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FAMOUS BOOKS.


FAMOUS BOOKS
SKETCHES IN THE HIGHWAYS AND BYEWAYS
of EnglISH LITERATURE.
illiam
By W. DAVENPORT ADAMS.
^
"Sed pleni sunt omnes libri, plenæ sapientium voces, plena exemplorum
vetustas; quæ jacerent in tenebris omnia, nisi litterarum lumen accederet."
CICERO, Pro Archia, vi. 14.
.....
LONDON
Coo
WILLIAM GLAISHER,
265, HIGH HOLBORN,
W.C.
Dedicated,
BY PERMISSION, AND WITH RESPECTFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ΤΟ
MATTHEW ARNOLD, M.A., LL.D.,
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF POETRY AT OXFORD.
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PREFACE.
BELIEVING that in an Englishman's education a
foremost place should be given to the patient study of
his country's literature, and that he ought to gain an
intimate acquaintance with at least the masterpieces
of that literature before he adventures into wider
fields, I have endeavoured in the following pages
to sketch the history, character, and tendency of some
of our most Famous Books in such a manner as to
afford an introduction to their careful and systematic
investigation on the part of the young student and the
general reader.
It is obvious that, in the space at my disposal, I
could do no more than make a selection from the great
works in our language; but I trust the selection is
one of which the critics and the public will not dis-
approve. It will be observed that each of those
adopted has a special claim on our consideration,
either, as I have said elsewhere, on account of its
intrinsic qualities, or on account of the light it sheds

vi
PREFACE.
upon the character of the man and of the age by
whom and in which it was produced. There are,
indeed, many others which I should gladly have
included; but my object has been rather to describe
those Books which are Famous without being very
widely read, than those which are at once Famous
and familiar as household words. Hence, I have
omitted two such works as "The Travels of Lemuel

Gulliver," and "The Pilgrim's Progress; " and if I
have included "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Essays
of Elia," it is because the latter is scarcely a "popular
book," in the usual sense of the term, and because
much of the information here given about the former
is probably not known to the majority of those who
run and read.

On the whole, I trust that, as I have spared no
pains to make my book at once accurate and interesting,
it may receive a kindly welcome, and may accomplish
something towards the promotion of that critical appre-
ciation of our literary masterpieces which, in this agy
of superficial reading, appears to be less general thar
could be desired.
W DAVENPORT ADAMS.


L
****
23
متعدد
Fi
***
The M
恋ごこ
​..
CHAP.
I. MORE'S "UTOPIA "
II. Fox's BOOK OF MARTYRS
III. THE FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY
IV. ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER
V. SIDNEY'S " ARCADIA "
VI. OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS "
VII. QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS "
VIII. BROWNE'S "RELIGIÒ MEDICI "
IX. PEPYS' " DIARY'
X. SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK
XI. STEELE'S "TATLER "
II. DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE
III.
}
4
i
CONTENTS.
1
1
""
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS "
1
IV. LAMB'S "ESSAYS OF ELIA "
""
References to the leading Authorities consulted in this work will be
found in the Index on pp. 373–384.]
PAGE
1
34
• 57
86
. 114
145
170
193
. 227
251
274
299
331
355
•
·

SOME FAMOUS
BOOKS.
MORE'S "UTOPIA."
Ir will generally be found, I think, in considering
any great classic work of art or literature, that it
proceeded from a man and from an age peculiarly
fitted for the production of such a work, and that it is
of value, therefore, not only on account of its intrinsic
qualities, but on account of the light it sheds upon the
character of the man and of the age by whom and in
which it was produced. Thus, the "Utopia" of Sir
Thomas More interests us not more as one of the most
striking of our English classics, than as a valuable
illustration of the times in which it was written, and
of the genius by whom it was composed.
That it should have issued from the England of
King Henry VIII. is a fact which seems at first sight
scarcely to admit of explanation; but when we come
to look more deeply into the circumstances of the case,
it is obvious that the period was extremely favourable,
and that the author was especially fitted for the task he
B
2
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
set before himself. The age of Henry VIII. was that
in which Skelton directed his bitterly sarcastic satires
against the corruptions of the Court and Church; and
in England, as well as on the Continent, the people
were beginning to express in words, if not in deeds,
those aspirations towards civil and religious freedom
which had slumbered since the days of Wickcliffe.
What more natural than that Thomas More, the
scholar, the lawyer, and the politician-who had known
what it was to enjoy the friendship of Erasmus, and
who, though by no means a Reformer in the sense that
Luther was a Reformer, was a a more than usually
enlightened Churchman-should be moved by the spirit
of the age, as well as by his own humorous and philo-
sophic fancy, to construct on paper a Vision of a
Perfect Commonwealth, wherein, without apparently
aiming at any practical results, he could direct the
shafts of his satire against the corruptions of his age
and country? There can be no doubt, I think, that
though Sir Thomas More was unable to go the whole
length of the Lutheran controversy-though he was
steadfast in maintaining the supremacy of the Pope in
all ecclesiastical matters-he was so far imbued with the
zeit-geist or spirit of his time that he sincerely repro-
bated the evils he saw around him, and was willing to
go a long way-not so far, indeed, as his countryman,
Tyndale, but so far as his illustrious friend Erasmus-
in the work of correcting them. It is true that he
publicly advocated the persecution of the Reformers,
from a feeling, doubtless, that they went too fast and
furiously, and that they transgressed the laws of fairness
and consideration which he has laid down in his
MORE'S "UTOPIA.”
3
"
Utopia." But he seems to have been perfectly willing
that the Scriptures, properly translated and revised,
should be spread abroad among the people; and, if he
finally turned his back upon the party of progress, it
was not because he was fanatically opposed to change-
we shall see, by-and-by, that in his "Utopia " he goes
even farther than the most philosophical Radicals of
the present day-but because he was, like the great
majority of his countrymen then as now, enamoured
of the via media-the path of moderation, which we
have the authority of Horace for declaring to be the
safest to tread.
+
The idea of the "Utopia" was probably taken mainly
from the "Republic" of Plato,* but it is not unlikely
that Sir Thomas was acquainted with many other of
those ideal schemes of perfect societies which have
existed from the era of Hippodamos to the present
time. The latter philosopher was an architect by
profession, and is known in history as the designer of
the town of Peiræus, but we are told he was ambitious
of reaching eminence in all kinds of knowledge, and
he is described by Aristotlef as "the first author who
wrote a treatise concerning the best form of govern-
ment." The scheme of Phaleas of Chalcedon, also
mentioned by Aristotle, was apparently directed to-
wards the equalisation of property, and is far less
remarkable than the famous fragment of Theopompus
of Chios, in which a number of extraordinary relations
of this kind are collected under the title of θαυμασια.
+
* Hallam, "Literature of Europe."
"Politics," ii. 5.
‡ Ibid., ii. 4.
See Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography."
4
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
In this writer, as in Plato, we discover glimpses of a
knowledge of the great western continent, which after-
wards re-appeared in Pulci,* and may probably have led,
though indirectly, to the eventual discovery of America
by Columbus. Euhemeros, the author of "Panchaia,'
} founds his imaginary commonwealth in a different
quarter of the globe; † but it is remarkable that he
places it, as More places his, upon an island, and in that
very Indian Ocean in which "Utopia" is said to lie.
This famous work seems to have owed its immediate
origin to an embassy in which More was engaged in
1515. He had always been a favourite with Henry
VIII., who, with all his faults, was able to recognise.
merit when he saw it; and in the year I mention he
was sent, in company with Cuthbert Tunstall, after-
wards Bishop of Durham, and others, to confer with
the ambassadors of Charles V., then Archduke of
Austria, on the question of a renewal of alliance. And
"since our business did admit of it," he says, "I went
to Antwerp," where, among the many who visited the
distinguished Englishman, was one whom he describes
as "more acceptable to him than any other -one
""
"His bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The western wave, a smooth and level plain,
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Men shall descry another hemisphere," &c.
""
*In the "Morgante Maggiore," cited by Prescott in his "History
of the Reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella:
Few things are more clear than that the idea of a western hemisphere
was familiar to the minds of Europeans in the fifteenth century.
Great man as Columbus was, undoubtedly, he could scarcely have
evolved the existence of America out of his own inner consciousness..
But he had the genius to seize and act upon the conception already
floating in the popular mind.
+ St. John, Preliminary Discourse to “Utopia.”
MORE'S "UTOPIA.”
5
""
Peter Giles (afterwards Latinised into Egidius), "a
man of great honour, and of good rank in his town,"
with whom, it would appear from a letter of More to
Erasmus, the former contracted a close and enduring
intimacy. It was at Antwerp, about the month of
November, and probably after many interesting con-
versations with his new acquaintance, that More wrote
the second book of his "Utopia," the first being com-
posed at London in the early part of 1516. In October
of the latter year More wrote to Erasmus to say how
glad he was to hear that Ægidius liked his "Nusquama
(as it was sometimes called), and his anxiety to know
what Tunstall and other judges thought of it. On
November 12, Gerardus Noviomagus (that is, Gerard
Bonchrost, of Nimeguen) wrote to Erasmus from
Louvain to say that his friend Theodoricus (or Theo-
dore Martin) would gladly undertake to print the work,
and that Paludanus would show him an engraving of
the island by a great painter, in which Erasmus could,
if he desired, make any alterations. A few days later
Erasmus was able to assure the author that his manu-
script was in the printer's hands, and about the same
time Jerome Buslidanus (or Busleyden), another of
More's continental friends and admirers, added his
meed of praise to the commendation already bestowed
upon this the latest of the perfect commonwealths.
By-and-by the "Utopia" made its appearance
from the press of Theodoricus: "libellus vere aureus
nec minus salutaris quam festinus de optimo reip. statu.
* "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of
Henry VIII." Arranged and catalogued by the Rev. J. S. Brewer.
1864.
6
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
deque rova Insula Utopia." It had no pagination.*
First came the picture-chart of the island above re-
ferred to; then the Utopian alphabet, in which A to L
are represented by circles or curves, M by a triangle,
and N to Y by rectangles or portions of rectangles,
dashes being used in connection with them for the sake
of further diversity; then "a shorte meter of Utopia,
written by Anemolius," the poet laureate; then a letter
from Egidius "to the right honourable Hierome
Buslyde, provost Arienn, and counselloure to the
catholike kinge Charles;" then another letter to the
same individual from Paludanus,† who also contributes
a poem which has never, I believe, appeared in English;
then some verses "De Utopia," by Noviomagus; then
the poem "Ad Lectorem," by Cornelius Graphæus,‡
then Bousleyden's letter to Thomas More; then More's
letter to Ægidius, from which I shall be quoting by-
and-by; and then the text of the two books them-
selves.
Such was the first edition of More's "Utopia," which
seems to have been saluted on all sides by a chorus of
decided admiration. In the course of next year More
is found writing to Tunstall, to say that his letters are
the most delightful he ever received from him, because
they speak so highly of his "Republica." He trusts
they are as sincere as they are candid. He was afraid
that, among his many avocations, he would not have had
time for such trifles, nor would he have done so but
for his partial friendship. On February 24, Erasmus
* Arber's "English Reprints:" More's "Utopia," trans. by Robinson.
"An ancien/friend" of Erasmus.
+
Or Schryver, Secretary to the Municipality of Antwerp in 1533.
MORE'S " UTOPIA."
7
begs William Cope to send for More's "Utopia," if he
has not read it, and if he wishes to see the true source
of all political evils.* He writes to the author to say
that a burgomaster at Antwerp is so pleased with the
work that he knows it all by heart. We cannot
wonder, therefore, if More is delighted with the suc-
cess of his production, and that he assures Erasmus,
with a touch of his accustomed wit, that he is in the
clouds with the dream of the government to be offered
him by his Utopians; that he fancies himself a grand
potentate, with a crown and a Franciscan cloak (paluda-
mentum), followed by a grand procession of the Amauri.
Should it please Heaven to exalt him to this high
dignity, where he will be too high to think of common
acquaintances, he will still keep a corner in his heart
for Erasmus and Tunstall; and should they pay him a
visit to Utopia, he will make all his subjects honour
them as befits the friends of majesty.
No sooner was the first edition of "Utopia" pub-
lished, than a second was undertaken by an Englishman
called Thomas Lupset, who caused it to be printed at
Paris by a certain Gilles de Gourmont before March,
1518. This, however, was not an authorised edition,
ssued under the direction of the author. The third,
and apparently the most sumptuous edition of the
Utopia," was that revised by More at the request of
Erasmus, and printed by Frobenius at Basle, in the
November of 1518. In this, the letter and poem of
"6
"Erasmus confidently observed to an intimate friend" (what is
sufficiently obvious to the most uncritical perception) "that the second
book having been written before the first, had occasioned some disorder
and inequality of style; but he particularly praised its novelty and
originality, and its keen satire on the vices and absurdities of
Europe."-MACKINTOSH.
8
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Paludanus are omitted, and in their stead is inserted
letters from Erasmus to Frobenius, and from Bude*
to Lupset. The fourth edition was issued at Vienna
in 1519.
Curiously enough, no English version of "Utopia
was published in the lifetime of the writer. The
earliest in point of time is that which appeared in
1551, under the title of "A fruteful and pleasaunt
worke of the best state of a publique weale, and of the
new yle called Utopia: written in Latine by Syr
Thomas More knyght, and translated into Englyshe
by Raphe Robynson Citizein and Goldsmythe of
London, at the procurement, and earnest request of
George Fadlowe, Citezein and Haberdassher of the
same Citie. Imprinted At London by Abraham Wele,
dwelling in Pauls Churcheyarde at the sygne of the
Lambe." On the title-page of the second and revised
edition, issued in the following year, Robinson figures
as "sometime fellowe of Corpus Christi College, in
Oxford," and his version has certainly the merit of
being plain and faithful. More popular, though not
less accurate in form and substance, is the translation
published by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, in 1684; "re-
vised, corrected, and improved" by Thomas William-
son, in 1751, and by A Gentleman of Oxford, in
1753. The only other translation of importance
""
* Or Budæus, "the restorer," says Mackintosh, "of Greek learn-
ing in France, and probably the most critical scholar in that province
of literature on the north of the Alps."
+ Reprinted, with copious notes and a biographical and critical
introduction, by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, F.S.A., in 1808. It will also
be found included among Mr. Arber's excellent reprints of the English
classics.
Reprinted in the Phoenix Library, by J. M. Morgan, in 1850,
MORE'S "UTOPIA."
9
1
was that undertaken by Arthur Cayley, the younger,
in 1808.
In the quotations which follow I shall adopt the
version by Bishop Burnet; but it may give some idea
of the first original translation by Ralph Robinson, in?
1551, if I take a few sentences from his preliminary
6،
Epistle to the right honourable, and his verie singuler
good maister, maister William Cecylle esquiere, one of
the twoo principal secretaries to the kyng his most
excellent maiestie." "I toke upon me," he says, "to
tourne, and translate oute of Latine into oure Englishe
tonge the frutefull, and profitable boke, which Sir
Thomas more knight compiled, and made of the new
yle Utopia, conteining and setting forth ye best state,
and fourme of a publique weale: A worke (as it
appeareth) written almost fourtie yeres ago by the
said sir Thomas More ye author thereof. The whiche
man, forasmuche as he was a man of late tyme, yea
almost of thies our dayes:* and for ye excellent quali-
ties, wherewith the great goodness of God had plenty-
fully endowed him, and for ye high place, and rowme,
wherunto his prince had most graciously called him,
notably wel knowen, not only among us his countre-
men, but also in forrein countreis and nations: There-
fore I have muche to speake of him. This only I
saye: yat it is much to be lamented of al, and not
only of us English men, yat a man of so incomparable
previously edited, with notes historical and explanatory, by F. Warner,
LL.D., in 1758; and, again, with a preliminary discourse, by J. A.
St. John, in 1858.
* It will be remembered that Robinson wrote in the reign of
Edward VI., when the reformed doctrines were so prevalent, that he
could accuse Sir Thomas of "stubbourne obstinacie" with perfect
impunity.
10
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
witte, of so profounde knowlege, of so absolute learn-
ing, and of so fine eloquence was yet neverthelesse
so much blinded, rather with obstinacie, then with
ignoraunce yat he could not or rather would not see
the shining light of goddes holy truthe in certein
principal pointes of Christian religion: but did rather
cheuse to persever, and continue in his wilfull and
stubbourne obstinacie even to ye very death. This I
say is a thing much to be lamented. But letting this
matter pass, I retourne again to Utopia. Which (as I
said befor) is a work not only for ye matter yat it
conteineth fruteful and profitable, but also for ye
writers eloquent latine stiele pleasaunt and delectable.
Which he yat readeth in latine, as ye authour himself
wrote it, perfectly understanding ye same: doubtles
he shal take great pleasure, and delite both in ye sweete
eloquence of the writer, and also in ye wittie invencion,
and fine conveiaunce, or disposition of ye matter: but
most of all in the good, and holsome lessons, which be
there in great plenty, and aboundaunce.'
""
There is nothing more remarkable throughout
"Utopia" than the skill with which More, whilst
advancing some of the most startling theories, many
of them in their very nature unpalatable to those by
whom he was most highly honoured, manages to steer
clear of any actual offence, and even to disarm all
indignation, by the skilful appropriation of his flattery.
He is careful, for instance, to open with a panegyric
on the king whose favourite he had been and was,
but whose mode of government is frequently satirised
in the succeeding pages. "Henry the Eighth," he says,
"the unconquered king of England, a prince adorned
1
MORE'S "UTOPIA.”
(
with all the virtues that become a great monarch;
having some differences of no small consequence
with Charles, the most serene Prince of Castile, sent
me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and
composing matters between them." Then follow those
particulars of his embassy which have been already
given, till he comes to relate how one day, as he was
returning home from mass at St. Mary's, "which is
the chief church, and the most frequented of any in
Antwerp," he saw his friend Ægidius "talking with
a stranger that seemed past the flower of his age; his
face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak
was hanging carelessly about him, so that by his looks
and habit I concluded he was a seaman. As soon as
Peter saw me he came and saluted me; and, as I was
returning his civility, he took me aside, and, pointing
to him with whom he had been discoursing, he said,
'Do you see that man? I was just thinking to bring
him to you.' I answered, 'He should have been very..
welcome on your account.' 'And on his own, too,'
replied he, if you knew the man; for there is none
alive that can give you so copious an account of un-
known nations and countries as he can do, which I
know you very much desire.' 'Then,' said I, ‘I did
not guess amiss, for at first sight I took him for a
sailor.' 'But you are much mistaken,' said he, for
he has not sailed as a seaman but as a traveller, or
rather as a philosopher; for this Raphael, who from
his family carries the name of Hythloday*
Portuguese by birth, and was so desirous of seeing the
world, that he divided his estate among his brothers,
(
is a
From the Greek 0λos and dałoç, meaning "knowing in trifles."
12
}
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
and ran fortunes with Americus Vespucius, and bore a
share in three of his four voyages that are now pub-
lished,* only he did not remain with him in his last,
but obtained leave from him, almost by force, that he
might be one of those four-and-twenty who were left
at the farthest place at which they touched in their
last voyage to New Castile. The leaving him thus
did not a little gratify one that was more fond of
travelling than of returning home to be buried in his
own country; for he used often to say that the way to
heaven was the same from all places;† and he that had
no grave had all the heavens still over him. Yet this
disposition of mind had cost him dear if God had not
been very gracious to him; for after he, with five
Castilians, had travelled over many countries, at last,
by a strange good fortune, he got to Ceylon, and from
thence to Calicut, and there he very happily found
some Portuguese ships; and so, beyond all men's ex-
pectations, he came back to his own country.' When
Peter had said this to me I thanked him for his kind-
ness, in intending to give me the acquaintance of a
man whose conversation he knew would be so acceptable
-
* More here refers to the collection of voyages published by
Deodati in 1507, under the title of "Quatuor Americi Vesputii
Navagationes." "Near the end of this tract," says Mr. Arber,
"is the following account of what occurred on 3 April, 1504 :-
'Relictus igitur in castedo praefato Christicolis xxiiij et cum illis xij
nachinis ac aliis plurimus armis una cum prouisione pro sexe mensibus
sufficiente.' On this passage More hangs his whole fiction. This is
the carefully concealed starting-point of the imaginary portion of the
work. Thence the Portuguese Hythlodaye wanders to the island of
'Nowhere,' which, to More's mind, was beyond the line equinoctial'
between Brazil and India."
A saying of Anaxagoras, which reappears in Cicero ("Tusc.
Quaes.," i. 43) and Erasmus (" Apop.," vii. 561). See Longfellow's
ballad of "Sir Humphrey Gilbert."
MORE'S (C
UTOPIA."
13
to me; and upon that Raphael and I embraced one
another; and, after those civilities were past which
are ordinary for strangers upon their first meeting, we
went all to my house and, entering into the garden, sat
down upon a green bank, and entertained one another
in discourse."
((
The discourse was not, apparently, of the liveliest
and most exhilarating kind. The first book of the
Utopia," so far from being concerned with a
description of the perfect commonwealth, is devoted
to a serious conversation between Giles, More, and
Hythloday, in which some hard blows are dealt at
the condition of England in the time of Henry VIII.*
Every page may be said to contain some political
allusion, but the allusion is made in such skilfully
inoffensive terms that it would have been impossible
to resent it seriously. Hythloday is asked why
he does not enter into some king's service, for they
are sure there are none to whom he would not be
acceptable. To which he replies that "most princes
apply themselves more to warlike matters than to
the useful arts of peace," and in these he neither
has any knowledge, nor does he much desire it.
"They are generally more set on acquiring new king-
doms than on governing those well that they have; and
among the ministers of princes, there are none that
either are not so wise as not to need any assistance,
or at least that do not think themselves so wise that
"These," says Hallam,
“ are remarkable in a courtier; but, in
the first years of Nero, the voice of Seneca was heard without resent-
ment. Nor had Henry much to take to himself in the reprehension
of parsimonious accumulation of wealth, which was meant for his
father's course of government."
14
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
they imagine they need none; and if they do court
any, it is only those for whom the prince has
much personal favour, whom by their fawnings and
flatteries they endeavour to fix to their own interests."
Here the reference is obviously to "the supreme
counsels of Wolsey," who abetted the war policy of
the king, and did little to secure the peace and well-
being of the people. It is then inquired if Hythloday
has ever been in England? He had, and "was
then much obliged," he says, "to that reverend pre-
late," John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
was More's earliest patron, and whom he here repays
with sentences of the highest eulogy. "One day,"
says Hythloday, "when I was dining with him,
there happened to be at table one of the English
lawyers, who took occasion to run out in a high
commendation of the severe execution of justice
upon thieves, who, he said, were then hanged so
fast, that there were sometimes twenty on a gibbet;
and upon that, he said, he could not wonder enough
how it came to pass, that since so few escaped, there
were yet so many thieves left who were still robbing
in all places. Upon this I... said there was no
reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of
punishing thieves was neither just in itself, nor
good for the public; for as the severity was too
great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft
not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a
man his life; and no punishment how severe soever
being able to restrain those from robbing who can
find out no other way of livelihood.... There is a
great number of noblemen among you," says More,
-
MORE'S “UTOPIA.”
15
"
•
still speaking in the person of Hythloday, "that
live not only idle themselves as drones, subsisting
by other men's labours, who are their tenants, and
whom they pare to the quick, and thereby raise
their revenues. but, besides this, they carry
about with them a large number of idle fellows, who
never learned any art by which they may gain their
living; and these, as soon as either their lord dies,
or they themselves fall sick, are turned out of doors;
for your lords are readier to feed idle people than to
take care of the sick.... Now when the stomachs
of those that are thus turned out of doors grow keen,
they rob no less keenly; and what else can they
do ?...
But this bad custom of keeping many
servants, that is so common among you, is not
peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a
more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole
country is full of soldiers, that are still kept up in
time of peace; and these are kept in pay upon the
same account that you plead for those idle retainers
about noblemen: this being a maxim of those
pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the
public safety, to have a good body of veteran soldiers
ever in readiness." It seemed, to Hythloday,
very unreasonable, that for the prospect of war,
which you need never have but when you please,
you should maintain so many idle
as will
always disturb you in time of peace, which is ever
to be more considered than war.” But he did
not think that this necessity of stealing arose only
from these causes. There was another cause of it
that was more peculiar to England: he meant, he says,
men,
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"the increase of pasture, by which your sheep, that
are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may
be said now to devour men, and unpeople, not
only villages, but towns: for wherever it is found
that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer
wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry,
and even those holy men the abbots, not contented
with the old rents which these farms yielded, nor
thinking it good enough that they, living at their
ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt
instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture,
inclose grounds, and destroy houses and towns,
reserving only the churches, that they may lodge
their sheep in them." Hence a number of "miser-
able people, both men and women, married, un-
married, old and young, with their poor but numer-
ous families (since country business requires many
hands), are all forced to change their seats, not
knowing whither to go, and they must sell for almost
nothing their household stuff, which could not bring
them much money, even though they might stay
for a buyer. When that little money is at an end,
for it will be soon spent, what is left for them to do,
but either to steal and to be hanged (God knows
how justly), or to go about and beg?... Give
order," says Hythloday, "that these who have
dispeopled so much soil, may either rebuild the
villages that they have pulled down, or let out their
grounds to such as will do it; restrain those engrossings
of the rich that are as bad almost as monopolies;
leave fewer occasions to idleness; let agriculture be
set up again, and the manufacture of wool be regu-
1
i
-
!
1
MORE'S “UTOPIA.”
17
lated, that so there may be work found for these
companies of idle people, whom want forces to be
thieves, or who now being idle vagabonds, or useless
servants, will certainly grow thieves at last. If you
do not find a remedy to these evils, it is a vain
thing to boast of your severity of punishing theft;
which though it may have the appearance of justice,
yet in itself it is neither just nor convenient; for if
you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their
manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and
then punish them for those crimes to which their
first education disposed them, what else is to be
concluded from this, but that you first make thieves
and then punish them ?"
Such is the kind of conversation, on matters which
have as much interest for us nowadays as they
had for Englishmen in the time of More, with
which the first book of the "Utopia" is occupied.
Towards the end of that book Hythloday assures
his hearers that if they had been at Utopia with
him, and had seen their laws and rules as he did,
for the space of five years, in which he had lived
among them, and during which time he was so
delighted with them that he would never have
left them, if it had not been to make the discovery
of that new world to the Europeans-they would
then confess that they had never seen a people
so well constituted as the Utopians. "Upon this,"
says More, "I said to him, 'I do earnestly beg of
you, that you would describe that island very
particularly to us. Be not too short in it, but set
out in order all things relating to their soils, their
C
18
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<
rivers, their towns, their people, their manners,
constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that you
imagine we desire to know; and you may well
imagine that we desire to know everything concern-
ing them of which we are hitherto ignorant.' 'I
will do it very willingly,' said he, for I have
digested the whole matter carefully, but it will take
up some time.' 'Let us go then,' said I, first
and dine, and then we shall have leisure enough.'
'Be it so,' said he. So we went in and dined, and
after dinner we came back and sat down in the same
place. I ordered my servants to take care that
none might come and interrupt us, and both Peter
and I desired Raphael to be as good as his word.
So when he saw that we were very intent upon it,
he paused a little to recollect himself, and began in
this manner."
<
It will not, of course, be expected that, in the
short space at my disposal, I shall give a complete
analysis of the second book of the "Utopia ;
" but
I may indicate some of the leading characteristics of
More's Republic, and refer to some of those passages
which seem to throw most light upon his times and
ours. I have already said that the perfect common-
wealth was placed by its creator on an island; and it
should now be explained that, originally, it was
called Abraxa, but obtained the name of Utopia
(ov, no, τóños, place; or Nusquama, nowhere) from
that of its conqueror, who was named Utopus. It was
two hundred miles broad, and its figure not unlike
a crescent in shape, the sea coming in between its
horns, eleven miles broad, and forming a great bay,
Co
MORE'S UTOPIA."
19
common concerns.
environed with land to the compass of about five
hundred miles, and well secured from winds. The
entrance to this bay could only be attempted by those
familiar with the channel, and the coast was otherwise
so fortified, both by nature and art, that a small number
of men could hinder the descent of a great army.
