huntingdon, Oct. 18, 1765. MY DEAR MAJoR,--I have neither lost the use of my fingers nor my memory, though my unaccountable silence might in- cline you to suspect that I had lost both. The history of those things which have, from time to time, prevented my scribbling, would not only be insipid but extremely voluminous; for which reasons they will not make their appearance at present, nor probably at any time hereafter. If my neglecting to write to you were a proof that I had never thought of you, and that had been really the case, five shillings apiece would have been much too little to give for the sight of such a monster but I am no such monster, nor do I perceive in myself the least tendency to such a transformation. You may recollect that I had but very uncomfortable expectations of the accommo- dation I should meet with at Huntingdon. How much better is it to take our lot, where it shall please Providence to cast it, without anxiety Had I chosen for myself, it is impossible I could have fixed upon a place so agreeable to me in all respects. I so much dreaded the thought of having a new acquaintance to make, with no other recommendation than that of being a perfect stranger, that I heartily wished no creature here might take the least notice of me. Instead * See in this Library “Shorter English Poems,” page 398. 328 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1765 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF of which, in about two months after my arrival, I became known to all the visitable people here, and do verily think it the most agreeable neighbourhood I ever saw. Here are three families who have received me with the utmost civility; and two in particular have treated me with as much cordiality, as if their pedigrees and mine had grown upon the same sheep-skin. Besides these, there are three or four single men who suit my temper to a hair. The town is one of the neatest in England; the country is fine for several miles about it ; and the roads, which are all turnpike, and strike out four or five different ways, are perfectly good all the year round. I mention this latter circumstance chiefly because my distance from Cambridge has made a horseman of me at last, or at least is likely to do so. My brother and I meet every week, by an alternate reciprocation of inter- course, as Sam Johnson would express it; sometimes I get a lift in a neighbour's chaise, but generally ride. As to my own personal condition, I am much happier than the day is long, and sunshine and candlelight see me perfectly contented. I get books in abundance, as much company as I choose, a deal of comfortable leisure, and enjoy better health, I think, than for many years past. What is there wanting to make me happy? Nothing, if I can but be as thankful as I ought; and I trust that He who has bestowed so many blessings upon me, will give me gratitude to crown them all. I beg you will give my love to my dear cousin Maria, and to every body at the Park. If Mrs. Maitland is with you, as I suspect by a passage in Lady Hesketh's letter to me, pray remember me to her very affectionately. And believe me, my dear friend, ever yours. To JOSEPH HILL, Esq. October 25, 1765. DEAR Joe, I am afraid the month of October has proved rather unfavourable to the belle assemblée at Southampton; high winds and continual rains being bitter enemies to that agreeable lounge, which you and I are equally fond of. I have very cordially betaken myself to my books, and my fireside; and seldom leave them unless for exercise, I have added another family to the number of those I was acquainted with when you were here. Their name is Unwin—the most agreeable people imaginable; quite sociable, and as free from the ceremonious civility of country gentlefolks as any I ever met with. They treat me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their house is always open to me. The old gentleman carries me to Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of learning and good sense, and as simple as parson Adams. His wife has a very uncommon understanding, has read much to excellent purpose, and is more polite than a duchess. The son, who belongs to Cambridge, is a most amiable young man, and the daughter quite of a piece with the rest of the family. They see but little company, which suits me exactly ; go when I will, I find a house full of peace and cordiality in all its parts, and I am sure to hear no scandal, but such discourse instead of it as we are all better for. You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning, such are the mornings I spend with these good people; and the evenings differ from them in nothing, except that they are still more snug and quieter. Now I know them, I wonder that I liked Huntingdon so well before I knew them, and am apt to think I should find every place disagreeable that had not an Unwin belonging to it. This incident convinces me of the truth of an observation I have often made, that when we circumscribe our estimate of all that is clever within the limits of our own acquaintance (which I at least have been always apt to do), we are guilty of a very uncharitable censure upon the rest of the world, and of a narrowness of thinking disgraceful to ourselves. Wapping and Redriff may contain some of the most amiable persons living, and such as one would go to Wapping and Redriff to make acquaintance with. You remember Mr. Gray's stanza— “Full many a gem of purest ray serene The deep unfathom’d caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.” Yours, dear Joe, After her husband's death Mrs. Unwin moved with Cowper to Olney, in 1767, where the Rev. Mr. Newton was curate in charge. In 1773 there was another attack of insanity. In 1779 Mr. Newton left Olney. It was then that Mrs. Unwin suggested to Cowper, as relief to his mind, that work of the pen which led to the publication of his first volume of poems, “Table-Talk,” in 1782, when Cowper's age was fifty. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. September 21, 1779. AMICO MIo,-Be pleased to buy me a glazier's diamond pencil. I have glazed the two frames designed to receive my pine plants. But I cannot mend the kitchen windows, till by the help of that implement I can reduce the glass to its proper dimensions. If I were a plumber I should be a complete glazier; and possibly the happy time may come, when I shall be seen trudging away to the neighbouring towns with a shelf of glass hanging at my back. If government should impose another tax upon that commodity, I hardly know a business in which a gentleman might more successfully employ him- self. A Chinese, of ten times my fortune, would avail himself of such an opportunity without scruple; and why should not I, who want money as much as any mandarin in China P Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture, “that he had found the Emilius who (he supposed) had subsisted only in his own idea.” I would recommend it to you to follow my example. You will presently qualify yourself for the task, and may not only amuse yourself at home, but may even exercise your skill in mending the church windows; which, as it would save money to the parish, would conduce, together with your other ministerial accomplishments, to make you extremely popular in the place. I have eight pair of tame pigeons. When I first enter the garden in a morning, I find them perched upon the wall, waiting for their breakfast; for I feed them always upon the gravel-walk. If your wish should be accomplished, and you should find yourself furnished with the wings of a dove, I shall undoubtedly find you amongst them. Only be so good, if that should be the case, to announce yourself by some means or other. For I imagine your crop will require some- thing better than tares to fill it. Your mother and I last week made a trip in a post-chaise to Gayhurst, the seat of Mr. Wright, about four miles off. He understood that I did not much affect strange faces, and sent over his servant on purpose to inform me that he was going into Leicestershire, and that, if I chose to see the gardens, I might gratify myself without danger of seeing the proprietor. I accepted the invitation, and was delighted with all I found there. The situation is happy, the gardens elegantly disposed, the hot-house in the most flourishing state, and the orange-trees the most captivating creatures of TO A.D. 1782.] 329 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. the kind I ever saw. A man, in short, had need have the talents of Cox or Langford, the auctioneers, to do the whole scene justice. Our love attends you all. Yours, W. C. In the next letter Cowper, who “did not much affect strange faces,” playfully describes a visit from a noisy man. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Olney, April 16, 1780. Since I wrote my last we have had a visit from ——. I did not feel myself vehemently disposed to receive him with that complaisance, from which a stranger generally infers that he is welcome. By his manner, which was rather bold than easy, I judged that there was no occasion for it, and that it was a trifle which, if he did not meet with, neither would he feel the want of. He has the air of a travelled man, but not of a travelled gentleman ; is quite delivered from that reserve which is so common an ingredient in the English character, yet does not open himself gently and gradually, as men of polite behaviour do, but bursts upon you all at once. He talks very loud, and when our poor little robins hear a great noise, they are immediately seized with an ambition to surpass it—the increase of their vociferation occasioned an increase of his, and his in return acted as a stimulus upon theirs—neither side entertained a thought of giving up the contest, which became continually more in- teresting to our ears, during the whole visit. The birds however survived it, and so did we. They perhaps flatter themselves they gained a complete victory, but I believe Mr. could have killed them both in another hour. W. C. The next letter to the very grave Mr. Newton is in playful rhyme about the forthcoming volume of Poems, in which one had for its theme “Charity.” TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. July 12, 1781. MY vBRY DEAR FRIEND,--I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, I sup- pose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not—by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before ? I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the reviewer should say “to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard, for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production, on a new construction ; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum.”——His opinion in this will not be amiss; ’tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I should think I am paid, for all I have said, and all I have done, though I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, write another book, if I live and am here, another year. I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penn’d; which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble me— W. C. Cowper pleasantly represents a natural form of sensibility to criticism in this letter, written just after his first book had been published: TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. June 12, 1782. MY DEAR FRIEND,-Every extraordinary occurrence in our lives affords us an opportunity to learn, if we will, some- thing more of our own hearts and tempers, than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise ourselves beforehand, that our conduct shall be wise, or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. But when that occasion occurs, we do not always find it easy to make good the promise: such a difference there is between theory and practice. Perhaps this is no new remark; but it is not a whit the worse for being old, if it be true. - Before I had published, I said to myself—you and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves much about what the critics may say of our book. But having once sent my wits for a venture, I soon became anxious about the issue, and found that I could not be satisfied with a warm place in my own good graces, unless my friends were pleased with me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with their approbation, I began to feel the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that my friends are pleased, but friends are sometimes partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was presently gratified by the appro- bation of the London Magazine, and the Gentleman's, par- ticularly by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. Franklin. By the way, magazines are publications we have but little respect for, till we ourselves are chronicled in them, and then they assume an importance in our esteem which before we could not allow them. But the Monthly Review, the most formidable of all my judges, is still behind. What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when my shivering genius shall appear before him 2 Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait another month for his award. Alas! when I wish for a favourable sentence from that quarter (to confess a weakness that I should not confess at all), I feel myself not a little influenced by a tender regard to my reputation here, even among my neighbours at Olney. Here are watch- makers, who themselves are wits, and who at present perhaps think me one. Here is a carpenter and a baker, and not to mention others, here is your idol Mr. , whose smile is fame. All these read the Monthly Review, and all these will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible critics should show them the example. But oh wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for a genius at Olney. We are sorry for little William's illness. It is however the privilege of infancy to recover almost immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are sorry too for Mr. ’s dangerous condition. But he that is well prepared for the great journey cannot enter on it too soon for himself, though his friends will weep at his departure. Yours, W. C. 218 330 [A.D. 1760 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. The next letter was written when “The Task,” some, whom I never held in that estimation, will, like ——, published in 1785, was about to appear, and John Gilpin had by an accident become suddenly famous. TO THE REW, WILLIAM UN WIN. April 30, 1785. MY DEAR FRIEND,--I return you thanks for a letter so warm with the intelligence of the celebrity of John Gilpin. I little thought, when I mounted him upon my Pegasus, that he would become so famous. I have learned also, from Mr. Newton, that he is equally re- nowned in Scotland, and that a lady there had under- taken to write a second part, on the subject of Mrs. Gilpin's return to London, but not succeeding in it as she wished, she dropped it. He tells me likewise, that the head master of St. Paul's school (who he is I know not) has con- ceived, in consequence of the entertainment that John has afforded him, a vehement desire to write to me. Det us hope he will alter his mind; for should we ever exchange civilities on the occasion, Tirocinium will spoil all." The great estima- tion however in which this knight of the stone-bottles is held, may turn out a circumstance propitious to the volume of which his history will make a part. Those events that prove the prelude to our greatest success, are often apparently trivial in themselves, and such as seemed to promise nothing. The disappointment that Horace mentioned is reversed—We design a mug, and it proves a hogshead. It is a little hard, that I alone should be unfurnished with a printed copy of this facetious story. When you visit London next, you must buy the most elegant impression of it, and bring it with you. I thank you also for writing to Johnson. I likewise wrote to him myself. Your letter and mine together have operated to admiration. There needs nothing more than that the effect be lasting, and the whole will be soon printed. We now draw towards the middle of the fifth book of the Task. The man, Johnson, is like unto some vicious horses, that I have known. They would not budge till they were spurred, and when they were spurred, they would kick—So did he— His temper was somewhat disconcerted ; but his pace was quickened, and I was contented. I was very much pleased with the following sentence in Mr. Newton's last—“I am perfectly satisfied with the pro- priety of your proceeding as to the publication.”— Now therefore we are friends again. Now he once more inquires after the work, which, till he had disburdened himself of this acknowledgment, neither he nor I, in any of our letters to each other, ever mentioned. Some side-wind has wafted to him a report of those reasons by which I justified my con- duct. I never made a secret of them, but both your mother and I have studiously deposited them with those who we thought were most likely to transmit them to him. They wanted only a hearing, which once obtained, their solidity and cogency were such that they were sure to prevail. You mention ——. I formerly knew the man you men- tion, but his elder brother much better. We were school- fellows, and he was one of a club of seven Westminster men, to which I belonged, who dined together every Thursday. Should it please God to give me ability to perform the poet's part to some purpose, many whom I once called friends, but who have since treated me with a most magnificent in- difference, will be ready to take me by the hand again, and 1 Together with “The Task * was to be published Cowper's “Tiro- cinium, or a Review of Schools,” wherein he preferred private educa- tion and home influence to the training of boys in public Schools, which he wished, in his closing line, to see “ or better managed, or ellcouraged less.” (who was but a boy when I left London) boast of a connec- tion with me which they never had. Had I the virtues, and graces, and accomplishments of St. Paul himself, I might have them at Olney, and nobody would care a button about me, yourself and one or two more excepted. Fame begets favour, and one talent, if it be rubbed a little bright by use and practice, will procure a man more friends than a thousand virtues. Dr. Johnson (I believe) in the life of one of our poets, says, that he retired from the world flattering himself that he should be regretted. But the world never missed him. I think his observation upon it is, that the vacancy made by the retreat of any individual is soon filled up; that a man may always be obscure, if he chooses to be so; and that he, who neglects the world, will be by the world neglected. Your mother and I walked yesterday in the wilderness. As we entered the gate, a glimpse of something white, con- tained in a little hole in the gate-post, caught my eye. I looked again, and discovered a bird’s nest, with two tiny eggs in it. By and by they will be fledged, and tailed, and get wing-feathers, and fly. My case is somewhat similar to that of the parent bird. My nest is a little nook. Here I brood, and hatch, and in due time my progeny takes wing and whistles. We wait for the time of your coming with pleasant expec- tation. Yours truly, W. C. In the year 1769 the Royal Academy was opened with an inaugural address by its first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who in this and in following SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. (From his Portrait of himself.) discourses at the annual distributions of prizes to the students, which were collected into a volume in 1778, showed the fellowship of art with literature that was illustrated by his life. Joshua Reynolds was grand- son to a vicar of St. Thomas the Apostle, Exeter, and son to the master of the Grammar School at Plympton Earl, in Devonshire, where he was born in July, 1723, and named after an uncle Joshua who was a rector in Hampshire. He had his first education in the school where his father earned, as master, about f 120 a year with a house rent-free, and had ten or To A.D. 1785.] 331 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. twelve children of his own to care for, of whom six survived. Joshua Reynolds used his pencil early, and attempted a portrait in oil when he was twelve years old. When he was in his seventeenth year, his father was in doubt whether to make him an apothecary or to allow him to develop his skill as an artist. When the question was put to him by his father, he said that he would rather be an apothecary than an ordinary painter, but if he could be bound to an eminent master, he would prefer art. He was placed as pupil under Thomas Hudson, a Devonshire man, and the chief portrait-painter of that day, a premium of £120 being paid for his instruction. He was bound for four years, but after two years he returned to Devonshire, and began portrait-painting at Plymouth Dock in 1744, when twenty-one years old. Then he returned to London, and was recalled to Devonshire by the last illness of his father, who died on Christmas Day, 1746. The family then had to remove from Plympton, and Joshua took a house at Plymouth Dock for himself and two unmar- ried sisters. The next three years in Devonshire Reynolds considered to be unprofitably spent ; but before his return to London he became acquainted with the work of a Devonshire painter, William Gandy, whose example gave new light and impulse to his genius. In 1749 young Commodore Keppel in the Centurion put in at Plymouth ; while delayed there he formed a friendship with Reynolds, and offered him a passage in his ship. He carried him to Lisbon, to Algiers, to Minorca, where Reynolds was delayed by an accident—fall of a horse with him down a precipice—that permanently scarred his upper lip. Left at Minorca, where he earned money by portrait- painting, Reynolds after his recovery went on to Rome, and there he spent two years in study of his art. His studies were continued in Florence and Venice before his return to England in October, 1752, aged twenty-nine. After three months in Devonshire he settled in London, worked hard, as he had always done, and became recognised master in his art. He had not been two years in London when he and Samuel Johnson met and understood each other. A lifelong friendship was the consequence, in which Reynolds's housekeeper and sister Fanny, a fitful lady, had an ample share. From the beginning of Reynolds's settlement in London, the idea of a recognised Academy of Arts had been in the minds of many artists. In 1753 the notion was that a drawing-school in St. Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane, might be developed; and in November of that year a meeting was called, at the “Turk's Head,” in Gerrard Street, “to proceed to the choice of thirteen painters, three sculptors, one chaser, two engravers, and two architects (twenty- four in all), to make regulations, take in subscriptions, erect a building, provide for the teaching of students, and otherwise act in setting on foot a public Academy for the improvement of the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture.” Nothing came of the proposal at that time, nor of the resolution of the Society of Dilettanti in the same year to begin building an Academy of Arts on the south side of Cavendish Square. In 1755 an “Essay on the Necessity of a Royal Academy' was published, and also a plan of one. In November, 1759, it was resolved at a meeting of artists, that there should be opened a public exhibition of their works “once in every year, on a day in the second week of April, at a place that shall be appointed by a committee for carrying the design into execution. . . . And it is resolved that the sum of one shilling shall be taken daily of each person who may come to visit the said perfor- mances.” The Society of Arts, which had been founded in 1754, lent its rooms, which were then in the Strand, opposite Beaufort Buildings, on condition that there should be no charge for admission; and the first Art Exhibition—containing one hundred and thirty works by sixty-nine artists—was opened on the 21st of April, 1760, in the first year of the reign of George III. Entrance was free, but six- pence was charged for the catalogue, and the artists bought with the profit from this source #100 three per cent. consols. Next year the room of an auctioneer in Spring Gardens was opened as an “Exhibition Room of the Society of Artists of Great Britain.” They charged a shilling for their catalogue, and made by it a profit of £650. There were also sixty-five exhibitors in the room of the Society of Arts, seceders from the Society of Artists, and these incorporated themselves as “A Free Society of Artists associated for the relief of the distressed and decayed brethren, their widows and children.” The Free Society used the room of the Society of Arts till 1764, and afterwards found other quarters. The Society of Artists throve. In 1762 it carried out the original design of charging a shilling for admission to its Exhibition, and in January, 1764, it resolved to ask the king for a Royal Charter. This was obtained in January, 1765. “The Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain,” thus established, had no Academy for the training of students. Dissension arose among its members. A scheme of an Academy was then presented to the king, and supported by him. Joshua Reynolds was named as its President, the constitution of the Royal Academy was sketched, officers, council, visitors, and professors were named and approved by His Majesty's signature on the 10th of December, 1768. The king took active interest in the progress of the Academy, and knighted its President, who thus became Sir Joshua Reynolds. An antique school and a life school were soon ready to be opened, in large rooms that had been originally built for an auctioneer in Pall Mall, and here on the 2nd of January, 1769, Sir Joshua delivered his inaugural address. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE Roy AL ACADEMY, JANUARY 2ND, 1769, BY THE PRESIDENT. GENTLEMEN,-An Academy, in which the polite arts may be regularly cultivated, is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This must appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the artists, but to the whole nation. It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why an empire like that of Britain, should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable to its greatness, than that slow pro- gression of things, which naturally makes elegance and re- finement the last effect of opulence and power. 332 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF iA.D. 1769. ENGLISH LITERATURE. An institution like this has often been recommended upon considerations merely mercantile. But an Academy, founded upon such principles, can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in it which can be useful even in manufactures; but if the higher arts of design flourish, these inferior ends will be answered of course. We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of such an institution according to its true dignity; and promotes the arts as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation; and I can now congratulate you, gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and ardent wishes. The numberless and ineffectual consultations that I have had with many in this assembly, to form plans and concert schemes for an Academy, afford a sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the influence of majesty. - sº - Hilluſºlſ|Iſſ Lº - a -º- a -ºº: rººrººz. THE OLD ROYAL ACADEMY, PALL MALL. From a Drawing in the Print Room of the British Museum. But there have, perhaps, been times, when even the influence of majesty would have been ineffectual; and it is pleasing to reflect, that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to concur from which honour and prosperity can pro- bably arise. There are, at this time, a greater number of excellent artists than were ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general desire among our nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the arts; there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the professors; and, above all, we are patronised by a monarch, who, knowing the value of science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his notice, that tends to soften and humanise the mind. After so much has been done by his majesty, it will be wholly our fault, if our progress is not in some degree cor- respondent to the wisdom and generosity of the institution : let us show our gratitude in our diligence, that, though our merit may not answer his expectations, yet, at least, our industry may deserve his protection. But whatever may be our proportion of success, of this we may be sure, that the present institution will at least con- tribute to advance our knowledge of the arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence which it is the lot of genius always to contemplate and never to attain. The principal advantage of an Academy is, that, besides furnishing able men to direct the student, it will be a reposi- tory for the great examples of the art. These are the materials on which genius is to work, and without which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously employed. By studying these authentic models, that idea of excellence which is the result of the accumulated experience of past ages may be at once acquired, and the tardy and obstructed progress of our predecessors may teach us a shorter and easier way. The student receives, at one glance, the prin- ciples which many artists have spent their whole lives in ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful investigation by which they come to be known and fixed. How many men of great natural abilities have been lost to this nation for want of these advantages P. They never had an opportunity of seeing those masterly efforts of genius, which at once kindle the whole soul, and force it into sudden and irresistible approbation. Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an Academy; but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him an Academy. On the sight of the Cappella Sistina,” he immediately from a dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental dis- criminations of particular and individual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by the general and invariable ideas of nature. Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to its own original con- ceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, has always something more popular and useful than that which is forced upon the mind by private precepts, or solitary meditation. Besides, it is generally found, that a youth more easily receives instruc- tion from the companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level with his own, than from those who are much his superiors; and it is from his equals only that he catches the fire of emulation. One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our Academy, which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as they have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius will hence- forward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as it has been in other schools, where he that travelled fastest only wandered farthest from the right way. Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my associates in this undertaking, it would ill 1 The Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel), in the Vatican at Rome, was built under Pope Sixtus IV. by Baccio Pintelli in 1473. The upper part, except the wall of the altar, was adorned with frescoes by the chief Florentine artists of the time, and the ceiling was painted by Michael Angelo, who began it in 1508, and is said to have done every part of the work with his own hand in twenty-two months. Raffaelle was twenty-seven years old when it was finished, and was stimulated by the grandeur of Michael Angelo’s achievement to put his best work into the colonnades or loggie of the Vatican, on which he was employed. The influence of Michael Angelo has been especially observed in Raffaelle’s “Isaiah. ” and “The Sibyls.” Raffaelle’s famous cartoons were designs for the drapery of the Sistine Chapel. Michael Angelo was eight years older than Raffaelle. A.D. 1769.] 333 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. s- become me to dictate to any of them. But as these institu- tions have so often failed in other nations; and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, and how little has been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by which those errors may be rectified, and those defects supplied. These the professors and visitors may reject or adopt as they shall think proper. I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the “rules of art,” as established by the practice of the great masters, should be exacted from the young students. those models, which have passed through the approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides; as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every oppor- tunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect. How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as the poet expresses it, “To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,” 1 may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building. & The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those students, who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice manage- ment of which their future turn of taste depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating exactness. A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly handling the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate those dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat ; but it will then be too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery. By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost perfection; they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make that mechanical facility the chief excellence of the art, which is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are judges. This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption; and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly happen, but which has actually infected all foreign academies. The directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their pupils, and praised their dispatch at the expense of their correctness. But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of * Pope’s “Essay on Criticism,” line 153, That loeing thought masterly inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed. They must therefore be told again and again, that labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter. When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, every page informs us that no part of their time was spent in dis- sipation. Even an increase of fame served only to augment their industry. To be convinced with what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in their most celebrated works. When they conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every separate part, heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then painted the picture, and after all re-touched it from the life. The pictures, thus wrought with such pain, now appear like the effect of en- chantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow. - But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the students, the visitors will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well directed, and employed on the proper object. A student is not always advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying with each other which shall have the readiest hand, should be taught to contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline; instead of striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or, curiously trifling, endeavour to give the gloss of stuffs, so as to appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend, which shall dispose his drapery in the most graceful folds, which shall give the most grace and dignity to the human figure. I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the considera- tion of the visitors, which appears to me a matter of very great consequence, and the omission of which I think a principal defect in the method of education pursued in all the academies I have ever visited. The error I mean is, that the students never draw exactly from the living models which they have before them. It is not indeed their intention; nor are they directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought to be, than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty, which is necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, 334 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1769 but by an attentive and well compared study of the human form. What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the practice (as may be seen by their drawings) of the great masters in the art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, “The Dispute of the Sacrament,” the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It appears, that he made his sketch from one model; and the habit he had of drawing exactly from the form before him appears by his making all the figures with the same cap, such as his model then hap- pened to wear; so servile a copyist was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed to be at his highest pitch of excellence. I have seen also academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often sufficiently licentious in his finished works, drawn with all the peculiarities of an individual model. This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the practice of the academies, that it is not without great deference that I beg leave to recommend it to the consideration of the visitors; and submit it to them, whether the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons why students so often disappoint expectation, and, being more than boys at sixteen, become less than men at thirty. In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when there are but few living forms to copy; for then students, by always drawing from one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger; since the council has deter- mined to supply the Academy with a variety of subjects; and indeed those laws which they have drawn up, and which the secretary will presently read for your confirmation, have in some measure precluded me from saying more upon this occasion. Instead, therefore, of offering my advice, permit me to indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this institution may answer the expectations of its Royal Founder; that the present age may vie in arts with that of Leo the Tenth ; and that “the dignity of the dying art” (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived under the reign of George III. Rooms of THE ROYAL ACADEMY IN OLD SOMERSET Hous E. From a Print by W. Moss. George III. assigned to the Royal Academy rooms in old. Somerset House, which had belonged to the Crown since 1552, and these in January, 1771, were taken possession of for schools, lectures, and meetings, the Exhibition remaining at Pall Mall until 1779. The king meanwhile had given up old Somerset House for conversion into Government offices, with reservation of a part for the use of the Royal Academy and some learned societies. In 1780 the new Somerset House was completed, and the king presented to the Academy apartments in it, with direction that the annual Exhibition should be held there, in a room expressly built for it. These rooms it occupied for many following years. The most intimate friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds was Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson being fast friend to them both. Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on the 12th of January, 1729 [?], the second son of Richard Burke, a prosperous attorney. When about twelve years old he was sent to a school at Ballitore, kept by a member of the Society of Friends, Abraham Shackle- ton. Abraham Shackleton's son Richard, who was schoolfellow with Burke, succeeded to the manage- ment of the school, and held it for a quarter of a century from 1750 to 1775. Burke retained a life- long friendship with the Shackletons. When in the press of public business, it was rest to him to visit Richard Shackleton at Ballitore, and his friendship passed on to Richard's daughter Mary, who became Mrs. Leadbeater. To her one of his last letters was written. Kind-hearted Mary Leadbeater wrote “Annals of Ballitore,” and these are the first records in her history of that friend of her father whom she entitles “our dear honoured Edmund:”— BURKE AT BALLITORE. Richard Shackleton's intimacy with Edmund Burke commenced when Edmund was the pupil of old Abraham Shackleton, from whose school he entered Trinity College in the year 1744. He came to Ballitore, with his elder brother Garrett and his younger brother Richard, on the 26th of Fifth month, 1741. They had been, when very young, at school with an old woman who was so cross, and they re- sented her crossness so much, that one holiday the three little fellows set out for her cabin with intent to kill her. As her good genius would have it, she happened to be from home, and their fit of fury evaporated before the next opportunity. Garrett Burke, who had a great turn for humour, was an eminent lawyer, and died before my time. His brother Richard could not be excelled by him in the talent for drollery, and it is well known that Edmund also had his share. Burke's friendship with Richard Shackleton grew with their growth and strengthened with their strength, and lasted to the end of their lives. My mother cordially entered into the attachment of her husband. She had first seen Edmund when, on a journey before her marriage, she called at Ballitore. Both he and his friend were remark- ably short-sighted, and they were trying which could read best by twilight. I cannot forget the first visit which occurred in my time, of this illustrious man to Ballitore. Edmund Burke was expected; we naturally loved every friend of our parents, but to these predilections were super- added sentiments of respect and admiration in the present instance, which caused his visit to be expected with impatient wonder. The chaise stopped at the big gate, which unfolded To A.D. 1780.] 335 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. wide, and my imagination still presents the graceful form of Edmund, as I beheld him from the nursery window, leading in his wife, a pretty little woman, with no covering on her head but her beautiful unadorned auburn tresses. On Elizabeth Shackleton expressing surprise that she wore no cap, in which respect she was singular at that time, she said that she dressed conformably to her husband's taste; how- ever, she promised to put on one, and next morning appeared in the first French night-cap that was ever seen in Ballitore. The plain dress of Edmund disappointed my expectation, and I thought the postillion's habit, daubed with livery lace, much more elegant: the sight of our guest's laced waistcoat, however, a little reconciled me. Yet, when, in taking a survey of the family of his friend, he stood over me as I sat in a little chair and viewed me through the glass which assisted his short sight, I felt so abashed and confused that I directly annexed the idea of austerity to his countenance; nor could the testimony of many witnesses efface that idea, till I afterwards saw him in London in the year 1784, when with a very uncommon sensation of pleasure and surprise it was at once put to flight; for never did I see so much benignity and intelligence united as in the manly beauty of that countenance, in which were blended the expressions of every superior quality of the head and of the heart. This visit was previous to the purchase of Beaconsfield, and to his “taking root in England,” as he expressed it. He was frequently in Ireland, and of course often in Ballitore. At one time my mother, while walking in the fields at the foot of the Nine-tree-hill, was surprised to hear a familiar voice behind her; she turned and beheld Edmund Burke, who was going in search of her, and having just arrived, took some path remembered by him which she did not know of, and had got behind her. Their little son some- times accompanied them in their visits, in one of which he was in disgrace with his mother, and she kept him at a distance; but the fond father was solicitous to put up a bit of bread for him, when they were setting out. He was now the only child, for they had buried another son. My father and mother went once to visit Edmund at Dublin Castle, where he had apartments, and found him seated on the floor playing with his two little boys. Edmund brought a painter with him at one time, Richard Sesson, a man of talent, and prevailed on my dear father to sit for his picture; he con- sented, though it was against his judgment, as not consonant to the practice of our Society. Probably for this reason an expression of uneasiness appears on the portrait, although it is otherwise a good likeness. The portrait of his old master, Abraham Shackleton, was also longed for by his illustrious pupil; but he durst not request it. To the conversation of the two accomplished friends, which was indeed “a feast of reason and a flow of soul,” young Wrightson listened with delight, but with that silent modesty which is often the com- panion and ornament of exalted minds, especially in youth. Richard Shackleton, suddenly turning to his pupil, enquired, with that liveliness peculiar to him, why he did not speak, assuring his friend that he could speak, and to the purpose. The youth blushed. Edmund grew angry, and retorted fiercely, “You insult his modesty.” My father used to delight in detailing instances of Burke's singular aptitude, and how soon he attained a superior station amongst his schoolfellows, many of whom he readily assisted in their exercises. He showed thus early his capacity for exerting his abilities on a sudden emergency, and of turning the ideas of others to useful account. Burke and his schoolfellows were permitted one day to go and see the procession of the judges into the county town of Athy, on condition that each of the senior lads should write a Smith.” d description of the spectacle in Latin verse. When Burke finished his own task, he was earnestly solicited by another lad to assist him, the poor fellow declaring that he had laboured in vain for hours to knock something out of his brains, and that rather than try again he would walk bare- footed to the top of Lugnaquillr, which is the loftiest of the Wicklow mountains, about twelve Irish miles from Ballitore. He reminded his schoolfellow how often he had helped him before, and said that this was the hardest task he ever got- Burke was for the moment somewhat puzzled how he could compose a second paper on the same subject ; and, hoping to obtain some hint for the composition, he asked the applicant what had struck him as most remarkable in the procession. The lad replied that he had noticed nothing in particular, except a fat piper in a brown coat. Furnished with this hint, Burke immediately commenced and in a very short time completed a humorous poem in doggrel Latin; the first line of which was as follows:— “Piper erat fattus, qui brownum tegmen habebat.” " He loved humour, and my father was very witty. The two friends sharpened their intellect and sported their wit till peals of laughter in the schoolroom often caused the reverend and grave master to implore them, with suppressed Smiles, to desist, or he should have to turn them both out, as their example might be followed where folly and uproar would take the place of humour and wisdom. Burke's heart was tender, too, and my father was wont to relate a circumstance which proved that in boyhood, as well as in riper years, he felt an invincible hatred to oppression. A poor man having been compelled to pull down his cabin, because the surveyor of roads declared that it stood too near the highway, Burke, who saw the reluctant owner perform his melancholy task, observed with great indignation, that if he were in authority such tyranny should never be exercised with impunity over the defenceless; and he urged his schoolfellows to join in re-building the cottage. My grandfather, however would not permit this to be done. In April, 1744, Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin. He was then with Goldsmith, and I have seen evidence of their friendship in a silver watch in- scribed, at that time, as a gift from Burke to Gold- In 1750 Burke came to London to keep terms in the Middle Temple. In 1754 David Mallet, as literary executor to Lord Bolingbroke, published his Philosophical Works. The grand jury of West- minster made a presentment of them as tending to subvert religion and morality. Burke satirised their tendency to reproduce the doctrine of French philo- sophes, that civilisation had corrupted men, and that the way to a more honest life was not by advance, but by retreat upon the state of nature. In 1756 Burke published “A Vindication of Natural Society; or a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every species of Artificial Society. 1 “There was a fat piper who had a brown coat.” Young Burke, writing familiar letters, liked to amuse himself thus with Macaronic Latin, and would also give English words now and then an erudito look by writing them in Greek characters, as bookáAAet for rascally, and so forth. * This is the inscription: . O L IV E R G O L D S M IT H , 35, Trinity College, Dublin. From his fellow-student, EDMUND BURKE, 21st October, 1748. 336 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1760 In a letter to Lord . By a late Noble Writer.” In the same year with this piece of irony appeared Burke's essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. A taste for inquiry into the sources of our pleasure in works of art had been quickened by Addison's eleven essays on Imagination in The Spectator. Burke was not only following this fashion, but he maintained in his essay a theory that invited popularity by its accordance with another tendency of the time. Since Locke there had been a growing disposition to trace intellectual operations to physical causes. David Hartley’s “Observations on Man,” published in 1749, had argued that vibrations of nerves produce intellectual energy by causing asso- ciation of ideas. Burke's essay, which associated our sense of the sublime and beautiful with contrac- tion and relaxation, built a new theory in the style most favoured. Then Burke, in whose family there was a tendency to consumption, fell ill through over- work, became the guest of an Irish physician, Dr. Nugent, and married his physician's daughter in 1757. It was in the following year, the year of the birth of his son Richard, that Burke made the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson. Burke had another son, named Christopher, who died in early childhood. There remained but Richard, on whom his whole heart was set. After his marriage Burke, as a way of adding to his income, planned the publication of a yearly volume of contemporary history, “The Annual Register,” of which the first number appeared in June, 1759. In 1761 Burke began political life as private secretary to the Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton, who went as Chief Secretary in Ireland when Lord Halifax became Lord Lieutenant. After two years in this office Burke was rewarded with a pension of £300 a year. This he held for two years, from April, 1763, to April, 1765, when he broke with Hamilton and threw up the pension, which he had found to bring with it a taint of servitude. BHe was then living in London, for he had returned in 1764, the year of the establishment of the club which met at seven o'clock every Friday evening at the “Turk's Head” in Gerrard Street, Soho, had Johnson and Joshua Reynolds for its founders, and included among its first members Burke and Goldsmith. Among the members of the club was William Fitzherbert, a politician then of some im- portance, who was so greatly impressed by what he learnt at the “Turk's Head” of Edmund Burke's ability, that when the Marquess of Rockingham became Premier, Fitzherbert recommended him to take Burke for his private secretary. When he was private secretary, and private counsellor, to Lord Rockingham, at a critical time in the argument between England and the American colonies, the public life of Burke really began. Lord Rockingham became Premier in July, 1764, and a seat in Parlia- ment was obtained for Burke from Lord Verney's pocket borough of Wendover. The House of Commons had voted in March, 1764, a resolution “that it was proper to charge certain stamp duties in the colonies and plantations.” Gren- ville waited a year before acting upon this resolution, and meanwhile told agents of the colonists that he was prepared to receive suggestion of any better way of raising the money he required, and that he was thus really consulting them, and giving them an opportunity of satisfying themselves by assent of their own before the imposition of the tax. The colonists spent the time in efforts to prevent the passing of the threatened Stamp Act. It passed on the 22nd of March, 1765. The first William Pitt, not yet created Earl of Chatham, was foremost among those who held that the British Parliament had, under the Constitution, no right to tax colonists who were unrepresented in its body, that taxation without representation was but tyranny, and that the Stamp Act when passed was null in law and only valid as far as the sword could make it so. When news of the passing of the Stamp Act reached the colonies the Act was printed, with a death's head over it, and cried through the country as “the folly of England and ruin of America.” The Act was to take effect from the 1st of November. When the ships bringing the stamps were first sighted at Phila- delphia, all the vessels in harbour hoisted their colours half-staff high, the bells of the town were muffled, and tolled through the rest of the day. There was tumult by mobs in many places, and a drawing together of the earnest men of all the States. The leaders in New York spoke of the Act not as a law but as “a certain pamphlet under the form of an Act of Parliament and under the name of the Stamp Act.” When the 1st of November came, there was no stamped paper forthcoming. Some had been burnt by mobs, some seized, some sent back to England, and the rest nobody dared to issue. For want of stamps all forms of business were at a stand- still, but the newspapers, unstamped, continued to appear, and nobody would touch the stamped news- papers that came from Canada. At such a time of difficulty George Grenville, who had raised the storm, lost the king's goodwill upon other grounds, and had to give way to a Whig Ministry with Lord Rockingham at its head. This was Burke's oppor- tunity; and the policy of the Rockingham adminis- tration in its dealing with the colonies was in complete accordance with his views. Burke, though here acting with the Whig administration, was in his whole tone of mind essentially conservative. He reverenced old institutions, condemned action upon theory, required much clear evidence to convince him of the usefulness of any sudden change, and dreaded revolution. In thorough harmony with this tendency of opinion was his liberality of thought in political questions that touched commerce and reli- gion. Stability of the State was assured by all that favoured the commercial progress and well-being of the people. Stability of the Church, as he distinctly argued, was secured by a large-hearted tolerance, that maintained the spirit of religion and gave least room for discussion upon forms or for resentments bred of persecution. The American policy of Burke, embodied in the acts of the Rockingham adminis- tration, was to satisfy England by asserting the imperial right to tax the colonies, and to satisfy the colonies by leaving such a right unexercised, and by immediate repeal of the Stamp Act. But the Rockingham administration was short- lived. Its members disagreed among themselves. To A.D. 1774.] 337 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. The next Ministry was formed by William Pitt, who was suffering from gout, and took the Privy Seal while virtually retiring on a peerage as the Earl of Chatham. The Duke of Grafton (butt of Junius) be- came head of the Treasury, and Charles Townshend, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried on in spite of Chatham the policy that was to force the colonies into revolt. Since the Stamp Act had been repealed, he would raise money from the Americans by taxing tea, glass, paper, and painter's colours, reviving the whole conflict for the sake of no more than about 4:40,000 a year. Townshend died in September, 1767, and was succeeded by Lord North. Then the office of Colonial Secretary was established, and entrusted to Lord Hillsborough. When Lord North would again have repealed the obnoxious taxes, Lord Hillsborough persuaded him to make an ex- ception in favour of tea, and made known to the colonies the imperfect concession in a circular that deepened irritation. Lord Chatham, who had re- signed in October, 1768, reappeared in Parliament in 1770, and denounced the American policy of the Ministers. In 1770 the Virginian Assembly endea- voured to restrict the slave traffic, but the royal Governor received orders from England to consent to no laws that affected the interests of the slave- dealers. In 1773 Lord North, to relieve the East India Company of ten millions of pounds of unsaleable tea, granted them a drawback of the entire English duty upon tea sent to America upon payment of the tea duty there. As the American duty was only threepence a pound, this concession was meant not only to help the East India Company, but to tempt the colonists with show of advantage from their tea duty. When the teas reached America nobody dared to sell them. At Charleston they were stowed in cellars and destroyed by damp. At Boston, in December, 1773, a crowd of men, disguised as Mohawks, boarded the tea-ships and threw £18,000 worth of tea overboard. It was a few months after this that Edmund Burke, in the House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. Rose Fuller for a committee of the whole House to take into consideration the American tea duty, made, on the 19th of April, 1774, a famous speech on American taxation. In this comprehensive speech Burke joined to the argument of his case a sketch of the whole history of American taxation, and closed with a complete answer to opponents who, following a very common practice, laid all the blame of discord upon those who maintained the policy of peace. This part of Burke's speech, complete in itself, describes the political situation in 1774 as he saw it, and gives in his own words the definition of his policy. It includes some of the most character- istic passages of Burke's oratory, and ends with the finest of his perorations. The repeal of the Stamp Act by the Rockingham administration was moved in the House of Commons by one of its secretaries, General Conway, who when Burke made this speech was so far associated with Lord North that he had assented cordially to the bill passed for punish- ment of the Port of Boston after the attack upon the tea-ships. It is to General Conway's motion that Burke refers at the opening of this section of his speech. AMERICAN TAXATION. I remember, sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the honourable gentleman who made the motion for the repeal; in that crisis, when the whole trading interests of this Empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When, at length, you had determined in their favour, and your doors, thrown open, showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well- earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined to his applause. Nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow- citizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. I stood near him ; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first martyr, his face was as if it had been the face of an angel. I do not know how others feel; but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day’s danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But, alas ! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished. Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been repre- Sented, as if it had been a measure of an administration, that having no scheme of their own, took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the other. Sir, they took no middle lines. They differed fundamentally from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of both. They preserved the authority of Great Britain. They preserved the equity of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory Act ; they repealed the Stamp Act. They did both fully; because the Declaratory Act was without qualifi- cation, and the repeal of the Stamp Act total. This they did in the situation I have described. Now, sir, what will the adversary say to both these Acts 2 If the principle of the Declaratory Act was not good, the principle we are contending for this day is monstrous. If the principle of the repeal was not good, why are we not at war for a real, substantial, effective revenue P If both were bad, why has this Ministry incurred all the inconveniences of both and of all schemes P Why have they enacted, repealed, enforced, yielded, and now attempt to enforce again P Sir, I think I may as well now, as at any other time, speak to a certain matter of fact, not wholly unrelated to the question under your consideration. We, who would per- suade you to revert to the ancient policy of this kingdom, labour under the effect of this short current phrase, which the Court leaders have given out to all their corps, in order to take away the credit of those who would prevent you from that frantic war you are going to wage upon your Colonies. Their cant is this: “All the disturbances in America have been created by the repeal of the Stamp Act.” I suppress for a moment my indignation at the falsehood, baseness, and absurdity of this most audacious assertion. Instead of remarking on the motives and character of those who have issued it for circulation, I will clearly lay before you the state of America, antecedently to that repeal; after the repeal; and since the renewal of the schemes of American taxation. It is said, that the disturbances, if there were any, before the repeal, were slight; and without difficulty or incon- venience might have been suppressed. For an answer to this assertion I will send you to the great author and patron of 219 338 [A.D. 1774. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. the Stamp Act, who certainly meaning well to the authority of this country, and fully apprised of the state of that, made, before a repeal was so much as agitated in this House, the motion which is on your journals; and which, to save the clerk the trouble of turning to it, I will now read to you. It was for an amendment to the address of the 17th of December, 1765: “To express our just resentment and indignation at the outrages, tumults, and insurrections which have been excited and carried on in North America; and at the resistance given, by open and rebellious force, to the execution of the laws in that part of His Majesty's dominions. And to assure His Majesty, that his faithful Commons, animated with the warmest duty and attachment to his Royal Person and Government, will firmly and effectually support His Majesty in all such measures as shall be necessary for preserving and supporting the legal dependence of the colonies on the mother country,” &c., &c. Here was certainly a disturbance preceding the Repeal; such a disturbance as Mr. Grenville thought necessary to qualify by the name of an insurrection, and the epithet of a rebellious force: terms much stronger than any by which those, who then supported his motion, have ever since thought proper to distinguish the subsequent disturbances in America. They were disturbances which seemed to him and his friends to justify as strong a promise of support, as hath been usual to give in the beginning of a war with the most powerful and declared enemies. When the accounts of the American Governors came before the House, they appeared stronger even than the warmth of public imagina- tion had painted them; so much stronger, that the papers on your table bear me out in saying, that all the late dis- turbances, which have been at one time the Minister's motives for the repeal of five out of six of the new Court taxes, and are now his pretences for refusing to repeal that sixth, did not amount—why do I compare them –no, not to a tenth part of the tumults and violence which prevailed long before the repeal of that Act. Ministry cannot refuse the authority of the Commander- in-chief, General Gage, who, in his letter of the 4th of November, from New York, thus represents the state of things: “It is difficult to say, from the highest to the lowest, who has not been accessory to this insurrection, either by writing or mutual agreements, to oppose the Act, by what they are pleased to term all legal opposition to it. Nothing effectual has been proposed, either to prevent or quell the tumult. The rest of the provinces are in the same situation as to a positive refusal to take the stamps; and threatening those who shall take them, to plunder and murder them; and this affair stands in all the provinces, that unless the Act, from its own nature, enforce itself, nothing but a very considerable military force can do it.” W. It is remarkable, sir, that the persons who formerly trumpeted forth the most loudly, the violent resolutions of assemblies; the universal insurrections; the seizing and 'burning the stamped papers; the forcing stamp officers to resign their commissions under the gallows; the rifling and pulling down of the houses of magistrates; and the expul- sion from their country of all who dared to write or speak a single word in defence of the powers of Parliament; these very trumpeters are now the men that represent the whole as a mere trifle, and choose to date all the disturbances from the repeal of the Stamp Act, which put an end to them. Hear your officers abroad, and let them refute this shameless falsehood, who, in all their correspondence, state the disturbances as owing to their true causes, the discontent of the people, from the taxes. You have this evidence in your own archives—and it will give you complete satisfac- tion; if you are not so far lost to all Parliamentary ideas of information, as rather to credit the lie of the day, than the records of your own House. Sir, this vermin of Court reporters, when they are forced into day upon one point, are sure to burrow in another ; but they shall have no refuge; I will make them bolt out of all their holes. Conscious that they must be baffled, when they attribute a precedent disturbance to a subsequent measure, they take other ground, almost as absurd, but very common in modern practice, and very wicked; which is, to attribute the ill effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade us from it. They say, that the opposition made in Parliament to the Stamp Act at the time of its passing, encouraged the Americans to their resistance. This has even formerly appeared in print in a regular volume, from an advocate of that faction, a Dr. Tucker. This Dr. Tucker is already a dean, and his earnest labours in this vineyard will, I suppose, raise him to a bishopric. But this assertion too, just like the rest, is false. In all the papers which have loaded your table; in all the vast crowd of verbal witnesses that appeared at your bar, witnesses which were indiscriminately produced from both sides of the House; not the least hint of such a cause of disturbance has ever appeared. As to the fact of a strenuous opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger in your gallery when the Act was under consideration. Far from anything inflammatory, I never heard a more languid debate in this House. No more than two or three gentlemen, as I remember, spoke against the Act, and that with great reserve, and remarkable temper. There was but one division in the whole progress of the Bill; and the minority did not reach to more than thirty-nine or forty. In the House of Lords I do not recollect that there was any debate or division at all. I am sure there was no protest. In fact, the affair passed with so very, very little noise, that in town they scarcely knew the nature of what you were doing. The opposition to the Bill in England never could have done this mischief, because there scarcely ever was less of opposition to a bill of consequence. Sir, the agents and distributors of falsehoods have, with their usual industry, circulated another lie of the same nature with the former. It is this, that the disturbances arose from the account which had been received in America of the change in the Ministry. No longer awed, it seems, with the spirit of the former rulers, they thought themselves a match for what our calumniators chose to qualify by the name of so feeble a Ministry as succeeded. Feeble in one sense these men certainly may be called ; for, with all their efforts, and they have made many, they have not been able to resist the distempered vigour, and insane alacrity, with which you are rushing to your ruin. But it does so happen, that the falsity of this circulation is (like the rest) demonstrated by indis- putable dates and records. So little was the change known in America, that the letters of your Governors, giving an account of these disturbances long after they had arrived at their highest pitch, were all directed to the old Ministry, and particularly to the Earl of Halifax, the Secretary of State corresponding with the colonies, without once in the smallest degree intimating the slightest suspicion of any Ministerial revolution whatsoever. The Ministry was not changed in England until the 10th day of July, 1765. On the 14th of the preceding June, Governor Fauquier from Virginia writes thus; and writes thus to the Earl of Halifax: “Government is set at defiance, not having strength enough in her hands to enforce obedience to the laws of A.D. 1774.] 339 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. the community. The private distress which every man feels, increases the general dissatisfaction at the duties laid by the Stamp Act, which breaks out and shows itself upon every trifling occasion.” The general dissatisfaction had produced some time before, that is, on the 29th of May, several strong public resolves against the Stamp Act; and those resolves are assigned by Governor Bernard, as the cause of the insurrections in Massa- chusetts Bay, in his letter of the 15th of August, still ad- dressed to the Earl of Halifax; and he continued to address such accounts to that Minister quite to the 7th of September of the same year. Similar accounts, and of as late a date, were sent from other governors, and all directed to Lord Halifax. Not one of these letters indicates the slightest idea of a change, either known, or even apprehended. Thus are blown away the insect race of courtly false- hoods ! thus perish the miserable inventions of the wretched runners for a wretched cause, which they have fly-blown into every weak and rotten part of the country, in vain hopes that when their maggots had taken wing, their importunate buzzing might sound something like the public voice! Sir, I have troubled you sufficiently with the state of America before the repeal. Now I turn to the honourable gentleman who so stoutly challenges us to tell, whether, after the repeal, the Provinces were quiet P This is coming home to the point. Here I meet him directly, and answer most readily—they were quiet. And I, in my turn, challenge him to prove when, and where, and by whom, and in what numbers, and with what violence, the other laws of trade, as gentlemen assert, were violated in consequence of your con- cession ? or that even your other revenue laws were attacked P But I quit the vantage-ground on which I stand, and where I might leave the burthen of the proof upon him: I walk down upon the open plain, and undertake to show, that they were not only quiet, but showed many unequivocal marks of acknowledgment and gratitude. And to give him every advantage, I select the obnoxious colony of Massachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without hearing her) is so heavily a culprit before Parliament—I will select their proceedings even under circumstances of no small irritation. For, a little imprudently, I must say, Governor Bernard mixed in the administration of the lenitive of the repeal no small acrimony arising from matters of a separate nature. Yet see, sir, the effect of that lenitive, though mixed with these bitter ingre- dients; and how this rugged people can express themselves on a measure of concession. “If it is not in our power,” say they in their address to Governor Bernard, “in so full a manner as will be expected to show our respectful gratitude to the mother country, or to make a dutiful and affectionate return to the indulgence of the King and Parliament, it shall be no fault of ours; for this we intend, and hope we shall be able fully to effect.” Would to God that this temper had been cultivated, managed, and set in action other effects than those which we have since felt would have resulted from it. On the requisition for compensation to those who had suffered from the violence of the populace, in the same address they say, “The recommendation enjoined by Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and in consequence thereof made to us, we will embrace the first convenient opportunity to consider and act upon.” They did consider; they did act upon it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the mode has been chicaned upon; but it was substantially obeyed; and much better obeyed than I fear the Parliamentary requisition of this session will be, though enforced by all your rigour, and backed with all your power. In a word, the damages of popular fury were compensated by legislative gravity. Almost every other part of America in various ways demonstrated their gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a calm recovered after so violent a storm is without parallel in history. To say that no other disturbance should happen from any other cause, is folly. But as far as appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law, you procured an acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall persuade me, when a whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of conciliation. I hope the honourable gentleman has received a fair and full answer to his question. I have done with the third period of your policy: that of your repeal; and the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham—a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly called, Clarum et venerabile nomen Gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi.” Sir, the venerable age of this great man, hiſ merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of mankind; and more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonises and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; I am sure I am not disposed to blame him. Let those who have betrayed him by their adulation, insult him with their malevolence. But what I do not presume to censure, I may have leave to lament. For a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims. I speak with the freedom of history, and I hope without offence. One or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself; and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country; measures, the effects of which, I am afraid, are for ever incurable. He made an administration, so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers, King's friends and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show ; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards, stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, “Sir, your name P”—“Sir, you have the advantage of me”—“Mr. Such-a-one”—“I beg a thousand pardons—” I venture to say, it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoke to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed. Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such, that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of 1 From Cato's funeral speech upon Pompey in the Ninth Book of Lucan’s “Pharsalia.” * His noble name, his country's honour grown, Was venerably round the nations known.” Rove’s Translation. 340 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [a.m. 17. affairs. If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure to predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to stand upon. When he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he was no longer a Minister. When his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. The gentle- men, his particular friends, who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted to seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all men, and with a confidence in him, which was justified, even in its extravagance, by his superior abilities, had never, in any instance, presumed upon any opinion of their own. Deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as to betray him, even long before the cle 3 of the first session of his administration, when everytning was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an Act, declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in America. For even then, sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his de- scending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and, for his hour, became lord of the ascendant. This light, too, is passed and set for ever. You under- stand, to be sure, that I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the re-producer of this fatal scheme; whom I cannot even now remember without some degree of sensibility. In truth, sir, he was the delight and ornament of this House, and the charm of every private Society which he honoured with his presence. Perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished wit ; and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a stock, as some have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew better by far, than any man I ever was acquainted with, how to bring together, within a short time, all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the question he sup- ported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. He particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation and display of his subjects. His style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the House just between wind and water. And not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious, or more earnest, than the pre-conceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required, to whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper of the House; and he seemed to guide, because he was also sure to follow it. I beg pardon, sir, if when I speak of this and of other great men, I appear to digress in saying something of their characters. In this eventful history of the revolutions of America, the characters of such men are of much impor- tance. Great men are the guide-posts and land-marks in the State. The credit of such men at court, or in the nation, is the sole cause of all the public measures. It would be an invidious thing (most foreign, I trust, to what you think my disposition) to remark the errors into which the authority of -x-mºs great names has brought the nation, without doing justice, at the same time, to the great qualities whence that authority arose. The subject is instructive to those who wish to form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone before them. There are many young members in the House (such of late has been the rapid succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy, Charles Townshend; nor of course know what a ferment he was able to excite in everything by the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. For failings he had undoubtedly—many of us remember them; we are this day considering the effect of them. But he had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate, passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He wor- shipped that goddess wheresoever she appeared; but he paid his particular devotions to her in her favourite habita- tion, in her chosen temple, the House of Commons. Besides the characters of the individuals that compose that body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to observe that this House has a collective character of its own. That character too, however imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great public collections of men, you possess a marked love of virtue, and an abhorrence of vice. But among vices, there is none which the House abhors in the same degree with obstimacy. Obstimacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the change- ful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firm- ness, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence ; and, in their excess, all these virtues very easily fall into it. He, who paid such a puncti- lious attention to all your feelings, certainly took care not to shock them by that vice which is the most disgustful to you. That fear of displeasing those who ought most to be pleased, betrayed him sometimes into the other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 1765, had been an advocate, for the Stamp Act. Things and the disposition of men's minds were changed. In short, the Stamp Act began to be no favourite in this House. He therefore attended at the private meet- ing, in which the resolutions moved by a right honourable gentleman were settled; resolutions leading to the repeal. The next day he voted for that repeal; and he would have spoken for it too, if an illness (not, as was then given out, a political, but to my knowledge, a very real illness) had not prevented it. - The very next session, as the fashion of this world passeth away, the repeal began to be in as bad an odour in this House as the Stamp Act had been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to prevail, and to prevail mostly amongst those most in power, he declared, very early in the winter, that a revenue must be had out of America. Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some, who had no objection to such experiments, when made at the cost of persons for hom they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated state, until something of the kind had been done. Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found himself in great straits. To please univer- sally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. How- ever, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the partisans of American revenue, he had a preamble stating the necessity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction, this revenue was external or port duty; but again, to soften it to the other party, it was a duty of supply. To A.D. 1774.] 