PROSE WRITERS. no man ENGLISH LITERATURE. whom God had blessed with more innocent wisdom, more sanctified learning, or a more pious, peaceable, primitive temper.' He was at one period chaplain and tutor to Prince Charles, with whom he went into exile during the civil war, after being deprived of his whole property for his adherence to the royal cause. Bishop Earle was a native of York, where he was born in 1601; and his death took place in 1665. His principal work is entitled Microcosmography, or a Piece of the World Discovered, in Essays and Characters, published about 1628, and which is a valuable storehouse of particulars illustrative of the manners of the times. Among the characters drawn are those of an Antiquary, a Carrier, a Player, a Pot-poet, a University Dun, and a Clown. We shall give the last. The Clown. The plain country fellow is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. He seems to have the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar, for his conversation is among beasts, and his talons none of the shortest, only he eats not grass, because he loves not Ballets. His hand guides the plough, and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much distracted with objects; but if a good fat cow come in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let out smoke, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastener on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold, which he takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: yet if he give him leave, he is a good Christian, to his power (that is), comes to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain and fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but on good ground. Sunday he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bagpipe as essential to it as evening prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. His compliment with He thinks his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse. nothing to be vices but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk sensible of no calamity with a good conscience. He but the burning a stack of corn, or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not. OWEN FELLTHAM. OWEN FELLTHAM, the author of a work of great merit, entitled Resolves; Divine, Moral, and Political, is a writer of whose personal history nothing whatver is known, except that he was one of a family of three children, and that his father was a Suffolkman. [Moderation in Grief] I like of Solon's course, in comforting his constant friend; when, taking him up to the top of a turret, overlooking all the piled buildings, he bids him think how many discontents there had been in those houses To mourn for none since their framing-how many are, and how many To mourn for all will be; then, if he can, to leave the world's calamities, and mourn but for his own. were endless. The best way is to uncontract the brow, else were hardness and injustice. and let the world's mad spleen fret, for that we smile in woes. Silence was a full answer in that philosopher, that being asked what he thought of human life, said nothing, turned him round, and vanished. [Limitation of Human Knowledge.] Learning is like a river, whose head being far in the land, is, at first rising, little, and easily viewed; but, still as you go, it gapeth with a wider bank; not without pleasure and delightful winding, while it is on both sides set with trees, and the beauties of various flowers. But still the further you follow it, the deeper the unfathomed ocean; there you see more water, but and the broader 'tis ; till at last, it inwaves itself in no shore--no end of that liquid fluid vastness. In her revelations. We may trace her to her second many things we may sound Nature, in the shallows of the puzzle of the soul, and the dazzle of the mind's causes; but, beyond them, we meet with nothing but dim eyes. While we speak of things that are, that the causes, there is some pleasure, some certainty. we may dissect, and have power and means to find But when we come to metaphysics, to long buried of man. Much may be gained by studious inquisiantiquity, and unto unrevealed divinity, we are in a sea, which is deeper than the short reach of the line tion; but more will ever rest, which man cannot dis cover. [Against Readiness to Take Offence.] We make ourselves more injuries than are offered us; they many times pass for wrongs in our own him that speaketh. The apprehension of wrong hurts thoughts, that were never meant so by the heart of more than the sharpest part of the wrong done. So, by falsely making ourselves patients of wrong, we beIt is not good, in come the true and first actors. matters of discourtesy, to dive into a man's mind, beWords do someyond his own comment; nor to stir upon a doubtful indignity without it, unless we have proofs that carry weight and conviction with them. 279 times fly from the tongue that the heart did neither hatch nor harbour. While we think to revenge an injury, we many times begin one; and, after that, repent our misconceptions. In things that may have a double sense, it is good to think the better was intended; so shall we still both keep our friends and quietness. Of being Over-valued. Let me have but so much wisdom as that I may orderly manage myself and my means, and I shall never care to be pointed at, with a that is he. I wish not to be esteemed wiser than usual; they that are so do better in concealing it than in telling the world of it. I hold it a greater injury to be over-valued than under; for when brought to the touch, the one shall rise with praise, while the other shall decline with shame. The former has more present honour, but less safety: the latter is humbly secure, and what is wanting in renown is made up in a better blessing, quiet. There is no detraction worse than to over-praise a man: for if his worth prove short of what report doth speak him, his own