There were forty-four cities in the island, all large and
well-built, and all formed and governed upon one
uniform plan. Each had twenty miles of soil round it
and assigned to it, and each sent up three of its wisest
senators once a year to the chief city, Amaurot (from
ȧμavpós, shadowy, unknown), for consulting for their
The country outside the towns was
devoted to agriculture, and was covered with farm-
houses for the husbandmen, which were well contrived.
and furnished with all things necessary for rural
labour. Each country family consisted of no fewer
than forty men and women and two slaves, a master
and mistress presiding over every family, and every
thirty families being governed by a special magistrate.
After staying two years in the country, twenty out of
each family were sent back to town, and their places
were taken by twenty townspeople, who came to learn
the agricultural arts, which by-and-by they would
have to teach to others. Everything that the country-
people wished was furnished to them by the dwellers
in the towns. When the time of harvest came, the
magistrates in the country sent to those in the towns,
and let them know how many hands they needed for
reaping the harvest; and the number they called for
being sent to them, they commonly dispatched it, we are
told, all in one day. Amaurot, the chief city of the island,
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'
was evidently intended as a type of London, just as the
Anider, described as rising eighty miles above it, but
growing larger and larger till, after sixty miles' course
below it, it was buried in the ocean, is intended for the
river Thames. Its name is from the Greek üvvepos,
and therefore, curiously enough, means "waterless."
The city itself was compassed by a high and thick
wall, in which there were many towers and forts, and
the streets were made very convenient for all carriages,
and were well sheltered from the winds. The buildings
were good, and were so uniform that a whole side of
a street looked like one house. The inhabitants were
lucky in possessing, each of them, a large garden in
connection with their dwellings, and their doors were
so happily constructed that they not only easily opened,
but actually shut of their own accord!
There was,
however, no property among the Utopians; every man
entered freely into any house whatsoever; and at every
ten years' end they shifted their houses by lot.
It will be observed, indeed, in the perusal of this
famous fiction, that the conception, at one time so
happy and so desirable, is at others quite the reverse;
and the discrepancy may probably be accounted for by
the fact that the author was anxious not to appear too
decisively in the character of a reformer, and intro-
duced into his work, in malice prepense, much of which
he conscientiously disapproved. It is not difficult,
however, to ascertain where he is serious or is not
serious. It is certain, for instance, that in his descrip-
tion of the mode of government which obtained in
Utopia, Sir Thomas was speaking his own mind,
and was really aiming at reforms which it has been
MORE'S “UTOPIA.”
21
reserved to our own day to accomplish. Thus, after
stating that every thirty families choose, every year,
a magistrate, called the syphogrant, and that the
syphogrants, to the number of two hundred, have the
choice of the prince or governor out of a list of four,
whom the people of the four divisions of the city name
to them, he says, "They take an oath before they
proceed to an election that they will choose him whom
they think meetest for the office;" and "they give their
voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every-
body gives his suffrage." In this the best critics have,
very rightly, I think, seen a distinct suggestion of the
vote by ballot. But, more than that, it was enacted
that the prince should hold office for life, and he could
be removed if he were suspected of cherishing designs
against the popular liberty. The trainbors, or repre-
sentatives of every ten syphogrants, met every third
day, and oftener if need was, and consulted with the
prince, either concerning the affairs of the state in
general, or such private differences as might arise
sometimes among the people. There were always two
syphogrants called into the council-chamber, and these
were changed every day. It was a fundamental rule
in their government that no conclusion could be made
in anything that related to the public till it had been
first debated three days in the council. It was death
for any to meet and consult concerning the state,
unless it were either in their ordinary council or in the
assembly of the whole body of the people. These
things, we are told, were so provided among them,
that the prince and the trainbors might not conspire
to change the government and enslave the people;
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and, therefore, when anything of great importance was
set on foot, it was sent to the syphogrants, who, after
they had communicated it to the families that belonged
to their divisions, and had considered it among them-
selves, made report to the senate; and, upon great
occasions, the matter was referred to the council of the
whole nation. Here, it will be observed, was every
provision made for obtaining the consent of the people
before any legislative act could become the law of the
land; and, for even greater safety, "one rule observed
in their council was, never to debate a thing on the same
day in which it was first proposed; for that is always
referred to the next meeting, that so men might not
rashly, and in the heat of discourse, engage themselves
too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead
of considering the good of the public, they would
rather study to maintain their own notions; and, by a
perverse and preposterous sort of shame, hazard their
country, rather than endanger their own reputation, or
venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight
in the expedients that they proposed at first."
We now come to the description of their trades and
manner of life, and we learn that all over the island
they wore the same sort of clothes, without any other
distinction than was necessary for marking the difference
between the sexes, and between the married and un-
married. The fashion never altered, and every family
made their own clothes. All among them, women as
well as men, learned some trade or other. Generally the
same trade passed down from father to son, inclination
often following descent; but if any man's genius lay
another way, he was by adoption translated into a
MORE'S "UTOPIA."
23
family that dealt in the trade to which he was inclined.
They were careful, these Utopians, not to wear them-
selves out with perpetual toil from morning to night,
as if they were beasts of burden. Dividing the day and
night into twenty-four hours, they appointed six of
these for work, three of which were before dinner;
after that they dined, and interrupted their labours for
two hours, and then they went to work again for three
more hours, and after that they supped, and at eight
o'clock, counting from noon, they went to bed and
slept eight hours; and for their other hours, besides
those of work, and those that went for eating and sleep-
ing, they were left to every man's discretion; yet they
were not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness,
but must employ it in some proper exercise, according
to their various inclinations, which was, for the most
part, reading. It was customary to have public lectures
before daybreak, to which none were obliged to go but
those that were marked out for literature. After
supper they spent an hour in some diversion, in
summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls
where they eat. "They did not so much as know
dice, or such like foolish and mischievous games."
But they had "two sorts of games not unlike our
chess; the one," says Hythloday, "is between several
numbers, by which one number, as it were, consumes
another; the other resembles a battle between the
vices and the virtues, in which the enmity in the vices.
among themselves, and their agreement against virtue,
is not unpleasantly represented, together with the
special oppositions between the particular virtues and
vices; as also the methods by which vice does either
24
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"
openly assault or secretly undermine virtue, and virtue,
on the other hand, resists it, and the means by which
either side obtains the victory.' If anything was
discouraged in Utopia it was idleness. Even the
syphogrants themselves, though the law excused them,
yet did not excuse themselves, that so by their ex-
amples they might excite the industry of the rest of
the people. The like exemption was allowed to those
who, being recommended to the people by the priests,
were, by the secret suffrages of the syphogrants, privi-
leged from labour, that they might apply themselves
wholly to study; and if any of these fell short of those
hopes that he seemed to give at first, he was obliged
to go to work. Sometimes a mechanic would so employ
his leisure hours that he made a considerable advance
in learning; whereupon he was exempted from being a
tradesman, and ranked among the learned men, out of
whom they chose their ambassadors, their priests, their
trainbors, and the prince himself.
But to return, as Hythloday remarks, to the
manner of their living together. Wives, it seems,
were not infected by the desire for "women's rights,'
which is so popular a portion of the modern pro-
gramme. They served their husbands, and the children
served their parents, and the younger children served
the elder children. Those that were under five years
of age sat among the nurses; the remainder of "the
younger sort" of both sexes, till they were fit for
marriage, either served those that sat at table, or, if
they were not strong enough for that, stood by them
"in great silence," and eat that which was given them
by those that sat at table. The old men, we are in-
""
}
1
\
(
MORE'S “UTOPIA.”
25
formed, were honoured with a particular respect. And
why? Probably because, though they took occasion
to entertain those about them with some useful and
pleasant enlargements, they did not engross the whole
discourse so to themselves that the younger people
might not put in a share; on the contrary, they en-
gaged them in conversation, that so they might find
out the force of every one's spirit and observe their
temper.
I pass over the description of Utopian modes of
travelling, as they do not present any points of interest
to the modern reader. We may note, however, that
the Utopians possessed common halls, like those of
Crete and Sparta, and that in every town there were
four hospitals for the sick and wounded, which strongly
resemble the lazarettos of these later days. The
Utopians seem to have had a great contempt for
wealth, gold being among them what Ralph Robinson
calls "the reprochful badge of infamed persons." They
wondered how any man could be so much taken with
the glaring, doubtful lustre of a jewel or stone, that
could look up at a star or at the sun itself. Equally
unalle were they to comprehend how any should value
himself because his cloth was made of a finer thread
than any other's; for, how fine soever that thread
may be, it was once no better than the fleece of a sheep,
and that sheep was a sheep still, for all its wearing it.”
They often asked Hythloday what sort of pleasure men
could find in throwing the dice; and what sort of
pleasure they could find in hearing the barking and
howling of dogs, which seemed to them rather odious
than pleasant sounds. Nor could they understand the
(C
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("
gratification of seeing dogs running after a hare, any
more than of seeing one dog run after another. Among
the Utopians, says Hythloday, all this business of hunt-
ing was turned over to their butchers; but then Sir
Thomas More did not live in the nineteenth century,
and had never heard of a tournament of doves! He
describes his perfect people as regarding the plea-
sures that lie in the mind as the greatest pleasures,
"and the chief of these are those which arise out of
true virtue and the witness of a good conscience."
They say, that the first dictate of reason is, the
kindling in us a love and reverence for the Divine
Majesty, to whom we owe both all that we have and
all that we can ever hope for. In the next place,
reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion
and as cheerful as we can, and that we should consider
ourselves as bound by the ties of good nature and
humanity, to use our utmost endeavours to help for-
ward the happiness of all other persons." Yet they
did not think it wrong to employ their fellow-creatures
as slaves,* probably because even Sir Thomas More,
enlightened as he was, could not imagine in his wildest
dreams the magnificent work accomplished, not so very
long ago, by Clarkson and his philanthropic helpers. In
other things they were more happy. They took great.
pleasure in fools, and it was thought a base and un-
* "If," says Hallam, "false and impracticable theories are found
in the Utopia'" (and perhaps he knew them to be such), "this is in
a much greater degree true of the Platonic Republic; and they are
more than compensated by the sense of justice and humanity that
pervades it, and his bold censures on the vices of power. It is
possible that some passages which are neither philosophical nor com-
patible with just principles of morals, were thrown out as mere
paradoxes of a playful mind."
•
•
MORE'S "UTOPIA.”
27
becoming thing to use them ill. It was thought a
sign of 2 sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve
carefully one's natural beauty; but it was likewise an
infamous thing to use paint or fard. They all saw
that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her
husband as the probity of her life and her obedience;
for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so
all people are held by the other excellences which
charm all the world. They all lived easily together;
for none of the magistrates were either insolent or
cruel to the people, but they affected rather to be
called fathers, and, by being really so, they well deserved
that name. There were but few laws in Utopia, the
constitution of its people being such that they did not
need many; and hence they had no lawyers among
them, for, says Sir Thomas More, who was himself a
great and a successful lawyer, they considered them as
a sort of people whose profession it was to disguise
matters as well as to wrest laws.
It will be seen, from the passages which I have
already quoted, and in which I have followed as far as
possible the quaint but forcible diction of old Bishop
Burnet, that the "Utopia" not only throws an inter-
esting and a valuable light upon his own time and
ours, but that it contains many things which are of the
highest importance to mankind in every age and
clime. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is that noble
section in which he treats of the religion of the
Utopians, and in which he strangely contradicts the
teaching and actions of his after life. "There were,"
he tells us, "several sorts of religions, not only in dif-
ferent parts of the island, but even in every town.
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Every man might be of any religion he pleased, and
might endeavour to draw others to it by the force of
argument, or by amicable and modest ways, but with-
out bitterness against those of other opinions, but that
he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion,
and was neither to mix reproaches nor violence with
it; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to
banishment or slavery. This law was made by Utopus,
not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw
suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable
heats in these matters, but because he thought the
interest of religion itself required it. He judged it
was not fit to determine anything rashly in that
matter, and seemed to doubt whether those different
forms of religion might not all come from God, who
might inspire men differently, He being possibly
pleased with every variety of it; and so he thought it
was a very indecent thing for any man to frighten and
threaten other men to believe anything because it
seemed true to him; and in case that one religion was
certainly true, and all the rest false, he reckoned that
the native force of truth would break forth at last, and
shine bright, if it were managed only by the strength
of argument and with a winning gentleness." I con-
fess I cannot help thinking that Sir Thomas More was
always more liberally inclined than he found it prudent
to avow, and that the friend of Erasmus could not, in
his heart of hearts, have approved of the unhappy
policy of persecution.
What I have now to remark is the skilful manner
in which the fictitious character of the Utopian com-
monwealth is kept out of sight. It has been observed
{
MORE'S "UTOPIA."
29
with what circumstantial minuteness, reminding us of
Defoe and Swift, More describes his meeting with the
Portuguese; and in his letter to Ægidius, prefixed to
the first edition, he is careful to keep up the illusion
in the most ingenious way. "My servant, John
Clement, has started some things which shake me; you
know he was present with us, as I think he ought to
be at every conversation that may be of use to him.
As far as my memory serves me, the bridge
over Anider at Amaurot, was five hundred paces broad,
according to Raphael's account; but John assures me
he spoke only of three hundred paces; therefore I pray
you recollect what you can remember of this, for if
you agree with him, I will believe that I have been
mistaken. . . . I have another difficulty which presses
me more, and makes your writing to Raphael neces-
sary; for as we did not think of asking it, so neither
did he of telling us, in what part of the new-found
world Utopia is situated; this was such an omission
that I would gladly redeem it at any rate: I am
ashamed, that after I have told so many things con-
cerning this island, I cannot let my readers know in
what sea it lies. There are some among us"-and
strange as the statement seems, it is, we are told,
literally true-"that have a mighty desire to go
thither, and, in particular, one pious divine is very
earnest on it, not so much out of a vain curiosity of
seeing unknown countries, as that he may advance our
religion, which is so happily begun to be planted
there; and that he may do this regularly, he intends
to procure a mission from the Pope, and to be sent
there as their Bishop." In corroboration of this
30
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curious fact, Sir Thomas's great-grandson tells us that
many great learned men, as Budæus and Johannes
Paludanus, upon a fervent zeal, wished that some excel-
lent divines might be sent thither to preach Christ's
Gospel; yea, there were here amongst us at home
sundry good men and learned divines very anxious to
take the voyage, to bring the people to the faith of
Christ, whose manners they did so well like.” *
When once the example had been set by More, it
was to be expected that it would be speedily followed,
and it was not long before our literature received a new
addition to the catalogue of perfect commonwealths in
the "New Atlantis" of the great Lord Bacon. "This
fable my lord devised," says W. Rawley,† "to the end
that he might exhibit therein a model or description of
a college, instituted for the interpreting of nature, and
the producing of great and marvellous works for the
benefit of men, under the name of Solomon's House, or
The College of the Six Days Works. And even so
far his lordship hath proceeded to finish that part.
His lordship thought also in this present fable to com-
pose a frame of laws, or of the best state or mould of a
commonwealth; but foreseeing it would be a long work,
his desire of collecting the natural history diverted
him, which he preferred many degrees before it." It
is more likely, as Mr. St. John suggests, that Bacon
stopped where he did from a fear, which does not seem
to have been altogether absent from the mind of Mure,
that he might come to be regarded as a political inno-
((
•
* A very similar incident is recorded in connection with Swift's
Travels of Lemuel Gulliver.
+ In the "Address to the Reader" which precedes the work.
MORE'S " “UTOPIA."
31
vator, at a time when political innovation was attended
with considerable difficulty and danger. The "Oceana"
of Harrington appeared in 1656, and, though it strenu-
ously advocated the most approved republican princi-
ples, "met with many difficulties in the publishing;'
probably because, in one or two passages, it was
thought to reflect somewhat severely upon Cromwell's
policy.* In our own more liberal and prosperous days
we have witnessed, with curiosity and interest, but
without apprehension, the efforts made by Lord Lytton
in his "Coming Race," and Mr. Samuel Butler in
his "Erewhon," to follow in the footsteps of the
imaginative philosophers; and there is no sign that
the number of wayfarers in that direction is likely to
be fewer in the future than in the past.
""
It must not be forgotten, in the meantime, that the
composition of the "Utopia" is not the only claim of
Sir Thomas More upon the remembrance of posterity.
He was not only the first writer of prose in English
which can be perfectly understood by Englishmen in
the present day, but he was our earliest historian, and
""
* The reader may profitably turn, too, to Bishop Hall's "Mundus
Alter et Idem, sive Terra Australis ante hæc Semper Incognita Authore
Mercurio Britannico" (published in 1643), in which, says Professor
Masson, "with more, perhaps, of Rabelaisian satire than of political
allegory in the design, we have verbal descriptions, and even maps, of
the countries of Crapulia or Feeding Land, Viraginia or Virago Land,
and other such regions.' Another work of a somewhat similar
character was Barclay's Latin allegorical romance, "Argenis" (pub-
lished in 1621), in which the island of Sicily stands for France, and
the recent civil wars of that country and its foreign relations during
them are philosophically represented-Henry IV. figuring as Poli-
archus, Calvin as Usinulea, the Huguenots as Hyperaphanii, and so
on. Coleridge thought so highly of this work that he expressed a
wish that it could have made its exit from its Latin form and have
been moulded into an English poem in the octave stanza or blank
verse.
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his "Historie of the pittiful Life and unfortunate Death
of King Edward V. and the Duke of York, his
Brother; with the Troublesome and Tyrannical
Government of the Usurpation of Richard III. and
his Miserable end," the materials of which were pro-
bably supplied by Archbishop Morton, "commands
belief by simplicity and by abstinence from too confi-
dent affirmation. It betrays," says Sir James Mack-
intosh, "some negligence about minute particulars,
which is not displeasing as a symptom of the absence
of eagerness to enforce a narrative. The composition
has an ease and a rotundity, which gratify the ear
without awakening the suspicion of art, of which there
was no model in any preceding writer of English
prose." The Latin epigrams of More, a small volume
which took two years to pass through the press at
Basle, and finally appeared in 1520, are mostly trans-
lations from the "Anthologia," and were rather made
known to Europe, says the same critic, by the fame of
the writer, than calculated to increase it. "They con-
tain, however, some decisive proofs that he always
entertained the opinions respecting the dependence of
all government on the consent of the people, to which
he professed his adherence almost in his dying
moments.' Their Latinity is of the same school as
that of Erasmus. Of his writings against the Luther-
ans, of which I give a list below,† and which were as
* "Life of Sir Thomas More," 1844, p. 47.
+ (1) "A Dyaloge of Syr Thomas More Knyghte: wherein he
treatyd divers Matters, as of the Veneration and Worshyp of Ymagys
& Relyques, prayyng to Sayntys, and goyng on Pylgrymage, wyth
many othere thyngys touchyng the pestylent sect of Luther and
Tyndale, by the tone begone in Saxony, and by the tother laboryd to
be brought into England." (1529.) (2) “The Supplycacyon of
MORE'S "UTOPIA."
33
famous as "Utopia" in their time, it is noticeable that
they were probably those of his works on which he
exerted the most acuteness and employed the most
knowledge. They contain many anecdotes which
throw considerable light on our ecclesiastical history
during the first persecutions of the Protestants, or, as
they were then called, the Lutherans, under the old
statutes against Lollards, in the period which extended
from 1520 to 1532; and they do not seem to have been
enough examined with that view by the historians of
the Church."
"
On the whole, there is no more distinguished name
than that of Sir Thomas More on the bead-roll of our
literary heroes between Chaucer and Spenser.
Soulys against The Supplycacyon of Beggars" [in reply to a short
invective by Simon Fyshe]. (1529.) (3) "The Confutacy on of
Tyndales Answere" [to his "Dialogue"]. (1532.) A❝Second Parte"
of this "Confutacyon" appeared in 1533, in which year More also
published (4) "A Letter impugnynge the erronyouse wrytyng of
John Fryth, against the blessed Sacrament of the Aultare," and (5)
"The Answere to the first Part of the poysoned Booke whyche a
nameless Heretike" [John Frith] "hath named the Supper of the
Lord."

Fi
D

FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
In the interval between the composition and the pub-
lication of the "Utopia "—that is, in 1517—there was
born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, a man who affords on
many points the most effective and peculiar contrast to
Sir Thomas More. The latter, if I understand him
rightly, was a Churchman with a tendency towards
liberalism, which he generally found it prudent to sup-
press; a man who, by disposition and by culture, was
inclined more towards the moderation of Erasmus than
to the fire-breathing enthusiasm of Luther or Calvin.
Fox, on the other hand, was, as most people are
aware, a fervid Protestant; and all the more fervid in
his Protestantism, doubtless, from the fact that he was
a convert from those who believed in the supremacy of
the Pope, and that his earliest years had been passed
in the society and under the instruction of those who
regarded the new opinions with the greatest horror.
His father was a private gentleman of good birth but
slender fortune, who died a few years after Fox's
appearance in the world, leaving his wife free to
embrace a second offer of marriage from a suitor who
seems to have occupied a very similar position, as
J'A-
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
35
!
regards worldly matters, to his predecessor. At any
rate, he was able to send his step-son to the University
of Oxford, where, at the age of sixteen, he was entered
at Brasenose College, and placed under the tutorship of
a Mr. John Hawarden, one of the fellows.* It was here
that, by a concurrence of events which one would hesi-
tate to call by the name of chance, he came to share
his college apartment with another student, called
Alexander Nowell, who afterwards became a cele-
brated preacher and Dean of St. Paul's.† Nowell hap-
pened to be the elder, though not the abler, of the two,
and there can be no doubt that he exercised consider-
able influence upon the mind and character of his
young companion. At the age of twenty, and two years
before Fox came up to reside at Oxford, Nowell had
been appointed public reader of logic to the University,
and was highly esteemed as a scholar of distinguished
industry and ability. He seems to have been one of
the first to imbibe the opinions of Luther, who had
published his theses against the Roman Church in the
very year of Fox's birth; and it was probably owing
to his conversation and example that Fox began to
doubt whether the present state of things was alto-
gether what it should be.
"At this period," says one of his biographers,
"there was just enough in the posture of public
affairs to encourage two such minds in their inves-
tigation of ecclesiastical evils, and at the same time
to convince them that such investigations alone might
expose them to the greatest danger; that one new
* Wood, "Athena Oxonienses," i. 529.
↑ Churton, "Life of Nowell," p. 6.
!
36
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
impulse acting upon the fickle mind of an arbitrary
monarch might spoil all their hopes, transfer them
for the remainder of a short life from a college to
a prison, exile them from their native country, or
bring upon them a violent and barbarous death. How
far these considerations stimulated their zeal and tem-
pered it with due discretion, we have no means of
accurately judging; but that their critical circum-
stances, which must have suggested some such reason-
ing, neither abated their Protestant energy nor
deprived them of Christian prudence and caution, we
have enough in their history to convince us." It is
clear, however, that their disaffection was suspected by
the authorities of their particular college, for when,
after taking his bachelor's degree in 1538 and his
master's degree in 1543, Fox was elected fellow of
Magdalen College, it was not without some premonitory
murmuring; whilst Nowell was glad to have the oppor-
tunity of leaving Oxford to become second master of
Westminster School, "where," it is said, " he instructed
his pupils in the ancient principles of the Catholic
faith, as they were cleared from the papal errors which
had so long blended with and disfigured them.'
""
Fox's change of opinion was not without some
immediate benefit to him, if, as it is recorded, it led
him to make himself master of all the controversies
which had agitated the Christian world, and to perfect
his acquaintance with the history of that Church whose
persecutions, suffered and inflicted, he was destined to
celebrate by-and-by in his immortal book. We are
told that before he was thirty he had read all the
Greek and Latin fathers, together with all the decrees
Ev
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
37
of consistories, convocations, and councils; and though
he was never at any time a famous Hebrew scholar,
still, his knowledge of the intricacies of that language
was unusual among the learned of that day.* Το
remarkable industry he united a no less remarkable
openness of mind, which enabled him to detect the
ingenious sophistry of the papistical divines, and
quickly determined his judgment in the direction of
the Protestant standpoint. It was not long, we are
assured, before he came to the conclusion, "which
nothing could shake, that some great effort must soon
be made, and had in fact already commenced, to
reform the Church of Christ, especially in his own
beloved and deluded country, in which the heresy and
tyranny of the Romish faith had acquired a long and
almost inveterate entrenchment. There can be no
doubt that his conscience and character became pro-
portionably conformed to the will of Christ-that he
grew as a Christian in the grace of the gospel with the
same rapidity, enlargement, and strength, as he in-
creased in an acquaintance with its history and truth,
and in zeal for its most extensive diffusion. So ardent,"
it is related, "was his pursuit of personal godliness,
that he would spend whole nights in sacred studies and
spiritual devotion; reading the Scriptures in their
original tongues, beseeching in humble prayer to God
the spirit of wisdom and knowledge rightly to under-
stand them, and comparing spiritual things with
spiritual, that he might comprehend the whole truth
as it is in Jesus Christ." It is even said-though the
relation has a touch of the apocryphal about it—that “he
* Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses," i. 529.
38
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
would often leave his study or his bed at midnight, and
resort to a neighbouring grove, to meditate on what he
had been reading, and pour forth the desires of his soul
in earnest supplication and grateful thanksgivings.
On these occasions his fellow-students would sometimes
watch and listen to him, and several were deeply im-
pressed by what they overheard in favour of a more
earnest pursuit of Christian truth and duty."
It could not be expected, however, that such unusual
enthusiasm would be received with favour by the
college authorities, who regarded Fox as an abettor of
the new faith, and caused him to be overlooked and
restrained in many of his favourite pursuits. It was
observed that he gradually withdrew from attendance,
except on necessary and official occasions, at the college
chapel; and at last he was openly charged with heresy,
brought before the heads of his college, ordered to leave
the town and county without delay, and informed that
he had cause to be thankful for so lenient and merciful
à sentence.*
*
From this time almost to his death, the career of
Fox was marked by a series of misfortunes which
probably assisted him in sympathizing with the suffer-
ings of those martyrs whose trials he was so soon to put
on record, and whose example, so far as it taught him
patience in tribulation, he faithfully followed to his
dying day. His first act, now that he was publicly
branded as a heretic and an outlaw, and thus cut off
from the enjoyment of his academic emoluments, was
to apply for the assistance of his friends; but, though
he found many to support him in his secret discontent
Biographia Britannica," iii. 2020.
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
39
with the established religion and its officers, he could
find none willing to defend him in his open hostility
to the papal rule. Even his mother and his father-in-
law turned against him, and he wandered here and
there in search of some honest employment by which
to gain his bread, until at last he was brought by
Providence under the notice of Sir Thomas Lucy of
Charlecote,* near Stratford-on-Avon, whose name has
been rendered famous by its connection with the
story of our greatest poet,, and from whom he obtained
the post of tutor to his sons. In this position he
remained for an unknown, though certainly a very
short period, in the course of which he married the
daughter of a citizen of Coventry, and at the end of
which, probably owing to the strict search then being
made for outlawed heretics, he was compelled to seek
safety, first, with his wife's father, and afterwards
with his mother and father-in-law, by whom he was
received at Boston for a month or two. After that, he
disappears altogether from our ken, until we learn that,
within a few months of the king's death, when the
influence of the queen and Cranmer permitted the
reformers to appear more openly, he was found in
London, frequenting, in company with other persons
unfortunately out of work, the precincts of St. Paul's
Cathedral. His son relates that, as he was one day
sitting in that building, "spent with long fasting, his
countenance thin, and eyes hollow, after the ghastly
manner of dying men, every one shunning a spectacle
of so much horror, there came to him one whom he
never remembered to have seen before, who, sitting
* Wood, "Athenæ Oxonienses," i. 529.
40
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
down by him, and saluting him with much familiarity,
thrust an untold sum of money into his hand, bidding
him be of good cheer, adding withal, that he knew
not how great the misfortunes were which oppressed
him, but supposed it was no light calamity; that he
should, therefore, accept in good part that small gift
from his countryman which common courtesy had
forced him to offer; that he should go and take care
of himself, and take all occasions to prolong his life;
adding, that within a few days new hopes were at
hand, and a more certain condition of livelihood."
The mysterious benefactor, whose identity was never
afterwards discovered, was perfectly correct in his
prognostication. "Within three days after the trans-
action, the presage was made good. Some one waited
upon him from the Duchess of Richmond, who invited
him, upon fair terms, into her service. It had so
fallen out," explains the writer, "that, not long before,
the Duke of Norfolk, the most renowned general of
his time, together with his son, the Earl of Surrey, a
man, as far as may be imagined, of sincere meaning
and sharp understanding, were committed to custody
in the Tower of London, for what crime is uncertain.