341 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. ſº gratify the colonists it was laid on British manufactures; to satisfy the merchants of Britain the duty was trivial, and (except that on tea, which touched only the devoted East India Company) on mone of the grand objects of commerce. To counterwork the American contraband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shilling to threepence. But to secure the favour of those who would tax America, the scene of col- lection was changed, and, with the rest, it was levied in the Colonies. What need I say more ? This fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original plan of the duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly and solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the House. He never thought, did, or said anything, but with a view to you. He every day adapted himself to your disposition, and adjusted himself before it as at a looking-glass. He had observed (indeed it could not escape him) that several persons, infinitely his inferiors in all respects, had formerly rendered themselves considerable in this House by one method alone. They were a race of men (I hope in God the species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to principles, from any order or system in their politics, or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any debate. It is astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of all parties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, all ears open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the end of their speeches. While the House hung in this uncertainty, now the “hear-hims” rose from his side— now they rebellowed from the other; and that party, to whom they fell at length from their tremulous and dancing balance, always received them in a tempest of applause. The fortune of such men was a temptation too great to be resisted by one, to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much greater pain, than he received delights in the clouds of it, which daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition of in- numerable admirers. He was a candidate for contradictory honours; and his great aim was to make those agree in admiration of him who never agreed in anything else. Hence arose this unfortunate Act, the subject of this day's debate; from a disposition which, after making an American revenue to please one, repealed it to please others, and again revived it in hopes of pleasing a third, and of catching some- thing in the ideas of all. This Revenue Act of 1767 formed the fourth period of American policy. How we have fared since them—what woeful variety of schemes have been adopted; what enforc- ing, and what repealing; what bullying, and what submit- ting; what doing, and undoing; what straining, and what relaxing; what assemblies dissolved for not obeying, and called again without obedience; what troops sent out to quell resistance, and on meeting that resistance, recalled; what shiftings, and changings, and jumblings of all kinds of men at home, which left no possibility of order, consistency, vigour, or even so much as a decent unity of colour in any one public measure—it is a tedious, irksome task. My duty may call me to open it out some other time; on a former occasion I tried your temper on a part of it; for the present I shall forbear. - After all these changes and agitations, your immediate situation upon the question on your paper is at length brought to this. You have an Act of Parliament, stating, that “it is expedient to raise a revenue in America.” By a partial repeal you annihilated the greatest part of that revenue, which this preamble declares to be so expedient. You have substituted no other in the place of it. A Secre- tary of State has disclaimed, in the King's name, all thoughts of such a substitution in future. The principle of this dis- claimer goes to what has been left, as well as what has been repealed. The tax which lingers after its companions (under a preamble declaring an American revenue expedient, and for the sole purpose of supporting the theory of that pre- amble) militates with the assurance authentically conveyed to the colonies; and is an exhaustless source of jealousy and animosity. On this state, which I take to be a fair one, not being able to discern any grounds of honour, advantage, peace, or power, for adhering, either to the Act or to the preamble, I shall vote for the question which leads to the repeal of both. If you do not fall in with this motion, then secure some- thing to fight for, consistent in theory and valuable in prac- tice. If you must employ your strength, employ it to uphold you in some honourable right, or some profitable wrong. If you are apprehensive that the concession recommended to you, though proper, should be a means of drawing on you further but unreasonable claims—why then employ your force in supporting that reasonable concession against those unreasonable demands. You will employ it with more grace; with better effect; and with great probable concurrence of all the quiet and rational people in the provinces; who are now united with, and hurried away by, the violent; having indeed different dispositions, but a common interest. If you appre- hend that on a concession you shall be pushed by metaphy- sical process to the extreme lines, and argued out of your whole authority, my advice is this: when you have recovered your old, your strong, your tenable position, then face about —stop short—do nothing more—reason not at all—oppose the ancient policy and practice of the Empire, as a rampart against the speculations of innovators on both sides of the question; and you will stand on great, manly, and sure ground. On this solid basis fix your machines, and they will draw worlds towards you. Your Ministers, in their own and His Majesty's name, have already adopted the American distinction of internal and external duties. It is a distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was originally moved by the Americans them- selves; and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they are not pushed with too much logic, and too little sense, in all the consequences. That is, if external taxation be understood as they and you understand it, when you please, to be not a distinction of geography, but of policy; that it is a power for regulating trade, and not for supporting establishments. The distinction, which is as nothing with regard to right, is of most weighty consideration in practice. Recover your old ground, and your old tranquillity—try it—I am per- suaded the Americans will compromise with you. When con- fidence is once restored, the odious and suspicious summum jus will perish of course. The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and mutual convenience, will never call in geo- metrical exactness as the arbitrator of an amicable settlement. Consult and follow your experience. Let not the long story, with which I have exercised your patience, prove fruitless to your interests. . For my part, I should choose (if I could have my wish) that the proposition of the honourable gentleman for the Repeal could go to America without the attendance of the penal Bills. Alone I could almost answer for its success. I cannot be certain of its reception in the bad company it may keep. In such heterogeneous assortments, the most innocent person will lose the effect of his innocency. Though you should send out this angel of peace, yet you are sending out a destroying angel too : and what would be the effect of the 342 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1774 conflict of these two adverse spirits, or which would predo- minate in the end, is what I dare not say: whether the lenient measures would cause American passion to subside, or the severe would increase its fury—all this is in the hand of Providence ; yet now, even now, I should confide in the prevailing virtue and efficacious operation of lenity, though working in darkness, and in chaos, in the midst of all this unnatural and turbid combination: I should hope it might produce order and beauty in the end. Let us, sir, embrace some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean to tax America, and to draw a productive revenue from thence P If you do, speak out; name, fix, ascertain this revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob if you kill, take possession and do not appear in the character of madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better counsels guide you! Again, and again, revert to your own principles—Seek peace and ensue it—leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinc- tions of rights, not attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it. They and we, and their and our an- cestors, have been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade, Do not burden them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the begin- ning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be discussed with safety. But, if intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you sophisticate and poison the very source of government, by urging subtle deductions, and consequences odious to those you govern, from the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme sove- reignty, you will teach them by these means to call that sovereignty itself in question. When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters. If that sove- reignty and their freedom cannot be reconciled, which will they take 2 They will cast your sovereignty in your face. Nobody will be argued into slavery. Sir, let the gentlemen on the other side call forth all their ability; let the best of them get up, and tell me, what one character of liberty the Americans have, and what one brand of slavery they are free from, if they are bound in their property and industry, by all the restraints you can imagine on commerce, and at the same time are made pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, without the least share in granting them. When they bear the burdens of unlimited monopoly, will you bring them to bear the burdens of unlimited revenue too The Englishman in America will feel that this is slavery—that it is legal slavery will be no compensation, either to his feelings or his understanding. A noble lord, who spoke some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous youth ; and when he has modelled the ideas of a lively imagination by further experience, he will be an ornament to his country in either House. He has said, that the Americans are our children, and how can they revolt against their parent P He says, that if they are not free in their present state, England is not free; because Man- chester, and other considerable places, are not represented. So then, because some towns in England are not repre- sented, America is to have no representative at all. They are our children; but when children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone. Is it because the natural resistance of things, and the various mutations of time, hinders our government, or any scheme of government, from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it there- fore that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely P When this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of British liberty; are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our Constitution P are we to give them our weakness for their strength 2 our opprobrium for their glory? and the slough of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom ? If this be the case, ask yourselves this question, Will they be content in such a state of slavery P. If not, look to the consequences. Reflect how you are to govern a people, who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to—my voice fails me; my inclination indeed carries me no farther—all is confusion beyond it. Well, sir, I have recovered a little, and before I sit down I must say something to another point with which gentle- men urge us. What is to become of the Declaratory Act asserting the entireness of British legislative authority, if we abandon the practice of taxation ? For my part I look upon the rights stated in that Act exactly in the manner in which I viewed them on its very first proposition, and which I have often taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay before you. I look, I say, on the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, pro- viding for all things at home, immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power. The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her imperial cha- racter; in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superin- tends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without annihilating any. As all these provincial legislatures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the over-ruling plenitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others, whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institu- tion. But in order to enable Parliament to answer all these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed? What Shall there be no reserved power in the Empire to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the whole 2 We are engaged in war—the Secretary of State calls upon the Colonies to contribute—some would do it, I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded —one or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft lie on the others—surely it is proper, that some authority might legally say—“Tax your- selves for the common supply, or Parliament will do it for you.” This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the To A.D. 1784.1 343 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. case of Pennsylvania for some short time towards the begin- ning of the last war, owing to some internal dissensions in the colony. But whether the fact were so, or otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent Sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power; nor ever used in the first instance. I have said at various times, that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply. Such, sir, is my idea of the Constitution of the British Empire, as distinguished from the Constitution of Britain; and on these grounds I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole; whether to serve a refining speculatist, or a factious demagogue, I know not ; but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man. Sir, whilst we held this happy course, we drew more from the Colonies than all the impotent violence of despotism ever could extort from them. We did this abundantly in the last war. It has never been once denied—and what reason have we to imagine that the Colonies would not have proceeded in supplying Government as liberally, if you had not stepped in and hindered them from contributing, by in- terrupting the channel in which their liberality flowed with so strong a course; by attempting to take, instead of being Satisfied to receive? Sir William Temple says, that Holland has loaded itself with ten times the impositions which it revolted from Spain, rather than submit to. He says true. Tyranny is a poor provider. It knows neither how to accu- mulate, nor how to extract. I charge therefore to this new and unfortunate system the loss not only of peace, of union, and of commerce, but even of revenue, which its friends are contending for. It is morally certain, that we have lost at least a million of free grants since the peace. I think we have lost a great deal more; and that those who look for a revenue from the pro- vinces, never could have pursued, even in that light, a course more directly repugnant to their purposes. Now, sir, I trust I have shown, first on that narrow ground which the honourable gentleman measured, that you are likely to lose nothing by complying with the motion except what you have lost already. I have shown after- wards, that in time of peace you flourished in commerce, and, when war required it, had sufficient aid from the Colo- nies, while you pursued your ancient policy; that you threw everything into confusion when you made the Stamp Act; and that you restored everything to peace and order when you repealed it. I have shown that the revival of the system of taxation has produced the very worst effects; and that the partial repeal has produced, not partial good, but uni- versal evil. Let these considerations, founded on facts, not one of which can be denied, bring us back to our reason by the road of our experience. I cannot, as I have said, answer for mixed measures: but surely this mixture of lenity would give the whole a better chance of success. When you once regain confidence, the way will be clear before you. Then you may enforce the Act of Navigation when it ought to be enforced. You will yourselves open it where it ought still further to be opened. Proceed in what you do, whatever you do, from policy and not from rancour. Let us act like men, let us act like statesmen. Let us hold some sort of consistent conduct. It is agreed that a revenue is not to be had in America. If we lose the profit, let us get rid of the odium. On this business of America, I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I have had but one opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, in Parliament. The noble lord will, as usual, probably attribute the part taken by me and my This is what I meant, when friends in this business, to a desire of getting his places. Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. If I deprived him of it, I should take away most of his wit, and all his argument. But I had rather bear the brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much heavier, than stand answerable to God for embracing a system that tends to the destruction of some of the very best and fairest of his works. But I know the map of England, as well as the noble lord, or as any other person; and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment. My excellent and honourable friend under me on the floor has trod that road with great toil for upwards of twenty years together. He is not yet arrived at the noble lord's destination. However, the tracks of my worthy friend are those I have ever wished to follow ; because I know they lead to honour. Long may we tread the same road together, whoever may accompany us, or whoever may laugh at us on our journey ! I honestly and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the system of 1766, for no other reason, than that I think it laid deep in your truest interests—and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes, on the firmest founda- tions, a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in Parlia- ment. Until you come back to that system, there will be no peace for England. Nine years before, an American Congress had met to reject the Stamp Act. On the 5th of September, 1774, a second Congress, called the Continental Congress, met at Philadelphia, which again put forth a Declaration of Rights, and also a body of articles called the American Association, signed on the 20th of October, that represented the first stride towards Independence. The Congress prepared also a peti- tion to the King, and an address to the people of Great Britain. George Washington wrote at that time, “More blood will be spilled on this ogcasion, if the Ministry are determined to push matters to ex- tremity, than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of North America.” The Colonies began to arm. Chatham and Burke still laboured for peace, but the King refused to receive the petition of the Continental Congress. On the 19th of April, 1775, there was a conflict at Lexington with British troops, and some hundreds were killed or wounded. On the 17th of June, George Washington accepted his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the army of the United Colonies. So the struggle began that led to the Declaration of Independence, finally adopted on the 4th of July, 1776, which transformed the Colonies into the United States of America. There was war for eight years, hostilities being stayed on the 19th of April, 1783, the anniversary of their first outbreak at Lexington. On the 3rd of Sep- tember in that year peace was signed with Great Britain, including a full recognition of the Indepen- dence of the States, and confirmed by Congress on the 14th of January, 1784. Burke only entered public life in 1765 at the for- mation of the Rockingham Ministry, and to the wealth and friendship of Lord Rockingham he was much indebted for his ability in 1768 to pay 423,000 for an estate called Gregories or Butler's Court. It was about a mile from the town of Beaconsfield, and as Burke made little use of the old name of the house, but generally wrote his address Beaconsfield, Beaconsfield became the name * 344 [A.D. 1774 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. of the house also. When Lord Rockingham died, in July, 1782, he left all Burke's money debts to him cancelled. After the dissolution of Parliament, in 1774, Burke was returned for Malton, but he resigned Malton when invited to Bristol. He was returned after a contest, and following his speech of thanks to the electors, his colleague, Mr. Cruger, a merchant in the American trade, who had also thanks to return, avoided com- parisons with the great orator by only exclaiming— “Gentlemen, I say ditto to Mr. Burke l’ Our language is the richer by the whole of Mr. Cruger's speech, for it has passed into a proverb. In 1775, on the 22nd of March, Burke laid before the House thirteen resolutions for reconcilement with America, and made another famous speech on EDMUND BURRE. (From the Portrait prefixed to his “Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful” (Ed. 1798). American Conciliation. At the next dissolution of Parliament, in 1780, Burke found that he had offended his constituents at Bristol, partly by support of measures favourable to Irish trade. He returned to Malton. In March, 1782, Lord North was forced to resign, and Lord Rockingham again formed a Ministry, in which he gave Burke a place as Privy Councillor and Paymaster-General of the Forces. Burke then introduced a reform in the expenses of the civil list which included a reduction of his own income by £1,300 a year. But Lord Rockingham died when this Ministry was not yet four months old, and was succeeded by Lord Shelburne on impossible conditions as to American policy, that caused Burke to resign. Coalition between Fox and Lord North ended the Shelburne administration in February, 1783; Fox and Lord North then became Secretaries of State, and Edmund Burke returned to office as Paymaster of the Forces. The King's opposition to Fox's East India Bills, which were supported by the * eloquence of Burke, caused the dismissal of this Ministry; and in December, 1783, William Pitt the younger, second son of the Earl of Chatham—who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Shelburne's administration at the age of twenty-three—became in his twenty-fourth year Prime Minister, and took the two offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had then the King on his side and the majority of the House against him ; but after the dissolution in March, 1786, he was supported by the country, and ruled English policy when France was hurrying towards revolution. On the 20th of December, 1784, Burke was a mourner at the funeral of his friend Samuel Johnson, with Sir Joshua Reynolds and other friends. “He has made a chasm,” said Burke in his grief, “which not only nothing can fill up, but which no- thing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best : there is nobody. No man can be said to put the world in mind of Johnson.” In June, 1786, the House of Commons voted, by a majority of thirty-nine, that Warren Hastings was impeachable for his conduct as Governor-General of Bengal to Cheyt Sing, Rajah of Benares. In May, 1787, Warren Hastings was impeached by Burke, on the part of the House of Commons, before the bar of the House of Lords. The trial began in February, 1788, and Burke “stood forth,” as he said, “at the command of the Commons of Great Britain, as the accuser of Warren Hastings.” His great speech extended over three days, and introduced a trial of which, during its intermittent course through seven years to an acquittal in April, 1795, the interest was wholly broken by the magnitude of events that called all public attention to themselves. One of the most peaceful of books, Gilbert White's “Natural History of Selborne,” was published in the year of the great French Revolution, 1789. Gilbert White, born in the Hampshire village of Selborne in 1720, School-boy at Basingstoke, and afterwards Fellow of Oriel, settled in his native place, and in letters to Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington detailed some of the results of that quiet, constant observation of nature in which he delighted. He died unmarried in 1793. This is one of his letters to Daines Barrington — THE CONGREGATING TEMPER. There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, independent of sexual attachment. Of this the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without discovering the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out at a stable-window, through which dung was thrown, after company; and yet in other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves; but will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended by Society. It would be needless to add instances in sheep, which constantly flock together. To A.D. 1789.] 345 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same species; for we know a doe, still alive, that was brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows; with them it goes a-field, and with them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of this deer, being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase ensues; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading her pur- suers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, who, with fierce lowings and menacing horns, drive the assailants quite out of the pasture. Even great disparity of kind and size does not always pre- vent social advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant person has assured me that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen. These two in- congruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs: while the horse would look down with Satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive com- panion. Thus by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours of the other: so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken :--- “Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl So well converse, nor with the ox the ape.” 1 Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775. The congregating spirit, strongest in man, caused in many minds an extreme dread of the spread of revolution from France into England. Ideals of society were matter of speculation everywhere, and joined with more or less impatience of the tyranny of custom. But in France the tyranny had been real, and when Government became bankrupt its ruin was inevitable, and the idealists had, so far, a clear field for their labour towards the sudden elevation of the human race. There was no liberty of the subject, where a lettre de cachet could send any man at the King's will, and, through the general cor- ruption, at the will often of a private enemy, untried, or even, so far as he knew, unaccused, to the Bastile. Government mulcted at will those who invested in the public funds. The best works on law, finance, and politics were burnt by the hangman. Atheism was tolerated ; Protestants were persecuted. The clergy had let religion almost die out. Men could not call their property their own to use, subject as they were to restrictions on the transport, sale, and preservation of corn; to charges on wine that often went beyond the value of the crop, and caused many of the vineyards to be left uncultivated ; to the taille and vingtième, that took from forty-five to fifty per cent of the nett profit of the soil. When land- lord and tenant divided what was left to them, after paying tithe and other dues, they had often only a Quarter of the yield between them, and sometimes, in bad years, nothing. Turgot allowed free circulation (not export) of corn, and remitted taxes on food. But there was a bad 1 “Paradise Lost,” viii., 395, 396. harvest, and he was made answerable for it by the people. He would make the land bear the burden of taxation, abolish the corvée, and throw the cost of roads, &c., on the vingtième. Therefore, the landed proprietors opposed him. In finance he was for no bankruptcy, no loans, and no new taxes; he relied upon economy with peace. He opposed as needless the dragging of France into the American quarrel. Here were more grounds of offence. In May, 1776, Turgot was succeeded as Controller-General by Clugny, who failed utterly, but died in a few months. Then followed Turgot's opponent, the Swiss banker in Paris, Necker, who first introduced into the Treasury a regular system of accounts, the Compte Rendu, which angered the minister, Maurepas. He met with loans the war with England in the American quarrel. He raised five hundred million livres by sale of annuities, and thus added to the public debt. He excited op- position at Court by his publication of accounts, in Parliament and among populations by his convoking of Provincial Assemblies. In May, 1781, Necker resigned. A judge, Joly de Fleury, succeeded him as Controller-General; he was succeeded in March, 1783, by Ormesson, a younger judge. In two years these gentlemen increased the liabilities by more than four hundred million of livres. Towards the end of 1783, Calonne was appointed. He promised wonders. His policy was to oblige everybody, raise loans, and Scatter the money. “When I saw every one stretch- ing his hand,” said a Prince, “I held out my hat, and Calonne filled it.” The King supported Calonne till, after three years of this easy extravagance, more loans and more taxes were alike impossible. There was avowed a yearly deficit of one hundred and fourteen million, and an arrear of six hundred million of livres. The only remedy was to call an Assembly of Notables, which was convoked for January, 1787. “The King has sent in his resignation,” said Ségur. The Assembly was opened on the 22nd of February. On the 26th of August, 1788, Necker was Finance Minister again. He restored the Provincial Parliaments, and sum- moned the States-General, which first met on the 4th of May, 1789. Then arose contest between the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Third Estate as to the manner of voting. If the vote was by orders, there were two to one against the Third Estate; if the vote was by heads, the majority was twenty to one the other way. The Nobles kept aloof, and with them all but nine of the Clergy. The Third Estate, thus left to its own devices, sat as the Commons, and on the 17th of June styled itself the National Assembly. Necker devised a compromise that was over-ruled by the Court Party. The Assembly then swore never to separate until a Constitution was established. On the ground of danger to the King, and with expectation of support to their side from an armed force, the Nobles yielded, and joined the Assembly. Troops then were collected about Paris; Necker was dismissed, and banished on the 11th of July. Next day, Sunday the 12th, in consequence of this, tumults began. On Tuesday the 14th, the Bastile was taken by the people. Though details of the storming of this stronghold of tyranny are mean and base with the passion of uncultivated minds, the Bastile typified the wrong that earnest young minds 220 346 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1789 had been yearning to see righted, and its fall re- sounded throughout Europe. Now was the time for showing how a people might rise from death into life, and a true state be formed that should realise the noblest aspirations for humanity. Many then felt with Wordsworth's Solitary, and were sud- denly roused from that long inquisition into the framework of society in which The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way. º e º e t For lo! the dread Bastile, With all the chambers in its horrid towers, Fell to the ground: by violence overthrown Of indignation; and with shouts that drowned The crash it made in falling. From the wreck A golden palace rose, or seemed to rise, The appointed seat of equitable law And mild paternal sway g º t º - º e º - - º prophetic harps In every grove were ringing, “War shall cease, Did ye not hear that conquest is abjured P Bring garlands, bring forth choicest flowers to deck The tree of liberty.”—My heart rebounded; My melancholy voice the chorus joined; —“Be joyful all ye nations; in all lands, Ye that are capable of joy be glad Henceforth, whate'er is wanting to yourselves In others ye shall promptly find; and all, Enriched by mutual and reflected wealth, Shall with one heart honour their common kind.” I ES: ES:= ALLEGORICAL DESIGN. (From Campbell’s “Pleasures of Hope.”) Young poets were full of the great hope. Its noblest aspiration was enshrined ten years after the l “Excursion,” Book iii. fall of the Bastile in Thomas Campbell's maiden song, “The Pleasures of Hope,” published in the spring-time of the last year of the eighteenth century, when the poet's age was twenty-one years and nine months. Though fury of war had followed, and wild passions were let loose, the Hope was still there. As Campbell wrote— When every form of death, and every woe Shot from malignant stars to earth below; When Murder bared his arm, and rampant War Yoked the red dragons of her iron car; When Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain, Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again : All, all forsook the friendless guilty mind, But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind. CHAPTER X. FROM THE FRENCH REvoluTION TO THE BATTLE OF WATERLoo.—A.D. 1789 To A.D. 1815. ON the 9th of February, 1790, Edmund Burke first uttered in Parliament his sense of alarm at the French Revolution. Fox, in a debate on the army estimates, had expressed sympathy with the aspira- tions of the Revolutionists, and seen no need for an increase of English military force. Burke dreaded the spread through Europe of a revolutionary fever, and the danger from it in England to religion, govern- ment, and the whole fabric of society. “Our danger,” he said, “arises from the model offered by a people whose character knows no medium.” The dread be- came in him itself a fever, and in the eloquent out- pouring of his thoughts and feelings, published in October, 1790, as “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” which reached in a few months an English sale of 30,000, and was widely read on the continent in a French translation by M. Dupont, there were the arguments and pleadings of a wise man with his reason blurred by passion. There were many replies to Burke's pamphlet. Capel Lofft, Mrs. Macaulay Graham, Dr. Joseph Towers, George Rous, M.P., were soon in the field. The most revolutionary answer was Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man;” the wisest was that of a young Scotsman, afterwards known as Sir James Mackintosh. James Mackintosh was born at Inverness in 1766, and bred at the University of Edinburgh to the profession of medi- cine, though his interest in the great problem of government, which then occupied many minds, gave him a strong inclination towards law. After graduat- ing as M.D., he went abroad, and soon afterwards, being left free to follow his own bent by the death of Captain Mackintosh, his father, he gave himself to the study of politics and law. That was his position when, at the age of twenty-four, he replied to Burke's “Reflections on the Revolution in France ’’ with his “Vindiciae Gallica.” It is good that we should be impatient in our youth of ills that cry for remedy, of the corruptions of life, and the slow growth of the best human insti- tutions. With years the desire for reform does not TO A.D. 1791.] 347 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. lessen, but patience grows with experience, and our later labour is to do what is possible within a lifetime, little as it may be ; we accept small com- promises that involve a measure of reform, and learning that no human institution, however high its aim, can be actually better than the men by whom it is sustained, look more and more habitually to the men through whom a work is to be done, and measure our reduced hope by their worth and skill. T)ifferences of temperament and training make dif- ferences between us in the relative degrees of our eagerness for reform and dread of hasty change ; this establishes what we call parties in Church and State, and so secures, where there is free speech, thorough discussion of all possible measures of im- provement, and, perhaps, choice of the best. In Burke and Mackintosh there was this difference of temperament, accented more strongly by the dif- ference of years. Whatever experience the years may bring, old men need always the voices of the young around them. The generous yearning for a higher life than has been yet attained by any society of men, enthusiasm yet unchilled, scorn of the little make-shifts with which we grow only too apt to be content, rekindle the dead fire in many an elder mind, bring wisdom to the aid of wit and will, and win some conquests for humanity of which experience might have despaired. Strength for society is in the fel- lowship of old and young, as well as in the full and friendly conflict of opinion by which alone we can test, purify, and shape for use the truth we win. The address of the French National Assembly to the people, after enumerating gains, said, in reply to hostile critics:–“We have destroyed everything, say they. True ; it was necessary that everything should be rebuilt. And what was there so much to be regretted . Can any one be ignorant that it is only by attacking and overthrowing all abuses at the same time, that we can hope to be delivered from any without the danger of a return! It is impossible, say they, to regenerate an old and corrupted nation. Let us teach them that none are corrupted but those who wish the perpetuity of abuses which tend to corrupt ; and that a nation renews her youth the very day in which she resolves to revive liberty. Behold the new generation. How their hearts beat with joy and hope . How pure, how noble and patriotic are their sentiments ” This ad- dress was signed by Bureaux de Pusy, President, and six Secretaries, one of them named Guillotin. There was nothing to repel English sympathy in any one clause of the famous revolutionary Declara- tion of the Rights of Man. The rights declared were these :-(1) Men are free and equal. (2) The end of Government is to maintain the rights of man—viz., Liberty, Property, Security, Resistance of Oppression. (3) Sovereignty is in the nation. (4) Liberty is the power of doing whatever does not injure another. (5) Law only prohibits actions hurtful to society. (6) It represents the will of all, and all are equal before it. (7) There should be no arrest without pro- cedure by law. (8) There should be no needless penalties enforced by law, nor any that had not been promulgated before the offence; (9) and every man should be presumed innocent until proved guilty. (10) None should be molested for opinions, not even for religious opinions, if the avowal of them do not disturb public order established by law. (11) There should be free communication of thought, with re- sponsibility for abuse of it, defined by law. (12) Public force is instituted only for the benefit of the community; (13) and paid by citizens in con- tributions, according to their means. (14) There should be no taxation without representation; (15) and agents should be answerable to the Communities appointing them. (16) Every community in which separation of powers is not determined, and security of rights is not provided for, wants a Constitution. (17) Rights of Property are inviolable, except in cases of evident public necessity legally ascertained, and upon condition of a previous just indemnity.—Those were all the Rights declared, and men in other coun- tries might reasonably be glad in the hope that they were to be established in France on the ground cleared of a debasing tyranny. In his “Vindiciae Gallicae,” among sound reasonings, there is this passage, which strikes the note of youth, in sympathy with the desire of the French Revolutionists for root and branch re- form : “Tet us grant,” says James Mackintosh, aged twenty-four, “let us grant that the state of France was not so desperately incorrigible. Let us suppose that changes far more gentle, innovations far less extensive, would have remedied the grosser evils of her government, and placed it almost on a level with free and celebrated constitutions. These concessions, though too large for truth, will not convict the Assembly. By what principle of reason, or of jus- tice, were they precluded from aspiring to give France a government less imperfect than accident had formed in other States ? Who will be hardy enough to assert that a better Constitution is not attainable than any which has hitherto appeared 2 Is the limit of human wisdom to be estimated in the science of politics alone by the extent of its present attainments? Is the most sublime and difficult of all arts, the improvement of the social order, the alleviation of the miseries of the civil condition of man, to be alone stationary, amid the rapid progress of every other art, liberal and vulgar, to perfection? Where would be the guilt of a grand experiment, to ascertain the portion of freedom and happiness that can be created by political institu- tions? . It was time, as it has been wisely and eloquently said, that legislators, instead of that narrow and dastardly coasting which never ventures to lose sight of usage and precedent, should, guided by the polarity of reason, hazard a bolder navigation, and discover, in unexplored regions, the treasure of public felicity. The task of the French legislators was, however, less hazardous. The philosophers of Europe had, for a century, discussed all objects of public economy. . . Suppose it had been mathematically proved that by a certain alteration in the structure of a machine, its effect would be increased fourfold, would an instructed mechanic hesitate about the change? Would he be deterred because he was the first to discover it?” With this generous young idealism, yearning for the highest truth and right, but too regardless of the actual powers of the men who were to be chief factors 348 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1791. in the working of the social problem, contrast the following passage in a letter written by Burke, aged sixty, to a member of the National Assembly:- “You gently reprehend me, because in holding out the picture of your disastrous situation, I suggest no plan for a remedy. Alas, sir, the proposition of plans without an attention to circumstances is the very cause of all your misfortunes. . Permit me to say, that if I were as confident as I ought to be diffident in my own loose general ideas, I never should venture to broach them, if but at twenty leagues dis- tant from the centre of your affairs. I must see with my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with my own hands, not only the fixed but the momentary circumstances, before I could venture to suggest any political project whatsoever. I must know the power and disposition to accept, to execute, to persevere. I must see all the aids, and all the obstacles. I must see the means of correcting the plan when correctives would be wanted. I must see the things; I must see the men. Without a concurrence and adaptation of these to the design, the very best speculative projects might become not only useless, but mischievous.” If we take Burke and Mackintosh as types, at this time, of opposite opinion in England upon the out- break of the French Revolution, such passages show clearly that each was battling for a truth. It was true then, and is true now, that the best existing society will bear immense improvement. England herself, a hundred years after the French Revolution, and still most advanced among the nations, is not yet half civilised. It would be of evil omen for the world if we heard no longer the voices of those who are impatient of old ills, and bid us leap up to perfection. What if it be not won at a leap A noble yearning is the salt of life, needful though not sufficient for its daily food. This is the whole of A LETTER FROM MR. BURECE TO A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, In Answer to Some Objections to his Book on French Affairs. SIR,--I had the honour to receive your letter of the 17th of November last, in which, with some exceptions, you are pleased to consider favourably the letter I have written on the affairs of France. I shall ever accept any mark of approbation attended with instruction, with more pleasure than general and unqualified praises. The latter can serve only to flatter our vanity; the former, whilst it encourages us to proceed, may help to improve us in our progress. Some of the errors you point out to me in my printed letter are really such. One only I find to be material. It is corrected in the edition which I take the liberty of sending to you. As to the cavils which may be made on some part of my remarks, with regard to the gradations in your new constitution, you observe justly, that they do not affect the substance of my objections. Whether there be a round more or less in the ladder of representation, by which your work- men ascend from their parochial tyranny to their federal 1 Helvetius had written (de l’Esprit) in 1758, “If a sage descended from Heaven, and in his conduct consulted only the light of reason, he would universally pass for a fool. He would be, as Socrates says, like a physician whom the pastry-cooks accused before a tribunal of children of forbidding pies and tarts. He would certainly be condemned.” anarchy, when the whole scale is false, appears to me of little or no importance. I published my thoughts on that constitution that my countrymen might be enabled to estimate the wisdom of the plans which were held out to their imitation. I conceived that the true character of those plans would be best collected from the committee appointed to prepare them. I thought that the scheme of their building would be better compre- hended in the design of the architects than in the execution of the masons. It was not worth my reader's while to occupy himself with the alterations by which bungling practice corrects absurd theory. Such an investigation would be endless, because every day's past experience of impracti- cability has driven, and every day's future experience will drive, those men to new devices as exceptionable as the old; and which are no otherwise worthy of observation than as they give a daily proof of the delusion of their promises, and the falsehood of their professions. Had I followed all these changes, my letter would have been only a gazette of their wanderings; a journal of their march from error to error, through a dry, dreary desert, unguided by the lights of heaven, or by the contrivance which wisdom has invented to supply their place. I am unalterably persuaded that the attempt to oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate, and extinguish the original gentlemen and landed property of an old nation, cannot be justified under any form it may assume. I am satisfied beyond a doubt that the project of turning a great empire into a vestry, or into a collection of vestries, and of govern- ing it in the spirit of a parochial administration, is senseless and absurd in any mode, or with any qualifications. I can never be convinced that the scheme of placing the highest powers of the state in churchwardens and constables, and other such officers, guided by the prudence of litigious attornies and Jew brokers, and set in action by shameless women of the lowest condition, by kepers of hotels, taverns, and brothels, by pert apprentices, by clerks, shop-boys, hair- dressers, fiddlers, and dancers on the stage (who, in such a commonwealth as yours, will in future overbear, as already they have overborne, the sober incapacity of dull, unin- structed men, of useful but laborious occupations), can ever be put into any shape that must not be both disgraceful and destructive. The whole of this project, even if it were what it pretends to be, and was not in reality the dominion, through that disgraceful medium, of half-a-dozen, or perhaps fewer, intriguing politicians, is so mean, so low-minded, so stupid a contrivance in point of wisdom, as well as so per- fectly detestable for its wickedness, that I must always con- sider the correctives which might make it in any degree practicable, to be so many new objections to it. In that wretched state of things some are afraid that the authors of your miseries may be led to precipitate their further designs by the hints they may receive from the very arguments used to expose the absurdity of their system, to mark the incongruity of its parts, and its inconsistency with their own principles; and that your masters may be led to render their schemes more consistent by rendering them more mischievous. Excuse the liberty which your indulgence authorises me to take when I observe to you that such appre- hensions as these would prevent all exertion of our faculties in this great cause of mankind. - A rash recourse to force is not to be justified in a state of real weakness. Such attempts bring on disgrace ; and, in their failure, discountenance and discourage more rational endeavours. But reason is to be hazarded, though it may be perverted by craft and sophistry; for reason can suffer no loss nor shame, nor can it impede any useful plan of future A.D. 1791.] 349 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. policy. In the unavoidable uncertainty as to the effect which attends on every measure of human prudence, nothing seems a surer antidote to the poison of fraud than its detec- tion. It is true the fraud may be swallowed after this dis- covery, and perhaps even swallowed the more greedily for being a detected fraud. Men sometimes make a point of honour not to be disabused, and they had rather fall into an hundred errors than confess one. But after all,—when neither our principles nor our dispositions, nor perhaps our talents, enable us to encounter delusion with delusion, we must use our best reason to those that ought to be reasonable creatures, and take our chance for the event. We cannot act on these anomalies in the minds of men. I do not con- ceive that the persons who have contrived these things can be made much the better or the worse for anything which can be said to them. They are reason proof. Here and there, some men who were at first carried away by wild good intentions, may be led, when their first fervours are abated, to join in a sober survey of the schemes into which they have been deluded. To those only (and I am sorry to say they are not likely to make a large description) we apply with any hope. I may speak it upon an assurance almost approaching to absolute knowledge, that nothing has been done that has not been contrived from the beginning, even before the states had, assembled. Nulla nova mihi res inopinate surgit." They are the same men and the same designs that they were from the first, though varied in their appearance. It was the very same animal that at first crawled about in the shape of a caterpillar that you now see rise into the air and expand its wings to the sun. Proceeding, therefore, as we are obliged to proceed, that is upon an hypothesis that we address rational men, can false political principles be more effectually exposed than by demonstrating that they lead to consequences directly incon- sistent with and subversive of the arrangements grounded upon them 2 If this kind of demonstration is not permitted, the process of reasoning called deductio ad absurdum, which even the severity of geometry does not reject, could not be employed at all in legislative discussions. One of our strongest weapons against folly acting with authority would be lost. You know, sir, that even the virtuous efforts of you patriots to prevent the ruin of your country have had this very turn given to them. It has been said here, and in France too, that the reigning usurpers would not have carried their tyranny to such destructive lengths if they had not been stimulated and provoked to it by the acrimony of your opposition. There is a dilemma to which every opposition to successful iniquity must, in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, you are considered as an accomplice in the measures in which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable power to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgments—success. The indulgence of a sort of undefined hope, an obscure confidence, that some lurking remains of virtue, some degree of shame, might exist in the breasts of the oppressors of France, has been among the causes which have helped to bring on the common ruin of king and people. There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief. I well remember, at every epocha of this wonderful history, in every scene of this tragic ! “No new thing rises upon me unexpectedly.”—Cicero, “Tusc. Quaest.,” Bk. iii. business, that when your Sophistic usurpers were laying down mischievous principles, and even applying them in direct resolutions, it was the fashion to say that they never intended to execute those declarations in their rigour. This made men cautious in their opposition, and remiss in early precaution. By holding out this fallacious hope the im- postors deluded sometimes one description of men and some- times another, so that no means of resistance were provided against them, when they came to execute in cruelty what they had planned in fraud. There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed on. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they could be by the perfidy of others. But when men whom we know to be wicked impose upon us, we are something worse than dupes. When we know them, their fair pretences become new motives for distrust. There is one case, indeed, in which it would be madness not to give the fullest credit to the most deceitful of men, that is, when they make declarations of hostility against us. I find that some persons entertain other hopes, which I confess appear more specious than those by which at first so many were deluded and disarmed. They flatter them- selves that the extreme misery brought upon the people by their folly will at last open the eyes of the multitude, if not of their leaders. Much the contrary, I fear. As to the leaders in this system of imposture, you know that cheats and deceivers never can repent. The fraudulent have no resource but in fraud. They have no other goods in their magazine. They have no virtue or wisdom in their minds to which, in a disappointment concerning the profitable effects of fraud and cunning, they can retreat. The wearing out of an old, serves only to put them upon the invention of a new, delusion. Unluckily, too, the credulity of dupes is as inex- haustible as the invention of knaves. They never give people possession; but they always keep them in hope. Your state doctors do not so much as pretend that any good whatsoever has hitherto been derived from their operations, or that the public has prospered in any one instance under their management. The nation is sick, very sick, by their medicines. But the charlatan tells them that what is passed cannot be helped; they have taken the draught, and they must wait its operation with patience; that the first effects, indeed, are unpleasant, but that the very sickness is a proof that the dose is of no sluggish operation; that sickness is inevitable in all constitutional revolutions; that the body must pass through pain to ease; that the prescriber is not an empiric who proceeds by vulgar experience, but one who grounds his practice on the sure rules of art, which cannot possibly fail. You have read, sir, the last Manifesto, or Mountebank's Bill, of the National Assembly. You see their presumption in their promises is not lessened by all their failures in the performance. Compare this last address of the Assembly, and the present state of your affairs with the early engagements of that body—engagements which, not content with declaring, they solemnly deposed upon oath, swearing lustily that if they were supported they would make their country glorious and happy; and then judge whether those who can write such things, or those who can bear to read them, are of themselves to be brought to any reasonable course of thought or action. As to the people at large, when once these miserable sheep have broken the fold, and have got themselves loose, not from the restraint, but from the protection of all the prin- ciples of natural authority and legitimate subordination, they become the natural prey of impostors. When they 350 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1791. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF have once tasted of the flattery of knaves, they can no longer endure reason, which appears to them only in the form of censure and reproach. Great distress has never hitherto taught, and whilst the world lasts it never will teach, wise lessons to any part of mankind. Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity. Desperate situations produce desperate councils and desperate measures. The people of France, almost generally, have been taught to look for other re- sources than those which can be derived from order, frugality, and industry. They are generally armed, and they are made to expect much from the use of arms. Nihil non arrogant armis." Besides this, the retrograde order of society has something flattering to the dispositions of man- kind. The life of adventurers, gamesters, gipsies, beggars, and robbers is not unpleasant. It requires restraint to keep men from falling into that habit. The shifting tides of fear and hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and escape, the alternate famine and feast of the savage and the thief, after a time, render all course of slow, steady, progressive, un- varied occupation, and the prospect only of a limited mediocrity at the end of long labour, to the last degree tame, languid, and insipid. Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolu- ment from it, even though but for one year, never can wil- lingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power, but they will never look to anything but power for their relief. When did distress ever oblige a prince to abdicate his authority ? And what effect will it have upon those who are made to believe themselves a people of princes : The more active and stirring part of the lower orders having got government, and the distribution of plunder, into their hands, they will use its resources in each munici- pality to form a body of adherents. These rulers, and their adherents, will be strong enough to overpower the discontents of those who have not been able to assert their share of the spoil. The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating lottery of plunder will probably be the least Sagacious or the most inactive and irresolute of the gang. If, on disappointment, they should dare to stir, they will Soon be suppressed as rebels and mutineers by their brother rebels. Scantily fed for awhile with the offal of plunder, they will drop off by degrees; they will be driven out of the fight, and out of thought; and they will be left to perish obscurely, like rats, in holes and corners. From the forced repentance of invalid mutineers and dis- banded thieves, you can hope for no resource. Government itself, which ought to constrain the more bold and dexterous of these robbers, is their accomplice. Its arms, its treasures, its all, are in their hands. Judicature, which above all things should awe them, is their creature and their instru- ment. Nothing seems to me to render your internal situa- tion more desperate than this one circumstance of the state of your judicature. Many days are not passed since we have seen a set of men brought forth by your rulers for a most critical function. Your rulers brought forth a set of men, steaming from the Sweat and drudgery, and all black with the smoke and soot of the forge of confiscation and robbery— ardentis massa fuligine lippos; * a set of men brought forth from the trade of hammering arms of proof, offensive and defensive, in aid of the enterprizes, and for the subsequent protection of housebreakers, murderers, traitors, and male- * Horace, “Ars Poet.,” 1, 122. “There is nothing they do not rushly ascribe to arms.” * Juvenal, x. 130. “Half blind with the smoke of the burning mass.” \ affairs. factors; men, who had their minds seasoned with theories perfectly conformable to their practice, and who had always laughed at possession and prescription, and defied all the fundamental maxims of jurisprudence. To the horror and stupefaction of all the honest part of this nation, and, indeed, of all nations who are spectators, we have seen, on the credit of those very practices and principles, and to carry them further into effect, these very men placed on the sacred seat of justice in the capital city of your late kingdom. We see that in future you are to be destroyed with more form and regularity. This is not peace ; it is only the introduction of a sort of discipline in their hostility. Their tyranny is com- plete in their justice; and their lantern is not half so dread- ful as their court, One would think that out of common decency they would have given you men who had not been in the habit of trampling upon law and justice in the Assembly; neutral men, or men apparently neutral, for judges, who are to dispose of your lives and fortunes. Cromwell, when he attempted to legalise his power, and to Settle his conquered country in a state of order, did not look for his dispensers of justice in the instruments of his usurpation. Quite the contrary. He sought out with great solicitude and selection, and even from the party most oppo- site to his designs, men of weight and decorum of character; men unstained with the violence of the times, and with hands not fouled with confiscation and sacrilege : for he chose an Hales for his chief justice, though he absolutely refused to take his civic oaths, or to make any acknowledg- ment whatsoever of the legality of his government. Crom- well told this great lawyer that, since he did not approve his title, all he required of him was to administer, in a manner agreeable to his pure sentiments and unspotted character, that justice without which human society cannot subsist; that it was not his particular government, but civil order it- self, which as a judge he wished him to support. Cromwell knew how to separate the institutions expedient to his usurpation from the administration of the public justice of his country. For Cromwell was a man in whom ambition had not wholly suppressed, but only suspended, the senti- ments of religion, and the love (as far as could consist with his designs) of fair and honourable reputation. Accordingly, we are indebted to this act of his for the preservation of our laws, which some senseless assertors of the rights of men were then on the point of entirely erasing, as relics of feudality and barbarism. Besides, he gave in the appointment of that man to that age, and to all posterity, the most brilliant example of sincere and fervent piety, exact justice, and profound jurisprudence. But these are not the things in which your philosophic usurpers choose to follow Cromwell. One would think that after an honest and necessary revo- lution (if they had a mind that theirs should pass for such), your masters would have imitated the virtuous policy of those who have been at the head of revolutions of that glorious character. Burnet tells us that nothing tended to reconcile the English nation to the government of King William so much as the care he took to fill the vacant bishoprics with men who had attracted the public esteem by their learning, eloquence, and piety, and above all, by their known moderation in the State. With you, in your purifying Revolution, whom have you chosen to regulate the Church P Mr. Mirabeau is a fine speaker—and a fine writer, and a fine—a very fine man;–but really nothing gave more surprise to everybody here than to find him the supreme head of your ecclesiastical The rest is of course. Your Assembly addresses a A.D. 1791.] 351 SHORTER, BROSE WORKS. manifesto to France in which they tell the people, with an insulting irony, that they have brought the Church to its primitive condition. In one respect their declaration is undoubtedly true, for they have brought it to a state of poverty and persecution. What can be hoped for after this? Have not men (if they deserve the name) under this new hope and head of the Church, been made bishops, for no other merit than having acted as instruments of atheists; for no other merit than having thrown the children's bread to dogs; and in order to gorge the whole gang of usurers, pedlars, and itinerant Jew - discounters at the corners of streets, starved the poor of their Christian flocks and their own brother pastors : Have not such men been made bishops to administer in temples in which (if the patriotic donations have not already stripped them of their vessels) the church- wardens ought to take security for the altar plate, and not so much as to trust the chalice in their sacrilegious hands, so long as Jews have assignats on ecclesiastic plunder to ex- change for the silver stolen from churches P I am told that the very sons of such Jew-jobbers have been made bishops; persons not to be suspected of any sort of Christian superstition, fit colleagues to the holy prelate of Autun, and bred at the feet of that Gamaliel. We know who it was that drove the money-changers out of the temple. We see, too, who it is that brings them in again. We have in London very respectable persons of the Jewish nation whom we will keep ; but we have of the same tribe others of a very different description—housebreakers, and receivers of stolen goods, and forgers of paper currency, more than we can conveniently hang. These we can spare to France to fill the new episcopal thrones; men well versed in swearing, and who will scruple no oath which the fertile genius of any of your reformers can devise. In matters So ridiculous it is hard to be grave. On a view of their consequences it is almost inhuman to treat them lightly. To what a state of Savage, stupid, servile insensi- bility must your people be reduced who can endure such pro- ceedings in their Church, their State, and their judicature, even for a moment. But the deluded people of France are like other madmen, who, to a miracle, bear hunger, and thirst, and cold, and confinement, and the chains and lash of their keeper, whilst all the while they support themselves by the imagination that they are generals of armies, prophets, kings, and emperors. As to a change of mind in these men, who consider infamy as honour, degradation as preferment, bondage to low tyrants as liberty, and the prac- tical scorn and contumely of their upstart masters as marks of respect and homage, I look upon it as absolutely imprac- ticable. These madmen, to be cured, must first, like other madmen, be subdued. The sound part of the community, which I believe to be large, but by no means the largest part, has been taken by surprise, and is disjointed, terrified, and disarmed. That sound part of the community must first be put into a better condition before it can do anything in the way of deliberation or persuasion. This must be an act of power as well as of wisdom: of power, in the hands of firm, determined patriots who can distinguish the misled from traitors, who will regulate the State (if such should be their fortune) with a discriminating, manly, and provident mercy; men who are purged of the surfeit and indigestion of systems, if ever they have been admitted into the habit of their minds; men who will lay the foundation of a real reform in effacing every vestige of that philosophy which pretends to have made discoveries in the terra australis of morality; men who will fix the State upon these bases of morals and politics, which are our old, and immemorial, and, I hope, will be our eternal possession. This power to such men must come from without. It may be given to you in pity, for surely no nation ever called so pathetically on the compassion of all its neighbours. It may be given by those neighbours on motives of safety to them- selves. Never shall I think any country in Europe to be secure, whilst there is established in the very centre of it a State (if so it may be called) founded on principles of anarchy, and which is in reality a college of armed fanatics for the propagation of the principles of assassination, robbery, rebellion, fraud, faction, oppression, and impiety. Mahomet, hid, as for a time he was, in the bottom of the sands of Arabia, had his spirit and character been discovered, would have been an object of precaution to provident minds. What if he had erected his famatic standard for the destruc- tion of the Christian religion in luce Asia,” in the midst of the then noon-day splendour of the then civilised world P. The princes of Europe in the beginning of this century did well not to suffer the monarchy of France to swallow up the others. They ought not now, in my opinion, to suffer all the monarchies and commonwealths to be swallowed up in the gulf of this polluted anarchy. They may be tolerably safe at present, because the comparative power of France for the present is little. But times and occasions make dangers. Intestine troubles may arise in other countries. There is a power always on the watch, qualified and disposed to profit of every conjuncture, to establish its own principles and modes of mischief, wherever it can hope for success. What mercy would these usurpers have on other sovereigns and on other nations when they treat their own king with such unparalleled indignities, and so cruelly oppress their own countrymen P The King of Prussia, in concurrence with us, nobly inter- fered to save Holland from confusion. The same power, joined with the rescued Holland and with Great Britain, has put the Emperor in the possession of the Netherlands, and secured under that prince, from all arbitrary innovation, the ancient hereditary constitution of those provinces. The Chamber of Wetzlar has restored the Bishop of Liege, unjustly dispossessed by the rebellion of his subjects. The Ring of Prussia was bound by no treaty nor alliance of blood, nor had any particular reasons for thinking the Emperor's government would be more mischievous or more oppressive to human nature than that of the Turk; yet on mere motives of policy that prince has interposed with the threat of all his force to snatch even the Turk from the pounces of the imperial eagle. If this is done in favour of a barbarous nation with a barbarous neglect of police fatal to the human race ; in favour of a nation by prin- ciple in eternal enmity with the Christian name: a nation which will not so much as give the Salutation of peace (Salam) to any of us, nor make any pact with any Christian nation beyond a truce;—if this be done in favour of the Turk, shall it be thought either impolitic, or unjust, or uncharitable to employ the same power to rescue from cap- tivity a virtuous monarch (by the courtesy of Europe con- sidered as Most Christian) who, after an intermission of 175 years, had called together the states of his kingdom to reform abuses, to establish a free government, and to strengthen his throne; a monarch who at the very outset, without force, even without solicitation, had given to his people such a Magna Charta of privileges as never was given by any king to any subjects?—Is it to be tamely borne by kings who love their subjects, or by subjects who love their kings, that this monarch, in the midst of these gracious acts, was insolently and cruelly torn from his palace 1 “In the light (the public view) of Asia.”—Cicero to his brother Quinctus, Ep. 1. - 352 [A.D. 1791. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. by a gang of traitors and assassins, and kept in close prison to this very hour, whilst his royal name and sacred character were used for the total ruin of those whom the laws had appointed him to protect P The only offence of this unhappy monarch towards his people was his attempt under a monarchy to give them a free consti- tution. For this, by an example hitherto unheard of in the world, he has been deposed. It might well disgrace Sovereigns to take part with a deposed tyrant. It would suppose in them a vicious sympathy. But not to make a common cause with a just prince, dethroned by traitors and rebels, who proscribe, plunder, confiscate, and in every way cruelly oppress their fellow-citizens, in my opinion is to forget what is due to the honour and to the rights of all virtuous and legal govern- ment. I think the King of France to be as much an object both of policy and compassion as the Grand Seignor or his States. I do not conceive that the total annihilation of France (if that could be effected) is a desirable thing to Europe or even to this its rival nation. Provident patriots did not think it good for Rome that even Carthage should be quite destroyed; and he was a wise Greek, wise for the general Grecian interests, as well as a brave Lacedemonian enemy and generous conqueror, who did not wish, by the destruction of Athens, to pluck out the other eye of Greece. However, sir, what I have here said of the interference of foreign princes is only the opinion of a private individual, who is neither the representative of any state nor the organ of any party, but who thinks himself bound to express his own sentiments with freedom and energy in a crisis of such importance to the whole human race.” I am not apprehensive that in speaking freely on the sub- ject of the King and Queen of France I shall accelerate (as you fear) the execution of traitorous designs against them. You are of opinion, sir, that the usurpers may, and that they will, gladly lay hold of any pretext to throw off the very name of a king ;-assuredly I do not wish ill to your king;-but better for him not to live (he does not reign) than to live the passive instrument of tyranny and usurpa- tion. I certainly meant to show, to the best of my power, that the existence of such an executive officer in such a system of republic as theirs, is absurd in the highest degree. But in demonstrating this, to them, at least, I can have made no discovery. They only held out the royal name to catch those Frenchmen to whom the name of king is still venerable. They calculate the duration of that sentiment; and when they find it nearly expiring, they will not trouble themselves with excuses for extinguishing the name, as they have the thing. They used it as a sort of navel-string to nourish their unnatural offspring from the bowels of royalty itself. Now that the monster can purvey for its own subsis- tence, it will only carry the mark about it as a token of its having torn the womb it came from. Tyrants seldom want pretexts. Fraud is the ready minister of injustice; and whilst the currency of false pretence and sophistic reasoning was expedient to their designs, they were under 1 When this policy of interference was begun by the coalition of Great Britain with Austria and Prussia against France, which led to the war against the Revolution that lasted from the 1st of February, 1793, to the Peace of Amiens, March 27th, 1802, Wordsworth’s feeling was very opposite to Burke's: “What then were my emotions, when in arms Britain put forth her free-born strength in league, Oh, pity and shame! with those confederate powers! Not in my single self alone I found, But in the minds of all ingenuous youth, Change and subversion from that hour.” Prelude, Book x. no necessity of drawing upon me to furnish them with that coin. But pretexts and sophisms have had their day, and have done their work. The usurpation no longer seeks plausibility. It trusts to power. Nothing that I can say, or that you can say, will hasten them by a single hour in the execution of a design which they have long since entertained. In spite of their solemn declarations, their soothing addresses, and the multiplied oaths which they have taken, and forced others to take, they will assassinate the king when his name will no longer be necessary to their designs; but not a moment sooner. They will probably first assassinate the queen whenever the re- newed menace of such an assassination loses its effect upon the anxious mind of an affectionate husband. At present, the advantage which they derive from the daily threats against her life, is her only security for preserving it. They keep their sovereign alive for the purpose of exhibiting him, like some wild beast at a fair; as if they had a Bajazet in a cage. They choose to make monarchy contemptible by exposing it to derision in the person of the most benevolent of their kings. In my opinion, their insolence appears more odious even than their crimes. The horrors of the 5th and 6th of October” were less detestable than the festival of the 14th of July. There are situations (God forbid I should think that of the 5th and 6th of October one of them) in which the best men may be confounded with the worst; and in the darkness and confusion, in the press and medley of such extremities, it may not be so easy to discriminate the one from the other. The necessities created, even by ill designs, have their excuse. They may be forgotten by others when the guilty themselves do not choose to cherish their recollection, and by ruminating their offences, nourish themselves through the example of their past to the perpetration of future crimes. It is in the relaxation of security, it is in the expansion of prosperity, it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its soften- ing into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned. If there is any good in them, it appears then or never. Even wolves and tigers, when gorged with their prey, are safe and gentle. It is at such times that noble minds give all the reins to their good-nature. They indulge their genius even to intemperance, in kindness to the afflicted, in generosity to the conquered; forbearing insults, forgiving injuries, overpaying benefits. Full of dignity themselves, they respect dignity in all, but they feel it sacred in the unhappy. But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, Sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious splendour, and shine out in the full lustre of their native villainy and baseness. It is in that season that no man of sense or honour can be mistaken for one of them. It was in such a season—for them of political ease and security, though their people were but just emerged from actual famine, and were ready to be plunged into a gulf of penury and beggary—that your philosophic lords chose, with an ostentatious pomp and luxury, to feast an incredible number of idle and thoughtless people, collected with art and pains from all quarters of the world. They constructed a 2 On the 5th of October, 1789, an insurrectionary cry for bread at the Hôtel de Ville was followed by the leading of the people to Versailles. The mob passed the night in the courts of the palace, and next day conveyed the royal family in wild triumph to Paris. The festival of the 14th of July was the Fête of the Federation on the anni- versary of the fall of the Bastile, when the National Guard mustered in the Champ de Mars, and the king swore fidelity to the Constitution, a day, as it seemed to young Wordsworth, who then first visited France as a young man of twenty—a day “ of solemn spousals in the sight of Heaven.” -- A.D. 1791.] 353 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. vast amphitheatre in which they raised a species of pillory. On this pillory they set their lawful king and queen, with an insulting figure over their heads. There they exposed these objects of pity and respect to all good minds, to the derision of an unthinking and unprincipled multitude, degenerated even from the versatile tenderness which marks the irregular and capricious feelings of the populace. That their cruel insult might have nothing wanting to complete it, they chose the anniversary of that day in which they exposed the life of their prince to the most imminent dangers, and the vilest indignities, just following the instant when the assassins, whom they had hired without owning, first openly took up arms against their king, corrupted his guards, surprised his castle, butchered some of the poor invalids of his garrison, murdered his governor, and, like wild beasts, tore to pieces the chief magistrate of his capital city, on account of his fidelity to his service. Till the justice of the world is awakened, such as these will go on, without admonition and without provocation, to every extremity. Those who have made the exhibition of the 14th of July, are capable of every evil. They do not commit crimes for their designs, but they form designs that they may commit crimes. It is not their necessity but their nature that impels them. They are modern philosophers, which when you say of them, you express everything that is ignoble, Savage, and hard-hearted. Besides the sure tokens which are given by the spirit of their particular arrangements, there are some characteristic lineaments in the general policy of your tumultuous despotism, which, in my opinion, indicate beyond a doubt that no revolution whatsoever in their disposition is to be expected. I mean their scheme of educating the rising generation, the principles which they intend to instil, and the sympathies which they wish to form in the mind, at the season in which it is the most susceptible. Instead of forming their young minds to that docility, to that modesty, which are the grace and charm of youth, to an admiration of famous examples, and to an averseness to anything which approaches to pride, petulance, and self-conceit (distempers to which that time of life is of itself sufficiently liable), they artificially foment these evil dispositions, and even form them into springs of action. Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age. Uncertain, indeed, is the efficacy; limited, indeed, is the extent of a virtuous institution. But if education takes in vice as any part of its system, there is no doubt but that it will operate with abundant energy, and to an extent indefinite. The magis- trate, who in favour of freedom thinks himself obliged to suffer all sorts of publications, is under a stricter duty than any other, well to consider what sort of writers he shall authorise; and shall recommend by the strongest of all sanctions—that is, by public honours and rewards. He ought to be cautious how he recommends authors of mixed or ambiguous morality. He ought to be fearful of putting into the hands of youth writers indulgent to the peculiarities of their own complexion, lest they should teach the humours of the professor rather than the principles of the science. He ought, above all, to be cautious in recommending any writer who has carried marks of a deranged understanding; for where there is no sound reason, there can be no real virtue; and madness is ever vicious and malignant. The National Assembly proceeds on maxims the very reverse of these. The Assembly recommends to its youth a . study of the bold experimenters in morality. Everybody knows that there is a great dispute amongst their leaders, which of them is the best resemblance to Rousseau. In truth, they all resemble him. His blood they transfuse into their minds and into their manners. Him they study; him they meditate; him they turn over in all the time they can spare from the laborious mischief of the day or the debauches of the night. Rousseau is their canon of holy writ ; in his life he is their canon of Polycletus ; he is their standard figure of perfection. To this man and this writer, as a pattern to authors and to Frenchmen, the foundries of Paris are now running for statues, with the kettles of their poor and the bells of their churches. If an author had written like a great genius on geometry, though his practical and speculative morals were vicious in the extreme, it might appear that in voting the statue, they honoured only the geometrician. But Rousseau is a moralist or he is nothing. It is impossible, therefore, putting the circumstances to- gether, to mistake their desire in choosing the author, with whom they have begun to recommend a course of studies. Their great problem is to find a substitute for all the principles which hitherto have been employed to regulate the human will and action. They find dispositions in the mind of such force and quality as may fit men, far better than the old morality, for the purposes of such a state as theirs, and may go much further in supporting their power and destroying their enemies. They have, therefore, chosen a selfish, flattering, seductive, ostentatious vice in the place of plain duty. True humility, the basis of the Christian system, is the low, but deep and firm, foundation of all real virtue, But this, as very painful in the practice and little im- posing in the appearance, they have totally discarded. Their objeet is to merge all natural and all social sentiment in inordinate vanity. In a small degree, and conversant in little things, vanity is of little moment. When full grown it is the worst of vices, and the occasional mimic of them all. It makes the whole man false. It leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy about him. His best qualities are poisoned and perverted by it, and operate exactly as the worst. When your lords had many writers as immoral as the object of their statue (such as Voltaire and others), they chose Rousseau ; because in him that peculiar vice which they wished to erect into a ruling virtue, was by far the most con- spicuous. We have had the great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good opportunities of knowing his proceedings almost from day to day, he left no doubt in my mind that he entertained no principle either to influence his heart, or to guide his understanding, but vanity. With this vice he was possessed to a degree little short of madness. It is from the same deranged eccentric vanity, that this, the insane Socrates of the National Assembly, was impelled to publish a mad confession" of his mad faults, and to attempt a new sort of glory, from bring- ing hardily to light the obscure and vulgar vices which we know may sometimes be blended with eminent talents. He has not observed on the nature of vanity, who does not know that it is omnivorous; that it has no choice in its food; that it is fond to talk even of its own faults and vices, as what will excite surprise and draw attention, and what will pass at worst for openness and candour. It was this abuse and per- version which vanity makes even of hypocrisy which has driven Rousseau to record a life not so much as chequered, or spotted here and there with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action. It is such a life he chooses to offer to 1 Rousseau wrote the first part of his “ Confessions ° in 1766, the rest in 1767 and 1768, when his mind was greatly disturbed. He meant, he said, “to show a man in all the truth of nature.” 221 354 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF [A.D. 1791. ENGLISH LITERATURE. the attention of mankind. It is such a life that with a wild defiance he flings in the face of his Creator, whom he ac- knowledges only to brave. Your Assembly, knowing how much more powerful example is found than precept, has chosen this man (by his own account without a single virtue) for a model. To him they erect their first statue. From him they commence their series of honours and distinctions. It is that new-invented virtue which your masters canonize that led their moral hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevo- lence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up for an unsocial indepen- dence, this their hero of vanity refuses the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which opulence owes to genius, and which, when paid, honours the giver and the receiver; and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch him by the remotest relation, and then, without one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of Offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hos- pital of foundlings.” The bear loves, licks, and forms her young, but bears are not philosophers. Vanity, however, finds its account in reversing the train of our natural feelings. Thousands admire the sentimental writer; the affectionate father is hardly known in his parish. Under this philosophic instructor in the ethics of vanity they have attempted in France a regeneration of the moral constitution of man. Statesmen, like your present rulers, exist by everything which is spurious, fictitious, and false; by everything which takes the man from his house and sets him on a stage, which makes him up an artificial creature, with painted theatric sentiments, fit to be seen by the glare of candle-light, and formed to be contemplated at a due dis- tance. Vanity is too apt to prevail in all of us and in all countries. To the improvement of Frenchmen it seems not absolutely necessary that it should be taught upon system. But it is plain that the present rebellion was its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by that rebellion with a daily dole. - If the system of institution, recommended by the Assembly, is false and theatric, it is because their system of government is of the same character. To that, and to that alone, it is strictly conformable. To understand either we must connect the morals with the politics of the legis- lators. Your practical philosophers, systematic in every- thing, have wisely began at the source. As the relation between parents and children is the first among the elements of vulgar, natural morality, they erect statues to a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-hearted father, of fine general feelings; a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred. Your masters reject the duties of this vulgar relation as contrary to liberty; as not founded in the social compact; and not binding according to the rights of men; because the relation is not, of course, the result of free election ; never so on the side of the children, not always on the part of the parents. The next relation which they regenerate by their statues to Rousseau, is that which is next in sanctity to that of a father. They differ from those old-fashioned thinkers, who * Rousseau, who wrote that nothing could free a father from the duty of being himself the teacher of his children, sent his own children, as they were born, to the Foundling Hospital, because he shuddered to think what monsters their mother's family would make of them. considered pedagogues as sober and venerable characters, and allied to the parental. The moralists of the dark times, preceptorem sancti volucre parentis esse loco.” In this age of light they teach the people that preceptors ought to be in the place of gallants. They systematically corrupt a very corruptible race (for some time a growing nuisance amongst you), a set of pert, petulant literators, to whom, instead of their proper but severe unostentatious duties, they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of gay, young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets. They call on the rising generation in France to take a sympathy in the adven- tures and fortunes, and they endeavour to engage their sensibility on the side of pedagogues, who betray the most awful family trusts, and vitiate their female pupils. They teach the people that the debauchers of virgins, almost in the arms of their parents, may be safe inmates in their house, and even fit guardians of the honour of those husbands who succeed legally to the office which the young literators had pre-occupied, without asking leave of law or conscience. Thus they dispose of all the family relations of parents and children, husbands and wives. Through this same instructor, by whom they corrupt the morals, they corrupt the taste. Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure ; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. Your masters, who are his Scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our natural appetites, and in raising them into higher class and order than seemed justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau your masters are resolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices. The passion called love has so general and powerful an influence, it makes so much of the entertainment, and indeed so much the occupation, of that part of life which decides the character for ever, that the mode and the principles on which it engages the sympathy, and strikes the imagination, become of the utmost importance to the morals and manners of every society. Your rulers were well aware of this, and in their system of changing your manners to accommodate them to their politics they found nothing so convenient as Rousseau. Through him they teach men to love after the fashion of philosophers; that is, they teach to men, to Frenchmen, a love without gallantry—a love without any- thing of that fine flower of youthfulness and gentility which places it, if not among the virtues, among the orna- ments of life. Instead of this passion, naturally allied to grace and manners, they infuse into their youth an un- fashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness, of metaphysical speculations blended with the coarsest sensuality. Such is the general morality of the passions to be found in their famous philosopher, in his famous work of philosophic gallantry, the Nouvelle Eloise. When the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is broken down, and your families are no longer protected by decent pride and salutary domestic prejudice, there is but one step to a frightful corruption. The rulers in the National As- sembly are in good hopes that the females of the first families in France may become an easy prey to dancing-masters, fiddlers, pattern-drawers, friseurs, and valets de chambre, * “Wished the teacher to be in the place of the sacred parent.”— Juvenal, vii., 209. A.D. 1791.] 