actions are ever giving the lie to his honour. Against Detraction. In some dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride, that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth as excellent; so that, when they hear one justly praised, they will either openly detract from his virtues, or, if those virtues be like a clear and shining light, eminent and distinguished, so that he cannot be safely traduced by the tongue, they will then raise a suspicion against him by a mysterious silence, as if there were something remaining to be told, which over-clouded even his brightest glory. Surely, if we considered detraction to proceed, as it does, from envy, and to belong only to deficient minds, we should find, that to applaud virtue would procure us far more honour, than underhandedly seeking to disparage her. The former would show that we loved what we commended, while the latter tells the world, we grudge that in others which we want in ourselves. It is one of the basest offices of man to make his tongue the lash of the worthy. Even if we do know of faults in others, I think we can scarcely show ourselves more nobly virtuous, than in having the charity to conceal them; so that we do not flatter or encourage them in their failings. But to relate anything we may know against our neighbour, in his absence, is most unbeseeming conduct. And who will not condemn him as a traitor to reputation and society, who tells the private fault of his friend to the public and ill-natured world? When two friends part, they should lock up one another's secrets, and exchange their keys. The honest man will rather be a grave to his neighbour's errors, than in any way expose them. Of Neglect. a very little time will change it to a wilderness, and turn that which was before a recreation for men intc a habitation for vermin. Our life is a warfare; and we ought not, while passing through it, to sleep without a sentinel, or march without a scout. He who neglects either of these precautions, exposes himself to surprise, and to becoming a prey to the diligence and perseverance of his adversary. The mounds of life and virtue, as well as those of pastures, will decay; and if we do not repair them, all the beasts of the field will enter, and tear up everything good which grows within them. With the religious and well-disposed, a slight deviation from wisdom's laws will disturb the mind's fair peace. Macarius did penance for only killing a gnat in anger. Like the Jewish touch of things unclean, the least miscarriage requires purification. Man is like a watch; if evening and morning he be not wound up with prayer and circumspection, he is unprofitable and false, or serves to mislead. If the instrument be not truly set, it will be harsh and out of tune; the diapason dies, when every string does not perform his part. Surely, without a union to God, we cannot be secure or well. Can he be happy who from happiness is divided? To be united to God, we must be influenced by his goodness, and strive to imitate his perfections. Diligence alone is a good patrimony; but neglect will waste the fairest fortune. One preserves and gathers; the other, like death, is the dissolution of all. The industrious bee, by her sedulity in summer, lives on honey all the winter. But the drone is not only cast out from the hive, but beaten and punished. No Man Can be Good to All. Nor can a man in him I never yet knew any man so bad, but some have thought him honest and afforded him love; nor ever any so good, but some have thought him evil and not honest to some; and few, again, are so just, as hated hin. Few are so stigmatical as that they are that they seem not to some unequal: either the ignorance, the envy, or the partiality of those that judge, do constitute a various man. In some, nature hath self always appear alike to all. invested a disparity; in some, report hath fore-blinded judgment; and in some, accident is the cause of disposing us to love or hate. Or, if not these, the variation of the bodies' humours; or, perhaps, not any of these. The soul is often led by secret motions; and loves, she knows not why. There are impulsive privacies which urge us to a liking, even against the par liamental acts of the two Houses, reason, and the common sense; as if there were some hidden beauty, of a more magnetic force than all that the eye can see; and this, too, more powerful at one time than another. Undiscovered influences please us now, with what we would sometimes contenin. I have come to the same man that hath now welcomed me with a free expression of love and courtesy, and another time hath left me unsaluted at all; yet, knowing him well, I have been certain of his sound affection; and have found this, not an intended neglect, but an indisposedness, or a mind seriously busied within. Occasion reins the mo tions of the stirring mind. Like men that walk in their sleep, we are led about, we neither know whither nor how. There is the same difference between diligence and neglect, that there is between a garden properly cultivated and the sluggard's field which fell under Solomon's view, when overgrown with nettles and thorns. The one is clothed with beauty, the other is unpleasant and disgusting to the sight. Negligence is the rust of the soul, that corrodes through all her best resolutions. What nature made for use, for strength, and ornament, neglect alone converts to trouble, weakness, and deformity. We need only sit still, and dis-in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if he were Meditation is the soul's perspective glass; whereby, eases will arise from the mere want of exercise. How fair soever the soul may be, yet while connected with our fleshy nature, it requires continual care and vigilance to prevent its being soiled and discoloured. Take the weeders from the Floralium and 1 Flower-garden. Meditation. nearer hand. I persuade no man to make it his whole life's