While they were in prison, the earl's children were
sent to the aforesaid duchess, their aunt, to be brought
up and educated: Thomas, who succeeded to the duke-
dom; Henry, afterwards Earl of Northampton; and
Jane, wife of Charles, the last Neville, Earl of West-
moreland, afterwards Countess of Westmoreland."
It seems difficult to account, at first sight, for the
selection of the Duchess of Richmond as the guardian,
and of Fox as the tutor, of the children of the im-
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
41
*
prisoned earl, when we remember that both were
familiarly known to entertain the most advanced of
Protestant principles. But the reasons seem to be
that the duchess had earned the gratitude of the
Government by acting as the chief witness against
her unfortunate brother, and as the children were at the
disposal of the authorities, it was doubtless thought more
prudent to hand them over to a lady who was well-
affected towards the ruling powers than commit them
to the guardianship of their mother, who was an
adherent of the papal faction. "Such," it has been
remarked, "had been the rapid advance of the Re-
formation, that loyalty was likely henceforward to be
identified with Protestantism. Henry was drawing
towards his end, and had appointed his son Edward to
set aside the claims of Mary; and the Earl of Hertford,
into whose hands the regency was likely to fall, was
known to be resolute in carrying on the Reformation.”
At Ryegate, therefore, where his pupils were located,
Fox passed the next six or seven years of his eventful
life-a period in which he witnessed the death of Henry
VIII., the whole of the short reign of Edward VI.,
and the unhappy accession of "the Bloody Mary."
The place was probably the most degraded and debased
in superstition of all the parishes in the United King-
dom, and when Fox began to preach there, as he did,
it is believed, immediately after the coronation of the
youthful king, he found he had before him a vast field
for the exercise of his labour. He discovered that
idolatry was in full force among the inhabitants of the
locality in which his lot was cast. "The fame of the
Virgin had long fled from the town and its temple,
.
42
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS
and her image, wherever it had aforetime been ex-
hibited, had given way to that of an old fortune-teller
and quack-doctress, reverently called by the besotted
people of all ranks the old lady of Auldsworth.""
Against her, and against many other iniquities of the
day, we may be sure that John Fox lifted up his
eloquent testimony. He had been reinstated, it is
said, by Edward, in his fellowship at Magdalen College,
and some authorities say that he was ordained in 1550;
but whether this date is or is not correct, and whether
it refers to his ordination to the diaconate or the
presbyterate, it seems impossible to say. This much
is certain, that his ministerial work was performed
without remuneration - his sole income being that
which he derived from his tutorship of the Duke of
Norfolk's grandchildren.
.
The Earl of Surrey was now dead, and the death of
Henry had relieved the duke from any immediate fear
of that decapitation to which he had been predestined.
He was not, however, set perfectly at liberty till the
accession of Queen Mary, who was anxious to make use
of his military powers against the insurrection of Sir
Thomas Wyatt. It was then that there began for Fox,
as for all holders of reformed opinions, the bitter and
persistent persecution for which the reign of this Queen
is famous, or rather infamous, in the annals of England.
Fox soon became aware that Stephen Gardiner, the
bishop of the diccese in which he laboured, was a
deadly enemy of the Protestant movement, and that he
could not hope for safety whilst in Gardiner's power.
He took refuge for a time in the protection of the new
Duke of Norfolk, his old pupil, whose venerable grand-
I
FOX'S BOOK CF MARTYRS.
43
father had at length succumbed before the excitement
of his last campaign; but the hostile intentions of the
bishop became so unpleasantly obvious that Fox was
fain to take ship, with his wife, from Ipswich to
Nieuport in Flanders. Thence he moved to Antwerp,
which was then, as it had been in the time of More,
one of the most flourishing of continental cities, and
one which had the distinction of harbouring some of
the most earnest and distinguished of the English
reformers.
;
He did not stay there long, however. Despairing of
finding any suitable occupation for his talents, he
passed on to Strasburg, and from thence to Frankfort,*
at one of which places his wife gave birth to her first
child and only daughter, and from both of which they
were driven successively by the high state of religious
feeling. It was at Basle-the residence, like Ant-
werp, of so many of the adherents of the new opinions
—that Fox took up his permanent abode ;† and it was
here, as we shall hereafter have to note, that he found
leisure to proceed with the great work with which his
name is associated, and the earlier portions of which he
had published during his short stay at Strasburg.
His chief employment, which he happily found suffi-
ciently lucrative for the support of himself and his
family, was in revising manuscripts and correcting the
press for John Oporinus, whose famous printing-office
was at that time "honoured by the services, while it
gave permanence and publicity to the works, of some of
the most enlightened and devout men that ever lived."
* Fuller's "Church History," book viii. 2, 41.
† Ibid., book viii. 3, 10.
44
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
:
It is somewhat unfortunate, however, that at Basle
Fox should have become acquainted with that band
of Swiss and French reformers, whose views were of
a more decided and advanced complexion than many
of their brethren, and who proceeded much farther in
the way of reducing and simplifying the services and
government of the Church than the English Protestunts.
To these Fox was, unhappily for his own prosperity,
induced to ally himself-thus interposing a barrier
between himself and those less ardent spirits who, in
rejecting the superstitions that had grown round the
Church, were not disposed to deny the efficacy of her
sacraments, or interrupt the regularity of her order.
I am afraid it must be confessed that Fox went as far
in the one direction as his persecutors had gone in the
other. It is true that at Basle he had withheld from
publication a Latin translation of Cranmer's answer to
Gardiner on the Sacrament, because in that answer many
questions were raised on which the Reformers were
very much divided, and on which it was not prudent
to divide them further. But Fox seems conscientiously
to have adopted the extreme Puritan view, and, there-
fore, when the advent of Elizabeth to the throne in
1559 was hailed with joy by the more moderate minds
as the dawn of a nobler and a brighter day, Fox, on
the contrary, was in no hurry to leave his post at Basle,
and did not return to England until the autumn. He
then took up his abode at the city mansion of the Duke
of Norfolk, in Aldgate, where he remained until the
unfortunate attachment of the Duke for Mary Queen
of Scots resulted in bringing that nobleman to the
scaffold in 1572. After that, Fox settled in the
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
45
celebrated Grub Street, then, as in the days of Pope,
the asylum of the more laborious but less affluent
authors; and from that time till his death in 1587,
he was occupied in literary work for John Day,
the printer,* and in occasional preaching within the
city of London, for which he obtained nothing in
the shape of a regular and settled stipend. He was,
indeed, presented by Cecil with a prebendaryship
in Salisbury Cathedral, and he might have obtained
considerable preferment,-for he was extremely popular
amongst the London people,-but he refused to sub-
scribe to anything but the Greek Testament, and, when
reminded that he was already a dignitary of the Church,
and therefore bound to acknowledge the authority of
the Canons, he merely replied that he had nothing but
a prebend at Salisbury, and that if they took that from
him, much good might it do them!†
Clearly, nothing could be done with so very sturdy
a Protestant; and we ought not, perhaps, to regret the
excessive earnestness in the cause of Protestantism
which resulted in the compilation of the well-known
Book of Martyrs. We are unable to say exactly
* "John Day, a Suffolk man," says Professor Morley, "had been
busy in Edward VI.'s time as a printer of Bibles. Under Mary he
was at one time a prisoner, at one time an exile. Under Elizabeth he
had a printing-office, growing in size, against the City wall by
Aldersgate, and shops for the sale of his books in several parts of
London. Letters to Fox are extant addressed to him as 'dwelling
with Master Day, the printer, at Aldersgate,' and also to 'Master
John Fox, at his house in Grubbe Street.' In Grub Street, then, we
have, during the early years of Elizabeth, John Fox, the Martyrologist,
housed in a quality not unlike that of a bookseller's hack, though he
and his bookseller were actually fellow-workers with a common aim,
and that the noblest, whereby to earn bread in the service of their
country.'
† Fuller, "Church History," book ix. 68.
46
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
when and where this famous book was begun; but it is
probable that the idea of its compilation first occurred
to Fox when engaged in studying the history of the
Church at college, and he was doubtless confirmed in
his intention by the religious persecution of which he
was himself a victim. It was at Strasburg, in 1554,
that he published the first volume of the work, under
the title of "Commentarii Rerum in Ecclesia ges-
tarum, maximarumque per totam Europam persecu-
tionem à Wicklevi Temporibus;" but it was, as we
have seen, only at Basle, whilst he was working as
editor for Oporinus, that he found time to proceed
with his laborious task. He did not, indeed, under-
take it single-handed. There seems no doubt that he
received considerable assistance in the collection and
arrangement of material from such men as Bishop
Aylmert and Archbishop Grindal; and possibly hè
was indebted to many others of those scholarly re-
formers who fled to the Continent during the reign of
Mary.
When we remember that the work was originally
published in Latin, we can understand how great
was the labour Fox bestowed upon it. The first
folio edition of the whole was given to the world in
1559, and, during the twelve or thirteen months that
ofe
+
* It is said it was first suggested to him by Lady Jane Grey.
† Author of the reply to Knox's "First Blast of the Trumpet
against the Monstruous Regiment of Women," entitled "An Har-
borowe for Faithful and True Subjects against the late blown Blast,'
&c. (1559.)
""
"Rerum in Ecclesia gestarum, quae postremis et periculosis his
temporibus evenerunt, maximarumque persecutionum ac Sanctorum
Dei Martyrum, caeterarumque rerum si quae insignioris exempli sint,
Commentarii: in qua de rebus per Angliam et Scotiam gesto, atque
in primis de horrenda sub Maria nuper Regina persecutione narratio
"
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
47
followed, Fox occupied the time he spent at Aldgate
in preparing for the press the English translation,
which finally appeared in 1562, under the title of
"Acts and Monuments of these latter and perillous
dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein are
comprehended and described the great Persecutions
and horrible Troubles that have been wrought and
practised by the Romish Prelates, especiallye in this
Realme of England and Scotlande, from the Yeare of our
Lorde a Thousand unto the tyme now present.
Gathered and collected according to the true Copies
and Wrytinges certificatorie, as well of the Parties
themselves that suffered, as also out of the Bishops'
Registers which were the doers thereof.”
The success of the book was immediate and decisive.
Like a still more celebrated man of modern times, Fox
woke up one morning and found himself famous. The
time was perfectly adapted for the publication of a
work so strongly tinged with Protestant feeling, and
the author obtained his reward in the universal
popularity of his magnum opus. He received the
cordial approbation of the heads of the Church, and
the "Acts and Monuments" were ordered to be set up
in every one of the parish churches of England, as
well as in the common halls of archbishops, bishops,
deans, archdeacons, and heads of colleges. Abundant
testimony was, and has since been given, to the trust-
worthiness of the facts related. Camden has this
continetur." This edition contained, besides some very interesting
matter not included in the English trauslation, Bishop Hooper's
"Appellatio ad Parlamentum," and some papers sent by Hooper to
Bullinger, which, until discovered in this volume, were considered
to be irretrievably lost.
48
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
reference to Fox and his book: * "Ex eruditorum
numero obiit Johannes Foxus Oxoniensis, qui Ecclesi-
asticam Angliae Historiam sive Martyrologiam indefesso
veritatis studio, primum Latine postea Anglice auctius,
magna cum laude contexuit;" and Strype† remarks
that "Mr. Fox must not go without the commendation
of a most painful searcher into records, archives, and
repositories of original acts and letters of state, and a
great collector of MSS. All the world is infinitely
beholden to him for abundance of extracts thence com-
municated to us in his volumes. And as he has both
been found most diligent, so most strictly faithful and
true in his transcriptions." Archbishop Whitgift,‡
after having "read over his 'Acts and Monuments
from the one end to the other," declared that “Mr.
Fox hath very diligently and faithfully laboured in
this matter, and searched out the truth of it as
learnedly as I knowe any man to have done;" whilst
Bishop Burnet,§ "having compared these 'Acts and
Monuments' with the records," confessed that "he had
never been able to discover any errors or prevarications
in them, but the utmost fidelity and exactness." ||
The title-page probably indicates with sufficient
exactness the scope of Fox's work; but it may be
added that, commencing with a rapid, though complete
and accurate summary of the early persecutions, it
"Annales,” p. 558, 8vo. ed. + "Annals of the Reformation."
"Defence of the Answer to the Admonition.”
Preface to "History of the Reformation."
Wood is less complimentary (see the "Athenæ," pp. 532-3). He
says Fox has "committed many errors, by trusting to the relations of
poor simple people; " but he owns that the "Acts and Monuments"
will remain "as long as literature remains, a monument of his
industry, his laborious research, and his sincere piety."
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
49
comes finally to treat, with a detail which could only
have been achieved by one who was contemporary
with the events described, the sufferings of "Pro-
testants" at the hands of "Catholics" in the
sixteenth century. Whether the extreme minuteness
of some of the narratives is altogether pleasant to a
modern reader, may well be doubted; but there can be
no question of its value from an historical point of
view, and probably it was this very particularity of
statement which rendered it so popular when it first.
appeared. The Englishmen of Elizabeth's reign were
glad to read in Fox's pages of the heroic trials
through which their ancestors had passed in the defence
of their religious freedom, and it is not too much to
say that the "Acts and Monuments" had, humanly
speaking, almost as much to do with the defeat of the
Spanish Armada as the prowess of Lord Howard and
Sir Francis Drake. It certainly tended to quicken
and increase among the people that hatred and horror
of all things pertaining to the Church of Rome which
seem scarcely to have subsided even under the influence
of the broader sympathies of the nineteenth century.
It is impossible, within the limits at my disposal, to
furnish any very satisfactory specimens of this remark-
able book; but it may give my readers some con-
ception of its simple pathos if I summarise, very
briefly, one of its most touching episodes, making use,
as far as possible, of Fox's own words. I turn to the
narrative of Anne Askew, and begin at that place
where, after putting her through sundry examinations
upon points of faith, her tormentors decided to inflict
upon her the pains of torture:-
K
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"Then," says Fox, "did they put her on the rack,
and thereon they kept her a long time, and because
she lay still and did not cry, the Lord Chancellor and
Mr. Rich took pains to rack her with their own hands,
till she was nigh dead. The lieutenant then caused
her to be loosed from the rack, when she immediately
swooned, and then recovered again. After that she
sat two hours reasoning with the Lord Chancellor
upon the bare floor, where he, with many flattering
words, persuaded her to leave her opinion; but her
Lord God, thanks to his everlasting goodness! gave her
grace to persevere. Then she was brought to a house
and laid on a bed, with as weary and painful bones as
ever had patient Job, yet expressing her thanks to
God. Then the Lord Chancellor sent her word, if she
would leave her opinion she should want for nothing;
if she would not, she should forthwith to Newgate, and
so be burned. She sent him word again, that she
would rather die than break her faith-praying that
God would open his eyes, that the truth might take
place.
""
Touching the order of her racking in the Tower,
thus it was: first, she was led down into a dungeon,
where Sir Anthony Knevet, the lieutenant, commanded
his gaoler to pinch her with the rack: which being done
so much as he thought sufficient, he went about to take
her down, supposing that he had done enough. But
Wriothesley, the Chancellor, displeased that she was
loosed so soon, confessing nothing, commanded the
lieutenant to strain her on the rack again, which,
because he refused to do, tendering the weakness of
the woman, he was threatened, the Chancellor saying,
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
51
that he would signify his disobedience unto the king;
and so, consequently, he and Mr. Rich, throwing off
their gowns, would needs play the tormentors them-
selves, first asking her if she were with child? to
whom she answering again, said, 'Ye shall not need to
spare me for that, but do your wills upon me;' and so
quietly and patiently praying unto the Lord, she
abode their tyranny, till her bones and joints were
almost plucked asunder.
"She had now been so tormented, that she could neither
live long in such distress, nor yet by her adversaries be
suffered to die in secret. The day of her execution
being appointed, she was brought to Smithfield in a
chair, because she could not walk, from the cruel
effects of the torments. When she was brought to the
stake, she was fastened to it by the middle with a chain
that held up her body. Three others were brought
o suffer with her, and for the same offence. The
martyrs being chained to the stake, and all things
ready for the fire, Dr. Shaxton, then appointed to
preach, began his sermon. Anne Askew hearing and
answering him, where he said well, she approved;
where he said amiss, expressing firmly her dissent,
saying, 'He speaketh without the book.'
"The sermon being finished, the martyrs, standing at
three several stakes, ready to their martyrdom, began
their prayers.
The multitude of the people was
exceeding great, the place where they stood being
railed about to keep out the press. Upon the bench,
under St. Bartholomew's Church, sat Wriothesley,
the old Duke of Norfolk, the old Earl of Bedford, the
Lord Mayor, and divers others. Before the fire was

52
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kindled, one of the bench hearing that they had
gunpowder about them, and being afraid lest the
faggots, by strength of the gunpowder, would come
flying about their ears, began to be afraid; but the
Earl of Bedford, observing how the gunpowder was
not laid under the faggots, but only about their bodies
to rid them of their pain, which having vent, there
was no danger to them, so diminished that fear.
}
"Then the Lord Chancellor sent to Anne Askew,
offering to her the king's pardon if she would recant:
a letter said to be written by the king was put into her
hand; but she, refusing once to look upon it, made
this answer again, 'I came not hither to deny my
Lord and Master.' Then were letters likewise offered
to the others, who in like manner, following the
constancy of the woman, denied not only to receive
them, but also to look upon them, continuing to cheer
and exhort each other by the end of their sufferings,
and the glory they were about to enter; whereupon
the Lord Mayor, commanding fire to be put to them,
cried with a loud voice, 'Fiat justitia!' Thus," says
Fox, "were these blessed martyrs compassed in with
flames of fire, as holy sacrifices unto God and his
truth."
With this brief series of extracts, I content myself
with commending the perusal of the work to all my
readers, not only on account of its intrinsic merits,
which are obviously very great indeed, but for the
insight it affords us into the conscientious and deep-
rooted Protestantism of the English nation in the
reign of Elizabeth. It is not by any means the only
one of Fox's literary productions which is worthy
i
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
53
of the consideration of the student or the general
reader. Eleven years before the first appearance of
his Latin folio, Fox had published, in 1548, a curious
little work, entitled "De non plectendis Morte Adul-
teris Consultatio," of which one of his biographers
remarks that, "amidst some doubtful propositions it
contains many admirable remarks," though "as a
whole it is inferior, both in style and in sentiment,
to the later productions of the excellent author."* In
1551 he issued a tract, " De Censurâ seu Excom-
municatione Ecclesiastica, Interpellatio ad Archiep.
Cantuar. ;" and, in 1552, certain "Tables of Gram-
mar." But more important than any of these,-more
considerable in design and execution, and more suc-
cessful in its public reception,-was his Latin comedy,
"De Christo Triumphante," written, it is believed, at
Basle, and published first in 1551, and again in 1556
and 1672, in which Christus, Eva, Saulus qui et Paulus,
and Maria Petris take the leading parts, while "princi-
palities and powers of darkness" frequently come
forth to be guilty of "spiritual wickedness in high
places." Otherwise, the dramatis personæ are rather
numerous, amounting to about twenty-five characters,
among whom angels and adolescentes are included.
The story is taken, of course, from New Testament
history, of which the "Comoedia" ("Apocalyptica," as
Fox calls it on his title-page) is merely one of those
dramatized versions in which our early literature is
so prolific. It was translated into English by Richard
*It was reprinted, with variations, in the following year, under the
title of "De lapsis in Ecclesiam Recipiendis per Poenitentiam Resipis-
centibus Consultatio, in qua ostenditur discrimen inter legem et
Evangelium."
54
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Day, and was published in that form in 1579, 1607,
and 1672 successively.*
Fox's other writings may be dismissed with com-
parative brevity. They consist, as far as I can ascer-
tain, of the following separate publications, which do
not, of course, include the numerous editorial produc-
tions with which he must have supplied John Day,
the printer, during his connection with him :—“ Ad
inclytos ac præponentes Angliæ proceres, Ordines et
Status totamque ejus gentis Nobilitatem pro afflictio
fratribus supplicatio" (1557); "Locorum communium
logicalium Tituli et Ordinatione 150, ad Seriem Prædi-
camentorum decem descripti" (1557); "Probationes
et Resolutiones de Re et Materiâ Sacramenti Eucha-
rastici" (1563)); "Contra Hier. Osorium ejusque
odiosas Insectiones pro Evangelicæ veritatis Defen-
sione" (1577); "De Olivâ Evangelica: Concio in
Baptismo Judæi habita Londini, primo mens. April.
Cum Enarratione Capitis undecimi D. Pauli ad Ro-
manos" (1578); "Papa Confutatiis, vel sacra et Apos-
tolica Ecclesia Papam Confutans" (1580); "De Christo
gratia justificante contra Jesuitas" (1583); "Pandecta
Locorum communium" (1585); "Disputatio contra
Jesuitas et eorum Argumenta, quibus inhærentum
justitiam ex Aristotele confirmant" (1585); and
Eicasmi, seu Meditationes in Apocal. S. Johannis
Apostoli et Evangelistae " (1587).†
I have purposely omitted from this list any refer-
(6
Mag
* "Dedicated," says Wood, "to all schoolmasters, to the end that
it might be admitted into all their respective schools for the admitted
elegance of its style, by T. C., Master of Arts of Sidney Coll., in
Cambridge."
+ Wood, "Athenæ Oxonienses," i. 531.
FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
55
ence to the edition of the Saxon Gospels published by
Fox in 1571. This, like the "Acts and Monu-
ments," was dedicated to the queen, and was the
result of a special study of our earlier English, which
Fox had undertaken with a view to the prosecution
of this work. It is especially valuable as indicating
the direction in which the Elizabethan divines turned
their studies, with a view to proving the unbroken
continuity of the Church of England from the earliest
times.
The only other publication of our author to which I
shall refer, as showing how firmly he was possessed by
the spirit of Protestantism, is the "Sermon of Christ
Crucified," preached at Paul's Cross in 1570, and pub-
lished in the course of the same year. In 1571 it was
translated into Latin, and in both languages obtained
an unusually wide circulation. The text was from the
fifth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
which he thus translates: "For Christ therefore, or in
Christ's name, we come to you as messengers, even as
God himself desiring you, we pray you for Christ's
stead that you will be reconciled unto God. For Him
who knew no sin, God hath made to be sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him." "I remember," he says, "about the beginning
of Queen Mary's reign, there was a certain message
sent, not from Heaven, but from Rome-not from God,
but from the Pope-not from any apostle, but by a
certain Cardinal Pole, a legate of the Pope's own white
side. And what was the message? Forsooth, that
the realm of England should be reconciled to the
Pope!" And from this he goes on to preach a dis-
56
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
course in which the tenacity of his faith, and espe-
cially his holy abhorrence of the papal system, is
strikingly exemplified. It is followed by a prayer
and a postscript to the Papists; and it is said that
this was the last, as it was the first, sermon that he
delivered at Paul's Cross. Seventeen years afterwards
the good old man peacefully breathed his last in his
lodging in the City, and in the register of burials was
inserted the record, as plain and unpretending as he
was himself,-
"April 20th, 1587-John Fox, householder and
preacher."
1


THE FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND
COMEDY.
Two years after the publication of the Book of
Martyrs, there appeared in London a surreptitious
and inaccurate edition of the first regular tragedy of
the English language. For many years before that
time the stage had been occupied by dramatic per-
formances of various kinds; but though morals and
inysteries were the natural and inevitable predecessors
of the modern play,* they differ from it essentially in
form and character; and to the author of "Gorboduc,
or the History of Ferrex and Porrex," is certainly due
the credit of producing the first work which can, by
any stretch of the imagination, be termed our earliest
dramatic poem.
It may be as well to state at once, that the authorship
of "Gorboduc" is ascribed to more than one person;
in fact, to two-to Thomas Norton, who is described
on the title-page of 1565 as the author of the first
three acts, and to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst,
who is represented as the contributor of the last two
"But the force of internal evidence," says
acts.
* See Collier's "History of Dramatic Poetry."
58
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Warton, "often prevails over the authority of asser-
tion, a testimony which is diminished by time, and
may be rendered suspicious from a variety of other
circumstances. Throughout the whole piece there is
an invariable uniformity of diction and versification.
Sackville has two poems of considerable length in the
Mirror for Magistrates,' which fortunately furnish
us with the means of comparison; and every scene in
'Gorboduc' is visibly marked with his characteristical
manner, which consists in a perspicuity of style, and a
command of numbers, superior to the tone of his times.
Thomas Norton's poetry is of a very different and
subordinate cast; and if we may judge from his share
in our metrical psalmody, he seems to have been much
more properly qualified to share in the miserable
mediocrity of Sternhold's stanza, and to write spiritual
rhymes for the solace of his illuminated brethren,
than to reach the bold and impassioned elevations of
tragedy."*
"It is difficult," adds Ashby, "to con-
ceive how Sackville and Norton, whose general poetic
talents were so widely different, could write distinct
parts of a play, the whole of which should appear of
uniform merit." I myself am inclined to believe
that, though Norton's name has been associated with
that of Sackville, his share in the production was
very slight indeed, and probably consisted of little
more than a general revision of the work when finished.
Otherwise, I imagine it was entirely Sackville's, both
in the design and in the execution; and it is not
unlikely that Norton's name would never have appeared
in connection with it but for his intimacy with Lord
"History of English Poetry," ed. Hazlitt, iv. 265-6.
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 59
Buckhurst in the Inner Temple.* He was born,
it appears, at Sharpenhoe, in Bedfordshire, in 1532,
and served in his youth under the banner of the Pro-
tector Somerset, afterwards becoming a barrister-at-
law and solicitor for the City of London. He trans-
lated at least twenty-eight of the Psalms, that excited
the disgust of Warton, and was the author and trans-
lator of several polemical and political productions of
no great merit or importance.
Sackville was born in 1536, at Buckhurst, in
Sussex, and was the son of the Sir Richard Sack-
ville, whose only title to the remembrance of posterity,
irrespectively of this relationship, was his patronage
of Roger Ascham. At the age of fifteen or sixteen
the younger Sackville was sent to Oxford, where he
received his education at Hart Hall, and from whence
he went successively to Cambridget and the Inner
Temple. He seems to have spent a considerable
portion of his earlier years in travelling through
France and Italy; and at this period of his life
alone was he, as Spence observes, what perhaps all
persons of his birth ought to be, a poet. His father,
dying in 1566, left him a large fortune, the greatest
part of which he soon squandered in his magnificent
manner of living; but in the end, it is said, he be
came a better economist. He served in Parliament,
Collier, however, is inclined to support the co-authorship of the
play. See "History of Dramatic Poetry," ii. 485-6. In 1560, Jasper
Heywood couples the names of the two friends as follows :—
"There Sackvylde's sonnetts sweetely sauste,
And featly fyned be;
There Norton's ditties do delight," &c.
+ Wood, "Athenæ Oxonienses," i. 767.
бо
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A
both in the reign of Queen Mary and of Queen Eliza-
beth. In the former, he was member for Westmore-
land at the age of twenty-one; in the latter, he was
member for East Grinstead, and took an active part in
the business of the House. In 1567 he was created
Baron Buckhurst; in 1571, he was sent as ambassador
to Charles IX. of France; and in 1587, he was dis-
patched on a similar enterprise to the States of
Holland. In 1588, he was made one of the Knights
of the Garter; in 1591, Chancellor of the University
of Oxford; and in 1598, Lord High Treasurer of Eng-
land. He was continued in that office by King
James I., who, in 1603, advanced him to the dignity
of Earl of Dorset, which he enjoyed until his death
at the council-board, from apoplexy, in 1608.
His two great poems, "The Induction to the Mirror
for Magistrates, and The Complaint of Henry Duke of
Buckingham," which forms part of "The Mirror,"
have had the honour of being warmly praised by the
most distinguished critics; nor has the "Tragedie of
Gorboduc," though certainly inferior to his other
writings, been without its admirers. Sir Philip Sidney,
in his "Apologie for Poetrie,"* speaks of it as "full
of stately speeches and well-sounding phrases, clyming
to the height of Seneca his stile, and as full of notable
moralitie, which it doth most delightfully teach.'
Pope, also, "whose taste in such matters was very
different," remarks Hazlitt,† "from that of Sir Philip
Sidney's," says, in even stronger terms, "that the
writers of the succeeding age might have improved as
* Reprinted by Arber, p. 63.
† “Elizabethan Literature," Lecture II.
"
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 61
much in other respects, by copying from him a pro-
priety in the sentiments, an unaffected perspicuity of
style, and an easy flow in the numbers; in a word,
that chastity, correctness, and gravity of style, which
are so essential to tragedy, and which all tragic poets
who followed, not excepting Shakespeare himself,
either little understood or perpetually neglected."