355 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. and other active citizens of that description, who, having the entry into your houses, and being half-domesticated by their situation, may be blended with you by regular and irregular relations. By a law they have made these people your equals. By adopting the sentiments of Rousseau they have made them your rivals. In this manner these great legislators complete their plan of levelling, and establish their rights of men on a sure foundation. I am certain that the writings of Rousseau lead directly to this kind of shameful evil. I have often wondered how he comes to be so much more admired and followed on the con- tinent than he is here. Perhaps a secret charm in the language may have its share in this extraordinary difference. We certainly perceive, and to a degree we feel, in this writer, a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic, at the same time that we find it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composi- tion; all the members of the piece being pretty equally laboured and expanded, without any due selection or subor- dination of parts. He is generally too much on the stretch, and his manner has little variety. We cannot rest upon any of his works, though they contain observations which occa- isionally discover a considerable insight into human nature. But his doctrines, on the whole, are so inapplicable to real life and manners, that we never dream of drawing from them any rule for laws or conduct, or for fortifying or illustrating anything by a reference to his opinions. They have with us the fate of older paradoxes, Cum ventum ad verwm est sensus moresque repugnant, Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et acqui." Perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable, because more new to you than to us, who have been long since satiated with them. We continue, as in the two last ages, to read more generally, than I believe is now done on the continent, the authors of sound antiquity. These occupy our minds. They give us another taste and turn, and will not suffer us to be more than transiently amused with para- doxical morality. It is not that I consider this writer as wholly destitute of just notions. Amongst his irregularities it must be reckoned that he is sometimes moral, and moral in a very sublime strain. But the general spirit and tendency of his works is mischievous, and the more mischievous for this mixture: For perfect depravity of sentiment is not recon- cilable with eloquence; and the mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious) would reject and throw off with disgust a lesson of pure and unmixed evil. These writels make even virtue a pander to vice. - However, I less consider the author than the system of the Assembly in perverting morality through his means. This I confess makes me despair of any attempt upon the minds of their followers through reason, honour, or conscience. The great object of your tyrants is to destroy the gentlemen of Erance; and for that purpose they destroy, to the best of their power, all the effect of those relations which may render considerable men powerful or even safe. To destroy that order, they vitiate the whole community. That no means may exist of confederating against their tyranny, by the false sympathies of this Nouvelle Eloise, they en- deavour to subvert those principles of domestic trust and fidelity which form the discipline of social life. They pro- pagate principles by which every servant may think it, if not his duty, at least his privilege, to betray his master. By these principles every considerable father of a family loses 1 Horace, Sat. I., iii., 97, 98. In Creech’s translation:— “When leaving Sophistry, they come to th’ Test, This Fancy doth with Law and Custom fight And Interest too, that spring of Just and Right.” the sanctuary of his house. Debet sua cuique domus esse . perfugium tutissimum,” says the law, which your legislators have taken so much pains first to decry, then to repeal. They destroy all the tranquillity and security of domestic life, turning the asylum of the house into a gloomy prison, where the father of the family must drag out a miserable existence, endangered in proportion to the apparent means of his safety; where he is worse than solitary in a crowd of domestics, and more apprehensive from his servants and in- mates than from the hired bloodthirsty mob without doors, who are ready to pull him to the lantern.” It is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavour to destroy that tribunal of conscience which exists indepen- dently of edicts and decrees. Your despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else, and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage. Their object is that their fellow-citizens may be under the dominion of no awe but that of their committee of research and of their lantern. Having found the advantage of assassination in the formation of their tyranny, it is the grand resource in which they trust for the support of it. Whoever opposes any of their proceedings, or is suspected of a design to oppose them, is to answer it with his life or the lives of his wife and children. This infamous, cruel, and cowardly practice of assassination they have the impu- dence to call merciful. They boast that they have operated their usurpation rather by terror than by force, and that a few seasonable murders have prevented the bloodshed of many battles. There is no doubt they will extend these acts of mercy whenever they see an occasion. Dreadful, however, will be the consequences of their attempt to avoid the evils of war by the merciful policy of murder. If by effectual punishment of the guilty they do not wholly disavow that practice, and the threat of it, too, as any part of their policy; if ever a foreign prince enters into France, he must enter it as into a country of assassins. The mode of civilised war will not be practised; nor are the French who act on the present system entitled to expect it. They whose known policy it is to assassinate every citizen whom they suspect to be discontented by their tyranny, and to corrupt the soldiery of every open enemy, must look for no modified hostility. All war which is not battle, will be military execution. This will beget acts of retaliation from you; and every retaliation will beget a new revenge. The hell-hounds of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled and unmuzzled. The new school of murder and barbarism, set up in Paris, having destroyed (so far as in it lies) all the other manners and principles which have hitherto civilised Europe, will destroy also the mode of civilised war, which, more than anything else, has distinguished the Christian world. Such is the approaching golden age which the Virgil of your Assembly has sung to his Pollios! In such a situation of your political, your civil, and your social morals and manners, how can you be hurt by the freedom of any discussion ? Caution is for those who have something to lose. What I have said to justify myself in not apprehending any ill consequence from a free discussion of the absurd consequences which flow from the relation of the lawful King to the usurped constitution, will apply to my vindication with regard to the exposure I have made of the 2 “His own house ought to be to every man the safest shelter.” 3 The lantern. In the street executions by the mob the cry was d la lanterne. Where lamps were hung they could hang men. * 356 [A.D. 1791. CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. state of the army under the same sophistic usurpation. The present tyrants want no arguments to prove, what they must daily feel, that no good army can exist on their principles. They are in no want of a monitor to suggest to them the policy of getting rid of the army, as well as of the King, whenever they are in a condition to effect that measure. What hopes may be entertained of your army for the restora- tion of your liberties, I know not. At present, yielding obedience to the pretended orders of a king, who, they are perfectly apprised, has no will, and who never can issue a mandate which is not intended in the first operation, or in its certain consequences, for his own destruction, your army seems to make one of the principal links in the chain of that servitude of anarchy by which a cruel usurpation holds an undone people at once in bondage and confusion. You ask me what I think of the conduct of General Monk. How this affects your case I cannot tell. I doubt whether you possess in France any persons of a capacity to serve the French monarchy in the same manner in which Monk served the monarchy of England. The army which Monk com- manded had been formed by Cromwell to a perfection of dis- cipline which perhaps has never been exceeded. That army was besides of an excellent composition. The soldiers were men of an extraordinary piety after their mode, of the greatest regularity, and even severity of manners; brave in the field, but modest, quiet, and orderly in their quarters; men who abhorred the idea of assassinating their officers or any other persons, and who (they at least who served in this island) were firmly attached to those generals, by whom they were well treated and ably com- manded. Such an army, once gained, might be depended on. I doubt much if you could now find a Monk, whether a Monk could find in France such an army. I certainly agree with you, that in all probability we owe our whole constitution to the restoration of the English monarchy. The state of things from which Monk relieved England was however by no means at that time so de- plorable in any sense as yours is now, and under the present sway is likely to continue. Cromwell had de- livered England from anarchy. His government, though military and despotic, had been regular and orderly. TJnder the iron and under the yoke the soil yielded its produce. After his death the evils of anarchy were rather dreaded than felt. Every man was yet safe in his house and in his property. But it must be admitted that Monk freed this nation from great and just apprehensions both of future anarchy and of probable tyranny in some form or other. The king whom he gave us was indeed the very reverse of your benignant sovereign, who in reward for his attempt to bestow liberty on his subjects, languishes himself in prison. The person given to us by Monk was a man without any sense of his duty as a prince ; without any regard to the dignity of his crown; without any love to his people; dissolute, false, venal, and destitute of any positive good quality whatsoever, except a pleasant temper and the manners of a gentleman. Yet the restoration of our monarchy, even in the person of such a prince, was everything to us; for without monarchy in England, most certainly we never can enjoy either peace or liberty. It was under this conviction that the very first regular step which we took on the Revolution of 1688 was to fill the throne with a real king; and even before it could be done in due form, the chiefs of the nation did not attempt themselves to exercise authority so much as by interim. They instantly requested the Prince of Orange to take the government on himself. The throne was not effectively vacant for an hour. Your fundamental laws, as well as ours, suppose a mon- archy. Your zeal, sir, in standing so firmly for it as you have done, shows, not only a sacred respect for your honour and fidelity, but a well-informed attachment to the real welfare and true liberties of your country. I have expressed myself ill if I have given you cause to imagine that I prefer the conduct of those who have retired from this warfare to your behaviour, who, with a courage and constancy almost supernatural, have struggled against tyranny, and kept the field to the last. You see I have corrected the exceptionable part in the edition which I now send you. Indeed, in such terrible extremities as yours, it is not easy to say, in a political view, what line of conduct is the most advisable. In that state of things I cannot bring myself severely to condemn persons who are wholly unable to bear so much as the sight of those men in the throne of legislation who are only fit to be the objects of criminal justice. If fatigue, if disgust, if unsurmountable nausea drive them away with such spectacles, ubi miseriarum pars non mimima erat, videre et aspici,” I cannot blame them. He must have an heart of adamant who could hear a set of traitors puffed up with un- expected and undeserved power, obtained by an ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious rebellion, treating their honest fellow-citizens as rebels, because they refused to bind them- selves through their conscience against the dictates of con- science itself, and had declined to swear an active compliance with their own ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood endure that those who but the other day had skulked unobserved in their antichambers, scornfully insult- ing men illustrious in their rank, sacred in their function, and venerable in their character, now in decline of life, and swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes, that those mis- creants should tell such men scornfully and outrageously, after they had robbed them of all their property, that it is more than enough if they are allowed what will keep them from absolute famine, and that for the rest they must let their grey hairs fall over the plough to make out a scanty subsistence with the labour of their hands ! Last, and worst, who could endure to hear this unnatural, insolent, and savage des- potism called liberty P If, at this distance, sitting quietly by my fire, I cannot read their decrees and speeches without indignation, shall I condemn those who have fled from the actual sight and hearing of all these horrors ? No, no mankind has no title to demand that we should be slaves to their guilt and insolence; or that we should serve them in spite of themselves. Minds, sore with the poignant sense of insulted virtue, filled with high disdain against the pride of triumphant baseness, often have it not in their choice to stand their ground. Their complexion (which might defy the rack) cannot go through such a trial. Something very high must fortify men to that proof. But, when I am driven to com- parison, surely I cannot hesitate for a moment to prefer to such men as are common, those heroes who, in the midst of despair, perform all the tasks of hope; who subdue their feelings to their duties; who, in the cause of humanity liberty, and honour, abandon all the satisfactions of life, and every day incur a fresh risk of life itself. Do me the justice to believe that I never can prefer any fastidious virtue (virtue still) to the unconquered perseverance, to the affectionate patience of those who watch day and night by the bedside of their delirious country; who, for their love to that dear and venerable name, bear all the disgusts and all the buffets they receive from their frantic mother. Sir, I do look on you as true martyrs; I regard you as soldiers who act far more in 1 “Where it was not the least part of the miseries to see and to be seen.”—Tacitus (of life under Domitian), Agric. 45. A.D. 1791.] 357 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. the spirit of our Commander-in-chief, and the Captain of our salvation, than those who have left you, though I must first bolt myself very thoroughly, and know that I could do better before I can censure them. I assure you, sir, that when I con- sider your unconquerable fidelity to your sovereign and to your country, the courage, fortitude, magnanimity, and long- suffering of yourself, and the Abbé Maury, and of Mr. Cazales, and of many worthy persons of all orders, in your Assembly, I forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, that on your side has been displayed an eloquence so rational, manly, and convincing, that no time or country, perhaps, has ever excelled. But your talents disappear in my admiration of your virtues. As to Mr. Mounier and Mr. Lally, I have always wished to do justice to their parts, and their eloquence, and the general purity of their motives. Indeed I saw very well from the beginning the mischiefs which, with all these talents and good intentions, they would do to their country through their confidence in systems. But their distemper was an epidemic malady. They were young and inexperienced, and when will young and inexperienced men learn caution and distrust of themselves 2 And when will men, young or old, if suddenly raised to far higher power than that which absolute kings and emperors commonly enjoy, learn anything like moderation ? Monarchs in general respect some settled order of things, which they find it difficult to remove from its basis, and to which they are obliged to conform even when there are no positive limitations to their power. These gentlemen conceived that they were chosen to new model the State, and even the whole order of civil society itself. No wonder that they entertained dangerous visions when the King's Ministers, trustees for the sacred deposit of the monarchy, were so infected with the contagion of project and system (I can hardly think it black, premeditated treachery) that they publicly advertised for plans and schemes of government, as if they were to provide for the re-building of an hos- pital that had been burned down. What was this but to unchain the fury of rash speculation amongst a people of itself but too apt to be guided by a heated imagination spirit of adventure ? The fault of Mr. Mounier and Mr. Lally was very great, but it was very general. If those gentlemen stopped when they came to the brink of the gulf of guilt and public misery, that yawned before them in the abyss of these dark and bottomless speculations, I forgive their first error; in that they were involved with many. Their repentance was their own. They who consider Mounier and Lally as deserters must regard themselves as murderers and as traitors: for from what else than murder and treason did they desert? For my part, I honour them for not having carried mistake into crime. If, indeed, I thought that they were not cured by experience, that they were not made sensible that those who would reform a State ought to assume some actual con- stitution of government which is to be reformed ; if they are not at length satisfied that it is become a necessary preliminary to liberty in France, to commence by the re-establishment of order and property of every kind, through the re-establish- ment of their monarchy, of every one of the old habitual dis- tinctions and classes of the State; if they do not see that these classes are not to be confounded in order to be after- wards revived and separated ; if they are not convinced that the scheme of parochial and club governments takes up the State at the wrong end, and is a low and senseless contrivance (as making the sole constitution of a supreme power), I should then allow that their early rashness ought to be remembered to the last moment of their lives. You gently reprehend me, because in holding out the picture of your disastrous situation, I suggest no plan for a remedy. Alas! sir, the proposition of plans without an attention to circumstances, is the very cause of all your mis- fortunes; and never shall you find me aggravating by the infusion of any speculations of mine, the evils which have arisen from the speculations of others. Your malady, in this respect, is a disorder of repletion. You seem to think that my keeping back my poor ideas may arise from an indiffer- ence to the welfare of a sovereign, and sometimes a hostile nation. No, sir, I faithfully assure you, my reserve is owing to no such causes. Is this letter, swelled to a second book, a mark of national antipathy, or even of natural indifference? I should act altogether in the spirit of the same caution in a similar state of our own domestic affairs. If I were to ven- ture any advice in any case, it would be my best. The sacred duty of an adviser (one of the most inviolable that exists) would lead me towards a real enemy to act as if my best friend were the party concerned. But I dare not risk a speculation with no better view of your affairs than at present I can command; my caution is not from disregard, but from solicitude for your welfare. It is suggested solely from my dread of becoming the author of inconsiderate counsel. It is not, that as this strange series of actions has passed before my eyes, I have not indulged my mind in a great variety of political speculations concerning them. But com- pelled by no such positive duty as does not permit me to evade an opinion; called upon by no ruling power, without authority, as I am, and without confidence, I should ill answer my own ideas of what would become myself, or what would be serviceable to others, if I were, as a volun- teer, to obtrude any project of mine upon a nation to whose circumstances I could not be sure it might be applicable. Permit me to say, that if I were as confident as I ought to be diffident in my own loose, general ideas, I never should venture to broach them, if but at twenty leagues distance from the centre of your affairs. I must see with my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with my own hands, not only the fixed, but the momentary circumstances, before I could venture to suggest any political project whatsoever. I must know the power and disposition to accept, to execute, to per- severe. I must see all the aids and all the obstacles I must see the means of correcting the plan where correctives would be wanted. I must see the things; I must see the men. Without a concurrence and adaptation of these to the design, the very best speculative projects might become not only useless but mischievous. Plans must be made for men. We cannot think of making men and binding nature to our designs. People at a distance must judge ill of men. They do not always answer to their reputation when you approach them. Nay, the perspective varies, and shows them quite otherwise than you thought them. At a distance, if we judge uncertainly of men, we must judge worse of oppor- tunities, which continually vary their shapes and colours and pass away like clouds. The Eastern politicians never do anything without the opinion of the astrologers on the fortunate moment. They are in the right, if they can do no better; for the opinion of fortune is something towards commanding it. Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look for the fortunate moment too, but they seek it, not in the conjunctions and oppositions of planets, but in the conjunctions and oppositions of men and things. These form their almanack. To illustrate the mischief of a wise plan without any attention to means and circumstances, it is not necessary to go farther than to your recent history. In the condition in 358 [A.D. 1791. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. which France was found three years ago what better system could be proposed, what less even savouring of wild theory, what fitter to provide for all the exigencies whilst it re- formed all the abuses of government, than the convention of the States General? I think nothing better could be imagined. But I have censured, and do still presume to censure your Parliament of Paris for not having suggested to the King that this proper measure was of all measures the most critical and arduous; one in which the utmost circumspection and the greatest number of precautions were the most absolutely necessary. The very confession that a government wants either amendment in its conformation, or relief to great distress, causes it to lose half its reputation, and as great a proportion of its strength as depends upon that reputation. It was therefore necessary first to put Government out of danger, whilst at its own desire it suffered such an operation as a general reform at the hands of those who were much more filled with a sense of the disease than provided with rational means of a cure. It may be said that this care and these precautions were more naturally the duty of the King's Ministers than that of the Parliament. They were so; but every man must answer in his estimation for the advice he gives when he puts the conduct of his measure into hands who he does not know will execute his plans according to his ideas. Three or four Ministers were not to be trusted with the being of the French monarchy, of all the orders, and of all the dis- tinctions, and all the property of the kingdom. What must be the prudence of those who could think, in the then known temper of the people of Paris, of assembling the states at a place situated as Versailles P The Parliament of Paris did worse than to inspire this blind confidence into the King. For, as if names were things, they took no notice of (indeed, they rather counte- nanced) the deviations which were manifest in the execution, from the true ancient principles of the plan which they recommended. These deviations (as guardians of the ancient laws, usages, and constitution of the kingdom) the Parliament of Paris ought not to have suffered without the strongest remonstrances to the throne. It ought to have sounded the alarm to the whole nation, as it had often done on things of infinitely less importance. Under pretence of resuscitating the ancient constitution, the Parliament saw one of the strongest acts of innovation, and the most leading in its con- sequences, carried into effect before their eyes; and an inno- vation through the medium of despotism — that is, they suffered the King's Ministers to new model the whole repre- sentation of the Tiers Etat, and, in a great measure, that of the clergy too, and to destroy the ancient proportions of the orders. These changes unquestionably the king had no right to make ; and here the Parliaments failed in their duty, and, along with their country, have perished by this failure. What a number of faults have led to this multitude of misfortunes, and almost all from this one source, that of con- sidering certain general maxims without attending to circum- stances, to times, to places, to conjunctures, and to actors . If we do not attend scrupulously to all these, the medicine of to-day becomes the poison of to-morrow. If any measure was in the abstract better than another, it was to call the states—ea visa Salus morientibus una." Certainly it had the appearance. But see the consequences of not attending to critical moments, of not regarding the symptoms which dis- criminate diseases, and which distinguish constitutions, com- plexions, and humours. - - - * “That seemed the only way of health to the dying.” — Mox fuerat hoc ipsum exitio; furiisque refecti, Ardebant ; ipsique suos, jam morte sub agra, Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus.” Thus the potion which was given to strengthen the constitu- tion, to heal divisions, and to compose the minds of men, became the source of debility, frenzy, discord, and utter dissolution. In this, perhaps, I have answered, I think, another of your questions—Whether the British constitution is adapted to your circumstances? When I praised the British constitu- tion, and wished it to be well studied, I did not mean that its exterior form and positive arrangement should become a model for you, or for any people servilely to copy. I meant to recommend the principles from which it has grown, and the policy on which it has been progressively improved out of elements common to you and to us. I am sure it is no visionary theory of mine. It is not an advice that subjects you to the hazard of any experiment. I believe the ancient principles to be wise in all cases of a large empire that would be free. I thought you possessed our principles in your old forms in as great a perfection as we did originally. If your states agreed (as I think they did) with your circumstances, they were best for you. As you had a constitution formed upon principles similar to ours, my idea was, that you might have improved them as we have done, conforming them to the state and exigencies of the times, and the condition of property in your country, having the conservation of that property, and the substantial basis of your monarchy, as principal objects of all your reforms. I do not advise a House of Lords to you. Your ancient course by representatives of the noblesse (in your circum- stances) appears to me rather a better institution. I know that with you a set of men of rank have betrayed their con- stituents, their honour, their trust, their King, and their country, and levelled themselves with their footmen, that through this degradation they might afterwards put them- selves above their natural equals. Some of these persons have entertained a project that in reward of this their black perfidy and corruption, they may be chosen to give rise to a new order and to establish themselves into a House of Lords. Do you think that, under the name of a British constitution, I mean to recommend to you such lords made of such kind of stuff? I do not, however, include in this description all of those who are fond of this scheme. If you were now to form such a House of Peers, it would bear, in my opinion, but little resemblance to ours in its origin, character, or the purposes which it might answer, at the same time that it would destroy your true natural nobility. But if you are not in a condition to frame a House of Lords, still less are you capable, in my opinion, of framing anything which virtually and substantially could be answer- able (for the purposes of a stable, regular government) to our House of Commons. That House is within itself a much more subtle and artificial combination of parts and powers than people are generally aware of. What knits it to the other members of the constitution, what fits it to be at once the great support and the great control of government, what makes it of such admirable service to that monarchy which, * From a description in Virgil's third Georgic of a time of pestilence and of the effect of a draught of wine given as remedy to a plague- smitten horse:— “Which timely taken op’d his closing jaws; But if too late, the patient’s death did cause, For the too vigorous dose too fiercely wrought, And added fury to the strength it brought; Recruited into rage, he grinds his teeth In his own flesh, and feeds approaching death.” Dryden’s Translation. A.D. 1791.] 359 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. if it limits, it secures and strengthens, would require a long discourse belonging to the leisure of a contemplative man, not to one whose duty it is to join in communicating practi- cally to the people the blessings of such a constitution. Your Tiers Etat was not in effect and substance a House of Commons. You stood in absolute need of something else to supply the manifest defects in such a body as your Tiers Etat. On a sober and dispassionate view of your old constitution, as connected with all the present circumstances, I was fully persuaded that the Crown, standing as things have stood (and are likely to stand if you are to have any monarchy at all), was and is incapable, alone and by itself, of holding a just balance between the two orders, and at the same time of effect- ing the interior and exterior purposes of a protecting govern- ment. I, whose leading principle it is in a reformation of the State to make use of existing materials, am of opinion that the representation of the clergy, as a separate Order, was an insti- tution which touched all the orders more nearly than any of them touched the other ; that it was well fitted to connect them, and to hold a place in any wise monarchical common- wealth. If I refer you to your original constitution, and think it, as I do, substantially a good one, I do not amuse you in this more than in other things with any inventions of mine. A certain intemperance of intellect is the disease of the time, and the source of all its other diseases. I will keep myself as untainted by it as I can. Your architects build without a foundation. I would readily lend a helping hand to any superstructure, when once this is effectually Secured—but first I would say 80s trov sq." You think, sir, and you may think rightly, upon the first view of the theory, that to provide for the exigencies of an empire so situated and so related as that of France, its King ought to be invested with powers very much superior to those which the King of England possesses under the letter of our constitution. Every degree of power necessary to the State, and not destructive to the rational and moral freedom of individuals, to that personal liberty and per- sonal security which contribute so much to the vigour, the prosperity, the happiness, and the dignity of a nation—every degree of power which does not suppose the total absence of all control and all responsibility on the part of Ministers— a King of France, in common sense, ought to possess. But whether the exact measure of authority assigned by the letter of the law to the King of Great Britain can answer to the exterior or interior purposes of the French monarchy, is a point which I cannot venture to judge upon. Here, both in the power given and its limita- tions, we have always cautiously felt our way. The parts of our constitution have gradually and almost insen- sibly, in a long course of time, accommodated themselves to each other, and to their common, as well as to their separate, purposes. But this adaptation of contending parts, as it has not been in ours, so it can never be in yours, or in any country, the effect of a single instan- taneous regulation, and no sound heads could ever think of doing it in that manner. I believe, sir, that many on the continent altogether mistake the condition of a King of Great Britain. He is a real king, and not an executive officer. If he will not trouble himself with contemptible details nor wish to degrade himself by becoming a party in little squabbles, I am far from sure that a King of Great Britain, in whatever concerns him as a king, or, indeed, as a rational man, who combines his public interest with his personal satisfaction, does not possess 1 Reference to the saying of Archimedes, “Give me where I can stand” and I will move the earth. } a more real, solid, extensive power than the King of France was possessed of before this miserable revolution. The direct power of the King of England is considerable. His indirect, and far more certain power, is great indeed. He stands in need of nothing towards dignity, of nothing towards splen- dour, of nothing towards authority, of nothing at all towards consideration abroad. When was it that a King of England wanted wherewithal to make him respected, courted, or per- haps even feared in every State in Europe * I am constantly of opinion that your states, in three orders, on the footing on which they stood in 1614, were capable of being brought into a proper and harmonious com- bination with royal authority. This constitution by Estates was the natural and only just representation of France. It grew out of the habitual conditions, relations, and reciprocal claims of men. It grew out of the circumstances of the country, and out of the state of property. The wretched scheme of your present masters is not to fit the constitution to the people, but wholly to destroy conditions, to dissolve relations, to change the state of the nation, and to subvert poverty, in order to fit their country to their theory of a con- stitution. Until you could make out practically that great work, a combination of opposing forces, “a work of labour long, and endless praise,” the utmost caution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power, which alone was capable of holding together the comparatively heterogeneous mass of your states. But at this day all these considerations are unseasonable. To what end should we discuss the limitations of royal power P Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the measure and standard of liberty P I doubt much, very much indeed, whether France is at all ripe for liberty on any standard. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. This sentence the prevalent part of your countrymen execute on themselves. They possessed not long since what was next to freedom, a mild, paternal monarchy. They despised it for its weakness. They were offered a well- poised free constitution. It did not suit their taste or their temper. They carved for themselves; they flew out, mur- dered, robbed, and rebelled. They have succeeded, and put over their country an insolent tyranny, made up of cruel and inexorable masters, and that too of a description hitherto not known in the world. The powers and policies by which they have succeeded are not those of great statesmen or great military commanders, but the practices of incen- diaries, assassins, housebreakers, robbers, spreaders of false news, forgers of false orders from authority, and other delinquencies of which ordinary justice takes cognisance. Accordingly the spirit of their rule is exactly correspondent to the means by which they obtained it. They act more in the manner of thieves who have got possession of a house than of conquerors who have subdued a nation. Opposed to these in appearance, but in appearance only, is another band who call themselves the moderate. These, if I conceive rightly of their conduct, are a set of men who 360 CASSELL’S ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1791 T,IBRARY OF approve heartily of the whole new constitution, but wish to lay heavy on the most atrocious of those crimes by which this fine constitution of theirs has been obtained. They are a sort of people who affect to proceed as if they thought that men may deceive without fraud, rob without injustice, and overturn everything without violence. They are men who would usurp the government of their country with decency and moderation. In fact they are nothing more or better than men engaged in desperate designs with feeble minds. They are not honest, they are only ineffectual and un- Systematic in their iniquity. They are persons who want not the dispositions, but the energy and vigour that is necessary for great evil machinations. They find that in such designs they fall at best into a secondary rank, and others take the place and lead in usurpation, which they are not qualified to obtain or to hold. They envy to their companions the natural fruit of their crimes; they join to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind, which pursues their common offences, and then hope to mount into their places on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselves disposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievous projects they pursue in common. But these men naturally are despised by those who have heads to know and hearts that are able to go through the necessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. They are naturally classed below the latter description, and will be used by them as inferior instruments. They will be only the Fairfaxes of your Cromwells. If they mean honestly, why do they not strengthen the arms of honest men, to support their ancient, legal, wise, and free government, given to them in the spring of 1788, against the inventions of craft, and the theories of ignorance and folly * If they do not, they must continue the scorn of both parties; sometimes the tool, some- times the incumbrance of that, whose views they approve, whose conduct they decry. These people are only made to be the sports of tyrants. They never can obtain or commu- nicate freedom. You ask me too, whether we have a committee of research. No, sir; God forbid! It is the necessary instrument of tyranny and usurpation ; and, therefore, I do not wonder that it has had an early establishment under your present lords. We do not want it. Excuse my length. I have been somewhat occupied since I was honoured with your letter; and I should not have been able to answer it at all but for the holidays which have given me means of enjoying the leisure of the country. I am called to duties which I am neither able nor willing to evade. I must soon return to my old conflict with the corruptions and oppressions which have prevailed in our eastern dominions. I must turn myself wholly from those of France. In England we cannot work so hard as Frenchmen. Fre- quent relaxation is necessary to us. You are naturally more intense in your application. I did not know this part of your national character, until I went into France in 1773. At present this your disposition to labour is rather increased than lessened. In your Assembly you do not allow yourself a recess even on Sundays. We have two days in the week, besides the festivals; and besides five or six months of the summer and autumn. This continued unremitted effort of the members of your Assembly I take to be one among the causes of the mischief they have done. They who always labour can have no true judgment. You never give yourselves time to cool. You can nover survey from its proper point of sight the work you have finished before you decree its final execution. You can never plan the future by the past. You never go into the country soberly and dispassionately to observe the effect of your measures on their objects. You cannot feel distinctly how far the people are rendered better and improved, or more miserable and depraved, by what you have done. You cannot see with your own eyes the sufferings and afflictions you cause. You know them but at a distance, on the statements of those who always flatter the reigning power, and who, amidst their representations of the grievances, inflame your minds against those who are oppressed. These are amongst the effects of unremitted labour, when men exhaust their attention, burn out their candles, and are left in the dark.-Malo meorum negligentian, quam istorson obscuram diligentiam." I have the honour, &c., (Signed) Beaconsfield, January 19th, 1791. EDMUND BURKE. Let fears of men be as they might, hope stirred the hearts of the young poets. For young Wordsworth there sprang faith in the future destinies of man, and a desire to aid even the wild French struggle for a better life. He was in Paris a month after the September massacres, and felt so deeply the need of reinforcement to the higher mind that sought to win to its own work the brute force of the people, that he was ready to make common cause with the Girondists, had not friends at home compelled him to return. Although, he says, assured That I both was and must be of small weight, No better than a landsman on the deck Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm, Doubtless I should have then made common cause With some who perished; haply perished too, A poor, mistaken, and bewildered offering, Should to the breast of Nature have gone back, With all my resolutions, all my hope, A poet only to myself, to men Useless, and even, beloved friend, a Soul To thee unknown. The beloved friend was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose first impulse to seek Wordsworth's friendship had arisen out of sympathy in such desires towards a higher life. At Easter, in 1794, S. T. Coleridge, of Jesus College, Cambridge, aged twenty-two, visited Robert Southey, aged twenty, of Baliol College, Oxford. Out of this meeting arose presently, in concert with other advanced spirits, the scheme of an ideal commonwealth, a “pantisocracy,” that was to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna. Three Miss Frickers at Bristol, recommended by Southey, became wives of three of the expectant colonists, Southey and Coleridge marrying two of them, Edith and Sarah. In such days of excitement young Coleridge published in 1795 his addresses to the people, “Conciones ad Populum,” with this Preface : The two following addresses were delivered in the month February, 1795, and were followed by six others in defence of natural and revealed religion. There is “a time to keep 1 “I prefer the negligence of my own people to the ignoble diligence of these fellows.”—Terence, “Andria,’’ Prol. 21. "To A.D. 1793.3 361 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. silence,” saith King Solomon;–but when I proceeded to the first verse of the fourth chapter of the Ecclesiastes, “and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of the oppressors there was power”—I concluded, that this was not the “time to keep silence.”—For truth should be spoken at all times, but more especially at those times, when to speak truth is dangerous. Clevedon, November 16th, 1795. A LETTER FROM LIBERTY TO HER, DEAR FRIEND FAMINE. DEAR FAMINE,-You will doubtless be surprised at re- ceiving a petitionary letter from a perfect stranger. But Pas est vel ab hoste. All whom I once supposed my unalter- able friends, I have found unable or unwilling to assist me. I first applied to Gratitude, entreating her to whisper into the ear of Majesty, that it was I who had placed his fore- fathers on the throne of Great Britain. She told me that she had frequently made the attempt, but as frequently had been baffled by Flattery: and that I might not doubt the truth of Her apology, she led me (as the Spirit did the prophet Ezekiel) “to the door of the Court, and I went in, and saw—and behold ! every form of creeping things.” I was however somewhat consoled, when I heard that Religion was high in favour there, and possessed great influence. I myself had been her faithful servant, and always found her my best protec- tress: her service being indeed perfect freedom. Accordingly in full confidence of success I entered her mansion—but alas ! instead of my kind mistress, horror-struck I beheld “a painted, patched-up old harlot.” She was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, and upon her forehead was written “Mystery,” I shrieked, for I knew her to be the dry-nurse of that detested imp, Despotism. I next addressed myself to Pru- dence, and earnestly besought her to plead my cause to the ministers; to urge the distresses of the lower order, and my fears lest so distrest they should forget their obedience. For the prophet Isaiah had informed me “that it shall come to pass, that when the people shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves and curse the king.” The grave matron heard me, and shaking her head learnedly replied, “Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.” Again I besought her to speak to the rich men of the nation, concerning ministers of whom it might soon become illegal even to complain—of long and ruinous wars—and whether they must not bear the damage. All this (quoth Prudence) I have repeatedly urged; but a sly impostor has usurped my name, and struck such a panic of property, as hath steeled the hearts of the wealthy and palsied their intellects. Lastly, I applied to Conscience. She informed me that she was indeed a perfect ventriloquist, and could throw her voice into any place she liked; but that she was seldom attended to, unless when she appeared to speak out of the pocket. Thus baffled and friendless, I was about to depart, and stood a fearful lingerer on the isle which I had so dearly loved, when tidings were brought me of your approach. I found myself impelled by a power superior to me to build my last hopes on you.-Liberty, the Mother of Plenty, calls Famine to her aid. O Famine, most eloquent Goddess plead thou my cause. I meantime will pray fervently that Heaven may unseal the ears of its vicegerents, so that they may listen to your first pleadings, while yet your voice is faint and distant, and your counsels peaceable. I remain your distressed Suppliant, Dover Cliffs. LIBERTY. The next is from Coleridge's Watchman, issued in 1796 : ON THE SLAVE TRADE. Whence arise our Miseries? Whence arise our Vices? From imaginary Wants. No man is wicked without tempta- tion, no man is wretched without a cause. But if each among us confined his wishes to the actual necessaries and real comforts of life, we should preclude all the causes of complaint and all the motives to iniquity. What Nature demands, she will supply, asking for it that portion only of Toil which would otherwise have been necessary as Exercise. But Providence, which has distinguished man from the lower orders of being by the progressiveness of his nature, forbids him to be contented. It has given us the restless faculty of Imagination. Hence the soft couch, and many-colour’d robe, The timbrel and arch’d dome and costly feast, With all th’ inventive arts that nurse the soul To forms of beauty; and by sensual wants |Unsensualize the mind, which in the Means Learns to forget the grossness of the End, Best pleasur’d with its own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood’s arm, The dagger'd Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests—all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills l yet each the immediate source Of mightier good! Their keen necessities, To ceaseless action goading human thought, Have made earth’s reasoning animal her lord; And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of armed deities From Avarice thus, from Luxury, and War Sprang heavenly Science, and from Science Freedom RELIGIOUS MUSINGS. I have the firmest faith, that the final cause of all evils in the moral and natural world is to awaken intellectual activity. Man, a vicious and discontented animal, by his vices and his discontent is urged to develop the powers of the Creator, and by new combinations of those powers to imitate his crea- tiveness. And from such enlargement of mind benevolence will necessarily follow; benevolence which may be defined “Natural sympathy made permanent by an acquired convic- tion that the interests of each and of all are one and the same;” or, in fewer words, “Natural sympathy made permanent by enlightened selfishness.” In my calmer moments I have the firmest faith that all things work to- gether for good. But alas! it seems a long and a dark process. The early year's fast-flying vapours stray In shadowing trains across the orb of day: And we, poor insects of a few short hours, Deem it a world of gloom. Were it not better hope a nobler doom, Proud to believe, that with more active powers, On rapid many-coloured wing, We through one bright perpetual Spring Shall hover round the fruits and flowers Screen’d by those clouds and cherish’d by those showers 1 From an unpublished Poem. I have dwelt anxiously on this subject, with a particular view to the Slave-trade, which, I know, has insinuated in the minds of many uneasy doubts respecting the existence of a beneficent deity. And, indeed, the evils arising from the formation of imaginary wants have in no instance been so dreadfully exemplified as in this inhuman traffic. We receive from the West-India Islands sugars, rum, cotton, logwood, cocoa, coffee, pimento, ginger, indigo, mahogany, and conserves. Not one of these articles is necessary; indeed, with the exception of cetton and mahogany, we cannot truly 222 362 CASSELLS LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1796. call them even useful; and not one of them is at present attainable by the poor and labouring part of society. In return we export vast quantities of necessary tools, raiment, and defensive weapons, with great stores of provision. So that in this trade, as in most others, the poor are employed with unceasing toil, first to raise and then to send away the comforts which they themselves absolutely want, in order to procure idle superfluities for their masters. If this trade had never existed no one human being would have been less comfortably clothed, housed, or nourished. Such is its value —they who would estimate the price which we pay for it may consult the evidence delivered before the House of Commons. I will not mangle the feelings of my readers by detailing enormities, which the gloomy imagination of Dante would scarcely have dared attribute to the inhabitants of hell. For the honour of our common nature I would fain hope that these accounts have been exaggerated. But, by the confession of all, these enormities might have been perpetrated, and with impunity: and when was power possessed and not exercised ? By the confession of all parties, great cruelties have been inflicted: and therefore before I can suspect exaggeration, I must disbelieve the oaths of the humane and disinterested in complement to the assertions of men from whose shoulders though I should take mountains of guilt, enough would remain to sink them to perdition. These facts have been pressed on the public even to satiety. It is my present purpose to consider the objections to the abolition of this commerce—which may be reduced to the five following: First, That the abolition would be useless, since though we should not carry it on, other nations would. Second, That the Africans are better treated and more happy in the plantations than in their native country. Third, That the revenue would be greatly injured. Fourth, That the right of property would be in- vaded. Fifth, That this is not a fit opportunity. I. That if England abolish the Slave-trade, other nations will carry it on.—The same argument has been adduced by the French planters: a sufficient proof of its fallacy. Some- body must begin ; and there is little reason to fear, that a wise and politic example will not be followed. As society is constituted, there will be always highway robberies: it is useless therefore to prevent any one man from committing them. Fortunately for travellers this logic will not hold good in law. But although it cannot operate in favour of little rogues, it appears to possess wonderful power in the higher circles of villainy. Assuming the universal depravity of mankind as an axiom, a corrupt member of Parliament lulls his conscience to sleep with “To be sure these bills are subversive of the Constitution; but with such immense treasures to bestow, Ministry will secure a majority in the House: my opposition will therefore be useless to my country; and if I vote for them, I shall only assist to do what would be otherwise done without me—and why should I not have this contract, or this sinecure, as well as another man, who perhaps would make a worse use of it?” &c. II. That the slaves are more humanely treated and live more happily in the plantations than in their native country. —If any incredulous person should entertain a doubt of this, the slave-merchants, slave-holders, and slave-drivers, together with the manufacturers of neck-collars and thumb-screws, are ready and willing to take their Bible oaths of it!!—When treated with tolerable humanity the human race, as well as other animals, multiply. The negroes multiply in their native country: They do not multiply in the West-India Islands, for if they did the slave-trade would have been abolished long ago by its inutility. This is a fact which no perjury can overwhelm, which no sophistry can undermine. The tyranny of the African chiefs is in a great measure owing to the agency of Europeans, who flock to their Courts, and seduce them by bribery, and madden them by intoxica- tion. The Africans are not slaves in their native country; slavery is their highest punishment for the greatest crimes, which their chiefs now wantonly impute to the innocent for the sole purpose of making them slaves in order to sell them to the European merchants: and with the same views the chiefs make war with each other. Wadestrom, a disinterested and religious man, who has travelled into the interior parts of Africa, informs us, that the Africans who are situated beyond the contagion of European vice, are innocent and happy. The peaceful inhabitants of a fertile soil, they cultivate their fields in common, and reap the crop as the common property of all. Each family, like the peasants in some parts of Europe, spins, weaves, Sews, hunts, fishes, and makes baskets, fishing tackle, and the implements of agriculture: and this variety of employment gives an acuteness of intellect to the negro which the mechanic, whom the division of labour condemns to one simple operation, is precluded from attaining. III. That the Revenue would be injured.—To the friends of humanity this is indeed a cogent argument against the abolition. They will doubtless reflect, how worthily this revenue has been employed for these last hundred years— they will review with delight waste-lands cultivated, sciences publicly protected and rewarded, population increased, and the peasantry of England and Ireland instructed in useful learning, and humanized. The universal plenty, which this revenue has been applied to scatter and secure, they will recognize in every lane, hamlet, and cottage—Revenue, the grand preventive against that fiendish composition of murder and suicide, called War Revenue ! that so completely pre- cludes intoxication in the lower classes, luxury in the higher ranks, and bribery in all !—The friends of humanity may mourn that so excellent an end could not be effected by less calamitous means; but they will stifle their feelings and lose the miseries of the West Indies in the contemplation of that paradisiacal state of their native country—for which it is indebted to this well-raised, well-applied Revenue, which while it remains in such pure hands, no friend of freedom and virtue can possibly wish diminished 11–If to start a doubt were practicable, it might perhaps be hinted, that the Revenue must be always in proportion to the wealth of the nation, and that it seems to have been proved that the West India trade is more often a losing than a winning trade—a lottery with more blanks than prizes in it. It is likewise asserted to be the grave of our seamen. This argument therefore, however cogent it would otherwise have been, ought not to have been adduced, till these doubts had been cleared up, and this assertion satisfactorily disproved. IV. That the right of property would be injured.—Yes, perhaps, if immediate emancipation had been the object of Mr. Wilberforce's bill. But how would the right of property be invaded by a law which should leave the estate and every- thing on it untouched, and only prevent the owner from forcing men to work for him from forcing men to leave their friends and country, and live slaves in a climate so un- wholesome, or beneath a usage so unnatural, that contrary to the universal law of life they annually diminish P Can a man possess a right to commit actual and virtual murder P to shorten and prevent existence P It is a well-known and incontrovertible fact, that in some few plantations in which tyranny has been instructed by an enlightened selfishness to relax and soften her features, there have been no slaves bought for a series of years. By whomever therefore they have been bought yearly, yearly murders must have been committed . A.D. 1796.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 363 W. This is not the time.—This not the time P “The French,” says Abbé Sieyes, “hear with delight of the numer- ous armaments which England sends to certain death in the West-India Islands. We make war there more effectually as well as economically by sending over a few adventurous officers to preach the rights of man to the negroes, and furnish them with weapons to assert those rights.” What can prevent the success of these intrigues among the slaves, but the most active humanity on the part of their present Inasters ? - Such have been the cosmetics with which our parliamentary orators have endeavoured to conceal the deformities of a commerce, which is blotched all over with one leprosy of evil. In the year 1786 its enormities became the subject of general conversation, and in the following years petitions poured into Parliament from various parts of the kingdom, requesting its abolition. The bill for that purpose passed the House of Commons mangled and mutilated by the amendments of Mr. Dundas, and it has been dying ever since of a slow decline in the House of Lords. The jealous spirit of liberty placed the Elector of Hanover on the throne of Great Britain : and the Duke of Clarence, one of his illustrious descendants, made his maiden speech in favour of the Slave-trade For the last unsuccessful attempt to expedite the abolition in the House of Commons, see the proceedings in the British Legislature in this number. Gracious God enormities at which a Caligula might have turned pale, are authorized by our laws, and jocosely defended by our princes; and yet we have the impudence to call the French a nation of Atheists | They, who believe a God, believe Him to be the loving Parent of all men. And is it possible that they who really believe and fear the Father, should fearlessly authorize the oppression of His children P. The slavery and tortures, and most horrible murder of tens of thousands of His children Yes! the wicked and malignant can believe a God—they need not the solutions which the enlarged views of the Optimist prompt: their own hearts teach them, that an intelligent being may be malevolent; and what they them- selves are, they impiously imagine of the Deity. These men are not Atheists, they are the causes of Atheism. There are some who think Mr. Pitt sincere in his zeal for the abolition of this trade; and I must certainly applaud their charity: but charity itself will allow that there are suspicious circum- stances. Several violent and unpopular bills have lately been carried through both Houses—how came this bill (certainly not an unpopular measure) to fail? It has been generally supposed that a majority is always at the command of the existing minister; indeed that in the present state of the Constitution he could not guide the machine of government without an arranged majority. In answer to this objection, it has been confidently asserted by the advocates for Mr. Pitt, that the cabinet was divided on the subject; and at length agreed that the friends of the minister should be left, each individual to his own opinion. The cabinet therefore, we may suppose, were unanimous with regard to the late sedition and treason bills; and to this unanimity we may attribute the speed with which they were precipitated into laws. But it may be answered, that to unloose the fetters from the limbs of their brethren was a perfectly novel em- ployment, and that therefore we ought not to wonder, if the minister and his friends are slow and awkward and finally unsuccessful. But to fasten them on is an old job, and difficult as it appears to the inexperienced, they executed it with an ease and rapidity which might have astonished the oldest turnkey in Newgate. The Abbé Raynal computes that at the time of his writing, nine millions of slaves had been consumed by the Europeans —add one million since (for it is near thirty years since his book was first published), and recollect, that for one procured ten at least are slaughtered, that a fifth die in the passage, and a third in the seasoning; and the calculation will amount to One Hundred and Eighty Million Ye who have joined in this confederacy, ask of yourselves this fearful question— “If the God of Justice inflict on us that mass only of anguish which we have wantonly heaped on our brethren, what must a state of retribution be? But who are they who have joined in this Tartarean confederacy 2 Who are these kidnappers and assassins 2 In all reasonings neglecting the intermediate links we attribute the final effect to the first cause. And what is the first and constantly acting cause of the Slave- trade P That cause by which it exists, and deprived of which it would immediately cease ? It is not self-evidently the consumption of its products? And does not then the guilt rest on the consumers ? And is it not an allowed axiom in morality, that wickedness may be multiplied, but cannot be divided ; and that the guilt of all attaches to each one who is knowingly an accomplice. Think not of the slave-captains and slave-holders these very men, their darkened minds, and brutalized hearts, will prove one part of the dreadful charge against you. They are more to be pitied than the slaves; because more depraved. I address myself to you who independently of all political distinctions, profess your- selves Christians ! As you hope to live with Christ hereafter, you are commanded to do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you. Would you choose that a slave-mer- chant should incite an intoxicated chieftain to make war on your country, and murder your wife and children before your face, or drag them with yourself to the market P Would you choose to be sold, to have the hot iron hiss upon your breasts, after having been crammed into the hold of a ship with so many fellow-victims that the heat and stench arising from your diseased bodies should rot the very planks 2 Would you that others should do this unto you ? and if you shudder with selfish horror at the bare idea, do you yet dare be the occasion of it to others ?—The application to the Legislature was altogether wrong. I am not convinced that on any occasion a Christian is justified in calling for the interference of secular power ; but on the present occasion it was superfluous. If only one-tenth part among you who profess yourselves Christians, if one - half only of the petitioners, instead of bustling about with ostentatious sensibility, were to leave off—not all the West-India com- modities—but only sugar and rum, the one useless and the other pernicious—all this misery might be stopped. Gracious Heaven At your meals you rise up, and pressing your hands to your bosoms, you lift up your eyes to God, and say, “O Lord bless the food which thou hast given us!” A part of that food among most of you, is sweetened with Brothers' blood. “Lord bless the food which thou hast given us!” O blasphemy! Did God give food mingled with the blood of the murdered ? Will God bless the food which is polluted with the blood of His own innocent children? Surely if the inspired Philanthropist of Galilee were to re- visit earth, and be among the feasters, as at Cana, He would not now change water into wine, but convert the produce into the things producing, the occasion into the things occasioned. Then with our fleshly eye should we behold what even now Imagination ought to paint to us; instead of conserves, tears and blood, and for music, groanings and the loud peals of the lash. . There is observable among the many a false and bastard sensibility that prompts them to remove those evils, and those evils alone, which by hideous spectacle or clamorous outcry are present to their senses, and disturb their selfish enjoy- 364 [A.D. 1796 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. *: ments. Other miseries, though equally certain and far more horrible, they not only do not endeavour to remedy—they support, they fatten on them. Provided the dunghill be not before their parlour window, they are well content to know that it exists, and that it is the hot-bed of their pestilent luxuries. To this grievous failing we must attribute the frequency of wars, and the continuance of the Slave-trade. The merchant finds no argument against it in his ledger: the citizen at the crowded feast is not nauseated by the stench and filth of the slave-vessel—the fine lady’s nerves are not shattered by the shrieks! She sips a beverage sweetened with human blood, even while she is weeping over the refined sorrows of Werter or of Clementina. Sensibility is not benevolence. Nay, by making us tremblingly alive to trifling misfortunes, it frequently prevents it, and induces effeminate and cowardly selfishness. Our own sorrows, like the princes of hell in Milton’s “Pandemonium,” sit enthroned “bulky and vast : ” while the miseries of our fellow-creatures dwindle into pigmy forms, and are crowded, an innumerable multi- tude, into some dark corner of the heart. There is one criterion by which we may always distinguish benevolence from mere sensibility—benevolence impels to action, and is accompanied by self-denial. P.S.–It has been objected, that if we leave off sugar and rum, why not the other West India commodities, as cotton and mahogany ? To this we answer: First, that if the reasons adduced against the use of sugar and rum be valid and irresistible, and the same reasons apply to cotton and mahogany, why should we not disuse them P Surely no impossibility, no insurmountable inconvenience is implied. The whole objection resolves itself into this—If sugar and rum were the only West India commodities, I could be honest and act like a Christian ; but because I like cotton better than linen, and think mahogany genteeler furniture than oak, it is impossible. Secondly, the disuse of sugar and rum only would in a certain number of years prove the adequate means of abolishing the whole of the trade. And there is reason to believe that the additional disuse of cotton, mahogany, &c., would not accelerate the time ; for when we might proselyte fifty to the disuse of sugar, we could not per- haps make five persons converts to the disuse of all the West India commodities. So that what we should gain in point of time by the greater quantity of commodities disused, we should more than lose by the smaller number of persons dis- using them. This the very objection makes probable. For they, who start it, do not start it in favour of a severe consistency, but in the hope of keeping themselves in countenance by the multitude of their accomplices. But thirdly, the other West India commodities do not require such intense labour in their growth and preparation as the sugar and rum. They might be raised by European labourers. The sugar plantations make Africans necessary, and their slavery intolerable. I have read and heard one argument in favour of the Slave- trade, which I mention chiefly on account of its seditious and treasonable tendency. It has been asserted by more than one writer on the subject, that the plantation-slaves are at least as well off as the peasantry in England. Now I appeal to common Sense, whether to affirm that the slaves are as well off as our peasantry be not the same as to assert that our peasantry are as bad off as negro-slaves 2 And whether if our peasantry believed it, they would not be inclined to rebel? In these days of their young aspiration, Southey and Coleridge among friends at Bristol, Southey's native town, had their portraits taken by James Hancock, a sympathetic local artist, both of them in 1796. (From a Portrait by Hancock (1793) in Joseph Cottle’s “Eurly Recollections.”) SAMUEL TAYLOR Col. ERIDGE. William Godwin was an elder sage, whose influence was great over young politicians who sympathised with the best ideal of the Revolutionists, even after it had been dragged down to the level of men who were no ideal citizens, and out of whom, therefore, no will could fashion an ideal state. Godwin was born in 1756, the son of a dissenting minister at Wisbeach, who had a congregation afterwards at Guestwick, in Norfolk. He was bred for a like ministry at the Dissenters' College in Hoxton, but turned wholly to literature in 1783. His “Political Justice ’’ in 1793 gave him a strong hold upon the minds of ardent philosophical reformers. In 1794 his novel of “Caleb Williams,” rich in false sentiment and in the exagger- ated agonies then much in fashion, gave evidence also of positive skill in fiction, and what is now the fault of the book was then to many its chief merit. Next followed in 1797, when Godwin’s age was about forty, a volume of Essays, having a connected chain of thought, designed in aid of the right culture of the mind. This book he called “The Enquirer,” and these are two of its essays: OF AWAKENING THE MIND. The true object of education, like that of every other moral process, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If in- dividuals were universally happy, the species would be happy. Man is a social being. In society the interests of in- dividuals are intertwisted with each other and cannot be separated. Men should be taught to assist each other. The first object should be to train a man to be happy; the Second, to train him to be useful, that is, to be virtuous. There is a further reason for this. Virtue is essential to individual happiness. There is no transport equal to that of the performance of virtue. All other happiness, which is not To A.D. 1797.] 365 SHORTER PROSE works. connected with self-approbation and sympathy, is unsatisfac- tory and frigid. To make a man virtuous we must make him wise. All virtue is a compromise between opposite motives and induce- ments. The man of genuine virtue is a man of vigorous comprehension and long views. He who would be eminently useful must be eminently instructed. He must be endowed with a sagacious judgment and an ardent zeal. The argument in favour of wisdom or a cultivated intellect, like the argument in favour of virtue, when closely con- sidered, shows itself to be twofold. Wisdom is not only directly a means to virtue; it is also directly a means to hap- piness. The man of enlightened understanding and per- severing ardour has many sources of enjoyment which the ignorant man cannot reach; and it may at least be suspected that these sources are more exquisite, more solid, more durable, and more constantly accessible than any which the wise man and the ignorant man possess in common. Thus it appears that there are three leading objects of a just education, happiness, virtue, wisdom, including under the term wisdom both extent of information and energy of pursuit. When a child is born, one of the earliest purposes of his institutor ought to be, to awaken his mind, to breathe a soul into the, as yet, unformed mass. What may be the precise degree of difference with respect to capacity that children generally bring into the world with them, is a problem that it is perhaps impossible completely to solve. But, if education cannot do everything, it can do much. To the attainment of any accomplishment what is principally necessary is that the accomplishment should be ardently desired. How many instances is it reasonable to suppose there are, where this ardent desire exists, and the means of attainment are clearly and skilfully pointed out, where yet the accomplishment remains finally unattained P. Give but sufficient motive, and you have given everything. Whether the object be to shoot at a mark, or to master a science, this observation is equally applicable. The means of exciting desire are obvious. Has the pro- posed object desirable qualities? Exhibit them. Delineate them with perspicuity, and delineate them with ardour. Show your object from time to time under every point of view which is calculated to demonstrate its loveliness. Criti- cise, commend, exemplify. Nothing is more common than for a master to fail in infusing the passions into his pupil that he purposes to infuse ; but who is there that refuses to confess that the failure is to be ascribed to the indolence or unskilfulness of the master, not to the impossibility of success P The more inexperienced and immature is the mind of the infant, the greater is its pliability. It is not to be told how early habits, pernicious or otherwise, are acquired. Chil- dren bring some qualities, favourable or adverse to cultivation, into the world with them. But they speedily acquire other qualities in addition to these, and which are probably of more moment than they. Thus a diseased state of body, and still more an improper treatment, the rendering the child, in any considerable degree, either the tyrant or the slave of those around him, may in the first twelve months implant seeds of an ill temper, which in some instances may accom- pany him through life. - Reasoning from the principles already delivered, it would be a gross mistake to suppose that the sole object to be at- tended to in the first part of education, is to provide for the present ease and happiness of the individual. An awakened mind is one of the most important purposes of education, and it is a purpose that cannot too soon enter into the views of the preceptor. It seems probable that early instruction is a thing, in itself considered, of very inferior value. Many of those things which we learn in our youth, it is necessary, if we would well understand, that we should learn over again in our riper years. Many things that, in the dark and unapprehensive period of youth, are attained with infinite labour, may, by a ripe and judicious understanding, be acquired with an effort inexpressibly inferior. He who should affirm that the true object of juvenile education was to teach no one thing in particular, but to provide against the age of five and twenty a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn, would certainly not obtrude upon us the absurdest of paradoxes. The purpose therefore of early instruction is not absolute. It is of less importance, generally speaking, that a child should acquire this or that species of knowledge, than that, through the medium of instruction, he should acquire habits of intellectual activity. It is not so much for the direct con- sideration of what he learns, that his mind must not be suffered to lie idle. The preceptor in this respect is like the incloser of uncultivated land; his first crops are not valued for their intrinsic excellence; they are sown that the land may be brought into order. The springs of the mind, like the joints of the body, are apt to grow stiff for want of em- ployment. They must be exercised in various directions and with unabating perseverance. In a word, the first lesson of a judicious education is, Learn to think, to discriminate, to remember, and to enquire. OF THE COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. In what manner would reason, independently of the re- ceived modes and practices of the world, teach us to com- municate knowledge P Liberty is one of the most desirable of all sublunary ad- vantages. I would willingly therefore communicate know- ledge, without infringing, or with as little as possible violence to, the volition and individual judgment of the person to be instructed. Again, I desire to excite a given individual to the acquisi- tion of knowledge. The only possible method in which I can excite a sensitive being to the performance of a volun- tary action, is by the exhibition of motive. Motives are of two sorts, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motives are those which arise from the inherent nature of the thing recommended. Extrinsic motives are those which have no constant and unalterable connection with the thing recommended, but are combined with it by accident or at the pleasure of some individual. Thus, I may recommend some species of knowledge by a display of the advantages which will necessarily attend upon its acquisition, or flow from its possession. Or, on the other hand, I may recommend it despotically, by allurements or menaces, by showing that the pursuit of it will be attended with my approbation, and that the neglect of it will be re- garded by me with displeasure. The first of these classes of motives is unquestionably the best. To be governed by such motives is the pure and genuine condition of a rational being. By exercise it strengthens the judgment. It elevates us with a sense of independence. It causes a man to stand alone, and is the only method by which he can be rendered truly an individual, the creature, not of implicit faith, but of his own under- standing. If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such. If you cannot demonstrate its excellence, it may well be 366 [A.D. 1792 CASSELLS LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. suspected that you are no proper judge of it. Why should not I be admitted to decide upon that which is to be acquired by the application of my labour? - Is it necessary that a child should learn a thing before it can have any idea of its value P It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose. Is it not possible to find something that will fulfil these conditions, the benefit of which a child shall under- stand, and the acquisition of which he may be taught to desire? Study with desire is real activity: without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity. Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education. The most desirable mode of education, therefore, in all instances where it shall be found sufficiently practicable, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire. The best motive to learn is a perception of the value of the thing learned. The worst motive, without deciding whether or not it be necessary to have recourse to it, may well be affirmed to be constraint and fear. There is a motive between these, less pure than the first, but not so displeasing as the last, which is desire, not springing from the intrinsic excellence of the object, but from the accidental attractions which the teacher may have annexed to it. According to the received modes of education, the master goes first and the pupil follows. According to the method here recommended, it is probable that the pupil should go first, and the master follow. If I learn nothing but what I desire to learn, what should hinder me from being my own preceptor P The first object of a system of instructing is to give to the pupil a motive to learn. We have seen how far the established systems fail in this office. : The second object is to smooth the difficulties which pre- sent themselves in the acquisition of knowledge. The method of education here suggested is incomparably the best adapted to the first of these objects. It is sufficiently competent to answer the purposes of the last. Nothing can be more happily adapted to remove the difficulties of instruction than that the pupil should first be excited to desire knowledge, and next that his difficulties should be solved for him, and his path cleared, as often and as soon as he thinks proper to desire it. This plan is calculated entirely to change the face of education. The whole formidable apparatus which has hitherto attended it is swept away. Strictly speaking, no such characters are left upon the scene as either preceptor or pupil. The boy, like the man, studies, because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of his own invention, or which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks in- dependence and equality. The man, as well as the boy, would be glad in cases of difficulty to consult a person more informed than himself. That the boy is accustomed almost always to consult the man, and not the man the boy, is to be regarded rather as an accident, than anything essential. Much even of this would be removed, if we remembered that the most inferior judge may often, by the varieties of his apprehension, give valuable information to the most en- lightened. The boy, however, should be consulted by the man unaffectedly, not according to any preconcerted scheme, or for the purpose of persuading him that he is what he is not. . > There are three considerable advantages which would at- tend upon this species of education. - - First, liberty. Three-fourths of the slavery and restraint that are now imposed upon young persons would be an- nihilated at a stroke. - - Secondly, the judgment would be strengthened by continual exercise. Boys would no longer learn their lessons after the manner of parrots. No one would learn without a reason, satisfactory to himself, why he learned; and it would per- haps be well, if he were frequently prompted to assign his reasons, Boys would then consider for themselves, whether they understood what they read. To know when and how to ask a question is no contemptible part of learning. Some- times they would pass over difficulties, and neglect essential preliminaries; but then the nature of the thing would speedily recall them, and induce them to return to examine the tracts which before had been overlooked. For this pur- pose it would be well that the subjects of their juvenile studies should often be discussed, and that one boy should compare his progress and his competence to decide in certain points with those of another. There is nothing that more strongly excites our enquiries than this mode of detecting our ignorance. Thirdly, to study for ourselves is the true method of ac- quiring habits of activity. The horse that goes round in a mill, and the boy that is anticipated and led by the hand in all his acquirements, are not active. I do not call a wheel that turns round fifty times in a minute, active. Activity is a mental quality. If therefore you would generate habits of activity, turn the boy loose in the fields of science. Let him explore the path for himself. Without increasing his difficulties, you may venture to leave him for a moment, and suffer him to ask himself the questions before he asks you, or, in other words, to ask the question before he receives the information. Far be it from the system here laid down, to increase the difficulties of youth. No, it diminishes them a hundred fold. Its office is to produce inclination; and a willing temper makes every burthen light. Lastly, it is the tendency of this system to produce in the young, when they are grown up to the stature of men, a love of literature. The established modes of education produce the opposite effect, unless in a fortunate few, who, by the celerity of their progress, and the distinctions they obtain, perhaps escape from the general influence. But, in the majority of cases, the memory of our slavery becomes asso- ciated with the studies we pursued, and it is not till after repeated struggles, that those things can be rendered the objects of our choice, which were for so long a time the themes of compulsion. This is particularly unfortunate, that we should conquer with much labour and application the difficulties that beset the entrance of literature, and then should quit it when perhaps, but for this unfortunate association, the obstacles were all smoothed, and the im- provement to be made was attended through all its steps with unequivocal delight. There is but one considerable objection that seems to oppose all these advantages. The preceptor is terrified at the outset, and says, How shall I render the labours of literature an object of desire, and still more, how shall I maintain this desire in all its vigour, in spite of the dis- couragements that will daily occur, and in spite of the quality incident to almost every human passion, that its fervour dis- appears in proportion as the novelty of the object subsides P But let us not hastily admit this for an insuperable objec- tion. If the plan here proposed augments the difficulties of the teacher in one particular point, let it be remembered that it relieves him from an insufferable burthen in other respects. To A.D. 1797.] 367 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. Nothing can be more pitiable than the condition of the instructor in the present modes of education. He is the worst of slaves. He is consigned to the severest of imprison- ments. He is condemned to be perpetually engaged in handling and rehandling the foundations of science. Like the unfortunate wretch upon whom the lot has fallen in a city reduced to extremities, he is destroyed that others may live. Among all the hardships he is compelled to suffer, he endeavours to console himself with the recollection that his office is useful and patriotic. But even this consolation is a slender one. He is regarded as a tyrant by those under his jurisdiction, and he is a tyrant. He mars their pleasures. He appoints to each his portion of loathed labour. He watches their irregularities and their errors. He is accus- tomed to speak to them in tones of dictation and censure. He is the beadle to chastise their follies. He lives alone in the midst of a multitude. His manners, even when he goes into the world, are spoiled with the precision of pedantry and the insolence of despotism. His usefulness and his patriotism, therefore, have some resemblance to those of a chimney-sweeper and a scavenger, who, if their existence is of any benefit to mankind, are however rather tolerated in the world than thought entitled to the testimonies of our gratitude and esteem. Mary Wollstonecraft, who towards the close of her sad life became William Godwin’s wife, died in 1797, at the age of thirty-eight, after giving birth to a daughter, who became the wife of Shelley. Mary Wollstonecraft had in her young days been the MARY Wollstonecraft Godwis. (From the Portrait prefined to William Godwin’s Memoir, 1798.) support of a shiftless father, and had by teaching and writing made a sister's care take the place of a father's in her family; but generous feelings, mis- guided by false lights of the French Revolution, saddened her life. She trusted where no trust was due, and gathered fruits of reason that became dust on her lips. She was so wretched that she tried to drown herself in the Thames before she became Godwin's wife, and when, soon afterwards, she died, her husband wrote a memoir of her, with her portrait prefixed, and a closing note of satisfaction that her last hours were not saddened by religion. Hers was an earnest sympathetic nature, with a thirst for higher life, that left the well of life itself for the whirlpool that filled Europe with its roaring. But she had scarcely dipped her cup when she was caught in the wild swirl of its waves, and thrown back among the dead upon its shore. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft had published the first volume of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” It was in its third edition in 1796, but the writer did not live to add a second volume. The book, with a few touches characteristic of its time, was wholesome, and, indeed, essentially religious in its tone, the greater part of it having been justified by the ex- perience of after-years. Its plea was almost wholly for the right of women to such education as would enable them to win strength for right living, and would not confine the means of intellectual and moral growth so commonly to the training of men as to “give a sex to virtue.” The plan of the book is thus described in an introduction : “A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.” INTRODUCTION TO After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilisation which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the con- duct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result 2–a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacri- ficed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilised women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect. In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which have been particularly written for their im- provement must not be overlooked; especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style of Mahometanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species, when improv- able reason is allowed to be the dignified distinction which 368 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1792 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF raises men above the brute creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand. Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality or inferiority of the sex; but as the subject liesin my way, and I cannot pass it over with- out subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to miscon- struction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied —and it is a noble prerogative But not content with this natural pre-eminence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow-creatures who find amusement in their society. I am aware of an obvious inference:—from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind;—all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me that they may every day grow more and more masculine. This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first consider women in the grand light of human creatures, who, in common with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties; and afterwards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar designation. I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respect- able writers have fallen into ; for the instruction which has hitherto been addressed to women, has rather been applicable to ladies, if the little indirect advice, that is scattered through Sandford and Merton, be excepted; but, addressing my sex in a firmer tone, I pay particular attention to those in the middle class, because they appear to be in the most natural state. Perhaps the seeds of false refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and affec- tions of their race, in a premature, unnatural manner, under- mine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity; the education of the rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfold- ing mind is not strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human character. They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in nature in- variably produces certain effects, they soon only afford barren amusement. But as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of society, and of the moral character of women in each, this hint is, for the present, sufficient; and I have only alluded to the subject, because it appears to me to be the very essence of an introduction to give a cursory account of the contents of the work it introduces. My own sex, I hope, will excuse me if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of per- petual childhood, unable to stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness con- sists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of senti- ment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt. Dismissing then those pretty feminine phrases, which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensi- bility, and sweet docility of manners, supposed to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel, I wish to show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex; and that secondary views should be brought to this simple touchstone. This is a rough sketch of my plan; and should I express my conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel when- ever I think of the subject, the dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by some of my readers. Animated by this important object, I shall disdain to cull my phrases or polish my style; I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments, than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, or in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart. I shall be employed about things, not words ! and, anxious to render my sex more respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversa- tion. These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart, render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and immortal being for a nobler field of action. The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the writers who endeavour by satire or instruction to improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves—the only way women can rise in the world—by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children may be expected to act: they dress, they paint, and nickname God’s creatures. Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio ! Can they be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world? If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul; that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant objects of desire– mere propagators of fools!—if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating their understand- ings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over, I presume that rational men will excuse me for To A.D. 1797.] 369 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. endeavouring to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable. Indeed, the word masculine is only a bugbear: there is little reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths with sensual reveries 2 Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that this artificial weakness produces a pro- pensity to tyrannise, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantine airs that undermine esteem even whilst they excite desire. Let men become more chaste and modest, and if women do not grow wiser in the same ratio, it will be clear that they have weaker understandings. It seems scarcely necessary to say, that I now speak of the sex in general. Many individuals have more sense than their male relatives; and, as nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium, without it has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern. Robert Southey, who seemed to his relations at Bristol to be mysteriously conspiring with his young associates, was tempted by a friendly uncle, who was RoBERT SouTHEY. (From a Portrait by Hancock (1796) in Joseph Cottle's “Early Re-ollections.”) returning to his post as a chaplain at Lisbon, to sail with him and have a holiday tour in Spain and Portugal. The design was to give him change of scene and thought, and bring him back with his schemes, whatever they might be, overlaid and effaced by new ideas. But he had resolved to marry Edith Fricker, and as he had no money of his own for marriage-ring or wedding fees, he borrowed from his sympathetic friends the Cottles, and stole a match with Edith before starting for Spain. She, while he was away, wore her wedding-ring hung by a ribbon as a locket within her dress, and received from him Letters from Spain and Portugal, written with the design that they should be kept for publication, and make a book that would help to pay for the bread and cheese when he came back and they began the world together. When he came back, he acknow- ledged his wife, and was thrown on his own resources. He then produced much verse and prose, and pub- lished in 1797 the “Letters from Spain and Por- tugal,” of which I quote one that contains the germ of the finest of his long poems, “Roderick, the Last of the Goths,” published in 1814. A LETTER FROM SPAIN. The Spanish writers have not excelled in lyric poetry, the most difficult kind of composition. Father Luis de Leon is one of their best lyric authors, and the following is esteemed the best of his odes. Rodrigo, from the world apart, Retir’d where Tagus flows, Clasp'd the fair Caba closely to his heart, When lo! the Spirit of the Stream arose, And pour'd the prophet Song of Spain's impending woes. In evil hour, tyrannic King, Thou dalliest here ! he cried ; Even now I hear the shout of battle ring ! Wengeance even now stalks on with frantic stride, Aud from his giant arm he scatters ruin wide. Ah me! what anguish, what dismay, Rise, tyrant, from thy lust' And cursed, Caba, be thy natal day, Whose violated charms provoke the All-just To tread the Gothic powers and Gothic crown in dust. Ah me ! thou claspest in thine arms Dread danger and disgrace : What shrieks, what ills, what horrors, what alarms, Proud King ! thou foldest in thy hot embrace, War, desolation, death, the ruin of thy racel Woe to the sons of Leon woe To fair Castilia's plain! And where the pleasant waves of Ebro flow, The conquering infidel shall fix his reign, Aud Lusitania yields.-Woe, woe to wretched Spain! The vengeful Count, in evil hour, The impious aid shall call: Swift o'er the ocean swarms the swarthy power, Wain the strong bulwark, vain the massy wall, The bulwark soon shall shake, the fortress soon shall fall. Hark! hark even now on Afric's coast I hear the trumpet’s blare From every quarter rush the robber host, They rush the battle and the prey to share, And high their banners wave, and bright their crescents glare. The Arab, eager for the fight, Leaves his waste sands behind; Swift is his steed, and swift his arrows' flight ; The burning thirst of battle fires his mind, He lifts his quivering lance; he wounds the passing wind. Their warrior myriads hide the ground, And now they spread the sail : Hark to the multitude's impatient sound ! And now their louder shouts mine ear assail, For now they mount the bark, and catch the favouring gale. On moves the death-denouncing load, The dark deep foams below ; And swift they sweep along their wat'ry road, And with strong arm the sinewy captives row, And fairly blows the wind, ah me! the wind of woe 223 370 CASSELL's LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1797 Still onward moves the hostile host ; Still blows the breeze aright; Now rises on their view the distant coast : The mountain rocks now brighten to the sight, And nearer now they view yon beacon's ancient height. Still wilt thou clasp her in thine arms ? Rise, rise, Rodrigo rise ! For now Galicia echoes to alarms; For now they reach the port where Geryon lies; For now triumphant there—the impious banner flies. They pass the mountain's craggy bound, They rush upon the plain : Far o'er the realm their swift steeds scour around ; Rise, rise, Rodrigo, yet thy right retain, Rodrigo, rise ! revenge thy desolated Spain. Ah me ! ah me ! what toils, what woes, What ills are still in store ; . Wide o'er the country sweep the furious foes ; Vain the strong horse, and vain the warrior's power, For horse and warrior fall beneath the victor Moor. Woe tyrant to Iberia woe Her best blood gluts the plain; Then Betis black with blood thy waves shall flow, Alld clogg’d with many a Moor and Christian slain, Thy tainted tide shall roll pollution to the main. And now at Death's triumphant feast, The bowl of blood shall flow ! Five fights shall rage ere yet the war has ceas'd. Then, then, Rodrigo, shall thy head lie low. Woe tyrant woe to thee! to poor Iberia woel The adventure of Rodrigo, in the Enchanted Tower, is alluded to by all the historians who have touched upon his reign, yet none of them have thought the wild Arabian fiction deserving a place even in their notes. I have met with it in an old account of Spain, translated from the French, of the date 1693, which gives it from Abulcacim Tariff Abentarique, who declares he had the relation from the Archbishop Oppas, who was with Rodrigo when he entered the tower, in search of a treasure supposed to be hidden there. “This tower was built between two steep rocks, half a league to the east of Toledo; and above the story next the ground was to be seen a very deep cave, parted into four different vaults, to which a very narrow mouth or opening led cut out of the rock, and was closed with an iron door, which, as the report went, had a thousand locks and as many bolts. Over the door were certain Greek characters which admitted several significations, but the most prevalent opinion was that it was a prediction of the misfortune of him that should open it. “Rodrigo caused certain flambeaux to be made, which the air and wind of the cave could not put out; and having forced open the door, he entered first of all himself, being attended by a great many persons. He had not gone many steps before he found himself in a very fair hall, adorned with sculptures, and in the middle stood a statue of brass, repre- Senting Time upon a pedestal, three cubits high, who held in his hand a battle-axe, with which the Image ever and anon struck upon the ground, and every blow resounding through the cave, made a most dreadful noise. Rodrigo was so far from being terrified, that he assured the phantom that he came not to commit any disorder in the place of his abode, and promised to-be gone so soon as he viewed all the wonders in the place; and then the statue ceased to strike upon the earth. … " . . “Thus the example of the king encouraging his followers. He took an exact view of the hall, at the entrance into which stood a round vat, whence issued a water-spout that made a dreadful thundering noise. Upon the breast of the statue was written in Arabic, ‘I do my duty,’ and upon the back of it, ‘To my succour!' On the right hand, upon the wall, were to be read these words:—‘Unfortunate Prince, thine evil destiny has brought thee hither!’ and on the left hand, ‘Thou shalt be dispossessed by foreign nations, and thy subjects shall be punished, as well as thou thyself, for all their crimes ' ' “Rodrigo having thus gratified his curiosity, returned; but he had no sooner turned his back, before the statue began to strike upon the ground again; however, the king caused the door to be shut fast again, and ordered the narrow passage to be stopped up with earth, to the end that nobody should ever enter for the future: but in the night there were heard on that side several loud shrieks and shrill cries, which preceded a most dreadful noise, not unlike a great thunder- clap, and the next day there was no more of a tower to be seen, nor almost any footsteps of what had rendered that place so remarkable.” The introduction of the Moors furnished Luis de Leon with the subject of his best ode, and the expulsion of their descendants occasioned a very curious sermon, preached by Juan de Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia; it is translated by Geddes; but as the valuable tracts of this author are now rare, I shall transcribe a few extracts. His text is from Galatians v. 12: “I would they were even cut off that trouble you ; ” and he dwells much upon the emphatic earnestness implied in the word “utinam.” “Who among us,” said this Arch-Priest, “has had the zeal of Matthias, of whom the Holy Scripture Saith, that when he beheld one of the people of Israel offering sacrifice to idols, at the commandment of the perverse king Antiochus, he was so set on fire by the zeal of the Lord that his bones trembled; and flying upon him that sacrificed, and him that commanded him to do it, he killed them both. This is the zeal of a servant of God, and which is so acceptable to the divine Majesty, that Phineas for the doing the same was commended of God; and Moses saith, that though he was determined to have inflicted a severe punishment upon the people, he was appeased and did remit his wrath, for the zeal of Phineas, who killed the transgressor of the law of God.” So much in favour of persecution from the Old Testament; but his precedent for it from the New Testament is still more curious. “Our Lord Christ went into the Temple, and seeing that what was done there was contrary to God's honour, the zealous God took the cords where with the sheep and oxen were bound, and having made a whip of them, he went about shaking it at all those cattle and men, driving them all out of the temple; and as to those that sold pigeons he commanded them to be gone with them ; and going up to the tables of the money-changers he threw them down upon the ground, scattering about the money that was upon them. Now let us consider this fact, and we shall see that besides its being the greatest miracle that ever Christ wrought—for so St. Hierom saith it was, who affirms it to be greater than the raising Lazarus from the dead!—the repressing of so many, and in the sight of so great a concourse of people, after such a manner, none of them offering to lay hold of him, or denying to obey him, notwithstanding they were at that time contriving his death, being a thing that nothing but the Almighty God could have done l’” - One extract more : Recollect that he is preaching on one of the most absurd and barbarous acts of oppression that the history of man, so full of absurdity and barbarity, records: and that to this expulsion of the Moriscoes is the decline of Spain in a great measure to be attributed, and you will find that as this precious archbishop is a good Christian, he is no less excellent a prophet. - To A.D 1802 3 371 - SHORTER PROSE WORKS. “Through the mercy of God and the paternal care of his Majesty, everything will thrive with us, and the earth itself will grow more fertile, and will yield the fruit of blessing. It is a thing ye all know, that we have not had one fertiie year since the Moriscoes were baptised, whereas now they will be all fertile, the land having been impoverished, made barren, and poisoned by their blasphemies and heresies; do not think that this is nothing but a fancy, since the divine Scriptures do everywhere affirm that for sin God deprives people of temporal blessings. I let us but live in the service of our Lord, and observe His holy law, without wronging our neighbour, and we shall abound with all good things. Hear what the Lord Himself has said:—‘Obey my commandments, and keep my laws, and I do promise that you shall live in the land without fear; and the land which you possess shall bring forth in such abundance that ye shall eat and be full:” and that without any fear, but with an entire rest and security, and your harvests shall be so great that ‘the reapers shall work unto seed time, and the makers of wine shall meet the sowers, and ye shall build in places which were deserts, and plant vines, and drink of the wine thereof, and sow gardens, and eat of the fruit of the trees you have planted, and ye shall never be turned out of your houses, saith the Lord.’” - A monarch depopulating his country, a minister of Christ preaching in praise of persecution, and a whole people witnessing with transport the banishment, the ruin, or the martyrdom of their neighbours, such were the effects of intolerance in Spain; and in every country its effects, if not equally ruinous, have been equally horrible. The rage of persecution is of all vices the most maddening and the most dangerous, for it deludes us under the appearance of virtue. All other vices spring from the sel- fishness of our nature; this alone, the most widely ruinous of all, arises from our regard to our neighbour. The beast man grows lazy and will not work, unless he is goaded by the whip of want and the spur of necessity, and he would apply motives equally forcible to drive his fellows to their happi- ness hereafter. Under this pretext the most atrocious pas- sions are indulged, and the fury of the tiger becomes but a faint image of the ferocity of that worse monster man. To promote the general happiness is a great and dazzling idea, and with this view did Philip II. condemn his child as a heretic; with this view Mary lit the fires in Smithfield, and the Terrorists of France spread desolation over the Republic. I am sick of intolerance . Every man I meet is a Pro- crustes, who measures the worth of all besides by the standard of his own opinions. From the Atheist to the Franciscan Friar, through the links of the Deist, the Humanist, the Socinian, the low Arian, the high Arian, the orthodox Dissenter, and the high Churchman—all is intolerance 1 and I can persuade no one that these opposite opinions may exist without affecting the moral character. The leader of one pack will cry out against the bigoted and gloomy Christian, and the leader of the other will cry out against the profligate and sensual Atheist, and a pack of curs will yelp in chorus after the one and the other, and both the packs will set upon him who will not join in the chase of persecution. It is not by his principles that I will judge of man; it were as rational to describe the cameleon by his colour, or the mock-bird by his note. An honest man, indeed, can have but one character, but Diogenes sought in vain for one two thousand years ago, and the breed is not grown more common. As for the multitude, like a looking-glass they reflect the features of those in the room with them, and unlike the honest mirror, they will flatter you to your face. Experience is said to be the mother of Wisdom. I have been married to Experience so long, that if little Wisdom be not come yet the connection will be a barren one. When Wordsworth returned from France in 1792, he says that he found The general air still busy with the stir Of that first memorable onset made By a strong levy of humanity Upon the traffickers in Negro blood. But he adds that he did not then fix his mind strongly upon that one among many wrongs, because he brought with him - the faith That, if France prospered, good men would not long Pay fruitless worship to humanity, And this most rotten branch of human shame, Object, so seemed it, of superfluous pains, Would fall together with its parent tree. On the 2nd of April, 1792, William Wilberforce bad moved for a Committee of the whole House of Commons to consider the African Slave-trade, and Pitt made on behalf of the motion a speech that Fox and Grey called one of the most extraordinary dis- plays of eloquence they had ever heard. Pitt and Fox were for immediate abolition, but it was decided by a large majority that the slave-trade should be gradually abolished. The devoted advocate of the just rights of the negro, Thomas Clarkson, born at Wisbeach in 1760, had in 1786 begun his effectual labour with a Latin prize essay on slavery, which was translated into English. He worked with Wilberforce, and through him, but it was not till 1807 that the first great victory over prejudice and custom was achieved by the abolition of the Eng- lish slave-trade. The use of slaves remained, and slavery was not abolished in the British possessions until August 1st, 1834, when 770,280 slaves became free. Clarkson lived to see his whole desire achieved, for he died, at the age of eighty-five, in 1846. While English minds were divided on the question of the abolition of the slave-trade, and the trade still flourished, Miss Edgeworth, at the outset of her career as a writer of fiction, made one of the first of her short tales a plea for the negro. She was thirty- four years old, in the year 1800, when her first novel was published; and March, 1802, is the date of her tale of THE GRATEFUL NEGRO. In the island of Jamaica there lived two planters, whose methods of managing their slaves were as different as pos- sible. Mr. Jefferies considered the negroes as an inferior species, incapable of gratitude, disposed to treachery, and to be roused from their natural indolence only by force ; he treated his slaves, or rather suffered his overseer to treat them, with the greatest severity. - - Jefferies was not a man of a cruel, but of a thoughtless and extravagant temper. He was of such a sanguine dispo- sition that he always calculated upon having a fine season, and fine crops on his plantation; and never had the prudence to make allowance for unfortunate accidents: he required, as he said, from his overseer produce and not excuses. 372 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1802. ' Durant, the overseer, did not scruple to use the most cruel and barbarous methods of forcing the slaves to exertions beyond their strength. Complaints of his brutality, from time to time, reached his master's ears; but though Mr. Jefferies was moved to momentary compassion, he shut his heart against conviction; he hurried away to the jovial banquet, and drowned all painful reflections in wine. He was this year much in debt; and, therefore, being more than usually anxious about his crop, he pressed his overseer to exert himself to the utmost. - The wretched slaves upon his plantation thought them- selves still more unfortunate when they compared their condition with that of the negroes on the estate of Mr. Edwards. This gentleman treated his slaves with all possible humanity and kindness. He wished that there was no such thing as slavery in the world ; but he was convinced, by the arguments of those who have the best means of obtaining in- formation, that the sudden emancipation of the negroes would rather increase than diminish their miseries. His benevolence, therefore, confined itself within the bounds of reason. He adopted those plans for the amelioration of the state of the slaves which appeared to him the most likely to succeed without producing any violent agitation or revolution. For instance, his negroes had reasonable and fixed daily tasks; and when these were finished, they were permitted to em- ploy their time for their own advantage or amusement. If they chose to employ themselves longer for their master, they were paid regular wages for their extra work. This reward, for as such it was considered, operated most powerfully upon the slaves. Those who are animated by hope can perform what would seem impossibilities to those who are under the depressing influence of fear. The wages which Mr. Edwards promised, he took care to see punctually paid. He had an excellent overseer, of the name of Abraham Bayley, a man of a mild but steady temper, who was attached not only to his master's interests, but to his virtues; and who, therefore, was more intent upon seconding his humane views than upon Squeezing from the labour of the negroes the utmost produce. Each negro had, near his cottage, a portion of land, called his provision-ground; and one day in the week was allowed for its cultivation. It is common in Jamaica for the slaves to have provision- grounds, which they cultivate for their own advantage; but it too often happens that, when a good negro has successfully improved his little spot of ground, when he has built himself a house, and begins to enjoy the fruits of his industry, his acquired property is seized upon by the sheriff's officer for the payment of his master's debts; he is forcibly separated from his wife and children, dragged to public auction, purchased by a stranger, and perhaps sent to terminate his miserable existence in the mines of Mexico; excluded for ever from the light of heaven; and all this without any crime or impru- dence on his part, real or pretended. He is punished because his master is unfortunate | To this barbarous injustice the negroes on Mr. Edwards's plantation were never exposed. He never exceeded his income ; he engaged in no wild speculations; he contracted no debts; and his slaves, therefore, were in no danger of heing seized by a sheriff's officer: their property was secured to them by the prudence as well as by the generosity of their master. One morning, as Mr. Edwards was walking in that part of his plantation which joined to Mr. Jefferies' estate, he thought he heard the voice of distress at some distance. The lamentations grew louder and louder as he approached a Cottage, which stood upon the borders of Jefferies' planta- tion. This cottage belonged to a slave of the name of Caesar, the best negro in Mr. Jefferies' possession. Such had been his industry and exertion that, notwithstanding the Severe tasks imposed by Durant, the overseer, Caesar found means to cul- tivate his provision-ground to a degree of perfection nowhere else to be seen on this estate. Mr. Edwards had often admired this poor fellow's industry, and now hastened to inquire what misfortune had befallen him. When he came to the cottage, he found Caesar standing with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. A young and beautiful female negro was weeping bitterly, as she knelt at the feet of Durant, the overseer, who, regarding her with a sullen aspect, repeated, “He must go. I tell you, woman, he must go. What signifies all this nonsense P” At the sight of Mr. Edwards, the overseer's countenance suddenly changed and assumed an air of obsequious civility. The poor woman retired to the farther corner of the cottage, and continued to weep. Caesar never moved. “Nothing is the matter, sir,” said Durant, “but that Caesar is going to be sold. That is what the woman is crying for. They were to be married; but we'll find Clara another husband, I tell her; and she'll get the better of her grief, you know, sir, as I tell her, in time.” “Never ! never !” said Clara. “To whom is Caesar going to be sold, and for what Sum ?” “For what can be got for him,” replied Durant, laughing; “ and to whoever will buy him. The sheriff's officer is here, who has seized him for debt, and must make the most of him at market.” “Poor fellow !” said Mr. Edwards; “and must he leave this cottage which he has built, and these bananas which he has planted ?” Caesar now, for the first time, looked up, and fixing his eyes upon Mr. Edwards for a moment, advanced with an intrepid rather than an imploring countenance, and said, “Will you be my master? Will you be her master? Buy both of us. You shall not repent it. Caesar will serve you faithfully.” On hearing these words, Clara sprang forward, and clasping her hands together, repeated, “Caesar will serve you faith- fully.” Mr. Edwards was moved by their entreaties, but he left them without declaring his intentions. He went immediately to Mr. Jefferies, whom he found stretched on a sofa, drink- ing coffee. As soon as Mr. Edwards mentioned the occasion of his visit, and expressed his sorrow for Caesar, Jefferies exclaimed, “Yes, poor devil! I pity him from the bottom of my soul. But what can I do? I leave all those things to Durant. He says the sheriff's officer has seized him; and there's an end of the matter. You know, money must be had. Besides, Caesar is not worse off than any other slave sold for debt. What signifies talking about the matter, as if it were something that never happened before | Is not it a case that occurs every day in Jamaica P” “So much the worse,” replied Mr. Edwards. “The worse for them, to be sure,” said Jefferies. “But, after all, they are slaves, and used to be treated as such; and they tell me the negroes are a thousand times happier here, with us, than they ever were in their own country.” “Did the negroes tell you so themselves?” “No ; but people better informed than negroes have told me so ; and, after all, slaves there must be ; for indigo, and rum, and sugar, we must have.” “Granting it to be physically impossible that the world should exist without rum, sugar, and indigo, why could they not be produced by freemen as well as by slaves? If we A.D. 1802.] 373 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. hired negroes for labourers, instead of purchasing them for slaves, do you think they would not work as well as they do now 2 Does any negro, under the fear of the overseer, work harder than a Birmingham journeyman, or a Newcastle collier, who toil for themselves and their families?” “Of that I don't pretend to judge. All I know is that the West India planters would be ruined if they had no slaves, and I am a West India planter.” “So am I : yet I do not think they are the only people whose interests ought to be considered in this business.” “Their interests, luckily, are protected by the laws of the land; and though they are rich men, and white men, and freemen, they have as good a claim to their rights as the poorest black slave on any of our plantations.” “The law, in our case, seems to make the right; and the very reverse ought to be done—the right should make the law.” “Fortunately for us planters, we need not enter into such nice distinctions. You could not, if you would, abolish the trade. Slaves would be smuggled into the islands.” “What, if nobody would buy them You know that you cannot smuggle slaves into England. The instant a slave touches English ground he becomes free. Glorious privilege Why should it not be extended to all her dominions P If the future importation of slaves into these islands were forbidden by law, the trade must cease. No man can either sell or possess slaves without its being known : they cannot be smuggled like lace or brandy.” “Well, well !” retorted Jefferies, a little impatiently, “as yet the law is on our side. I can do nothing in this business, nor you neither.” “Yes, we can do something; we can endeavour to make our negroes as happy as possible.” “I leave the management of these people to Durant.” “That is the very thing of which they complain; forgive me for speaking to you with the frankness of an old acquaint- ance.” -“Oh you can't oblige me more : I love frankness of all things! To tell you the truth, I have heard complaints of Durant’s severity, but I make it a principle to turn a deaf ear to them, for I know nothing can be done with these fellows without it. You are partial to negroes; but even you must allow they are a race of beings naturally inferior to us. You may in vain think of managing a black as you would a white. Do what you please for a negro, he will cheat you the first opportunity he finds. You know what their Inaxim is: “God gives black men what white men forget.’” To these commonplace desultory observations Mr. Edwards made no reply ; but recurred to poor Caesar, and offered to purchase both him and Clara, at the highest price the sheriff's officer could obtain for them at the market. Mr. Jefferies, with the utmost politeness to his neighbour, but with the most perfect indifference to the happiness of those whom he considered of a different species from himself, acceded to this proposal. Nothing could be more reasonable, he said; and he was happy to have it in his power to oblige a gentleman for whom he had such a high esteem. The bargain was quickly concluded with the sheriff's officer; for Mr. Edwards willingly paid several dollars more than the market price for the two slaves. When Caesar and Clara heard that they were not to be separated, their joy and gratitude were expressed with all the ardour and tenderness peculiar to their different characters. Clara was an Eboe, Caesar a Koromantyn negro: the Eboes are soft, languishing, and timid; the Koromantyns are frank, fearless, martial, and heroic. Mr. Edwards carried his new slaves home with him, de- sired Bayley, his overseer, to mark out a provision-ground for Caesar, and to give him a cottage, which happened at this time to be vacant. “Now, my good friend,” said he to Caesar, “you may work for yourself, without fear that what you earn may be taken from you ; or that you should ever be sold, to pay your master's debts. If he does not understand what I am saying,” continued Mr. Edwards, turning to his overseer, “you will explain it to him.” Caesar perfectly understood all that Mr. Edwards said; but his feelings were at this instant so strong that he could not find expression for his gratitude : he stood like One stu- pefied 1 Kindness was new to him; it overpowered his manly heart; and, at hearing the words “my good friend,” the tears gushed from his eyes; tears which no torture could have extorted Gratitude swelled in his bosom ; and he longed to be alone, that he might freely yield to his emotions. He was glad when the conch-shell sounded to call the negroes to their daily labour, that he might relieve the sensa- tions of his soul by bodily exertion. He performed his task in silence; and animattentive observer might have thought him. sullen. In fact, he was impatient for the day to be over, that he might get rid of a heavy load which weighed upon his mind. The cruelties practised by Durant, the overseer of Jefferies' plantation, had exasperated the slaves under his dominion. They were all leagued together in a conspiracy, which was kept profoundly secret. Their object was to extirpate every white man, woman, and child in the island. Their plans were laid with consummate art; and the negroes were urged to execute them by all the courage of despair. The confederacy extended to all the negroes in the island of Jamaica, excepting those on the plantation of Mr. Edwards. To them no hint of the dreadful secret had yet been given; their countrymen, knowing the attachment they felt to their master, dared not trust them with these projects of ven- geance. Hector, the negro who was at the head of the con- spirators, was a particular friend of Caesar, and had imparted to him all his designs. These friends were bound to each other by the strongest ties. Their slavery and their suffer- ings began in the same hour: they were both brought from their own country in the same ship. This circumstance alone forms, amongst the negroes, a bond of connection not easily to be dissolved. But the friendship of Caesar and Hector commenced even before they were united by the sympathy of misfortune; they were both of the same nation, both Roromantyns. In Africa they had both been accustomed to command; for they had signalised themselves by superior fortitude and courage. They respected each other for ex- celling in all which they had been taught to consider as virtuous; and with them revenge was a virtue ! Revenge was the ruling passion of Hector: in Caesar's mind it was rather a principle instilled by education. The one con- sidered it as a duty, the other felt it as a pleasure. Hector's sense of injury was acute in the extreme; he knew not how to forgive. Caesar's sensibility was yet more alive to kind- ness than to insult. Hector would sacrifice his life to extirpate an enemy. Caesar would devote himself for the defence of a friend; and Caesar now considered a white man as his friend. He was now placed in a painful situation. All his former friendships, all the solemn promises by which he was bound to his companions in misfortune, forbade him to indulge that delightful feeling of gratitude and affection, which, for the 374 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1802. first time, he experienced for one of that race of beings whom he had hitherto considered as detestable tyrants—objects of implacable and just revenge Caesar was most impatient to have an interview with Hector, that he might communicate his new sentiments, and dissuade him from those schemes of destruction which he meditated. At midnight, when all the slaves except himself were asleep, he left his cottage, and went to Jefferies' planta- tion, to the hut in which Hector slept. Even in his dreams Hector breathed vengeance. “Spare none | Sons of Africa, spare none !” were the words he uttered in his sleep, as Caesar approached the mat on which he lay. The moon shone full upon him. Caesar contemplated the countenance of his friend, fierce even in sleep. “Spare none ! Oh, yes! There is one that must be spared. There is one for whose sake all must be spared.” He wakened Hector by this exclamation. were you dreaming P” said Caesar. “Of that which, sleeping or waking, fills my soul—re- venge ' Why did you waken me from my dream P. It was delightful. The whites were weltering in their blood | But silence we may be overheard.” “No ; every one sleeps but ourselves,” replied Caesar. “I could not sleep, without speaking to you on—a subject that weighs upon my mind. You have seen Mr. Edwards º' “Yes. He that is now your master.” “He that is now my benefactor—my friend l’’ “Friend Can you call a white man friend?” cried Hector, starting up with a look of astonishment and indigna- tion. & “Yes,” replied Caesar, with firmness. “And you would speak, ay, and would feel, as I do, Hector, if you knew this white man. Oh, how unlike he is to all of his race, that we have ever seen Do not turn from me with so much disdain. Hear me with patience, my friend.” “I cannot,” replied Hector, “listen with patience to one who between the rising and the setting sun can forget all his resolutions, all his promises; who by a few soft words can be so wrought upon as to forget all the insults, all the injuries he has received from this accursed race; and can even call a white man friend ” Caesar, unmoved by Hector's anger, continued to speak of Mr. Edwards with the warmest expressions of gratitude; and finished by declaring he would sooner forfeit his life than rebel against such a master. He conjured Hector to desist from executing his designs; but all was in vain. Hector sat with his elbows fixed upon his knees, leaning his head upon his hands, in gloomy silence. Caesar's mind was divided between love for his friend, and gratitude to his master: the conflict was violent and painful. Gratitude at last prevailed: he repeated his declaration, that he would rather die than continue in a conspiracy against his benefactor | Hector refused to except him from the general doom. “Betray us if you will 1* cried he. “Betray our secrets to him whom you call your benefactor; to him whom a few hours have made your friend To him sacrifice the friend of your youth, the companion of your better days, of your better self | Yes, Caesar, deliver me over to the tormentors: I can endure no more than they can inflict. I shall expire without a sigh, without a groan. Why do you linger here, Caesar? Why do you hesitate P Hasten this moment to your master; claim your reward for delivering into his power hundreds of your countrymen Why do you hesitate? Away! The coward's friendship can be of use to none. Who can value his gratitude 2 Who can fear his revenge?” Hector raised his voice so high, as he pronounced these “Of what words, that he wakened Durant, the overseer, who slept in the next house. They heard him call out suddenly, to inquire who was there; and Caesar had but just time to make his escape, before Durant appeared. He searched Hector's cottage; but finding no one, retired again to rest. This man's tyranny made him constantly suspicious: he dreaded that the slaves should combine against him ; and he en- deavoured to prevent them, by every threat and every stratagem he could devise, from conversing with each other. They had, however, taken their measures, hitherto, so secretly, that he had not the slightest idea of the con- spiracy which was forming in the island. Their schemes were not yet ripe for execution; but the appointed time ap- proached. Hector, when he coolly reflected on what had passed between him and Caesar, could not help admiring the frankness and courage with which he had avowed his change of sentiments. By this avowal, Caesar had, in fact, exposed his own life to the most imminent danger, from the vengeance of the conspirators ; who might be tempted to assassinate him who had their lives in his power. Notwith- standing the contempt with which, in the first moment of passion, he had treated his friend, he was extremely anxious that he should not break off all connection with the con- spirators. He knew that Caesar possessed both intrepidity and eloquence; and that his opposition to their schemes would perhaps entirely frustrate their whole design. He therefore determined to use every possible means to bend him to their purposes. He resolved to have recourse to one of those persons who, amongst the negroes, are considered as Sorceresses. Esther, an old Koromantyn negress, had obtained by her skill in poisonous herbs, and her knowledge of venomous reptiles, a high reputation amongst her countrymen. She soon taught them to believe her to be possessed of supernatural powers; and she then worked their imagination to what pitch and purpose she pleased. She was the chief instigator of this intended rebellion. It was she who had stimulated the revengeful temper of Hector almost to phrensy. She now promised him that her arts should be exerted over his friend; and it was not long before he felt their influence. Caesar soon perceived an extraordi- nary change in the countenance and manner of his beloved Clara. A melancholy hung over her, and she refused to impart to him the cause of her dejection. Caesar was inde- fatigable in his exertions to cultivate and embellish the ground near his cottage, in hopes of making it an agreeable habitation for her; but she seemed to take no interest in any- thing. She would stand beside him immovable, in a deep reverie; and when he inquired whether she was ill, she would answer no, and endeavour to assume an air of gaiety: but this cheerfulness was transient; she soon relapsed into despon- dency. At length, she endeavoured to avoid her lover, as if she feared his farther inquiries. Unable to endure this state of suspense, he one evening resolved to bring her to an explanation. “Clara,” said he, “you once loved me: I have done nothing, have I, to forfeit your confidence?” “I once loved you!” said she, raising her languid eyes, and looking at him with reproachful tenderness; “and can you doubt my constancy P. Oh, Caesar, you little know what is passing in my heart | You are the cause of my melan- choly!” She paused and hesitated, as if afraid that she had said too much ; but Caesar urged her with so much vehemence, and so much tenderness, to open to him her whole soul, that at last , she could not resist his eloquence. She reluctantly revealed A.D. 1802.] 375 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. to him that secret of which she could not think without horror. She informed him that, unless he complied with what was required of him by the sorceress Esther, he was devoted to die. What it was that Esther required of him, Clara knew not : she knew nothing of the conspiracy. The timidity of her character was ill-suited to such a project; and everything relating to it had been concealed from her with the utmost care. When she explained to Caesar the cause of her dejection, his natural courage resisted these superstitious fears; and he endeavoured to raise Clara's spirits. He endeavoured in vain: she fell at his feet, and with tears, and the most tender supplications, conjured him to avert the wrath of the sorceress by obeying her commands whatever they might be “Clara,” replied he, “you know not what you askſ.” “I ask you to save your life I’” said she. “I ask you, for my sake, to save your life while yet it is in your power . " “But would you, to save my life, Clara, make me the worst of criminals P Would you make me the murderer of my benefactor P” Clara started with horror! “Do you recollect the day, the moment, when we were on the point of being separated for ever, Clara P Do you remem- ber the white man’s coming to my cottage * Do you remember his look of benevolence—his voice of compassion ? Do you remember his generosity ? Oh, Clara, would you make me the murderer of this man P” “Heaven forbid ’’ said Clara. “This cannot be the will of the sorceress!” “It is,” said Caesar. “But she shall not succeed, even though she speaks with the voice of Clara. Urge me no farther; my resolution is fixed. I should be unworthy of your love, if I were capable of treachery and ingratitude.” “But is there no means of averting the wrath of Esther?” said Clara. “Your life 3 y • “Think first cf my honour,” interrupted Caesar. “Your fears deprive you of reason. Return to the sorceress, and tell her that I dread not her wrath. My hands shall never be imbrued in the blood of my benefactor. Clara ! can you forget his look when he told us that we should never more be separated ?” “It went to my heart,” said Clara, bursting into tears. “Cruel, cruel Esther Why do you command us to destroy such a generous master P’’ The conch sounded to summon the negroes to their morn- ing's work. It happened this day that Mr. Edwards, who was continually intent upon increasing the comforts and happiness of his slaves, sent his carpenter, while Caesar was absent, to fit up the inside of his cottage; and when Caesar returned from work, he found his master pruning the branches of a tamarind tree that overhung the thatch. “How comes it, Caesar,” said he, “that you have not pruned these branches P’’ - Caesar had no knife. “Here is mine for you,” said Mr. Edwards. “It is very sharp,” added he, smiling; “but I am not one of those masters who are afraid to trust their negroes with sharp knives.” These words were spoken with perfect simplicity. Mr. Edwards had no suspicion, at this time, of what was passing in the negro's mind. Caesar received the knife without utter- ing a syllable; but no sooner was Mr. Edwards out of sight than he knelt down, and in a transport of gratitude swore that with this knife he would stab himself to the heart sooner than betray his master. The principle of gratitude conquered every other sensa- tion. The mind of Caesar was not insensible to the charms of freedom. He knew the negro conspirators had so taken their measures that there was the greatest probability of their success. His heart beat high at the idea of recovering his liberty; but he was not to be seduced from his duty, not even by this delightful hope; nor was he to be intimidated by the dreadful certainty that his former friends and country- men, considering him as a deserter from their cause, would become his bitterest enemies. The loss of Hector's esteem and affection was deeply felt by Caesar. Since the night that the decisive conversation relative to Mr. Edwards passed, Hector and he had never exchanged a syllable. This visit proved the cause of much suffering to Hector, and to several of the slaves on Jefferies' plantation. We mentioned that Durant had been awakened by the raised voice of Hector. Though he could not find any one in the cottage, yet his suspicions were not dissipated; and an acci- dent nearly brought the whole conspiracy to light. Durant had ordered one of the negroes to watch a boiler of sugar. The slave was overcome by the heat, and fainted. He had scarcely recovered his senses when the overseer came up, and found that the sugar had fermented, by having remained a few minutes too long in the boiler. He flew into a violent passion, and ordered that the negro should receive fifty lashes. His victim bore them without uttering a groan ; but when his punishment was over, and when he thought the overseer was gone, he exclaimed, “It will soon be our turn ” Durant was not out.of hearing. He turned suddenly, and observed that the negro looked at Hector when he pronounced these words, and this confirmed the suspicion that Hector was carrying on some conspiracy. He immediately had recourse to that brutality which he considered as the only means of governing black men. Hector and three other negroes were lashed unmercifully ; but no confessions could be ex- torted. Mr. Jefferies might perhaps have forbidden such violence to be used, if he had not been at the time carousing with a party of jovial West Indians, who thought of nothing but indulging their appetites in all the luxuries that art and nature could supply. The sufferings which had been endured by many of the wretched negroes to furnish out this magnifi- cent entertainment were never once thought of by these selfish epicures. Yet so false are the general estimates of character, that all these gentlemen passed for men of great feeling and generosity . The human mind, in certain situations, becomes so accustomed to ideas of tyranny and cruelty, that they no longer appear extraordinary or detestable; they rather seem part of the necessary and immutable order of things. Mr. Jefferies was stopped, as he passed from his dining- room into his drawing-room, by a little negro child of about five years old, who was crying bitterly. He was the son of one of the slaves who was at this moment under the tor- turer's hand. “Poor little devil l’” said Mr. Jefferies, who was more than half intoxicated. “Take him away; and tell Durant, some of ye, to pardon his father—if he can.” The child ran, eagerly, to announce his father's pardon; but he soon returned, crying more violently than before. Durant would not hear the boy ; and it was now no longer possible to appeal to Mr. Jefferies, for he was in the midst of an assembly of fair ladies, and no servant belonging to the house dared to interrupt the festivities of the even- ing. The three men, who were so severely flogged to extort from them confessions, were perfectly innocent; they knew nothing of the confederacy; but the rebels seized the moment when their minds were exasperated by this cruelty and injus- tice, and they easily persuaded them to join the league. The hope of revenging themselves upon the overseer was a motive sufficient to make them brave death in any shape. 376 [A.D. 1802 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Another incident, which happened a few days before the time destined for the revolt of the slaves, determined numbers who had been undecided. Mrs. Jefferies was a languid beauty, or rather a languid fine lady who had been a beauty, and who spent all that part of the day which was not devoted to the pleasures of the table, or to reclining on a couch, in dress. She was one day extended on a sofa, fanned by four slaves, two at her head and two at her feet, when news was brought that a large chest, directed to her, was just arrived from London. This chest contained various articles of dress of the newest fashions. The Jamaica ladies carry their ideas of magnifi- cence to a high pitch. They willingly give a hundred guineas for a gown, which they perhaps wear but once or twice. In the elegance and variety of her ornaments, Mrs. Jefferies was not exceeded by any lady in the island, except by one who had lately received a cargo from England. She now expected to outshine her competitor, and desired that the chest should be unpacked in her presence. In taking out one of the gowns, it caught on a nail in the lid, and was torn. The lady, roused from her natural indo- lence by this disappointment to her vanity, instantly ordered that the unfortunate female slave should be severely chastised. The woman was the wife of Hector, and this fresh injury worked up his temper, naturally vindictive, to the highest point. He ardently longed for the moment when he might satiate his vengeance. The plan the negroes had laid was to set fire to the canes, at one and the same time, on every plantation ; and when the white inhabitants of the island should run to put out the fire, the blacks were to seize this moment of confusion and consternation to fall upon them and make a general mas- sacre. The time when this scheme was to be carried into execution was not known to Caesar; for the conspirators had changed their day, as soon as Hector told them that his friend was no longer one of the confederacy. They dreaded he should betray them ; and it was determined that he and Clara should both be destroyed, unless they could be pre- vailed upon to join the conspiracy. Hector wished to save his friend; but the desire of ven- geance overcame every other feeling. He resolved, however, to make an attempt, for the last time, to change Caesar's re- solution. For this purpose, Esther was the person he employed. She was to work upon his mind by means of Clara. On returning to her cottage one night, she found suspended from the thatch one of those strange fantastic charms with which the Indian sorceresses terrify those whom they have proscribed. Clara, unable to conquer her terror, repaired again to Esther, who received her first in mysterious silence ; but after she had implored her forgiveness for the past, and with all possible humility conjured her to grant her future Trotection, the sorceress deigned to speak. Her commands were that Clara should prevail upon her lover to meet her, on this awful spot, the ensuing night. Little suspecting what was going forward on the plantation of Jefferies, Mr. Edwards that evening gave his slaves a holiday. He and his family came out at sunset, when the fresh breeze had sprung up, and seated themselves under a spreading palm-tree to enjoy the pleasing spectacle of this negro festival. His negroes were all well clad, and in the gayest colours, and their merry countenances suited the gaiety of their dress. While some were dancing, and some playing on the tambourine, others appeared amongst the distant trees, bringing baskets of avocado pears, grapes, and pine-apples, the produce of their own provision-grounds; and others were employed in spreading their clean trenchers, which she turned with savage impatience. or the calabashes, which served for plates and dishes. The negroes continued to dance and divert themselves till late in the evening. When they separated, and retired to rest, Caesar, recollecting his promise to Clara, repaired secretly to the habitation of the sorceress. It was situated in the recess of a thick wood. When he arrived there, he found the door fastened; and he was obliged to wait some time before it was opened by Esther. The first object he beheld was his beloved Clara, stretched on the ground, apparently a corpse! The sorceress had thrown her into a trance by a preparation of deadly nightshade. The hag burst into an infernal laugh, when she beheld the despair that was painted in Caesar’s countenance. “Wretch ’’ cried she, “you have defied my power: behold its victim I’’ Caesar, in a transport of rage, seized her by the throat; but his fury was soon checked. “Destroy me,” said the fiend, “and you destroy your Clara. She is not dead, but she lies in the sleep of death, into which she has been thrown by magic art, and from which no power but mine can restore her to the light of life. Yes! look at her, pale and motionless Never will she rise from the earth, unless, within one hour, you obey my commands. I have administered to Hector and his companions the solemn fetish Oath, at the sound of which every negro in Africa trembles: You know my object.” “Fiend, I do'" replied Caesar, eyeing her sternly; “but while I have life it shall never be accomplished.” “Look yonder ' ' cried she, pointing to the moon; “in a few minutes that moon will set: at that hour Hector and his friends will appear. They come armed—armed with weapons which I shall steep in poison for their enemies. Themselves I will render invulnerable. Look again : " con- tinued she ; “if my dim eyes mistake not, yonder they come. Rash man, you die if they cross my threshold.” “I wish for death,” said Caesar. “Clara is dead!” “But you can restore her to life by a single word.” Caesar, at this moment, seemed to hesitate. “Consider | Your heroism is vain,” continued Esther. “You will have the knives of fifty of the conspirators in your bosom, if you do not join them; and after you have fallen, the death of your master is inevitable. Here is the bowl of poison, in which the negro knives are to be steeped. Your friends, your former friends, your countrymen, will be in arms in a few minutes; and they will bear down every- thing before them—victory, wealth, freedom, and revenge will be theirs.” Caesar appeared to be more and more agitated. His eyes were fixed upon Clara. The conflict in his mind was violent; but his sense of gratitude and duty could not be shaken by hope, fear, or ambition; nor could it be vanquished by love. He determined, however, to appear to yield. As if struck with panic at the approach of the confederate negroes, he suddenly turned to the sorceress, and said, in a tone of feigned submission, “It is in vain to struggle with fate. Let my knife, too, be dipped in your magic poison.” The sorceress clapped her hands with infernal joy in her countenance. She bade him instantly give her his knife, that she might plunge it to the hilt in the bowl of poison, to His knife was left in his cottage, and under pretence of going in search of it, he escaped. Esther promised to prepare Hector and all his companions to receive him with the ancient cordiality on his return. Caesar ran with the utmost speed along a by-path out of the wood, met none of the rebels, reached his master's house, scaled the wall of his bed-chamber, got in at the window, and wakened him, exclaiming, “Arm—arm yourself, my dear master! Arm all-your slaves! They will fight for you; and To A.D. 1804.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 377 die for you, as I will the first. The Koromantyn yell of war will be heard in Jefferies' plantation this night ! Arm— arm yourself, my dear master, and let us surround the rebel leaders, while it is yet time. I will lead you to the place where they are all assembled, on condition that their chief, who is my friend, shall be pardoned.” Mr. Edwards armed himself and the negroes on his plantation, as well as the whites—they were all equally attached to him. He followed Caesar into the recesses of the wood. They proceeded with all possible rapidity, but in perfect silence, till they reached Esther's habitation, which they surrounded completely, before they were perceived by the conspirators. * Mr. Edwards looked through a hole in the wall, and, by the blue flame of a cauldron, over which the sorceress was stretching her shrivelled hands, he saw Hector and five stout negroes standing, intent upon her incantations. These negroes held their knives in their hands, ready to dip them into the bowl of poison. It was proposed, by one of the whites, to set fire immediately to the hut, and thus to force the rebels to surrender. The advice was followed; but Mr. Edwards charged his people to spare their prisoners. The moment the rebels saw that the thatch of the hut was in flames, they set up the Koromantyn yell of war, and rushed out with frantic desperation. “Yield you are pardoned, Hector l’’ cried Mr. Edwards, in a loud voice. “You are pardoned, my friend!” repeated Caesar. Hector, incapable at this instant of listening to anything but revenge, sprang forwards, and plunged his knife into the bosom of Caesar. The faithful servant staggered back a few paces; his master caught him in his arms. “I die content,” said he. “Bury me with Clara.” He swooned from loss of blood as they were carrying him home ; but when his wound was examined, it was found not to be mortal. As he recovered from his swoon, he stared wildly round him, trying to recollect where he was, and what had happened. He thought that he was still in a dream, when he saw his beloved Clara standing beside him. The opiate, which the pretended sorceress had administered to her, had ceased to operate ; she wakened from her trance just at the time the Koromantyn yell commenced. Caesar's joy!—-We must leave that to the imagination. In the meantime, what became of the rebel negroes, and Mr. Edwards P the negroes upon Jefferies' plantation from insurrection. The moment they heard the war-whoop, the signal agreed upon, they rose in a body; and, before they could be prevented, either by the whites on the estate, or by Mr. Edwards's ad- herents, they had set fire to the overseer's house and to the canes. The overseer was the principal object of their ven- geance—he died in tortures, inflicted by the hands of those who had suffered most by his cruelties. Mr. Edwards, however, quelled the insurgents before rebellion spread to any other estates in the island. The influence of his charac- ter and the effect of his eloquence upon the minds of the people were astonishing; nothing but his interference could have prevented the total destruction of Mr. Jefferies and his family, who, as it was computed, lost this night upwards of fifty thousand pounds. He was never afterwards able to re- cover his losses, or to shake off his constant fear of a fresh insurrection among his slaves. At length he and his lady returned to England, where they were obliged to live in obscurity and indigence. They had no consolation in their misfortunes but that of railing at the treachery of the whole race of slaves. Our readers, we hope, will think that at least one exception may be made in favour of THE GRATEFUL NEGRO, A paragraph from William Cobbett's Political Register for the 30th of June, 1804, will serve to recall the fidelity with which men held to a custom while it was accepted by society. We do so now : there are few of us who cannot look back upon some dead social prejudice that we once joined in honour- ing and are now glad to forget. SLAVE-TRADE. On the 27th instant the bill for abolishing the slave-trade was read in the House of Commons a third time and passed. The House divided; the members being, for the third read- ing, 69, against it, 33, leaving a majority of 36 in favour of the bill. In the Upper House it is to be hoped the pro- gress of this bill will be stopped ; for, if it become a law, and is attempted to be carried into effect, there can be little doubt of its producing a total subversion of our West India Colonies. The short question to put to the House of Lords is this: do you wish to produce such subversion ? Those who say that, compared with the continuation of the slave-trade, the subversion of the colonies, the ruin of the planters and merchants, the diminution of the number of our seamen, and the consequent enfeebling of our maritime force, are, all put together, a mere trifle; those persons will, of course, persevere in their endeavours to carry the present measure; but those who think that the loss of the West India Islands would go very far to cripple and ruin and finally enslave these European Islands that we inhabit, will think twice before they vote once for the abolition of the slave-trade. William Cobbett, born in 1765 and bred first on his father's farm at Farnham, became a copying clerk and then a soldier. After seven years' service he obtained his discharge, and went to France and America before he settled at home as a writer. He began by opposing French ideas, and in January, 1802, began the issue of a weekly paper, The Political Register, which was to “embrace every rational object of a newspaper, a magazine, and a review.” It published comments, letters, digests of foreign intelligence and official documents that illus- The taking the chief conspirators prisoners did not prevent | trated current history. In one of his earliest num- bers Cobbett argued as stoutly against repeal of the paper duty as he argued against abolition of slavery. Profits and respect acquired in trade are propor- tioned to the value of the articles traded in. What- ever makes books dear obliges the bookseller to use more capital and adds to his respectability. As for the injury done to literature, he said, “all our books may be fairly reckoned amongst the luxuries of life, except those for the use of the established churches of England and Scotland; and these are exempted from duty. Whether, therefore, books are dear or cheap, precisely the same sum of money will be expended in the purchase of them ; if paper be high-priced, there will, indeed, be a less number of books; there will also be a less number of items in the bookseller's account; but its total will be the same, and the profits will be somewhat greater, because fewer hands will be employed in the reception and emission of the goods.” 224 378 [A. p. 1804 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Towards the close of May, 1805, Wordsworth finished the noble poem which was first published after his death in 1850 as “The Prelude.” While he was finishing it, the loss of his brother John by the wreck of the Abergavenny had saddened his life, and there is reference to this great sorrow in the following §ss *S$ —S$ §§ SS § - §§§ § § *~ WILLIAM Wornsworth. (From a Portrait by Hancock (1798) in Joseph Coitle’s “Early Recollections.”) letter to his friend, Sir George Beaumont, who had been sending him a portrait of the friend to whom “The Prelude " was addressed. Coleridge was then with Sir John Stoddart at Malta. Captain John Wordsworth was making his last voyage when his ship was wrecked, off Portland, on the night of the 5th of February, 1805, and he was one of the 286 who were drowned. Grasmere, June 3rd, 1805. MY DEAR SIR GEORGE,--I write to you from the moss-hut at the top of my orchard, the sun just sinking behind the hills in front of the entrance, and his light falling upon the green moss at the side opposite me. A linnet is singing in the tree above, and the children of some of our neighbours, who have been to-day little John's visitors, are playing below equally noisy and happy. The green fields in the level area of the vale, and part of the lake, lie before me in quietness. I have just been reading two newspapers full of factious brawls about Lord Melville and his delinquencies, ravage of the French in the West Indies, victories of the English in the East, fleets of ours roaming the sea in search of enemies whom they cannot find, &c. &c. &c.; and I have asked myself more than once lately, if my affections can be in the right place, caring as I do so little about what the world Seems to care so much for. All this seems to me, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” It is pleasant in such a mood to turn one's thoughts to a good man and a dear friend. I have, therefore, taken up the pen to write to you. And, first, let me thank you (which I ought to have done long ago, and should have done, but that I knew I had a licence from you to procrastinate) for your most acceptable present of Coleridge's portrait, welcome in itself, and more so as coming from you. It is as good a resemblance as I expect to see of Coleridge, taking it altogether, for I consider C.'s as a face absolutely impracticable. Mrs. Words- worth was overjoyed at the sight of the print; Dorothy and I much pleased. We think it excellent about the eyes and forehead, which are the finest parts of C.’s face, and the general contour of the face is well given ; but, to my sister and me, it seems to fail sadly about the middle of the face, particularly at the bottom of the nose. Mrs. W. feels this also; and my sister so much, that, except when she covers the whole of the middle of the face, it seems to her so entirely to alter the expression, as rather to confound than revive in her mind the remembrance of the original. We think, as far as mere likeness goes, Hazlitt's is better; but the expres- sion in Hazlitt's is quite dolorous and funereal; that in this is much more pleasing, though certainly falling far below what one would wish to see infused into a picture of C. Mrs. C. received a day or two ago a letter from a friend who had letters from Malta, not from Coleridge, but a Miss Stoddart, who is there with her brother. These letters are of the date of the 5th of March, and speak of him as looking well and quite well, and talking of coming home, but doubtful whether by land or sea. - I have the pleasure to say that I finished my poem about a fortnight ago. I had looked forward to the day as a most happy one; and I was indeed grateful to God for giving me life to complete the work, such as it is. But it was not a happy day for me; I was dejected on many accounts: when I looked back upon the performance it seemed to have a dead weight about it, the reality so far short of the expectation. It was the first long labour that I had finished; and the doubt whether I should ever live to write “The Recluse,” and the sense which I had of this poem being so far below what I seemed capable of executing, depressed me much ; above all, many heavy thoughts of my poor departed brother hung upon me, the joy which I should have had in showing him the manuscript, and a thousand other vain fancies and dreams. I have spoken of this, because it was a state of feeling new to me, the occasion being new. This work may be considered as a sort of portico to “The Recluse,” part of the same building, which I hope to be able, ere long, to begin with in earnest ; and if I am permitted to bring it to a conclusion, and to write, further, a narrative poem of the epic kind, I shall consider the task of my life as over. I ought to add that I have the satisfaction of finding the present poem not quite of so alarming a length as I appre- hended. I wish much to hear from you, if you have leisure; but as you are so indulgent to me, it would be the highest injustice were I otherwise to you. - We have read “Madoc,” and been highly pleased with it. It abounds in beautiful pictures and descriptions, happily introduced, and there is an animation diffused through the whole story, though it cannot, perhaps, be said that any of the characters interest you much, except, perhaps, young Llewellyn, whose situation is highly interesting, and he appears to me the best conceived and sustained character in the piece. His speech to his uncle at their meeting in the island is particularly interesting. The poem fails in the highest gifts of the poet's mind, imagination in the true sense of the word, and knowledge of human nature and the human heart. There is nothing that shows the hand of the great master; but the beauties in description are innumerable; for instance, that of the figure of the bard, towards the beginning of the convention of the bards, receiving the poetic inspiration; that of the wife of Tlalala, the Savage, going out to meet her husband; that of Madoc, and the Atzecan king with a long name, preparing for battle; everywhere, indeed, you have beautiful descriptions, and it is a work which does to A.D. 1808.] 379 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. the author high credit, I think. I should like to know your Öpinion of it. Farewell! Best remembrances and love to Lady Beaumont. Believe me, my dear Sir George, Your most sincere friend, W. WORDSWORTH. My sister thanks Lady Beaumont for her letter, and will write in a few days. I find that Lady B. has been pleased much by “Madoc.” Charles Lamb, the son of a barrister's clerk, was born in the Temple in 1775, and owed to the good offices of Mr. Samuel Salt, his father's employer, a presentation to Christ's Hospital, where he had seven CHARLEs LAMB. (From a Portrait by Hancock (1798) in Joseph Cottle's “Early Recollections.”) years of education. Coleridge was among his school- fellows, and the friendship between them began thus in their boyhood. Charles Lamb was clerk for a time under an elder brother John, at the South Sea House, and then obtained an appointment as clerk in the accountant's office of the East India Company. In this service he remained for thirty-four years, so that in 1825, when he was pensioned upon two-thirds of his salary, the salary had risen to about £600 a year. In September, 1796, when Lamb's age was but twenty-one, his elder sister Mary, who was subject to occasional fits of insanity, was afflicted with a sudden burst of acute madness, in which she seized a case-knife from the table and stabbed her mother to the heart. . There was an inquest on the mother's body, and a verdict of insanity. When Mary Lamb recovered reason in a lunatic asylum her brother John urged the necessity of her confinement for life; her father was imbecile; but Charles abided by her tenderly, and entering into a solemn under- taking to take charge of her for life, obtained her liberty. He was thenceforth her companion and comforter, abandoning all thought of marriage, and while protecting his sister, feeling and speaking of himself as one “used to look up to her in the least and biggest perplexities.” “God love her,” he wrote to a friend ; “may we two never love each other less.” Their love strengthened with time, if time had any strength to add to it. In 1797 Lamb published verse of his own, with verse by Coleridge and Charles Lloyd. 7. In 1804 Charles Lamb acquired the friendship of William Hazlitt. Hazlitt, three years younger than Lamb, was born at Maidstone in 1778, the son of a Unitarian minister, and sent at the age of fifteen to the Unitarian College at Hackney. But he even- tually gave up all thought of entering the ministry, and, following the example of an elder brother John, whose portraits of his mother and of Coleridge were hung by the Academy in 1802, resolved to be an artist. By 1805 he had given up painting as a means of livelihood, perhaps his last work being a painting then made of his new friend Charles Lamb as a Venetian senator. Hazlitt married in 1808, and lived first with his wife in a cottage of hers at Winterslow, near Salisbury, where a child was born in 1811, and a second child, the only survivor, in 1812. In 1812 William Hazlitt came to London, and became a critical writer in The Morming Chronicle, to which paper he became dramatic critic at the beginning of 1814. He wrote also in The Times, The Champion, and The Ea:aminer. It was he who in The Eagaminer reviewed Wordsworth’s “Excur- sion,” published in 1814. In the same year he con- tributed to The Edinburgh Review, and began in The Eacaminer, with his friend Leigh Hunt, a series of papers designed in the manner of The Tatler and The Spectator, and entitled “The Round Table. Illustration of these papers shall be given presently. WILLIAM HAZLITT. (From a Portrait Engraved for his “Life” by his . Grandson W. Carev, Hazlitt.) - Before 1814 the Rev. Sydney Smith, who died a Canon of St. Paul’s, had become an active writer in The Edinburgh Review, of which he had been part founder in 1802. His quick wit, seasoned with wisdom, made him one of the pleasantest of frields 380 [A.D. 1808. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. in social conversation, and in his writings he did faithful battle for many of the reforms he lived to see achieved, and some that yet remained to be achieved after his death. This was an article of his written in 1808, long before common opinion was ready to accept his teaching : FEMALE EDUCATION. Mr. Broadhurst is a very good sort of a man, who has not written a very bad book upon a very important subject. His object (a very laudable one) is to recommend a better system of female education than at present prevails in this country —to turn the attention of women from the trifling pursuits to which they are now condemned—and to cultivate faculties which, under the actual system of management, might almost as well not exist. To the examination of his ideas upon these points we shall very cheerfully give up a portion of our time and attention. A great deal has been said of the original differenée of capacity between men and women; as if women were more quick and men more judicious—as if women were more re- markable for delicacy of association, and men for stronger powers of attention. All this, we confess, appears to us very fanciful. That there is a difference in the understandings of the men and the women we every day meet with, everybody, we suppose, must perceive ; but there is none surely which may not be accounted for by the difference of circumstances in which they have been placed, without referring to any conjectural difference of original conformation of mind. As long as boys and girls run about in the dirt, and trundle hoops together, they are both precisely alike. If you catch up one half of these creatures, and train them to a particular set of actions and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite set, of course their understandings will differ, as one or the other sort of occupations has called this or that talent into action. There is surely no occasion to go into any deeper or more abstruse reasoning, in order to explain so . very simple a phenomenon. Taking it, then, for granted, that nature has been as bountiful of understanding to one sex as the other, it is incumbent on us to consider what are the principal objections commonly made against the communica- tion of a greater share of knowledge to women than commonly falls to their lot at present: for though it may be doubted whether women should learn all that men learn, the immense disparity which now exists between their knowledge we should hardly think could admit of any rational defence. It is not easy to imagine that there can be any just cause why a woman of forty should be more ignorant than a boy of twelve years of age. If there be any good at all in female ignorance, this (to use a very colloquial phrase) is surely too much of a good thing. Something in this question must depend, no doubt, upon the leisure which either sex enjoys for the cultivation of their understandings:—and we cannot help thinking, that women have fully as much, if not more idle time upon their hands than men. Women are excluded from all the serious busi- ness of the world; men are lawyers, physicians, clergymen, apothecaries, and justices of the peace—sources of exertion which consume a great deal more time than producing and suckling children; so that if the thing is a thing that ought to be done—if the attainments of literature are objects really worthy the attention of females, they cannot plead the want of leisure as an excuse for indolence and neglect. The lawyer who passes his day in exasperating the bickerings of Roe and Doe, is certainly as much engaged as his lady, who has the whole of her morning before her to correct the children and pay the bills. The apothecary, who rushes from an act of phlebotomy in the western parts of the town to insinuate a bolus in the east, is surely as completely absorbed as that fortunate female who is darning the garment or preparing the repast of her Æsculapius at home; and in every degre and situation of life, it seems that men must necessarily be exposed to more serious demands upon their time and atten- tion, than can possibly be the case with respect to the other sex. We are speaking always of the fair demands which ought to be made upon the time and attention of women; for, as the matter now stands, the time of women is considered as worth nothing at all. Daughters are kept to occupations in sewing, patching, mantua-making, and mending, by which it is impossible they can earn tenpence a day. The intellectual improvement of women is considered to be of such subordinate importance that twenty pounds paid for needlework would give to a whole family leisure to acquire a fund of real know- ledge. They are kept with nimble fingers and vacant under- standings till the season for improvement is utterly past away, and all chance of forming more important habits completely lost. We do not therefore say that women have more leisure than men, if it be necessary they should lead the life of artisans; but we make this assertion only upon the supposition that it is of some importance women should be instructed; and that many ordinary occupations, for which a little money will find a better substitute, should be sacrificed to this consideration. We bar, in this discussion, any objection which proceeds from the mere novelty of teaching women more than they are already taught. It may be useless that their education should be improved, or it may be pernicious; and these are the fair grounds on which the question may be argued. But those who cannot bring their minds to consider such an unusual extension of knowledge, without connecting with it some sensation of the ludicrous, should remember, that, in the progress from absolute ignorance, there is a period when cultivation of the mind is new to every rank and descrip- tion of persons. A century ago, who would have believed that country gentlemen could be brought to read and spell with the ease and accuracy which we now so frequently remark—or supposed that they could be carried up even to the elements of ancient and modern history P Nothing is more common, or more stupid than to take the actual for the possible—to believe that all which is, is all which can be, first to laugh at every proposed deviation from practice as impossible, then, when it is carried into effect, to be astonished that it did not take place before. It is said, that the effect of knowledge is to make women pedantic and affected; and that nothing can be more offen- sive, than to see a woman stepping out of the natural modesty of her sex, to make an ostentatious display of her literary attainments. This may be true enough, but the answer is so trite and obvious that we are almost ashamed to make it. All affectation and display proceed from the supposition of possessing something better than the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing two legs and two arms;– because that is the precise quantity of either sort of limb which everybody possesses. Who ever heard a lady boast that she understood French P—for no other reason, that we know of, but because everybody in these days does under- stand French ; and though there may be some disgrace in being ignorant of that language, there is little or no merit in its acquisition. Diffuse knowledge generally among women, and you will at once cure the conceit which knowledge occa- sions while it is rare. Vanity and conceit we shall of course witness in men and women as long as the world endures:— but by multiplying the attainments upon which these feelings A.D. 1808.] 381 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. are founded, you increase the difficulty of indulging them, and render them much more tolerable by making them the proofs of a much higher merit. When learning ceases to be uncommon among women, learned women will cease to be affected. A great many of the lesser and more obscure duties of life necessarily devolve upon the female sex. The arrangement of all household matters, and the care of children in their early infancy, must of course depend upon them. Now, there is a very general notion that the moment you put the educa- tion of women upon a better footing than it is at present, at that moment there will be an end of all domestic economy: and that, if you once suffer women to eat of the tree of know- ledge, the rest of the family will very soon be reduced to the same kind of ačrial and unsatisfactory diet. These and all such opinions are referable to one great and common cause of error; —that man does everything, and that nature does nothing; and that everything we see is referable to positive institution, rather than to original feeling. Can anything, for example, be more perfectly absurd than to suppose, that the care and perpetual solicitude which a mother feels for her children depends upon her ignorance of Greek and Mathematics; and that she would desert an infant for a quadratic equation? We seem to imagine that we can break in pieces the solemn institutions of nature, by the little laws of a boarding-school; and that the existence of the human race depends upon teaching women a little more or a little less;–that Cim- merian ignorance can aid parental affection, or the circle of arts and sciences produce its destruction. In the same manner, we forget the principles upon which the love of order, arrangement, and all the arts of economy depend. They depend not upon ignorance nor idleness; but upon the poverty, confusion, and ruin which would ensue from neglecting them. Add to these principles the love of what is beautiful and magnificent, and the vanity of display;- and there can surely be no reasonable doubt but that the order and economy of private life is amply secured from the perilous inroads of knowledge. We would fain know, too, if knowledge is to produce such baneful effects upon the material and the household virtues, why this influence has not already been felt P Women are much better educated now than they were a century ago; but they are by no means less remarkable for attention to the arrangements of their household, or less inclined to discharge the offices of parental affection. It would be very easy to show, that the same objection has been made at all times to every improvement in the education of both sexes, and all ranks— and been as uniformly and completely refuted by experience. A great part of the objections made to the education of women are rather objections made to human nature than to the female sex : for it is surely true, that knowledge, where it produces any bad effects at all, does as much mischief to one sex as to the other, and gives birth to fully as much arrogance, inattention to common affairs, and eccentricity among men as it does among women. But it by no means follows that you get rid of vanity and self-conceit, because you get rid of learning. Self-complacency can never want an excuse; and the best way to make it more tolerable, and more useful, is to give to it as high and as dignified an object as possible. But, at all events, it is unfair to bring forward against a part of the world, an objection which is equally powerful against the whole. When foolish women think they have any distinction they are apt to be proud of it; so are foolish men. But we appeal to any one who has lived with cultivated persons of either sex, whether he has not witnessed as much pedantry, as much wrongheadedness, as much arrogance, and certainly a great deal more rudeness, produced by learning in men than in women: therefore, we should make the accusation general—or dismiss it altogether; though, with respect to pedantry, the learned are certainly a little unfortunate, that so very emphatic a word, which is occasionally applicable to all men embarked eagerly in any pursuit, should be reserved exclusively for them : for as pedantry is an ostentatious obtrusion of knowledge, in which those who hear us cannot sympathise, it is a fault of which soldiers, sailors, sportsmen, gamesters, cultivators, and all men engaged in a particular occupation, are quite as guilty as Scholars; but they have the good fortune to have the vice only of pedantry, while scholars have both the vice and the name for it too. Some persons are apt to contrast the acquisition of im- portant knowledge with what they call simple pleasures; and deem it more becoming that a woman should educate flowers, make friendships with birds, and pick up plants, than enter into more difficult and fatiguing studies. If a woman have no taste and genius for higher occupations, let her en- gage in these, rather than remain destitute of any pursuit. But why are we necessarily to doom a girl, whatever be her taste or her capacity, to one unvaried line of petty and frivolous occupation ? If she be full of strong sense, and elevated curiosity, can there be any reason why she should be diluted and enfeebled down to a mere culler of simples, and fancier of birds?—why books of history and reasoning are to be torn out of her hand, and why she is to be sent, like a butterfly, to hover over the idle flowers of the field P Such amusements are innocent to those whom they can oc- cupy ; but they are not innocent to those who have too powerful understandings to be occupied by them. Light broths and fruits are innocent food only to weak or to infant stomachs; but they are poison to that organ in its perfect and mature state. But the great charm appears to be in the word simplicity—simple pleasure | If by a simple pleasure is meant an innocent pleasure, the observation is best answered by showing, that the pleasure which results from the acquisition of important knowledge is quite as innocent as any pleasure whatever: but if by a simple pleasure is meant one, the cause of which can be easily analysed, or which does not last long, or which in itself is very faint, then simple pleasures seem to be very nearly synonymous with small pleasures; and if the simplicity were to be a little increased, the pleasure would vanish altogether. - As it is impossible that every man should have industry or activity sufficient to avail himself of the advantages of educa- tion, it is natural that men who are ignorant themselves, should view, with some degree of jealousy and alarm, any proposal for improving the education of women. But such men may depend upon it, however, the system of female education may be exalted, that there will never be wanting a due proportion of failures ; and that after parents, guardians, and preceptors have done all in their power to make everybody wise, there will still be a plentiful supply of women who have taken special care to remain otherwise; and they may rest assured, if the utter extinction of ignorance and folly be the evil they dread, that their interests will always be effectually protected, in spite of every exertion to the contrary. We must in candour allow, that those women who begin, will have something more to overcome than may probably hereafter be the case. We cannot deny the jealousy which exists among pompous and foolish men, respecting the edu- cation of women. There is a class of pedants who would be cut short in the estimation of the world a whole cubit, if it were generally known that a young lady of eighteen could be taught to decline the tenses of the middle voice, or acquaint herself with the AEolic varieties of that celebrated language. 