business. We have bodies as well as souls; and even this world, while we are in it, ought somewhat where execution follows sound advisements; so is man, to be cared for. As those states are likely to flourish when contemplation is seconded by action. Contem plation generates; action propagates. Without the first, the latter is defective; without the last, the first is but abortive, and embryous. Saint Bernard compares contemplation to Rachel, which was the more fair; but action to Leah, which was the more fruitful. I will neither always be busy, and doing; nor ever shut up in nothing but thought. Yet that which some would call idleness, I will call the sweetest part of my life, and that is, my thinking. PETER HEYLIN. Among those clerical adherents of the king, who, like Bishop Earle, were despoiled of their goods by the parliament, was PETER HEYLIN, born near Oxford in 1600. This industrious writer, who figures at once as a geographer, a divine, a poet, and a historian, composed not fewer than thirty-seven publications, of which one of the most celebrated is his Microcosmus, or a Description of the Great World, first printed in 1621. As a historian, he displays too much of the spirit of a partisan and bigot, and stands among the defenders of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. His works, though now almost forgotten, were much read in the seventeenth century, and portions of them may still be perused with pleasure. After the Restoration, his health suffered so much from disappointment at the neglect of his claims for preferment in the church, that he died soon after, in 1662. In a narrative which he published of a six weeks' tour to France in 1625, he gives the following humorous description of 6 [The French.] The present French is nothing but an old Gaul, moulded into a new name: as rash he is, as headstrong, and as hair-brained. A nation whom you shall win with a feather, and lose with a straw; upon the first sight of him, you shall have him as familiar as your sleep, or the necessity of breathing. In one hour's conference you may endear him to you, in the second unbutton him, the third pumps him dry of all his secrets, and he gives them you as faithfully as if you were his ghostly father, and bound to conceal them sub sigillo confessionis -[' under the seal of confession']; when you have learned this, you may lay him aside, for he is no longer serviceable. If you have any humour in holding him in a further acquaintance (a favour which he confesseth, and I believe him, he is unworthy of), himself will make the first separation: he hath said over his lesson now unto you, and now must find out somebody else to whom to repeat it. Fare him well; he is a garment whom I would be loath to wear above two days together, for in that time he will be threadbare. 'Familiare est hominis omnia sibi remittere'-[' It is usual for men to overlook their own faults'], saith Velleius of all; it holdeth most properly in this people. He is very kind-hearted to himself, and thinketh himself as free from wants as he is full; so much he hath in him the nature of a Chinese, that he thinketh all men blind but himself. In this private self-conceitedness he hateth the Spaniard, loveth not the English, and contemneth the German; himself is the only courtier and complete gentleman, but it is his own glass which he seeth in. Out of this conceit of his own excellency, and partly out of a shallowness of brain, he is very liable to exceptions; the least distaste that can be draweth his sword, and a minute's pause sheatheth it to your hand; afterwards, if you beat him into better manners, he shall take it kindly, and cry, serviteur. In this one thing they are wonderfully like the devil; meekness or submission makes them insolent; a little resistance putteth them to their heels, or makes them your spaniels. In a word (for I have held him too long), he is a walking vanity in a new fashion. I will give you now a taste of his table, which you shall find in a measure furnished (I speak not of the peasant), but not with so full a manner as with us. Their beef they cut out into such chops, that that which goeth there for a laudable dish, would be thought here a university commons, new served from the hatch. A loin of mutton serves amongst them for three roastings, besides the hazard of making pottage with the rump. Fowl, also, they have in good plenty, especially such as the king found in Scotland; to say truth, that which they have is sufficient for nature and a friend, were it not for the mistress or the kitchen wench. I have heard much fame of the French cooks, but their skill lieth not in the neat handling of beef and mutton. They have (as generally have all this nation) good fancies, and are special fellows for the making of puff-pastes, and the ordering of banquets. Their trade is not to feed the belly, but the palate. It is now time you were set down, where the first thing you must do is to say your grace; private graces are as ordinary there as private masses, and from thence I think they learned them. That done, fall to where you like best; they observe no method in their eating, and if you look for a carver, you may rise fasting. When you are risen, if you can digest the sluttishness of the cookery (which is most abominable at first sight), I dare trust you in a garrison. Follow him to church, and there he will show himself most irreligious and irreverent : I speak not of all, but the general. At a mass, in Cordeliers' church in Paris, I saw two French papists, even when the most sacred mystery of their faith was celebrating, break out into such a blasphemous and atheistical laughter, that even an Ethnic would have hated it; it was well they were Catholics, otherwise some French hothead or other would have sent them laughing to Pluto. The French language is, indeed, very sweet and delectable it is cleared of all harshness, by the cutting and leaving