This, to be sure, is somewhat extravagant praise, and
Hazlitt is careful to show us that he does not agree
with it. "As a work of genius," he says,
""" Gor-
boduc' may be set down as nothing, for it contains
hardly a memorable line or passage; as a work of art,
and the first of its kind attempted in the language, it
may be considered as a monument of the taste and
skill of the authors. Its merit is confined to the
regularity of the plot and metre, to its general good
sense, and strict attention to common decorum."
This much said, it must be confessed that almost
everything has been stated in its favour that can well
be urged. Hazlitt truly complains that "the principal
characters make as many invocations to the manes of
their children, their country, and their friends, as
Cicero in his 'Orations,' and all the topics insisted
upon are open, direct, urged in the face of day, with no
: more attention to time or place, to an enemy who
overhears, or an accomplice to whom they are addressed;
in a word, with no more dramatic insinuation or by-
play than the pleadings in a court of law." "In the
dramatic conduct of this tale," says Warton, "the uni-
ties of time and place are visibly violated."*
It is not contended, however, that "The Tragedie
* Warton, iv. 256.
62
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
of Gorboduc" is a great work of genius. It is simply
remarkable as the first attempt (with which we are
acquainted) to approximate towards the regular drama,
and as the first considerable poem of any merit what-
ever in which blank verse is used. Its origin is to be
found in the festivities which took place at the Inner
Temple in 1561, when this play was acted as part of
a grand Christmas entertainment, and afterwards before
the Queen at Whitehall. On both occasions it was
represented by the gentlemen of the society; and on
the latter it was given on a large decorated scaffold in
the Queen's Hall at Westminster. A surreptitious
edition of it was, as I have said, printed in 1565, and
so carelessly was it produced, that its author or authors
felt compelled to issue a corrected version in 1570,* în
which the preface set forth, in true Elizabethan
phraseology, how "this tragedie was for furniture of
part of the grand Christmasse in the Inner Temple,
first written, about nine years ago, by the right
honourable Thomas, now Lord Buckherst, and by T.
Norton; and after shewed before her Majestie, and
never intended by the authors thereof to be published:
Yet one W (illiam) G(riffith), getting a copie thereof at
some yong man's hand, that lacked a little money and
much discretion, in the last great plage, an. 1565, about
five yeares past, while the said Lord was out of England,
and T. Norton out of London, and neither of them both
made privie, put it forth exceedingly corrupted."
The "argument of the tragedie" is given as fol-
* Reproduced in the "Ancient British Drama" (1810), from which
my own extracts are made. In the edition of 1570 it is called "Ferrex
and Porrex."
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 03
lows: Gorboduc, King of Brittaine, divided his
realme, in his life-time, to his sonnes, Ferrex and
Porrex. The sonnes fell to discention. The yonger
killed the elder. The mother, that more dearly loved
the elder, for revenge killed the yonger. The people
moved with the crueltie of the fact, rose in rebellion,
and slew both father and mother. The nobilitie
assembled, and most terribly destroyed the rebels;
and afterwards, for want of issue of the prince, where-
by the succession of the Crowne became uncertain,
they fell to civil warre, in which both they and many
of their issues were slain, and the land for a long
time almost desolate and miserably wasted."
""
The "names of the speakers"-it will be observed
that they are not called "dramatis persona -are Gor-
boduc, "King of Great Brittaine;" Videna, "queene
and wife to King Gorboduc;" Ferrex, "elder sonne
to King Gorboduc;" Porrex, "younger sonne to
King Gorboduc;" Clayton, Duke of Cornwall; Fergus,
Duke of Albany; Mandud, Duke of Leogris; Gwe-
nard, Duke of Cumberland; Eubulus, secretary to the
king; Arostus, a counsellor to the king; Dordan, “a
counsellor assigned by the king to his eldest sonne
Ferrex;" Philander, "a counsellor assigned by the
king to his yongest sonne Porrex (both being of the
olde kinges counsell before);" Hermon, "a parasite
remaining with Ferrex;" Tyndar, "a parasite re-
maining with Porrex;" Nuntius, "a messenger of the
eldest brother's death;" Nuntius, "a messenger of
the Duke Fergus rising in arms;" Marcella, "a lady
of the queenes privie-chamber;" and Chorus, "four
auncient and sage men of Brittaine."
64
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
It will be noticed that there is only one female
character in the piece, whom Warton shrewdly suspects
a modern writer of tragedy would have made in love
with the young murdered prince.
The play is in five acts, and as it was evidently
modelled on the tragedies of Seneca,* there is a chorus.
at the close of every act except the last. Each act opens
with a masque, or dumb show, "shadowing by an alle-
gorical exhibition the matter that was immediately to
follow. Not," says Warton, "that this mute mimicry
was always typical of the ensuing incidents. It some-
times served for a compendious introduction of such cir-
cumstances as could not commodiously be comprehended
within the bounds of the representation. It sometimes
supplied deficiencies, and covered the want of business.”
Thus, "the Order of the Domme Shew before the
first act, and the signification thereof," is described
in this way"First, the musicke of violenze began
to play, during which came in upon the stage sixe
wilde men, clothed in leaves. Of whom the first bare
on his necke a fagot of small stickes, which they all,
both severallye and together, assayed with all their
strengthes to breake; but it could not be broken by
them. At the length, one of them plucked out one of
the stickes and brake it; and the next plucking out all
the other sticks, one after another, did easily breake
the same, being severed; which, being conjoyned,
they had before attempted in vaine. After they had
this done, they departed the stage, and the musike
ceased. Hereby was signified, that a state, knit in
unitie, doth continue strong against all force; but
* Morley: "A First Sketch of English Literature.”
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY.. 65
being divided, is easily destroyed, as befel upon King
Gorboduc dividing his lande to his two sonnes, which
he before held in monarchie, and upon the discretion
of the brethren, to whom it was divided."
The first act opens where Videna is informing Ferrex
of his father's intention to divide the kingdom. Ferrex
declines to believe that Gorboduc will act in this wise;
for, he says,-
"Just hath my father been to every wight;
His first injustice he will not extend
To me."
And so he begs her to content herself, for she shall
see the end. "Even this day," replies Videna-
i
"He will endeavour to procure assent
Of all his counsell to his fonde devise."
In the second scene, accordingly, Gorboduc is found
explaining his proposal to a council composed of
Arostus, Philander, and Eubulus:
"My purpose is to leave unto them twaine,
The realm divided in two sondry partes:
The one, Ferrex myne elder sonne shall have;
The other, shall the yonger Porrex rule.
That both my purpose may more firmly stande,
And eke that they may better rule their charge,
I mean forthwith to place them in the same;
That in my life they may both learne to rule,
And I may joy to see their ruling well."
Arostus is of opinion that the plan will answer:
"Great be the profites that shall growe thereof;
Your age in quiet shall the longer last,
Your lasting age shall be their longer stay."
Philander is likewise of opinion that the plan is
admirable, but doubts if it should be so ordered as to
take effect in the old monarch's lifetime:
F
7
1
66
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"But so to place them while your life do last,
To yelde to them your royall governaunce,
To be above them onely in the name
Of father, not in kingly state also,
I thinke not good for you, for them, nor us."
Eubulus is altogether dissatisfied with the arrangement,
and assures the king that—
"To parte your realme unto my lordes your sonnes
I think not good for you, ne yet for them,
But worst of all for this our native land;
""
adding, in words which must have had a peculiar
significance for an Elizabethan audience :-
"Within one land, one single rule is best:
Divided reigns do make divided hartes,
But peace preserves the countrey and the prince.
Your grace remembreth how in passed yeres,
The mightie Brute, first prince of all this lande,
Possessed the same, and ruled it well in one;
He thinking that the compasse did suffice
For his three sonnes three kingdoms eke to make,
Cut it in three, as you would now in twaine:
But how much British blood hath since been spilt
To joyne again the sondred unitie!
What princes slaine before their timely houre!
What waste of townes and people in the lande !
What treasons heaped on murders and on spoiles !"
But Gorboduc, having evidently made up his mind to
have his scheme adopted, puts aside the counsel of
Eubulus, and declares his determination to divide the
country into two parts, one to the north and one to
the south of the Humber, the northern part of which
is to go to Porrex and the southern part to Ferrex.
The chorus then proceeds to draw the moral of this
opening act.
The "Order and Signification of the Domme Shew
before the Second Act" is described as follows:
"First, the musicke of the comettes began to play,
during which came upon the stage a king, accompanied
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 67
with a nombre of his nobilitie and gentlemen. And
after he had placed himself on a chaire of state prepared
for him, there came and kneled before him a grava
and aged gentleman, and offred up a cuppe unto him
of wyne in a glasse, which the king refused. After
him commes a brave and lustie yong gentleman, and
presents the king with a cup of golde filled with
poyson, which the king accepted, and drinking the
same, immediately fell downe dead upon the stage,
and so was carryed thence away by his lordes and
gentlemen, and then the musicke ceased. Hereby
was signified, that as glasse by nature holdeth no
poyson, but is clere, and may easily be seen through,
ne boweth by any arte; so, a faythful counsellor
holdeth no treason, but is playne and open, ne yeldeth
to anie indiscrete affection, but geveth holesome
counsell, which the yll advised prince refuseth. The
delightfull golde filled with poyson, betokeneth flattery,
which, under faire seeming of pleasant wordes, beareth
deadly poyson, which destroyed the prince that receyveth
it, as befell in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex,
who, refusing the holesome advice of grave counsellours,
credited these young parasites, and brought to them-
selves death and destruction thereby."
;
The first scene of the second act introduces us, there-
fore, to Ferrex, and Hermon, and Dordan, and shows
us how Hermon, the parasite, endeavours to stir up
the angry feelings of Ferrex against his father and
brother; whilst Dordan, the true counsellor, exerts his
influence over the young prince to prevent such un-
happy dissension. In the end, we find that Hermon's
insinuations have prevailed, and Ferrex leaves the
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stage expressing his intention so to prepare himself
in secret that, if the malice or the lust of Porrex should
break forth in arms, he might withstand his rage and
keep his own. An exactly similar incident takes place
in the second scene, where Porrex hesitates between
the advice of the parasite Tyndar and the true
counsellor Philander, and finally determines that
Ferrex is arming against him :-
"Shall I leve leasure by my fonde delayes
To Ferrex to oppresse me all unaware?
I will not, but I will invade his realme,
And seeke the traitour prince within his coast."
Thereupon, Philander hastens to inform the king of
this determination, in order that-
"By good advise, by awe of father's name,
By force of wiser lordes, this kindled hate
May yet be quenched ere it consume us all."
The chorus then, in four rhymed stanzas, deplore the
rashness and inconsiderateness of youth, and reprobate
the traitors who undermine the love of brethren.
The "Order and Signification of the Domme Shewe
before the thirde act" is happily less complicated than
its predecessors:-"First, the musicke of flutes began
to playe, during which came in upon the stage a
company of mourners all clad in black, betokening
death and sorowe to ensue upon the ill-advised mis-
gouernment and discention of brethrene, as befell upon
the murder of Ferrex by his younger brother. After
the mourners had passed thryse about the stage, they
departed, and then the musicke ceased." The act
itself consists of one scene only, and exhibits Gorboduc in
council with Eubulus, Arostus, Philander, and Nuntius,
to consider the evil news which has been brought to him
by the trustworthy messengers. He is just being
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY.
69.
advised to exercise his power as a king, and his
authority as a father, when another messenger arrives
with intelligence of the murder of Ferrex at the hands.
of Porrex, and the act closes with the old king's vow
of vengeance against his younger son. The choru
that follows is praised by Warton for its "mora
beauties and spirit," and turns on the "lust of king-
dome" and "the cruell flames of civyll fier."
66
The fourth act is longer, and the dumb show is
more cumbrous in proportion. First, the musicke of
howeboies began to play, during which there came
from under the stage, as though out of hell, three
fairies, Alecto, Megera, and Ctisiphone, clad in blacke
garments sprinkled with blood and flames, their bodies
girt with snakes, their heds spred with serpentes in-
stead of heire, the one bearing in her hand a snake,
the other a whip, and the third a burning firebrand ;
each driving before them a king and a queene, which
moved by furies unnaturally had slaine their owne
children. The names of the kinges and queenes were
these, Tantalus, Medea, Athanas, Ino, Cambises,
Althea; after that the furies and these had passed
about the stage thrise, they departed, and then
the musicke ceased; hereby was signified the un-
naturall murders to follow, that is to say, Porrex slaine
by his own mother, and of King Gorboduc, and Queen
Videna, killed by their own subjects."
In the first scene Videna is discovered alone, mourn-
ing for the death of her first-born, and breathing
revenge against his murderer, Porrex:-
"Is my beloved sonne, is my sweet childe,
My deare Ferrex, my joye, my lyves delight,
Murdered with cruell death? O hatefull wretch,
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O heynous traitour both to heaven and earth,
Thou, Porrex, thou this damned dede hast wrought,
Thou, Porrex, thou shalt dearly bye* the same.
""
In the second, Porrex, brought before his father,
expresses his repentance for his dreadful crime, and
does not ask to live, but shows how the bond of love
between him and his brother had been unknit by the
partition of the kingdom. He contends that Ferrex
was preparing secretly for his destruction.
"Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife
Wrapped under cloke; then saw I depe deceite
Lurke in his face, and death prepared for me;
Even nature moved me then to holde my life
More deare to me than his, and led this hand
To shed his bloud, and seek my safetie so."
•
"an
Gorboduc then sends him from his presence as
accursed childe," and almost immediately afterwards
in rushes Marcella, to tell that Porrex has been slain
in his sleep by his mother, Videna :
"Will ever wight beleve that such hard hart
Could rest within the cruell mother's brest,
With her own hand to slaye her onely sonne ?
But out, alas! these eyes behelde the same,
They saw the driery sight, and are become
Most ruthefull recordes of the bloody fact."
It is remarkable that the murder is not actually per-
formed upon the stage. "Perhaps," suggests Warton,
"the players had not yet learned to die, nor was the
poniard so essential an article as at present among the
implements of the property-room." Certain it is, that
the concluding portion of Marcella's narrative is by far
the most striking passage in the play, and has been
praised not only by the critic just quoted, but by
Hazlitt, who describes it as the only one which he can
* Abide.
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 71
instance as rising above the didactic tone of mediocrity
into the pathos of poetry : *
"Ah, noble prince, how oft have I behelde
Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling stede,
Shining in armour bright before the tilt,
And with thy mistresse sleve tied on thy helme,
And charge thy staffe, to please thy ladies eye,
That bowed the head peece of thy fiendly foe!
How oft in armes on horse to bend the mace,
How oft in armes on foot to break the sworde,
Which never now these eyes may see againe !"
The chorus that follows is considered by Warton to be
the best in the tragedy.
The dumb show of the fifth and final act opened
with the sound of "drommes and fluites," "during which
there came forth upon the stage a company of harga-
busiers and of armed men, all in order of battaile.
These, after their peeces discharged, and that the
ármed men had three times marched about the stage,
departed, and then the drommes and fluites did cease.
Hereby was signified tumults, rebellions, armes, and
civil warres to follow, as fell in the realms of Great
Brittayne, which, by the space of fiftie yeares and more,
continued in civill war betwene the nobilitie after the
death of King Gorboduc, and of his issues, for want of
certayn limitation in succession of the crowne, till the
time of Dunwallo Mohuntius, who reduced the land
to monarchie."
The first scene opens with the Dukes of Cornwall,
Albany, Loegris, and Cumberland upon the stage, and
we learn that the people have risen in rebellion and
slain the king and queen. "Shall subjects dare with
force," asks Gwenard,
"Elizabethan Literature," Lecture II.
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"To worke revenge upon their princes pact?"
"O wretched state!" he cries-
"Where those rebellious hartes
Are not rent out even from their living breastes,
And with the body throwen unto the foules
As carrion foode, for terrour of the rest!"
It is agreed that-
(6
Though kinges forget to governe as they ought,
Yet subjects must obey as they are bounde,'
""
and measures must be taken to put down the traitors.
Eubulus favours the great lords with his advice as to
the means that they should now adopt, and presently
they all march off, leaving the Duke of Albany behind
to meditate how best he may secure in his own hands
the sovereign power. Then he, too, leaves the stage,
with the avowed intention of collecting troops for his
own special enterprise.
In the last scene of all, almost the only incident is
the arrival of a messenger with the news that the
duke is advancing against the other nobles with an
army of twenty thousand men. The remainder of the
play is occupied with the departure of the lords to
fight with Albany, while Eubulus, as usual, remains
behind to moralise upon the general unhappiness of
the state of things in terms which are very suggestive
of the times in which the tragedy was written. Thus,
he deplores the confusion which must happen
"When we unto the prince,
Whom death or sodeine happe of life bereaves,
No certaine heire remaines, such certain heire,
As not all onely is the rightfuli heire,
But to the realm is so made knowen to be,
And trouth thereby vested in subjectes hartes,
To owe fayth there, where right is knowen to rest.”
The drama concludes with a consolatory couplet,
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 73
which (it has been remarked) is curiously Tennysonian
in its style and sentiment :
"For right will alwayes live, and rise at length,
But wrong can never take deepe roote to last."
Such is a brief outline of a tragedy which appears
to have been very popular in its day, and is certainly
no insignificant predecessor of the later Elizabethan
drama. The greater glory belongs, of course, to the men
of genius-to Shakespeare, Marlowe, Webster, and Ben
Jonson-who brought our dramatic literature to such
perfection; but it must not be forgotten that they trod
so firmly only because Sackville led the way, and that
no inconsiderable honour is due to him who first
showed his countrymen of what the regular tragedy
was capable.
may
Side by side with the first English tragedy, it
be interesting to place specimens of the first English
comedy, which was printed and published in 1566,
when Shakespeare was two years old. That this was
the case we know from an entry in the register of the
Stationers' Company; but it was not ascertained until
early in the present century that Nicholas Udall was
the author of this curious play. It was thought that
no copy of it remained in existence, until, in 1818, the
Rev. T. Briggs, an old Etonian, became the possessor
of the unique and valuable copy, which he afterwards
presented to, and which is still preserved in, the
* As a rule, however, nothing can be more bald and even than the
blank verse in this play. It is rarely that a pause occurs anywhere
but at the end of the line, and hence the versification has a monotony
which, I need not say, is as far as possible from being the character-
istic of Mr. Tennyson's verse,
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library of Eton College. This was duly printed in the
year of its discovery, and is, of course, the foundation
of all succeeding editions, including those by Mr.
Archer and the Shakespeare Society. But it was only
about the year 1805 that there was any positive
evidence to connect the comedy with Nicholas Udall.
Then Mr. Collier, to whom all lovers of old English
literature owe so much, happened to be reading
Sir William Wilson's "Rule of Reason," first printed
in 1550-1, and there he found, under the heading of
"The Ambiguitie," a quotation from "Ralph Roister
Doister," "as an example of suche doubtful writing,
whiche by reason of poincting maie have double sense,
and contrarie meaning, taken out of an enterlude made
by Nicolas Udall.”*
Udall was born in Hampshire in 1504, and was
descended from a family which of recent years had
been residing at Wykeham. He was admitted a
scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on June
18th, 1520; took his degree of B.A.‡ in May, 1524;
was elected probationer fellow in September of the
same year, and took his degree of M.A. in 1534. One
of his best friends at Oxford was John Leland, the
antiquary, with whose assistance he composed, in
1532, the pageant exhibited by the mayor and citizens
of London, when Anne Boleyn entered the city after
her marriage. This is included among the royal
manuscripts, and is there described as "A Copie of
divers and sundry verses as well in Latin as in
66
Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature." (1865.)
+ Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses."
‡ Wood's "Fasti Oxonienses," i. 65, ed. 1815.
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 75
Englishe, devised and made partely by John Leland
and partely by Nicholas Udale, whereof sum were
sette up and sum were spoken and pronounced unto
the most high and excellente Quene the ladie Anne,
wif unto our soverain lorde King Henry the eight in
many goodly and costely pageauntos exhibited and
shewed by the mayre and citizens of the famous citie
of London, at first tyme as his grace rode from the
Towre of London through the said citie to his most
glorious coronation at the monasterie of Westminster,
on Whitson yeve, in the xxxvth yere of the raigne of
our said soverayne lorde.” * At this time Udall was a
schoolmaster; and in 1533 he published and dedicated
to his boys some "Floures for Latine Spekynge,
selected and gathered out of Terence, and the same
translated into Englysshe." This book "being es-
teemed good in its time, and very useful for young
scholars, Joh. Leland and Tho. Newton wrote verses in
commendation of it;" and as it is quoted from in
"The Taming of the Shrew" (act i. scene i.), it was
probably familiar to Shakespeare. The selection was
made from the first three plays of Terence. A second
edition, enlarged from 110 to 192 pages, appeared in
1538; and it was afterwards frequently reprinted.
In 1534 Udall was appointed to the head-mastership
of Eton College, from which, however, he was dismissed
in 1541,-why, it is not exactly known, but statedly
as the result of an inquiry into the disappearance from
the college of some silver images and other plate.
These had been stolen by two of the scholars, called
Hoorde and Cheney, and it was proved that the
* Arber's reprint, p. 3.
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robbery had been connived at by Udall's servant,
Gregory. Otherwise we know little about this portion
of his career, except that he appears to have been
somewhat severe in his discipline, if the following
passage, taken from the "Author's Life," prefixed to
"The Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrie," by
Tusser, in 1573, is to be accepted literally :-
"From Powles I went, to Aeton sent,
To learne straightwayes, the Latin phraise,
Where fiftie three stripes given to mee,
at once I had :
For faut but small, or none at all,
It came to passe, that beat I was,
See Udall, see, the mercy of thee,
to mee poore lad."
In 1537 Udall became vicar of Braintree in Essex, a
post which he retained until his resignation in 1544. Two
years previously he had published a translation of the
third and fourth books of Erasmus's "Apophthegms,"
and had been engaged with the Princess Mary and
others in preparing a version of the "Paraphrase of
the New Testament," by the same great writer. In
1552 he was associated with others in a translation of
Gemini's "Anatomy," to which he wrote a preface;
and in 1555 he was appointed to the head-mastership
of Westminster School, which he retained until the
monastery was established there by his former patron,
Mary. He died in 1556.
He is said to have written, besides "Ralph Roister
Doister," several Latin plays, the names of which have
come down to us, and nothing more. Thus, Warton
records that " among the writings of Udall, a cele-
brated master of Eton about the year 1540, are recited
'Plures Comediæ,' and a tragedy, 'De Papatu,' on the
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 77
Papacy, written, probably, to be acted by his scholars."
Besides these he was the author of a sacred drama,
entitled "Ezechias," founded on the Second Book of
Kings, and acted before Queen Elizabeth at Cambridge
in 1564.* But for students of English literature
the one thing interesting about Nicholas Udall is the
fact that he was the author of the first English
comedy that we possess; and I hasten to give a brief
description and analysis of this amusing work.
Its title, "Ralph Roister Doister," probably arose
out of the character of the hero, who is represented
as a silly and conceited English fop of the time of
Henry VIII. The one word "Roister," is evidently
from the old French rustre, a ruffian, and recalls the
rustarii, or French freebooters of the eleventh century;
the other word, "Doister," being doubtless added as a
sort of jingle, and the initial letter of "Roister"
suggesting the alliterative Christian name of Ralph.†
As Sackville's play was founded upon the dramas of
Seneca, so Udall's comedy was modelled on the plays
of Plautus and Terence,
"Whiche amang the learned at this day beares the bell."
It seems to have been written, like so many of our
modern fictions, "with a purpose;" and that purpose
was to expose the folly of the vaingloriousness of
* Nichols's "Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.”
"Rafe Roister," says Collier, "is a character in Ulpian Fullwell's
'Like Will to Like' (1568 and 1587), and a 'roister-doister' is used
proverbially by G. Harvey in his 'Four Letters,' &c. (1592), for a
mad-brained fellow.
'Then roister-doister in his oily terms,'
is a line applied to Marston in 'The Return from Parnassus' (1606.)”
78
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:
which Ralph is a living embodiment. As Udall him-
self says in his rhyming prologue:-
"Our Comedie or Enterlude which we intende to play,
Is named Royster Doyster in deede;
Which against the vayneglorious doth invey,
Whose humour the roysting sort continually doth feede."
It is composed throughout in rhyming couplets,
which admit of considerable variety in rhythm, and is
divided into acts and scenes like any ordinary modern
play. Its leading motive is in the courtship of Dame
Christian Custance by the hero Ralph, who is accom-
panied in his adventures by one Matthew Merrygreek,
a needy humorist, who takes advantage of Ralph's
conceit and ignorance to advance his own interests in
every possible way. Thus he opens the comedy with a
frank declaration of his usual tactics:
"Know ye, that for all this merie note of mine,
He might appose me now that should aske where I dine.
My lyving lieth heere and there, of Gods grace,
Sometime wyth this goodman, sometyme in that place,
Sometime Lewis Loytrer biddeth me come heere,
Somewhyles Watkin Waster maketh us good cheere
Sometime I hang on Hankyn Hoddydodie's sleeve,
But thys day on Ralph Royster Doysters by his leeve.
For truly of all men he is my chiefe banker
Both for meate and money, and my chief shootanker
But now of Roister Doister somewhat to expresse,
That ye may esteeme him after hys worthinesse,
In these twentie townes and seke them throughout,
Is not the like stocke, whereon to graffe a loute.
All the day long is he facing and craking
Of his great actes in fighting and fraymaking;
But when Roister Doister is put to his proofe,
To keepe the Queenes peace is more to his behoofe.
If any woman smyle or cast on hym an eye,
Up is he to the harde eares in love by and by,
And in all the hotte haste must she be hys wife,
Else farewell hys good days, and farewell hys life.
Excepte she on hym take some compassion.
Then chiefe of counsell, must be Matthew Merygreeke,
What if I for marriage to suche an one seeke ?"
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 79
Matthew then describes how easy he finds it to
flatter Ralph to the top of the bent, and with how
much pleasure he performs the ceremony. Then Ralph
himself appears, declaring that death may come when
it will; he is weary of his life; not, as Matthew Merry-
greek suggests, because he is in danger of debt to any
man, or because he fears imprisonment, but because of
love he makes his moan. He has become enamoured
of the fair woman who supped with them yesternight,
and who, he has discovered, dwelleth in the house
where they now are. "What! Christian Custance ?"
Yes and except he has her for his wife, he shall run
mad; he is utterly dead unless he has his desire.
:
"M. Merry. Where be the bellowes that blew this fire ?
R. Roister. I heare she is worthe a thousande pounde and more.”
If she is a widow, he loves her better therefore; and
if she hath made promise to another, he shall go with-
out her, and he were his brother. Matthew has heard
say, he is well advised, that she hath to Gawyn Good-
lucke promised-to Gawyn Goodlucke, a merchant
man; but Ralph says-
"I will have her myne owne selfe, I make God a vow;
For I tell thee, she is worthe a thousande pounde."
He is "sorie God made him so comely doubtlesse
"For that maketh me eche where so highly favoured,
And all women on me so enamoured."
>>
Thereupon Matthew begins to make delightful fun of
Ralph's consummate self-conceit, and assures him that
he has heard the ladies mistaking him for Lancelot of
the Lakes, for Guy of Warwick, for Hector of Troy, for
Goliath, Sampson, Colbrand,* Alexander, and for
Charlemagne !—
* A celebrated Cornish giant.
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"Sir, I pray you, what lorde or great gentleman is this?
Maister Ralph Roister Doister, dame, say I, ywis.
O Lorde (sayeth she then) what a goodly man it is,
Woulde Christ I had such a husbande as he is
Such is your beauty, and such are your acts,
Such is your personage, and such are your facts,
That women, fair and foul, more and less,
They eye you, they love you, they talk of you doubtless."
Ralph, on his part, assures Matthew that he knows
him most thoroughly, and promises him a new coat as
a reward for his appreciative penetration. He is sure
Dame Custance loveth him, but she dare not speak;
and, in the meantime, Matthew will go home and call
the musicians—
"For, in this your case,
It would set you forth, and all your wooing grace."