382 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1808. CASSELL's LIBRARY OF Then women have, cf course, all ignorant men for enemies to their instruction, who being bound (as they think), in point of sex, to know more, are not well pleased, in point of fact, to know less. But among men of sense and liberal politeness, a woman who has successfully cultivated her mind, without diminishing the gentleness and propriety of her manners, is always sure to meet with a respect and atten- tion bordering upon enthusiasm. - There is in either sex a strong and permanent disposition to appear agreeable to the other: and this is the fair answer to those who are fond of supposing, that a higher degree of knowledge would make women rather the rivals than the companions of men. Pre-supposing such a desire to please, it seems much more probable that a common pursuit should be a fresh source of interest than a cause of contention. Indeed, to suppose that any mode of education can create a general jealousy and rivalry between the sexes, is so very ridiculous, that it requires only to be stated in order to be refuted. The same desire of pleasing secures all that delicacy and reserve which are of such inestimable value to women. We are quite astonished, in hearing men converse on such subjects, to find them attributing such beautiful effects to ignorance. It would appear, from the tenor of such objections, that ignorance had been the great civiliser of the world. Women are delicate and refined only because they are ignorant ;-they manage their household, only because they are ignorant;-they attend to their children, only because they know no better. Now, we must really confess, we have all our lives been so ignorant, as not to know the value of ignorance. We have always attributed the modesty and the refined manners of women to their being well taught in moral and religious duty,+to the hazardous situation in which they are placed,—to that perpetual vigilance which it is their duty to exercise over thought, word, and action,-and to that cultivation of the mild virtues, which those who cultivate the stern and mag- nanimous virtues expect at their hands. After all, let it be remembered, we are not saying there are no objections to the diffusion of knowledge among the female sex. We would not hazard such a proposition respecting anything; but we are saying, that upon the whole, it is the best method of employ- ing time ; and that there are fewer objections to it than to any other method. There are, perhaps, 50,000 females in Great Britain who are exempted by circumstances from all necessary labour; but every human being must do something with their existence ; and the pursuit of knowledge is, upon the whole, the most innocent, the most dignified, and the most useful method of filling up that idleness, of which there is always so large a portion in nations far advanced in civili- sation. Let any man reflect, too, upon the solitary situation in which women are placed,—the ill-treatment to which they are sometimes exposed, and which they must endure in silence, and without the power of complaining,-and he must feel con- vinced, that the happiness of a woman will be materially in- creased in proportion as education has given to her the habit and the means of drawing her resources from herself. There are a few common phrases in circulation, respecting the duties of women, to which we wish to pay some degree of attention, because they are rather inimical to those opinions which we have advanced on this subject. Indeed, indepen- dently of this, there is nothing which requires more vigilance than the current phrases of the day, of which there are always some resorted to, in every dispute, and from the sove- reign authority of which it is often vain to make any appeal. “The true theatre for a woman is the sick chamber;”— “Nothing so honourable to a woman as not to be spoken of at all.” These two phrases, the delight of Noodledom, are grown into commonplaces upon the subject; and are not unfre- quently employed to extinguish that love of knowledge in women, which, in our humble opinion, it is of so much im- portance to cherish. Nothing, certainly, is so ornamental and delightful in women as the benevolent affections; but time cannot be filled up, and life employed, with high and impas- sioned virtues. Some of these feelings are of rare occurrence —all of short duration—or nature would sink under them. A scene of distress and anguish is an occasion where the finest qualities of the female mind may be displayed; but it is a monstrous exaggeration to tell women that they are born only for scenes of distress and anguish. Nurse father, mother, sister, and brother if they want it ; it would be a violation of the plainest duties to neglect them. But when we are talking of the common occupations of life, do not let us mistake the accidents for the occupations;–when we are arguing how the twenty-three hours of the day are to be filled up, it is idle to tell us of those feelings and agitations above the level of common existence, which may employ the remaining hour. Compassion, and every other virtue, are the great objects we all ought to have in view; but no man (and no woman) can fill up the twenty-four hours by acts of virtue. But one is a lawyer, and the other a ploughman, and the third a merchant; and then, acts of goodness, and intervals of compassion and fine feeling are scattered up and down the common occupations of life. We know women are to be compassionate; but they cannot be compassionate from eight o'clock in the morning till twelve o'clock at night:–and what.are they to do in the interval? This is the only ques- tion we have been putting all along, and is all that can be meant by literary education. Then, again, as to the notoriety which is incurred by literature.—The cultivation of knowledge is a very distinct thing from its publication ; nor does it follow that a woman is to become an author, merely because she has talent enough for it. We do not wish a lady to write books,—to defend and reply,–to squabble about the tomb of Achilles, or the plain of Troy, any more than we wish her to dance at the opera, to play at a public concert, or to put pictures in the Bxhibition, because she has learned music, dancing, and drawing. The great use of her knowledge will be that it contributes to her private happiness. She may make it public : but it is not the principal object which the friends of female education have in view. Among men, the few who write bear no comparison to the many who read. We hear most of the former, indeed, because they are in general the most ostentatious part of literary men; but there are innumerable persons who, without ever laying themselves before the public, have made use of literature to add to the strength of their understandings, and to improve the happiness of their lives. After all, it may be an evil for ladies to be talked of : but we really think those ladies who are talked of only as Mrs. Marcet, Mrs. Somerville, and Mrs. Martineau are talked of, may bear their misfor- tunes with a very great degree of Christian patience. Their exemption from all the necessary business of life is one of the most powerful motives for the improvement of education in women. Lawyers and physicians have in their professions a constant motive to exertion; if you neglect their education, they must in a certain degree educate them- selves by their commerce with the world; they must learn caution, accuracy, and judgment, because they must incur responsibility. But if you neglect to educate the mind of a woman, by the speculative difficulties which occur in litera- ture, it can never be educated at all: if you do not effec- tually rouse it by education, it must remain for ever languid. Uneducated men may escape intellectual degradation; un- educated women cannot. They have nothing to do; and if A.D. 1808.] 383 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. they come untaught from the schools of education, they will never be instructed in the school of events. - Women have not their livelihood to gain by knowledge ; and that is one motive for relaxing all those efforts which are made in the education of men. They certainly have not ; but they have happiness to gain, to which knowledge leads as probably as it does to profit; and that is a reason against mistaken indulgence. Besides, we conceive the labour and fatigue of accomplishments to be quite equal to the labour and fatigue of knowledge; and that it takes quite as many years to be charming as it does to be learned. Another difference of the sexes is, that women are attended to, and men attend. All acts of courtesy and politeness originate from the one sex, and are received by the other. We can see no sort of reason, in this diversity of condition, for giving to women a trifling and insignificant education; but we see in it a very powerful reason for strengthening their judgment, and inspiring them with the habit of em- ploying time usefully. We admit many striking differences in the situation of the two sexes, and many striking differ- ences of understanding proceeding from the different circum- stances in which they are placed; but there is not a single difference of this kind which does not afford a new argument for making the education of women better than it is. They have nothing serious to do;-is that a reason why they should be brought up to do nothing but what is trifling P They are exposed to greater dangers;–is that a reason why their faculties are to be purposely and industriously weakened P They are to form the characters of future men;–is that a cause why their own characters are to be broken and frittered down as they now are P In short, there is not a single trait in that diversity of circumstances, in which the two sexes are placed, that does not decidedly prove the magnitude of the error we commit in neglecting (as we do neglect) the educa- tion of women. If the objections against the better education of women could be overruled, one of the great advantages that would ensue would be the extinction of innumerable follies. A decided and prevailing taste for one or another mode of education there must be. A century past, it was for house- wifery—now it is for accomplishments. The object now is, to make women artists, to give them an excellence in drawing, music, painting, and dancing,-of which, persons who make these pursuits the occupation of their lives, and derive from them their subsistence, need not be ashamed. Now, one great evil of all this is, that it does not last. If the whole of life were an Olympic game, if we could go on feasting and dancing to the end,-this might do; but it is in truth merely provision for the little interval between coming into life, and settling in it; while it leaves a long and dreary expanse behind, devoid both of dignity and cheerfulness. No mothér, no woman who has passed over the few first years of life, sings, or dances, or draws, or plays upon musical instruments. These are merely means for displaying the grace and vivacity of youth, which every woman gives up, as she gives up the dress and the manners of eighteen; she has no wish to retain them, or, if she has, she is driven out of them by diameter and derision. The system of female educa- tion, as it now stands, aims only at embellishing a few years of life, which are in themselves so full of grace and happiness that they hardly want it; and then leaves the rest of exis- tence a miserable prey to idle insignificance. No woman of understanding and reflection can possibly conceive she is doing justice to her children by such kind of education. The object is, to give to children resources that will endure as long as life endures—habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy, —occupations that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and therefore, death less terrible: and the compensation which is offered for the omission of all this is a short-lived blaze,_a little temporary effect, which has no other consequence than to deprive the remainder of life of all taste and relish. There may be women who have a taste for the fine arts, and who evince a decided talent for drawing, or for music. In that case, there can be no objection to the cultivation of these arts; but the error is, to make such things the grand and universal object, to insist upon it that every woman is to sing, and draw, and dance,—with nature, or against nature, to bind her apprentice to some accomplishment, and if she cannot succeed in oil or water-colours, to prefer gilding, varnishing, burnishing, box-making, to real and solid improvement in taste, knowledge, and understanding. A great deal is said in favour of the social nature of the fine arts. Music gives pleasure to others. Drawing is an art, the amusement of which does not centre in him who exercises it, but is diffused among the rest of the world. This is true ; but there is nothing, after all, so social as a cultivated mind. We do not mean to speak slightingly of the fine arts, or to depreciate the good humour with which they are sometimes exhibited; but we appeal to any man, whether a little spirited and sensible conversation—display- ing, modestly, useful acquirements—and evincing rational curiosity, is not well worth the highest exertions of musical or graphical skill. A woman of accomplishments may enter- tain those who have the pleasure of knowing her for half an hour with great brilliancy; but a mind full of ideas, and with that elastic spring which the love of knowledge only can convey, is a perpetual source of exhilaration and amuse- ment to all that come within its reach;-not collecting its force into single and insulated achievements, like the efforts made in the fine arts, but diffusing, equally over the whole of existence, a calm pleasure—better loved as it is longer felt —and suitable to every variety and every period of life. Therefore, instead of hanging the understanding of a woman upon walls, or hearing it vibrate upon strings, instead of seeing it in clouds, or hearing it in the wind, we would make it the first spring and ornament of society, by enriching it with attainments upon which alone such power depends. If the education of women were improved, the education of men would be improved also. Let any one consider (in order to bring the matter more home by an individual instance) of what immense importance to society it is, whether a nobleman of first-rate fortune and distinction is well or ill brought up ;-what a taste and fashion he may inspire for private and for political vice —and what misery and mischief he may produce to the thousand human beings who are dependent on him!” A country contains no such curse within its bosom. Youth, wealth, high rank, and vice, form a combination which baffles all remonstrance and beats down all opposition. A man of high rank who combines these qualifications for corruption, is almost the master of the manners of the age, and has the public happiness within his grasp. But the most beautiful possession which a country can have is a noble and rich man who loves virtue and know- ledge ;-who without being feeble or fanatical is pious—and who without being factious is firm and independent ;-who, in his political life, is an equitable mediator between king and people; and, in his civil life, a firm promoter of all which can shed a lustre upon his country, or promote the peace and order of the world. But if these objects are of the importance which we attribute to them, the education of women must be important, as the formation of character for the first seven or eight years of life seems to depend almost entirely upon them. It is certainly in the power of a sensible 384 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1808 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF and well educated mother to inspire, within that period, such tastes and propensities as shall nearly decide the destiny of the future man; and this is done, not only by the intentional exertions of the mother, but by the gradual and insensible imitation of the child; for there is something extremely con- tagious in greatness and rectitude of thinking even at that age; and the character of the mother with whom he passes his early infancy is always an event of the utmost importance to the child. A merely accomplished woman cannot infuse her tastes into the minds of her sons; and, if she could, nothing could be more unfortunate than her success. Besides, when her accomplishments are given up, she has nothing left for it but to amuse herself in the best way she can ; and, becoming entirely frivolous, either declines altogether the fatigue of attending to her children, or, attending to them, has neither talents nor knowledge to succeed; and, therefore, here is a plain and fair answer to those who ask so trium- phantly, Why should a woman dedicate herself to this branch of knowledge P or, why should she be attached to such science f–Because, by having gained information on these points, she may inspire her son with valuable tastes, which may abide by him through life, and carry him up to all the sublimities of knowledge;—because she cannot lay the foun- dation of a great character if she is absorbed in frivolous amusements, nor inspire her child with noble desires when a long course of trifling has destroyed the little talents which were left by a bad education. It is of great importance to a country that there should be as many understandings as possible actively employed within it. Mankind are much happier for the discovery of barometers, thermometers, steam-engines, and all the innu- merable inventions in the arts and sciences. We are every day and every hour reaping the benefit of such talent and ingenuity. The same observation is true of such works as those of Dryden, Pope, Milton, and Shakspeare. Mankind are much happier that such individuals have lived and written; they add every day to the stock of public enjoy- ment—and perpetually gladden and embellish life. Now, the number of those who exercise their understandings to any good purpose is exactly in proportion to those who exercise it at all; but as the matter stands at present, half the talent in the universe runs to waste, and is totally unprofitable. It would have been almost as well for the world, hitherto, that women, instead of possessing the capacities they do at present, should have been born wholly destitute of wit, genius, and every other attribute of mind of which men make so eminent an use : and the ideas of use and possession are so united together, that because it has been the custom in almost all countries to give to women a different and a worse education than to men, the notion has obtained, that they do not possess faculties which they do not cultivate. Just as, in breaking up a common, it is sometimes very diffi- cult to make the poor believe it will carry corn, merely because they have been hitherto accustomed to see it produce nothing but weeds and grass—they very naturally mistake present condition for general nature. So completely have the talents of women been kept down, that there is scarcely a single work either of reason or imagination, written by a woman, which is in general circulation either in the English, French, or Italian literature; – scarcely one that has crept even into the ranks of our minor poets. If the possession of excellent talents is not a conclusive reason why they should be improved, it at least amounts to a very strong presumption ; and, if it can be shown that Women may be trained to reason and imagine as well as men, the strongest reasons are certainly necessary to show us why We should not avail ourselves of such rich gifts of nature; and we have a right to call for a clear statement of those perils which make it necessary that such talent should be totally extinguished, or, at most, very partially drawn out. The burthen of proof does not lie with those who say, Increase the quantity of talent in any country as much as possible—for such a proposition is in conformity with every man’s feelings; but it lies with those who say, Take care to keep that understanding weak and trifling which nature has made capable of becoming strong and powerful. The paradox is with them, not with us. In all human reasoning, knowledge must be taken for a good, till it can be shown to be an evil. But now, Nature makes to us rich and magnifi- cent presents; and we say to her—You are too luxuriant and munificent—we must keep you under and prune you ;—we have talents enough in the other half of the creation; and, if you will not stupefy and enfeeble the minds of women to our hands, we ourselves must expose them to a narcotic pro- cess, and educate away that fatal redundance with which the world is afflicted, and the order of sublunary things deranged. One of the greatest pleasures of life is conversation :-and the pleasures of conversation are of course enhanced by every increase of knowledge : not that we should meet together to talk of alkalis and angles, or to add to our stock of history and philology, -though a little of these things is no bad ingredient in conversation; but let the subject be what it may, there is always a prodigious difference between the conversation of those who have been well educated and of those who have not enjoyed this advantage. Education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness of vigour, fancy, words, images, and illustrations; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd. The subjects themselves may not be wanted upon which the talents of an educated man have been exercised; but there is always a demand for those talents which his education has rendered strong and quick. Now, really, nothing can be further from our intention than to say anything rude and unpleasant ; but we must be excused from observing, that it is not now a very common thing to be interested by the variety and extent of female knowledge, but it is a very common thing to lament that the finest faculties in the world have been confined to trifles utterly unworthy of their richness and their strength. The pursuit of knowledge is the most innocent and in- teresting occupation which can be given to the female sex; nor can there be a better method of checking a spirit of dis- sipation than by diffusing a taste for literature. The true way to attack vice is by setting up something else against it. Give to women in early youth something to acquire, of suffi- cient interest and importance to command the application of their mature faculties, and to excite their perseverance in future life;—teach them that happiness is to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the gratification of vanity; and you will raise up a much more formidable barrier against dissipation than an host of invectives and exhortations can supply. It sometimes happens that an unfortunate man gets drunk with very bad wine—not to gratify his palate but to forget his cares ; he does not set any value on what he receives, but on account of what it excludes;–it keeps out something worse than itself. Now, though it were denied that the acquisition of serious knowledge is of itself important to a woman, still it prevents a taste for silly and pernicious works of imagination; it keeps away the horrid trash of novels; and, in lieu of that eagerness for emotion and adventure which books of that sort inspire, promotes a calm and steady temperament of mind. To A.D. 1809.] 385 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. A man who deserves such a piece of good fortune, may generally find an excellent companion for all the vicissitudes of his life; but it is not so easy to find a companion for his understanding, who has similar pursuits with himself, or who can comprehend the pleasure he derives from them. We really can see no reason why it should not be otherwise; nor comprehend how the pleasures of domestic life can be pro- moted by diminishing the number of subjects in which persons who are to spend their lives together take a common interest. One of the most agreeable consequences of knowledge is the respect and importance which it communicates to old age. Men rise in character often as they increase in years; —they are venerable from what they have acquired, and pleasing from what they can impart. If they outlive their faculties, the mere frame itself is respected for what it once contained; but women (such is their unfortunate style of education) hazard everything upon one cast of the die;— when youth is gone, all is gone. No human creature gives his admiration for nothing ; either the eye must be charmed, or the understanding gratified. A woman must talk wisely or look well. Every human being must put up with the coldest civility, who has neither the charms of youth nor the wisdom of age. Neither is there the slightest commisera- tion for decayed accomplishments;–no man mourns over the fragments of a dancer, or drops a tear on the relics of musical skill. They are flowers destined to perish ; but the decay of great talents is always the subject of solemn pity; and, even when their last memorial is over, their ruins and vestiges are regarded with pious affection. There is no connection between the ignorance in which women are kept, and the preservation of moral and religious principle; and yet certainly there is, in the minds of some timid and respectable persons, a vague, indefinite dread of knowledge, as if it were capable of producing these effects. It might almost be supposed, from the dread which the pro- pagation of knowledge has excited, that there was some great secret which was to be kept in impenetrable obscurity, that all moral rules were a species of delusion and imposture, the detection of which, by the improvement of the understanding, would be attended with the most fatal consequences to all, and particularly to women. If we could possibly understand what these great secrets were, we might perhaps be disposed to concur in their preservation; but believing that all the Salutary rules which are imposed on women are the result of true wisdom, and productive of the greatest happiness, we cannot understand how they are to become less sensible of this truth in proportion as their power of discovering truth in general is increased, and the habit of viewing questions with accuracy and comprehension established by education. There are men, indeed, who are always exclaiming against every species of power, because it is connected with danger: their dread of abuses is so much stronger than their admiration of uses, that they would cheerfully give up the use of fire, gun- powder, and printing, to be free from robbers, incendiaries, and libels. It is true that every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application. But, trust to the natural love of good where there is no temptation to be bad —it operates nowhere more forcibly than in education. No man, whether he be tutor, guardian, or friend, ever contents himself with infusing the mere ability to acquire; but giving the power he gives with it a taste for the wise and rational exercise of that power; so that an educated person is not only one with stronger and better faculties than others, but with a more useful propensity—a disposition better cultivated—and associations of a higher and more important class. In short, and to recapitulate the main points upon which we have insisted,—Why the disproportion in knowledge between the two sexes should be so great, when the inequality in natural talents is so small; or why the understanding of women should be lavished upon trifles, when nature has made it capable of higher and better things, we profess ourselves not able to understand. The affectation charged upon female knowledge is best cured by making that knowledge more general : and the economy devolved upon women is best secured by the ruin, disgrace, and inconvenience which pro- ceeds from neglecting it. For the care of children nature has made a direct and powerful provision; and the gentle- ness and elegance of women is the natural consequence of that desire to please which is productive of the greatest part of civilisation and refinement, and which rests upon a foundation too deep to be shaken by any such modifications in education as we have proposed. If you educate women to attend to dignified and important subjects, you are mul- tiplying beyond measure the chances of human improve- ment by preparing and medicating those early impressions, which always come from the mother; and which, in a great majority of instances, are quite decisive of character and genius. Nor is it only in the business of education that women would influence the destiny of men.—If women knew more, men must learn more—for ignorance would then be shameful—and it would become the fashion to be instructed. The instruction of women improves the stock of national talents, and employs more minds for the instruction and amusement of the world;—it increases the pleasures of society, by multiplying the topics upon which the two sexes take a common interest,--and makes marriage an inter- course of understanding as well as of affection, by giving dig- nity and importance to the female character. The education of women favours public morals; it provides for every season of life, as well as for the brightest and the best; and leaves a woman when she is stricken by the hand of time, not as she now is, destitute of everything, and neglected by all; but with the full power and the splendid attractions of knowledge —diffusing the elegant pleasures of polite literature, and receiving the just homage of learned and accomplished men. On the 1st of June, 1809, Coleridge began the publication of a series of essays entitled The Friend, a literary, moral, and political weekly paper, excluding personal politics and the events of the day. In its re-issue it was described as “a Series of Essays to aid in the Formation of Fixed Principles in Politics, Morals, and Religion, with Literary Amusements interspersed.” The following story is from one of the papers given at what Coleridge called the Landing Places from his stream of speculation upon life. It tells a true story that had excited public attention when he was in Germany, and is given by him as he remembered it. MARIA SCHöNING. Maria Eleonora Schöning was the daughter of a Nuremberg wire-drawer. She received her unhappy existence at the price of her mother's life, and at the age of seventeen she followed, as the sole mourner, the bier of her remaining parent. From her thirteenth year she had passed her life at her father's sick-bed, the gout having deprived him of the use of his limbs; and beheld the arch of heaven only when she went to fetch food or medicines. The discharge of her filial duties occupied the whole of her time and all her thoughts. She was his only nurse, and for the last two 225 386 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1809. years they lived without a servant. She prepared his scanty meal, she bathed his aching limbs, and though weak and delicate from constant confinement and the poison of melan- choly thoughts, she had acquired an unusual power in her arms, from the habit of lifting her old and suffering father out of and into his bed of pain. Thus passed away her early youth in Sorrow: she grew up in tears, a stranger to the amusements of youth and its more delightful schemes and imaginations. She was not, however, unhappy; she attributed, indeed, no merit to herself for her virtues, but for that reason were they the more her reward. The peace which passeth all understanding disclosed itself in all her looks and movements. It lay on her countenance, like a steady un- shadowed moonlight; and her voice, which was naturally at once sweet and subtle, came from her like the fine flute- tones of a masterly performer, which still floating at some uncertain distance, seem to be created by the player rather than to proceed from the instrument. If you had listened to it in one of those brief sabbaths of the soul, when the activity and discursiveness of the thoughts are suspended, and the mind quietly eddies round, instead of flowing onward—(as at late evening in the spring I have seen a bat wheel in silent circles round and round a fruit-tree in full blossom, in the midst of which, as within a close tent of the purest white, an unseen nightingale was piping its sweetest notes)— in such a mood you might have half fancied, half felt, that her voice had a separate being of its own; that it was a living something, whose mode of existence was for the ear only: so deep was her resignation, so entirely had it become the un- conscious habit of her nature, and in all she did or said, so perfectly were both her movements and her utterance with- out effort, and without the appearance of effort | Her dying father's last words, addressed to the clergyman who attended him, were his grateful testimony, that during his long and Sore trial his good Maria had behaved to him like an angel; that the most disagreeable offices, and the least suited to her age and sex, had never drawn an unwilling look from her, and that whenever his eye had met hers he had been sure to see in it either the tear of pity or the sudden Smile expressive of her affection and wish to cheer him. “God,” said he, “will reward the good girl for all her long dutifulness to me!” He departed during the inward prayer which followed these his last words. His wish will be fulfilled in eternity; but for this world the prayer of the dying man was not heard | Maria sat and wept by the grave which now contained her father, her friend, the only bond by which she was linked to life. But while yet the last sound of his death-bell was murmuring away in the air, she was obliged to return with two revenue officers, who demanded entrance into the house, in order to take possession of the papers of the deceased, and from them to discover whether he had always given in his income, and paid the yearly income-tax according to his oath, and in proportion to his property. After the few documents had been looked through and collated with the registers, the officers found, or pretended to find, sufficient proofs that the deceased had not paid his tax proportionably, which imposed on them the duty to put all the effects under lock and seal. They therefore desired the maiden to retire to an empty room, till the ransom office had decided on the affair. Bred up in suffering, and habituated to immediate compliance, the affrighted and weeping maiden obeyed. She hastened to the empty garret, while the revenue officers placed the lock and seal upon the other doors, and finally took away the papers to the ransom office. Not before evening did the poor faint Maria, exhausted with weeping, rouse herself with the intention of going to her bed; but she found the door of her chamber sealed up, and that she must pass the night on the floor of the garret. The officers had had the humanity to place at the door the small portion of food that happened to be in the house. Thus passed several days, till the officers returned with an order that Maria Eleonora Schöning should leave the house with- out delay, the commission court having confiscated the whole property to the city treasury. The father before he was bedridden had never possessed any considerable property; but yet, by his industry, had been able not only to keep himself free from debt, but to lay up a small sum for the evil day. Three years of evil days, three whole years of sickness, had consumed the greatest part of this; yet still enough remained not only to defend his daughter from immediate want, but likewise to maintain her till she could get into some service or employment, and should have re- covered her spirits sufficiently to bear up against the hard- ships of life. With this thought her dying father comforted himself, and this hope too proved vain A timid girl, whose past life had been made up of sorrow and privation, she went indeed to solicit the commissioners in her own behalf; but these were, as is mostly the case on the Continent, advocates—the most hateful class, perhaps, of human society, hardened by the frequent sight of misery, and seldom superior in moral character to English petti- foggers or Old Bailey attorneys. She went to them, indeed, but not a word could she say for herself! Her tears and in- articulate sounds—for these her judges had no ears or eyes. Mute and confounded, like an unfledged dove fallen out from its mother's nest, Maria betook herself to her home, and found the house door too now shut upon her. Her whole wealth consisted in the clothes she wore. She had no relations to whom she could apply, for those of her mother had disclaimed all acquaintance with her, and her father was a Nether Saxon by birth. She had no acquaintance, for all the friends of old Schöning had forsaken him in the first year of his sickness. She had no playfellow, for who was likely to have been the companion of a nurse in the room of a sick man? Surely, since the creation never was a human being more solitary and forsaken than this innocent poor creature, that now roamed about friendless in a populous city, to the whole of whose inhabitants her filial tenderness, her patient domestic goodness, and all her soft yet difficult virtues, might well have been the model. But homeless near a thousand homes she stood, And near a thousand tables pined, and wanted food | The night came, and Maria knew not where to find a shelter. She tottered to the churchyard of the St. James' church in Nuremberg, where the body of her father rested. Upon the yet grassless grave she threw herself down; and could anguish have prevailed over youth, that night she had been in heaven. The day came, and, like a guilty thing, this guiltless, this good being, stole away from the crowd that began to pass through the churchyard, and hastening through the streets to the city gate, she hid herself behind a garden hedge just beyond it, and there wept away the second day of her desolation. The evening closed in ; the pang of hunger made itself felt amid the dull aching of self-wearied anguish, and drove the sufferer back again into the city. Yet what could she gain there P She had not the courage to beg, and the very thought of stealing never occurred to her innocent mind. Scarce conscious whither she was going, or why she went, she found herself once more by her father's grave, as the last relic of evening faded away in the horizon. I have sat for some minutes with my pen resting; I can scarce summon the courage to tell, what I scarce know whether I A.D. 1809.] 387 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. ought to tell. Were I composing a tale of fiction the reader might justly suspect the purity of my own heart, and most certainly would have abundant right to resent such an inci- dent, as an outrage wantonly offered to his imagination. As I think of the circumstance, it seems more like a dis- tempered dream but alas ! what is guilt so detestable other than a dream of madness, that worst madness, the madness of the heart? I cannot but believe that the dark and restless passions must first have drawn the mind in upon themselves, and as with the confusion of imperfect sleep, have in Some strange manner taken away the Sense of reality, in order to render it possible for a human being to perpetrate what it is too certain that human beings have perpetrated. The church- yards in most of the German cities, and too often, I fear, in those of our own country, are not more injurious to health than to morality. Their former venerable character is no more. The religion of the place has followed its superstitions, and their darkness and loneliness tempt worse spirits to roam in them than those whose nightly wanderings appalled the believing hearts of our brave forefathers . It was close by the new-made grave of her father that the meek and spotless daughter became the victim to brutal violence, which weeping and watching and cold and hunger had rendered her utterly unable to resist. The monster left her in a trance of stupe- faction, and into her right hand, which she had clenched con- vulsively, he had forced a half-dollar. It was one of the darkest nights of autumn : in the deep and dead silence the only sounds audible were the slow blunt ticking of the church clock, and now and then the sinking down of bones in the nigh charnel-house. Maria, when she had in some degree recovered her senses, sat upon the grave near which—not her innocence had been sacrificed, but—that which, from the frequent admonitions and almost the dying words of her father, she had been accustomed to consider as such. Guiltless, she felt the pangs of guilt, and still con- tinued to grasp the coin which the monster had left in her hand, with an anguish as sore as if it had been indeed the wages of voluntary prostitution. Giddy and faint from want of food, her brain becoming feverish from sleeplessness, and in this unexampled concurrence of calamities, this com- plication and entanglement of misery in misery, she imagined that she heard her father's voice bidding her leave his sight. His last blessings had been conditional, for in his last hours he had told her that the loss of her innocence would not let him rest quiet in his grave. His last blessings now sounded in her ears like curses, and she fled from the churchyard as if a demon had been chasing her; and hurrying along the streets, through which it is probable her accursed violator had walked with quiet and orderly step to his place of rest and security, she was seized by the watchmen of the night— a welcome prey, as they receive in Nuremberg half a gulden from the police chest for every woman that they find in the streets after ten o'clock at night. It was midnight, and she was taken to the next watch-house. The sitting magistrate before whom she was carried the next morning prefaced his first question with the most opprobrious title that ever belonged to the most hardened street-walkers, and which man born of woman should not address even to these, were it but for his own sake. The frightful name awakened the poor orphan from her dream of guilt, it brought back the consciousness of her inno- cence, but with it the sense likewise of her wrongs and of her helplessness. The cold hand of death seemed to grasp her, she fainted dead away at his feet, and was not with- out difficulty recovered. The magistrate was so far softened, and only so far, as to dismiss her for the present, but with a menace of sending her to the House of Correction if she were brought before him a second time. The idea of her own innocence now became uppermost in her mind; but mingling with the thought of her utter forlornness, and the image of her angry father, and doubtless still in a state of bewilder- ment, she formed the resolution of drowning herself in the river Pegnitz—in order (for this was the shape which her fancy had taken) to throw herself at her father's feet, and to justify her innocence to him in the world of spirits. She hoped that her father would speak for her to the Saviour, and that she should be forgiven. But as she was passing through the suburb she was met by a soldier's wife, who during the life- time of her father had been occasionally employed in the house as a charwoman. This poor woman was startled at the disordered apparel and more disordered looks of her young mistress, and questioned her with such an anxious and heart- felt tenderness, as at once brought back the poor orphan to her natural feelings and the obligations of religion. As a frightened child throws itself into the arms of its mother, and hiding its head on her breast, half tells amid sobs what has happened to it, so did she throw herself on the neck of the woman who had uttered the first words of kindness to her since her father's death, and with loud weeping she related what she had endured and what she was about to have done, told her all her affliction and her misery, the wormwood and the gall! Her kind-hearted friend mingled tears with tears, pressed the poor forsaken one to her heart; comforted her with sentences out of the hymn-book; and with the most affectionate entreaties conjured her to give up her horrid purpose, for that life was short, and heaven was for ever. Maria had been bred up in the fear of God; she now trembled at the thought of her former purpose, and followed her friend Harlin, for that was the name of her guardian angel, to her home hard by. The moment she entered the door she sank down and lay at her full length, as if only to be motionless in a place of shelter had been the fulness of delight. As when a withered leaf, that has been long whirled about by the gusts of autumn, is blown into a cave or hollow tree, it stops suddenly, and all at once looks the very image of quiet—such might this poor orphan appear to the eye of a meditative imagination. A place of shelter she had attained, and a friend willing to comfort her in all that she could ; but the noble-hearted Harlin was herself a daughter of calamity, one who from year to year must lie down in weariness and rise up to labour; for whom this world provides no other comfort but the sleep which enables them to forget it; no other physician but death, which takes them out of it ! She was married to one of the city guards, who, like Maria's father, had been long sick and bedridden. Him, herself, and two little children, she had to maintain by washing and charing ; and some time after Maria had been domesticated with them, Harlin told her that she herself had been once driven to a desperate thought by the cry of her hungry children, during a want of employment, and that she had been on the point of killing one of the little ones, and of then surrendering herself into the hands of justice. In this manner, she had conceived, all would be well provided for; the surviving child would be admitted, as a matter of course, into the Orphan House, and her husband into the Hospital; while she herself would have atoned for her act by a public execution, and, together with the child that she had de- stroyed, would have passed into a state of bliss. All this she related to Maria, and those tragic ideas left but too deep and lasting impression on her mind. Weeks after, she herself renewed the conversation, by expressing to her benefactress her inability to conceive how it was possible for one human being to take away the life of another, especially that of an 388 [A.D. 1809 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. innocent little child. “For that reason,” replied Harlin, “because it was so innocent and so good, I wished to put it out of this wicked world. Thinkest thou, then, that I would have my head cut off for the sake of a wicked child? Therefore it was little Nan that I meant to have taken with me, who, as you see, is always so sweet and patient ; little Frank has already his humours and naughty tricks, and suits better for this world.” This was the answer. Maria brooded a while over it in silence, then passionately snatched the children up in her arms, as if she would protect them against their own mother. For one whole year the orphan lived with the soldier's wife, and by their joint labours barely kept off absolute want. As a little boy (almost a child in size though in his thirteenth year) once told me of himself, as he was guiding me up the Brocken, in the Hartz Forest, they had but “little of that, of which a great deal tells but for little.” But now came the second winter, and with it came bad times, a season of trouble for this poor and meritorious household. The wife now fell sick : too constant and too hard labour, too scanty and too innutritious food, had gradually wasted away her strength. Maria redoubled her efforts in order to provide bread, and fuel for their washing which they took in ; but the task was above her powers. Besides, she was so timid and so agitated at the sight of strangers, that sometimes, with the best good-will, she was left without employment. One by one, every article of the least value which they possessed was sold off, except the bed on which the husband lay. He died just before the approach of spring; but about the same time the wife gave signs of convalescence. The physician, though almost as poor as his patients, had been kind to them : silver and gold had he none, but he occasionally brought a little wine, and often assured them that nothing was wanting to her perfect recovery but better nourishment and a little wine every day. This, however, could not be regularly procured, and Harlin’s spirits sank, and as her bodily pain left her she became more melancholy, silent, and self-involved. And now it was that Maria's mind was incessantly racked by the frightful apprehension, that her friend might be again meditating the accomplishment of her former purpose. She had grown as passionately fond of the two children as if she had borne them under her own heart; but the jeopardy in which she conceived her friend's salvation to stand—this was her predominant thought. For all the hopes and fears, which under a happier lot would have been associated with the objects of the senses, were transferred, by Maria, to her notions and images of a future state. In the beginning of March, one bitter cold evening, Maria started up and suddenly left the house. The last morsel of food had been divided between the two children for their breakfast; and for the last hour or more the little boy had been crying for hunger, while his gentler sister had been hiding her face in Maria's lap, and pressing her little body against her knees, in order by that mechanic pressure to dull the aching from emptiness. The tender-hearted and visionary maiden had watched the mother's eye, and had interpreted several of her sad and steady looks according to her preconceived apprehensions. She had conceived all at Once the strange and enthusiastic thought that she would in some way or other offer her own soul for the salvation of the soul of her friend. The money, which had been left in her hand, flashed upon the eye of her mind, as a single uncon- nected image; and faint with hunger and shivering with cold, she sallied forth—in search of guilt Awful are the dispensations of the Supreme, and in His severest judgments the hand of mercy is visible. It was a might so wild with Wind and rain, or rather rain and Snow mixed together, that a famished wolf would have stayed in his cave, and listened to a howl more fearful than his own. Forlorn Maria thou wert kneeling in pious simplicity at the grave of thy father, and thou becamest the prey of a monster! Innocent thou wert, and without guilt didst thou remain. Now thou goest forth of thy own accord—but God will have pity on thee! Poor bewildered innocent; in thy spotless imagination dwelt no distinct conception of the evil which thou wentest forth to brave To save the soul of thy friend was the dream of thy feverish brain, and thou wert again apprehended as an out- cast of shameless sensuality, at the moment when thy too spiritualised fancy was busied with the glorified forms of thy friend and of her little ones interceding for thee at the throne of the Redeemer At this moment her perturbed fancy suddenly suggested to her a new means for the accomplishment of her purpose; and she replied to the night-watch—who with a brutal laugh bade her expect on the morrow the unmanly punishment, which to the disgrace of human nature the laws of Protestant states (alas! even those of our own country) inflict on female vagrants—that she came to deliver herself up as an infanti- cide. She was instantly taken before the magistrate, through as wild and pitiless a storm as ever pelted ch a houseless head through as black and tyrannous a night as ever aided the workings of a heated brain Here she confessed that she had been delivered of an infant by the soldier's wife, Harlin, that she deprived it of life in the presence of Harlin, and according to a plan preconcerted with her, and that Harlin had buried it somewhere in the wood, but where she knew not. During this strange tale she appeared to listen, with a mixture of fear and satisfaction, to the howling of the wind ; and never sure could a confession of real guilt have been accompanied by a more dreadfully appropriate music At the moment of her apprehension she had formed the scheme of helping her friend out of the world in a state of innocence. When the soldier's widow was confronted with the orphan, and the latter had repeated her confession to her face, Harlin answered in these words, “For God’s sake, Maria how have I deserved this of thee º’’ Then turning to the magistrate, said, “I know nothing of this.” This was the sole answer which she gave, and not another word could they extort from her. The instruments of torture were brought, and Harlin was warned, that if she did not confess of her own accord, the truth would be immediately forced from her. This menace convulsed Maria Schöning with affright; her intention had been to emancipate herself and her friend from a life of unmixed suffering, without the crime of suicide in either, and with no guilt at all on the part of her friend. The thought of her friend's being put to the torture had not occurred to her. Wildly and eagerly she pressed her friend's hands, already bound in preparation for the torture—she pressed them in agony between her own, and said to her, “Anna' confess it ! Anna, dear Anna it will then be well with all of us ! all, all of us ! and Frank and little Nan will be put into the Orphan House !” Maria's scheme now passed, like a flash of lightning, through the widow's mind; she acceded to it at once, kissed Maria re- peatedly, and then serenely turning her face to the judge, acknowledged that she had added to the guilt by so obstinate a denial, that all her friend had said was true, Save only that she had thrown the dead infant into the river, and not buried it in the wood. They were both committed to prison, and as they both persevered in their common confession, the process was soon made out and the condemnation followed the trial: and the sentence, by which they were both to be beheaded with the sword, was ordered to be put in force on the next day but to A.D. 1815.] 389 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. one. On the morning of the execution the delinquents were brought together, in order that they might be recon- ciled with each other, and join in common prayer for for- giveness of their common guilt. But now Maria's thoughts took another turn. The idea that her benefactress, that so very good a woman, should be violently put out of life, and this with an infamy on her name which would cling for ever to the little orphans, over- powered her. Her own excessive desire to die scarcely prevented her from discovering the whole plan; and when Harlin was left alone with her, and she saw her friend's calm and affectionate look, her fortitude was dissolved; she burst into loud and passionate weeping, and throwing herself into her friend's arms, with convulsive sobs she entreated her forgiveness. Harlin pressed the poor agonised girl to her arms; like a tender mother, she kissed and fondled her wet cheeks, and in the most solemn and emphatic tones assured her that there was nothing to forgive. On the contrary, she was her greatest benefactress, and the instrument of God’s goodness to remove her at once from a miserable world and from the temptation of committing a heavy crime. In vain Her repeated promises, that she would answer before God for them both, could not pacify the tortured conscience of Maria, till at length the presence of the clergyman and the prepara- tions for receiving the sacrament occasioned the widow to address her thus—“See, Maria this is the Body and Blood of Christ, which takes away all sin! Let us partake together of this holy repast with full trust in God and joyful hope of our approaching happiness.” These words of comfort, uttered with cheering tones, and accompanied with a look of inexpressible tenderness and serenity, brought back peace for a while to her troubled spirit. They communicated together, and on parting, the magnanimous woman once more embraced her young friend; then stretching her hand toward heaven, said, “Be tranquil, Maria by to-morrow morning we are there, and all our sorrows stay here behind us.” I hasten to the scene of the execution; for I anticipate my reader's feelings in the exhaustion of my own heart. Serene and with unaltered countenance the lofty-minded Harlin heard the strokes of the death-bell, stood before the scaffold while the staff was broken over her, and at length ascended the steps, all with a steadiness and tranquillity of manner which was not more distant from fear than from defiance and bravado. Altogether different was the state of poor Maria : with shattered nerves and an agonising con- science that incessantly accused her as the murderess of her friend, she did not walk but staggered towards the scaffold and stumbled up the steps. While Harlin, who went first, at every step turned her head round and still whispered to her, raising her eyes to heaven, “But a few minutes, Maria and we are there !” On the scaffold she again bade her farewell, again repeating, “Dear Maria but one minute now, and we are together with God.” But when she knelt down and her neck was bared for the stroke, the unhappy girl lost all self-command, and with a loud and piercing shriek she bade them hold and not murder the innocent. “She is innocent I have borne false witness I alone am the murderess' " She rolled herself now at the feet of the executioner, and now at those of the clergymen, and conjured them to stop the execution: declaring that the whole story had been invented by herself; that she had never brought forth, much less destroyed, an infant; that for her friend’s sake she made this discovery; that for herself she wished to die, and would die gladly, if they would take away her friend, and promise to free her soul from the dreadful agony of having murdered her friend by false witness. The executioner asked Harlin if there were any truth in what Maria Schöning had said. The heroine answered with manifest reluctance: “Most assuredly she hath said the truth; I con- fessed myself guilty, because I wished to die and thought it best for both of us; and now that my hope is on the moment of its accomplishment, I cannot be supposed to declare myself innocent for the sake of saving my life—but any wretched- ness is to be endured rather than that poor creature should be hurried out of the world in a state of despair.” - The outcry of the attending populace prevailed to suspend the execution: a report was sent to the assembled magistrates, and in the meantime one of the priests reproached the widow in bitter words for her former false confession. “What,” she replied, sternly but without anger, “what would the truth have availed? Before I perceived my friend's purpose I did deny it: my assurance was pronounced an impudent lie; I was already bound for the torture, and so bound that the sinews of my hands started, and one of their worships in the large white peruke, threatened that he would have me stretched till the sun shone through me! and that then I should cry out, Yes, when it was too late.” The priest was hard-hearted or superstitious enough to continue his reproofs, to which the noble woman condescended no further answer. The other clergyman, however, was both more rational and more humane. He succeeded in silencing his colleague, and the former half of the long hour, which the magistrate took in making speeches on the improbability of the tale instead of re-examining the culprits in person, he employed in gaining from the widow a connected account of all the circumstances, and in listening occasionally to Maria's passionate descriptions of all her friend's goodness and mag- nanimity. For she had gained an influx of life and spirit from the assurance in her mind, both that she had now rescued Harlin from death and was about to expiate the guilt of her purpose by her own execution. For the latter half of the time the clergyman remained in silence, lost in thought, and momentarily expecting the return of the mes- senger. All that during the deep silence of this interval could be heard was one exclamation of Harlin to her un- happy friend—“Oh! Maria Maria! couldst thou but have kept up thy courage but for another minute, we should have been now in heaven!” The messenger came back with an order from the magistrates to proceed with the execution With reanimated countenance Harlin placed her neck on the block, and her head was severed from her body amid a general shriek from the crowd. The executioner fainted after the blow, and the under hangman was ordered to take his place. He was not wanted. Maria was already gone: her body was found as cold as if she had been dead for some hours. The flower had been snapt in the storm, before the scythe of violence could come near it. So Coleridge dwelt upon “what man has made of man.” And now we reach the year 1815 with a happier picture of English domestic life in three essays from “The Round Table,” two by William Hazlitt, and the third by his friend Leigh Hunt. A DAY BY THE FIRE. I am one of those that delight in a fireside, and can enjoy it without even the help of a cat or a tea-kettle. To cats, indeed, I have an aversion, as animals that only effect a sociality, without caring a jot for anything but their own luxury ; and my tea-kettle, I frankly confess, -has long been displaced, or rather dismissed, by a bronze-coloured and graceful urn; though, between ourselves, I am not sure that 390 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1815. I have gained anything by the exchange. Cowper, it is true, talks of the “bubbling and loud-hissing urn,” which Throws up a steamy column ; but there was something so primitive and unaffected,—so warm-hearted and unpresuming, in the tea-kettle, its song was so much more cheerful and continued,—and it kept the water so hot and comfortable as long as you wanted it, that I sometimes feel as if I had sent off a good, plain, faithful old friend, who had but one wish to serve me, for a super- ficial, smooth-faced upstart of a fellow, who, after a little promising and vapouring, grows cold and contemptuous, and thinks himself bound to do nothing but stand on a rug and have his person admired by the circle. To this admiration, LEIGH HUNT. From a Portrait taken by Samuel Lawrence in 1797. in fact, I have been obliged to resort, in order to make myself think well of my bargain, if possible; and, accord- ingly, I say to myself every now and then during the tea, “A pretty look with it—that urn ; ” or, “It's wonderful what a taste the Greeks had ; ” or, “The eye might have a great many enjoyments, if people would but look after forms and shapes.” In the meanwhile, the urn leaves off its “bubbling and hissing,”—but then there is such an air with it! My tea is made of cold water, -but then the Greeks were such a nation If there is any one thing that can reconcile me to the loss of my kettle more than another, it is that my fire has been left to itself ; it has full room to breathe and to blaze, and I can poke it as I please. What recollections does that idea excite –Poke it as I please —Think, benevolent Reader, think of the pride and pleasure of having in your hand that awful, but, at the same time, artless weapon, a poker, of putting it into the proper bar, gently levering up the coals, —and seeing the instant and bustling flame above | To what can I compare that moment 2 That sudden, empyreal enthusiasm * That fiery expression of vivification * That ardent acknowledgment, as it were, of the care and kindliness of the operator 2–Let me consider a moment:—it is very odd –I was always reckoned a lively hand at a simile;—but language and combination absolutely fail me here. If it is like anything, it must be something beyond everything in beauty and life. Oh-I have it now —think, Reader, if you are one of those who can muster up sufficient spright- liness to engage in a game of forfeits, on Twelfth night, for instance,—think of a blooming girl, who is condemned to “open her mouth and shut her eyes, and see what heaven,” in the shape of a mischievous young fellow, “will send her.” Her mouth is opened accordingly, the fire of her eyes is dead, her face assumes a doleful air;-up walks the aforesaid heaven or mischievous young fellow, (young Ouranos, - Hesiod would have called him,) and, instead of a piece of paper, a thimble, or a cinder, claps into her mouth a peg of orange or a long slice of citron;–then her eyes above instantly light up again, the smiles wreathe about, the sparklings burst forth, and all is warmth, brilliancy, and delight. I am aware that this simile is not perfect; but if it would do for an epic poem, as I think it might, after Virgil's whipping-tops and Homer's jackasses and black-puddings, the reader, perhaps, will not quarrel with it. But to describe my feelings in an orderly manner, I must request the reader to go with me through a day’s enjoyments by the fireside. It is part of my business to look about for helps to reflection ; and, for this reason, among many others, I indulge myself in keeping a good fire from morning till night. I have also a reflective turn for an easy chair, and a very thinking attachment to comfort in general. But of this, as I proceed.—Imprimis, then, the morning is clear and cold,—time, half-past seven, scene, a breakfast-room. Some persons, by the by, prefer a thick and rainy morning, with a sobbing wind, and the clatter of pattens along the streets ; but, I confess, for my own part, that being a sedentary person, and too apt to sin against the duties of exercise, I have somewhat too sensitive a consciousness of bad weather, and feel a heavy sky go over me like a feather-bed, or rather like a huge brush which rubs all my nap the wrong way. I am growing better in this respect, and by the help of a stout walk at noon, and getting, as it were, fairly into a favourite poet and a warm fire of an evening, begin to manage a cloud or an east wind tolerably well;-but still, for perfection’s sake on the present occasion, I must insist upon my clear morning, and will add to it, if the reader pleases, a little hoar-frost upon the windows, a bird or two coming after the crumbs, and the light smoke from the neighbouring chimneys brightening up into the early sunshine. Even the dustman’s bell is not unpleasant from its association; and there is something absolutely musical in the clash of the milk pails suddenly unyoked, and the ineffable, ad libitum note that follows. The waking epicure rises with an elastic anticipation; enjoys the freshening cold-water which endears what is to come; and even goes placidly through the villainous scraping process which we soften down into the level and lawny appellation of shaving. He then hurries down stairs, rub- bing his hands, and sawing the sharp air through his teeth; and as he enters the breakfast-room, sees his old companion glowing through the bars, the life of the apartment, and wanting only his friendly hand to be lightened a little, and enabled to shoot up into dancing brilliancy. (I find I am getting into a quantity of epithets here, and must rein in my enthusiasm.)—What need I say? The poker is applied, and would be so whether required or not, for it is impossible to resist the sudden ardour inspired by that sight:–the use of the poker, on first seeing one's fire, is as natural as shaking hands with a friend. At that movement, a hundred little sparks fly up from the coal-dust that falls within, while, from the masses themselves, a roaring flame mounts aloft with a deep and fitful sound as of a shaken carpet : — epithets again; —I must recur to poetry at once :— A.D. 1815.1 391 SFIORTER PROSE WORKS. Then shine the bars, the cakes in smoke aspire, A sudden glory bursts from all the fire. The conscious wight, rejoicing in the heat, Rubs the blithe knees, and toasts th’ alternate feet. The utility, as well as beauty, of the fire during breakfast, need not be pointed out to the most unphlogistic observer. A person would rather be shivering at any time of the day than at that of his first rising—the transition would be too unnatural:—he is not prepared for it, as Barnardine says, when he objects to being hanged. If you eat plain bread and butter with your tea, it is fit that your moderation should be rewarded with a good blaze; and if you indulge in hot rolls or toast, you will hardly keep them to their warmth with- out it, particularly if you read; and then,_if you take in a newspaper, what a delightful change from the wet, raw, dabbing fold of paper, when you first touch it, to the dry, crackling, crisp superficies, which, with a skilful spat of the fingernails at its upper end, stands at once in your hand, and looks as if it said “Come read me.” Nor is it the look of the newspaper only which the fire must render complete:—it is the interest of the ladies who may happen to form part of your family,–of your wife in particular, if you have one,— to avoid the niggling and pinching aspect of cold; it takes away the harmony of her features, and the graces of her behaviour; while, on the other hand, there is scarcely a more interesting sight in the world than that of a neat, delicate, good-humoured female, presiding at your breakfast-table, with hands tapering out of her long sleeves, eyes with a touch of Sir Peter Lely in them, and a face set in a little oval frame of muslin tied under the chin, and retaining a certain tinge of the pillow without its cloudiness. This is, indeed, the finishing grace of a fireside, though it is impossible to have it at all times, and perhaps not always politic, especially for the studious. From breakfast to dinner, the quantity and quality of en- joyment depend very much on the nature of one's concerns; and occupation of any kind, if we pursue it properly, will hinder us from paying a critical attention to the fireside. It is sufficient if our employments do not take us away from it, or at least from the genial warmth of a room which it adorns; —unless, indeed, we are enabled to have recourse to exercise; and in that case, I am not so unjust as to deny that walking or riding has its merits, and that the general glow they diffuse throughout the frame has something in it extremely pleasurable and encouraging;-nay, I must not scruple to confess, that, without some preparation of this kind, the enjoyment of the fireside, humanly speaking, is not absolutely perfect; as I have latterly been convinced by a variety of incontestible arguments in the shape of headaches, rheu- matisms, mote-haunted eyes, and other logical appeals to one's feelings which are in great use with physicians.— Supposing, therefore, the morning to be passed, and the due portion of exercise to have been taken, the Firesider fixes rather an early hour for dinner, particularly in the winter- time; for he has not only been early at breakfast, but there are two luxurious intervals to enjoy between dinner and the time of candles, one that supposes a party round the fire with their wine and fruit, —the other, the hour of twilight, of which it has been reasonably doubted whether it is not the most luxurious point of time which a fireside can present:— but opinions will naturally be divided on this as on all other subjects, and every degree of pleasure depends upon so many contingencies, and upon such a variety of associations, induced by habit and opinion, that I should be as unwilling as I am unable to decide on the matter. This, however, is certain, that no true Firesider can dislike an hour so com- posing to his thoughts, and so cherishing to his whole faculties; and it is equally certain, that he will be little inclined to protract the dinner beyond what he can help, for if ever a fireside becomes unpleasant, it is during that gross and per- nicious prolongation of eating and drinking, to which this latter age has given itself up, and which threatens to make the rising generation regard a meal of repletion as the ulti- matum of enjoyment. - The inconvenience to which I allude is owing to the way in which we sit at dinner, for the persons who have their backs to the fire are liable to be scorched, while, at the same time, they render the persons opposite them liable to be frozen; so that the fire becomes uncomfortable to the former, and tantalising to the latter; and thus three evils are produced, of a most absurd and scandalous nature;—in the first place, the fireside loses a degree of its character, and awakens feelings the very reverse of what it should; secondly, the position of the back towards it is a neglect and affront, which it becomes it to resent; and finally, its beauties, its proffered kindness, and its sprightly social effect, are at once cut off from the company by the interposition of those invidious and idle surfaces, called screens. This abuse is the more ridiculous, inasmuch as the remedy is so easy; for we have nothing to do but to use semicircular dining-tables, with the base unoccupied towards the fireplace, and the whole annoyance vanishes at once; the master or mistress might preside in the middle, as was the custom with the Romans, and thus propriety would be observed, while everybody had the sight and benefit of the fire;—not to mention, that, by this fashion, the table might be brought nearer to it, that the servants would have better access to the dishes, and that screens, if at all necessary, might be turned to better purpose as a general enclosure instead of a separation. But I hasten from dinner, according to notice ; and cannot but observe, that if you have a small set of visitors, who enter into your feelings on this head, there is no movement so pleasant as a general one from the table to the fireside, each person taking his glass with him, and a small, slim-legged table being introduced into the circle for the purpose of hold- ing the wine, and perhaps a poet or two, a glee-book, or a lute. If this practice should become general among those who know how to enjoy luxuries in such temperance as not to destroy conversation, it would soon gain for us another social advantage, by putting an end to the barbarous custom of sending away the ladies after dinner, a gross violation of those chivalrous graces of life, for which modern times are so highly indebted to the persons whom they are pleased to term Gothic. And here I might digress, with no great impropriety, to show the snug notions that were entertained by the knights and damsels of old in all particulars relating to domestic enjoyment, especially in the article of mixed company ;-but I must not quit the fireside, and will only observe, that, as the ladies formed its chief ornament, so they constituted its most familiar delight. The minstralcie, the service at the feste, The grete yeftes to the most and leste, The riche array of Theseus' paleis, Ne who sate first, me last upon the deis, What ladies fairest ben, or best dancing, Of which of hem can carole best or sing, Ne who most felingly speketh of love: What haukis sitten on the perch above, What houndis liggen on the flour adoun,- Of all this now make I no mencioun. CHAUCER. The word snug, however, reminds me, that, amidst all the languages, ancient and modern, it belongs exclusively to our own; and that nothing but a want of ideas suggested by that soul-wrapping epithet, could have induced certain frigid 392 [A.D. 1815. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. * connoisseurs to tax our climate with want of genius, sup- posing forsooth, that because we have not the sunshine of the Southern countries, we have no other warmth for our veins, and that, because our skies are not hot enough to keep us in-doors, we have no excursiveness of wit and range of imagination. It seems to me that a great deal of good argument in refutation of these calumnies has been wasted upon Monsieur du Bos and the Herrn Winckelman,—the one a narrow-minded pedantic Frenchman, to whom the freedom of our genius was incomprehensible, the other an Italianized German, who being suddenly transported into the sunshine, began frisking about with unwieldy vivacity, and concluded that nobody could be great or bewitching out of the pale of his advantages. Milton, it is true, in his “Paradise Lost,” expresses an injudicious apprehension lest An age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp his intended wing; but the very complaint which foreign critics bring against him as well as Shakspeare, is, that his wing was not damped enough, that it was too daring and unsubdued; and he not only avenges himself nobly of his fears by a flight beyond all Italian poetry, but shows, like the rest of his countrymen, that he could turn the coldness of his climate into a new species of inspiration, as I shall presently make manifest. Not to mention, however, that the Greeks and Romans, Homer in particular, saw a great deal worse weather than these critics would have us imagine, the question is, would the Poets themselves have thought as they did? Would Tyrtaeus, the singer of patriotism, have complained of being an Englishman P. Would Virgil, who delighted in husbandry, and whose first wish was to be a philosopher, having com- plained of living in our pastures, and being the countryman of Newton P Would Homer, the observer of character, the panegyrist of freedom, the painter of storms, of landscapes, and of domestic tenderness, -aye, and the lover of snug house-room and a good dinner, would he have complained of our humours, of our liberty, of our shifting skies, of our ever-green fields, our conjugal happiness, our firesides, and our hospitality ? I only wish the reader and I had him at this party of ours after dinner, with a lyre on his knee, and a goblet, as he says, to drink as he pleased,— ———Piein, hote thumos anogoi. Odyss. lib. viii. v. 70. I am much mistaken if our blazing fire and our freedom of speech would not give him a warmer inspiration than ever he felt in the person of Demodocus, even though placed on a lofty seat, and regaled with slices of brawn from a prince's table. The ancients, in fact, were by no means deficient in enthusiasm at sight of a good fire; and it is to be presumed, that if they had enjoyed such firesides as ours, they would have acknowledged the advantages which our genius presents in winter, and almost been ready to conclude with old Cleve- land, that the sun himself was nothing but Heaven’s coalery;- A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame. The ancient hearth was generally in the middle of the room, the ceiling of which let out the smoke; it was supplied with charcoal or faggots; and consisted, sometimes of a brazier or chafing-dish (the focus of the Romans), sometimes of a mere elevation or altar (the eſta or earxaša of the Greeks). We may easily imagine the smoke and annoyance which this custom must have occasioned,—not to mention the bad complexions which are caught by hanging over a fuming pan, as the faces of the Spanish ladies bear melancholy witness. The stoves, however, in use with the countrymen of Mons. du Bos and Winckelman are, if possible, still worse, having a dull, suffocating effect, with nothing to recompense the eye. The abhorrence of them which Ariosto expresses in one of his satires, when, justifying his refusal to accompany Cardinal d'Este into Germany, he reckons up the miseries of its winter-time, may have led M. Winckelman to conclude that all the Northern resources against cold were equally intolerable to an Italian genius; but Count Alfieri, a poet, at least as warmly inclined as Ariosto, delighted in England; and the great Romancer himself, in another of his satires, makes a commodious fireplace the climax of his wishes with regard to lodging. In short, what did Horace say, or rather what did he not say, of the raptures of in-door sociality,+ Horace, who knew how to enjoy sunshine in all its luxury, and who nevertheless appears to have snatched a finer in- spiration from absolute frost and snow P I need not quote all those beautiful little invitations he sent to his acquaint- ances, telling one of them that a neat room and a sparkling fire were waiting for him, describing to another the smoke springing out of the roof in curling volumes, and even congratulating his friends in general on the opportunity of enjoyment afforded them by a stormy day; but to take leave at once of these frigid connoisseurs, hear with what rapture he describes one of those friendly parties, in which he passed his winter evenings, and which only wanted the finish of our better morality and our patent fireplaces, to resemble the one I am now fancying. Wides, ut altà stet nive candidum Soracte: nec jam sustineant Onus Silvae laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acutof Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco Largé reponens: atque benignius Deprome quadrimum Sabiná, O Thaliarche, merum diotă. Permitte Divis caetera. . Donec virenti canities abest IMorosa. Nunc et campus, et area”, Lemesque sub noctem SuSurri Composità repetantur horá : Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellae risus ab angulo, Pignusque dereptum lacertis Aut digito male pertinaci. Lib. i. Od. 9. Behold yon mountain's hoary height Made higher with new mounts of Snow ; Again behold the winter's weight Oppress the lab’ring woods below, And streams with icy fetters bound Benum'd and crampt to solid ground. With well-heap'd logs dissolve the cold, And feed the genial hearth with fires, Produce the wine that makes us bold, And sprightly wit and mirth inspires. For what hereafter shall betide, Jove, if 'tis worth his care, provide. Th’ appointed hour of promis'd bliss, The pleasing whisper in the dark, The half unwilling, willing kiss, - - The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness feign, And hides but to be found again, These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain. DRYDEN, The Roman poet, however, though he occasionally boasts of his temperance, is too apt to lose sight of the intellectual part of his entertainment, or at least to make the sensual part predominate over the intellectual. Now, I reckon the nicety A.D. 1815.] 393 SEIORTER, PROSE WORKS. of social enjoyment to consist in the reverse; and after par- taking with Homer of his plentiful boiled and roast, and with Horace of his flower-crowned wine parties, the poetical reader must come at last to us Barbarians of the North for the perfection of fireside festivity—that is to say, for the union of practical philosophy with absolute merriment, for light meals and unintoxicating glasses, for refection that ad- ministers to enjoyment, instead of repletions that at once constitute and contradict it. I am speaking, of course, not of our commonplace eaters and drinkers, but of our classical arbiters of pleasure, as contrasted with those of other countries: these, it is observable, have all delighted in Horace, and copied him as far as their tastes were congenial; but without relaxing a jot of their real comfort, how pleasingly does their native philosophy temper and adorn the freedom of their conviviality, feeding the fire, as it were, with an equable fuel that hinders it alike from scorching and from going out, and, instead of the artificial enthusiasm of a heated body, enabling them to enjoy the healthful and unclouded predominance of a sparkling intelligence . It is curious, indeed, to see how distinct from all excess are their freest and heartiest notions of relaxation. Thus, our old poet Drayton, reminding his favourite companion of a fireside meeting, expressly unites freedom with moderation:— 1My dearly loved friend, how oft have we In winter evenings, meaning to be free, To some well-chosen place us’d to retire, And there with moderate meat, and wine, and fire, Have pass'd the hours contentedly in chat, Now talk’d of this, and then discours'd of that, Spoke our own verses 'twixt ourselves, if not Other men’s lines, which we by chance had got. Epistle to Henry Reynolds, Esq. Of Poets and Poesy. And Milton, in his Sonnet to Cyriack Skinner, one of the turns of which is plainly imitated from Horace, particularly qualifies a strong invitation to merriment by anticipating what Horace would always drive from your reflections,—the feelings of the day after :— Cyriack, whose grandsire, on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench ; To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that, after, mo repenting draws. Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way: For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in shew, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains. But the execution of this sonnet is not to be compared in gracefulness and a finished sociality with the one addressed to his friend Lawrence, which, as it presents us with the acme of elegant repast, may conclude the hour which I have just been describing, and conduct us complacently to our twilight. - Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son. Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day,+what may be won From the hard season gaining P Time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise, To hear the lute well-touch'd, and artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air P He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise. But twilight comes; and the lover of the fireside, for the perfection of the moment, is now alone. He was reading a minute or two ago, and for some time was unconscious of the increasing dusk, till, on looking up, he perceived the objects out of doors deepening into massy outline, while the sides of his fireplace began to reflect the light of the flames, and the shadow of himself and his chair fidgeted with huge obscurity on the wall. Still wishing to read, he pushed himself nearer and nearer to the window, and continued fixed on his book, till he happened to take another glance out of doors, and on returning to it, could make out nothing. He therefore lays it aside, and restoring his chair to the fireplace, seats himself right before it in a reclining posture, his feet apart upon the fender, his eyes bent down towards the grate, his arms on the chair's elbows, one hand hanging down, and the palm of the other turned up and presented to the fire, not to keep it from him, for there is no glare or scorch about it,--but to intercept and have a more kindly feel of its genial warmth. It is thus that the greatest and wisest of mankind have sat and meditated; a homely truism perhaps, but such a one as we are apt enough to forget. We talk of going to Athens or Rome to see the precise objects which the Greeks and Romans beheld, and forget that the Moon, which may be looking upon us at the moment, is the same identical planet that enchanted Homer and Virgil, and that has been contemplated and admired by all the great men and geniuses that have existed; by Socrates and Plato in Athens, by the Antonines in Rome, by the Alfreds, the Hospitals, the Miltons, Newtons, and Shakspeares. In like manner, we are anxious to dis- cover how these great men and poets appeared in common, what habits they loved, in what way they talked and medi- tated, nay, in what postures they delighted to sit, and whether they indulged in the same tricks and little comforts that we do. Look at Nature and their works, and we shall See that they did, and that when we act naturally and think earnestly, we are reflecting their commonest habits to the life. Thus we have seen Horace talking of his blazing hearth and Snug accommodations like the jolliest of our acquaintances; and thus we may safely imagine, that Milton was in some such attitude as I have described, when he sketched that enchanting little picture, which beats all the cabinet portraits that have been produced :— Or if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman’s drowsy charm To bless the doors from nightly harm. —But to attend to our fireside. The evening is beginning to gather in. The window, which presents a large face of watery grey, intersected by strong lines, is imperceptibly be- coming darker; and as that becomes darker, the fire assumes a more glowing presence. The contemplatist keeps his easy posture, absorbed in his fancies; and everything around him is still and serene. The stillness would even ferment in his ear, and whisper, as it were, of what the air contained: but a minute coil, just sufficient to hinder that busier silence, clicks in the baking coal, while every now and then the light ashes shed themselves below, or a stronger, but still a gentle flame flutters up with a gleam over the chimney. At length, the darker objects in the room become mingled; the gleam of the fire streaks with a restless light the edges of the furniture, and reflects itself in the blackening window: while his feet take a gentle move on the fender, and then settle again, and his face comes out of the general darkness, earnest even in 226 394 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1815. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF indolence, and pale in the very ruddiness of what it looks upon. This is the only time perhaps at which sheer idleness is salutary and refreshing. How observed with the smallest effort is every trick and aspect of the fire . A coal falling in, —a fluttering fume, a miniature mockery of a flash of lightning, nothing escapes the eye and the imagination. Sometimes a little flame appears at the corner of the grate like a quivering Spangle ; sometimes it swells out at top into a re. 'oss and brief lambency; anon it is seen only by a light beneath the grate, or it curls around one of the bars like a tongue, or darts out with a spiral thinness and a sulphureous and continued puffing as from a reed. The glowing coals meantime exhibit the shifting forms of hills, and vales, and gulfs, or fiery Alps, whose heat is uninhabitable even by spirit, or of black precipices, from which Swart fairies seem about to spring away on Sable wings;–then heat and fire are forgotten, and walled towns appear, and figures of unknown animals, and far-distant countries scarcely to be reached by human journey;-then coaches, and camels, and barking dogs as large as either, and forms that combine every shape and suggest every fancy; —till at last, the ragged coals tumbling together, reduce the vision to chaos, and the huge profile of a gaunt and grinning face seems to make a jest of all that has passed. During these creations of the eye, the thought roves about into a hundred abstractions, some of them suggested by the fire, some of them suggested by that suggestion,-- Some of them arising from the general sensation of comfort and composure, contrasted with whatever the world affords of evil, or dignified by high wrought meditation on whatsoever gives hope to benevolence and inspiration to wisdom. The philosopher at such moments plans his Utopian schemes, and dreams of happy certainties which he cannot prove:–the lover, happier and more certain, fancies his mistress with him, unobserved and confiding, his arm round her waist, her head upon his shoulder, and earth and heaven contained in that Sweet possession :-the poet, thoughtful as the one, and ardent as the other, springs off at once above the world, treads every turn of the harmonious spheres, darts up with gleaming wings through the sunshine of a thousand systems, and stops not till he has found a perfect Paradise, whose fields are of young roses, and whose air is music,+whose waters are the liquid diamond,-whose light is as radiance through crystal, —whose dwellings are laurel bowers, whose language is poetry, whose inhabitants are congenial souls,—and to enter the very verge of whose atmosphere strikes beauty on the face, and felicity on the heart. Alas, that flights so lofty should ever be connected with earth by threads as slender as they are long, and that the least twitch of the most common- place hand should be able to snatch down the viewless wanderer to existing comforts | The entrance of a single candle dissipates at once the twilight and the sunshine, and the ambitious dreamer is summoned to his tea! Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in. Never was Snug hour more feelingly commenced — Cowper was not a great poet; his range was neither wide nor lofty; but such as it was, he had it completely to him- Self; he is the poet of quiet life and familiar observation.— The fire, we see, is now stirred, and becomes very different from the one we have just left; it puts on its liveliest aspect in order to welcome those to whom the tea-table is a point of meeting, and it is the business of the Firesider to cherish this aspect for the remainder of the evening. How light and easy the coals look How ardent is the roominess within the bars How airily do the volumes of smoke course each other up the chimney, like so many fantastic and indefinite spirits, while the eye in vain endeavours to accompany any one of them | The flames are not so fierce as in the morning, but still they are active and powerful; and if they do not roar up the chimney, they make a constant and playful noise, that is extremely to the purposé. Here they come out at top with a leafy swirl; there they dart up spirally and at once,—there they form a lambent assemblage that shifts about on its own ground, and is continually losing and regaining its vanishing members. I confess I take particular delight in seeing a good blaze at top; and my impatience to produce it will sometimes lead me into great rashness in the article of poking, that is to Say, I use the poker at the top instead of the middle of the fire, and go probing it about in Search of a flame. A lady of my acquaintance,—“near and dear,” as they say in Parlia- ment, will tell me of this fault twenty times in a day, and every time so good-humouredly, that it is mere want of generosity in menot to amend it; but somehow or other I do not. The consequence is, that, after a momentary ebullition of blaze, the fire becomes dark and sleepy, and is in danger of going out. It is like a boy at school in the hands of a bad master, who, thinking him dull, and being impatient to render him brilliant, beats him about the head and ears, till he produces the very evil he would prevent. But, on the present occasion, I forbear to use the poker:—there is no need of it :—everything is comfortable; everything Snug and sufficient. How equable is the warmth around us ! How cherishing this rug to one’s feet ! How complacent the cup at one's lip ! What a fine broad light is diffused from the fire over the circle, gleaming in the urn and the polished mahogany, bringing out the white garments of the ladies, and giving a poetic warmth to their face and hair! I need not mention all the good things that are said at tea, still less the gallant. Good-humour never has an audience more disposed to think it wit, nor gallantry an hour of service more blameless and elegant. Ever since tea has been known, its clear and gentle powers of inspiration have been acknow- ledged, from Waller paying his court at the circle of Catharine of Braganza, to Dr. Johnson receiving homage at the parties of Mrs. Thrale. The former, in his lines, upon hearing it “commended by her Majesty,” ranks it at once above myrtle and laurel, and her Majesty, of course, agreed with him :— Venus her myrtle, Phoebus has his bays; Tea, both excels, which she vouchsafes to praise, The best of queens, and best of herbs, we owe To that bold nation, which the way did show To the fair region, where the sun does rise, Whose rich productions we so justly prize. The Muse's friend, Tea, does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade, And keep that palace of the soul serene, Fit, on her birth-day, to salute the Queen. The eulogies pronounced on his favourite beverage by Dr. Johnson, are too well known to be repeated here; and the commendatory inscription of the Emperor Kien Long, —to an European taste at least,--is somewhat too dull, unless his Majesty's tea-pot has been shamefully translated. For my own part, though I have the highest respect, as I have already shewn, for this genial drink, which is warm to the cold, and cooling to the warm, I confess, as Montaigne would have said, that I prefer coffee,_particularly in my political capacity : — Coffee, that makes the Politician wise To see through all things with his half-shut eyes. There is something in it, I think, more lively, and at the same time more substantial. Besides, I never see it but it A.D. 1815.] 395 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. reminds me of the Turks and their Arabian tales,—an association infinitely preferable to any Chinese ideas; and, like the king who put his head into the tub, I am transported into distant lands the moment I dip into the coffee-cup, at one minute ranging the valleys with Sinbad, at another encountering the fairies on the wing by moonlight, at a third exploring the haunts of the cursed Maugraby, or wrapt into the silence of that delicious solitude from which Prince Agib was carried by the fatal horse. Then if I wish to poeticise upon it at home, there is Belinda with her sylphs, drinking it in such state as nothing but poetry can supply:— For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd, The berries crackle, and the mill turns round ; On shining altars of japan they raise The silver lamp ; the fiery spirits blaze; From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, And China’s earth receives the smoking tide: At once they gratify the scent and taste, And frequent cups prolong the rich repast. Straight hover round the fair her airy band; Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann’d ; Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display’d, Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. It must be acknowledged, however, that the general associa- tion of ideas is at present in favour of tea, which, on that account, has the advantage of suggesting no confinement to particular ranks or modes of life. Let there be but a fireside, and anybody, of any denomination, may be fancied enjoying the luxury of a cup of tea, from the duchess in the evening drawing-room, who makes it the instrument of displaying her white hand, to the washerwoman at her early tub, who having had nothing to signify since five, sits down to it with her shining arms and corrugated fingers at six. If there is any one station of life in which it is enjoyed to most advan- tage, it is that of mediocrity,+that in which all comfort is reckoned to be best appreciated, because, while there is taste to enjoy, there is necessity to earn the enjoyment; and I cannot conclude the hour before us with a better climax of snugness than is presented in the following pleasing little verses. The author, I believe, is unknown, and may not have been much of a poet in matters of fiction; but who will deny his taste for matters of reality, or say that he has not handled his subject to perfection ? The hearth was clean, the fire was clear, The kettle on for tea, Palemon in his elbow-chair, As blest as man could be. Clarinda, who his heart possess'd, And was his new-made bride, With head reclin'd upon his breast Sat toying by his side. Stretch'd at his feet, in happy state, A fav'rite dog was laid, By whom a little sportive cat In wanton humour play’d. Clarinda's hand he gently prest ; She stole an amorous kiss, And blushing modestly confess'd The fulness of her bliss. Palemon, with a heart elate, Pray’d to Almighty Jove, That it might ever be his fate, Just so to live and love. Be this eternity, he cried, And let no more be given : Continue thus my lov’d fireside, I ask no other heav’n. The Happy Fireside.—Elegant Extracts. There are so many modes of spending the remainder of the evening between tea-time and bed-time (for I protest against all suppers that are not light enough to be taken on the knee), that a general description would avail me nothing, and I cannot be expected to enter into such a variety of particulars. Suffice it to say, that where the fire is duly appreciated, and the circle good-humoured, none of them can be unpleasant, whether the party be large or small, young or old, talkative or contemplative. If there is music, a good fire will be particularly grateful to the performers, who are often seated at the farther end of the room; for it is really shameful, that a lady who is charming us all with her voice, or firing us at the harp or piano, with the lightning of her fingers, should at the very moment be trembling with cold. As to cards, which were invented for the solace of a mad prince, and which are only tolerable, in my opinion, when we can be as mad as he was, that is to say, at a round game,—I cannot by any means patronise them, as a conscientious Firesider: for, not to mention all the other objections, the card-table is as awkward, in a fireside point of view, as the dinner-table, and is not to be compared with it in sociality. If it be necessary to pay so ill a compliment to the company, as to have re- course to Some amusement of the kind, there is chess or draughts, which may be played upon a tablet by the fire; but nothing is like discourse, freely uttering the fancy as it comes, and varied, perhaps, with a little music, or with the perusal of some favourite passages, which excite the comments of the circle. It is then, if tastes happen to be accordant, and the Social voice is frank as well as refined, that the “sweet music of speech” is heard in its best harmony, differing only for apter sweetness, and mingling but for happier participation, while the mutual sense smilingly bends in with every rising measure, And female stop smoothens the charm o'er all. This is the finished evening; this the quickener at once and the calmer of tired thought; this the spot, where our better spirits await to exalt and enliven us, when the daily and vulgar ones have discharged their duty : Questo è il Paradiso, Più dolce, che fra l' acque, e fra l'arene In ciel son le Sirene, * TASSO, Rime Amorose. Here, here is found A sweeter Paradise of sound, Than where the Sirens take their summer stands Among the breathing waters and glib sands. Bright fires and joyous faces, and it is no easy thing for philosophy to say good night. But health must be enjoyed, or nothing will be enjoyed; and the charm should be broken at a reasonable hour. Far be it, however, from a rational Firesider not to make exceptions to the rule, when friends have been long asunder, or when some domestic celebration has called them together, or even when hours peculiarly congenial render it difficult to part. At all events, the de- parture must be a voluntary matter; and here I cannot help exclaiming against the gross and villainous trick which some people have, when they wish to get rid of their company, of letting their fires go down, and the snuffs of their candles run to seed:—it is paltry and palpable, and argues bad policy as well as breeding; for such of their friends as have a different feeling of things, may chance to be disgusted with them altogether, while the careless or unpolite may choose to revenge themselves on the appeal, and face it out gravely till the morning. enough, on an ordinary occasion, to sit beyond all reasonable hour, it must be reckoned as a fatality,+as an ignorance of men and things, against which you cannot possibly provide, as a sort of visitation, which must be borne with patience, and which is not likely to occur often, if you know whom you If a common visitor be inconsiderate $º 396 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1815 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF invite, and those who are invited know you. But with an occasional excess of the fireside, what social virtue shall quarrel: A single friend, perhaps, loiters behind the rest;- you are alone in the house;—you have just got upon a subject, delightful to you both ; the fire is of a candent brightness; the wind howls out of doors; the rain beats; the cold is piercing ! Sit down.—This is a time when the most melancholy temperament may defy the clouds and storms and even extract from them a pleasure that will take no substance by daylight. The ghost of his happiness sits by him, and puts on the likeness of former hours;—and if such a man can be made comfortable by the moment, what enjoyment may it not furnish to an unclouded spirit P If the excess belong not to vice, temperance does not forbid it when it only grows out of occasion. The great poet, whom I have quoted so often for the fireside, and who will enjoy it with us to the last, was like the rest of our great poets, an ardent recommender of temperance in all its branches; but though he practised what he preached, he could take his night out of the hands of sleep as well as the most entrenching of us. To pass over, as foreign to our subject in point of place, his noble wish that he might “oft outwatch the bear,” with what a wrapped-up recollection of snugness, in the elegy on his friend Diodati, does he describe the fireside enjoyment of a winter's night? Pectora cui credam P Quis me lenire docebit Mordaces curas P Quis longam fallere noctem Dulcibus alloquiis, grato cum sibilat igni Molle pyrum, et mucibus strepitat focus, et malus Auster Miscet cuncta foris, et desuper intonat ulmo P In whom shall I confide? Whose counsel find A balmy med’cine for my troubled mind? Or whose discourse, with innocent delight, Shall fill me now, and cheat the wintry night, When hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear, And black’ning chestnuts start and crackle there, While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm, And the wind thunders through the neighb’ring elm ? COWPER'S Translation. Even when left alone, there is sometimes a charm in watching out the decaying fire, in getting closer and closer to it with tilted chair and knees against the bars, and letting the whole multitude of fancies, that work in the night silence, come whispering about the yielding faculties. The world around is silent; and for a moment the very cares of day seem to have gone with it to sleep, leaving you to snatch a waking sense of disenthralment, and to commune with a thousand airy visitants that come to play with innocent thoughts. Then for imagination’s sake, not for superstition's, are recalled the stories of the Secret World and the midnight pranks of Fairyism. The fancy roams out of doors after rustics led astray by the jack-o-lantern, or minute laughings heard upon the wind, or the night-spirit on his horse that comes flouncing through the air on his way to a surfeited citizen, or the tiny morris-dance that springs up in the watery glimpses of the moon;–or keeping at home, it finds a spirit in every room peeping at it as it opens the door, while a cry is heard from up stairs announcing the azure marks inflicted by The mips of fairies upon maids' white hips. or hearing a snoring from below, it tiptoes down into the kitchen, and beholds where —Lies him down the lubber fiend, And stretch'd out all the chimney’s length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength. Presently the whole band of fairies, ancient and modern,-- the daemons, sylphs, gnomes, sprites, elves, peries, genii, and, above all, the fairies of the fireside, the salamanders, lob-lie- by-the-fires, lars, lemures, and larvae, come flitting between the fancy's eye and the dying coals, some with their weapons and lights, others with grave steadfastness on book or dish, others of the softer kind with their arch looks and their conscious pretence of attitude, while a minute music tinkles in the ear, and Oberon gives his gentle order:– Through this house in glimmering light By the dead and drowsy fire, Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from briar; And this ditty, after me, Sing, and dance it trippingly. Anon, the whole is vanished, and the dreamer, turning his eye down aside, almost looks for a laughing sprite, gazing at him from a tiny chair, and mimicking his face and attitude. Idle fancies these, and incomprehensible to minds clogged with every-day earthliness, but not useless, either as an exercise of the invention, or even as adding consciousness to the range and destiny of the soul. They will occupy us too, and steal us away from ourselves, when other recollections fail us or grow painful,-when friends are found selfish, or better friends can but commiserate, or when the world has nothing in it to compare with what we have missed out of it. They may even lead us to higher and more solemn medita- tions, till we work up our way beyond the clinging and heavy atmosphere of this earthly sojourn, and look abroad upon the light that knows neither blemish nor bound, while our ears are saluted at that egress by the harmony of the skies, and our eyes behold the lost and congenial spirits that we have loved, hastening to welcome us with their sparkling eyes and their curls that are ripe with sunshine. But earth recals us again ;-the last flame is out;-the fading embers tinkle with a gaping dreariness; and the chill reminds us where we should be. Another gaze on the hearth that has so cheered us, and the last lingering action is to wind up the watch for the next day. Upon how many anxieties shall the finger of that brief chronicler strike, and upon how many comforts too ! To-morrow our fire shall be trimmed anew ; and so, gentle reader, good night:—may the weariness I have caused you make sleep the pleasanter Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull tears, Be heard all night within, nor yet without ; Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceivéd doubt. Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden, sad affrights, - Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not ; But let still silence true night-watches keep, That sacred Peace may in assurance reigne, And timely Sleep, since it is time to sleep, May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plaine. SPENSER’s Epithalamion. There was peace now for the country. The bells were ringing for morning service on the 18th of July, 1815, when the battle of Waterloo began with the French attack on Hougoumont, where, as Lord Dudley wrote, “a Belgian yeoman's garden wall was the safeguard of Europe, and the destiny of mankind perhaps turned upon the possession of his house.” When Robert Southey in the following year joined the large number of English tourists who visited the field of Waterloo, and recorded his impressions in a poem illustrated with pictures showing the yet recent scars of battle, he closed his poem with the argument that in no age and in no country had man ever existed in circumstances so To A.D. 1816.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 397 ENTRANCE To Hougou Mont. (From Southey's Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, 1816.) favourable to the full development of his moral and intellectual faculties as in England at that time. The peace which she had won by the battle of Waterloo left her at leisure to pursue the great objects and duties of bettering her own condition, and diffusing the blessings of civilisation and Christianity. On she must go progressively in good, In wisdom and in weal, or she must Wane. Like Ocean, she may have her ebb and flood, But stagnates not. And now her path is plain: Heaven's first command she may fulfil in peace, Replenishing the earth with her increase. Peace she hath won, with her victorious head, Hath won, through rightful war, auspicious peace; Nor this alone, but that in every land The withering rule of violence may cease. Was ever War with such blest victory crowned Did ever Victory with such fruits abound ! Rightly for this shall all good men rejoice, They most who most abhor all deeds of blood; Rightly for this with reverential voice Exalt to Heaven their hymns of gratitude; For ne'er till now did Heaven thy country bless With such transcendent cause for joy and thankfulness. If they in heart all tyranny abhor, This was the fall of Freedom's direst foe : If they detest the impious lust of war, Here hath that passion had its overthrow : As the best prospects of mankind are dear, Their joy should be complete, their prayer of praise sincere. And thou to whom in spirit at this hour The vision of thy Country's bliss is given, Who feelest that she holds her trusted power To do the will and spread the word of Heaven,- Hold fast the faith which animates thy mind, And in thy songs proclaim the hopes of human kind. RUINs of Hougou MonT. (From Southey's Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo, 1816.) - * º º --º gº-ººr -ºs- sº º:3> 398 [A.D. 1815. CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. CHAPTER XI. FROM THE BATTLE OF WATERLoo To THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA.—A.D. 1815 TO A.D. 1837. “PEACE hath her victories, no less renowned than War,” wrote Milton, and many vićtories remained for peace to win when the war closed in 1815. When the United Kingdom contained fifteen million of people, the produce of taxation was seventy-two million of pounds. In that year, in a time of abundant harvest, our English Parliament set up a Corn Law that closed the ports till wheat rose to the price of eighty shillings. Bread was at famine price in 1816, 1817, and 1818. There were riots, and there were executions. In 1817 the House of Lords threw out a Bill introduced by Sir Samuel Romilly, and passed by the House of Commons, for repealing the Act which made private theft in a shop to the amount of five shillings punishable with death. Juries had generally ceased to convict, but in 1785 ninety-seven persons had been hanged for that offence, and twenty of them at one time. When Sir Samuel Romilly brought in his Bill, there was a child of ten lying in Newgate under sentence of death for that offence. A Committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1815 to inquire into the state of beggary in London, was told of two thousand miserable people crammed into forty houses in George Yard, Whitechapel. Another Committee found in 1816 that there were 120,000 children in London wholly without means of education, the whole population of London being then not very much over a million. The cost of ill- administered poor relief had risen during the war from two millions to seven. Before 1816 there was no such thing as a savings bank in London. In 1816 William Cobbett began publishing his Weekly Register for twopence, and became the political mind of many thousands who felt in their daily lives the wrongs and evils of their time, and had no minds of their own formed to right use of reason. When a knot of vigorous young men, met in Francis Jeffrey's room at Edinburgh, planned The Edinburgh Review which made its first appear- ance in 1802, there was a resolve that it should battle, with help of the best attainable wit and wisdom, against ills manifest to many educated thinkers. In 1839, when furnishing a preface to his collected essays from The Edinburgh Review, Sydney Smith wrote, “To appreciate the value of The Edinburgh Review, the state of England at the period when that journal began should be had in remembrance. The Catholics were not eman- cipated—the Corporation and Test Acts were un- repealed—the Game Laws were horribly oppressive —steel traps and spring guns were set all over the country—prisoners tried for their lives could have no Counsel—Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery pressed heavily upon mankind—libel was punished by the most cruel and vindictive imprisonment— the principles of Political Economy were little under- stood—the laws of Debt and of Conspiracy were upon the worst possible footing—the enormous wicked- ness of the Slave Trade was tolerated—a thousand evils were in existence, which the talents of good and able men have since lessened or removed ; and these effects have been not a little assisted by the honest boldness of The Edinburgh Review. When The Quarterly Review followed in 1808 there was the needed fellowship of work among minds of equal honesty and culture, but with opposite views of many points of controversy. Free conflict of opinion is not least a fellowship to be warmly welcomed, when it assures that full discussion of unsettled questions by which alone the truth can be made clear, and the slow gains of civilisation become fixed wealth of the future. The newspaper system was slowly making way, against great difficulties, to its place as the representative of free continuous debate of the whole nation on its own affairs, as honestly set forth together with the comments on them representing every form of thought. The monthly magazines began to take their place in the great council after 1815. Blackwood's Magazine began its career of unbroken success in 1817, and drew to itself the vigorous mind of John Wilson so completely that in literature he is nothing if not “Christopher North.” The London Magazine, established in 1820, contained in its early numbers Charles Lamb's “Essays of Elia,” Thomas Carlyle’s “Life of Schiller,” Thomas De Quincey’s “Confessions of an English Opium Eater.” The fifteen volumes of De Quincey's works consist wholly of articles contributed to magazines; and Charles Lamb, till his own story is revealed and has made him known to us as some- thing better than the best that he can write, comes nearest to men's hearts as Elia. John Wilson and Thomas De Quincey were nearly of an age, one born in 1785, the other in 1786. Wilson was the son of a manufacturer at Paisley. De Quincey was the son of a Manchester manu- facturer. Both lost their fathers early in life; Wilson inheriting a somewhat large fortune, De Quincey a small one. Both went to Oxford, but their friend- ship was not formed at the University. In all acci- dents of person and character they were opposites. John Wilson was tall, vigorous, athletic, warmly social; was excelled by none at Oxford in length of whiskers, length of flat jump, or hearty relish of poetry, English or Greek. Thomas De Quincey was small, sensitive, feeble of frame; a shy recluse at Oxford, paying little heed to the ways or studies of the place, though studying after his own fashion. With his quick nervous temperament he read to such good purpose that before he left School his master had said of him to a friend, “That boy coulê harangue an Athenian mob, better than you or I could address an English one.” Both Wilson and De Quincey went from Oxford to the Lakes, and they first met in the house of Wordsworth. There- after they became firm friends. Wilson had money to spend, and spent it freely at Elleray; had as many boats as he pleased on Windermere, roamed over the hills, at night with his mind full of poetry, and by day among the people of the district with a TO A.D. 1817.] 399 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. cheery nature ready for all fun. De Quincey had acquired in early life a sense of pleasure in the use of opium. It became a daily habit after 1813, and in 1816 he is said to have been taking as much as eight thousand drops of laudanum a day, but reduced the number to a thousand, when, in that year 1816, he married. John Wilson also married, and paid for his wedding journey with a poem, published in 1812, “The Isle of Palms.” About the year 1815 it was John Wilson's fortune to lose all his Ynoney. An uncle who had charge of it failed, and all was gone. Wilson pitied the actual misfortune of the older man, uttered no word of complaint, gave up Elleray and his boats, went to Edinburgh, took to law as a profession, and the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine just afterwards gave him an outlet for his energies. He had written moderately : T-:– i JoBIN WILSON. From a Portrait by Sir John Watson Gordon, engraved as Frontispiece to his “ Noctes Ambrosiana; " (1863). good poems, but he wrote now excellent prose, and put his feeling as a poet into many a passage that expressed his deep enjoyment of nature. He and his fellow-contributors to Maga dealt audaciously with the public and with one another, but the breadth of John Wilson's powers of enjoyment, and his sympathetic insight into life and nature, made him the chief source of the magazine's early prosperity. He could be Christopher North in his shooting- jacket, with his whole mind on the moor or by the stream; he could discourse upon the poets, loving books as none can love them who see life only in printer's ink; could tell a Scottish tale with kindly grace, or sport in fancy at Ambrose's Tavern, and put wit, poetry, and eloquence, with some wild nonsense at times, into a dialogue of divers speakers. Among these Christopher North, representative of an editor where editor was none, was as much a creation of fancy as the playful treatment of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who, as a poet of nature, was made godfather to a good deal of the poetic prose that made one feature of the “Noctes.” Here is part of a sitting, complete in itself. NORTH AND THE SHEPHERD. SCENE–Ambrose's Hotel, Picardy Place.—Paper Parlour. North. How do you account, my dearest Shepherd, for the steadiness and perseverance of my affection for thee, seeing that I am naturally and artificially the most wayward, fickle, and capricious of all God’s creatures? Not a friend but yourself, James, with whom I have not frequently and bit- terly quarrelled, often to the utter extinction of mutual regard —but towards my incomprehensible Brownie my heart ever yearns—— Shepherd. Haud your leein tongue, ye tyke, you’ve quar- relled wi' me mony thousan’ times, and I’ve borne at your hands mair ill-usage than I wad hae taen frae ony ither mortal man in his Majesty's dominions. Yet I weel believe that only the shears o' Fate will ever cut the cords o' our friendship. I fancy it's just the same wi' you as wi' me, we maun like ane anither whether we wull or no—and that's the sort o' freendship for me—for it flourishes, like a mountain flower, in all weathers—braid and bricht in the sunshine, and just faulded up a wee in the sleet, sae that it micht maist be thocht dead, but fu'o' life in its cozy bield l ahint the mossy stane, and peering out again in a' its beauty at the sang o' the rising laverock. North. This world's friendships, James—— Shepherd. Are as cheap as crockery, and as easily broken by a fa’. They seldom can bide a clash without fleein intil flinders.” O, sir, but maist men’s hearts, and women's too, are like toom nits 3—nae kernel, and a splutter o’ fushionless dust. I sometimes canna help thinkin that there's nae future state. AWorth. Fie, fie, James, leave all such dark Scepticism to a Byron—it is unworthy of the Shepherd. Shepherd. What for should sae mony puir, peevish, selfish, stupid, mean, and malignant creatures no just lie still in the mools among the ither worms, aneath their bits o' inscribed tomb-stones, aiblins railed in, and a' their nettles, wi painted airn-rails, in a nook o’ the kirkyard that's their ain property, and naebody's wushin to tak it frae them—What for, I say, shouldna they lie quate in skeleton for a thousand years, and then crummle, crummle, crummle awa intil the yearth o' which Time is made, and ne'er be reimmatterialeezed into Eternity ? North. This is not like your usual gracious and benign philosophy, James; but, believe me, my friend, that within the spirit of the most degraded wretch that ever grovelled earthward from caudle-day to corpse-day, there has been some slumbering spark divine, inextinguishable by the death-damps of the cemetery Shepherd. Gran’ words, sir, gran’ words, nae doubt, mair especially “cemetery,” which I’m fond o' usin mysel, as often's the subject and the verse will alloo. But after a’, is't mair poetical than the “Grave” P Deevil a bit. For a wee, short, simple, stiff, stern, dour, and fearsome word, commend me to the “Grave.” North. Let us change the channel of our discussion, James, if you please—— Shepherd. What! You're no feared for death, are you, sir? North. I am. Shepherd. So am I. There, only look at the cawnle” ex- piring—faint, feeble, flickering, and just like ane o' us puir * Flinders, shivers. * Cawmle, candle. 1 Cozy bield, snug shelter. * Toom mits, empty nuts. 400 ENGLISH TITERATURE. [A.D. 1817 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF mortal human creatures, Sair, Sair unwilling to die! Whare’s the snuffers, that I may put it out o' pain. I’m tell't that twa folk die every minute, or rather every moment. Isna that fearsome to think o' P North. Ay, James, children have been made orphans, and wives widows, since that wick began to fill the room with its funereal odour. Shepherd. Nae man can manage snuffers richt, unless he hae been accustomed to them when he was young. In the Forest, we a' use our fingers, or blaw the cawnles out wi' our mouths, or chap the brass sticks wi' the stinkin wicks again’ the ribs—and gin there was a pair o' snuffers in the house, you might hunt for them through a’ the closets and presses for a fortnight, without their ever castin up. •- . North. I hear that you intend to light up Mount Benger with gas, James. Is that a true bill? Shepherd. I had thochts o't—but the gasometer, I find comes ower high—so I shall stick to the “Lang Twas.” O man, noo that the cawnle's out, isna that fire unco heartsome P Your face, sir, looks just perfeckly ruddy in the bleeze, and it wad tak a pair o' poorful specks to spy out a single wrinkle. You'll leeve yet for ither twa hundred Numbers. North. And then, my dear Shepherd, the editorship shall be thine. - Shepherd. Na. When you're dead, Maga will be dead. * She'll no surveeve you ae single day. Buried shall you be in ae grave, and curst be he that disturbs your banes : Afore you and her cam out, this wasna the same warld it has been sin' syne. Wut and wisdom never used to be seen linkin alang thegither, han'-in-han’ as they are noo, frae ae end o' the month to the ither ;-there wasna prented a byuck that garred ye break out at ae page into grief, and at anither into a guffaw;—where could ye forgather wi' sic a canty” crew o' chiels as ODoherty and the rest, passin themselves aff some- times for real, and sometimes for fictious characters, till the puzzled public glowered as if they had flung the glamour ower her ?—and oh, sir, afore you brak out, beautiful as had been many thousan' thousan' million, billion, trillion and quadrillion nights by firesides in huts or ha's, or out-by in the open air wi' the starry heavens resting on the saft hill- taps, yet a' the time that the heavenly bodies were perform- ing their stated revolutions—there were nae, nae NoctEs AMBRosLANæ North. I have not, I would fain hope, my dear James, been altogether useless in my generation—but your partiality exaggerates my merits Shepherd. A man would require an oss magna sonaturum to do that. Suffice it to say, sir, that you are the wisest and wittiest of men. Dinna turn awa your face, or you'll get a crick in your neck. There's no sic a popular man in a Britain the noo as Christopher North. Oh, sir, you’ll dee as rich as Croesus—for every day there's wulls makin by auld leddies and young leddies, leaving you their residiatory legatee, sometimes, I fear, past the heirs, male or female, o' their bodies lawfully begotten. North. No, James, I trust that none of my admirers, since admirers you say the old man hath, will ever prove so unprin- cipled as to leave their money away from their own kin. Nothing can justify that—but hopeless and incurable vice in the natural heirs. - - Shepherd. Iwush I was worth just twenty thousan' pounds. I could leeve on that—but no on a farden less. In the first place, I would buy three or four pair o' tap-boots—and I Would try to introduce into the Forest buckskin breeks. I would niest, sin’ naebody's gien me ane in a present, buy * Forgather wi', fall in with. * Canty, lively. a gold musical snuff-box, that would play tunes on the table. North. Heavens ! James—at that rate you would be a ruined man before the coming of Christmas. You would see your name honourably mentioned in the Gazette. Shepherd. Then a gold twisted watch-chain, sax gold seals o’ various sizes, frae the bigness o' my nieve amaist, doun to that o' a kitty-wren’s egg. North. Which ODoherty would chouse you out of at brag, some might at his own lodgings, after the play. - Shepherd. Catch me at the cairds, unless it be a game at Birky; * for I’m sick o’ Whust itsel, I’ve sic desperate bad hauns dealt to me noo—no an ace ance in a month, and no that unseldom a haun without a face-caird, made up o' deuces, and trays, and fours, and fives, and be damned to them; so that to tak the verra weakest trick is entirely out o' my power, except it be by main force, harling the cairds to me whether the opposite side wull or no; and then at the close o' the round, threepin 4 that I had twa honours—the knave and anither ane. Sic bad luck hae I in a' chance games, Mr. North, as you ken, that were I to fling dice for my life alang wi' a haill army o' fifty thousand men, I wad be sure to be shot; for I would fling aces after some puir trumlin drummer had flung deuces, and be led out into the middle o' a hollow square for execution. North. James, you are very excursive this evening in your conversation—nobody is thinking of shooting you, James. Shepherd. And I’m sure that I hae nae thochts o' shootin mysel. But ance—it's a lang time syne—I saw a sodger shot —dead, sir, as a door-mail, or a coffin-nail, or ony ither kind o’ nail. Worth. Was it in battle, James P Shepherd. In battle P-Na, na; neither you nor me was ever fond o' being in battles at ony time o' our lives. North. I was Private Secretary to Rodney when he beat Langara,” James. Shepherd. Haud your tongue !—What a crowd on the Links" that day! But a' wi' fixed whitish faces—nae speakin—no sae muckle as a whisper—a frozen dumbness that nae wecht’ could break North. You mean the spectators, James. Shepherd. Then the airmy appeared in the distance; for there were three haill regiments, a wi' fixed beggonets; but nae music—nae music for a while, at least, till a’ at ance, mercy on us ! we heard, like laigh sullen thunder, the soun’ o' the great muffled drum, aye played on, ye ken, by a black man; in this case, an African neegger, Sax feet four; and what bangs he gied the bass—the whites o' his een rowing about as if he was glad, atween every stroke North. I remember him—the best pugilist then going, for it was long before the days of Richmond and Molineaux– and nearer forty than thirty years ago, James. Shepherd. The tread o' the troops was like the step o' ae giant—sae perfate was their discippleen—and afore I weel kent that they were a' in the Links, three sides o' a square were formed—and the soun' o' the great drum ceased, as at an inaudible word of command, or wavin o' a haun, or the lowerin o' a banner. It was but ae man that was about to die—but for that ae man, had their awe no hindered them, twenty thousan' folk wad at that moment hae broken out into lamentations and rueful cries—but as yet not a tear was shed —not a sigh was heaved—for had a' that vast crowd been Sae * Beggar-my-neighbour. * Threepin, asserting pertinaciously. First English, “threapiam.” 5 Off Cape St. Vincent, on the 16th of January, 1780. ° Links, windings of a river; flat ground by river, sea, or elsewhere. 7 Wecht, weight. To A.D. 1820.] 401 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. mony images, or corpses raised up by cantrip in their death- claes, they couldna hae been mair motionless than at that minute, nor mair speechless than that multitude o’ leevin Souls : North. I was myself one of the multitude, James. Shepherd. There, a’ at ance, hoo or whare he came frae name could tell—there, I say, a’ at ance stood the mutineer. Some tell't me afterwards that they had seen him marchin along, twa-three yards ahint his coffin, wi' his head just a wee thocht inclined downwards, not in fear o' man or death, but in awe o' God and judgment, keeping time wi' a military step that was natural to him, and no unbecoming a brave man on the way to the grave, and his een fixed on the green that was fadin awa, for ever and ever frae aneath his feet; but that was a sicht I saw not—for the first time I beheld him he was standin, a unlike the ither men, in the middle o' that three-sided square, and there was a shudder through the haill multitude, just as if we had been a’ standin haun in haun, and a natural philosopher had gien us a shock o' his electrical machine. “That's him—that’s him—puir, puir fallow ! Oh! but he's a pretty man!”—Such were the ejacu- lations frae thousan’s o' women, maist o' them young anes, but some o' them auld, and grey-headed aneath their mutches, and no a few wi' babies sookin or caterwailin at their breasts. North. A pretty girl fainted within half-a-dozen yards of where I stood. Shepherd. His name was Lewis Mackenzie—and as fine a young man he was as ever stepped on heather. The moment before he knelt down on his coffin, he seemed as fu' o' life as if he had stripped aft his jacket for a game at foot-ba’, or to fling the hammer. Ay, weel micht the women-folk gaze on him wi' red weeping een, for he had lo’ed them but ower weel; and mony a time, it is said, had he let himsel down the Castle-rock at night, God knows hoo, to meet his lemans— but a' that, a his sins, and a his crimes acted and only medi- tated, were at an end noo—puir fallow—and the platoon, wi' fixed beggonets, were drawn up within ten yards, or less, o' where he stood, and he himsel havin tied a handkerchief ower his een, dropped down on his knees on his coffin, wi' faulded hands, and lips moving fast, fast, and white as ashes, in prayer | * North. Cursed be the inexorable justice of military law — he might have been pardoned. Shepherd. Pardoned Hadna he disarmed his ain captain o' his sword, and ran him through the shouther——in a mutiny of which he was himsel the ringleader P King George on the throne durstna hae pardoned him—it wad hae been as much as his crown was worth—for hoo could King, Kintra, and Constitution thole a standing army, in which mutiny was not punished wi' death P North. Six balls pierced him—through head and heart— and what a shriek, James, then arose ! Shepherd. Ay, to hae heard that shriek, you wad hae thought that the women that raised it wad never hae lauched again; but in a few hours, as sune as nightfall darkened the city, some o' them were gossipin about the shootin o' the sodger to their neighbours, some dancin at hops that shall be nameless, some sittin on their sweethearts' knees, wi' their arms roun’ their necks, some swearin like troopers, some doubtless sittin thochtfu' by the fireside, or awa to bed in sadness an hour Sooner than usual, and then fast asleep. North. I saw his old father, James, with my own eyes, step out from the crowd, and way being made for him, he walked up to his son's dead body, and embracing it, kissed his bloody head, and then with clasped hands looked up to heaven. Shepherd. A strang and stately auld man, and ane too that had been a soldier in his youth. Sorrow, not shame, some- what bowed his head, and ance he reeled as if he were faint on a sudden.—But what the deevil's the use o' me haverin awa this way aboot the shootin o' a sodger, thretty years sin’ syne, and mair too—for didna I see that auld silvery-headed father o’ the mutineer staggering alang the Grassmarket, the verra next day after the execution, as fou as the Baltic, wi' a heap o' mischievous weans hallooin after him, and him a” the while in a dwam o' drink and despair, maunderin about his son Lewis, then lyin a’ barken'd wi' blood in his coffin, six feet deep in a fine rich loam. North. That very same afternoon I heard the drums and fifes of a recruiting party, belonging to the same regiment, winding away down towards Holyrood; and the place of Lewis Mackenzie, in the line of bold sergeants with their claymores, was supplied by a corporal, promoted to a triple bar on his sleeve, in consequence of the death of the mutineer. r Shepherd. It was an awful scene, yon, sir; but there was naething humiliating to human nature in it, as in a hangin; and it struck a wholesome fear into the souls o' many thousan' Sodgers. North. The silence and order of the troops, all the while, was sublime. Shepherd. It was sae, indeed. North. What do you think, James, of that, by way of a toasting cheese ? Ambrose calls it the Welshman's delight, or Davies' darling. Shepherd. It's rather teuch—luk, luk, hoo it pu's out, out, out, and better out, into a very thread o' the unbeaten gold, a’ the way frae the ashet to my mouth. Saw ye ever ony- thing sae tenawcious? I verily believe that I could walk, without breakin't, intil the tither room. Luk hoo it shines, like a gossamer-filament, a’ threaded wi' what Allan Kinnig- ham would ca’ dew-blobs, stretching across frae ae sweet- briar bush to anither, and breaking afore the step o' the early lassie tripping down the brae, to wash her bonny face, yet smiling wi' the glimmerin licht o' love-dreams, in the bit burnie that wimples awa as pure and stainless as her ain virgin life North. Sentiment — divine sentiment, extracted by the alchemy of genius from a Welsh-rabbit ! Shepherd. Noo that I’ve gotten’t intil my mouth—I wush it ever may be gotten out again! The tae' end o' the line is fastened, like a hard gedd” (See Dr. Jamieson) in the ashet– and the ither end's in my stammach—and the thin thread o' attenuated cheese gets atween my teeth, sae that I canna chow’t through and through. Thank ye, sir, for cuttin’t. Rax me ower the jug. Is’t yill? Here's to you, sir. From Thomas De Quincey let us hear the Intro- duction to an ironical Lecture ON MURDER, CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS, GENTLEMEN, I have had the honour to be appointed by your committee to the trying task of reading the Williams' Lecture on Murder, considered as one of the Fine Arts; a task which might be easy enough three or four centuries ago, when the art was little understood, and few great models had been exhibited; but in this age, when master- pieces of excellence have been executed by professional men, it must be evident, that in the style of criticism applied to them, the public will look for something of a corresponding —-mºsº 1 Tue, one. * Gedd, a pikestaff stuck into the ground. 227 402 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1820 improvement. Tractice and theory must advance pari passw. People begin to see that something more goes to the compo- sition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed—a knife—a purse—and a dark lane. Design, gentle- men, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature. Mr. Williams has exalted the ideal of murder to all of us; and to me, therefore, in particular, has deepened the arduousness of my task. Like AEschylus or Milton in poetry, like Michael Angelo in painting, he has carried his art to a point of colossal sublimity; and, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, has in a manner “created the taste by which he is to be enjoyed.” To sketch the history of the art, and to examine its principles critically, now remains as a duty for the connoisseur, and for judges of quite another stamp from his Majesty’s Judges of Assize. Defore I begin, let me say a word or two to certain prigs, who affect to speak of our society as if it were in some degree immoral in its tendency. Immyral Jupiter protect THOMAS DE QUINCEY. From the Portrait preſived to his Collected Works (1862). me, gentlemen, what is it that people mean? I am for morality, and always shall be, and for virtue, and all that ; and I do affirm, and always shall (let what will come of it), that murder is an improper line of conduct, highly improper; and I do not stick to assert, that any man who deals in murder, must have very incorrect ways of thinking, and truly inaccurate principles; and so far from aiding and abetting him by pointing out his victim’s hiding-place, as a great moralist of Germany declared it to be every good man's duty to do, I would subscribe one shilling and sixpence to have him apprehended, which is more by eighteenpence than the most eminent moralists have hitherto subscribed for that purpose. But what then P Everything in this World has two handles. Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle (as it generally is in the pulpit, and at the Old Bailey), and that, I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated asthetically, as the Germans call it —that is, in relation to good taste. To illustrate this, I will urge the authority of three eminent persons; viz., S. T. Coleridge, Aristotle, and Mr. Howship the surgeon. To begin with S. T. C. One night, many years ago, I was drinking tea with him in Berners Street (which, by the way, for a short street, has been un- commonly fruitful in men of genius). Others were there besides myself; and, amidst some carnal considerations of tea and toast, we were all imbibing a dissertation on Plo- tinus from the Attic lips of S. T. C. Suddenly a cry arose of, “Fire—fire " " upon which all of us, master and disciples, Plato and of repl roy IIAátwva," rushed out, eager for the spectacle. The fire was in Oxford Street, at a pianoforte- maker’s ; and, as it promised to be a conflagration of merit, I was sorry that my engagements forced me away from Mr. Coleridge’s party, before matters had come to a crisis. Some days after, meeting with my Platonic host, I reminded him of the case, and begged to know how that very promising exhibition had terminated. “Oh, sir,” said he, “it turned out so ill that we damned it unanimously.” Now, does any man suppose that Mr. Coleridge—who, for all he is too fat to be a person of active virtue, is undoubtedly a worthy Christian—that this good S. T. C., I say, was an incendiary, or capable of wishing any ill to the poor man and his pianofortes (many of them, doubtless, with the additional keys) * On the contrary, I know him to be that sort of man, that I durst stake my life upon it, he would have worked an engine in a case of necessity, although rather of the fattest for such fiery trials of his virtue. But how stood the case ? Virtue was in no request. On the arrival of the fire engines, morality had devolved wholly on the insurance office. This being the case, he had a right to gratify his taste. He had left his tea. Was he to have nothing in return ? I contend that the most virtuous man, under the premises stated, was entitled to make a luxury of the fire, and to hiss it, as he would any other performance that raised expecta- tions in the public mind which afterwards it disappointed. Again, to cite another great authority, what says the Stagi- rite He (in the Fifth Book, I think it is, of his Metaphysics) describes what he calls KAerthy TéAetov—i.e., a perfect thief; and, as to Mr. Howship, in a work of his on Indigestion, he makes no scruple to talk with admiration of a certain ulcer which he had seen, and which he styles “a beautiful ulcer.” Now, will any man pretend, that, abstractedly considered, a thief could appear to Aristotle a perfect character, or that Mr. Howship could be enamoured of an ulcer Aristotle, it is well known, was himself so very moral a character, that, not content with writing his Nichomachean Ethics, in one volume octavo, he also wrote another system, called Magna Moralia, or Big Ethics. Now, it is impossible that a man who composes any ethics at all, big or little, should admire a thief per se; and as to Mr. Howship, it is well known that he makes war upon all ulcers, and, without suffering himself to be seduced by their charms, endeavours to banish them from the County of Middlesex. But the truth is, that, how- ever objectionable per se, yet, relatively to others of their class, both a thief and an ulcer may have infinite degrees of merit. They are both imperfections, it is true ; but, to be imperfect being their essence, the very greatness of their imperfection becomes their perfection. Spartam mactus es, hanc exorna.” A thief like Autolycus or the once famous George Barrington, and a grim phagedænic ulcer, superbly defined, and running regularly through all its natural stages, may no less justly be regarded as ideals after their kind, than the most faultless moss-rose amongst flowers, in its progress from bud to “bright consummate flower; ” or, amongst human flowers, the most magnificent young female, apparelled 1 Those who were about Plato. * You have come into Sparta, be its ornament, To A.D. 1824.] 403 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS, in tho pomp of womanhood. And thus not only the ideal of an inkstand may bo imaginod (as Mr. Coloridge illustrated in his colobrated correspondenco with Mr. 131ackwood), in which, by tho way, thoro is not so much, becauso an inkstand is a laudablo sort of thing, and a valuablo member of Society; but even imperfection itself may have its ideal or porfect state. . Really, gentlemon, I bog pardon for so much philosophy at ono time, and now let me apply it. Whom a murdor is in tho paulo-post-futurum tenso—not done, not oven (according to modern purism) being done, but only going to bo dono— and a rumour of it comes to our oars, by all means lot us treat it morally. But supposo it over and done, and that you can say of it, TeréAerral, It is finishod, or (in that adamantino miolossus of Modea) epyartal, Dono it is: it is a fait accompli; suppose tho poor murdored man to bo out of his pain, and the rascal that did it off liko a shot, nobody knows whither; suppose, lastly, that we havo dono our bost, by putting out our logs, to trip up the fellow in his flight, but all to no purpose—“abiit, evasit, excessit, erupit,” &c. —why, then, I say, what's the use of any more virtue P Enough has been given to morality; now comes the turn of Taste and the Fino Arts. A sad thing it was, no doubt, very sad ; but we can’t mend it. Thereforo let us make tho best of a bad matter; and, as it is impossible to hammer anything out of it for moral purposes, let us treat it asthetically, and see if it will turn to account in that way. Such is the logic of a sonsible man, and what follows P. We dry up our tears, and have tho Satisfaction, perhaps, to discover that a trans- action, which, morally considered, was shocking, and without a leg to stand upon, when tried by principles of Taste, turns out to be a very moritorious performance. Thus all the world is pleased; the old proverb is justified, that it is an ill wind which blows nobody good; the amateur, from looking bilious and sulky, by too close an attention to virtue, begins to pick up his crumbs; and general hilarity prevails. Virtue has had her day; and henceforward, Virti, so nearly the same thing as to differ only by a single letter (which surely is not worth haggling or higgling about)—Virtà, I repeat, and Connoisseurship, have leave to provide for themselves. Upon this principle, gentlemen, I propose to guide your studies, from Cain to Mr. Thurtell. Through this great gallery of murder, therefore, together let us wander hand in hand, in delighted admiration; while I endeavour to point your attention to the objects of profitable criticism. Charles Lamb, born in 1775, son of a clerk to a barrister in the Inner Temple, obtained his education at Christ's Hospital by a presentation from his father's employer. He began life first as a clerk in the South Sea House, under his elder brother John, and in 1792 obtained a post as clerk in the Ac- countant's Office of the East India Company. In this service he remained thirty-four years. From the memoir of Charles Lamb, written in his old age by Bryan William Procter (Barry Cornwall), a fine- hearted poet, who, in his younger days, was counted among Charles Lamb's friends, I take the incident that was the turning-point of Lamb's life, and which occurred when he was but twenty years old, with a salary then very small : About three years after Charles became a clerk in tho India House, his family appear to have moved from Crown Office Row, into poor lodgings at No. 7, Little Queen Street, Holborn. His father at that time had a small pension from Mr. Salt, whoso service ho had left, being almost fatuous; his mothor was ill and bedridden; and his sistor Mary was tired out, by needlework all day, and by taking caro of her mother throughout the night. “Of all the people in the world,” Charlos says, “she was most thoroughly devoid of all selfishness.” There was also, as a member of the family, an old aunt, who had a trifling annuity for her life, which she poured into the common fund. John Lamb (Charles's oldor brother) lived elsewhere; having occasional intercourse only with his kindred. He continued however to visit them, whilst he preserved his “comfortable" clerkship in the South Sea House. * It was under this stato of things that thoy all drifted down to tho terrible year, 1796. It was a year dark with horror. Thoro was an hereditary taint of insanity in the family, which caused even Charles himself to be placed, for a short time, in Hoxton Lunatic Asylum. “The six weeks that finished last year and began this (1796), your very humble Servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse, at Hoxton.” These aro his words when writing to Coloridge. Mary Lamb had previously been repeatedly attacked by the same dreadful disorder; and this now broke out afresh in a sudden burst of acute madness. She had been moody and ill, for some little time previously, and the illness came to a crisis on the 23rd of September, 1796. On that day, just before dinner, Mary seized a “case knife” which was lying on the table ; pursued a little girl (her apprentice) round the room; hurled about the dinner forks; and, finally, in a fit of uncontrollablo fronzy, stabbed her mother to the heart. Charles was at hand, only in time to snatch the knife out of her grasp, before further hurt could be done. He found his father wounded in the forehead by one of the forks, and his aunt lying insensible and apparently dying, on the floor of the TOOIſl. This happened on a Thursday; and on the following day an inquest was held on the mother's body, and a verdict of Mary's lunacy was immediately found by the jury. Tho Lambs had a few friends. Mr. Norris—the friend of Charles's father and of his own childhood—“was very kind to us; ” and Sam. Le Grice, “then in town,” Charles writes, “was as a brother to me, and gave up every hour of his time in constant attendance on my father.” After the fatal deed, Mary Lamb was deeply afflicted. Her act was in tho first instanco totally unknown to her. Afterwards, when her consciousness returned and she was informed of it, sho suffered great grief. And subsequently, when sho became “calm and serene,” and saw the misfortune in a cloarer light, this was “far, very far from an indecent or forgetful serenity,” as her brother says. She had no defiant air; no affectation, nor too extravagant a display of sorrow. She saw her act, as she saw all other things, by the light of her own clear and gentle good sense. She was sad: but the deod was past recall, and at the time of its commission had been utterly boyond either her control or knowledge. After tho inquest, Mary Lamb was placed in a lunatic asylum ; where, after a short time, she recovered her serenity. A rapid recovery after violent madness is not an unusual mark of the disease ; it being in cases of quiet, inveterate insanity, that the return to sound mind (if it ever recur) is more gradual and slow. The recovery, however, was only tomporary in her case. She was throughout her life subject to frequent recurrences of the same disease. At one time her brother Charles writes, “Poor Mary's disorder So frequently recurring has made us a sort of marked people.” At another time he says, “I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness.” And so, indeed, she continued 404 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF FNGLISH LITERATURE, [A.D. 1820 during the remainder of her life; and Sho lived to the age of cighty-two years. Charlos was now loft alone in the world. His fathor was imbocilo ; his sister insane; and his brother afforded no sub- stantial assistance or comfort. IIe was scarcely out of boy- hood when he learned that the world has its dangerous places and barren deserts; and that he had to struggle for his living, without help. Ho found that he had to take upon himself all the cares of a paront or protector (to his sister) even before he had studiod the duties of a man, Sudden as death, came down the nocossary knowledge: how to live, and how to livo well. The torrible event that had fallen upon him and his, instead of casting him down, and paralyzing his powers, braced and strung his sinews into preternatural firmness. It is the character of a feeble mind to lie prostrate before the first adversary. In his case it lifted him out of that momentary despair which always follows a great calamity. It was like extreme cold to the system, which often overthrows the weak and timid, but gives additional strength and power of endurance to the brave and the strong. “My aunt was lying apparently dying,” writes Lamb, “my father with a wound on his poor forehead, and my mother a murdered corpse, in the next room. I felt that I had something clbe to do than to regret. I had the whole weight of the family upon me, for my brother—little disposed at any time to take caro of old age and infirmity—has now, with his bad leg, exemption from such duties; and I am now left alone.” In about a month aftor his mother's death (3rd October) Charlos writes, “My poor, dear, dcarest sister, the unhappy and unconscious instrument of the Almighty’s judgment on our house, is restored to her senses; to a dreadful sense of what has passed; awful to her mind, but tempered with a religious resignation. She knows how to distinguish between a deed committed in a fit of frenzy and the terrible guilt of a mother's murder.” In another place, he says, “She bears her situation as one who has no right to complain.” He himself visits hor and upholds hor, and rojoices in her con- tinued reason. For hor use, ho borrows books (“for reading was her daily bread”), and gives up his time and all his thoughts to her comfort. Thus, in their quiet grief, making no show, yet suffering more than could bo shown by clamorous Sobs or frantic words, the two—brother and sister— enter upon the bleak world together. “Her love,” as Mr. Wordsworth states in the epitaph on Charlos Lamb, “was as the love of mothers” towards her brother." It may be said that his love for her 1 In his poem “Written after the Death of Charles Ilamb,” in 1835, Wordsworth spoke— “(tho' Still Awed by the theme's peculiar Sanctity, Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp From infancy, through manhood, to the last Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined Within thy bosom. g ſº se & Her lovo e (What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here P) Was as the love of mothers; and when years, Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called The long protected to assume the part Of a protector, the first filial tie Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight, Remained imperishably interwoven With life itself, Thus 'mid a shifting world, Did they together testify of time And season's difference—a double tree With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they—such through life they might have been was tho doop life-long love of the tendorest 8on. In one lotter, ho writes, “It was not a family where I could take Mary with mo; and I am afraid that thoro is something of dishonosty in any pleasures I take without her.” Many years afterwards (in 1834, the very yoar in which ho died) he writes to Miss Fryer, “It is no now thing for me to be left with my sister. When sho is not violent, her rambling chat is botter to mo than the senso and sanity of the world.” Surely thoro is great depth of pathos in these unaffected words; in the love that has outlasted all the troubles of life, and is thus tenderly expressed, almost at his last hour. To his sister with quiet devotion Charles Lamb gave his life. She was the Bridget of his essays š ---. `ssssss --->|->|--|->~~...~~ CHARLEs LAMB. - From a Portrait by William liaiſº gº to Barry Cornwall's Memoir 866). of Elia, which began to appear in The London Maga- zine in August, 1820, and ceased to appear in November, 1824. These are two of them : MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE, Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I havo obligations to Bridget, extending boyond the In union, in partition only such ; Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High ; Yet through all visitations and all trials, Still they were faithful.” When signs appeared of the occasional attack of madness, Charles Lamb might be seen going to the asylum with his sister on his arm, both weeping. He would leave her till the fit was past, and then again become her guardian in “ those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief, When reunited, and by choice withdrawn From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught That the remembrance of foregone distress, And the worse fear of future ill (which oft Doth hang around it, as a sickly child Lpon its mother), may be both alike I)isarmed of power to unsettle present good So prized, and things inward and outward held In such an even balance, that the heart Acknowledges God's grace, His mercy feels, And in its depth of gratitude is still,” To A.D. 1824.] 405 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of doublo singlonoss; with such tolorablo comfort, upon tho wholo, that I, for one, find in myBelf no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We agroo pretty well in our tastos and habits—yot So, as “with a difference,” Wo are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings—as it should be among near relations. Our Hympathics aro rather understood, than oxpressed; and onco, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different direc- tions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) Some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange contempo- raries, she is abstracted in Some modern tale, or adventuro, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with assidu- ously fresh supplios. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must have a story— well, ill, or indifferently told—80 there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction—and almost in real life—have ceased to interest, or operato but dully upon mo. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions—heads with Bomo divorting twist in them—the odditios of authorship ploaše me most. My cousin has a nativo disrolish of anything that Bounds odd or bizarro. Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She “holds Nature more clever.” I can pardon her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the IReligio Medici; but she must apologise to me for Cortain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one—the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, -but again somewhat fantastical, and original-brained, generous Margaret New- castle, It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, free-thinkers—leaders, and disciples, of novel philosophics and Systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. That which was good and venorable to her, when a child, retains its authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this—that in matters of fact, dates, and circum- stances, it turns out, that I was in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points; upon Something proper to be done, or let alone; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I got out with, I am Bure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. - I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridgot doos not liko to bo told of her faults. She hath an awkward trick (to Bay no worse of it) of reading in company : at which times she will answer yes or no to a question, without fully understanding its purport—which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the Said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will Sometimes desert hor upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in mattors which are not stuff of tho conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less Seasonably. Her education in youth was not much attended to ; and She happily missed all that train of female garniture, which pasbeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled oarly, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much Bolection or prohibition, and brow80d at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage, IIad I twenty girls, they should be brought up oxactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids, In a Beason of distress, she i8 the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, 8he Sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life she is Bure always to treblo your Satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit ; but best, when she goes a journey with you. We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our less- known relations in that fine corn country. The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End ; or Mackarol End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in Bome old maps of Hortfordshire; a farm-house,_delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remombCr having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, whon I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by Some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences; that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My grand- mother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. More than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of ; and, for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons inherited Mackery End—kindred or strange folk—we were afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to explore. By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noblo park at Luton in our way from Saint Albans, we arrived at the spot of our anxious curiosity about noon. The sight of the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I had not experienced for many a year. For though I had forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together, and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives, till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom of itself, and I thought I knew the aspoct of a place, which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I had conjured up so many timos instead of it ! Still the air breathed balmily about it; the season was in the “heart of June,” and I could say with the poet, But thou, that didst appear so fair To fond imagination, Dost rival in the light of day Her delicate creation I Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she easily remembered her old acquaintance again—some altered features, of course, a little grudged at. At first, indeed, she was ready to disbelievo for joy; but the scene soon re- confirmed itself in her affections—and she traversed every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house and birds were alike flown)—with a breathless impatience of recogni- tion, which was more pardonable perhaps than decorous at t 406 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D. 1820 the ago of fifty odd. But Bridget in Somo things is behind her years. Tho only thing left was to get into the house—and that was a difficulty which to me singly would have been in- surmountablo; for I am torribly shy in making myself known to strangers and out-of-dato kinsfolk. Love, stronger than scruple, winged my cousin in without mo; but sho Soon returned with a Croature that might have Bat to a sculptor for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the Gladmans; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the Brutons. Six of them, fomalos, were noted as the handsomest young women in the county. But this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all—more comely. She was born too late to have remembered me. She just recollected in early life to have had her cousin Bridget once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. But the name of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those slender tics, that prove slight as gossamor in the rending atmosphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty, homely, loving Hert- fordshire. In fivo minutes we were as thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up together; were familiar, even to the calling each other by our Christian names. So Christians should call one another. To have seen Bridget, and her—it was like the meeting of the two scriptural cousins ! There was a grace and dignity, an amplitude of form and stature, answering to her mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have shined in a palace—or So we thought it. We were made welcome by husband and wife equally— we, and our friend that was with us.-I had almost forgotten him—but B. F. will not so soon forget that meeting, if per- adventure he shall read this on the far distant shores where the kangaroo haunts. The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already 80, as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropriate glass of native wine, never let me forget with what honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new- found rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed know something more of us, at a time when she almost knew nothing.—With what corresponding kindness we were received by them also –how Bridget's memory, exalted by the occasion, warmed into a thousand half- obliterated recollections of things and persons, to my utter astonishment, and her own—and to the astoundment of B. F. who sat by, almost the only thing that was not a cousin there, old offaced images of more than half-forgotton names and circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words written in lemon come out upon oxposure to a friendly warmth, when I forget all this, then may my country cousins forget me; and Bridget 110 more remember, that in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge—as I have been her care in foolish manhood since—in those pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in Hertford- shire. MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. “A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.” This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with God), who, next to her devotions, loved a good game of whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half players, who have no objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who affirm that they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one game and lose another; that they can while away an hour very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will desire an adversary, who has slipped a wrong card, to take it up and play another. These insuffer- able triflors are the curse of a table. Ono of those flies will spoil a whole pot. Of Such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested them, as I do, from hor heart and Soul, and would not, Save upon a striking emergency, willingly Boat herself at the samá tablo with them. She loved a thorough-paced partner, a deter- mined enemy. She took, and gave, no concessions. She hated favours. She nover made a revoko, nor ever passed it over in her adversary without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight: cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her cards) “like a dancer.” She sate bolt upright; and neither showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All people have their blind side—their supersti- tions; and I havo heard hor declare, under the rose, that hearts was hor favourite suit. I never in my life—and I knew Sarah Battle many of the best years of it—saw her take out her Snuff-box when it was her turn to play; or Snuff a candle in the middle of a game ; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during its process. As she emphatically observed, cards were cards; and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a literary turn, who had been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; and who, in his excess of candour, declared, that he thought there was no harm in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies, in recreations of that kind! She could not bear to have her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties, considered in that light. It was her business, her duty, the thing she came into the world to do, and she did it. She unbent her mind after- wards, over a book. Pope was her favourite author: his Rape of the Lock her favourite work. She once did me the favour to play over with me (with the cards) his celebrated game of Ombre in that poem ; and to explain to me how far it agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poignant ; and I had the pleasure of sending the substance of them to Mr. Bowles; but I suppose they came too late to be inserted among his ingenious notes upon that author. Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love; but whist had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners— a thing which the constancy of whist abhors;–the dazzling Supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille—absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above his brother-nobility of the Aces;–the giddy vanity, so taking to the inexperienced, of playing alone; above all, the over- powering attractions of a Sans Prendre Vole,_to the triumph of which there is certainly nothing parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of whist ;-all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captivation to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the solider game : that was her word. It was a long meal; not, like quadrille, a feast of snatches. One or two rubbers might co-extend in duration with an evening. They gave time to form rooted friend- ships, to cultivate steady enmities. She despised the chance- started, capricious, and ever fluctuating alliances of the other. The skirmishes of quadrille, she would say, reminded her of the petty ephemeral embroilments of the little Italian states, depicted by Machiavel: perpetually changing postures and connexions; bitter foes to-day, Sugared darlings to-morrow; To A.D. 1824.] 407 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. kissing and scratching in a breath;-but the wars of whist were comparable to the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipathies of the great French and English nations. A grave simplicity was what she chiefly admired in her favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the nob in cribbage—nothing superfluous. No flushes—that most irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being can set up — that any one should claim four by virtue of holding cards of the same mark and colour, without reference to the playing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions of the cards themselves | She held this to be a solecism; as pitiful an ambition at cards as alliteration is in authorship. She despised superficiality, and looked deeper than the colours of things.-Suits were soldiers, she would say, and must have an uniformity of array to distinguish them: but what should we say to a foolish squire, who should claim a merit from dressing up his tenantry in red jackets, that never were to be marshalled——never to take the field?—She even wished that whist were more simple than it is ; and, in my mind, would have stripped it of some appendages, which in the state of human frailty, may be venially, and even commend- ably, allowed of. She saw no reason for the deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not one suit always trumps?—Why two colours, when the mark of the suits would have sufficiently distinguished them without it P− “But the eye, my dear madam, is agreeably refreshed with the variety. Man is not a creature of pure reason—he must have his senses delightfully appealed to. We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker spirit of unsensualising would have kept out.—You yourself have a pretty collection of paintings—but confess to me, whether, walking in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, Oramong the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable to that you have it in your power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment of the court- cards 2–the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a procession —the gay triumph-assuring Scarlets—the contrasting deadly- killing sables—the ‘hoary majesty of spades'—Pam in all his glory !— “All these might be dispensed with ; and with their naked names upon the drab pasteboard, the game might go on very well, pictureless. But the beauty of cards would be ex- tinguished for ever. Stripped of all that is imaginative in them, they must degenerate into mere gambling. Imagine a dull deal board, or drum head, to spread them on, instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's), fittest arena for those courtly combatants to play their gallant jousts and turneys in l—Exchange those delicately-turned ivory markers —(work of Chinese artist, unconscious of their symbol,-or as profanely slighting their true application as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned out those little shrines for the goddess)—exchange them for little bits of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and a slate l’’— The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of my logic; and to her approbation of my arguments on her favourite topic that evening, I have always fancied myself indebted for the legacy of a curious cribbage-board, made of the finest Sienna marble, which her maternal uncle (old Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) brought with him from Florence:—this, and a trifle of five hundred pounds, came to me at her death. The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have kept with religious care; though she herself, to confess a truth, was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say—disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce “Go ?”—or “That's a go.” She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five-dollar stake), because she would not take advantage of the turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which she must have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring “two for his heels.” There is something extremely genteel in this sort of Self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born. Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons, though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms—such as pique—repique—the capot—they savoured (she thought) of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She would argue thus:–Cards are warfare: the ends are gain, with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport ; when single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too palpable. By themselves, it is too close a fight; with spectators, it is not much bettered. No looker-on can be interested, except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of money; he cares not for your luck sympathetically, or for your play.—Three are still worse; a mere naked war of every man against every man, as in Cribbage, without league or alliance; or a rotation of petty and contradictory interests, a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty infractions of them, as in tradrille.—But in Square games (she meant whist), all that is possible to be attained in card- playing is accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common to every species—though the latter can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interests beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold—or even an interested—bystander witnesses it, but because your partner sympathises in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying the channels. War becomes a civil game.—By such reasonings as these the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime. - No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. Chance, she would argue—and here, again, admire the sub- tlety of her conclusion;–chance is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious that cannot be glory. What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together by himself? or before spectators, where no stake was depending P —Make a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number—and what possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as many times successively, without a prize P Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit, his memory, or combination- faculty rather—against another's; like a mock-engagement . at a review, bloodless and profitless. She could not conceive 408 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1824 a game wanting the spritely infusion of chance, the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles, and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue (and I think in this case justly), were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard head- contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena for such combatants. To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other:—that this passion can Scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as mightily concerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting ; much ado; great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for disproportioned ends; quite as diverting, and a great deal more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, which men play, without esteeming them to be such.— With great deference to the old lady's judgment in these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at cards for nothing has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget—Bridget Elia. I grant there is something sneaking in it ; but with a tooth-ache, or a sprained ankle, when you are subdued and humble, you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of action. There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick «whist. - I grant it is not the highest style of man—I deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle—she lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise. At such times, those terms which my old friend objected to, come in as something admissible.—I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me. That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her)–(dare I tell thee, how foolish I am?)—I wished it might have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over: and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget and I should be ever playing. From 1780 to 1789 there was a stamp duty of three-halfpence upon newspapers; from 1789 to 1797 it was twopence; from 1797 to 1815 it was twopence-halfpenny, and then it rose to fourpence, at which rate it stood until 1836. The paper duty was at the same time threepence a pound. A duty of three shillings upon each advertisement was raised to three-and-sixpence in 1815, but reduced in 1833 to eighteenpence in England and a shilling in Ire- land. Taxation, that made newspapers dear, stinted their circulation, and drove away the advertise- ments which might have yielded a revenue in support of their good management. Mechanical aids to the Swift production of a large number of copies were in 1815 hardly called for, and it was only in 1814 that The Times had led the way with a first rude attempt at a printing-machine to replace hand- labour. The supply required from it did not exceed four thousand copies. Englishmen, ill-instructed upon public affairs, wasted time upon vituperation that might have been better spent in thought, if the material for thought could have been set freely before them. In June, 1832, Edward Lytton Bulwer, the novelist, afterwards Lord Lytton, made in Parliament a speech for the abolition of the stamp duty on newspapers; but in 1836 we had advanced no farther than the reduction, made in that year, of the fourpenny stamp to a penny. The paper duty was reduced in the following year to three-halfpence, and by this time there was a development of machine. power in the printing-offices that helped to give cur- rency to those various effusions of the journalists, which have since been the most numerous, and not the least able and useful, among the shorter works of the nineteenth century in English prose. There were untaxed penny sheets which gave no news, and usually appealed to the lowest tastes. In 1832 the Reform Bill was to admit new bodies of Englishmen to the right of being represented in the councils of their country. The better education of the people, which had become a pressing public ques- tion during the preceding ten years, then made itself yet more distinctly felt to be an urgent need. On the last day of March, 1832, appeared the first num- ber of an unstamped weekly paper, called The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Charles Knight, its founder and chief producer—producer also of much else that aided the advancement of the people—in a retrospect of his career, entitled “Passages from a Working Life,” gave in 1864 this account of its origin —“Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill and I were neighbours on Hampstead Heath, and as we walked to town on a morning of the second week in March, our talk was of these cheap and offensive publications. ‘Let us,’ he exclaimed, ‘see what something cheap and good can accomplish. Let us have a penny magazine.’ ‘And what shall be its title 7' said I. ‘The Penny Magazine.' We went at once to the Lord Chancellor [Henry Brougham]. He cordially entered into the project. A Committee of the Society was called, and such a publication was decided upon after some hesi- tation. There was a feeling amongst a few that a penny weekly sheet would be below the dignity of the Society. One gentleman of the old Whig school, who had not originally belonged to the Committee, said again and again, ‘It is very awkward.' Lord Brougham, however, was not accustomed to let awkward things stand much in his way. The Penny Magazine was decided upon. I undertook the risk of the publication, and was appointed its editor.” In the preface to the first volume of this magazine, in December, 1832, Charles Knight wrote, “It was considered by Edmund Burke, about forty years ago, that there were 80,000 readers in this country. In the present year it has been shown, by the sale of The Penny Magazine, that there are 200,000 pur- chasers of one periodical work. It may be fairly To A.D. 1834.] 