out the consonants, which maketh it fall off the tongue very volubly; yet, in my opinion, it is rather elegant than copious; and, therefore, is much troubled for want of words to find out paraphrases. It expresseth very much of itself in the action; the head, body, and shoulders, concur all in the pronouncing of it; and he that hopeth to speak it with a good grace, must have something in him of the mimic. It is enriched with a full number of significant proverbs, which is a great help to the French humour in scoffing; and very full of courtship, which maketh all the people complimental. The poorest cobbler in the village hath his court cringes, and his eau benite de cour; his court holy-water as perfectly as the prince of Condé. [French Love of Dancing.] At my being there, the sport was dancing, an exercise much used by the French, who do naturally affect it. And it seems this natural inclination is so strong and deep rooted, that neither age nor the absence of a smiling fortune can prevail against it. For on this dancing green there assembleth not only youth and gentry, but also age and beggary; old wives, which could not set foot to ground without a crutch in the streets, had here taught their feet to amble; you would have thought, by the cleanly conveyance and carriage of their bodies, that they had been troubled with the sciatica, and yet so eager in the sport, as if their dancing-days should never be done. Some there was so ragged, that a swift galliard would almost have shaken them into nakedness, and they, also, most violent to have their carcasses directed in a measure. To have attempted the staying of them at home, or the persuading of them to work when they heard the fiddle, had been a task too unwieldy for Hercules. In this mixture of age and condition, did we observe them at their pastime; the rags being so interwoven with the silks, and wrinkled brows so interchangeably mingled with fresh beauties, that you would have thought it to have been a mummery of fortunes; as for those of both sexes which were altogether past action, they had caused themselves to be carried thither in their chairs, and trod the measures with their eyes. [Holland and its Inhabitants.] The country for the most part lieth very low, insomuch that they are fain to fence it with banks and ramparts, to keep out the sea, and to restrain rivers within their bounds: so that in many places one may see the sea far above the land, and yet repulsed with those banks: and is withal so fenny and full of marshes, that they are forced to trench it with innumerable dikes and channels, to make it firm land and fit for dwelling; yet not so firm to bear either trees or much grain. But such is the industry of the people, and the trade they drive, that having little or no corn of their own growth, they do provide themselves elsewhere; not only sufficient for their own spending, but wherewith to supply their neighbours : having no timber of their own, they spend more timber in building ships, and fencing their watercourses, than any country in the world: having no wine, they drink more than the people of the country where it groweth naturally; and, finally, having neither flax nor wool, they make more cloth, of both sorts, than in all the countries in the world, except France and England. The present inhabitants are generally given to seafaring lives, so that it is thought that in Holland, Zealand, and West Friesland, there are 2500 ships of war and burden; the women for the most part laborious in making stuffs. Nay, you will hardly see a child of four years of age that is not kept to work, and made to earn its own living, to the great commendation of their government. The greatest of their natural commodities is butter and cheese; of which, besides that infinite plenty which they spend in their own houses, and amongst their garrisons, they sell as much unto other countries as comes to ten thousand crowns per annum. By which means, and by the greatness of their fish trade, spoken of before, they are grown so wealthy on the land, and so powerful at sea, that as Flanders heretofore was taken for all the Netherlands, so now Holland is taken generally for all the provinces confederated in a league against the Spaniard. JOHN SELDEN. One of the most learned writers, and at the same time conspicuous political characters of the time, was JOHN SELDEN, a lawyer of active and vigorous character. He was born of reputable parentage in 1584. After being educated at Chichester and Oxford, he studied law in London, and published in the Latin language, between 1607 and 1610, several historical and antiquarian works relative to his native country. These acquired for him, besides considerable reputation, the esteem and friendship of Camden, Spelman, Sir Robert Cotton, Ben Jonson, Browne, and also of Drayton, to whose 'Polyolbion' he furnished notes. By Milton he is spoken of as the chief of learned men reputed in this land.' His largest English work, A Treatise on Titles of Honour, was published in 1614, and still continues a standard authority respecting the degrees of nobility and gentry in England, and the origin of such distinctions in other countries. In 1617 his fame was greatly extended, both at home and on the continent, to the side of those who question the divine right of the church to that fund, he gave great offence to the clergy, at whose instigation the king summoned the author to his presence and reprimanded him. He was, moreover, called before several members of the formidable high commission court, who extracted from him a written declaration of sorrow for what he had done, without, however, any retraction of his opinion. Several replies appeared, but to these he was not allowed to publish a rejoinder. During the subsequent part of his life, Selden showed but little respect for his clerical contemporaries, whose conduct he deemed arrogant and oppressive. Nor did he long