In the third scene we are introduced to Madge
Mumblecrust* spinning on the distaff, Tibet Talkapace
sewing, and Annot Alyface knitting; with all of
whom Ralph, intent upon his suit with Christian,
endeavours to curry favour with a view to gaining their
assistance. He is particularly attentive to the lady's
nurse, Madge Mumblecrust, whom he bids ask her to
sue him in marriage, for surely for her sake she shall
speed. He will be contented to take her at Madge's
request and for Madge's sake; and then he is repre-
sented as telling her "a long tale in her eare." In
the fourth scene he has brought Matthew Merrygreek
to sound his praises, and he promises Madge a new set
of gear if she will give Dame Custance the letter
which he has written. He has no fear that it will not
have the due effect upon her, because-he wrote it.
* This name was subsequently employed by Dekker in his "Satiro-
mastix" (1602), and by Chettle in his "Pleasant Comedy of Patient
Grissel" (1603).
,
1
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY.
81
}
"Then," says Merrygreek, "it needs no mending.
"I warrant it well," says Ralph. "Here," says the
stage direction, "they sing and go out singing;" but
at present they are so far unsuccessful that, in the fifth
scene, when Madge presents the letter to Christian, the
lady refuses to open it.
The second act opens with the complaint of Dobinet
Doughtie that Ralph, her master, sends her too many
messages, and that if his wooing does not stop soon-
“Two pair of shoes a day will now be too little.”
!
""
"The veriest dolte that ever was borne,
And veriest lubber, sloven and beast,
Living in this worlde from the west to the east."
G
She has been entrusted with a ring and “a token in a
clout" for Dame Christian Custance, and meeting
Truepenie and Tibet Talkapace and Annot Alyface,
she persuades them to undertake her errand for her.
This they do, and are rewarded by such a severe scolding
at the hands of their mistress, as causes them to vow
vengeance against the unhappy lover. Then Matthew
Merrygreek comes to call on Christian, and she declares
that no one hath her faith and troth but one, and that
is Gawyn Goodlucke, and if Matthew has not come
from him, he may return immediately whence he came.
He, on his part, does not pretend to be a friend of
Ralph's, and the two agree that Matthew shall concoct
an answer to him to which Dame Christian will assent,
whatever it be, so long as it be as insulting as he can
devise. Thereupon Matthew goes to Ralph, and gives
him an exaggerated version of the lady's reply, con-
triving to insinuate his own real opinion under cover of
Dame Christian's shield. He declares she called him
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Ralph says he will go home and die; and there ensues
a most amusing colloquy between him and Matthew,
who affects to take him at his word. "Then shall I
bidde tolle the bell ?" "No." “Will ye drinke once
ere ye goe?" "No, no, I will none." "How feele your
soule to God?" "I am nigh gone." "And shall we
hence streight?"
"Yea." "Placebo dilexi," says
Matthew; "Maister Doister Roister will streight go
home and die."
"R. Royster. Heigh how, alas, the pangs of death my hearte do breake.
M. Mery. Holde your peace for shame, sir; a dead man may not
speake.
Nequando: what mourners and what torches shall we have?
R. Royster. None.
M. Mery.
Dirige. He will go darklyng to his grave,
Neque lux, neque crux, neque mourners, neque clinke.
He will steale to heaven, unknowing to God I thinke.
A porta inferi, who shall your goodes possesse ?
R. Royster. Thou shalt be my sectour, and have all more and lesse.
M. Mery. Requiem æternam. Now God reward your mastership,
And I will crie halfepenie doale for your worshyp.'
""
Matthew carries the farce a little farther, pretending
that Ralph is on the point of death, and that some por-
tion of the funeral service may be gone through. But
eventually he suggests to Ralph that he may as well
try the effect of a personal interview with the dame,
and Ralph consents; only "how may he revive being
nowe so farre past ?" Matthew will rub his temples,
and set him up again at last. Ralph thinks it will not
be possible, but Matthew is sure he can do it for
twenty pounds. So the bargain is made. Ralph is to
revive again for an hour or two, put on his boldest
countenance, and encounter the dame face to face. He
does so, and of course meets with an ignominious
rebuff, the lady complaining that he has written her
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 83
'
De bed in a
1
an insulting letter, which turns out to be the very pas-
sage quoted by Wilson in his "Rule of Reason," as a
specimen of unfortunate ambiguity! Certainly, the
ambiguity is unfortunate.
The letter runs thus :-
"Sweete mistresse where as I love you nothing at all,
Regarding your substance and richesse chiefe of all,
To your personage, beauty, demeanour and wit,
I commende me unto you never a whit.
Sorie to heare report of your good welfare,
For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are,
That ye be worthie favour of no living man,
To be abhorred of every honest man,
To be taken for a woman enclined to vice,
Nothing at all to Vertue gyving her due price,
Wherefore concerning mariage, ye are thought
Suche a fine Paragon, as nere honest man bought,
And nowe by these presentes I do you advertise
That I am minded to marrie you in no wise.
For your goodes and substance, I coulde bee content
To take you as you are. If ye mynde to bee my wyfe,
Ye shall be assured for the tyme of my life,
I will keepe ye ryght well, from good rayment and fare,
Ye shall not be kepte but in sorowe and care.
Ye shall in no wyse lyve at your owne libertie,
Doe and say what ye list, ye shall never please me.
But when ye are mery, I will be all sadde,
When ye seeke your heartes ease, I will be unkinde,
At no tyme in me shall ye much gentlenesse finde.
But all things contrary to your will and minde,
Shall be done otherwise I wyll not be behinde
To speake."
And so on, the meaning being susceptible of quite
another interpretation, if the punctuation is properly
arranged.
Ralph, of course, declares he has nothing to do
with it. To be sure "he wrote it," but he did not
compose it. That was done by a certain scrivener to
whom he at once repairs, and whom he tries to bully,
but who quickly puts him right upon the matter.
Ralph then determines to return to Christian and
explain the letter; but meanwhile Sym Suresby, the
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
servant of Gawyn Goodlucke, appears upon the scene,
and is scandalized to hear it said that Dame Custance
has a new lover in the person of Ralph Roister
Doister. She offers to send a token to Gawyn, but Sym
Suresby will have "no tokens this time, gramercies,"
and goes out, leaving the dame enflamed with anger
against the coxcomb who has brought her to this
unhappy pass. She marry Doister? She had rather
match herself with a beggar than marry such a doltish
lout! “Then a straw for her," says Ralph, “and a
straw for her again'
"She shall not be my wife, woulde she never so faine;
No, and though she should be at ten thousand pounde cost."
Matthew Merrygreek, doubtless with a sly twinkle
in his eye, bids the dame behold what a husband
she has lost. Christian then sends for Tristram
Trusty, and she and her maids resolve that if Ralph
makes his appearance again they will give him a
warmer reception than he ever experienced. In the
meantime, Trusty endeavours to console her. Merry-
greek joins them, and assures the dame that he only takes
part in Ralph's efforts at courtship for his own amuse-
ment. He arranges to bring Ralph into her presence
once more, and then, whilst affecting to fight for him,
he will really fight against him. The mélée which
follows is really capitally described, and is amusing
even to the modern reader. All Merrygreek's blows
descend, by a curious accident, upon Ralph's devoted
head, and what with this and the valour of the Ama-
zonian combatants, the poor fop is completely beaten.
All that is wanting, then, to the finishing of the piece
is the reconciliation of the dame with Gawyn Good-
FIRST ENGLISH TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. 85
lucke, and this is effected in the easiest and most
obvious manner, Ralph being finally pardoned and per-
mitted to take part in the general merrymaking.
On the whole the comedy exhibits more real genius
than the tragedy which I have just described, and,
affords a lively picture of the manners of the time in
which the scene is laid. Matthew Merrygreek, espe-
cially, is a remarkably well-conceived character; and if
Ralph Roister Doister is a little too stupid and con-
ceited to be altogether natural, he certainly yields us a
considerable amount of entertainment. The few songs
with which the play is favoured are by no means
despicable as early efforts in a peculiar and difficult
style; and the following has even a certain amount of
rude, native vigour about it :-
"I mun be maried a Sunday,
I mun be maried a Sunday,
Whosoever shall come that way,
I mun be maried a Sunday.
"Royster Doyster is my name,
Royster Doyster is my name,
A lustie brute I am the same,
I mun be maried a Sunday.
"Christian Custance have I founde,
Christian Custance have I founde,
A wydowe worthe a thousande pounde,
I mun be maried a Sunday.
"Custance is as sweete as honey,
Custance is as sweete as honey,
I hir lamb and she my coney,
I mun be maried a Sunday.
"When we shall make our weddyng feast,
When we shall make our weddyng feast,
There shall be cheere for man and beast,
I mun be maried a Sunday."

ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER."
ASCHAM is another of those distinguished men whose
works it is impossible to understand without a prelimi-
nary acquaintance with at least some of the facts of
their life. A man of genius has always some particular
reason for adventuring upon a certain work; he does
not take a subject by haphazard, but is moved to it
generally by circumstances over which he has no con-
trol, invariably by circumstances which require to be
made known to the reader before he can thoroughly
comprehend and enjoy the work in question. Thus it
is obvious Ascham would not have written his "Toxo-
philus, or The Schole of Shootinge," but for his boyish
training in the art of archery, and he would not have
written "The Schoolmaster" if the exigencies of his
profession had not convinced him that the mode of
education common in his time was not the best that it
was possible to devise. It is only too clear that the
literary outcome of a man is inevitably affected by the
most minute incidents of his career, and I therefore
make no apology for summarising, as briefly as pos-
sible, some of the most important points in the life of
Ascham.
✔
ASCHAM'S " SCHOOLMASTER.”
87
He was born in 1515 at Kirby Wiske, a village near
North Allerton, in Yorkshire, and was the son of John
Ascham, a house-steward in the family of Lord Scroop,
and Margaret, a lady of good family, whose maiden
name, however, is not recorded. He passed his earlier
years under the roof and care of his parents, until, at a
still very youthful age, he was adopted into the family
of Sir Humphrey Wingfield, who placed him, with his
own sons, under the instruction of a tutor of the name
of Bond. He seems, even at that time, to have evinced
an unusual fondness for his mother-tongue, which is
not surprising in one who was eventually to become
one of the ablest of our early prose-writers; and one of
his biographers* informs us that he showed considerable
eagerness in reading English books, in preference to
the Latin manuals which were then so prevalent. He
was certainly extremely fortunate in his worthy.
patron, and, what is more surprising, he ever enter-
tained a lively gratitude towards him for his enlight-
ened patronage. Towards the end of "Toxophilus,"
he says, "This communication of teaching youthe,
maketh me to remembre the right worshipfull and my
singuler good mayster, Sir Humphrey Wingfelde, to
whom nexte God, I oughte to refer for his manifolde
benefites bestowed on me, the poore talent of learnyng,
whiche God hath lent me and for his sake do I owe
my
service to all other of the name and noble house of
the Wyngfeldes, bothe in woord and dede. Thys
worshypfull man hath ever loved and used, to have
many children brought up in learnynge in his house
amonges whome I my selfe was one. For whom at
* Grant: "De Vitâ et Obitu Rogeri Aschami."
""
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terme tymes he woulde brynge downe from London
both bowe and shaftes. And when they shuld playe
he woulde go with them him selfe into the fyelde, and
se them shoote, and he that shot fayrest, shulde have
the best bowe and shaftes, and he that shot ilfa-
vouredlye, shoulde be mocked of his felowes, til he shot
better." In this Sir Humphrey was only enforcing
the spirit of that law (3 Henry VIII., c. 3) which
required that all subjects under sixty, not lame,
decrepid, or maimed, or having any other lawful im-
pediment-the clergy, judges, &c., excepted—should,
under a penalty of twelve pence per month, use shoot-
ing in the long bow. Parents were directed to provide
every boy from seven to seventeen years with a bow
and two arrows; after seventeen he was to provide
himself with a bow and four arrows. Every bower,
for every ewe bow he made, was to make "at the lest
ij Bowes of Elme Wiche or other Wode of mean price,”
under penalty of imprisonment for eight days.
M
Here obviously, it was Sir Humphrey's special
passion for the bow and its science which excited in
the youthful Ascham a similar passion, and caused
him, when he went to Cambridge in 1530, to be
regarded with something like pity and astonish-
ment by the scholars there. "His favourite amuse-
ment," says Dr. Johnson, "was archery, on which
he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much
time, that those whom either his faults or virtues
made his enemies, and perhaps some whose kind-
ness wished him always worthily employed, did not
scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a
man professing learning, and perhaps of bad example
ASCHAM'S
89
<c
SCHOOLMASTER.'
in a place of education."* They could not, however,
have been under any alarm lest Ascham's fondness for
archery should interfere with his devotion to the
learned languages. He had been placed at St. John's
College, under Hugh Fitzherbert, through the liberality
of his friend Sir Humphrey, and his university career
amply justified the confidence reposed both in his
talents and industry. Like Fox, he entered college at
a time when "the last great revolution of the intel-
lectual world was filling every academical mind with
ardour and anxiety. The destruction of the Constanti-
nopolitan Empire had driven the Greeks with their
language into the interior parts of Europe. The art
of printing had made the books easily attainable, and
Greek now began to be taught in England. The doc-
trines of Luther had already filled all the nations of the
Romish Communion with controversy and dissension.”
Like Fox, Ascham could not help becoming impreg-
nated by the Protestant tenets, and, like Fox, he was
compelled to entertain his new opinions in secret. To
the eyes of men he was at first simply a young and
rising student, whose proficiency in Greek was such that,
whilst still a youth, he read lectures on the subject to
others who were desirous to be taught; in this being
much commended by Pember, an intimate friend of
Fitzherbert, and a man of great consequence at that
time, who assured him, in a letter of which Grant has
preserved an extract, that he would gain more know-
ledge by explaining one of Esop's fables to a boy,
than by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by
another.
* “Life of Ascham," in Johnson's Works, vol. ix. 1823.
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
He could not, however, long remain a Protestant
without detection, and, as in the case of Fox, once
more there was some difficulty in obtaining the fellow-
ship to which he became entitled in 1534, when
he took his B.A. degree. "Being," he says, "a boy,
new Bacheler of Arte, I chanced amonges my com-
panions to speake against the Pope: which matter was
than in every man's mouth, bycause Dr. Hames and
Dr. Skeppe were cum from the Court, to debate the
same matter, by preaching and disputation in the uni-
versitie. This happed the same tyme, when I stoode
to be felow there: my taulke came to Dr. Medcalfe's*
eare: I was called before him and the seniores: and
after grevous rebukes and some punishment, open warn-
ing was given to all felowes, none to be so hardie as to
give me his voice at the election. And yet for all
those open threates, the good father himself privilie
procured, that I should even then be chosen felow.
But the election being done, he made continuance of
great discontentation thereat. This good man's good-
nes, and fatherlie discretion, used towardes me that
one day, shall never out of my remembrance all the
daycs of my life. And for the same cause, have I put
it here, in this small record of learning.† For next
God's providence, surely that day, was by that good
father's meanes, dies natalis, to me, for the whole
foundation of the poore learning I have, and of all the
farderance that hetherto else where I have obtayned."
This, of course, was written many years after the
events which it describes, and it shows us that ingrati-
tude at least was not one of Ascham's failings. He
†The "Scholemaster."
• The Master of St. John's.
ASCHAM'S “ SCHOOLMASTER.”
91
must, indeed, have been of an unusually lovable and
modest nature, or he could never have obtained equal
and invariable favour from the hands of such different
monarchs as Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and
Elizabeth. In this he was so far like his contemporary,
Udall, and unlike his contemporary Fox, whose sturdy.
and aggressive Protestantism he does not appear to
have shared. He was probably too cultivated a man,
too absorbed in his literary and classical pursuits, to
give much attention to the religious controversies that
marked the times; and those who differed from him on
points of doctrine doubtless agreed to overlook his
shortcomings in this respect in consideration of his
usefulness as a man of learning.
There was as yet no established lecturer on Greek
at Cambridge; so the university appointed Ascham to
read in the open schools, and paid him, we are told,
out of the public purse an honorary stipend, such as
was then reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was
afterwards founded by King Henry, and he then
quitted the schools in favour of private teaching in his
own college. He was not less eminent as a writer of
Latin than as a teacher of Greek. All the public
letters of the university were of his composition; and
we shall see how, in the future, this further accom-
plishment was of service to him in considerably ad-
vancing his fortunes. Up to this time his severe
application to study seems to have told upon his
health, and, after his installation as M.A. in 1537, he
went to visit his parents in Yorkshire, whom he had
not seen for seven years. This was in 1540, and from
that time till 1542 he remained at home, a sufferer
G
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
from quartan fever, his only consolation being occa-
sional attendance at archery meetings, and a pension
of forty shillings (about £40 of present money) from
the Most Reverend Edward Lee, Archbishop of York,
which ceased on the death of the Archbishop in 1544.
(6
It was in the spring of the latter year, and at the
age of twenty-eight, that Ascham began to write his
Toxophilus," which was duly published, with a dedi-
cation to the King, in 1545. Parteleye provoked,"
he tells us,* "by the counsell of some gentlemen, partly
moved by the love whiche I have alwayes borne to-
ward shotyng, I have wrytten this lytle treatise,
wherein if I have not satisfyed any man, I trust he
wyll the rather be content with my doyng, bycause I
am (I suppose) the firste whiche hath sayde any
thynge in this matter (and fewe begynnynges be per-
fect, sayth wyse men), and also bycause yf I have
sayed a misse, I am content that any man amende it,
or yf I have sayd to lytle, any man that wyl to adde
what hym pleaseth to it.
(C
My minde is," he continues, "in profitynge and
pleasynge every man, to hurte or displease no man, in-
tendyng none other purpose, but that youthe myght
be styrred to labour, honest pastyme, and vertue, and
as much as laye in me, plucked from ydlenes, un-
thriftie games, and vice: whiche thing I have laboured
onlye in this booke, showynge howe fit shootyng is for
all kyndes of men, howe honest a pastyme for the
mynde, howe holsome an exercise for the bodye, not
vile for great men to use, not costlye for poore men to
susteyne, not lurking in holes and corners for ill men
* In the Preface "To all gentle men and women in Engiande.'
((
<<
ASCHAM'S SCHOOLMASTER."
93
at theyr pleasure, to misuse it, but abiding in the open
fight and face of the worlde, for good men if it fault
by theyr wisdome to correct it.
"And here," he says, "I would desire all gentle-
men and yomen, to use this pastime in suche a mean,
that the outragiousness of great gamyng shuld not
hurte the honestie of shootyng, which of his owne
nature is always joyned with honestie: yet for mennes
faultes oftentymes blamed unworthely, as all good
thynges have been, and evermore shall be.
"If any man woulde blame me, eyther for takynge
such a matter in hande, or else for writing it in Eng-
lyshe tongue, this answere I may make hym, that
whan the beste of the realme thinke it honest for them
to use, I one of the meanest sorte, ought not to sup-
pose it vile for me to write. And though to have
written it in any other tonge, had bene bothe more
profitable for my study, and also more honest for my
name, yet I can thinke my labour wel bestowed, yf
with a little hynderaunce of my profyt and name,
maye come any fourtheraunce, to the pleasure or com-
moditie, of the gentlemen and yeomen of Englande,
for whose sake I tooke this matter in hande. As for
ye Latin or Greek tonge, everything is so excellently
done in them that none can do better. In the Englysh
tonge contrary, every thinge in a maner so meanly,
bothe for the matter and handelynge, that no man
can do worse.' This, to be sure, seems a strange
thing for a man to say who lived to see the Book of
Common Prayer composed and published; yet it must
be remembered that, up to the time of Ascham, the
only English prose writers of any eminence whatever
""
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
had been Lord Berners* and Sir Thomas More; and
for an English author to write any considerable work in
his own native tongue was to perform a very unusual
and unpopular task.
At the same time, it is curious that the new-born
love of English should have come from those who were
accounted most learned in, and therefore presumably
most prejudiced in favour of, the classic languages.
Sir John Cheke, who had been Ascham's tutor,† and
was at all times highly respected by him, had written,
in 1537, "I am of opinion that our own tung shold
be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangled
with borowing of other tunges, wherein if we take
not heed bi tijm, ever borowing and never payeng, she
shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. For then
doth our tung naturallie and praisablie utter her
meaning, when she bouroweth no counterfeitness of
other tunges to attire her self with all, but useth
plainlie her own with such shift, as nature craft, expe-
riens, and folowing of other excellent doth lead her
unto, and if she want at ani tijm (as being imper-
sight she must) yet let her borow with suche bashful-
nes, that it mai appeer, that if either the mould of
our own tong could serve us to fascion a woord of our
own, or if the old denisoned wordes could content and
ease this neede we wold not boldly venture of un-
known wordes."
"He," says Ascham, in his preface,
"that wyll
write well in any tongue, must folowe thys councel of
* The translator of Froissart's "Chronicle," and other works.
See Wood's "Athenæ," Fuller's "Worthies," Walpole's "Royal and
Noble Authors," and D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature."
+ "Who taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek."-MILTON.
ASCHAM'S “SCHOOLMASTER.”
95
Aristotle, to speake as the common people do, to
thinke as wise men do; and so shoulde every man
understand hym, and the judgement of wyse men
alowe hym. Many English writers have not done
so, but using straunge wordes as Latin, French, and
Italian, do make all thinges darke and harde. Ones I
communed with a man whiche reasoned the Englyshe
tongue to be enryched and encreased thereby, sayinge:
Who wyll not prayse that feaste, where a man shall
drinke at a diner, both wyne, ale and beere? Truly,
quod I, they be all good, every one taken by hym selfe
alone, but if you putte malvesye and sacke, read wyne
and white, ale and beere, and al in one pot, you shall
make a drynke, neyther easie to be knowen, nor yet
holsom for the bodye." *
It should be stated that "The Schole of Shooting"
is in two parts, and in the form of a conversation
between two college fellows-Toxophilus, the lover of
archery, and Philologus, the lover of learning—who
discourse, beside the wheat-fields in the neighbourhood
of Cambridge, throughout one long summer's after-
noon, concerning the respective qualities of "The
Booke and the Bowe." In the first part the author
commends the use of the bow as a "most honest
pastyme," "fit," not only "for princes and greate
men," but "for scholers and students;" much "fitter
for studentes than any musicke or instrumentes," and
*This, however, is a very one-sided view of the case. It is well
not to admit into the language unsuitable or unnecessary words; but
surely it is the glory of our English tongue that it does not disdain to
add to its resources from every available quarter. Our language
would not be what it is-the richest and most expressive in the
world, if it had not incorporated in itself a very large proportion of
foreign words and phrases.
96
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
one in which no man can have too much practice. In
peace it excludes all ignoble and unlawful games, such
as cards and dice; and in war it gives a nation
strength. Men should therefore excel in it, and make
it a study. In the second part he goes into the details
of shooting, and all through the work, "not only,"
says Mr. Arber,* "are the main arguments inter-
woven with a most earnest moral purpose, but they
are enlivened by frequent and charming discursions,
in the which he often lays down great principles, or
illustrates them from the circumstances of his time."
The work was duly presented to the King, at an
audience vouchsafed to the author in the gallery at
Greenwich Palace; and Ascham received as a reward
a pension of £10, which was continued and increased
by Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, at their succes-
sive accessions.
After this, Ascham was so ill that he was unable
to reside at Cambridge; but by-and-by he was well
enough to accept the appointment of Public Orator to
the University, vacated by the death of Sir John
Cheke, and including the duty of conducting the cor-
respondence of the academical body. He also became
tutor to the young Prince of Wales, and was probably
engaged in teaching writing, for which he was always
famous, to many illustrious persons, such as Henry
and Charles, Dukes of Suffolk, and the Princess Eliza-
beth. King Henry died in 1547, and with the acces-
sion of Prince Edward came the appointment of
Ascham as tutor to the King's eldest sister. But he
did not retain this long. He appears to have quarrelled
"English Reprints:" Toxophilus.
ASCHAM'S “SCHOOLMASTER.”
97
with some of the Princess's servants, and left her, it is
said, at the end of the second year, without asking her
permission to do so; with the result that, when the
lady eventually came to the throne, she did not show
him so much favour as he might fairly have expected
under different circumstances.
He was destined, however, to receive promotion
in a different way. Whilst at home in the country
he was informed that he had been appointed secretary
to Sir Richard Monson, who was going out as
ambassador to Charles V.; and on his way to town
he had that famous interview with the unfortunate
Lady Jane Grey, of which he has left so graphic
an account in his "Scholemaster."* The embassy
embarked in September, 1550, and reached Augsburg
in the following month, from which time till July,
1553, he seems to have travelled over the greater
part of Germany, and finally to have made a short
excursion into Italy, the vices of whose people he
severely reprobates in his most famous work. It
was in the course of this visit to the Continent that
he wrote (probably, it is thought, from Spires) his
Report and Discourse of the Affaires and State of
Germany and the Emperour Charles his Court," which
was published in London in 1553. The death of
Edward then brought him back to England, and,
though a Protestant, he found he had been appointed
Latin secretary to Philip and Mary, with a salary of
£20 a year.† This was in 1554. In the same year
(6
* See post, p. 107.
† He obtained this appointment by favour of the very Bishop
Gardiner who had been so bitter a persecutor of John Fox!
H
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
he threw up his fellowship at Cambridge, and married
Margaret Howe, a young lady of good family, who
afterwards gave his "Scholemaster" to the world. In
the reign of Elizabeth he was presented with the
prebend of Wetwang in York Cathedral, but other-
wise he was not honoured with any special marks of
favour, and his last years do not appear to have been
particularly happy. His constitution had been en-
feebled by constant attacks of ague; and by impru-
dently sitting up late at night to finish some verses
which he intended to present to the Queen as a New-
Year's gift, he contracted a dangerous malady, which
eventually resulted in his death on December 30, 1568.
It is a curious fact that during his last moments he
was attended by Dean Nowell, who preached his
funeral sermon, and testified that he never saw or
heard of a person of greater integrity of life, or one
who was blessed by a more Christian dissolution. The
Queen said she would rather have lost ten thousand
pounds than have lost her old tutor, Ascham; and
Buchanan did honour to his memory in the following
epitaph:
"Aschamum extinctum patriae, Graiaeque Camoenae,
Et Latiae verâ cum pietate dolent,
Principibus vixit carus, jucundis amicis,
Re modicâ, in mores dicere fama nequit;
which was thus translated by Archdeacon Wrangham:
“O'er Ascham, withering in his narrow urn,
The Muses-English, Grecian, Roman-mourn;
Though poor, to greatness dear, to friendship just;
No scandal's self can taint his hallowed dust."
It was not till the second year after Ascham's death,
• Cooper's "Athenæ Cantabrigiensis."
""
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.”
99
that his longest and most important work was printed
under the auspices of his affectionate widow. The
title-page read as follows:-"The Scholemaster; Or
plaine and perfite way of teachyng children to under-
stand, write, and speake, in Latin tong, but specially
purposed for the private brynging up of youth in
Jentlemen and Noble mens houses, and commodious
also for all such, as have forgot the Latin tonge, and
would by themselves, withoute a Scholemaster, in short
tyme, and with small paines, recover a sufficient
habilite, to understand, write, and speake Latin. By
Roger Ascham. An. 1570. At London. Printed by
John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate."*
In the preface "to the honorable Sir William Cecill
Knight, principall Secretarie to the Quenes most excel-
lent Maiestie," Mrs. Ascham describes herself as a
poor widow left with "a great sorte of orphanes,” and
"good comfort in the hope of his good continuance;"
beseeching him to take on him the defence of the book,
and to advance the good that may come of it by his
allowance and furtherance to public use and benefit.
In the preface to the reader, Ascham himself gives
an account of the origin of the work, which appears
to have arisen out of a dinner given by Sir William
Cecil on the 10th day of December, 1563. There
were present on this occasion, beside the Secretary and
our author, Sir William Peter, Sir J. Mason, D.
Wotton, Sir Richard Sackville, Sir Walter Mildmay,
M. Haddon, John Astley, Bernard Hampton, and
* Reprinted, with notes, by Upton, in 1711; by Mayor, in 1863;
and by Arber, 1870. Also, in Ascham's "Works," by Bennet, in
1771; by Cochrane, in 1815; and by Giles, in 1864.
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…………..
...
CLEAN
others; "of which number," says Ascham, "the
most part were of hir Maiesties most honourable privie
Counsell, and the reast serving hir in verie good
place. I was glad than, and do rejoice yet to re-
member, that my chance was so happie, to be there
that day, in the company of so manie wise and good
men togither, as hardly could have been picked out
againe, out of all England beside." They had not long
sat at table, when the Secretary said he had had
strange news brought to him that morning, to the
effect that divers scholars of Eton had run away from
the school for fear of beating. Whereupon he took
occasion to express his wish that schoolmasters would
use more discretion in their punishments than was
usually the case. Many times, he said, they punished
rather the weakness of nature than the fault of the
scholar, and the consequence was that many scholars,
who might otherwise have done well, were driven to
hate learning before they knew what learning meant.