409 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. - calculated that the number of readers of that single work amounts to a million.” This forward movement in the south ran side by side with a like movement in the north, born of the same conditions of the time in minds of earnest men who felt its needs. The Brothers Chambers had set up Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, as a weekly sheet at three-halfpence, two months before The Penny Magazine was started. Its first number appeared on the 4th of February, 1832, and its permanence has been assured by the union in its founders of literary skill with business knowledge, but especially by the high aim that has given dignity to all their work for the diffusion of sound knowledge and wholesome thought among the people. In the same year Thomas Carlyle came to London with “Sartor Resartus,” written in 1831. No pub- lisher would take the book, and it appeared as detached papers in Fraser's Magazine in 1833 and 1834. Thomas Carlyle, born on the 4th of Decem- ber, 1795, at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, was educated at Annan and Edinburgh, where Edward Irving, three years his senior, was a fellow-student. Irving opened a school at Kirkcaldy, and invited Thomas Carlyle, then eighteen years old, and just graduated, to assist him. Irving presently went on his own spiritual mission, and his friend remained for a time at Kirkcaldy. Of this time of his youth, and its trials of the spirit, Mr. Carlyle has written:- “To Kirkcaldy I went. Together we talked, and wrought, and thought ; together we strove, by virtue of birch and book, to initiate the urchins into what is called the rudiments of learning; until at length the hand of the Lord was laid upon him, and the voice of his God spake to him, saying, “Arise, and get thee hence; ' and he arose, and girded up his loins. And I tarried awhile at Kirkcaldy, endeavouring still to initiate the urchins into the rudiments of learning. I had been destined by my father and my father's minister to be myself a minister of the Kirk of Scotland. But now that I had gained man's estate, I was not sure that I believed the doctrines of my father's kirk; and it was needful that I should now settle it. And so I entered my chamber and closed the door, and around me there came a trooping throng of phantasms dire from the abysmal depth of nethermost perdition. Doubt, fear, unbelief, mockery, and scoffing were there; and I wrestled with them in agony of spirit. Thus it was for weeks. Whether I ate I know not ; whether I drank I know not ; whether I slept I know not ; but I know that when I came forth again it was with the direful persuasion that I was the miserable owner of a diabolical arrangement called a stomach.” Thomas Carlyle, who was then studying divinity at Edin- burgh, abandoned the ministry, and became tutor in a private family. There he mastered German. Then he returned to Edinburgh, and made it the chosen work of his life to put his pen to the best use within his power. In those days of training to literature he translated Legendre's “Geometry,” prefixing an Essay on Proportion. He wrote also a “Life of Schiller,” which was contributed to The London Magazine in 1823. His translation of Goethe's “Wilhelm Meister” was published in 1824. In 1826 Mr. Carlyle married. With his wife, who was a lineal descendant of John Knox, Thomas Carlyle then established himself on a little estate of hers at Craigenputtoch, and there he sought his life's work through six years of honest independent thought. He earned as a writer, by publishing in 1827 “Specimens of German Romance,” translated from Jean Paul, Tieck, Musaeus, and Hoffmann, by contributing biographical sketches to “The Edin- burgh Encyclopædia,” and by essays in The Edin- burgh Review. The first of these essays was upon Jean Paul, published in 1827, followed soon by the essays on Burns and on Novalis. Thus beginning his career as best interpreter of the best thought of Germany to English readers, and as the first writer who taught Englishmen to see more in Goethe than they had picked for themselves, by aid of false sentiment, from “Faust,” Thomas Carlyle had Goethe soon among his friends. A translation of his life of Schiller into German was issued, with a preface by Goethe, who gave translations into German of two letters to himself from the author CRAIGENPUTTOCH. From a Drawing engraved in the German Translation of Carlyle’s “Life of Schiller,” edited by Goethe. describing his home at Craigenputtoch, with engrav- ings of two sketches that he had received, showing the house and its surroundings. I venture to re- translate into my weaker English : Craigenputtoch, Sept. 25, 1828. You ask with so warm an interest about our present house and occupation, that on this head I must say a few words, as there is room enough left for them. Dumfries is a pleasant town of about 15,000 inhabitants, and to be ac- counted the commercial and judicial centre of a considerable district in the Scottish body politic. Our dwelling is not therein, but distant from it fifteen miles north-west, between the granite hills and the black moorlands that stretch west- ward through Galloway almost to the Irish Channel. In this wilderness of heath and rock our homestead shows as a green oasis, a space of ploughed ground partially fenced and adorned, where corn ripens and trees give their shade, though round about us are the sea-mews and the hard- woolled sheep. Here, with no small effort, we have built and fitted for ourselves a wholesome durable dwelling; here We 228 410 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1830 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF live, in absence of teaching or other public work, to busy ourselves with literature, to find employment in it according to our powers. We wish that our roses and shrubs may grow apace, and hope for Our gain in health and peace of mind. Of the roses, to be sure, many are yet to be planted, but hope sees them already in blossom. Two light horses that bear us about everywhere, and the breeze on the hills, are the best doctors for delicate nerves. This daily activity, to which I am much given, is my only recreation ; for this corner is the loneliest in Britain, six miles distant from any person who might be likely to call on me. Here Rousseau would have been as much at his ease as on his island of St. Pierre. Indeed, my town friends ascribe my coming hither to a like disposition, and prophesy me no good; but I came hither for no other purpose than to simplify my life, and attain an independence that would make me stay true to myself. This space of ground is ours; here we can live, write, and think as it seems best to us, even though Zoilus himself should be- come king of letters. The solitude, too, is of small account. A stage-coach brings us easily to Edinburgh, our British Weimar. And have I not at this moment a whole load of French, American, English journals and papers, whatever they may be worth, heaped on the tables of my little library P. We have no want, either, of antiquarian studies. From some of our heights I discern, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them; at the foot of which I was born, where father and mother are yet living to love me. And so one must let time do its work. But what am I coming to ? Let me yet confess that I am uncertain about my future literary work, about which I should be glad to get your opinion. Be sure to write to me again, and soon, that I may always feel myself united with you. º .* * . º º ſº * Jºs. 22%rº. rº Jºzº e - gºº..., . r º: … --> ºc.”.”- THOMAS. CARLYLE's Hous E AT CRAIGENPUTToch. From a Drawing engraved in the German Translation of Carlyle’s “Life of Schiller,” cilited by Goethe. . Thomas Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus,” after its issue in Fraser, still waited some years for a publisher who Would accept it as a book, full as it is of the best truth of its time. Its Clothes Philosophy looks through all accidents of life at the essential part of man. There only lies the energy by which our common life can be raised, and Teufelsdröckh, Devil's Dung, feel a right to his other name, Dio. genes, Godborn. Here are a few words from “Sartor Resartus.” Men are properly said to be clothed with Authority, clothed with Beauty, with Curses, and the like. Nay, if you con- sider it, what is Man himself and his whole terrestrial life but an emblem, a clothing or visible garment for that divine Me of his, cast hither, as a light particle, down from Heaven P Thus he is said to be clothed with a Body. “Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom.” Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by Action. On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept also well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service:–Do the Duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a Duty. Thy second Duty will already have become clearer. May we not say, however, that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even this P When your ideal world, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open, and you discover with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that your America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable, hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere, is thy Ideal; work it out therefrom, believe, live, and be free. Fool the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of. What matter whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic : O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, The thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldst thou only See. CHAPTER XII. UN D E R VI C T OR I. A. CHARLES DICKENs's “Pickwick” was a new book in the first year of the reign of Queen Victoria, its author then being twenty-five years old. He was born on the 7th of February, 1812, at Landport, in Portsea, son of John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, then stationed at Portsmouth Dockyard, Charles Dickens being the second of eight children, of whom two died in infancy. In 1814 John Dickens's duties were in London; in 1816 the family removed to Chatham, John Dickens having been transferred to duties in the dockyard there. At Chatham, Charles Dickens went to a day-school, and read at home “Don Quixote,” “Gil Blas,” “Robinson Crusoe,” in a cheap series of novels which his father had, also the Spectator, Tatler, Idler, Goldsmith's “Citizen of the World,” and Mrs. Inchbald’s “Collection of Farces,” which were all in the family library. He took to writing as a child, and began with a tragedy on one of the “Tales of the Genii,” “Mismar, Sultan of India.” The household at Portsea and Chatham included a cousin, James Lamert, and his mother, who was the widow of a commander in the navy. She afterwards married a staff doctor in the army (who is sketched in “Pickwick”). James Lamert, who was being educated at Sandhurst, had a taste for theatricals, TO A.D. 1837.] 411 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. and would take little Charles Dickens to the play. During 1820 and 1821 Charles Dickens had also education in Chatham, at a school in Clover Lane, kept by the minister of an adjoining Baptist chapel. When his son Charles was nine years old, in 1821, John Dickens came with his family to London, and they then lived in Bayham Street, Camden Town. Charles Dickens had a godfather in Limehouse, a well-to-do rigger, mast, oar, and block maker, and an uncle, James Barrow, who was laid up with a broken leg in lodgings over a bookseller's shop in Gerrard Street, Soho. The shop was kept by the bookseller's widow, who lent the child books. In 1822 Mrs. John Dickens attempted to set up a school in Gower Street North, using two parlours in an empty house. The godfather, who was said to have an Indian con- nection, might, it was thought, bring pupils. John Dickens, then superannuated on a small pension, was in difficulties, and neglecting the education of his children, but the eldest daughter was attending the Academy of Music. Then John Dickens was arrested and taken to the Marshalsea, and everything belonging to him, including the books, was sold or pawned. At this time—in 1822—James Lamert, who was still waiting for a commission, and his brother George, who had some money, set up an establishment for rivalry with the blacking of Robert Warren, 30, Strand, a name and address then much advertised. The Lamerts bought their business of a Jonathan Warren, who claimed to be the original discoverer of the recipe on which their relation had grown rich, and the address of this Warren was 30, *:::::::" STRAND. George Lamert bought the business, and went into it with James. Charles Dickens, aged ten, was then engaged to cover the blacking-pots at a salary of six shillings a week. His home was broken up ; his mother had gone to live with her husband in the Marshalsea prison, and Charles was put to lodge with an old lady in Little College Street, who, with altera- tions and embellishments, served afterwards as model for the Mrs. Pipchin of his “Dombey and Son.” He kept himself as he could with his small earnings, and spent his Sundays “at home” in the Marshalsea. Then he moved to lodgings nearer to the Marshalsea, in Lant Street, Borough (Bob Sawyer's quarters in “Pickwick”), breakfasting and supping in the prison, where the family was still waited upon by a maid-of- all-work from Chatham Workhouse, who had followed them through all their later troubles. In 1824 John Dickens obtained his release under the Bankruptcy Act. The blacking shop had been removed to Chandos Street, Covent Garden, at the corner of Bedford Street, where little Charles, who felt his position most acutely throughout all this time, was placed in the window that he might be seen tying up the blacking-pots. An end was put to this by the father, and from 1824 to 1827, from the age of twelve to the age of fifteen, Charles Dickens was sent to school. In 1827 he began life again as an attorney's office boy. In 1828, his father having become a parliamentary reporter, Charles Dickens began diligent study of shorthand in the British Museum reading-room, and practised as reporter for an office in Doctors' Commons until 1830. In 1831 he was reporter for The True Sun, aged nineteen, and began his lifelong friendship with John Forster, who was of the same age, and then a contributor to the same paper. In 1832 his uncle Barrow started a Mirror of Parliament, which was to excel Han- sard, but did not live long, and Charles Dickens reported for this during the two sessions, 1832 and 1833. In January, 1834, Dickens was first in print as an author, his work being a contribution to The Old Monthly; he became also in that year, aged twenty-three, reporter for The Morning Chronicle, under John Black. Of the days of his life as a reporter he told afterwards when presiding at the Second annual dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund. CHARLES DICKENS AS NEWSPAPER REPORTER, “I am not here,” he said, “advocating the case of a mere ordinary client of whom 1 have little or no knowledge. I hold a brief to-night for my brothers. I went into the gallery of the House of Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy, and I left it—I can hardly believe the inexorable truth—migh thirty years ago. I have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren here can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle- yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once ‘took,” as we used to call it, an election speech of Lord John Russell at the Devon contest, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such a pelting rain, that I remember two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note- book, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the old House of Com- mons; and I have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep—kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning home from exciting political meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, I do verily believe I have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever knew. These trivial things I mention as an assurance to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the Worse from long disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech (the phenomenon does occur), I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even 412 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1837 find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it all.” - Dickens continued in 1834 to write in The Old Monthly, and signed a paper in the August number with the domestic name of his youngest brother, who had been dubbed (Moses—Boses) Boz. But The Old Monthly could not afford to pay for his con- tributions. At the beginning of 1835 The Evening Chronicle was started as an off-shoot from The Morning Chronicle, Mr. George Hogarth, the musical critic, being active in preparation for it. Dickens was asked to supply an Original sketch for the first number, assented, and proposed a series for The Evening Chronicle, with hope of some pay in addi- tion to his salary as a reporter. This was agreed to, and his salary (in consideration of sketches to come), was raised from five to seven pounds a week. The “Sketches” were signed “Boz,” and attracted much attention. In 1836 a first series of them was put together, the copyright being sold for £150 to a young publisher named Macrone. A Squib Annual, with plates by George Seymour, had been published in numbers. Seymour then proposed a superior set of Cockney plates. Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers, suggested the addition of letterpress and issue in monthly parts. The author of the “Sketches by Boz” was asked to supply the letter- press, and accordingly, on the 31st of March, 1836, the first number of “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” made its appearance. Two days afterwards the author married the eldest daughter of his friend Mr. Hogarth. He was to be paid fifteen guineas a number for Pickwick, and drew in advance for the first two numbers to pay costs of the wedding. Before the appearance of the second number of Pick- wick, Seymour, the artist, had committed suicide. William Makepeace Thackeray, then looking to art as a profession, was among those who applied for the post of comic artist to the new serial. In August, 1836, Charles Dickens's success induced a publisher to establish Bentley's Miscellany, that the new writer might edit it. In this magazine “Oliver Twist’ appeared, and when it was now desired to repurchase the “Sketches by Boz,” of which the copyright had been sold for £150, the price asked for them was £2,000. A payment that had been agreed for as contingent upon sale beyond a given number, raised the author's receipts from “Pick- wick” to £2,500. The substantial result of this great success was that in 1838 the agreement for the next novel, “Nicholas Nickleby,” was for £150 for each of the twenty numbers in which, like “Pick- wick,” it was to appear, and this only for a five years' use of the copyright. The copyright was, after five years, to revert to the author. Prose-writing had never before achieved in literature a material success like this. A great extension of the reading public by the advance of education as well as of population, since the days when Burke reckoned that there were but 80,000 readers in the United Kingdom, was, of course, necessary to make such a success possible in the first years of the reign of Victoria. But it was the sympathetic touch of a rare geniuſ that opened all healts to the influence of Charles Dickens. The difficulties of his early years had deepened his whole nature and given strength to his will. His genius had been developed in the school of life, and there he had learnt the needs and aspirations of his time. Throughout his life Charles Dickens dwelt upon “the primal duties” that in his books, as in nature, “shine aloft like stars; ” in his books also The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are Scattered at the feet of man like flowers. What grace of culture may be sometimes wanting in his work counts but as dust in the balance where there is a great earnest life faithfully spent, and uttering itself with such humour and tenderness as this, for example, from the novel of “Dombey and Son,” of which the theme is Love before the World, not the World before Love. It appeared in 1848. LITTLE PAUL GOES HOME. The end of these first holidays was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever looked forward to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet come! Not Paul, assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and tigers climbing up the bedroom walls, became quite tame and frolicsome. The grim sly faces in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth, relaxed and peeped out at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old clock had more of personal interest in the tone of its formal inquiry; and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to the sounding of a melancholy strain—yet it was pleasant too—that rose and fell with the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep. They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day, Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, “Dombey, I am going to send home your analysis.” “Thank you, ma'am,” returned Paul. “You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?” inquired Miss Blimber, looking hard at him through the spectacles. “No, ma'am,” said Paul. “Dombey, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, “I begin to be afraid you are a sad boy. When you don't know the mean- ing of an expression, why don't you seek for information ?” “Mrs. Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,” returned Paul. “I must beg you not to mention Mrs. Pipchim to me, on any account, Dombey,” returned Miss Blimber. “I couldn't think of allowing it. The course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort. A repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to request to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to morrow morning, from Verbum personale down to simillima cygno.” “I didn’t mean, ma'am—” began little Paul. “I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you please, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness in her admonitions. “That is a line of . argument, I couldn't dream of permitting.” Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at Miss Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him gravely, referred to a paper lying before her. “‘Analysis of the character of P. Dombey.” If my recol- lection serves me,” said Miss Blimber, breaking off, “the word analysis as opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. ‘The resolution of an object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements.” As opposed to To A.D. 1848.] 413 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. synthesis, you observe. Dombey.” Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in upon his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow. “‘Analysis,” resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper, “of the character of P. Dombey.” I find that the natural capacity of Dombey is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study may be stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard and highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at six three- fourths.” Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or sixpence three-farthings, or six foot three, or three- quarters past six, or six somethings that he hadn’t learnt yet, with three unknown something elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It happened to answer as well as anything else he could have done; and Cornelia proceeded. “‘Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as evinced in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but since reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with advancing years.” Now what I particularly wish to call your attention to, Dombey, is the general observation at the close of this analysis.” Paul set himself to follow it with great care. “‘It may be generally observed of Dombey,’” said Miss Blimber, reading in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles towards the little figure before her : “‘that his abilities and inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as under the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be lamented of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually termed old- fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for re- probation, he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social position.” Now, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, “do you understand that?” “I think I do, ma'am,” said Paul. - “This analysis, you see, Dombey,” Miss Blimber con- tinued, “is going to be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and conduct. It is naturally painful to us; for we can’t like you, you know, Dombey, as well as we could wish.” She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become Inore and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure drew more near, that all the house should like him. For some hidden reason, very imperfectly under- stood by himself—if understood at all—he felt a gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost everything and everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that they would be quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them to remember him kindly; and he had made it his business even to conciliate a great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the house, who had previously been the terror of his life: that even he might miss him when he was no longer there. Little thinking that in this he only showed again the difference between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the official analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs. Blimber, who had joined them, he preferred the same petition : and when that lady could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving utterance to her often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul Now you know what analysis is, told her that he was sure she was quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but he didn’t know; and that he hoped she would overlook it, for he was fond of them all. “Not so fond,” said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging qualities of the child, “not so fond as I am of Florence, of course; that could never be. You couldn't expect that, could you, ma'am P.” “Oh ! the old-fashioned little soul!” cried Mrs. Blimber, in a whisper. “But I like everybody here very much,” pursued Paul, “and I should grieve to go away, and think that any one was glad that I was gone, or didn't care.” Mrs. Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in the world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor did not controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said before, when Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he had said on that occasion, “Bring him on, Cornelia | Bring him on . " Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could ; and Paul had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through his tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and to which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of the rest; and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering them some little voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who mortified themselves beneath the roof of Dr. Blimber, Paul was an object of general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not change his nature, or re-write the analysis; and so they all agreed that Dombey was old-fashioned. There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed by no one else. They could have better spared a newer-fashioned child, and that alone was much. When the others only bowed to Dr. Blimber and family on retiring for the night, Paul would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor's; also Mrs. Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody was to be begged off from impending punishment, Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed young man himself had once consulted him, in reference to a little breakage of glass and china. And it was darkly rumoured that the butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his table- beer to make him strong. Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of entry to Mr. Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr. Toots into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an unsuccessful attempt to Smoke a very blunt cigar : one of a bundle which that young gentle- man had covertly purchased on the shingle from a most desperate smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that two hundred pounds was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr. Feeder's, with his bed in anyther little room inside of it; and a flute, which Mr. Feedel couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of learning, he said, hanging up over the fire-place. There were some books in it, too, and a fishing-rod; for Mr. Feeder said he should certainly make a point of learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr. Feeder had amassed, with similar intentions, a beautiful little curly second-hand key-bugle, a chess board and men, a 414 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. [A.D., 1848 Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials, and a pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr. Feeder said he should undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he con- sidered it the duty of every man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a female in distress. But Mr. Feeder's great possession was a large green jar of snuff, which Mr. Toots had brought down as a present, at the close of the last vacation; and for which he had paid a high price, as having been the genuine property of the Prince Regent. Neither Mr. Toots nor Mr. Feeder could partake of this or any other snuff, even in the most stinted and moderate degree, without being seized with convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight to moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment with a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and there. In the course of which cram- ming of their noses, they endured surprising torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking table-beer at intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation. To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of his chief patron, Mr. Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless occasions: and when Mr. Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London, and told Mr. Toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in all its ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that purpose had made arrangements to board with two old maiden ladies at Peck- ham, Paul regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing person. Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near, Paul found Mr. Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters, while some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being folded and sealed by Mr. Toots. Mr. Feeder said, “Aha, Dombey ! there you are, are you?”—for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him—and then said, tossing one of the letters towards him, “And there you are, too, Dombey. That's yours.” “Mine, sir?” said Paul. “Your invitation,” returned Mr. Feeder. Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the exception of his own name and the date, which were in Mr. Feeder's Penmanship, that Dr. and Mrs. Blimber re- quested the pleasure of Mr. P. Dombey's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant; and that the hour was half-past seven o’clock; and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr. Toots also showed him, by holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Dr. and Mrs. Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr. Toots's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was half-past seven o’clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found, on glancing at the table where Mr. Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr. Briggs's company, and of Mr. Tozer's company, and of every young gentleman's company, was requested by Dr. and Mrs. Blimber on the same genteel occasion. Mr. Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was invited, and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the holidays began that day, he could go away with his sister after the party, if he liked, which Paul interrupted him to say he would like, very much. Mr. Feeder then gave him to understand that he would be expected to inform Dr. and Mrs. Blimber, in superfine small-hand, that Mr. P. Dombey would be happy to have the honour of waiting on them, in accordance with their polite invitation. Lastly, Mr. Feeder said, he had better not refer to the festive oc- casion, in the hearing of Dr. and Mrs. Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole of the arrangements, were sº- -vº conducted on principles of classicality and high breeding; and that Dr. and Mrs. Blimber on the one hand, and the young gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic capacities, not to have the least idea of what was in the wind. Paul thanked Mr. Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his invitation, sat down on a stool by the side of Mr. Toots as usual. But Paul's head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he was obliged to support it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by little and little it sunk on Mr. Toots's knee, and rested there, as if it had no care to be ever lifted up again. That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he thought, for, by-and-by, he heard Mr. Feeder calling in his ear, and gently shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his head, quite scared, and looked about him, he found that Dr. Blimber had come into the room; and that the window was open, and that his forehead was wet with sprinkled water ; though how all this had been done without his knowledge, was very curious indeed. - “Ah Come, come ! That's well! How is my little friend now P’’ said Dr. Blimber, encouragingly. “Oh, quite well, thank you, sir,” said Paul. But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being looked at very hard indeed. Mr. Toots's head had the appearance of being at once bigger and farther, off than was quite natural: and when he took Paul in his arms, to carry him up-stairs, Paul observed with astonishment that the door was in quite a different place from that in which he had expected to find it, and almost thought, at first, that Mr. Toots was going to walk straight up the chimney. It was very kind of Mr. Toots to carry him to the top of the house so tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr. Toots said he would do a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled very much; while Mr. Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head bolt up- right with his bony hands, and then made believe to spar at Paul with great science, on account of his being all right again, which was so uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr. Feeder, that Paul, not being able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him, did both at once. How Mr. Toots melted away, and Mr. Feeder changed into Mrs. Pipchin, Paul never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know; but when he saw Mrs. Pipchin stand- ing at the bottom of the bed, instead of Mr. Feeder, he cried out, “Mrs. Pipchin, don’t tell Florence l’” “Don’t tell Florence what, my little Paul ?” said Mrs. Pipchin, coming round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair. “About me,” said Paul, “No, no,” said Mrs. Pipchin. “What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs. Pipchin?” inquired Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting his chin wistfully on his folded hands. Mrs. Pipchin couldn't guess. “I mean,” said Paul, “to put my money all together in one Bank, never try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling Florence, have a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there with her all my life I’” A.D. 1848.] 415 SHORTER, PROSE WORKS. “Indeed l’’ cried Mrs. Pipchin. “Yes,” said Paul. “That's what I mean to do, when I——” He stopped, and pondered for a moment. Mrs. Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face. “If I grow up,” said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs. Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the pride he would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by all the boys, about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about his being so fond of them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he told Mrs. Pipchin about the analysis, and about his being certainly old- fashioned, and took Mrs. Pipchin's opinion on that point, and whether she knew why it was, and what it meant. Mrs. Pipchin denied the fact altogether, as the shortest way of getting out of the difficulty; but Paul was far from satisfied with that reply, and looked so searchingly at Mrs. Pipchin for a truer answer, that she was obliged to get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes. There was a certain calm Apothecary, who attended at the establishment when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he got into the room and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs. Blimber. How they came there, or how long they had been there, Paul didn't know ; but when he saw them, he sat up in bed, and answered all the Apothecary’s questions at full length, and whispered to him that Florence was not to know anything about it, if he pleased, and that he had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was very chatty with the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying down again with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room and quite a long way off— or he dreamed it—that there was a want of vital power (what was that, Paul wondered ') and great constitutional weakness. That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with his school-mates on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the fancy if he grew no worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs. Pipchin, that the little fellow would go to his friends in London on the eighteenth. That he would write to Mr. Dombey, when he should have gained a better knowledge of the case, and before that day. That there was no immediate cause for—what ? Paul lost that word. And that the little fellow had a fine mind, but was an old-fashioned boy. What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating heart, that was so visibly expressed in him ; so plainly seen by so many people ! He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the effort. Mrs. Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away (he thought she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream perhaps), and presently a bottle and glass got into her hands magically, and she poured out the contents for him. After that, he had some real good jelly, which Mrs. Blimber brought to him herself; and then he was so well, that Mrs. Pipchin went home, at his urgent Solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have discomposed him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good to Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one looked in before going to bed, and said, “How are you now, Dombey P” “Cheer up, little Dombey !” and so forth. After Briggs had got into bed, he lay awake for a long time, still bemoan- ing his analysis, and saying he knew it was all wrong, and they couldn’t have analysed a murderer worse, and how would Dr. Blimber like it if his pocket-money depended on it P. It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up greedy; but that wasn’t going to be submitted to, he believed, was it P Oh! Ah ! Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning, he came up-stairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul very gladly did. Mrs. Pipchin re-appeared a little before the Apothecary, and a little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen cleaning the stove on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now !) had brought him his breakfast. There was another consul- tation a long way off, or else Paul dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary, coming back with Dr. and Mrs. Blimber, said: “Yes, I think, Dr. Blimber, we may release this young gentleman from his books just now ; the vacation being so very near at hand.” “By all means,” said Dr. Blimber. inform Cornelia, if you please.” “Assuredly,” said Mrs. Blimber. The Apothecary, bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and felt his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and care, that Paul said, “Thank you, sir.” “Our little friend,” observed Dr. Blimber, “ has never complained.” “Oh, no l’’ replied the Apothecary. to complain.” “You find him greatly better ?” said Dr. Blimber. “Oh! he is greatly better, sir,” returned the Apothe- cary. Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that might occupy the Apothecary’s mind just at that moment; so musingly had he answered the two ques- tions of Dr. Blimber. But the Apothecary happening to meet his little patient’s eyes, as the latter set off on that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstrac- tion with a cheerful smile, Paul Smiled in return and abandoned it. He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr. Toots: but got up on the next, and went down-stairs. Lo and behold, there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the works by the light of a candle ! This was a great event for Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now and then glancing at the clock-face, leaning all askew against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling him. The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he observed Paul, “How do you do, sir?” Paul got into conversation with him, and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry: when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good day, and went away — though not before he had whispered something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in “My love, you will “He was not likely 416 CASSELL’S ‘LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1848. which there was the phrase “old-fashioned ’’—for Paul heard it. What could that old fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry P What could it be P Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this fre- quently; though not so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to think of. But he had a great many, and was always thinking, all day long. First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see that the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This was his great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle and good to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them, and then she would always think of the time he had passed there, without being very sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for that, perhaps, when he came back. When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet went up the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book and scrap, and trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together there, down to the minutest thing, for taking home ! There was no shade of coming back on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other reference to it, grew out of anything he thought or did, except this slight one in connection with his sister. On the contrary, he had to think of everything familiar to him, in his contemplative moods and in his wanderings about the house, as being to be parted with ; and hence the many things he had to think of, all day long. He had to peep into those rooms up-stairs, and think how solitary they would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent days, weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and undisturbed. He had to think—would any other child (old-fashioned, like himself) stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque dis- tortions of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once P He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder ; and which, when he passed it in the company of any one, still seemed to gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a light about its head—benignant, mild, and merciful—stood pointing upward. At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves. Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in some distant place, and she were sitting there alone. He had to think, too, of Mr. Toots, and Mr. Feeder, B.A.; of all the boys; and of Dr. Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber ; of home, and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father, Dombey and Son, Walter, with the poor old uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that gruff-voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day: to the School-room, to Dr. Blimber's study, to Mrs. Blimber's private apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For he was free of the whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always losing them ; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of silk for Mrs. Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to rights; sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and, sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly, and go round the world, or take a flight among the far-off stars. In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by every one. Dr. Blimber was so particular about him, that he re- quested Johnson to retire from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly spoken to him as “poor little Dombey;” which Paul thought rather hard and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice, Paul thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great authority give his assent, on the previous evening, to the proposition (stated by Mrs. Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more old-fashioned than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it must surely be old- fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily tired, and soon disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he couldn't help feeling that these were more and more his habits every day. At last the party-day arrived; and Dr. Blimber said at breakfast, “Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month.” Mr. Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put on his ring : and mentioning the Doctor in casual convérsation shortly afterwards, spoke of him as “Blimber l’’ This act of freedom inspired the older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits were appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed him. Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening, either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house all day, and in the course of his per- ambulations, Paul made acquaintance with various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a harp in a green great- coat standing on the landing outside the drawing-room door. There was something queer, too, about Mrs. Blimber's head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too: for Paul read “Theatre Royal” over one of her sparkling spectacles, and “Brighton” over the other. There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the young gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of singed hair, that Dr. Blimber sent up the footman with his compliments, and wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was only the hair-dresser curling the young gentlemen, and over-heating his tongs in the ardour of business. When Paul was dressed—which was very soon done, for he felt unwell and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long—he went down into the drawing-room; where he found Dr. Blimber pacing up and down the room, full-dressed, but with a dignified and unconcerned demeanour, as if he thought it barely possible that one or two people might drop A.D. 1848.] 417 SEIORTER PROSE WORKS. in by and by. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Blimber appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and attired in such a number of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk round her. Miss Blimber came down soon after her mama; a little Squeezed in appearance, but very charming. Mr. Toots and Mr. Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these gentlemen brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else; and when they were announced by the butler, Dr. Blimber said, “Aye, aye, aye! God bless my soul!” and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr. Toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons: and he felt the circumstance so strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs. Blimber and Miss Blimber, he took Paul aside, and said, “What do you think of this, Dombey P” - But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr. Toots appeared to be involved in a good deal of un- certainty whether, on the whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his wristbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr. Feeder's were turned up, Mr. Toots turned his up; but the wristbands of the next arrival being turned down, Mr. Toots turned his down. The differences in point of waistcoat buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top too, be- came so numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that Mr. Toots was continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced and introduced, Mr. Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs. Baps, to whom Mrs. Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr. Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of speaking; and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he began to talk to Toots (who had been silently comparing pumps with him) about what you were to do with your raw materials when they came into your ports in return for your drain of gold. Mr. Toots, to whom the question seemed perplexing, suggested “Cook 'em.” But Mr. Baps did not appear to think that would do. Paul now slipped away from the cushioned corner of a Sofa, which had been his post of observation, and went down- stairs into the tea-room to be ready for Florence, whom he had not seen for nearly a fortnight, as he had remained at Dr. Blimber's on the previous Saturday and Sunday, lest he should take cold. Presently she came: looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers in her hand, that when she knelt down on the ground to take Paul round the neck and kiss him (for there was no one there, but his friend and another young woman waiting to serve out the tea), he could hardly make up his mind to let her go again, or to take away her bright and loving eyes from his face. “But what is the matter, Floy?” asked Paul, almost sure that he saw a tear there. “Nothing, darling; nothing,” returned Florence. Paul touched her cheek gently with his finger—and it was a tear ! “Why, Floy!” said he. “We'll go home together, and I’ll nurse you, love,” said Florence. “Nurse me !” echoed Paul. Paul couldn’t understand what that had to do with it, nor why the two young women looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away her face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with smiles. “Floy,” said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand. “Tell me, dear. fashioned?” His sister laughed, and fondled him, and told him “No.” “Because I know they say so,” returned Paul, “and I want to know what they mean, Floy.” But a loud double knock coming at the door, and Florence hurrying to the table, there was no more said between them. . Paul wondered again when he saw his friend whisper to Florence, as if she were comforting her ; but a new arrival put that out of his head speedily. It was Sir Barnet Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles. Master Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had been busy, in Mr. Feeder's room, with his father, who was in the House of Commons, and of whom Mr. Feeder had said that when he did catch the Speaker's eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four years), it was anticipated that he would rather touch up the Radicals. - “And what room is this now, for instance?” said Lady Skettles to Paul's friend, 'Melia. “Dr. Blimber's study, ma'am,” was the reply. Lady Skettles took a panoramic survey of it through her glass, and said to Sir Barnet Skettles, with a nod of approval, “Very good.” Sir Barnet assented, but Master Skettles looked suspicious and doubtful. “And this little creature, now,” said Lady Skettles, turn- ing to Paul. “Is he one of the—” “Young gentlemen, ma'am ; yes, ma'am,” said Paul's friend. “And what is your name, my pale child P” said Lady Skettles. “Dombey,” answered Paul. Sir Barnet Skettles immediately interposed, and said that he had had the honour of meeting Paul's father at a public dinner, and that he hoped he was very well. Then Paul heard him say to Lady Skettles, “City—very rich—most respectable—Doctor mentioned it.” And then he said to Paul, “Will you tell your good papa that Sir Barnet Skettles rejoiced to hear that he was very well, and sent him his best compliments P” & - “Yes, sir,” answered Paul. * “That is my brave boy,” said Sir Barnet Skettles. “Barnet,” to Master Skettles, who was revenging himself for the studies to come, on the plum-cake, “this is a young gentleman you ought to know. This is a young gentleman you may know, Barnet,” said Sir Barnet Skettles, with an emphasis on the permission. “What eyes! What hair : What a lovely face : ” ex- claimed Lady Skettles softly, as she looked at Florence through her glass. “My sister,” said Paul, presenting her. The satisfaction of the Skettleses was now complete. And as Lady Skettles had conceived, at first sight, a liking for Paul, they all went up-stairs together : Sir Barnet Skettles taking care of Florence, and young Barnet following. Young Barnet did not remain long in the background after they had reached the drawing-room, for Dr. Blim- ber had him out in no time, dancing with Florence. He did not appear to Paul to be particularly happy, or par- ticularly anything but sulky, or to care much what he was about ; but as Paul heard Lady Skettles say to Mrs. Blimber, while she beat time with her fan, that her dear boy was evidently smitten to death by that angel of a child, Miss Dombey, it would seem that Skettles Junior was in a state of bliss, without showing it. Little Paul thought it a singular coincidence that nobody had occupied his place among the pillows; and that when he Do you think I have grown old- 229 4.18 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1848. came into the room again, they should all make way for him to go back to it, remembering it was his. Nobody stood before him either, when they observed that he liked to see Florence dancing, but they left the space in front quite clear, so that he might follow her with his eyes. They were so kind, too, even the strangers, of whom there were soon a great many, that they came and spoke to him every now and then, and asked him how he was, and if his head ached, and whether he was tired. He was very much obliged to them for all their kindness and attention, and reclining propped up in his corner, with Mrs. Blimber and Lady Skettles on the same sofa, and Florence coming and sitting by his side as Soon as every dance was ended, he looked on very happily indeed. Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced at all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired her, and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room. From his nest among the pillows, Paul could see and hear almost everything that passed, as if the whole were being done for his amusement. Among other little incidents that he observed, he observed Mr. Baps the dancing-master get into conversation with Sir Barnet Skettles, and very soon ask him, as he had asked Mr. Toots, what you were to do with your raw materials, when they came into your ports in return for your drain of gold—which was such a mystery to Paul that he was quite desirous to know what ought to be done with them. Sir Barnet Skettles had much to say upon the question, and said it; but it did not appear to solve the question, for Mr. Baps retorted, Yes, but supposing Russia stepped in with her tallows; which struck Sir Barnet almost dumb, for he could only shake his head after that, and say, why then you must fall back upon your cottons, he supposed. Sir Barnet Skettles looked after Mr. Baps when he went to cheer up Mrs. Baps (who, being quite deserted, was pretending to look over the music-book of the gentleman who played the harp), as if he thought him a remarkable kind of man; and shortly afterwards he said so in those words to Dr. Blimber, and inquired if he might take the liberty of asking who he was, and whether he had ever been in the Board of Trade. Dr. Blimber answered No, he believed not ; and that in fact he was a professor of “Of something connected with statistics, I'll swear " observed Sir Barnet Skettles. “Why no, Sir Barnet,” replied Dr. Blimber, rubbing his chin. “No, not exactly.” “Figures of some sort, I would venture a bet,” said Sir Barnet Skettles. “Why yes,” said Dr. Blimber, “yes, but not of that sort. Mr. Baps is a very worthy sort of man, Sir Barnet, and—in fact he's our professor of dancing.” Paul was amazed to see that this piece of information quite altered Sir Barnet Skettles' opinion of Mr. Baps, and that Sir Barnet flew into a perfect rage, and glowered at Mr. Baps over on the other side of the room. He even went so far as to D Mr. Baps to Lady Skettles, in telling her what had happened, and to say that it was like his most con-sum- mate and con-foun-ded impudence. . There was another thing that Paul observed. Mr. Feeder, after imbibing several custard-cups of negus, began to enjoy himself. The dancing in general was ceremonious, and the music rather Solemn—a little like church music in fact—but after the custard-cups, Mr. Feeder told Mr. Toots that he was going to throw a little spirit into the thing. After that, Mr. Feeder not only began to dance as if he meant dancing and nothing else, but secretly to stimulate the music to perform wild tunes. Further, he became particular in his attentions to the ladies; and dancing with Miss Blimber, whispered to her—whispered to her —though not so softly but that Paul heard him say this remarkable poetry, “Had I a heart for falsehood framed, I ne'er could injure Yoj . " This, Paul heard him repeat to four young ladies in suc- cession. Well might Mr. Feeder say to Mr. Toots, that he was afraid he should be the worse for it to-morrow ! Mrs. Blimber was a little alarmed by this—comparatively speaking—profligate behaviour; and especially by the altera- tion in the character of the music, which, beginning to comprehend low melodies that were popular in the streets, might not unnaturally be supposed to give offence to Lady Skettles. But Lady Skettles was so very kind as to beg Mrs. Blimber not to mention it; and to receive her explana- tion that Mr. Feeder's spirits sometimes betrayed him into cxcesses on these occasions, with the greatest courtesy and politeness; observing, that he seemed a very nice sort of person for his situation, and that she particularly liked the unassuming style of his hair—which (as already hinted) was about a quarter of an inch long. Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, Lady Skettles told Paul that he seemed very fond of music. Paul replied, that he was; and if she was too, she ought to hear his sister Florence sing. Lady Skettles presently discovered that she was dying with anxiety to have that gratification ; and though Florence was at first very much frightened at being asked to sing before so many people, and begged earnestly to be excused, yet, on Paul calling her to him, and saying, “Do, Floy! Please For me, my dear!” she went straight to the piano, and began. When they all drew a little away, that Paul might see her ; and when he saw her sitting there alone, so young, and good, and beautiful, and kind to him ; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural and Sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and hid his tears, Not, as he told them when they spoke to him, not that the music was too plaintive or too sorrowful, but it was so dear to him. They all loved Florence How could they help it ! Paul had known beforehand that they must and would ; and sitting in his cushioned corner, with calmly folded hands, and one leg loosely doubled under him, few would have thought what triumph and delight czpanded his childish bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet tranquillity he felt. Lavish encomiums on “Dombey's sister” reached his cars from all the boys: admiration of the self-possessed and modest little beauty was on every lip : reports of her intelligence and accomplishments floated past him, con- stantly ; and, as if borne in upon the air of the summer might, there was a half-intelligible sentiment diffused around, referring to Florence, and himself, and breathing sympathy for both, that soothed and touched him. He did not know why. For all that the child observed, and felt, and thought, that night—the present and the absent; what was then and what had been—were blended like the colours in the rainbow, or in the plumage of rich birds when the sun is shining on them, or in the softening sky when the same sun is setting. The many things he had had to think of lately, passed before him in the music; not as claiming his attention over again, or as likely evermore to occupy it, but as peacefully disposed of and gone. A solitary window, gazed through years ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles away; upon its waters, fancies, busy with A.D. 1848.] SHORTER 419 PROSE WORKS. him only yesterday, were hushed and lulled to rest like broken waves. The same mysterious murmur he had won- dered at, when lying on his couch upon the beach, he thought he still heard sounding through his sister’s song, and through the hum of voices, and the tread of feet, and having some part in the faces flitting by, and even in the heavy gentle- ness of Mr. Toots, who frequently came up to shake him by the hand. Through the universal kindness he still thought he heard it, speaking to him; and even his old-fashioned reputation seemed to be allied to it, he knew not how. Thus little Paul sat musing, listening, looking on, and dreaming; and was very happy. Until the time arrived for taking leave : there was a sensation in the party. Sir Barnet Skettles brought up Skettles Junior to shake hands with him, and asked him if he would remember to tell his good papa, with his best compliments, that he, Sir Barnet Skettles, had said he hoped the two young gentlemen would become intimately acquainted. Lady Skettles kissed him, and parted his hair upon his brow, and held him in her arms; and even Mrs. Baps—poor Mrs. Baps' Paul was glad of that—came over from beside the music-book of the gentleman who played the harp, and took leave of him quite as heartily as anybody in the room. “Good-bye, Dr. Blimber,” said Paul, stretching out his hand. “Good-bye, my little friend,” returned the Doctor. “I’m very much obliged to you, sir,” said Paul, looking innocently up into his awful face. “Ask them to take care of Diogenes, if you please.” Diogenes was the dog: who had never in his life received a friend into his confidence, before Paul. The Doctor promised that every attention should be paid to Diogenes in Paul's absence, and Paul having again thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to Mrs. Blimber and Cornelia with such heartfelt earnestness that Mrs. Blimber forgot from that moment to mention Cicero to Lady Skettles, though she had fully intended it all the evening. Cornelia, taking both Paul's hands in hers, said, ‘‘Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. God bless you!” And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do in- justice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it—though she was a Forcer. A buzz then went round among the young gentlemen, of “Dombey's going !” “Little Dombey's going !” and there was a general move after Paul and Florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr. Feeder said aloud, as had never happened in the case of any former young gentleman within his experience; but it would be difficult to say if this were sober fact or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at their head, had all an interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even the weak-eyed young man, taking out his books and trunks to the coach that was to carry him and Florence to Mrs. Pipchin's for the night, melted visibly. - Not even the influence of the softer passion on the young gentlemen—and they all, to a boy, doated on Florence— could restrain them from taking quite a noisy leave of Paul; waving hats after him, pressing down-stairs to shake hands with him, crying individually, “Dombey, don't forget me!” and indulging in many such ebullitions of feeling, un- common among those young Chesterfields. Paul whispered Florence, as she wrapped him up before the door was opened, Did she hear them? Would she ever forget it? Was she glad to know it 2 And a lively delight was in his eyes as he spoke to her. and then, indeed, Once, for a last look, he turned and gazed upon the faces thus addressed to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright, and numerous they were, and how they were all piled and heaped up, as faces are at crowded theatres. They swam before him as he looked, like faces in an agitated glass; and next moment he was in the dark coach outside, holding close to Florence. From that time, whenever he thought of Dr. Blimber's, it came back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be a real place again, but always a dream, full of eyes. This was not quite the last of Dr. Blimber's, however. There was something else. There was Mr. Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious chuckle, “Is Dombey there?” and immediately put it up again, without waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr. Toots, even; for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the other window, and looking in with a precisely similar chuckle, said in a precisely similar tone of voice, “Is Dombey there?” and disappeared precisely as before. How Florence laughed Paul often remembered it, and laughed himself whenever he did so. But there was much, soon afterwards—next day, and after that—which Paul could only recollect confusedly. As, why they stayed at Mrs. Pipchin's days and nights, instead of going home; why he lay in bed, with Florence sitting by his side; whether that had been his father in the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall; whether he had heard his doctor say, of some one, that if they had removed him before the occasion on which he had built up fancies, strong in pro- portion to his own weakness, it was very possible he might have pined away. He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence, “Oh Floy, take me home, and never leave me!” but he thought he had. He fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, “Take me home, Floy! take me home !” But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence still beside him, and old Mrs. Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered his old bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox, and Susan : but there was something else, and recent too, that still perplexed him. “I want to speak to Florence, if you please,” he said. “To Florence by herself, for a moment l” She bent down over him, and the others stood away. “Floy, my pet, wasn't that papa in the hall, when they brought me from the coach * * “Yes, dear.” “He didn't cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me coming in * * * Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek. “I’m very glad he didn't cry,” said little Paul. “I thought he did. Don't tell them that I asked.” Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it and watch- ing everything about him with observing eyes. When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the long 420 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. tº sº. streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the hosts of stars—-and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the Sea. As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they paused, and lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His only trouble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop it—to stem it with his childish hands—or choke its way with sand —and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out ! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side, re- stored him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream, and Smiled. When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun; and when its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself—pictured! he saw—the high church towers rising up into the morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into the street below ; the servants in the house were roused and busy; faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly how he was. Paul always answered for himself, “I am better. I am a great deal better, thank you! Tell papa so ’’ By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and re-passing; and would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again—the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking moments— of that rushing river. “Why, will it never stop, Floy?” he would sometimes ask her. “It is bearing me away, I think ” But Floy could always soothe and re-assure him ; and it was his daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest. “You are always watching me, Floy. Let me watch you, now !” They would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would recline the while she lay beside him : bending forward oftentimes to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired, and how she had sat up so many nights beside him. Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall. He was visited by as many as three grave doctors—they used to assemble down-stairs, and come up together—and the room was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them Say long ago, that that gentleman had been with his mama when she clasped Florence in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid. r The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at Dr. Blimber's—except Florence; Florence never changed—and what had been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with his head upon his hand. Old Mrs. Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to Miss Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut his eyes again, and see what happened next without emotion. \ But this figure with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained so long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder languidly, if it were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting there, with fear. “Floy!” he said. “What is that?” “Where, dearest ?” “There ! at the bottom of the bed.” “There's nothing there, except papa ’’ - The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside, said: “My own boy! Don't you know me?” Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father P But the face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door. Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips. The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it. “Don’t be so Sorry for me, dear papal Indeed I am quite happy ” His father coming and bending down to him—which he did quickly, and without first pausing by the bedside—Paul held him round the neck, and repeated those words to him several times, and very earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room again at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called out, “Don’t be so sorry for me ! Indeed I am quite happy ” This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so. How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many nights the dark dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him; Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness or his sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared of little moment now, to the gentle boy. One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the drawing-room down-stairs, and thought she must have loved sweet Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when she felt that she was dying —for even he, her brother, who had such dear love for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother; for he could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the river running very fast, and confusing his mind. “Floy, did I ever see mama P” “No, darling, why?” “Did I ever see any kind face, like mama's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy P.” He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him. “Oh yes, dear!” “Whose, Floy?” “Your old nurse’s. Often.” “And where is my old nurse P” said Paul. too? Floy, are we all dead, except you?” There was a hurry in the room, for an instant—longer, perhaps; but it seemed no more—then all was still again; and Florence, with her face quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm. Her arm trembled very much. “Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!” “She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.” “Thank you, Floy!” Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. “Is she dead A.D. 1848.] 421 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. When he awoke, the sun was nigh, and the broad day was clear and warm. He lay a little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, “Floy, is it to-morrow ; Is she come ’’ Some one seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again, that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept her word—perhaps she had never been away—but the next thing that happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke—woke mind and body—and sat upright in his bed. He saw them Ilow about him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names. “And who is this? Is this my old nurse?” said the child, regarding with a radiant smile, a figure coming in. Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten every- body there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity. “Floy! this is a kind good face!” said Paul. “I am glad to see it again. Don’t go away, old nurse! Stay here.” His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew. “Who was that, who said “Walter 2 ” he asked, looking round. “Some one said Walter. Is he here 2 I should like to see him very much.” Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, “Call him back, then : let him come up !” After a short pause of expectation, during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse, and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made him a favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him, he stretched out his hand, and said “Good-bye!” “Good-bye, my child !” cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. “Not good-bye?” For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. “Ah Yes,” he said placidly, “good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!”—turning his head to where he stood, and putting out his hand again. “Where is papa P" He felt his father's breath upon his cheek, before the words had parted from his lips. “Remember Walter, dear papa,” he whispered, looking in his face. “Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter | * The feeble hand waved in the air, as if it cried “good-bye!” to Walter once again. “Now lay me down,” he said, “and Floy, come close to me, and let me see you!” Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. “How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves' They always said so!” Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes l Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on, And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank!— He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck. “Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me | ?? as I go! The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion—Death ! Oh thank GoD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality . And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean The prose literature of the nineteenth century does not contain a piece of writing more distinctly marked with the true stamp of genius, than this narrative of the going home of Little Paul. £: º ºss- CHARLES DICKENS. From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry. In the year of the issue of “Dombey and Son,” William Makepeace Thackeray secured due recogni- tion of his power by “Vanity Fair”—first published in twenty-four monthly numbers, which began to appear in 1846. Thackeray was the son of an Indian Civil ser- vant, and his grandfathers were Indian Civil ser- vants, both on the father's and the mother's side. He was born at Calcutta, in July, 1811, and was thus but one year older than Charles Dickens. When he was five years old he lost his father, and his mother married again while he was a boy. From India, William Makepeace Thackeray was brought to London as a child, and sent for education to the Charterhouse. He was gentle and sensitive, with a quick sense of fun, then as in after years. He carried 422 [A p. 1848 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. into manhood—as part of the strength of man- hood—more of the charm of a child's nature than men usually keep unspoilt by the experience of life. Pains of life only added to his kindliness. Much of his lighter comic writing has its charm in a rare union of mature wit with a childlike playfulness. At the age of eighteen Thackeray kept a few terms at Trinity College, Cambridge. He did not stay to graduate. Then he went to Paris, to study art. When he came of age, there was a little fortune for him of five hundred a year. It was soon lost; chiefly by newspaper speculation. He felt that he was not born to succeed as a painter, and was drawn, as he had been even when a school-boy, to the use of the pen. His nose had been broken in a school fight at the Charterhouse. Michael Angelo, too, had his nose broken. But Thackeray was not WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. From a Drawing by Samuel Laurence. to be a Michael Angelo; he dubbed himself play- fully “Michael Angelo Titmarsh.” In 1837 and 1838 he was writing in Fraser's Magazine “The Great Hoggarty Diamond,” and in the year 1837 he married. After the birth of three daughters, of whom one died in childhood, there came into Thackeray's life an abiding sorrow. His wife's mind failed. He worked on, all sensitive tenderness within, and half afraid of the unchildlike people against whom he asserted himself by making them the victims of his frolicsome burlesque or satire. Not long after the establishment of Pinch, in 1841, Thackeray found in that paper a playground for his wit. But there was no full recognition of his genius until the appearance of “Vanity Fair,” when he was thirty-six years old. In the next, and last, volume of this “Library” I hope to give “ Vanity Fair” its place among the larger works of English Litera- ture, which will be there described, with quoted illustrations of their worth. “Pendennis,” another novel, followed, and while this was being written, Thackeray had an illness which left him subject to painful spasmodic attacks. There was suffering enough in mind and body to bring the grey hairs before their time, but there remained the childlike heart, with the sympathetic insight of the man of genius, the ready play of humour, and the sociable yet sensitive nature more itself with three or four friends than with thirty. By his lectures on “The English Humourists’ and “The Four Georges,” in England and America, Thackeray secured lasting provision for his family. He had added to his first novels, “The Newcomes,” “Esmond,” and “The Virginians,” before The Cornhill Magazine was estab- lished under his editorship. That was in 1859. He withdrew from the editorship in April, 1862, but continued to contribute. In 1863 all English Christ- mas-Days were saddened by the news that, on the day before, Thackeray had died suddenly. Among Thackeray's contributions to The Cornhill Magazine were some essays which he called “The Roundabout Papers,” and one of these is here given, less as a piece of writing than as a piece of William Makepeace Thackeray. With the finer music of the life of Thomas Hood, Thackeray's own nature had a note in beautiful accord. ON A JOKE I ONCE HEARD FROM THE LATE THOMAS HOOD. The good-natured reader who has perused some of these rambling papers has long since seen (if to see has been worth his trouble) that the writer belongs to the old- fashioned classes of this world, loves to remember very much more than to prophesy, and though he can’t help being carried onward, and downward, perhaps, on the hill of life, the swift milestones marking their forties, fifties—how many tens or lustres shall we say *—he sits under Time, the white- wigged charioteer, with his back to the horses, and his face to the past, looking at the receding landscape and the hills fading into the grey distance. Ah me ! those grey, distant hills were green once, and here, and covered with smiling people ! As we came up the hill there was difficulty, and here and there a hard pull to be sure, but strength, and spirits, and all sorts of cheery incident and companionship on the road; there were the tough struggles (by Heaven's merciful will) overcome, the pauses, the faintings, the weak- ness, the lost way, perhaps, the bitter weather, the dreadful partings, the lonely night, the passionate grief—towards these I turn my thoughts as I sit and think in my hobby- coach under Time, the silver-wigged charioteer. The young folks in the same carriage meanwhile are looking forwards. Nothing escapes their keen eyes—not a flower at the side of a cottage-garden, nor a bunch of rosy-faced children at the gate: the landscape is all bright, the air brisk and jolly, the town yonder looks beautiful, and do you think they have learned to be difficult about the dishes at the inn P Now, suppose Paterfamilias on his journey with his wife and children in the sociable, and he passes an ordinary brick house on the road with an ordinary little garden in the front, we will say, and quite an ordinary knocker to the door, and as many sashed windows as you please, quite common and Square, and tiles, windows, chimney-pots, quite like others; or suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he sees an ordinary tree, and an ordinary donkey browsing under it, if you like—wife and daughter look at these objects without the slightest particle of curiosity or To A.D. 1862.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. * 423 interest. What is a brass knocker to them but a lion's head, or what not P and a thorn-tree with a pool beside it, but a pool in which a thorn and a jackass are reflected? But you remember how once upon a time your heart used to beat, as you beat on that brass knocker, and whose eyes looked from the window above You remember how by that thorn-tree and pool, where the geese were performing a prodigious evening concert, there might be seen, at a certain hour, somebody in a certain cloak and; bonnet, who happened to be coming from a village yonder, and whose image has flickered in that pool? In that pool, near the thorn ? Yes, in that goose-pool, never mind how long ago, when there were reflected the images of the geese—and two geese more. Here, at least, an oldster may have the ad- vantage of his young fellow-travellers, and so Putney Heath or the New Road may be invested with a halo of brightness invisible to them, because it only beams out of his own soul. I have been reading the Memorials of Hood by his children, and wonder whether the book will have the same interest for others and for younger people, as for persons of my own age and calling. Books of travel to any country become interesting to us who have been there. Men revisit the old school, though hateful to them, with ever so much kindliness and sentimental affection. There was the tree, under which the bully licked you: here the ground where you had to fag. out on holidays, and so forth. In a word, my dear sir, You are the most interesting subject to yourself, of any that can occupy your worship's thoughts. I have no doubt, a Crimean soldier, reading a history of that siege, and how Jones and the gallant 99th were ordered to charge or what not, thinks, “Ah, yes, we of the 100th were placed so and so, I perfectly remember.” So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. “The Bridge of Sighs” was his Corunna, his heights of Abraham—sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame of that great victory. What manner of man was the genius who penned that famous song ' What like was Wolfe, who climbed and conquered on those famous heights of Abraham P. We all want to know details regarding men who have achieved famous feats, whether of war, or wit, or eloquence, or en- durance, or knowledge. His one or two happy and heroic actions take a man's name and memory out of the crowd of names and memories. Henceforth he stands eminent. We scan him : we want to know all about him: we walk round and examine him, are curious, perhaps, and think are we not as strong and tall and capable as yonder champion; were we not bred as well, and could we not endure the winter's cold as well as he? Or we look up with all our cyes of admiration; will find no fault in our hero; declare his beauty and proportions perfect; his critics envious detractors, and so forth. Yesterday, before he performed his feat, he was nobody. Who cared about his birthplace, his parentage, or the colour of his hair : To-day, by some single achievement, or by a series of great actions to which his genius accustoms us, he is famous, and antiquarians are busy finding out under what schoolmaster's ferule he was educated, where his grandmother was vaccinated, and so forth. If half a dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's were to be found to-morrow, would they not inspire a general interest, and be printed in a hundred papers? I lighted upon Oliver, not very long since, in an old Town and Country Magazine, at the Pantheon masquerade “in an old English habit.” Straightway my imagination ran out to meet him, to look at him, to follow him about. I forgot the names of scores of fine gentlemen of the past age, who were mentioned besides. We want to see this man who has amused and charmed us; who has been our friend, and given us hours of pleasant companionship and kindly thought. I protest when I came, in the midst of those names of people of fashion, and beaux, and demireps, upon those names “Sir J. R-yn-lds, in a domino ; Mr. Cr-d-ck and Dr. G-ldsm-th, in two old English dresses,” I had, so to speak, my heart in my mouth. What, you here, my dear Sir Joshua Ah, what an honour and privilege it is to see you ! This is Mr. Goldsmith ? And very much, sir, the ruff and the slashed doublet become you ! O Doctor what a pleasure I had and have in reading the Animated Nature. How did you learn the secret of writing the decasyllable line, and whence that sweet wailing note of tenderness that accompanies your song P Was Beau Tibbs a real man, and will you do me the honour of allowing me to sit at your table at supper ? Don’t you think you know how he would have talked P Would you not have liked to hear him prattle over the champagne P Now, Hood is passed away—passed off the carth as much as Goldsmith or Horace. The times in which he lived, and in which very many of us lived and were young, are changing or changed. I saw Hood once as a young man, at a dinner which seems almost as ghostly now as that masquerade at the Pantheon (1772), of which we were speaking anon. It was at a dinner of the Literary Fund, in that vast apartment which is hung round with the portraits of very large Royal Freemasons, now unsubstantial ghosts. There at the end of the room was Hood. Some publishers, I think, were our companions. I quite remember his pale face; he was thin and deaf, and very silent ; he scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box, and Hood said, (the Freemasons' Tavern was kept, you must remember, by Mr. CUFF in those days, not by its present proprietors). Well, the box being lost, and asked for, and CUFF (remember that name) being the name of the landlord, Hood opened his silent jaws and said * * * * * Shall I tell you what he said : It was not a very good pun, which the great punster then made. Choose your favourite pun out of Whims and Oddities, and fancy that was the joke which he contributed to the hilarity of our little table. Where those asterisks are drawn on the page, you must know a pause occurred, during which I was engaged with Hood's Own, having been referred to the book, by this life of the author which I have just been reading. I am not going to dissert on Hood's humour; I am not a fair judge. Have I not said elsewhere that there are one or two wonder- fully old gentlemen still alive who used to give me tips when I was a boy 2 I can't be a fair critic about them. I always think of that sovereign, that rapture of raspberry tarts, which made my young days happy. Those old sovereign- contributors may tell stories ever so old, and I shall laugh ; they may commit murder, and I shall believe it was justi- fiable homicide. There is my friend Baggs, who goes about abusing me, and of course our dear mutual friends tell me. Abuse away, non bon 1 You were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that you may take the change out of that gold now, and say I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs | Dost thou wince as thou readest this line? Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated Puff out thy wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the Baggs of old—the generous, the gentle, the friendly. No, on second thoughts, I am determined I will not repeat that joke which I heard Hood make. He says he wroto 424 ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1859 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF these jokes with such ease that he sent manuscripts to the publishers faster than they could acknowledge the receipt thereof. I won't say that they were all good jokes, or that to read a great book full of them is a work at present altogether jocular. Writing to a friend respecting some memoir of him which had been published, Hood says, “You will judge how well the author knows me, when he says my mind is rather serious than comic.” At the time when he wrote these words, he evidently undervalued his own serious power, and thought that in punning and broad-grinning lay his chief strength. Is not there something touching in that simplicity and humility of faith? “To make laugh is my calling,” says he ; “I must jump, I must grin, I must tumble, I must turn language head over heels, and leap through grammar; ” and he goes to his work humbly and courageously, and what he has to do that does he with all his might, through sickness, through sorrow, through exile, poverty, fever, depression—there he is, always ready to his work, and with a jewel of genius in his pocket ! Why, when he laid down his puns and pranks, put the motley off, and spoke out of his heart, all England and America listened with tears and wonder . Other men have delusions of conceit and fancy themselves greater than they are, and that the world slights them. Have we not heard how Liston always thought he ought to play Hamlet P Here is a man with a power to touch the heart almost unequalled, and he passes days and years in writing “Young Ben he was a nice young man,” and so forth. To say truth, I have been reading in a book of Hood's Own until I am perfectly angry. “You great man, you good man, you true genius and poet,” I cry out, as I turn page after page. “Do, do, make no more of these jokes, but be yourself, and take your station.” When Hood was on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel, who only knew of his illness, not of his imminent danger, wrote to him a noble and touching letter, announcing that a pension was conferred on him: “I am more than repaid,” writes Peel, “by the personal Satisfaction which I have had in doing that for which you return me warm and characteristic acknowledgments. “You perhaps think that you are known to one with such multifarious occupations as myself merely by general reputa- tion as an author; but I assure that there can be little which you have written and acknowledged which I have not read; and that there are few who can appreciate and admire more than myself the good sense and good feeling which have taught you to infuse so much fun and merriment into Writings correcting folly and exposing absurdities, and yet never trespassing beyond those limits within which wit and facetiousness are not very often confined. You may write on with the consciousness of independence, as free and unfettered as if no communication had ever passed between us. I am not conferring a private obligation upon you, but am fulfilling the intentions of the legislature which has placed at the disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable, indeed, in amount) to be applied to the recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown. If you will review the names of those, whose claims have been admitted on account of their literary or scientific eminence, you will find an ample confirmation of the truth of my statement. “One return, indeed, I shall ask of you, that you will give me the opportunity of making your personal acquaint- ance.” And Hood, writing to a friend, enclosing a copy of Peel's letter, says: “Sir R. Peel came from Burleigh on Tuesday night, and went down to Brighton on Saturday. If he had written by post, I should not have had it till to-day. So he sent his servant with the enclosed on Saturday night, another mark of considerate attention.” He is frightfully unwell, he continues, his wife says he looks quite greem : but ill as he is, poor fellow, “his well is not dry. He has pumped out a sheet of Christmas fun, is drawing some cuts, and shall write a sheet more of his novel.” O Sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient endurance, of duty struggling against pain How noble Peel's figure is standing by that sick bed how generous his words, how dignified and sincere his compassion 1 And the poor dying man, with a heart full of natural gratitude towards his noble benefactor, must turn to him and Say— “If it be well to be remembered by a minister, it is better still not to be forgotten by him in a “hurly Burleigh ' ' " Can you laugh P Is not the joke horribly pathetic from the poor dying lips ? As dying Robin Hood must fire a last shot with his bow—as one reads of Catholics on their death- beds putting on a Capuchin dress to go out of the world— here is poor Hood at his last hour putting on his ghastly motley, and uttering one joke more. He dies, however, in dearest love and peace with his children, wife, friends; to the former especially his whole life had been devoted, and every day showed his fidelity, simplicity, and affection. In going through the record of his most pure, modest, honourable life, and living along with him, you come to trust him thoroughly and feel that here is a most loyal, affectionate, and upright soul, with whom you have been brought into communion. Can we say as much of all lives of all men of letters ? Here is one at least without guile, without pretension, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little modest circle of friends tenderly devoted. - And what a hard work, and what a slender reward In the little domestic details with which the book abounds, what a simple life is shown to us! The most simple little pleasures and amusements delight and occupy him. You have revels on shrimps; the good wife making the pie; details about the maid, and criticisms on her conduct; wonderful tricks played with the plum-pudding—all the pleasures centring round the little humble home. One of the first men of his time, he is appointed editor of a maga- zine at a salary of £300 per annum, signs himself exultingly “Ed. N. M. M.,” and the family rejoice over the income as over a fortune. He goes to a Greenwich dinner—what a feast and rejoicing afterwards ! “Well, we drank ‘the Boz' with a delectable clatter, which drew from him a good warm-hearted speech. . . . He looked very well, and had a younger brother along with him. . . . Then we had songs. Barham chanted a Robin Hood ballad, and Cruikshank sang a burlesque ballad of Lord H–; and somebody, unknown to me, gave a capital imitation of a French showman. Then we toasted Mrs. Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and the Traditional Priest sang the “Deep deep sea,' in his deep deep voice; and then we drank to Procter, who wrote the Said song ; also Sir J. Wilson's good health, and Cruikshank's, and Ainsworth’s : and a Manchester friend of the latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of trading stuff, that it really seemed to have been not composed, but manufactured. Jerdan, as Jerdanish as usual on such occasions—you know how paradoxically he is quite at home in dining out. As to myself, I had to make my second maiden speech, for Mr. Monckton Milnes proposed my health in terms my modesty might allow me to repeat to you, but my memory won’t. However, I ascribed the toast to my notoriously bad health, and assured them that their wishes had already improved it —that I felt a brisker circulation—a more genial warmth about the heart, and explained that a certain trembling of To A.D. 1862.] SHORTER PROSE WORKS. 4.25 my hand was not from palsy, or my old ague, but an in- clination in my hand to shake itself with every one present. Whereupon I had to go through the friendly ceremony with as many of the company as were within reach, besides a few more who came express from the other end of the table. Very gratifying, wasn't it? Though I cannot go quite so far as Jane, who wants me to have that hand chopped off, bottled, and preserved in spirits. She was sitting up for me, very anxiously, as usual when I go out, because I am so domestic and steady, and was down at the door before I could ring at the gate, to which Boz kindly sent me in his own carriage. Poor girl! what would she do if she had a wild husband instead of a tame one * * And the poor anxious wife is sitting up, and fondles the hand which has been shaken by so many illustrious men The little feast dates back only eighteen years, and yet somehow it seems as distant as a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, or a meeting at Will's. Poor little gleam of sunshine ! very little good cheer enlivens that sad simple life. We have the triumph of the magazine; then a new magazine projected and produced; then illness and the last scene, and the kind Peel by the dying man's bedside, speaking noble words of respect and sympathy, and soothing the last throbs of the tender honest heart. I like, I say, Hood's life even better than his books, and I wish, with all my heart, Monsieur et cher confrère, the same could be said for both of us, when the ink-stream of our life hath ceased to run. Yes: if I drop first, dear Baggs, I trust you may find reason to modify some of the unfavourable views of my character, which you are freely imparting to our mutual friends. What ought to be the literary man's point of honour now-a-days? Suppose, friendly reader, you are one of the craft, what legacy would you like to leave to your children? First of all (and by Heaven's gracious help) you would pray and strive to give them such an endowment of love, as should last certainly for all their lives, and perhaps be transmitted to their children. You would (by the same aid and blessing) keep your honour pure, and transmit a name unstained to those who have a right to bear it. You would,—though this faculty of giving is one of the easiest of the literary man's qualities—you would, out of your earnings, small or great, be able to help a poor brother in need, to dress his wounds, and, if it were but twopence, to give him succour. Is the money which the noble Macaulay gave to the poor lost to his family P God forbid. To the loving hearts of his kindred is it not rather the most precious part of their inheritance 2 It was invested in love and righteous doing, and it bears interest in heaven. You will, if letters be your vocation, find saving harder than giving and spending. To save be your endeavour too, against the night's coming when no man may work; when the arm is weary with the long day's labour; when the brain perhaps grows dark; when the old, who can labour no more, want warmth and rest, and the young ones call for supper. The stir of the French Revolution was not all in vain. It failed—dismally failed—to achieve its ideal by a sudden stroke; but it gave the strong impulse that set thousands at work, each with his own practical answer to the lament for “What man has made of man.” Economists and politicians, poets, wits and humourists, men and women of all ranks and of all shades of opinion, have since the beginning of the reign of Victoria dwelt more and more upon the individual life. They have quickened the reverence of man for man in all that concerns his essential life, laughing out the folly that finds life's essentials in its least important accidents—and here a picture or a joke in Punch, without seeming to preach, may do the work of a sermon—advancing steadily, if slowly, to the cure of evils that beset bodies and minds of rich and poor in the earlier years of the century. Since the accession of Victoria, there has been marked advance towards the civilisation of this country, marked out by Wordsworth as the future civiliser of the world. Few educated Englishmen or Englishwomen are in these days content with the low level of culture yet reached by the masses of the people, or indeed by themselves. The best of us are little more than half way to a form of mind that could find in the Sermon on the Mount a common standard for the regulation of life—national and private—by our statesmen, lawyers, merchants, by men, women, and children of every degree. Douglas Jerrold, who died in 1857—a few years before Thackeray—battled his way, like Dickens, against adverse fortune, and acquired wide influence by his keen wit and the fine spirit of earnestness with which he put it, in all deliberate utterance, to the noblest use. In reading now works written by him early in the reign, it is pleasant to feel how many of those ills of the land into which he helped to rouse inquiry have been abated, and how much close atten- tion is now being given to needs, which thirty years ago were faintly recognised, and which were rarely dreamed of in the “understanding age " of Queen Anne, with its self-satisfied cant about culture. The foremost men of the age of Victoria are, hap- pily, not satisfied : their ground of satisfaction can lie only in this, that blots are hit, and faults are recognised, and honest doubts are abroad compelling Truth and Error to fair battle ; and that we no longer count ourselves to have attained, but press on to the mark of our high calling, more conscious of what we are not than of what we are. Douglas Jerrold was born in January, 1803, the son of an elderly strolling actor by his young second wife. As a child he went on the stage when there was a child’s part to be played. He was four years old when his father became manager of the theatre at Sheerness. At Sheerness he was for about four years one of a hundred boys at a school where he was known as a hungerer after books, but took small part in the games of his companions; indeed, he said afterwards, “the only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon.” In 1813, at the age of ten, Douglas Jerrold volunteered as midshipman on board his Majesty's guard-ship, the Wamur, lying at the Nore. In April, 1815, he was transferred, with others, to the brig Ernest, which in July brought home to Sheerness a cargo of the wounded from Waterloo. The experience of that voyage deepened his sense of the barbarism of war. In October, 1815, at the end of Jerrold's sea service, his father was ruined, and in December the family removed to London. Touglas Jerrold, then thirteen years old, was apprenticed to a printer in Northum- berland Street, Strand. In 1818, at the age of fifteen, he wrote a farce that was acted. In 1819 the printer he served became bankrupt, and his 230 426 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1821 indentures were transferred to Mr. Bigg, of Lombard Street. In 1821 Jerrold, aged eighteen, produced a farce at Sadler's Wells called “More Frightened than Hurt,” which was translated into French, and then being re-translated, as a French piece for the English stage, was produced with success under the name of “Fighting by Proxy.” Liston acted in it. In 1823 Jerrold shared Byron's enthusiasm for the emanci- pation of Greece ; he was then writing dramatic criticism in a paper called The Monitor, which be- longed to the printer for whom he worked as a com- positor. He produced also “The Smoked Miser,” and two other dramatic pieces. In 1824, aged twenty-one, he married, and supported his home in the next following year by writing pieces for the Coburg and Sadler's Wells Theatres, and for Vaux- hall. In 1829 he parted from the Coburg, and was engaged by Elliston, then at the Surrey Theatre, as dramatic writer, for five pounds a week. The first piece he wrote under this arrangement gave Jerrold his first great success. It was “Black-Eyed Susan,” produced on Whit-Monday, 1829, with T. P. Cooke as William. All playgoing London wanted to see it, but as fashionable playgoers did not like crossing the Thames, an arrangement was made with another house, and the popular actor of William, after the play was over, as a first piece, for the Surrey audi- ence, hurried off to act in it again at Drury Lane. “Black-Eyed Susan,” which produced thousands for others, brought in to young Jerrold only seventy pounds. His head was not turned by popularity. His early experience among sailors, his wit and tenderness, made “Black-Eyed Susan’ a play that will draw smiles and tears for many a year to come, but Douglas Jerrold found in its success only incen- tive to a higher aim in life. A play on “Thomas a Becket" was his next success. “Why, Jerrold, you will be a Surrey Shakespeare,” a friend said. “A sorry Shakespeare,” he replied. In 1830 he at- tempted blank verse in “The Devil's Ducat,” then produced at the Adelphi; in 1831 there was a play of his, “The Bride of Ludgate,” at Drury Lane. Then came “The Rent Day.” In 1833 and 1834 he produced “The Housekeeper” at the Haymarket, and other plays elsewhere. In 1835 four theatres were acting new plays of his, but he had not yet found his right place in life. In April, 1835, Jerrold began to write for Blackwood's Magazine, and news- papers. Then he was involved by a friend in money difficulty, and wintered in Paris with his family. In 1836 he joined his brother-in-law in management of the Strand Theatre, and acted for a fortnight in one of his own pieces, with a nervous temperament that throughout life made him delightful among friends, but embarrassed before any audience of strangers. In 1838. Douglas Jerrold republished some of his papers contributed to Blackwood's Magazine and to The Wew Monthly, in a volume entitled “Men of Character.” It was illustrated by William Make- peace Thackeray, then a contributor to Fraser's Magazine. In 1840 Jerrold edited “Heads of the People,” a series of sketches of life, illustrated by Henry Meadows, to which Thackeray was a con- tributor. In 1841 Douglas Jerrold was in Boulogne when Punch was started. He was at once invited to join in the writing, and soon proved himself one of the most powerful causes of that journal's success. He steadily discouraged the mere labouring for jokes as jokes, and showed how true wit should delight and teach, and while professing only to give pleasure spend itself in the real service of humanity. Upon the young writers who gathered about him in his later days, he used again and again to impress a phrase of Wordsworth's, “‘Plain living and high thinking, my boy, that's the maxim.” His whole nature had assented to it from the first hour that he felt hope to win attention to his pen. In 1843 Douglas Jerrold edited an Illuminated Magazine, and wrote in it “The Chronicles of Clovernook,” a discursive piece, rich in its humorous suggestions of high thoughts. Here, for example, is a sketch, complete in itself, which puts into whimsical form a large sense of conquests yet to be achieved : LIFE IN AS-YOU-LIKE. As-you-like is a monarchy; a limited monarchy. At the time I dwelt there, the crown was worn by King Abdomen, almost the greatest man that ever walked. His natural accomplishments were many : he was held to make a more melodious sneeze than any man in the universe. He invented buttons, the people of As-you-like before his time tying their clothes about them with strings. He also invented quart goblets. He was the son of King Stubborn, known as the Ring of the Shortwools. After the king came the nobility; that is, the men who had shown themselves better than other men, and whose virtues were worked into their titles. Thus there was the Duke of Lovingkindness; the Marquis of Sensibility; the Earl of Tenderheart; the Baron of Hospitality, and so forth. Touching, too, was the heraldry of As-you-like. The royal arms were, charity healing a bruised lamb, with the legend, Dieu et pair. And then for the coach-panels of the aristocracy, I have stood by the hour, at holiday times, watching them ; and tears have crept into my eyes, and my heart has softened under their delicious influence. There were no lions, griffins, panthers, lynxes–no swords or daggers—no short verbal incitements to man-quelling. Oh, no One nobleman would have for his bearings a large wheaten loaf, with the legend—Ask and have. Another would have a hand bearing a purse, with the question—Who lacks 2 Another would have a truckle-bed painted on his panels, with the words—To the tired and foot- sore. Another would display some comely garment, with— New clothes for rags. Oh I could go through a thousand of such bearings, all with the prettiest quaintness showing the soft fleshly heart of the nobleman, and inviting, with all the brief simplicity of true tenderness, the hungry, the poor, the weary, and the sick, to come, feed, and be comforted. And these men were of the nobility of As-you-like; nor was there even a dog to show his democratic teeth at them. The church was held in deepest reverence. Happy was the man who, in his noon-day walk, should meet a bishop; for it was held by him as an omen of every manner of good fortune. This beautiful superstition arose, doubtless, from the love and veneration paid by the people to the ministers of religion, who from their tenderness, their piety, their affection towards their flocks, were looked upon its the very porters to heaven. The love of the people placed in the hands of their bishops heaps and heaps of money; but as quickly as it was heaped, was it scattered again by the ministers of the faith, who were thus perpetually preaching To A.D. 1843.] 427 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. goodness and charity at the hearths of the poor, and the poor were every hour lifting up their hands and blessing them. It was not enough that the bishops were thus toilsome in their out-door work of good; but in the making of new laws and amending of old ones, they showed the Sweetness, and, in the truest sense, the greatness, of the human spirit. During my stay in As-you-like, what we should call the House of Lords, but what in that country was called the House of Virtues, debated on what some of their lordships deemed a very pretty case to go to war upon ; and, sooth to say, for a time the House of Virtues seemed to forget the active benevolence that had heretofore been its moving principle. Whereupon the bishops one by one arose, and from their lips there flowed such heavenly music, in their eyes there sparkled such apostolic tears, that all the members of the House of Virtues rose, and with one accord fell to embracing one another, and called all the world their brothers, and vowed they would talk away the misunder- standing between themselves and neighbours; they would not shed blood, they would not go to war. And this was ever after called the peace of the bishops. The second deliberative assembly was called the House of Workers. No man could be one of these, who had not made known to the world his wisdom—his justice—his worship of truth for truth's sake. No worker was returned upon the mere chance of his fitness. He must be known as an out-door worker for the good of his fellow men, before he could be sent, an honoured member, to the House. The duty of the assembly was to make laws; and as these were to be made for all men, it was the prime endeavour and striving of the workers to write them in the plainest words, in the briefest meaning. They would debate and work for a whole day—they always assembled with clear heads and fresh spirits every morning at nine-–to enshrine their wisdom in the fewest syllables. And whereas, here with us we give our children “Goody Two Shoes” and “Jack and the Bean Stalk,” as the easiest and simplest lessons for their tender minds to fasten on, in As-you-like the little creatures read the Abridgment of the Statutes for their first book; so clear, so lucid, so direct was it in its meaning and its purpose. Nevertheless, as there were some dull and giddy folk, who, after all the labour of the House of Workers, could or would not know the laws, there were certain meek and loving-kind professors called goodmen guides, answering to our attorneys, whose delight it was, for the very smallest imaginable sum, to interpret and make known the power and beauty of the statutes. And whereas, among us, physicians and surgeons—may the spirits of charity and peace consecrate their fire-sides —set apart a portion of the day to feel the pulse of stricken poverty, to comfort and Solace the maimed and wasting poor—so in As-you-like, did these goodmen guides give a part of their time to the pas- sionate and ignorant, advising them to abstain from the feverish turmoil of law; showing them how suspense would bake their blood and eat their hearts, and wear and weigh down man's noble spirit. And thus, these goodmen guides would, I may say, with a silken string, lead men back to con- tent and neighbourly adjustment. When men could pay for such counsel, they paid a moderate cost; when they were poor, they were advised, as by the free benevolence of the mediator. The people of As-you-like had, a thousand years or so before, waged war with other nations. There could be no doubt of it, for the cannon still remained. I saw what at one time had been the arsenal. There were several pieces of artillery; the swallows had built their nests under their very mouths. As I will not disguise anything, I own there were a few persons who, when a war was talked of, the war so happily prevented by the bishops, strutted and looked big, and with swollen cheeks gabbled about glory. But they were smiled at for their simplicity; advised, corrected by the dominant reason of the country, and, after a time, con- fessed themselves to be very much ashamed of their past folly. Perhaps the manner in which the As-you-likeans trans- acted business was strange; it may appear incredible. I was never more surprised than when I first overheard two men dealing for a horse. One was a seller of horses, the other seemed a comfortable yeoman. “That is a pretty nag of yours,” said the yeoman. “Pretty enough outside,” said the horse-dealer. “I will give you ten lumps for it,” said the farmer (the lump signifying our pound). “No, you shall not,” answered the horse-dealer; “for the nag shies, and stumbles, and is touched a little in the wind. Nevertheless, the thing is worth four lumps.” “You have said it?” cried the yeoman. “I have said it,” answered the horse-dealer. Understand, that this is the only form of oath—if I may so call it—in As-you-like. “You have said it 2 * “I have said it.” Such is the most solemn protestation among all people, from the king to the herdsman. The shops in As-you-like are very beautiful. All the goods are labelled at a certain price. You want, let us say, a pair of stockings. You enter the shop. The common salutation is “Peace under this roof”—and the shopkeeper answers, “Peace at your home.” You look at the stockings, and laying down the money, take the goods and depart. The tradesman never bends his back in thankfulness until his nose touches the counter; he is in no spasm of politeness; not he you would think him the buyer and not the seller. I remember being particularly astonished at what I thought the ill manners of a tradesman, to whom I told my astonishment. “What, friend,” he said, “should I do? My neighbour wants a fire-shovel—I sell a fire-shovel. If I ought to fling so many thanks at him for buying the fire-shovel, should he not first thank me for being here with fire-shovels to sell? Politeness, friend—as you call it—may be very well; but I should somehow suspect the wholesale dealer in it. Where I should carry away so much politeness, I should fear I had short weight.” A strange people, you must own, these As- you-likeans. Taxation was light, for there was no man idle in As-you- like. Indeed, there was but one tax: it was called the truth- tax, and for this reason. Every man gave in an account of his wealth and goods, and paid in proportion to his substance. There had been other taxes, but all these were merged into this one tax, by a solemn determination of the House of Virtues. “Since Providence has given to us the greatest measure of its gifts, it has thereby made us the chancellors to poorer men.” Upon this avowed principle, the one tax was made. “Would it not be the trick of roguery to do otherwise ?” they said. “Should we not blush to see the ploughman sweating at his task, knowing that, squared by his means, he paid more than we ? Should we not feel the robbers of the man—not the Virtues banded together to protect him ** And thus, there was but one tax. In former ages there had been many; for I was shown in the national museum of As-you-like, several mummies, dry and coloured like saddle-leather, that in past centuries had been living custom-house officers and excisemen. There were prisons in As-you-like, in which the idle and the vicious were made to work, and taught the wickedness, the very folly of guilt. As the state, however, with paternal love, watched, I may say it, at the very cradles of the poor, —teaching the pauper, as he grew, a self-responsibility; 428 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1843 showing to him right and wrong, not permitting him to grow up with, at best, an odd, vague notion, a mere guess at black and white, -there were few criminals. The state did not expose its babies—for the poor are its children—to hang them when men. So dear were the wants of the poor to the rulers of As- you-like, that, on one occasion, in a year of scarcity, the monarch sold all his horses—the beautiful cattle went at 70,000 lumps—and laid out the money in building school- rooms and finding teachers for pauper babies. And the state, believing man to be something more than a thing of digestion, was always surrounding the people with objects of loveliness, so that a sense of the beautiful might be with them even as the colour of their blood, and thus might soften and elevate the spirit of man, and teach him true gentleness out of his very admiration of the works of his fellow. Hence, the museums and picture-galleries, and abbeys and churches, were all thrown open to the people, who always seemed refined, subdued by the emanations of loveliness around them. There were very many rich people in As-you-like, but I never knew them to be thought a bit the better off for their money. They were thought fortunate—no more. They were looked upon as men, who having put into a lottery, had had the luck to draw a prize. As for the poor, they were always treated with a softness of manner that surprised me. The poor man in As-you-like seemed privileged by his poverty. He seemed to have a stronger claim to the sympathies of those in worldly substance over him. Had a rich man talked brutally, or domineered over, or ill-used a pauper in As-you- like, he would have been looked upon as we look upon a man who beats a woman. There was thought to be a moral cowardice in the act that made its doer despicable. Hence, it was as common in As-you-like to see the rich man first touch his hat to the poor, as with us for the pauper to make preliminary homage to wealth. Then, in As-you-like, no man cared to disguise the smallness of his means. To call a man a pauper was no more than with us to say his eyes are grey or hazel. And though there were poor men, there was no famishing creature, no God's image, sitting with his bony, idle hands before him, like a maniac in a cage—brutalised, maddened, by the world's selfishness. “What man has made of man” Jerrold made many feel, in 1845, by his novel of “ St. Giles and St. James,” published in his own Shilling Maga- zine, then undertaken. In 1845 The Daily Wews was established by the energy of Charles Dickens, and Douglas Jerrold was one of the first writers of its leading articles. In the following year he tried a weekly paper of his own, which promised to be successful, but he was not a capitalist, and it could not be sustained. In 1851 he produced in numbers a novel, entitled “A Man made of Money,” working out a fancy of what would be the last state of a man who could peel himself away in notes con- vertible to current coin. In 1852 Douglas Jerrold became editor of a cheap newspaper, Lloyd's Weekly Mews, designed for wide circulation among the less educated classes. There was power in his name, and there was a known earnestness of labour for the welfare of the people. He was well paid for his work, and by his work; as it went home to those who had been little used to find wit and wisdom in the kindliest relation to their lives, instructing them upon the meaning of the living history that yields us “news.” Meanwhile Jerrold was still writing for Punch ; he wrote for it only ten days before his death, in the June of 1857. “They are all gone into the world of light,” our living friends of yesterday who gave us light, and for whose having lived in it the world will be less dark in after-years. There is a host of prose-writers about us now; so many, and many among these so good, that I might name fifty and yet overlook some faithful and effectual worker who should have had a place of honour in the record. Never, perhaps, was the free contest of opinion by which alone truth lives and grows more homestly maintained, and on each side with a more single-minded pur- pose to make truth prevail. Now, not less than in the day when Milton wrote his “Areopagitica,” “the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The Temple of Janus, with his two controversal faces, might now not unsigni- ficantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple, who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.” But no wise man, either in earthly or in heavenly things, will find in his own mind the measure of all knowledge. There is no true wisdom without humi- lity, and with a sense of this John Ruskin has laid stress in his writings on the need of reverence to health in the relations even between man and man. He has said of this REVERENCE : I know not if a day is ever to come when the nature of right freedom will be understood, and when men will see that to obey another man, to labour for him, yield reverence to him or to his place, is not slavery. It is often the best kind of liberty, liberty from care. The man who says to one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, has, in most cases, more sense of restraint and difficulty than the man who obeys him. The movements of the one are hindered by the burden on his shoulder; of the other, by the bridle on his lips: there is no way by which the burden may be lightened; but we need not suffer from the bridle if we do not champ at it. To yield reverence to another, to hold ourselves and our lives at his disposal, is not slavery; often, it is the noblest state in which a man can live in this world. There is, indeed, a reverence which is servile, that is to say, irrational or selfish : but there is also noble reverence, that is to say, reasonable and loving; and a man is never so noble as when he is reverent in this kind; nay, even if the feeling pass the bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him, the Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who, 200 years ago at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven Sons for his chief ?—as each fell, calling forth his brother to the death, “Another for Hector!” And, therefore, in all ages and all countries, rever- To A.D. 1880.] 429 SHORTER PROSE WORKS, ence has been paid and sacrifice made by men to each other, not only without complaint, but rejoicingly ; and famine, and peril, and sword, and all evil, and all shame, have been borne willingly in the causes of masters and kings; for all these gifts of the heart ennobled the men who gave, not less than the men who received them, and nature prompted, and God rewarded the sacrifice. But to feel their souls withoring within them, unthanked; to find their whole being sunk into an unrecognised abyss; to be counted off into a heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its hammer strokes; —this nature bade not, -this God blesses not, this humanity for no long time is able to endure. From the days of the first publication of his “Modern Painters” in 1843, his “Seven Lamps of Architecture * in 1849, his “Stones of Venice ’’ in 1853, until now, Mr. Ruskin has given himself with intense devotion to the main work of the nineteenth century—a quickening of individual life, till society be no more thought of in masses but as a community of single workers, each true to himself in word and act while striving towards the highest life he knows. Beginning with truth in Art, inseparable from the sense of truth in Life, Mr. Ruskin has spent the eloquence of a genius itself bent upon high duty, in the enforcement of his own conviction of what it is to be a man. If his political economy be bad, as I think it is, the fault comes always of zeal for the overthrow of every conception that tends to deprive man, even theoretically, of his separate existence, and treat him as part of a great human machine. Firm to one great truth, he cares only for that, and fights against all that seems to make war On it in common opinion. To individualise man's life, he would like to withdraw him from machinery and from great combinations of labour, and set him upon some work all his own, though it were but the digging with his own hand of his own half-acre. We misjudge when we point to opinions of which, to us, the error may seem obvious, and so turn from the great truth that a profoundly earnest man pro- claims with all the eloquence of genius, and with an intensity of conviction that inevitably binds him to a single point of view. From another standpoint it may be shown that conditions of life or forms of reasoning which seem to conflict with the one truth so earnestly upheld, do nevertheless, when fairly under- stood, accord with it and fall under its law. I do not care how often or how much John Ruskin errs in application of his principle; enough that he has given the life of a man of genius to its firm asser- tion, and has helped thousands to know HOW TO LIVE. We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously ; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily ; neither is to be done by halves and shifts, but with a will; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all. Perhaps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart and of the will, and is useless in itself; but, at all events, the little use it has may well be spared if it is not worth putting our hands and our strength to. It does not become our immortality to take an ease inconsistent with its authority, nor to suffer any instruments with which it can dispense to come between it and the things it rules: and he who would form the creations of his own mind by any other instrument than his own hand, would also, if he might, give grinding organs to Heaven's angels, to make their music easier. There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality (nough in human existence without our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism ; and since our life must at the best be but a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel, John RUSKIN. From a Photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry. The reader who may modify to his own mind some part of the following passage from “Modern Painters,” without losing any of its deeper truth, must feel that the religious sense of duty which runs through the whole life of English Literature, from Caedmon downward, is not dead in a generation that counts Ruskin among its foremost writers. WHY MEN LIVE. Man’s use and function (and let him who will not grant me this follow me no farther, for this I purpose always to assume) are, to be the witness of the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable obedience and resultant happiness. Whatever enables us to fulfil this function is, in the pure and first sense of the word, Useful to us; pre-eminently therefore, whatever sets the glory of God more brightly before us. But things that only help us to exist are, in a secondary and mean sense, useful; or, rather, if they be looked for alone, they are useless, and worse, for it would be better that we should not exist, than that we should guiltily disappoint the purposes of existence. And yet people speak in this working age, when they speak from their hearts, as if houses and lands, and food 430 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1813 and raiment, were alone useful, and as if Sight, Thought, and Admiration were all profitless, so that men insolently call themselves Utilitarians, who would turn, if they had their way, themselves and their race into vegetables; men who think, as far as such can be said to think, that the meat is more than the life, and the raiment than the body, who look to the earth as a stable, and to its fruit as fodder; winedressers and husbandmen, who love the corn they grind, and the grapes they crush, better than the gardens of the angels upon the slopes of Eden; hewers of wood and drawers of water, who think that it is to give them wood to hew, and water to draw, that the pine-forests cover the mountains like the shadow of God, and the great rivers move like His eternity. And so come upon us that Woe of the preacher, that though God “hath made everything beautiful in his time, also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends men to grass like oxen, seems to follow but too closely on the excess or con- tinuance of national power and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in their struggles for existence, in their infancy, their impotence, or even their disorganisation, they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the suffering comes the serious mind; out of the salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance, faith : but when they have learned to live under providence of laws, and with decency and justice of regard for each other, and when they have done away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse evils seem to arise out of their rest ; evils that vex less and mortify more, that suck the blood though they do not shed it, and ossify the heart though they do not torture it. And deep though the causes of thankfulness must be to every people at peace with others and at unity in itself, there are causes of fear, also, a fear greater than of sword and sedition: that dependence on God may be forgotten, because the bread is given and the water sure; that gratitude to Him may cease, because His constancy of protection has taken the semblance of a natural law; that heavenly hope may grow faint amidst the full fruition of the world; that selfishness may take place of undemanded devotion, compassion be lost in vain glory, and love in dissimulation; that enervation may succeed to strength, apathy to patience, and the noise of jesting words and foulness of dark thoughts, to the earnest purity of the girded loins and the burning lamp. About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine; the iris colours its agitation, the frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder-stricken maintain their majesty, but when the stream is silent, and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them, and the lichen to feed on them, and are ploughed down into dust. And though I believe that we have salt enough of ardent and holy mind amongst us to keep us in some measure from this moral decay, yet the signs of it must be watched with anxiety, in all matters however trivial, in all directions however distant. And at this time, when the iron roads are tearing up the surface of Europe, as grape-shot do the Sea, when their great net is drawing and twitching the ancient frame and strength together, contracting all its Various life, its rocky arms and rural heart, into a narrow, finite, calculating metropolis of manufactures; when there is not a monument throughout the cities of Europe that Speaks of old years and mighty people, but it is being swept away to build cafés and gaming-houses; when the honour of God is thought to consist in the poverty of His temple, and the column is shortened and the pinnacle shattered, the colour denied to the casement and the marble to the altar, while exchequers are exhausted in luxury of boudoirs and pride of reception-rooms; when we ravage without a pause all the loveliness of creation which God in giving pronounced Good, and destroy without a thought all those labours which men have given their lives and their sons' sons' lives to complete, and have left for a legacy to all their kind, a legacy of more than their hearts’ blood, for it is of their souls' travail; there is need, bitter necd, to bring back into men's minds, that to live is nothing, unless to live be to know Him by whom we live; and that He is not to be known by marring His fair works, and blotting out the evidence of His influences upon His creatures; not amidst the hurry of crowds and crash of innovation, but in solitary places, and out of the glowing intelligences which He gave to men of old. He did not teach them how to build for glory and for beauty, He did not give them the fearless, faithful, inherited emergies that worked on and down from death to death, generation after generation, that we might give the work of their poured-out spirit to the axe and the hammer; He has not cloven the earth with rivers, that their white wild waves might turn wheels and push paddles, nor turned it up under, as it were fire, that it might heat wells and cure diseases; HC brings not up His quails by the east wind, only to let them fall in flesh about the camp of men; He has not heaped the rocks of the mountain only for the quarry, nor clothed the grass of the field only for the oven. There is the same teaching throughout the life's work of Thomas Carlyle—the same teaching with intenser force, and also, it may be, with the concen- tration of mind on a single thought that misses what might be learnt by a change of the point of view. Intent upon the maintenance of true life for each man, each firm to his own duty, be it what it may ; intent on the inner soul that is the life itself within all husks of circumstance, within the clothes and the flesh itself which is but a part of the clothing; Thomas Carlyle, whatever light he may have missed, whatever faith in these latter days he may have lost through impatience of their low-thoughted cares, has taught in his books what Shakespeare taught in all his plays, what lies at the heart of the best utter- ances of our best writers in all ages. His strong pleading that each man shall be himself, after he had shown in “Sartor Resartus ” what that self— immortal essence—is, we find in his Lectures on “Hero-Worship,” and in all following books of his. He may have strayed almost at times into a respect for tyranny, through respect for the strong man who will live out his own life and work out his own purpose, be himself and not the shadow of another. What matter | The truth Carlyle holds is the key by which we can, if we will, open the gate of our prison-house of earthly circumstance, and make, each of us, his own way to God. In an old day of many doubts, one of the first Quakers, Isaac Penington, wrote in a like spirit, though he looked upon truth from another side: “The power must needs be very great, and the appearance of it won- derful, which delivers out of such captivity; but yet the beginnings of it may be small, and out of the sight of that eye which looks and waits for so great an appearance. Hast thou not light enough To A.D. 1880.j 431 SHORTER PROSE WORKS. already to begin thy travel out of Babylon | Hast thou begun thy travel ! Dost thou walk in the light which shineth upon thee in that dark land, to gather and lead thee out of it ! Or wilt thou not begin to come out till the very glory and brightness of Zion shine upon thee! If there be but light and power enough to lead thee one step out of the land of darkness and confusion of spirit, towards obedi- ence to the lowest or meanest truth, that is suffi- cient for thee at present ; and as thou art found faithful here, more will spring in thee.” In the following passage from Thomas Carlyle’s “Past and THOMAS CARLYLE. From the Portrait by Boehm, on the Medallion presented to him on his attainment of his 80th year (Dec. 4th, 1875). Present,” a true man of our own time is simply echoing the thought of Shakespeare when he repre- sented the right choice of the true life by the line on the casket that appealed, not to the desire of the eye, but to the depths of a man's heart : “Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.” THE PRICE OF LIFE. My brother, the brave man has to give his life away. Give it, I advise thee;—thou dost not expect to sell thy life in any adequate manner P What price, for example, would content thee : The just price of thy LIFE to thee, why God's entire Creation to thyself, the whole universe of Space, the whole eternity of Time, and what they hold; that is the price that would content thee; that, and if thou wilt be candid, nothing short of that It is thy all; and for it thou wouldst have all. Thou art an unreasonable mortal;- or rather thou art a poor infinite mortal, who in thy narrow clay prison here seemest so unreasonable ! Thou wilt never sell thy Life, or any part of thy Life in a satisfactory manner. Give it, like a royal heart; let the price be nothing; thou hast then in a certain sense got Ali for it The heroic man,—and is not every man, God be thanked, a potential hero —has to do so in all times and circumstances. In the most heroic age as in the most unheroic, he will have to say, as Burns said proudly and humbly of his little Scottish songs, little dew-drops of Celestial Melody in an age when so much was unmelodious:—“By Heaven, they shall either be invaluable or of no value: I do not need your guineas for them l’’ It is an element which should and must enter deeply into all settlements of wages here below. They never will be “satisfactory” otherwise; they cannot, O Mammon Gospel, they never can Money for my little piece of work—“to the extent that will allow me to keep on working; ” yes this, unless you mean that I shall go my ways before the work is all taken out of me. But as to wages— . So nobly has the life been lived that soon must pass into the better day whose light it sought to shed upon us here. In the chief novelist of our time, the lady who writes as George Eliot, the point of view from which life is regarded may be again changed, but as dis- tinctly as by Thomas Carlyle the great central truth is seen and taught, that progress of humanity consists in faithful living of one life by each of us, firm in en- deavour towards the highest duty it makes known. To speak of this here would invade the province of another volume of this Library, which will end it, according to the plan sketched in its introduction, with some account of longer works in English verse and prose. The shorter prose works of the present time are about us daily in the newspapers and maga- zines, which represent all form and colour of opinion. Magazines, indeed, and those through which some of our best thought has been uttered, The Fortnightly Review, The Contemporary, and The Wineteenth Century, have been devised with the express purpose of allowing opposite opinions to try their strength against each other on the same arena. When the Puritan Fathers left our shores to escape persecu- tion, the last warning to them in England (ill-re- membered in their other home) was from their pastor, John Robinson, that they should leave opinion free, and fear no honest searching of the Scriptures; “for,” he said, “there is more light to shine out of the Bible than has yet been seen.” An old writer of the twelfth century, John of Salisbury, painted the man who can solve mysteries of life, not as one bold through self-satisfaction, prosperous, noisy, and defiant : “Mind humble, zeal in the search; life quiet, silence in testing; poverty; exile; many with these unlock whatever lies hid in the reading.” I do not wish the readers of our English Literature poverty or exile as aids to sincerity of purpose ; those are but accidents from without ; yet the other conditions, which are of the mind within, are essential. They are the clearest well-springs of delight in books. Another old writer, Marsilius Ficinus, said there were nine guides on the road to knowledge, three on Earth—a prudent father, a sound teacher, a competent physician ; three in the Mind—a fervent and fixed will, a keen intelligence, a good memory; and three in Heaven— Mercury who gives impulse, Phoebus who gives light, and Venus who gives pleasure. The pleasure rises as the knowledge enters more and more into the daily movement of man's life. For this reason 1 Meus humila, studium quaerendi; vita quieta, Scrutinium tacitum ; paupertas; terra aliena ;- Haec reserare solent multis occultā legendo. De Nugis Curialittml. 432 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. [A.D. 1880. Hugo Grotius, when giving his ideas of the right way of study to a French ambassador—and in respect of his life's work every man is an ambassador— said: “Remember that you are ambassador, adapt the scale of study to the length of life, and think more of the use of Literature than of its enjoy- ment.” Not THIS THE END, through pleasure still of wit We still shall find the use of thought, and plan Directest words that form the will, and fit For Reason's battles, yet unfought, the man. Truth shall new arm Intelligence, and find Love prompt to shape and quick to give the darts, Quick-coming words, of keener sense though kind, In later memories to live, and hearts. Their impulse has the force of God; they stream With shafts of light like His own sun; in strife Their stroke cleaves, as when through the sod the beam Of Spring shoots joy, and dry veins run with life. 3. *S*Sº Šºšh ºº º *.*.*.*. Wit of the wise, humble and true, shall raise Soldiers of Love, and every thrall redeem,- Merchants of light, who shall renew the praise Of an Atlantis then not all a dream. Before true Science bars of clay shall fall, Heaven's open gate ours without strife to win, Man's daily speech shall, like the day, to all Give light, and waken all the life within. The daily words upon the lip or pen Clear, straight, and drawn down from the skies, as rain, Shall make dust blossom, through earth slip, and then, Pure dew of praise, to heaven rise again. Milton for this bade thought to thought be free; Sidney for this bade song delight and teach ; Large-hearted Steele to this end sought to be The friend of all, frank each in sight of each. To this end, this: for there will come an end When all the ground yet to be trod is won, When each man finds in every home a friend, To man a brother, and to God a son. From Jeremy Taylor's “Opuscula” (1678). A MODERN PRINTING MACHINE.1 From Bacon’s “History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh " (1629). I.—INDEX TO QUOTED WRITERS AND WORKS. -º-º-º- A. Academy, The Royal, Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourse at the Opening of, 331, 332. Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions, by Jonathan Swift, 212, 213. Adams, Parson, A Letter from, by Henry Fielding, 269, 270. Addison, Joseph, 213–216; 233; 236—240 ; 248. American Taxation, Edmund Burke on, 337–343. Ancients, A Dinner after the Manner of the, by Tobias Smollett, 275–278. Antiquary, Character of an, by John Earle, 129, 130. Apicius Sauced, by William King, 229–232. Apologie for Poetrie, Sir Philip Sidney's, 70–86. Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic License, by John Dryden, 171—175. Arctic Storm, from Hakluyt's “Voyages,” 86, 87. Areopagitica, John Milton's, 132–149. Ascham, Roger, 25, 26; 40–43. 1. As a contrast to the cut of “A Printing Press of 1498'' on page 10 of this volume, we give here an engraving of one of the most elaborate machines of the present day. This machine, manufactured by Messrs. R. Hoe and Co., and used in the pro- duction of some of the daily newspapers, is capable of printing upon an average 14,000 perfect copies per hour. It is supplied with paper by a continuous reel, measuring 4% miles, and each sheet when printed is not only cut to its proper size, but, when required, is also duly folded in readiness for posting. It may be added that after the type and paper have been placed in position the entire operation is performed by the machine with the aid of only one boy. - Aspect, Of the, an Essay, by Jeremy Collier, 210, 211. As-You-Like, Life in, by Douglas Jerrold, 426–428. Atlantis, the New, by Francis Bacon, 115–127. Author, Advice to an, from Shaftesbury’s “Characteristics,” 240–242. Awakening the Mind, an Essay, by William Godwin, 364, 365. |B. Bacon, Francis, 90–93; 111–127; 129. Battle of Bosworth Field, from Sir Thomas More's “History of Richard III.,” 26–30. Battle's, Mrs., Opinions on Whist, by Charles Lamb, 406–409. Beau Tibbs, by Oliver Goldsmith, 309–312. Beggar's Opera, Politics of the, from The Craftsman, 257, 258. Behn, Aphra, 175—195. Best, Captain George, 86, 87. Bickerstaff, Mr., from The Tatler, by Richard Steele, 216, 217. Bickerstaff's Predictions, Accomplishment of the First of Mr., by Jonathan Swift, 212, 213. Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Lord, 256–258. Books, William Shenstone on, 284, 285. Boyle, Robert, 165–168. Bradshaigh, Lady, to Samuel Richardson, 288, 289; Richard- son's Answer, 289—294. Broomstick, Meditation upon a, by Jonathan Swift, 212. Burke, Edmund, 334–364. Butler, Samuel, Johnson's Life of, 324–327. 231 434 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. C. Careless, John, Martyr, Letter of, to his Wife, 32, 33. Carlo Buffone, Ben Jonson's, 105. Carlyle, Thomas, 409, 410; A Letter to Goethe, 409, 410. Carthagena, The Attack on, by Tobias Smollett, 275–278. Caxton, William, 10–14. Ceremonies and Respects, Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 91. Characteristics, Shaftesbury's, An Essay from, 240–242. Characters: A Shifter, by Robert Greene, 50 ; Carlo Buffone, Fastidious Brisk, A Traveller, Crites: a Man of Sound Judg- ment, by Ben Jonson, 105; Of an Honest Man, Of the Superstitious, by Joseph Hall, 105, 106; A Courtier, An Ignorant Glory-hunter, An Affectate Traveller, A Wise Man, A Fine Gentleman, A Pedant, A Good Wife, A Melancholy Man, A Worthy Commander in the Wars, A Fair and Happy Milk-maid, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 106 —108; Of an Antiquary, Of a Downright Scholar, by John Earle, 129, 130; Of William the Conqueror, by Sir William Temple, 209, 210. Chariot, Of a Sailing, by John Wilkins, 162–165. Chess, The Origin of, by William Caxton, 10–12. Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of, Letters to his Son by, 259, 260; on Johnson's Dictionary, 281, 282. Christopher North and the Shepherd, by John Wilson, 399– 401. Citizen of the World, Essays from the, by Oliver Goldsmith, 309—313. Clare, Elizabeth, to John Paston, 7, 8. Clinches, 130, 131. Club at the Trumpet, The, by Richard Steele, 517, 518. —, The Spectator's, by Richard Steele, 233, 234. Cobbett, William, 377. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 364, 385–389. Collier, Jeremy, 210, 211. Commonwealth, John Locke on the Subordination of the Powers of the, 196–198. Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and Whimzies, 130, 131. Confession, Second, of John Rogers, Martyr, 36–39. Congregating Temper, The, from Gilbert White's “Natural History of Selborne,” 344, 345. Courtier, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 106. Coverley, Sir Roger de, Papers on, by Joseph Addison, 238– 240. Cowley, Abraham, 168–171. Cowper, William, Letters from, 327–330. Craftsman, An Essay from the, 257, 258. Crites, Ben Jonson's, 105. D. Day by the Fire, A, by William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, 389 —397. Defence of Poesie, Sir Philip Sidney's, 70–86. Defoe, Daniel, 200–209. Deputation, The, an Essay by Joseph Addison for The Tatler, 220, 221. De Quincey, Thomas, 398, 399; 401–403. Dialogues of the Dead, Two of Lord Lyttelton's, 317–319. Dickens, Charles, 410–421. Dictionary, Lord Chesterfield on Johnson's, 281, 282; Johnson's Answer, 283. Dignity of Human Nature, David Hume on the, 261, 262. Dinner after the Manner of the Ancients, by Tobias Smollett, 279 – 281. Discourse, Francis Bacon’s Essay of, 91. —- at the Opening of the Royal Academy, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 331–334, Discoveries, by Ben Jonson, 128, 129. Dissenters, The Shortest Way with the, by Daniel Defoe, 202–206. Dombey, The Last Days of Little Paul, by Charles Dickens, 412–421. Drake, Sir Francis, A Notable Service Performed by, from Hakluyt's “Voyages,” 87–89. Drapier's Letters, The First of the, by Jonathan Swift, 249–- 252. Dream, A, by Richard Steele, 226. Dress, William Shenstone on, 284. Dryden, John, 171–176. E. Earle, John, 129, 130. Earthquake in April, 1580, Gabriel Harvey's Pleasant and Pithy Familiar Discourse of the, 67–69. Edgeworth, Maria, 371—377. Edinburgh, Samuel Johnson's Journey to, 322, 323. Education of Women, The, by Daniel Defoe, 200–202. . —, by Sydney Smith, 380–385. Egotisms, by William Shenstone, 283, 284. Elia, Two Essays of, by Charles Lamb, 404–408. Elyot, Sir Thomas, 17—23. Essays: Francis Bacon's (A.D. 1597), 90–93, (three of A.D. 1625), 112–115; two by Abraham Cowley, 168–171; one by Jeremy Collier, 210, 211; eleven from The Tatler, by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, 216–228 ; five from The Spectator, 233—240; one from Shaftesbury’s “Charac- teristics,” 240–242; one by David Hume, 261, 262; four by Henry Fielding, 263—273; one from Samuel Johnson's Rambler, 273, 274; one by Lord Chesterfield, 281, 282; Number Forty-five of The Worth Briton, by John Wilkes, 300–302; four by Oliver Goldsmith, 309—313; two from William Godwin’s “Enquirer,” 364–366; one by Sydney Smith, 380–388; two by William Hazlitt and one by Leigh Hunt from “The Round Table,” 389–397; two by Charles Lamb, 404–408; one by William Make- peace Thackeray, 422–425. Euphues, described, 43–47; Letters of, by John Lyly, 47–49. Examination and Answer of John Rogers, Martyr, 33–36. Expense, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 92. F. Faction, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 91. Fastidious Brisk, Ben Jonson's, 105. Fastolf, Sir John, to John Paston, 9. Female Education, by Sydney Smith, 380–385. Fielding, Henry, 259, 262–273. Fine Gentleman, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107. Fire, A Day by the, by William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, 389 Followers and Friends, Francis Bacon’s Essay of (A.D. 1597), 91. Fortitude of the Poor, by Oliver Goldsmith, 312, 313. French Revolution, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly on the, by Edmund Burke, 348–364. Friend, The, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Paper from, 385 – 389. Friendship, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1625), 112–114. — Discourse on the Nature and Offices of, by Jeremy Taylor, 150–161. G. Glory-hunter, Character of an Ignorant, by Sir Thomas Over- bury, 106. Godwin, William, 364–367. -, Mary Wollstonecraft, 367–369. Goldsmith, Oliver, 308–313. Good Taste in Literature, by Henry Fielding, 272, 273. Gotham, Merry Tales of the Mad Men of, 103, 104. Grateful Negro, The, by Maria Edgeworth, 371–377. Gray, Thomas, Letters from, 285–288. Greatness, Abraham Cowley's Essay of, 168–170. INDEX TO QUOTED WRITERS AND WORKS. 435 Greene, Robert, 49–65. Grub, Stephen, A Letter from, by Henry Fielding, 270–272. Guardian, an Essay for the, by Alexander Pope, 243–245. Hakluyt, Richard, 86–89. Harvey, Gabriel, 67–69. Hazlitt, William, 379, 389–397. Health, Francis Bacon's Essay of Regimen of (A.D. 1597), 92. Heroic Poetry, John Dryden's Apology for, 171–175. Home Love, Two Essays on, from The Tatler, by Richard Steele, 223, 224. Honest Man, Joseph Hall's Character of an, 105. Honour and Reputation, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 92. º Human Nature, On the Dignity of, by David Hume, 261, 262. Hume, David, 260–262. Hundred Merry Tales, Five of the, 16, 17. I. Inkle and Yarico, by Richard Steele, 235, 236. Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, by Bernard Mande- ville, 253–256. Introduction to Defoe's Weekly Review, 207–209. ———— to Steele's “Ladies' Library,” 246, 247. J. Jerrold, Douglas, 425–428. Jest Books, Stories from Old : from “A Hundred Mery Talys,” 16, 17; from “Merye Tales of Skelton,” 30, 31; from “Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres,” 65, 66; from “The Merry Tales of the Mad. men of Gottam,” 103, 104. Johnson, Samuel, 273, 274; 281—283; 322–327. Joke, On a, I once heard from the late Thomas Hood, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 422–425. Jonson, Ben, 105, 127—129. Junius, The First Letter of, 319–321. - FC. King, William, 228—232. Klopstock, the Wife of, Samuel Richardson's Correspondence with, 297–299. Knolles, Richard, 94–103. Rnowledge, Of the Communication of, by William Godwin, 365–367. L. Lamb, Charles, 379, 403–408. Land of Prester John, The, by Sir John Mandeville, 2–7. Letters: Elizabeth Clare to John Paston, 7, 8; the Duke of Suffolk (A.D. 1450) to his Son, 8, 9; Sir John Fastolf to John Paston, 9; Margaret Paston to her Son, Sir John, 9, 10 ; two from Sir Thomas Wyatt to his Son, 23, 24. Of Martyrs under Mary: Lawrence Saunders to his Wife, 31, 32; John Careless to his Wife, 32, 33. Of Euphues, 47, 49; Gabriel Harvey to Edmund Spenser on the Earth- quake in April, 1580, 67, 69; four from Sir Henry Wotton, 109–111; one by William King, 229–232; one of the Drapier's, by Jonathan Swift, 249—252; four from Lord Chesterfield to his Son, 259, 260; one from Parson Adams, by Henry Fielding, 268, 270; one from Stephen Grub, by Henry Fielding, 270–272; one from Samuel Johnson to Lord Chesterfield, 283; four by Thomas Gray, 286–288; ten to and from Samuel Richardson, 288—299; five by Horace Walpole, 314—317; two by Samuel Johnson, 322, 323; seven by William Cowper, 327–330; Edmund Burke to a Member of the National Assembly, on the French Revolution, 348–364; one from Spain, by Robert Southey ; one by William Wordsworth, 378, 379. License, Poetic, John Dryden's Apology for, 171—175. Life in As-You-Like, by Douglas Jerrold, 426–428. —, How to Live ; Why Men Live, by John Ruskin, 429, 430. —, The Price of, by Thomas Carlyle, 431. —, Stories from, by Richard Steele, 226—228. Literature, Good Taste in, by Henry Fielding, 272, 273. Iittle Paul, The Death of, from “Dombey and Son,” by Charles Dickens, 413–421. Locke, John, 196–200. Lyly, John, 43–49. Lyttelton, George, Lord, 317–319. M. Mackery End, in Hertfordshire, by Charles Lamb, 404–406. Mandeville, Bernard, 253–256. ———, Sir John, 2–7. Manners and Men, by William Shenstone, 285. Maria, by Richard Steele, from The Tatler, 218–220. Schoning, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from The Friend, 385–389. Marrying and Giving in Marriage, Of, from the Paston Letters, 7, 8. Martyrs under Mary, Letters of, 31–33. Meditation upon a Broomstick, by Jonathan Swift, 212. Melancholy Man, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107, 108. Memoirs of the Life and Family of Laurence Sterne, by Him- self, 306, 307. Memories, Sad, by Richard Steele, from The Tatler, 225, 226. Merry Tales, A Hundred, Five of, 16, 17; of Skelton, Three of, 30, 31; of the Mad Men of Gotham, 103, 104. ——, Witty Questions, and Quick Answers, three Stories, 65, 66. Milk-maid, Character of a Fair and Happy, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 108. Milton, John, 131—149. Mind, Of Awakening the, by William Godwin, 364, 365. Mirza, The Vision of, by Joseph Addison, 236–238. Moral Virtue, Inquiry into the Origin of, by Bernard Mande- ville, 253–256. - More, Sir Thomas, 14–16; 26–30. Mort d’Arthur, William Caxton's Preface to the, 13, 14. Mother and Child, Richard Steele on the Relations between, 247. to Son, from the Paston Letters, 9, 10. Mulso, Miss, to Samuel Richardson, 294, 295; Richardson's Answer, 295, 296. Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts, by Thomas De Quincey, 401–403. —— of the Princes in the Tower, Sir Thomas More's account of the, 14–16. Myself, an Essay by Abraham Cowley, 170, 171. N. Negotiating, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 93. Negro, The Grateful, by Maria Edgeworth, 371—377. New Atlantis, The, by Francis Bacon, 115–127. Newspaper Reporter, Charles Dickens on himself as a, 411,412. Noctes Ambrosianae, North and the Shepherd, by John Wilson, 399–401. North Briton, Number 45 of the, by John Wilkes, 300–302. Notable Services performed by Sir Francis Drake, from Hakluyt's “Voyages,” 87–89. 436 CASSELL’S IIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Nothing, An Essay on, by Henry Fielding, 266—269. Novels, Elizabethan : John Lyly's “Euphues” described, 43– 47; Robert Greene's “Pandosto,” 50–65. Stuart : Mrs. Behn's “History of the Royal Slave,” 175—195. O. Observation on Vitiated Sight, by Robert Boyle, 167, 168. Occasional Reflection, An, by Robert Boyle, 166, 167. Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn, 175—195. Overbury, Sir Thomas, 106–108. P. Pacolet, Richard Steele's, from The Tatler, 221, 222. Pandosto, or the Triumph of Time, by Robert Greene, 50–65. Parson Adams, A Letter from, by Henry Fielding, 269, 270. Partridge, the Almanack-maker, Jonathan Swift's Prediction of the Death of, 212, 213. Paston Letters, 7–10. Pastorals of Pope and Philips, An Essay on the, by Alexander Pope in The Guardian, 243–245. Pedant, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107. Philosophical Transactions for the Year 1742–3, by Henry Fielding, 263—266. Pleasant and Pithy Familiar Discourse of the Earthquake in April, 1580, in a Letter from Gabriel Harvey to Edmund Spenser, 67–69. Poetrie, An Apologie for, by Sir Philip Sidney, 70–86. Poetry, Apology for Heroic, and Poetic License, by John Dryden, 171—175. Poor, Fortitude of the, by Oliver Goldsmith, 312, 313. Pope, Alexander, 243–245. Prefaces: William Caxton's to “La Mort d’Arthur,” 13, 14; Roger Ascham's to “Toxophilus,” 25, 26, to “the School- master,” 40–43; Daniel Defoe's to The Weekly Review, 207—209; Richard Steele's to “The Ladies' Library,” 246, 247. Prerogative, John Locke on, 198–200. Prester John, The Land of, by Sir John Mandeville, 2–7. Printing, Defence of the Liberty of Unlicensed, by John Milton, 132–149. Q. Quincey. (See De Quincey.) R. Rambler, Samuel Johnson's, An Essay from, 273, 274. Reflection, An Occasional, by Robert Boyle, 166, 167. Regimen of Health, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 92. Reverence, John Ruskin on, 428, 429. Review, The Weekly, by Daniel Defoe, Introduction to, 207– 209. Revolution, The French, Edmund Burke's Letter on the, to a Member of the National Assembly, 348—364. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 331–334. Richardson, Samuel, Letters to and from, 288–299. Rogers, John, Martyr, Examination and Answer of, 33–36. ——, Second Confession of, 36–39. Roundabout Papers, One of the, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 422—425. Round Table, Three Essays from the, by William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, 389–397. Royal Slave, Aphra Behn's History of the, 175–195. Ruskin, John, 428–430. - S Sad Memories, an Essay from The Tatler, by Richard Steele, 225, 226. Sailing Chariot, Of a, by John Wilkins, 162–165. Saunders, John, Martyr, Letter of, to his Wife, 31, 32. Scholar, a Downright, Character of, by John Earle, 130. Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of, 240– 242. Shenstone, William, 283—285. Shifter, Character of a, by Robert Greene, 50. Shortest Way with the Dissenters, The, by Daniel Defoe, 200 —206. Sidney, Sir Philip, 69–86. Sight, Vitiated, An Observation on, by Robert Boyle, 167, 168. Sir Roger de Coverley, Two Papers on, by Joseph Addison, 238—240. Skelton, Merry Tales of, 30, 31. Slave, The History of a Royal, by Aphra Behn, 175–195. ——— Trade, The, by William Cobbett, 377. Smith, Sydney, 379–385. Smollett, Tobias, 274–281. Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author, from Shaftesbury's “Characteristics,” 240–242. Southey, Robert, 369—371; 396, 397. Spain, A Letter from, by Robert Southey, 369–371. Spectator, Essays from the, by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, 233—235. — Club, The, by Richard Steele, 226–228. Steele, Richard, 213–228; 232—236; 245–248. Sterne, Laurence, 302—308; his Memoir of Himself, 306, 307. Stories from Life, by Richard Steele, from The Tatler, 226— 228. Studies, Francis Bacon’s Essay of (A.D. 1597), 91, 92; (A. D. 1625), 114, 115. Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth, John Ilocke on the, 196–198. Suffolk, The Duke of, to his Son (A.D. 1450), 8, 9. Suitors, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1597), 91, 92. Superstitious, Character of the, by Joseph Hall, 106. Swift, Jonatham, 211—213; 248—253. T. Tales : Five of the “Hundred Merry Tales,” 16, 17; “The Wonderful History of Titus and Gisippus,” by Sir Thomas Elyot, 18–23; Three of the “Merry Tales of Skelton,”31; John Lyly’s “Euphues,” the Story abridged, 44–47; “Pan- dosto, or the Triumph of Time,” by Robert Greene, 50– 65; Three Stories from “Merry Tales, Witty Questions, and Quick Answers,” 65, 66; Five of the Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham, 103, 104; The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon, 116–127; The History of the Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn, 175—195; Stories from Life, by Richard Steele, 226—228; Inkle and Yarico, by Richard Steele, 235, 236; The Vision of Mirza, by Joseph Addison, 236, 237; A. Dinner after the Manner of the Ancients, from Smollett’s “Peregrine Pickle,” 279—281; Yorick, from Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy,” 303—306; The Grateful Negro, by Maria Edgeworth, 371—377; Maria Schoning, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 385–389; Little Paul Goes Home, from “Dombey and Son,” by Charles Dickens, 412–421. - Taste, Good, in Literature, by Henry Fielding, 272, 273. Tatler, Essays for the, by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, 216–228. Taxation, American, Edmund Burke on, 337–343. Taylor, Jeremy, 149–161. Temple, Sir William, 200; 209, 210. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 421–425. Tibbs, Beau, by Oliver Goldsmith, 309, 310. Titus and Gisippus, The Wonderful History of, by Sir Thomas Blyot, 18–23. Toxophilus, Roger Ascham's Preface to, 25, 26. Traveller, An Affectate, Character of, by Sir Thomas Over- bury, 107. ———, Character of a, by Ben Jonson, 105. INDEX TO QUOTED WRITERS AND WORKS. 437 True Patriot, Henry Fielding's, Essays from, 270–273. Trumpet, The Club at the, by Richard Steele, 217, 218. Truth, Francis Bacon's Essay of (A.D. 1625), 112. Turkish Empire, A Brief Discourse of the Greatness of the, by Richard Knolles, 94—103. U. Use of Life, John Ruskin on the, 429, 430. V. Vauxhall, Beau Tibbs at, by Oliver Goldsmith, 310–312. Virtue, Moral Inquiry into the Origin of, by Bernard Mande- ville, 253–256. Vision of Mirza, Joseph Addison's, 236—238. W. Walpole, Horace, 313–317. , Sir Robert, Satires on, 256–259. Wars, a Worthy Commander in the, Character of, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107. & West, Richard, and Thomas Gray, Letters between, 286, 287. Whimsies, Conceits, Clinches, and Flashes, 130, 131. Whist, Mrs. Battle's Opinions on, by Charles Lamb, 406–408. White, Gilbert, 344, 345. - Wife, a Good, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107. Wilkes, John, No. 45 of The North Briton, by, 299–302. Wilkins, John, 161–165. v. William the Conqueror, Character of, by Sir William Temple, 209, 210. Wilson, John, 398–401. Wise Man, Character of a, by Sir Thomas Overbury, 107. Wits, The Difference of, by Ben Jonson, 124, 125. Woman, Vindication of the Rights of, Introduction to a, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 367–369. Women, the Education of, by Daniel Defoe, 200–203. , by Sydney Smith, 380–385. Wordsworth, William, 378, 379, World, The, Essay by Lord Chesterfield from, on Johnson's Dictionary, 281, 282. Wotton, Sir Henry, 108–111. Writing and Books, William Shenstone on, 284. Wyatt, Sir Thomas, Letters from, to his Son, 23, 24. Y. Yorick, by Laurence Sterne, 302–306. From Johann Friedrich Eckhard's “Nachrichten von Einigen Seltenen Büchern '' (1775). 438 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. II.--IN DE X TO NOTES. •-0<>e— [Large Figures indicate Pages, and Small Figures give the numbers of the Notes upon them.] A. Abstemius, Laurentius, 70, 8 Addison on Tragedies, 291, 1 Adlington, William, 139, 1 Advertisement from The Tatler, AEthiopica of Heliodorus, 73, 3 Agrippa, Cornelius, 79, 8; 135, 3 Air, Speaking into the, 34, l ; 35, Alexander, Handel’s, 257, 9 Altered, 133, * American Colonies, George Gren- ville and the, 321, 1 Ancient Books, 1, 1 Anciently, 59, 8 Antisthenes, 135, 8 Apeyer, 10, * Apollinarii, The two, 137, 9 Apprentices, Petition of (A.D. 1647), 217, 1 Apuleius, 139, 1 Apulia, Do not go into, 286, 1 Arber, Edward, 7, 1 ; 149, 2 Archilochus, 135, 13 Archimedes, 359, 1 Arefaction, 125, 2 Areopagitica, 132, 1 ; 149, 2 Aretino, Pietro, 139, 5 Aristippus, 135, 8 Ariºle on History and Poetry, 75, Artamène, Madeleine de Scu- déri's, 154, 1 Ascham, Roger, 42, 3, 4 Asp (aspen), 122, 1 Atlantis, Plato's, 71, 1 Australia, First Discoveries in, 116, 8 Authérising, 73, 9 B. Bacon, Francis, 142, *; 144, 1 Bagdad taken by the Turks, 101, 3 Baggenhall, Sir Ralph, 33, 1 Balbec, 314, 1 Barrator, 22, 2 Barrow, Isaac, 238, 8 Bartholomew, Saint, 119, 2 Be (by), 9, 7 Beccadelli, Antonio, 38, 1 Beer (barley), 250, 1 Behn, Aphra, her Natural His- tory of the New World, 187, l; date of her ry of the Royal Slave,” 188, 1; 193, 1 Bewray and betray, 105, 3 Bias, 84, * Bield, 399, 1 Bills (prescriptions), 230, 1 Birky, 400, 3 y 9 Bittour, 106, 1 Blacklock, Thomas, 323, 2 Bohemia, “Coast of,” 50, 2 Books, Forms of ancient, 1, 1 Boscage, 116, 4 Boº, Bernardo Davanzati, Bromyard, John of, 160, a Brº. Robert, Lord, Death of, y Buchanan, George, 84, * Bugs (terrors), 89, * Bully Dawson, 233, 6 Burgoyne, 65, 1 Burke, evidence of his college ºlship with Goldsmith, Burleigh, Lord, 40, 1 But if (unless), 11, * Bute, The Earl of,321, 1 By and by, 65, * C. Cabinet Council, 134, 2 Cadmus, 135, 1 Calamy, Edmund, 238, 3 Calprenède, 154, 8 Cambalu, 2, 3 Cambay, 120, 8 Canty, 400, * Capºeians, The King of the, 170 Cappella, Sistina, 332, 1 Carack, 88, 3 Caravels, 88, 2 Carlyle, Thomas, 77,9 Carneades of Cyrene, 136, 1 Cassandra, Calprenède's, 154, * Catena, 145,8 Cathay, 2, 8; 3, 1 Cease of, 19, 2 Cecil, Sir William, 40, 1; 42, 5 cenºp of the Press, 136, 5; Censure, 133, 5 Chamolett, 117, 2 Chariots, Sailing, 162, 4 Cheke, Sir John, 42, 1 Chetiv and Keri, 139, * Chevy Chase, 78, * Chiopins, 169, * Chrestillus, Martial’s Epigram to, 128, 9 Christ covered, 44, 1 Chrysippus and Crantor, 78,6 Chrysostom, John, 135, 10 Clay Lodgings of the Soul, 73, 5 Cliver, 230, 2 Clubs at the Universities, 217, 2 Cock stolen by a Welshman, 17, 1 Cognomentum, 169, 8 Coins of Elizabeth's reign, 66, 3 Commines, Philippe de, 113,6 Commonplaces and Common- lace Books, 74, * Conclave, 119, 3 Confessions, Rousseau's, 253, 1 Consonants, Softening of, 10, 5 Controversies of the Church, Francis Bacon on, 142, *; 44 144, Conversation life), 153, * Copy (abundance), 129, 1; 134, 6 Copyright, 134, 6 Corban, 157, 1 Coromantien, 117, 1 Coronation Procession of George (intercourse of 4. • 3 3. Corpu perdu, ä, 171, * Cousheries, 176, - Coverley, Sir Roger, Original of, 233,2; , *; The Dance, 238, 2 Cowper's Tirocinium, 330, 1 Cozy Bield, 399, 1 Critias, Plato's, 71, 1 Cumin, Dividers of, 115, 3 Cupid and Psyche, 139, Curtius, Quintus, 75, * Cuzzoni, Francesca, 257, 9 Cynic impudence, 135, 9 Cyrenaeus, Theodorus, 11, 2 Cºrº That libertine School of, 3. D. Dares Phrygius, 75, 8 Defectuous, 77, ” Degrees to the State (steps to the canopied seat), 124, * Determined, 199, 1 Devising (narrating), 50, 8 Diogenes, 135, 9 Dion Prusaeus, 134, * D'Israeli, Isaac, 69, 1 Do (= cause to), do slee, do hew, 10, 6 ; did harness, 31, 1 Dorture, 117, 5 Drama, English, Philip Sidney on the, 83, 5, 7 Dream of St. Jerome’s, A, 138, 2 Drebbel, Cornelius van, 163, 3 Dry Light, 114, E. Ecclesiastical Histories, The An- cient, 138, 3 IEcclesiasticus, 150, 3 Education, Plato on, 43, 1 ; Rous- seau on, 354, 1 Elemental Life, 135, 3 Elizabethan Money, 66, 8 Empessheth, 13, 1 Enchiridion, 143, 1 Encomium, A Trivial and Ma- lignant, 133,8 Enough, 17, 1 Epigrams of Grotius, 162, 4 Erra Pater, 106, 2 Eth, Southern Plural in, 23, 2 Etherege, Sir George, 233, 5 Eucholimaioi, 160, 1 Euphuism, 84, 6 Eusebius, 138, 3 Exordium, 133, 2 ; 134, 5 Eye,ºse of God killed in the, * F. Faustina Bardoni, 257, 2 Fenn, Sir John, 7, 1 Fenton, Lavinia, 257, 8 Ferror (farrier), 10, * Ferula, 142, 1 Fescue, 142, 1 Fifth Essence, 135, 3 Flinders, 399, 2 Fond (foolish), 41, 2 Force, “no force,” 11, 8; “I force not,” 20, 1 Forgather wi', 400, 1 * G. Gairdner, James, 7, 1; 8, 1 Galfrydus, 14, 1 Gedd, 401, 3 Ger, 10, 1 ; gear, 35, 1 Gerfauntz, 5, 1 Ghost of a Linen Decency, 148, 1 Goldsmith and Burke friends at College, 335, 2 Gosune, 9, 1 Gramercy, 141, 3 Great Khan, The, 2, 3 Grenville, George, 321, 1 Grosart, Rev. Dr., 66, 1 Grotius, Epigrams of, 162, * Guiana, 176, l ; 187, l; 188, 1 H. Haddon, Walter, 41, 5 ; 42, 3 Hales, Prof. J. W., 149, 2 Half-pace (scaffold), 122, 3 Hall, Bishop Joseph, 133, 8 Halliwell-Phillipps, Mr., 130, 8 Handel in London, 257, * Harlequin Anna Bullen, 257, * Harneys, 10, 1 Harvey, Gabriel, 69, 1 Hate (at), 10, 8 Hazlitt, Mr. W. Carew, 16, 1 ; . 130, 3 Heliodorus, 73, 3 Helvetius de l’Esprit, 348, 1 Hercules, Pillars of, 120, *; 145, Hetamythium, 70, 8 Historian, The, 73, 10; Historian and Poet, Aristotle's dis- tinction between, 75, 1 Hobby, 58, 2 gº Honeycomb, Will, Steele's, 234, 2 Hooper, John, Bishop of Wor- cester, 37, 3 Horace, Persius on, 77, 8 Huke, 124, 1 I. I (ay), 48. Iambize, To, 135, 18 Ibrahim B Madeleine de Importable, 19, 3 Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 136, 5 ; Expurgatorius, 136, 5 Indian Queen, The, by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, 176, 8 Indifferent (impartial), 54, *; 151, 2 y Inkle and Yarico, Origin of the Story of, 235, * Inquisiturient, 137, 6 Insolation, 125, 1 Ion the Rhapsodist, 82, * Isaiah, Raffaelle's, 332, 1 Isle, Sir John Mandeville’s use of the word, 2, 1 Isocrates, 132, 1 J. Jaguar, The, 187, 1 Java, The Londe of, 116, 8 Jerome, Saint, A Dream of, 138, * Jowett, Professor, 273, 2 Jussell, 230, 1 Justinus, 75, * K. Kempenfelt, Colonel, 234, 1 Kenning, A, 116, * Repler, Johann, 111, 1 Keri and Chetiv, 139, 4 Khan, The Great, 2, 3 Kiss of Courtesy, The, 130, 2 ECnolles, Richard, 94, l Knºise (for “acknowledge”), 9 L. Laconic, 135, 12 Laºgharles, Wordsworth on, Lanterne, a la, 355, 8 Leg (bow), 130, 1 Lepanto, Battle of, 101, * Lese, 23, 2 L’Estrange, Sir Roger, 202, 1 Let (hindrance), 149, 1 L'Hôpital, Michelde, 82, 7 Licensing of Books, 136, 5 ; 137, * INDEX TO NOTES. 439 Lichfield Cathedral in Siege, 147, 6 Light after, 135, 15 Ligon, Richard, 235, * Limbo, 137, 3 Links (flat ground), 400, 6 Locus Communis, 74, * IM. Macaronics, Burke's, 335, 1 Major, Mr. R. H., 116, 8 Manhood of a Roman recovery, 133, 7 Manilius, Marcus, 72, 8 Maniples, 147, * Mason, Sir John, 41, 3 Maugre his face, 58, 1 Maurice of Nassau, 162, * Mercurius Aulicus, 141, 7 — Christianus, 150, 1 Merum sal, 168, * Mewing (renewing), 197, * Michael Angelo, 332, 1 Milsterak, 3, 1 Milton's Imitation of Isocrates, 132, º 133, *; Signature, 149 Mo, 9, 2 Mobile (mob), 194, 1 Molionidae, The, 159, 1 Montemayor, George de, 141, 1 Montera, 124, 3 Motions (puppet shows), 141, 5 Mountains, The Old Man of the, 3, Mountenance, 19, * N Naevius, Cneiv.1, 136, 2 Nakers, 4, 2 Namely (especially), 41, 8 Nantes, Revocation of the Edict of, 204, 1 Nasidienus Rufus, Supper of, 281, 1 Nazaz, Gregory, 13, 2 Next, 66, 8 Nits (nuts), 399, 3 Nizolian paper-books, 85, 1 Noises in Mountain-passes, 4, 8 Horace’s O. Oderint dum. Metuant, 161, 1 Odoric of Pordenome, 3, 1; 4, 1 QEdipus to Theseus, 42,6 Oesterley, Dr. Herman, 16, 1 Ogle, Jack, 217, 8 Old Man of the Mountains, The, 3, Or (ere), 16, * Oration, The Parts of an, 133, 2 Osiris, 145, * Ottone, Handel’s, 257, 2 Ought (owned, owed), 50, 1 P. Panormitanus, 38, 1 Paolo, Fra, 136, * Parliament, Submission of, to the Pope, 33, 1 Parliament, Triennial, 134, * Paston Letters, Editions of the, 7, 1 Peachum, Polly, 257, 3 Peaked, 65, * Peece (gun), 98, 1 Pens, Ancient, 1, 1 Perilous Vale, The, 4, 1 Peroration, The, 133, *; 147, 5 Persius on Horace, 77, 8 Petre, Sir William, 40, 2 . Petronius Arbiter, A Tale from, 235, 3 Phoenicoptrices, 231, 2 Pickthank, 65, 6 Pintelli, Baccio, 332, 1 Pistolets (coins), 117, 1 Pistrinum, 78, 3 Plato on Education, 43, 1 Plumb (£100,000), 271, 1 Poet and Historian, Aristotle’s Comparison of, 75, 1 Pole, Reginald, 33, 1 Pope, An Emblem against the, 44 Portuguese Discoveries in Aus- tralia, 116, 8 Pounded, 85, 8 Practise conclusions, 125, 3 Praying in (inviting); “pray in aid,” 113, 8 Prease, 22, 1 Presently (immediately), 117, 3 Preston-pans, Battle of, 269, 1 Pretended, 52, 1 Prevented, 117, 4; 140, 4 Proºd Books, The Index of, 6 2 Proof, The, as Third Part of an Oration, 133, 9; 135, # Protagoras, 135, 5 Puny, A, 142, 3 Purchased (obtained by choos- ing), 167, 1 Purgatory of an Index, 136, 5 Q. Quadragesimal and Matrimonial, 134, 7 Quintessence, 135, 3 Quinzy (Quang-si), 120, * R. Raffaelle, 332, 1 Rampire, 80, 5 Rapin, Réné, 172, 5 Rebeck, 140, 5 Recoinage Act, Charles Mon- tague’s, 204, Renomed, 11, 1 Republic, Plato's, 71, 1 Retcheth (recketh), 10, 5 Return of the Half-pace, 122, 8 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 204, 1 Revolution, American, Origin of the, 321, 1 —, French, Coalition against the, 352,1; Incidents of the, 352, 3 Rich, Christopher, 257, 4 Richardson, Samuel, his writing- chair, 290, l; with Friends in his Summer-house, 296, 1 Rinaldo, Handel’s, 257, ” Rises (heights), 166, 1 Robinson, Anastasia, 257, 2 Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 233, * Rock Sculpture, 4, 3 Rosº, de Coverley, The Dance, Rogers, John, the Martyr, 37, 3 Roº, A, Roman's Confidence in, 47, Rose Tavern, The, 233, 7 Rousseau, Confessions of, 353, l; on Education, 354, 1 S. Sackless (peaceable), 55, 3 Sackville, Richard, 41, 7; Thomas, 41, 7 sailºg Chariots, Grotius on, 2 Salmagundi, 231, 1 Sanderson, Robert, 238, 3 Sannazaro, 141, 1 Sarpi, Pietro Paolo, 136, + Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, A Tale from the, 235, 3 Schevyfte, 9, 6 Scion, 107, Scisma d’Inghilterra, 136, 6 Scudéri, Madeleine de, 154, 1, 2 Seely, 51, 1 ; 55, 9 Seen in (skilled), 123, 1 Seneca, Marcus Annaeus, 169, 1 Sentry, Captain, Steele's, 234, 1 Shakespeare and Philip Sidney, § : ; and Francis Bacon, l, Sibyls, Raffaelle's, 332, 13 Sight (quantity), 65, 3 Sindons, 119, 1; 124, 2 Singer, Mr. S. W., 16, 1 Sistine Chapel, The, 332, 1 Skelton, John, 139, 6 Skinner, John, of Reigate, 23, 3 Smith, Sir Thomas, 42, 1 Socrates, 71, l; 82, * —, The Historian, 138, 1 Soho Square, 233, 3 Solidounoi, 160, 8 sorºpany) 35, 4; 36,1; 65,2; 6 Soul of the World, The, 135,3 Sowals (swoon), 21, 1 ; sound, Speech, The Parts of a, 133, 2 Spenser and Milton, 139, 8 Stales (decoy-birds), 59, 1 State (canopied seat), 124, 4 Statement, The, as Second Part of an Oration, 133, *; 134, 5 States (statesmen), 133, 8 Stationers’ Company, The, 134, 6 Statists, 134, 1 Steele's Signatures to The Spec- tutor, 235, 1 Stevin, Simon, of Bruges, 162, * Stirps, 120, 1 Stobaeus, 153, 3 Stond, 115, 2 Sturm, John, 42, 4 Style, The Ancient, 1, 1 Summa Predicantium, 160, 3 Surinam, 176, 1 Surplice, 148, 1 T. Tae, 401, 1 Talmud, A note from the, 139, 4 Taprobane, 6, 1 Tasman, Abel Jans, 116, 3 Thaletas, 135, 11 Theagenes and Chariclea, 73, 3 Then (than), 152, 1 - Threepin, 400, * Tigers in the New World, Aphra. Behn's, 187, 1 Tillotson's Sermons, 238, 3 Timaeus, Plato's, 71, i Tirocinium, Cowper's, 330, 1 Titles on Ancient Books, 1, 1 Toom nits, 399, 3 Topic folio, 145, 2 Torres, Luis Valez de, 116, 3 Touchstone, 127, 1 Townshend, Lord, and Sir Robert Walpole, 258, 2 Tragedies, Addison on, 291, 1 Traverse (movable screen), 122, 2 Triennial Parliaments, 134, 2 Trophy, 133, 6 True Briton, No. 45, Wilkes's Notes to the, 300, 302. Typhon, 145, * D. Dáall, Nicholas, 41, 6 Dlubrae, At, 77, 9 University Clubs, 217, 2 |Unneth, 19, 1 Urinator (diver), 164, W. Versailles, The Revolutionists at, 352, 2 Vetus Čomoedia, 135, 6 Wipers, Birth of, 70, * W. Walpole, Sir Robert, caricatured in “The Beggar's Opera,” 258, 1 ———, Horace, his places, 313,1 Want (be without), 140, 3 War (guard), 9,5 Watson, Thomas, Lincoln, 42, 3 - Wayfaring Christian, 139, 2 Wecht, 400, 7 Welshman and Stolen Cock, 17, 1 West, Gilbert, 287, 2 West Indies, 176, 1 Wet (know), 9,3 iffler, 106,4 whº, and Sword against Heresy, whist (silent), 54, 1 Wordsworth on Charles Lamb, 404, 1 woº. Henry, 41, 1; Edward, Wyatt, Sir Henry, 23, 3 Wycherley, William, 173, 1 Wykes, John, 9,8 Wytfliet, Cornelius, 116, 3 Bishop of Y. Yat (that); ye (the), 48, 2 Ye and you, 9, * Yea, and yes, old distinction made in the use of, 35, 8 ; 37, 1; 37, * 440 CASSELL’S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH LTTERATURE. III.-INDEX TO SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH. —cº-e— Most of the passages from old writers in this volume have such of their words as are still current English spelt in the way that last diverts attention from the thoughts they stand for ; but in the following works all accidents of spelling, &c., have been left untouched, that they may serve as illustrations of the language in successive periods. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. PAGES LETTER FROM MARGARET PASTON TO HER SON, SIR JOHN . º - - e - - e - 9, 10 CAxTON's PREFACE To “LA MORT D'ARTHUR '' e - - - - * & º º º 13, 14 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. RogFR ASCHAM's PREFACE TO “TOXOPHILUS’’ º º - º º & e º º 25, 26 LETTERS OF EUPHUES . * & º ſº - - * º * * * tº º 47–49 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. KNOLLES’s “BRIEFE Discourse of THE GREATNESSE OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE” º & & * º 94—103 “CoNCEITs, CLINCHES, FLASHES, AND WHIMZIES” . -> º º º 130, 131 JEREMY TAYLOR’s “Discourse of THE NATURE AND OFFICES OF FRIENDSHIP” * & & #1 . 150–161 MRs. 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