want an opportunity of showing that civil tyranny was as little to his taste as ecclesiastical; for being consulted by the parliament in 1621, on occasion of the dispute with James concerning their powers and privileges, he spoke so freely on the popular side, and took so prominent a part in drawing up the spirited protestation of parliament, that he suffered a short confinement in consequence of the royal displeasure. As a member of parliament, both in this and in the subsequent reign, he continued to defend the liberty of the people, insomuch that on one occasion he was committed to the Tower on the charge of sedition. In 1640, when the Long Parliament met, he was unanimously elected one of the representatives of Oxford university; but though still opposing the abuses and oppressions of which the people complained, he was averse to extreme measures, and desirous to prevent the power of the sword from falling into the hands of either party. Finding his exertions to ward off a civil war unavailing, he seems to have withdrawn himself as much as possible from public life. While in parliament, he constantly employed his influence in behalf of learning and learned men, and performed great services to both universities. In 1643 he was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower. Meanwhile, his politi PROSE WRITERS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. cal occupations were not suffered to divert his mind altogether from literary pursuits. Besides an account, published in 1628, of the celebrated Arunde This House of Selden at Salvington, Sussex. lian marbles, which had been brought from Greece the previous year, he gave to the world various works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities, particularly those of the Jewish nation; and also an elaborate Latin treatise in support of the right of British dominion over the circumjacent seas. last appeared in 1635, and found great favour with all parties. A defence of it against a Dutch writer was the last publication before his death-an event which took place in 1654. His friend Archbishop Usher preached his funeral sermon, and his valuable library was added by his executors to the Bodleian at Oxford. After his death, a collection of his sayings, entitled Table Talk, was published by his amanuensis, who states that he enjoyed for twenty years the opportunity of hearing his employer's discourse, and was in the habit of committing faithfully to writing 'the excellent things that usually fell from him.' It is more by his Table Talk' than by the works published in his life-time, that Selden is now generally known as a writer; for though he was a man of great talent and learning, his style was deficient in ease and grace, and the class of subjects which he chose was one little suited to the popular taste. The following eulogy of him by Lord Clarendon, whose politics were opposite to his, proves how highly he was respected by all parties:- He was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of so stupendous a learning in all kinds and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, affability, and courtesy, were such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure, which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of style, and too much propensity *Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was a zealous patron of the fine arts, sent agents into Italy and Greece to collect and transmit to England interesting remains of antiquity. Among other relics so procured were the above-mentioned marbles, brought by Mr (afterwards Sir William) Petty from Smyrna, and on which were found certain Greek inscriptions including that called the Parian Chronicle, from its being supposed to have been made in the isle of Paros, about 263 years before Christ. This Chronicle, by furnishing the dates of many events in ancient history, proved of very great use in chronological investigations. tion he was the most clear disccurser, and had the Many of the apophthegms to be found in Selden's Evil Speaking. 1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly before he is aware, makes himself such a one as he speaks against; for if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind of language. man. 2. A gallant man is above ill words. An example we Stone had called some lord about court fool; have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise the lord complains, and has Stone whipped; Stone cries, I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool 3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give often enough, before he would have had me whipped.' him good words, that he may use you the better, if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was dying; his confessor told him, to wicked that went to hell; the Spaniard replying, called work him to repentance, how the devil tormented the the devil, my lord: I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel.' His confessor reproved him. 'Excuse me,' said the Don,' for calling him so; I know not into what hands I may fall; and if I happen into his, I hope Humility. he will use me the better for giving him good words. 1. Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, content to hear. The master and yet everybody the clergy, and the clergy for the laity. thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for 2. There is humilitas quædam in vitio. If a man does not take notice of that excellency and perfection that is in himself, how can he be thankful to God, who is the author of all excellency and perfection Nay, if a man hath too mean an opinion of himself, 3. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else it will render him unserviceable both to God and man. a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttons there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drink 1 Such a thing as a faulty excess of humility. 283 |