Most of the other gentlemen who were present ex-
pressed a very similar opinion, and by-and-by, after
Ascham had gone to read Greek with her Majesty,
Sir Richard Sackville came up also, and finding
Ascham in her Majesty's private chamber, took him
aside to the window, and said that he would not, for a
good deal of money, have been absent from that
dinner. He had himself suffered from an unkind
schoolmaster, and was so determined that his grandson
should not suffer from the same indignities, that he
begged Ascham would point out a schoolmaster who
should teach young Sackville and the young Aschams
also, and for all the rest he would provide, yea, though
•>
IOI
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.”
they three cost him a couple of hundred pounds a
year. He and Ascham then had farther talk together
concerning the bringing up of children, and Sir
Richard said he had heard Ascham say not long ago
that he might thank Sir John Cheke for all the learn-
ing he had, and he knew very well, himself, that he did
teach the Queen. And therefore seeing that God did
so bless him as to make him the scholar of the best
master, and also the schoolmaster of the best scholar,
that ever were in those times, surely he would please
God, benefit his country, and honest his own name, if
he would take the pains to impart to others what he
learned of such a master, and how he taught such a
scholar. "I," says Ascham, "beginning some farther
excuse, sodenlie was called to cum to the Queene. The
night following I slept little, my head was so full of
this our former taulke, and I so mindefull, somewhat
to satisfie the honest request of so deare a frend. I
thought to praepare some litle treatise for a New-
Yeares gift that Christmas. But, as it chanced to
busie builders, so in building thys my poor Schoole-
house (the rather because the forme of it is somewhat
newe, and differing from others), the worke rose dailie
higher and wider, than I thought it would at the
beginninge."
It appears to have been commenced in December,
1563, and to have been composed at intervals between
that date and the death of Sir Richard Sackville,
which happened in July, 1566. It was then thrown
aside, "scattered and neglected," as the author tells
us, "for almost two yeares together," when it was
at last completed, as we now possess it, under the
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encouragement of Sir William Cecil, in the last few
months of Ascham's life.
"If a guess might be hazarded," says Mr. Arber,
"it would seem that the author had but gathered the
materials together, up to Sir Richard Sackville's death,
and that he wove them together in their present form,
after he resumed the book. The allusion to the Queen's
visit to Cambridge as 'late being there,' would show
that that part was written about 1565; while the
phrase, 'Sir Rychard Sackville, that worthy Jentle-
man, of worthie memorie, as I said in the begynnynge,'
would prove that at least The Praeface' and the
Invective against Italianated Englishmen were written
after the resumption of the book in 1568; and, con-
sequently, that it was after then that the work was
finally planned. The first book was then completed,
and the second far proceeded with, when Death parted
for ever the busy worker from his Book. This is
also confirmed by Ascham's last letter to Sturm, which
proves him to have been intent on the work just before
his decease."
(
The first book of "The Scholemaster" treats of
"the bringing up of youth;" the second, of "the
ready way to the Latin tong."
In the first book, Ascham begins by explaining in
detail the manner in which Latin should be taught,
laying great stress upon the point that the scholar
shall be taught “cheerfullie and plainlie," and strongly
advising that he shall not be asked to speak the
language upon common occasions. "For, as Cicero
saith in like matter, loquendo male loqui discunt. And,
that excellent learned man, G. Budæus, in his Greeke
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.”
103
Commentaries, forecomplaineth, that whan he began to
learne the latin tonge, use of speaking latin at the
table, and elsewhere, unadvisedlie, did bring him to
such an evill choice of wordes, to soch a crooked
framing of sentences, that no one thing did hurt or
hinder him more, all the daies of his life afterward,
both for redinesse in speaking, and also good judgment
in writinge."
Ascham lays equal stress upon the necessity of
being kind to children. "If," he says, "your scholer
do misse sometimes in working rightly
chide
not hastelie, for that shall both dull his witte, and
discourage his diligence: but monish him gentelie:
which shall make him both willing to amende, and
glad to go forward in love and hope of learning.
I do gladlie,” he continues, "agree with all good schole-
masters in these pointes: to have children brought to
good perfitnes in learning: to all honestie in manners:
to have all faultes rightlie amended: to have everie
vice severelie corrected: but for the order and waie
that leadeth rightlie to these pointes, we somewhat
differ. For commonlie many scholemasters, some, as I
have seen, mae, as I have heard tell, be of so crooked
a nature, as, when they meete with a hardwitted
scholer, they rather breake him than bowe him,
rather marre him, than mend him. For whan the
scholemaster is angrie with some other matter, then
will he sonest faul to beate his scholer: and though he
him selfe should be punished for his folie, yet must he
beate some scholer for his pleasure, though there be
no cause for him to do so, nor yet fault in the scholer
to deserve so. These ye will say, be fond schole.
•
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masters, and fewe be they, that be found to be soch
They be fonde indeede, but surelie over-many soch
be found everie where. But this will I say, that oven
the wisest of your great beaters, do as oft punishe
nature, as they do correcte faultes. Yea, many times,
the better nature, is sore punished. For, if one, by
quicknes of witte, take his lesson readelie, an other,
by hardnes of witte, taketh it not so speedelie: the
first is alwaies commended, the other is commonlie
punished, whan a wise scholemaster should rather dis-
cretelie consider the right disposition of both their
natures, and not so much wey what either of them
is able to do now, as what either of them is likelie to
do hereafter."
(6
Ascham here enters into a long disquisition on the
difference between hard wits and quick wits, and
complains that scholars are sent to the university (as
we know they were sent, in his time) at too young an
age. There are, he says, seven plaine notes to choise
a good witte in a child for learninge," and these are
the seven desiderated by Socrates in Plato's "Re-
public." First, Evpvès, or "he who is apte by
goodnes of witte, and applicable by redines of will,
to learning, having all other qualities of the minde
and partes of the bodie,* that must an other day
serve learning, not troubled, mangled, and halfed, but
sound, whole, full, and hable to do their office."
Second, Mvijuwv, or "good of memorie, a speciall
parte of the first note čupuǹs, and a mere benefite of
* "How," says Ascham, "can a cumlie bodie be better employed
than to serve the fairest exercise of Goddes greatest gifte, and that is
learning?"
ASCHAM'S “SCHOOLMASTER.”
105
nature yet it is so necessarie to learning." Third
Φιλομαθής,
Þîλoµalýs, or “given to love learning; for though
a childe have all the giftes of nature at wishe, and
perfection of memorie at will, yet if he have not a
speciall love to learning, he shall never attain to
moch learning. Fourth, Þîλóπovos, or "he that hath a
lust to laboor, and a will to take paines. For, if a
childe have all the benefites of nature, with perfection
of memorie, love, like, and praise learning never so
moch, yet if he be not of him selfe painefull, he shall
never attayne unto it." Fifth, iλýkoos, or "he that
is glad to heare and learne of an other. For other-
wise he shall sticke with great troble, where he might
go easelie forwarde; and also catch hardlie a verie
little by his owne toyle, when he might gather quicklie
a good deale, by an other man's teaching." Sixth,
Ζητητικός,
Zηtηtïkòs, or “he that is naturallie bold to aske any
question, desirous to search out any doubte, not
ashamed to learne of the meanest, not afraide to go to
the greatest, until he be perfitelie taught, and fullie
satisfiede." The Seventh and last point is iλéπaivos,
Φιλέπαινος,
or "he that loveth to be praised for well doing, at his
father's, or master's hand. "A childe of this nature,'
says Ascham, "will earnestlie love learnyng, gladlie
labor for learning, willingly learne of others, boldlie
aske any doubte. And thus, by Socrates judgment, a
good father, and a wise scholemaster, shold chose a
childe to make a scholer of, that hath by nature, the
foresayd the perfite qualities, and cumlie furniture,
both of mynde and bodie, hath memorie, quick to
receyve, sure to keape, and ready to deliver: hath love
to learning: hath lust to labor: hath desire to learne of
"
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others hath boldnes to aske any question: hath minde
hɔlie bent, to wynne praise by well doing."
(6
Having thus described his ideal of a perfect scholar,
Ascham returns once more to advocate the law of kind-
ness in the treatment of young learners. Against
those who laugh at such a law, and say that they
never saw a good scholemaster do so, nor never red
of wise man that thought so," he quotes the dictum.
of Socrates, Οὐδὲν μάθημα μετα δουλείας χρὴ μανθάνειν,
οἱ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ σώματος πόνοι βιᾴ πονούμενοι χεῖρον
οὐδίν τὸ σῶμα ἀπερνάξονται; ψυχῇ δε, βίαιον οὐδὲν
ëμμovov µálnμa; in English, thus :-"No learning
ought to be learned with bondage: For, bodelie labors,
wrought by compulsion, hurt not the bodie: but any
learning learned by compulsion, tarieth not long in
the mynde: And why? For what soever the mynde
doth learne unwillinglie with fear, the same it doth
quicklie forget without care." Some will say, how-
ever, that children naturally love pastime and dislike
learning, because the one is easy and pleasant and the
other is hard and wearisome: which, says Ascham, is
an opinion not so true as some men ween; for, if ever
the nature of man be given at any time, more than
another, to receive goodness, it is in the innocency of
young years, before experience of evil has taken root.
Children, he thinks, kept, as they are, in God's fear,
and governed by His grace, may surely be most easily
brought to serve well God and country both by virtue
and wisdom.
"And one example," he says, "whether love or
feare doth worke more in a child for vertue and learn-
ing, I will gladlie report: which maie be heard with
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER."
107
'
some pleasure, and folowed with more profit. Before
I went into Germaine I came to Brodegate in Leicester-
shire, to take leave of that noble Ladie, Jane Grey, to
whom I was exceeding moch beholdinge. Her parents,
the duke and duches, with all the household, gentlemen
and gentlewomen, were hunting in the parks: I founde
her, in her chamber, reading Phædon Platonis' in
Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som ientlemen
wold read a merie tale in Bocase.' After salutation,
and dewtie done, with som other taulke, I asked her,
whie she wold leefe soch pastime in the parke?
Smiling, she answered me, I wisse, all this sporte in the
parke is but a shadde to that pleasure, that I find in
Plato.' Alas good folke, they never felt, what trewe
pleasure ment. And how came you, madame, quoth I,
to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did
chieflie allure you unto it, seinge, not many women,
but verie fewe men have atteined thereunto? I will
tell you, quoth she, and tell you a troth, which per-
chance ye will mervell at. One of the greatest
benefites, that ever God gave me, is, that He sent me
so sharpe and severe parentes, and so ientle a schole-
master. For when I am in presence either of father
or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand,
or go, eate, drinke, be merie or sad, be sowyng,
plaiyng, dauncing, or doing aine thing els, I must do
it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number,
even so perfitelie, as God made the world, or else I
am so sharply taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea,
presentlie some tymes, with punches, nippes, and
bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name, for the
honor I beare them, so without measure misordered,
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
that I think my selfe in hell, till tyme cum, that I
must go to M. Elmer, who teacheth me so ientlie, so
pleasantlie, with soch faire allurements to learning,
that I thinke all the tyme nothing, while I am with
him. And when I am called from him, I fall to
weeping, because, what soever I do els, but learning,
is ful of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking
unto me. And thus, my booke, hath bene so moch
my pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other
pleasures, in very deede, be but trifles and trouble
unto me. I remember this talke gladly, both because
it is so worthy of memorie, and because also, it was
the last talke that ever I had, and the last tyme, that
ever I saw that noble and worthie Ladie."
"I could be over long," he continues, "both in
showing just causes, and in reciting true examples,
why learning shold be taught, rather by love than
feare." He that would read a perfect discourse of it
should peruse that learned treatise which his friend
Sturmius wrote-" De Institutione Principis "-to the
Duke of Cleves. The godly counsels of Solomon and
Jesus, son of Sirach, for sharp keeping in and bridling
of youth, are meant, he thinks, rather for fatherly
correction than for masterful beating, rather for manners
than for learning, for other places than for schools.
At the same time, God forbid that all evil touches,
wantoness, lying, picking, sloth, will, stubborness, and
disobedience, should be daily cut away with sharp
chastisement. Among the Greeks and Romans, chil-
dren were under the care of three separate persons,
præceptor, pedagogo, parente; of whom the preceptor
taught them learning with all gentleness, the peda-
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.”
109
gogue corrected their manners with much sharpness,
and the father "held the stern" of all their obedience.
But nowadays the schoolmaster is used both as a
preceptor in learning and as a pedagogue in manners.
Ascham is quite willing that faults in life and
manner shall be severely reprobated, and a large
portion of his first book is devoted to a castigation of
the young men of his time. He complains that whereas,
in the olden time, the greatest respect was paid by
youth to age, in his own time the young gentlemen of
the Court did exactly as they pleased, and especially
from seventeen to seven-and-twenty ("the most danger-
ous tyme of all a man's life, and most slipperie to stay
well in ") they had commonly "the reigne of all licens
in their owne hand." The consequence was that the
meaner men's children came to be the wisest counsellors
and the greatest doers in the weighty affairs of the
realm. Nobility, he remarks, without virtue and wis-
dom, is blood indeed, but blood truly without bones
and sinews, and so of itself, without the other, very
weak to bear the burden of such important matters;
whereas, nobility, governed by learning and wisdom,
is indeed most like a fair ship, having tide and wind
at will, under the rule of a skilful master. Perhaps
it is that the young men of the better class get into
bad company, and so are led astray. Certainly error,
and what he terms phantasy, do commonly occupy
with them the place of truth and judgment. It is
considered unmanly to blush, although Zenophon says
of Cyrus that his bashfulness in youth was the very
sign of his virtue and stoutness afterwards, and
although Aristotle says that blushing in youth is
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nothing else but the fear to do ill. Now, to dare to do
any mischief, to condemn stoutly any goodness, to be
busy in every matter, to be skilful in everything, to
acknowledge no ignorance at all, is counted by some
at Court the chief and greatest grace of all. For this
the only remedy, he thinks, is in making good common
laws for the whole realm, and also in observing private
discipline every man carefully in his own house,-
not so much in teaching youth what is good as in
keeping them from what is ill. Innocence, he says,
is the great thing to be desiderated in young people.
He once more refers to the virtuous upbringing of
the Grecian youths, and declares that the best of that
which has been ever written has been written in the
Grecian tongue. Learning, he says, teaches more in
one year than experience in twenty, and learning
teaches safely, whilst experience makes more miserable
than wise. It is, in fact, what Ascham terms the
schoolhouse of fools. Yet he does not mean that
young gentlemen are always to be poring over a book.
It is well known that he loves, and has always loved,
all exercises and pastimes, and he would wish that all
young gentlemen should join and excel in them.*
Great men at Court, by their example, make or mar
all other men, as well in religion as in manners; and
therefore he wishes that two or three noble men
would but begin to shoot, for then the whole Court,
all London, the whole realm, would straightway exer-
cise shooting.
* As, however, Ascham recommends the cockpit as a form of
amusement, this is a particular in which his advice is scarcely to be
followed.
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.'
""
III
After this comes that vigorous condemnation of the
"Italianated" Englishman, which is one of the leading
features of the work. Sir Richard Sackville had long
ago asked him what he thought concerning the fancy
that many young gentlemen had to travel abroad, and
especially to lead a long life in Italy. And to this
Ascham replied, that he took going thither, and living
there, for a young gentleman that did not go under
the keep and guard of such a man as both by wisdom
can, and authority dare, rule him, to be marvellously
dangerous. For Italy was not now as it was wont
to be. Virtue once made that country mistress over
all the world. Vice now made that country a slave to
them that before were glad to serve it. Therefore, if
wise men must needs send their sons into Italy, let them
do it wisely, under the keep and guard of him who, by
his wisdom and honesty, by his example and authority,
may be able to keep them safe and sound, in the fear
of God, in Christ's true religion, in good order and
honesty of living. Otherwise they will run headlong
into over-many jeopardies, as Ulysses had done many
times if Pallas had not always governed him. Ascham
himself knew divers that went out of England, men of
innocent life, men of excellent learning, who returned
out of Italy not only with worse manners, but also
with less learning; neither so willing to live orderly,
nor yet so able to speak learnedly as they were at
home, before they went abroad. And it was so with
every one.
The Italianated Englishman brought back
with him, for religion, papistry or worse; for learn-
ing, less commonly than they carried out with them;
for policy, a factious heart, a discoursing head, a
II2
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
mind to meddle in all men's matters; for experience,
plenty of new mischiefs never known in England
before; for manners, variety of vanities and change of
filthy living. These be the enchantments of Circe,
brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England;
much by example of ill life, but more by precepts of
fond books, of late translated out of Italian into
English, sold in every shop in London, commended by
honest titles, the sooner to corrupt honest manners;
dedicated over-boldly to virtuous and honourable per-
sonages, the easier to beguile simple and innocent
wits. It is a pity, says Ascham, that those which have
authority and charge to allow and disallow books to be
printed, be no more circumspect herein than they are.
Ten sermons at Paul's Cross do not do so much for
moving men to true doctrine, as one of those books do
harm with inticing men to ill living. More Papists
be made by your merry books of Italy than by your
earnest books of Louvain.
We, who remember that some of the great glories
of our literature are owing to the influence exercised
by the Italian works of genius upon our men of
letters, will be slow to sympathize with Ascham in
his wholesale censure. But that the laxity of Italian
manners had an evil effect upon the morals of young
Englishmen in the days of Elizabeth, is only too true,
and so sincere a Protestant as Ascham may be par-
doned if he was betrayed into the use of language
which at first appears to us a little harsh and uncalled
for.
In the second book of the "Schoolmaster," which
treats of "the ready way to the Latin tong," he has
ASCHAM'S "SCHOOLMASTER.'
113
few opportunities for the enforcement of his moral
precepts. He opens with a continuation of his method
of teaching that language, and then passes on to an
enumeration of the six ways appointed by learned men
for the learning of tongues and the increase of elo-
quence—namely, translation, paraphrase, metaphrase,
epitome, imitation, and declamation. Next follow dis-
quisitions on "the true differences of authors" and the
purity of the Latin tongue, in the latter of which the
author takes occasion to favour us with criticisms upon
Plautus, Terence, Varro, Sallust, and Cæsar, which
have little interest for the modern reader.

Bud
I

GALE
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
"No man," writes Horace Walpole in his "Catalogue
of Royal and Noble Authors,"* "seems to me so
astonishing an object of temporary admiration as the
celebrated friend of the Lord Brooke, the famous Sir
Philip Sidney. The learned of Europe dedicated their
works to him; the republic of Poland thought him at
least worthy to be in the nomination for their crown.
All the Muses of England wept his death. When we,
at this distance of time, inquire what prodigious merits
excited such admiration, what do we find? Great
valour. But it was an age of heroes. In full of other
talents, we have a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pas-
toral romance, which the patience of a young virgin
in love cannot now wade through; and some absurd
attempts to fetter English verse in Roman chains †-
a proof that this applauded author understood little of
the genius of his own language. The few of his letters
extant are poor matters; one, to a steward of his
* Page 128, ed. 1796, under "Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke."
Walpole did not deign to accord a separate chapter to so undis-
tinguished a personage as Sir Philip Sidney!
Thus Pope:—
"Anl Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet."
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
115
father, an instance of unwarrantable violence. By far
the best presumption of his abilities (to us who can
judge only by what we see) is a pamphlet published
amongst the 'Sidney Papers,' being an answer to the
famous libel called Leicester's Commonwealth.' It
defends his uncle with great spirit. What had been
said in derogation to their blood seems to have touched
Sir Philip most. He died with the rashness of a volun-
teer, after having lived to write with the sans froid [sic]
and prolixity of Mademoiselle Scuderi.”
No passage more damaging to Walpole's reputation
as a man and a critic could possibly have been written.
The clever dilettante of the eighteenth century was
quite unable to understand the noble hero of the six-
teenth century, and the result is painful even to those
who are willing to recognise in the author of the
"Castle of Otranto" a man of considerable literary
tact and aptitude. It is true enough that we have few
means of judging of the reality of Sidney's fame; we
have nothing but the testimony of his contemporaries
to assure us of his popularity as a friend, his brilliancy
as a courtier, and his bravery as a soldier; but surely
it is sufficient to say of Sidney that he was born laudari
a viris laudatis, that he was considered a great man
among the great, and that his death was the signal for
universal lamentation among his afflicted countrymen.
The finical little censor of Strawberry Hill is good
enough to sneer at the manner in which Sidney met
his fate; but the story of Sidney on the field of Zutphen
is one which still lingers in the memory of English-
men, and is one, moreover, which the world will not
willingly let die.
"Such was this young man," says
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Mr. Friswell, "that even his Spanish enemies bewailed
him; the peasant at Penshurst, the courtier with his
Queen, the great Queen herself, the meanest soldier in
the camp lamented him, and above two hundred authors
wrote sad elegies on his death. Brought home to
London, the streets were thronged; the lord mayor
and aldermen, robed in purple, and on stately horses;
the deputies from foreign states, came forth to follow
his ashes; English men and women wept and sobbed
aloud, and lamented for him as a brother, and as the
most beloved and first true gentleman of Europe."
There must have been some reason for all this enthu-
siasm; and the voice of Elizabethan England may
be taken as more valuable, perhaps, than even the ipse
dixit of a Horace Walpole or a William Hazlitt.
For Walpole is not the only one of the detractors
of Sir Philip Sidney. The "Arcadia" was unable to
satisfy the acute but acrid author of the "New Pygma-
lion," and Hazlitt devotes a portion of his "Lectures
on the Age of Elizabeth" to a statement of his reasons
for his dissatisfaction. "Sir Philip Sidney,” he says,
"is a writer for whom I cannot acquire a taste. As
Mr. Burke said he could not love the French republic,
SO I may say that I cannot love 'The Countess of Pem-
broke's Arcadia' with all my good-will to it. . . It
is to me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of
intellectual power on record. It puts one in mind of
the court dresses and preposterous fashions of the time,
which are grown obsolete and disgusting. It is not
romantic, but scholastic; not poetry, but casuistry; not
nature, but art, and the worst sort of art, which thinks
it can do better than nature. Of the number of fine
;
SIDNEY'S " ARCADIA."
117
things that are constantly passing through the author's
mind, there is hardly one that he has not contrived to
spoil, and to spoil purposely and maliciously, in order
to aggrandise our idea of himself. Out of five hundred
folio pages, there are hardly, I conceive, half-a-dozen
sentences expressed simply and directly, with the
sincere desire to convey the image implied, and with-
out a systematic interpolation of the wit, learning,
ingenuity, wisdom, and everlasting impertinence of
the writer, so as to disguise the object, instead of dis-
playing it in its true colours and real proportions . . .
Imagine a writer to have great natural talents, great
powers of memory and invention, an eye for nature, a
knowledge of the passions, much learning and equal
industry; but that he is so full of a consciousness of
all this, and so determined to make the reader conscious
of it at every step, that he becomes a complete intel-
lectual coxcomb, or nearly so;-that he never lets a
casual observation pass without perplexing it with an
endless running commentary, that he never states a
feeling without so many circumambages, without so
many interlineations and parenthetical remarks on all
that can be said for it, and anticipations of all that car
be said against it, and that he never mentions a fac
without giving so many circumstances and conjuring
up so many things that it is like or not like, that you
lose the main clue of the story in its infinite ramifica-
tions and intersections ;-and we may form some faint
idea of the 'Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia,' which
is spun with great labour out of the author's brains,
and hangs like a huge cobweb over the face of nature !
In a word," says Hazlitt, "(and not to speak
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it profanely) the 'Arcadia' is a riddle, a rebus, an
acrostic in folio: it contains about four thousand far-
fetched similes, and six thousand impracticable dilem-
mas, about ten thousand reasons for doing nothing at all,
and as many more against it; numberless alliterations,
puns, questions, and commands, and other figures of
rhetoric; about a score good passages, that one may
turn to with pleasure, and the most involved, irksome,
unprogressive, and heteroclite subject that ever was
chosen to exercise the pen or patience of man.
It no
longer adorns the toilette or lies upon the pillow of
maids of honour and peeresses in their own right (the
Pamelas and Philocleas of a later age), but remains.
upon the shelves of the libraries of the curious in long
works and great names, a monument to show that the
author was one of the ablest men and worst writers of
the age of Elizabeth."
All this, of course, is very clever and well-written,
and portions of it, doubtless, have a substratum of
substantial fact. But it would be unfair to judge of
the "Arcadia" as a whole from the peculiar point of
view of William Hazlitt.* I am unable to believe
that Sidney set to work "purposely and maliciously'
to spoil all his fine things, "in order to aggrandise
our idea of himself." I cannot see any trace of the
"intellectual coxcomb," or observe that there is any-
thing in Sidney's style so terribly tortuous and affected
as Hazlitt describes it. He admits that there are some
""
"
'
* "The decisions of the author of Table Talk,'" says Lamb, "are
more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and authors he has a
partiality for, than on such as he has conceived an accidental prejudice
against. And that he had conceived such a prejudice against Sir
Philip Sidney is sufficiently obvious throughout his criticism.
SIDNEY'S “ ARCADIA."
119
fine passages in it; and for the rest, it is sufficient to
turn to the testimony of more generous writers. We
find Gabriel Harvey saying, "Live ever, sweete,
sweete booke. The simple image of his gentle witt,
and the golden pillar of his noble carriage, ever notify
unto the world that the writer was the secretary
of eloquence, the breath of the Muses, the honey-bee
of the daintiest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of
morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona
in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the
spirite of Practice in esse, and the paragon of excellency
in print."* Heylin, the author of a "Description of
Arcadia in Greece," praises the "excellent language,
rare contrivances, and delectable stories" of Sidney's
work, and says it has "in it all the strains of poesy,
comprehendeth the universal art of speaking, and, to
them who can discern and will observe, affordeth
notable rules for demeanour, both public and private."
"There are passages in this work," says Zouch,t" ex-
quisitely beautiful,-useful observations on life and
manners, a variety and accurate discrimination of
character, fine sentiments expressed in strong and
adequate terms, animated descriptions, equal to any
that occur in the ancient or modern poets, sage lessons.
of morality, and judicious reflections on government
and policy." Hakewell thought the "Arcadia" "no-
thing inferior to the choicest piece among the ancients,
and Dr. Drake was of opinion that no other proșe
fictions contained so much apophthegmatic wisdom.‡
Hallam is, as usual, cold and measured in his criticism,
* "Bibliotheca Heberiana," Part I.
+ "Life of Sidney."
‡ "Shakespeare, his Times."
""
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
but his conclusions are generally favourable to Sir
Philip Sidney. He considers the "Arcadia" more
free from pedantry than most books of the age in
which it was written, and does not think it more tire-
some and uninteresting than the generality of “that
class of long romances, proverbially among the most
tiresome of all books." In a less fastidious age than
ours "it was read, no doubt, even as a story, with
some delight. It displays a superior mind, rather com-
plying with a temporary taste than affected by it, and
many pleasing passages occur, especially in the tender
and innocent loves of Pyrocles and Philoclea."* Fuller
has a genial passage in its praise; Cowper spoke of
Sidney as a "warbler of poetic prose;" and Charles
Lamb was of opinion that "the noble images, passions,
sentiments, and poetical delicacies of character scattered
all over the 'Arcadia' justify the character which
his contemporaries have left us of that writer." †
C
Much of this, of course, is as exaggerated in the one
direction as the diatribes of Walpole and Hazlitt in
the other. "It would be mere pretence to say that
the romance could be read
could be read through now by any
one not absolutely Sidney-smitten in his tastes, or that,
compared with the books which we do read through,
it is not intolerably languid." The tens of thousands
to whom Miss Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood appeal
so successfully would turn with horror from the
comparatively dull pages of "Arcadia ;" and, to even
the most cultivated literary taste, I suppose it is some-
what of a task, as well as of a pleasure, to read
"Introduction to the Literature of Europe."
L "Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney," in Lamb's "Prose Works."
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA.”
121
through much of Sidney at a sitting. "No competent
person, however, can read any considerable portion of
it without finding it full of fine enthusiasm and
courtesy, of high sentiment, of the breath of a gentle
and heroic spirit. There are sweet descriptions in it,
pictures of ideal love and friendship, dialogues of
stately moral rhetoric. In the style there is a finish,
an attention to artifice, a musical arrangement of
cadence, and occasionally a richness of phrases, for
which English prose at that time might have been
grateful.”*
$
One critic + has even suggested that "it was the
Arcadia' which first taught to the contemporary
writers that inimitable interweaving and contexture of
words, that bold and unshackled use and application of
them, that art of giving to language, appropriated to
objects the most common and trivial, a kind of acquired
and adventitious loftiness, and to diction in itself noble.
and elevated, a sort of superadded dignity, that power
of ennobling the sentiments by the language, and the
language by the sentiments, which so often excites our
admiration in perusing the writers of the age of
Elizabeth." I cannot, indeed-remembering Lord
Berners, and Sir Thomas More, and Latimer, and Roger
Ascham-agree with Hallam and with Mr. Stigant
in calling Sidney "the first good prose writer, in any
positive sense of the term;" but I should say that he
was the first good writer of English prose who paid
any attention to style as style, and that therefore the
"Arcadia," in this, as in many other ways, as I shall
* Professor Masson, "English Novelists and their Styles."
Retrospective Review," vol. ii. p. 42.
*
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presently indicate, was not without influence on the
future of the English language.
It should always be remembered, in judging the
great work of Sir Philip Sidney, that he thought very
meanly of it himself, and that it was never intended
for publication. Dedicating the book to his "dear
lady and fair sister, the Countess of Pembroke," he says,
"You desired me to do it, and your desire, to my
heart, is an absolute commandment. Now it is done
only for you, only to you. If you keep it to yourself,
or to such friends who will weigh errors in the balance
of good-will, I hope, for the father's sake, it will be
pardoned, perchance made much of, though in itself
it have deformities; for indeed, for severer eyes it
is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled.”
Aubrey tells us, that when he was composing the
"Arcadia," Sidney "was wont to take his table-book
out of his pocket, and write down his notions as they
came into his head, as he was hunting on Sarum's
pleasant plains." He himself informs us, in the same
dedication, that it was "done in loose sheets of paper,
most of it" at Wilton, in the Countess's presence, the
rest in sheets being sent to her from Court as fast
as they were done. "In sum, a young head, not so
well stayed as I would it were, and shall be when God
will, having many, many fancies begotten in it, if it
had not been in some way delivered, would have grown
a monster, and more sorry might I be that they came
in than that they got out. But his chief safety shall
be the not walking abroad, and his chief protection
the bearing the livery of your name, which, if much
good-will do not deceive me, is worthy to be a sanctuary
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
123
for a greater offender. Read it, then, at your idle
times, and the follies your good judgment will find in
it, blame not, but laugh at; and so, looking for no
better stuff than that, as in a haberdasher's shop,
glasses or feathers, you will continue to love the
writer."
It was in 1580 that Sidney began the composition
of his romance. In 1579 Lyly had published his
"Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit," a work which
Sidney was certain to read, and from which he probably
learned some of those peculiarities of style and diction
which excited the disgust of Hazlitt. This, however,
was the only English work to which, so far as we can
tell, Sidney was indebted. "In his youth," says Mr.
Fox Bourne, "he had read diligently the Ethiopic
History of Heliodorus,' lately translated out of Greek
by Thomas Underdown," and he afterwards commended
the old novelist for "his sugared invention of that
picture of love in "Theagenes and Chariclea.'"* From
him he learnt, no doubt, to infuse the heroic element
into the story; its pastoral structure seems due to the
recollection of Sannazzaro's Italian "Arcadia," first
published at Milan in 1502,† from which Sidney may
also possibly have taken the idea of sprinkling verse
here and there among the prose of his narrative.
The remaining source of his inspiration is said to have
been the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, the
Spanish precursor of Cervantes, out of whose work he
had already translated several fragments into verse, and
by whose "laboured beauty of style" and "richness
*"The Defence of Poesie," ed. 1829, p. 72.
† Fox Bourne, "Memoir of Sidney," p. 324.
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
of imagination," he appears to have been decidedly
impressed.
""
But because Sidney was to a certain extent inspired
by the works I name, it must not be supposed that the
"Arcadia" is not, upon the whole, so far original that
it may truly be described as the undoubted "heir of
his invention." To be sure, one of the incidents is
taken bodily from the eleventh book of "Amadis de
Gaul," and there are, probably, many other instances of
a like "conveyance;" but men of genius, from Molière
and Shakespeare downwards, have been accustomed to
give as good as they take, and Sir Philip Sidney is no
exception to the rule. The story of "Plangus was
afterwards the origin of Shirley's play of " Andromana,
or the Merchant's Wife." That part of the pastoral
where Pyrocles agrees to command the Helots, seems
to have suggested those scenes in "The Two Gentlemen
of Verona" in which Valentine leagues himself with
the robbers. An episode in the second book, where a
king of Paphlagonia, whose eyes have been put out by
his bastard son, is described as led by his rightful heir,
whom he had cruelly used for the sake of his wicked
brother, has furnished Shakespeare with the underplot
concerning Gloster and his two sons in "King Lear."
There are in the romance the same description of a
bitter storm, and the same request of the father, that
he might be led to the summit of a cliff, which occur
in that pathetic tragedy.* More than this, the
materials of Beaumont and Fletcher's "Cupid's
Revenge" are taken from an episode in the "Arcadia,"
and it is probable that the incident of Pyrocles
*Dunlop, "History of Fiction,” vol. iii. p. 177.
SIDNEY'S “ARCADIA.”
125
donning female attire and going out to seek his love
Philoclea, had some share in producing the Violas, Julias,
Bellarios, and Uranias in which our elder dramatists
delighted.
*
(C
Certainly the "Arcadia" was an original work in
the true sense of the term; a wonderfully original
work if we consider the previous poverty of English
literature in romantic fiction. It was as different as
possible from the great majority of those heroic tales
which had for so many centuries fired the imagina-
tion of Europe. "Now that the revival of learning
and the Reformation had chased the shades and
spectres wan of the dark ages from the minds of men,
something more than endless stories of adventures,
enchanted castles, infidel magicians, and monotonous
combats with dragons, giants, and knights, was re-
quired. Something was wanted which, morally and
intellectually, should correspond to the advancing
phase of the European mind. Spenser allegorised the
old fictions, and by putting into them more than met
the ear, delighted and elevated the mind by the trans-
formation. But Sidney rejecting," says Mr. Stigant,
"most of the old machinery, and retaining somewhat
of adventurous incident, carried along by a constant
play of chivalrous feeling, animated by his own 'high
erected thoughts, seated in a heart of courtesie,'
introducing a delicacy of taste and sentiment that was
quite new, constructed a tale the nature of which
admitted of discourses on the affections, passions,
and events of life, observations on human nature and
the social and political relations of men, and all the
Cambridge Essays," 1858, p. 113.
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deductions which a richly endowed and cultivated
mind had drawn from actual experience."
Lord Brooke tells us that Sidney's purpose was "to
limn out such exact pictures of every posture in the
mind, that any man being forced in the straines of
this life to pass through any straights or latitudes of
good or ill fortune might, as in a glasse, see how to set a
good countenance upon all the discountenances of adver-
sity, and a stay upon the exorbitant smiling of chance.'
We are further informed by Ben Jonson that Sidney
meant eventually to have transformed the " Arcadia ”
into an English romance, with King Arthur as its
hero. We know that Milton cherished a very similar
desire in reference to a projected epic, and we have
seen how, in our own day, the greatest poet of our times
has, in the "Idylls of the King," done what his two
famous predecessors so narrowly escaped doing before
him. Even now, the "Arcadia" is the epic, par
excellence, of the reign of Elizabeth. It reflects the
courtly and adventurous side of the English mind of
that age, as "Hamlet" reflects its contemplative and
retrospective side. The whole scenery of the story is
said to have been taken from that of Hackness, a small
place near Scarborough; and its men and women are,
in their courage and delicacy, the men and women with
whom Sidney came in contact day by day. Musidorus
is, not impossibly, Sidney himself; his friend Pyrocles
may be intended for the Lord Brooke (Fulke Greville),
who was his fidus Achates through life, and his loving
biographer after death. Philoclea was his accom-
plished sister; and Pamela was the daughter of the
Earl of Essex-the Stella to whom he addresses all his
در
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
127
most passionate love strains. In the treacherous and
ambitious Cecropia we have a portrait either of
Catherine de Medici or of Mary Queen of Scots; in
Euarchus, a likeness of the author's own father, Sir
Henry Sidney, who was the worthy parent of a noble
son. It is not pretended that they answer in every
particular to their human prototypes; but every writer
must describe mankind as he sees them around him,
and if the men in the “Arcadia” are more than
usually manly, and the women more than usually
womanly, it is because the English nation in the
sixteenth century was of a nobler stamp than any of
the generations that have succeeded.
The "Arcadia ” was first printed in 1590, four years
after the decease of the author. This edition has the
peculiarity of being divided into chapters, an arrange-
ment not adopted in future imprints, which merely
observed the division into books; and it has the
further advantage of containing many poetical pieces
which were afterwards rejected. The second edition
appeared in 1593, "augmented and ended;" the third
in 1598, "with sundry new additions of the author;"
the fourth in 1605, the fifth in 1613, the sixth in
1623, the seventh in 1624, with a supplement to the
third book, by William Alexander, Earl of Stirling;
the eighth in 1627, the ninth in 1629, with a sixth
book contributed by Richard Beling; the tenth in
1633; the eleventh in 1638, with a second supplement
to the third book by a certain James Johnstone.
Nor were these supplements the only indignities.
*
* See "A Brief Account of an Unique Edition of Sir Philip Sidney's
Arcadia," by J. O. Halliwell (1854).
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
to which the unfortunate work was subjected. The
narrative was "continued" in 1607 by Gervase
Markham,* and in 1651 by "a young gentle-
woman," called Mrs. Weames; whilst the whole work
was "modernised," in 1725, by Mrs. Manley. It
is indeed surprising that under the unsparing editor-
ship and other barbarities from which it suffered, the
original "Arcadia" has not altogether disappeared
from human ken. As it is, the only portions which
can be said to have been left by Sidney in a finished
form are the first two books and a portion of the third.
The complete work, as it stands, is not, perhaps,
adapted for general perusal at the present day, and the
modern reader may well be satisfied with the well-
executed abridgment published in 1869 by the author
of "The Gentle Life." †
Unlike most great works of genius, the "Arcadia'
was extremely popular on its first appearance. Every-
body read it, from the high-born ladies of the Court
to the city madams and the country lasses; and so
widely was it appreciated that an old writer felt it
necessary to warn the ladies of his time not to read Sir
Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," but to turn to "the
grounds of good housewifery," which they were in
danger of neglecting. After that, it relapsed into
comparative oblivion, so far as the nation at large was
concerned; but it found audience fit, though few, in
such men as Shakespeare, who borrowed from it the
names of several of his creations (such as Leontes,
* "The English Arcadia, alluding his beginning from Sir Phil.
Sydne's ending."
+ Sampson Low & Co., with Introductory and Biographical Essay.
(C
SIDNEY'S ARCADIA."
129
Antigonus, Cleomenes, Archidamus, and Mopsa),
Waller, Cowley, Sir William Temple, Charles I., and
the other celebrated writers whose testimonies I have
already quoted.
The two heroes of the romance are Musidorus,
Prince of Thessalia, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon,
who had been reared together under the care of the
widowed mother of the former. They
"Grew together like two wanton vines,
Curling their loves and souls in one another;
They sprang together and they bore one fruit;
One joy did make them smile, and one grief mourn.'
"Almost before they could speak perfectly," we are
told, "they began to receive conceits not unworthy of
the best speakers, excellent devices being used to make
even their sports profitable, images of battails and
fortifications being then delivered to their memorie,
which, after their stronger judgments might dispense,
the delight of tales being converted to the knowledge
of all the stories of all worthy princes, both to move
them to do nobly, and teach them how to do nobly,
the beauty of virtue still being set before their eyes,
and that taught them with far more diligent care
than grammatical rules; their bodies exercised in all
abilities both of doing and suffering, and their minds
acquainted by degrees with dangers, and, in sum, all
bent to the making up of princely minds; no servile
fear used towards them, nor any other violent restraint,
but still as to princes. So that a habit of commanding
was naturalised in them, and, therefore, the further
from tyranny. Nature having done so much for them
in nothing as it made them lords of truth, whereon all
other goods are builded."
K
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At length the time came when it was thought good
that they should travel, and they were accordingly
dismissed by their affectionate protector to make trial
of their prowess in the army of Euarchus, the father
of Pyrocles, who, having conquered Pannonia and
Thrace, was now laying siege to Byzantium. They
put to sea, the ocean receiving them with a smooth and
smiling face, as "though Neptune had then learned
falsely to smile on princes," and for a period the winds
were favourable, and the ships kept close together
"like a beautiful flock that could well obey their master's
pipe." But by-and-by the sun rose veiled in clouds,
and in the tempest which followed, the fleet was
scattered, the vessel of the princes split to pieces on a
rock. The two friends clinging to the same bit of spar,
and the force of the waves causing one to loose his
hold, they were thrown upon the coast of Phrygia, at
different points, and at some distance from each other.
One fell into the hands of the king of the country, and
was about to be put to death, when the other came
happily to his deliverance, and then the two began a
series of miraculous adventures, through which we
need not follow them, merely taking up the thread of
the narration at that point where, sailing from the shore
of Asia to Greece, they were assaulted on the seas by
a treacherous crew which had been hired to murder
them, and from whose clutches they escaped only to
fall into equal peril from pirates, and eventually to get
safely, though separately, to land.
Here the "Arcadia" opens. The first few pages
make us acquainted with two shepherds of Arcadia,
who, having come down to the coast of Laconia, see
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA.”
131
Musidorus struggling with the waves, and successfully
bring him to the shore. His first inquiry is for his
beloved companion, and when he finds he is not there,
he gives way to uncontrollable grief, until, somewhat
appeased by the conversation of his succourers, he
consents to be conducted to the residence of Kalander,
"a gentleman who for his hospitality is so much
haunted that no news stir but came to his ears," and
under whose roof Musidorus may recover his health,
"without which," say the shepherds, "you cannot be
able to make any diligent search for your friend." Thus
the three "took their journey together through Laconia,
Claius and Strephon by course carrying his chest for
him, Musidorus only bearing in his countenance evident
marks of a sorrowful mind supported with a weak
body."
"The third day after, in the time that the morning
did strew roses and violets in the heavenly floor against
the coming of the sun, the nightingales, striving one
with the other which could in most dainty variety
recount their wrong-caused sorrow, made them put off
their sleep; and, rising from under a tree, which that
night had been their pavilion, they went on their
journey, which by-and-by welcomed Musidorus' life
with delightful prospects. There were hills which
garnished their proud heights with stately trees;
humble valleys whose bare estate seemed comforted
with the refreshing of silver rivers; meadows enamelled
with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets which,
being lined with the most pleasant shade, were witnessed
so to, by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned
birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with
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sober security, while the pretty lambs, with bleating
oratory, craved the dams' comfort; here a shepherd's
boy piping, as though he should never be old: there a
young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing: and
it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to
work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music.
As for the houses of the country-for many houses
çame under their eye-they were all scattered, no
two being one by the other, and yet not so far
off as that it barred mutual succour; a show, as it
were, of an accompanable solitariness, and of a civil
wildness.
This country,' says Claius, 'where you
now set your foot, is Arcadia, and even hard by is the
house of Kalander, whither we lead you. This country
being thus decked with peace, and the child of peace,
good husbandry, these houses you see scattered are of
men, as we two are, that live upon the commodity of
their sheep, and therefore, in the division of the
Arcadian estate, are termed shepherds, a happy
people, wanting little, because they desire not much.'"
They now reach the house of Kalander, which, as
being evidently an ideal conception of Sidney's, may
be described in his language. It was "built of fair
and strong stone, not affecting so much any extra-
ordinary kind of fineness as an honourable representing
of a firm stateliness; the lights, doors, and stairs
rather directed to the use of the guest than to the eye
of the artificer, and yet as the one chiefly heeded, so
the other not neglected; each place handsome without
curiosity, and homely without loathsomeness; not so
dainty as not to be trod on, nor yet slubbered up with
good fellowship; all more lasting than beautiful, but
p
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
133
Lo
that the consideration of the exceeding lastingness
made the eye believe it was exceeding beautiful; the
servants, not so many in number as cleanly in apparel,
and serviceable in behaviour, testifying in their coun-
tenances that their master took as well care to be
served as of them that did serve." Musidorus does ·
not, however, introduce himself under his real name,
He calls himself Palladius, and refers to his absent
friend as Daïphantus. Anyhow, Kalander is charmed
to welcome so distinguished a stranger, and anon gets
to love him almost as a father loves his son, finding
in him "a mind of most excellent composition, a
piercing wit, quite void of ostentation, high erected
thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy, an eloquence
as sweet in the uttering as slow to come to the uttering,
a behaviour so noble as gave a majesty to adversity,
and all in a man whose age could not be above one-
and-twenty years." To him the good man tells how
Basilius, the King of Arcadia, has, in consequence of
a mysterious oracle vouchsafed from Delphos, sur-
rendered the conduct of his kingdom to a deputy, and
has buried himself, with his wife Gynecia, and his
daughters Pamela and Philoclea, in the country, with
no other society or servants than that of a clown called
Dametas, his wife, and his daughter Mopsa. Of
Pamela and Philoclea Kalander gives a description
which might well have excited the curiosity of
Musidorus. "For my part," he says, "when I
marked them both, methought there was (if at least
such perfections may receive the word of more) more
sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela;
methought love played in Philoclea's eyes and
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threatened in Pamela's; methought Philoclea's beauty
only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must
yield; Pamela's beauty used violence, and such
violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that
such proportion is between their minds: Philoclea so
bashful, as though her excellencies had stolen into her
before she was aware; so humble that she will put all
pride out of countenance: in sum, such proceeding as
will stir hope, but teach hope good manners;-Pamela,
of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not
knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of
her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother's
wisdom, greatness, nobility, but (I can guess aught)
with a more constant temper."
But Musidorus was too full of anxiety for Pyrocles
to give much heed to women, however lovely and
however good, and, as it happened, he was destined to
meet him again very soon. News came that Clitophon,
the son of Kalander, joining in the Lacedemonian war
against the Helots, had been made prisoner, and
Musidorus, seeing the distress of Kalander, and feeling
that here was an opportunity of showing his gratitude,
gathered an army of Arcadians, and marched on
towards the town of Cardanuta, where Clitophon was
captive. A long and bloody battle ensued, in the
course of which Musidorus and the captain of the
Helots, both of whom had been performing prodigies.
of valour, came into contact, and a brilliant personal
encounter followed. Neither seemed able to overcome
the other, until the latter warrior, "with a blow whose
violence grew of fury, not of strength, or of strength
proceeding from fury, struck Musidorus upon the side
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
135
of the head," so that "he reeled astonished, and
withal the helmet fell off, he remained bareheaded."
Whereupon, "his chief enemy, instead of pursuing that
advantage, kneeled down, offering to deliver the pommel
of his sword, in token of yielding, withal speaking
aloud unto him, that he thought it more liberty to be
his prisoner than any other's general. Palladius,
standing upon himself, and misdoubting some craft,
and the Helots that were next their captain wavering
between looking for some stratagem, or fearing treason,
'What,' said the captain, hath Palladius forgotten
the voice of Daïphantus ? ››
"
Then he explained how it was that he became the
unwilling leader of the Helots, who, at his request,
consented to give up Clitophon to his father, and
the two princes returned joyfully to the house of
Kalander. Here, for a time, they lived in perfect
happiness, recounting to one another all the adven-
tures that had overtaken them-Musidorus repeating,
among other things, the story of the king Basilius
which had been told to him by their present host.
A portrait of Philoclea was also shown to Pyrocles,
and after that it was observed that he became
suddenly enamoured of solitude, and that, despite the
remonstrances of Musidorus, he gave himself up to
the most melancholy meditations. Evidently Pyrocles
was in love, and in love, too, with the beauteous lady
of whom he had heard so much, and of whom he had
seen the counterfeit presentment. So that when
Musidorus returned one day from a stag hunt to which
be had been invited, he found that Pyrocles had gone,
leaving behind him a letter, in which he confessed that
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he was the slave of passion, and beseeching his friend
to go back to Thessalia, and think no more about
him.
This, of course, Musidorus could not do; and, setting
out in search of Pyrocles, at last he found him, habited
as an Amazon and known only as a woman under the
feigned name of Zelmane. In this disguise he had
obtained admission to the country retreat of Basilius,
where his first glance of Philoclea had confirmed the
deep impression already made by her upon his heart.
She, on her side, believing Pyrocles to be a female,
regarded him with such tenderness as one maiden feels
for another. Basilius, also believing him to be a female,
loved him as passionately as he loved Philoclea, and
the queen, Gynecia, whose keen observation had pene-
trated beneath his disguise, was equally disloyal to her
marriage vows. Such was the condition of affairs
when Musidorus discovered his friend, and was informed.
by him of the enterprise in which he was engaged.
Musidorus was the less able to chide his companion for
his love for Philoclea, because he himself had seen the
other daughter of Basilius, and was as hopelessly smitten
by her charms as Pyrocles by his sweetheart's beauty.
The first endeavour was to obtain firm footing in the
forbidden territory, and this was readily achieved by
the arts of Pyrocles, who prevailed upon Basilius to
take Musidorus into his service as a shepherd, while
he himself was secured in his position by the passion
which he had inspired in both king and queen. The next
difficulty was to declare to the young princesses their
personality and devotion, for Philoclea still looked
upon Pyrocles as an Amazon, and Pamela still thought
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
137
of Musidorus, who was known as Dorus, merely as a
shepherd in her father's employment.
1
In the meantime, we are introduced to another lead-
ing heroine in the person of Cecropia, the widow of the
younger brother of Basilius, who, from the long period
of celibacy which had preceded the marriage of that
monarch, had come to consider the crown of Arcadia
as the lawful property of her family, and her son
Amphialus as the natural inheritor of it. Therefore,
she now regarded Pamela and Philoclea with fiendish
hatred, and, by her order, two wild beasts, a lion and
a bear, were allowed to fall upon the princesses as they
were walking in a wood; and but for the bravery of
Musidorus and Pyrocles, who of course were on the spot
at that particular moment, they would have fallen
victims to Cecropia's evil scheme. As it was, this
adventure only served to quicken in the two couples
the incipient affection they felt for one another.
Philoclea had come to the conclusion that Pyrocles
was something more than he appeared to her, and the
progress of her love is described by Sidney in some of
his most delightful passages. "Zelmane," he says,
"as much as Gynecia's jealousy would suffer, desired
to be near Philoclea; Philoclea, as much as Gynecia's
jealousy would suffer, desired to be near Zelmane. If
Zelmane took her hand and softly strained it, she also
(thinking the friendship ought to be mutual) would
(with a sweet fastness) show she was loth to part from
it. And if Zelmane sighed, she would sigh also; when
Zelmane was sad, she deemed it wisdom, and therefore
she would be sad too." Musidorus, on the other hand,
though he gave Pamela the whole history of himself
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and his friend, under the pretence of amusing her with
a fictitious story, only succeeded in making her hide,
under a cold demeanour, the warmer feeling which she
concealed within her. Whereupon Musidorus feigned
a liking for the ill-favoured Mopsa, until Pamela
began to feel the pangs of the most poignant jealousy.
Meanwhile, Cecropia had been once more at work,
and, by a well-laid stratagem, succeeded in obtaining
possession of the persons of the two princesses and the
pseudo-Zelmane. Amphialus, her son, was desperately
in love with Philoclea, but Cecropia was not particular
about the lady, so long as she obtained one of the two
heiresses to the crown, and she used the most deceitful
arts in order to achieve her purpose. It was to no purpose
that Basilius raised an army against her, and besieged
the castle in which his children were confined. The
noblest knights joined combat with Amphialus, in order
to effect the rescue of the two princesses; but they are
one and all uniformly unsuccessful. Even the brave
Argalus was mortally wounded, and his wife, Parthenia,
who assumed the armour of a knight, and challenged
the murderer of her husband, met with the same un-
toward fate. Musidorus entered the lists under the
disguise of the Forsaken Knight, and though he
fought with unexampled vigour, he and his enemy
were carried off the field in such a strait that neither
of them was able to claim the victory.
At last, Cecropia threatened to behead her captives.
unless Basilius raised the siege, and when he did so, en-
deavoured to coerce her victims by a still more abominable
expedient. She resolved to play the tragedy of death
before their eyes, and try whether its terrors would not
SIDNEY'S “ARCADIA.”
139
abate their constancy. She caused Philoclea to be the
witness of an execution which, to all appearance, was
that of her sister Pamela, and she caused Pamela to be
the witness of a similar spectacle, of which Philoclea
was supposed to be the central figure. But overcome
by grief, as both of them undoubtedly were, they would
not give way, and meanwhile their agony was such
that Amphialus, who had been unaware of his mother's
horrible plan, pursued her with his sword drawn, until
she, terrified by the intensity of his rage and despair,
and, flying before him, fell from a battlement of
the castle, and expiated her long list of crimes by
death.
Amphialus himself did not long survive his mother.
Maddened by remorse and sorrow, he threw himself
upon the point of his sword, and, being succoured in his
latter hours by Queen Helen of Corinth, who had long
and secretly loved him, disappears from the narrative,
when, yielding to her solicitations, he allows himself
to be carried off by her to her own country, there to
be tended with the most anxious solicitude. The
princesses, however, were far from being at the end of
their troubles. Anaxsus and his two brothers, three
knights who had come to assist Amphialus against
Basilius, fell in love with Pamela, Philoclea, and the
pseudo-Zelmane; and, their suit being rejected, en-
deavoured to obtain by force the happiness which they
could not obtain by their own merits. But here again
Zelmane stepped in to carry discomfiture into the ranks
of his enemies, first slaying two of the brothers, and
then coping with Anaxsus himself in a combat which
is described by Sidney in his happiest terms, but the
€40
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conclusion of which is unknown to us, owing to a break
in the original manuscript.
When the story is resumed by Sidney we find that
the two princesses had returned safely to their father,
that Pamela had agreed to fly with Musidorus to his
kingdom of Thessaly, and that Pyrocles was to follow
them, if Philoclea, who had been informed of his
identity, would consent to accompany him. Accord-
ingly Dametas and his family were got out of the way
on some trivial excuse, and Musidorus escaped with
Pamela to a forest, where, fatigued with her journey,
she lay down to repose.
In the meantime Pyrocles, who, under the character
of Zelmane, found it difficult to parry the advance of
both Basilius and Gynecia, was driven at last to
appoint a meeting with the latter; and he so arranged
a similar meeting with the former that the king and
queen met in the darkness of a certain cave, each
under the impression that the other was Zelmane.
Pyrocles himself hastened to the chamber of his
Philoclea, and, having assured her of his ardent love,
was distressed to find that the anguish she had suf-
fered had rendered her utterly incapable of under-
taking any journey. Still more unhappily, Dametas
had become aware of the flight of Pamela; and,
anxious to discover whether his other charge was
safe, came to Philoclea's apartment only to find her
reposing in the embrace of one whom, by his dress, he
immediately recognised to be a man. The law of
chastity was strictly enforced in the land of Arcadia,
and when Dametas detailed to the crowd that had
collected round the place the circumstances that had
SIDNEY'S "ARCADIA."
141
come to his knowledge in the last few hours, their
indignation was extreme. Philanax, a faithful servant
of the king, rushed in with guards and secured the
persons of the lovers, while Musidorus and Pamela had
been captured by a stray body of insurgents, who now
returned joyfully with their distinguished captives.
More than this, Gynecia was presently found bewailing
the fact that she had poisoned her husband with a
certain draught (a love philtre) which she had intended
for Pyrocles, and which Basilius, seeing, had desired,
asked for, and duly swallowed. He had then fallen
down in a settled stupor, from which it seemed im-
possible to rouse him.
Here, therefore, was a splendid opportunity for
Philanax, who, though faithful to the king, did not
see why, now that his majesty was dead, the queen
guilty of murder, and the princesses discovered to
have infringed the laws, he should not snatch for
himself the throne of the country. Wherefore he
imprisoned the whole company of the accused, in-
cluding Musidorus and Pyrocles, and was threatening
them with all manner of most dreadful punishments
when news arrived that Euarchus, king of Macedon,
had come on a visit to his old friend Basilius, and on
learning his unhappy fate had asked permission to be
present at his funeral. It occurred to Philanax that
this was a good chance for shifting the odium of the
death of his prisoners upon another's shoulders; and
he requested Euarchus, on hearing a statement of the
facts of the case, to give judgment as to the fate of the
guilty persons. It must be understood that Musidorus
and Pyrocles still elected to remain known as Palladius
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and Daïphantus, names under which Euarchus could
not possibly recognise them; and they themselves were
kept perfectly ignorant of the state of affairs. Eu-
archus, on his part, having duly weighed the evidence
on either side, had no hesitation in condemning Pyro-
cles to be thrown headlong from a high tower, and
Musidorus to be beheaded-a sentence which he com-
manded to be carried out immediately.
Kaloludus, the servant of Musidorus, had, however,
penetrated beneath the disguise of his master, and now
divulged his identity as Prince of Thessalia, and that
of Pyrocles as Prince of Macedon-the one being the
nephew and the other the son of the judge who had
just condemned them to a terrible death. One can
imagine the struggle which ensued in the mind of
Euarchus; but the judge triumphed over the father
and the uncle, and he reiterated his command that the
sentence should immediately be performed. At this
striking juncture, what should happen but the sudden
revivification of the king Basilius, who had slept off the
effects of the potion, and was now as much alive as
ever he was! He speedily resumed the control of his
dominions; and, his love for Pyrocles having suffered a
complete decay, he not only took Gynecia to his arms
again, but married his two daughters to the objects of
their affections, and the story ends in happiness being
extended to all the dramatis personæ.
That the narrative cannot, in any sense, be termed
unexciting, is obvious from the brief abstract I have
been able to give. That some of the episodes are
unnecessary, and that some of the descriptions are dis-
agreeably spun out, may readily be conceded; but
<<
SIDNEY'S ARCADIA."
143
when this is said there still remains much in the
"Arcadia" to which the critic can accord the highest
commendation. The heroes are of the most heroic
character, the heroines possess every charm that
womanhood can give them, the scenery is exquisitely
delineated, the incidents are well designed, and
throughout the story there breathes a spirit of calm
and sweetness which is very delicious after the op-
pressive atmosphere of such modern romances as those
of Ouida, and such modern novels as those of Balzac.
Moreover, there are scattered through the "Arcadia"
some of the most successful of Sir Philip Sidney's
poems. Take, for instance, these two little stanzas :—
66
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other given;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven.
My true love hath my heart, and I have his.
"His heart in me keeps me and him in one :
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides,
He loves my heart for once it was his own,
I cherish his because in me it bides.
My true love hath my heart, and I have his."
+
Take also, as a sample of his more serious style, this
noble sonnet :-
"Since nature's works be good, and death doth serve
As nature's work, why should we fear to die?
Since fear is vain, but when it may preserve,
Why should we fear that which we cannot fly?
Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears,
Disarming human minds of native might;
While each conceit an ugly figure bears
Which were not ill, well viewed in reason's light.
Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be,
And scarce discern the dawn of coming day,
Let them be cleared, and now begin to see
Our life is but a step in dusty way.
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind:
Since, feeling this, great loss we cannot find.”
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The "Arcadia" may at first sight, and to a modern
reader, appear a very tedious production; but, if the
student has the courage to persevere in its perusal, he
cannot help being the better, eventually, for the noble
thoughts and beautiful images with which that work is
crowded.


OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS."
"THE literature of Protestant England passed," it
has been said, "about the time of James I., from the
exuberant delicious fancifulness of youth into the
sober deliberativeness of manhood. The age of
romantic chivalry, of daring discovery, of surpassing
danger, was passing away. A time of wonderful
thoughtfulness, of strong research, of national quiet,
had come. Learning had become common to most
educated persons.
The most recondite subjects on
theology and among the schoolmen, the highest pro-
blems in nature, the subtlest inquiries into the human
spirit, the first principles of human society, every
theory of national government, daunted not, but fasci-
nated thinkers. Selden owned, All confess there
never was a more learned clergy; no man taxes them
with ignorance;' and the writings of Bacon, Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, Hales, Selden, Hobbes, Prynne,
and others, represent the attainments of the laity.
The thinkers,” in their turn, "influenced the people.
The words Precisian and Puritan, creations of this
epoch, testify to the growing seriousness of the nation.
In these earliest years of Puritanism especially, and
6
L
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generally throughout the seventeenth century, there
was a strong passion for analysis of human character.
Men delighted in introspection. Essays and characters
took the place of the romances of the former century."*
Of this new manifestation of the national mind, the
first-fruits were probably the "Characters of Vertues
and Vices," published by Bishop Hall in 1608; but
more widely popular, and more worthy of the con-
sideration of the modern reader, are the "Characters,
or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of Sundry
Persons," first published by Sir Thomas Overbury in
1614,† and followed in 1628 by the "Microcosmo-
graphy" of Bishop Earle, to which I shall make some
reference by-and-by.
Sir Thomas has, indeed, other claims than this upon
the attention of posterity. His mysterious death, whether
caused by the arts of the Countess of Essex or by the
hatred of King James, is alone sufficient to cause him
to be regarded with interest by historical students; and
his other literary works are by no means unworthy of
the fame he has acquired by the book of "Characters.”
His poem of "The Wife" was written to persuade his
friend, the Earl of Somerset, not to marry the woman
who, in revenge, is believed to have compassed his
death, and whose character certainly was such as to
justify the words he used against her. She had already
been the mistress of Lord Somerset before divorced
from Essex, and Overbury was quite right in saying
that a marriage with her "would not only be hurtful
• Arber's reprints, "Earle's Microcosmography."
+ Three impressions were issued in this year, the first containing
twenty-one, the second twenty-five, and the third thirty "Characters.
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
147
to his preferment, but helpful to subvert and over-
throw him." He besought his friend not to "cast all
away upon a woman noted for her injury and im-
modesty," whom, at another time, he goes so far as to
call a "strumpet." He was the more likely to know
her real character, because he had been employed
throughout the intrigue, and had written, I am grieved
to say, many of the letters and love-poems which had
gone far towards exciting the evil passions of the un-
happy woman. In the poem itself there is no direct
allusion to the Countess, but it is obvious that it was
aimed against her. The poet treats first of marriage :-
"Mariage, to all whose joyes two parties be,
And doubled are by being parted so,
Wherein the very act is charity,
Whereby two soules into one body go,
Which makes two, one; while here they living be,
And after death in their posterity."
Then, of "the effect thereof; Children: "-
"We fill but part of time, and cannot dye,
Till we the world a fresh supply have lent.
Children are bodies sole eternity;
Nature is Gods, art is mans instrument.
Now all man's art but only dead things makes,
But herein man in things of life partakes."
"Then of his contrary, Lust; then for his choyce,
first, his opinion negatively, what should not be the
first, causes in it, that is, neither Beauty, Birth, nor
Portion"
}
“And all the carnall beauty of my wife,
Is but skin-deep, but to two senses known;
Short even in pictures, shorter liv'd than life,
And yet the love survives, that's built thereon:
For our imagination is too high,
For bodies when they meet, to satisfie
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**
方
​Be the
"Birth, lesse than beauty, shall my reason blinde,
Her birth goes to my children, not to me:
Rather had I that active gentry finde,
Vertue, then passive from her ancestry;
Rather in her alive one vertue see,
Then all the rest dead in her pedigree
"As for (the oddes of sexes) portion,
Nor will I shun it, nor my aime it make;
Birth, beauty, wealth, are nothing worth alone,
All these I would for good additions take,
Not for good parts, those two are ill combin'd,
Whom, any third thing from themselves hath join'd.
"Rather than these the object of my love,
Let it be good; when these with vertue go,
They (in themselves indifferent) vertues prove,
For good (like fire) turns all things to be so.
Gods image in her soule, O let me place
My love upon! not Adam's in her face."
•
By "good" he would have "holy" understood, and,
next to "good
""
"Give me an understanding wife,
By nature wise, not learned by much art,
Some knowledge on her side, will all my life
More scope of conversation impart :
Besides her inborn vertue fortifie.
They are most firmly good, that best know why."
•
Sir Thomas is by no means an advocate for advanced
education among women, and would be exceedingly
unpopular among the ladies of the present day, who are
so voluble in their support of what they call their
claims:
"Domesticke charge doth best that sex befit,
Contiguous businesse; so to fixe the mind,
That leisure space for fancies not admit:
Theyr leysure 'tis corrupteth woman-kind:
Else, being plac'd from many vices free,
They had to heav'n a shorter cut than we
"As good, and knowing, let her be discreete,
That, to the others weight, doth fashion bring;
Discretion doth consider what is fit,
Goodness, but what is lawfull; but the thing,
Not circumstances; learning is and wit,
In men, but curious folly without it
•
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
149
}
"Womans behaviour is a surer barre
Then is their no; that fairly doth deny
Without denying; thereby kept they are
Safe e'en from hope; in part to blame is she,
Which hath without consent bin only tride;
He comes too neere, that comes to be denide."
Here the allusion is obviously to the indiscretion (to
use a scarcely adequate term) of the Countess of Essex,
who was as far as possible from realising the concep-
tion of a helpmeet which Overbury endeavours to put
forward.* In his other poem, "Of the Choyce of a
Wife," the description is more general, and, in truth,
more pleasing in expression than in the larger piece.
Otherwise it is very similar in tone. In choosing his
wife, he says, he would trust the eye of no man-
"For in way of love and glory,
Each tongue best tells his own story."
To make his choice the bolder, he would have her child
to such
"Whose free vertuous lives are older
Than antiquity can touch; "
yet he concedes that an ancient stock may bring
branches of worth-
"Like rich mantles shadowing
Those descents that brought them forth.
Le Neve, in his "Cursory Remarks on Some of the Ancient
English Poets," remarks, in reference to this poem, that "the senti-
ments, maxims, and observations with which it abounds, are such as
a considerable experience and a correct judgment of mankind alone
can furnish. The topics of jealousy, and of the credit and behaviour
of women, are treated with great truth, delicacy, and perspicuity.
The nice distinctions of moral character, and the pattern of female
excellence here drawn, contrasted as they were with the heinous and
flagrant enormities of the Countess of Essex, rendered this poem
extremely popular when its ingenious author was no more."
1
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"Therefore to prevent such care
That repentance soone may bring,
Like marchants, I would choose my ware,
Use-full good, not glittering.
He that weds for state or face,
Buys a horse, to lose a race."*
I shall not linger, however, over Overbury's poetical
productions, because, interesting as they are from the
circumstances under which they were written, they
contain nothing, after all, but the most common-place
sentiments, clothed in decidedly crabbed and eccentric
verse. Such beauties as they have, are, as Campbell
says, "those of solid reflection, predominating over,
but not extinguishing, sensibility."+ Certainly they
include little that is of permanent value. The
"Remedy of Love," a paraphrase of the famous poem
by Ovid, is perhaps the most successful of Overbury's
efforts in this branch of literature; but the nature of
the subject prevents me from giving any examples of
his mode of treatment, and I pass on to notice his "Ob-
servations in his Travailes upon the State of the XVII
Provinces as they stood Anno Dom. 1609," which
appeared in 1626, and was the result of a visit to the
Lo.. Countries commenced by him in 1608; also the
"Crumms Fal'n from King James's Table," which con-
sist merely of some royal "table-talk, principally relat-
ing to religion, embassayes, state policy, etc.," taken
down by Overbury, and first printed in "The Prince's
Cabala, or Mysteries of State," in 1715. §
* Carew's lyric, beginning "He that loves a rosy cheek," imme-
diately suggests itself.
""
+ Specimens of the English Poets."
Published in 1620.
Now included in Rimbault's edition of Overbury's "Works" in
the "Library of old Authors." (J. Russell Smith)
OVERBURY'S "C
151
"'
"
CHARACTERS.The “Characters, or Witty Descriptions," on which
our author's fame may be said to rest, will not be gene-
rally regarded as pleasant or entertaining reading, for
Overbury's prose style is frequently as crabbed as
his verse, and sometimes even more obscure, and the
descriptions are now and then so excessively concentrated
in expression as to be rather difficult to follow. On
the other hand, it is impossible not to admire their epi-
grammatic force, and the shrewdness of observation
which they everywhere betoken. A few of them
remind me, in their accumulation of minute particulars,
of some of the best passages by the elder Hazlitt, and
in their occasional flashes of satiric wit and humorous
characterization, they are superior to anything of the
kind in English literature. The workmanship may
probably be a little too apparent; the pictures may be,
as Hallam thinks they are,* somewhat too elaborate,
too Dutch-like. But taking them as they are, and com-
paring them with Bishop Hall's work on the one hand,
and Bishop Earle's on the other, they certainly deserve
the attention of the student, though they can never hope
to attract a large constituency among modern readers.
"The Fair and Happy Milkmaid,' oft quoted, is
the best," says Hallam, "of his characters." •We
hardly know any passages," says another writer,† "in
English prose-and that is saying no little-which
inspires the mind of the reader with so many pleasing
recollections, and which spreads so calm and purifying
a delight over the spirit, as it broods over the idea of
the innocent girl whose image Sir Thomas has here
* "Introduction to the Literature of Europe."
"Retrospective Review," vol. ii.
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bodied forth." The passage is indeed so famous that no
essay on the "Characters" would be complete that
did not give it, as I propose to give it now, in full:-
"A FAIRE AND HAPPY MILK-MAYD
↓
Is a countrey wench, that is so farre from making her
selfe beautifull by art, that one looke of hers is able to
put all face-physicke out of countenance. She knowes
a faire looke is but a dumbe orator to commend vertue,
therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand in
her so silently, as if they had stolne upon her without
her knowledge. The lining of her apparell (which is
her selfe) is farre better than out sides of tissew: for
though she be not arrayed in the spoile of the silke-
worme, shee is deckt in innocency, a far better wearing.
She doth not, with lying long abed, spoile both her
complexion and conditions; nature hath taught her, too
immoderate sleepe is rust to the soule; she rises therefore
with chaunticleare, her dames cock, and at night makes
the lamb her courfew. In milking a cow, and straining
the teats through her fingers, it seemes that so sweet a
milk-presse makes the milk the whiter or sweeter; for
never came almond glove or aromatique oyntment on her
palme to taint it. The golden eares of corne fall and
kisse her feet when shee reapes them, as if they wisht
to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that
fell'd them. Her breath is her own, which sents all
the yeare long of June, like a new made hay-cock. She
makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft
with pitty: and when winter evenings fall early (sit-
ting at her merry wheele) she sings a defiance to the
giddy wheele of fortune. She doth all things with so
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
153
,
sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to
doe ill, seing her mind is to doe well. She bestows her
yeares wages at next faire; and in chossing her gar-
ments, counts no bravery i' th' world, like decencie.
The garden and bee-hive are all her physick and chy-
rurgery, and she lives the longer for't. She dares goe
alone, and unfolde sheepe i' th' night, and feares no
manner of ill, because she meanes 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
pauled with insuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her
dreames are so chaste, that shee dare tell them; only
a Fridaies dream is all her superstition: that she con-
ceales for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her
care is she may die in the spring-time, to have store of
flowers stucke upon her winding-sheet."
It says much for the original purity of Overbury's
own nature that all his experience of Court life should
still have left him with the capacity to draw so sweet
and true a picture. That he always had a keen enjoy-
ment of the pleasures of rural life may be inferred from
his character of "A Franklin," which may almost be
taken as a worthy pendant to "A Faire and Happy
Milk-mayd."
"A FRANKLIN.
"His outside is an ancient yeoman of England,
though his inside may give armes (with the best
gentleman) and ne'er see the herauld. There is no
truer servant in the house then himselfe. Though he be
master, he sayes not to his servants, Goe to field, but,
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Let us goe; and with his owne eye, doth both fatten
his flock, and set forward all manner of husbandrie.
Hee is taught by nature to be contented with a little;
his owne fold yeelds him both food and rayment: hee
is pleas'd with any nourishment God sends, whilst
curious gluttony ransackes, as it were, Noahs Arke
for food, onely to feed the riot of one meale. He
is nere knowne to goe to law; understanding, to
bee law-bound among men, is like to bee hide-bound
among his beasts; they thrive not under it: and that
such men sleepe as unquietly, as if their pillowes were
stuft with lawyers pen-knives. When he builds, no
poore tenants cottage hinders his prospect: they are
indeed his almes-houses, though there be painted on
them no such superscription: he never sits up late,
but when he hunts the badger, the vow'd foe of his
lambs: nor uses hee any cruelty, but when hee hunts
the hare, nor subtilty, but when he setteth snares for
the suite, or pit-falls for the blackbird; nor oppression,
but when in the moneth of July, he goes to the next
river, and sheares his sheepe. He allowes of honest
pastime, and thinkes not the bones of the dead any
thing bruised, or the worse for it, though the country
lasses dance in the church-yard after evensong. Rocke
Munday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wake-
fall ketches on Christmas Eve, the hoky or seed cake,
these he yeerly keepes, yet holds them no reliques of
popery. He is not so inquisitive after newes derived
from the privie closet, when the finding an eiery of
hawkes in his owne ground, or the foaling of a colt
come of a good straine, are tydings more pleasant, more
profitable. Hee is lord paramount within himselfe,
OVERBURY'S
CHARACTERS."
155
though hee hold by never so meane a tenure; and
dyes the more contentedly (though he leave his heire
young) in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous
guardian. Lastly, to end him; hee cares not when his
end comes, hee need not feare his audit, for his quietus
is in heaven.'
""
It may be interesting to contrast Overbury's poetical
description of a perfect wife with his prose definition
of a similar character. The latter seems to me by far
the freshest and most admirable :-
"A GOOD WIFE
Is a mans best moveable, a scien incorporate with the
stocke, bringing sweet fruit; one that to her husband
is more than a friend, lesse than trouble: an equall
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 halfe
himself. She is his absent hands, eyes, eares, and
mouth his present and absent all. She frames her
nature unto his howsoever the hiacinth followes not
the sun more willingly. Stubbornnesse and obstinacy
are hearbs that grow not in her garden. She leaves
tattling to the gossips of the town, and is more seene
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 prodigall. By
her discretion she hath children, not wantons; a hus-
band without her, is a nursery in mans apparel: none
but she hath an aged husband, to whom she is both a
staffe and a chaire. To conclude, shee is both wise and
religious, which makes her all this."
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Roughly speaking, the "Characters" may be divided
into two parts-those which refer to persons or
things peculiar to the times in which the author lived,
and those which attempt subjects of permanent and
universal interest. The description, for instance, of
"An Improvident Young Gallant" is evidently from
a contemporary original :—
"AN IMPROVIDENT YOUNG GALLANT.
"There is a confederacy between him and his clothes,
to be made a puppy: view him well, and you'll say
his gentry sits as ill upon him, as if he had bought it
with his penny. He hath more places to send money
to, than the devill hath to send his spirits; and to
furnish each mistresse, would make him run beside his
wits, if he had any to lose. He accounts bashfulnesse
the wickedst thing in the world, and therefore studies
impudence. If all men were of his mind, all honesty
would be out of fashion. He withers his clothes on a
stage, as a sale-man is forc't to doe his sutes in Birchin-
lane; and when the play is done, if you marke his
rising, 'tis with a kind of walking epilogue between
the two candles, to know if his suit may pass for cur-
rant: hee studies by the discretion of his barber, to
frizle like a baboone: three such would keep three the
nimblest barbers in the town, from ever having leisure
to weave net garters: for when they have to doe with
him, they have many irons in th' fire. He is travelled,
but to little purpose; only went over for a squirt; and
came back againe, yet never the more mended in his
conditions, 'cause he carried himselfe along with him:
a scholler he pretends himself, and saies he hath sweat
OVERBURY'S " CHARACTERS.”
157
for it but the truth is, he knowes Cornelius' far
better than Tacitus; his ordinary sports are cock-fights:
but the most frequent, horse-races, from whence hee
comes home dry-foundered. Thus when his purse hath
cast her calfe, he goes downe into the country, where he
is brought to milke and white cheese like the Switzers."
،
With some slight variations, this might, indeed,
apply to a certain class of young men of our own day.
Still more distinctively a contemporary sketch is that
of the "Almanack-Maker," who, at that time, pre-
tended to possess powers of prophecy such as his
modern namesakes carefully refrain from claiming :—
"AN ALMANACK-MAKER
Is the worst part of an astronomer: a certaine
compact of figures, characters, and cyphers; out of
which he scores the fortune of a year, not so profitably,
as doubtfully. He is tenant by custome to the planets,
of whom he holds the 12 houses by lease paroll: to
them he paies yearely rent, his studie, and time; yet
lets them out againe (with all his heart) for 40s. per
annum. His life is merely contemplative: for his
practice, 'tis worth nothing, at least not worthy of
credit; and if (by chance) he purchase any, he loseth
it againe at the yeares end, for time bringeth truth to
light. Ptolemy and Ticho Brahe are his patrons,
whose volumes hee understands not, but admires; and
the rather because they are strangers, and so easier to
bee credited, than controuled. His life is upright, for
he is alwayes looking upward; yet dares beleeve
nothing above primum mobile, for 'tis out of the reach
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
of his Jacob's staffe. His charity extends no farther
than to mountebankes and sow-gelders, to whom he
bequeathes the seasons of the yeare, to kill or torture
by. The verses in his booke have a worse pace than
ever had Rochester hackney: for his prose, 'tis dappled
with inke-horne tearmes, and may serve for an
almanacke: but for his judging at the uncertainty of
weather, any old shepheard shall make a dunce of him.
He would be thought the devils intelligencer for
stolne goods, if ever he steale out of that quality: as
a flie turnes to a maggot, so the corruption of the
cunning-man is the generation of an empericke: his
works fly foorth in small volumes, yet not all, for
many ride passt to chandlers and tobacco shops in folio.
To be briefe, he fals 3 degrees short of his promises;
yet is hee the key to unlocke termes, and law dayes,
and dumbe Mercurie to point out high wayes, and a
bayliffe of all marts and faires in England. The rest
of him you shall know next year; for what hee will be
then, he himselfe knowes not.”
Sir Thomas is at his best, perhaps, when he is
indicating the characteristics of "A Noble Spirit."
"A NOBLE SPIRIT
Hath surveied and fortified his disposition, and con-
verts all occurrents into experience, between which
experience and his reason, there is marriage; the issue
are his actions. He circuits his intents, and seeth the
end before he shoot. Men are the instruments of his
art, and there is no man without his use: occasion
incites him, none enticeth him; and he moves by
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
159
affection, not for affection; he loves glory, scorns
shame, and governeth and obeyeth with one coun-
tenance; for it comes from one consideration. He cals
not the variety of the world chances, for his meditation
hath travelled over them; and his eye mounted upon
his understanding, seeth them as things underneath.
He covers not his body with delicacies, nor excuseth
these delicacies by his body, but teacheth it, since it is
not able to defend its own imbecility, to shew or suffer.
He licenceth not his weaknesse, to weare fate, but
knowing reason to be no idle gift of nature, he is the
steersman of his own destiny. Truth is the goddesse,
and he takes paines to get her, not to look like her.
Hee knowes the condition of the world, that he must
act one thing like another, and then another. To
these he carries his desires, and not his desires him,
and stickes not fast by the way (for that contentment
is repentance) but knowing the circle of all courses, of
all intents, of all things, to have but one center or
period, without all distraction, he hasteth thither and
ends there, as his true and naturall element. He doth
not contemne fortune, but not confesse her. He is
no gamester of the world (which onely complaine and
praise her) but being only sensible of the honesty of
actions, contemnes a particular profit as the excrement
or scum. Unto the society of men he is a sun, whose
clearenesse directs their steps in a regular motion:
when he is more particular, he is the wise mans
friend, the example of the indifferent, the medicine of
the vicious. Thus time goeth not from him, but with
him and he feeles age more by the strength of his
soule, then the weakenes of his body; thus feeles he no
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paine, but esteemes all such things as friends, that de-
sire to file off his fetters, and helpe him out of prison."
It is to be hoped that such a noble spirit may be
found as readily in the days of Victoria as in the days
of James I. “The Melancholy Man" is equally common
to the two eras, and as for the "Saylor," it is to be
presumed that the mariner who had fought and con-
quered under Drake and Frobisher, and was afterwards
to fight and conquer under Blake, is identical with the
gallant tar who mans our ironclads, and only waits for
an opportunity to show the enemy the stuff he is
made of:-
"A SAYLOR
Is a pitcht piece of reason calckt and tackled, and only
studied to dispute with tempests. He is part of his
own provision, for he lives ever pickled. A fore-wind
is the substance of his creed; and fresh water the
burden of his prayers. He is naturally ambitious, for
he is ever climing: out of which as naturally he
feares, for he is ever flying: time and he are every-
where, ever contending who shall arrive first: he is
well-winded, for he tires the day, and out-runs dark-
nesse. His life is like a hawkes, the best part mewed;
and if he live till three coates, is a master. He sees
Gods wonders in the deep: but so, as rather they
appeare his play-fellowes, then stirrers of his zeale:
nothing but hunger and hard rockes can convert him,
and then but his upper decke neither; for his hold
neither feares nor hopes. His sleepes are but
repreevals of his dangers, and when he wakes, 'tis but
next stage to dying. His wisdome is the coldest part
OVERBURY'S “CHARACTERS.”
151
about him, for it ever points to the North: and it lies
lowest, which makes his valour every tide ore-flow it.
In a storm 'tis disputable, whether the noise be more
his, or the elements, and which will first leave scolding;
on which side of the ship hee may bee saved best,
whether his faith bee starre-boord faith, or lar-boord ;
or the helme at that time not all his hope of heaven :
his keele is the embleme of his conscience, till it be
split he never repents, then no farther than the land
allowes him, and his language is a new confusion, and
all his thoughts new notions: his body and his ship
are both one burthen, nor is it knowne who stowes most
wine, or rowles most, only the ship is guided, he has
no sterne: a barnacle and hee are bred together, both
of one nature, and 'tis fear'd one reason: upon any but
a wooden horse he cannot ride, and if the wind blow
against him, he dare not: he swarves up to his seat as
to a saile-yard, and cannot sit unlesse he beare a flag-
staffe: if ever he be broken to the saddle, 'tis but a
voyage still,* for he mis-takes the bridle for a bowlin,
and is ever turning his horse-taile: he can pray, but 'tis
by rote, not by faith, and when he works he dares not,
for his brackish beleefe hath made that ominous.
A rocke or a quicke-sand plucks him before hee bee
ripe, else he is gathered to his friends at Wapping."
Throughout these passages it will be observed that
Sir Thomas is full of the conceits which marred the
best writing of his time. I have yet to represent him
in the character of what I might almost term a punster,
*The reader will recollect Commodore Trunnion's amusing voyage
to church, in Smollett's famous story.
M
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so strongly do his playings upon words convey the
sensation that we generally attribute to a pun. Take,
for instance, his description of "A Tinker."
"A TINKER
Is a moveable, for he hath no abiding place; by his
motion he gathers heat, thence his cholericke nature.
He seemes to be very devout, for his life is a continuall
pilgrimage, and sometimes in humility goes barefoot,
thereon making necessity a virtue. His house is as
ancient as Tubal Cains, and so is a runnagate by
antiquity: yet he proves himselfe a gallant, for he
carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher,
for he beares all his substance about him. From his art
was musick first invented, and therefore is he alwaies
furnisht with a song: to which his hammer keeping
time proves that he was the first founder of the kettle-
drum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands
his musicke most upon crotchets. The companion of
his travels is some foule sunne-burnt Queane, that since
the terrible statute recanted Gipsey issue, and is turned
pedleresse. So marches he all over England with his
bag and baggage. His conversation is unreproveable;
for hee is ever mending. Hee observes truly the
statutes, and therefore he can rather steale then begge,
in which he is unremoveably constant in spight of whips.
or imprisonment: and so a strong enemy to idlenesse,
that in mending one lide, he had rather make three
than want worke, and when hee hath done, hee throwes
the wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth
naturally ancient custome, conversing in open fields,
and lowly cottages. If he visit cities or townes, 'tis
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
163
but to deale upon the imperfections of our weaker
vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which with
canting proves him a linguist. He is entertain'd in
every place, but enters no farther then the door, to
avoid suspition. Some would take him to be a coward;
but believe it, he is a man of mettle, his valour is
commonly three or foure yards long, fastned to a pike
in the end for flying off. He is very provident, for he
will fight but with one at once, and then also hee had
rather submit than be counted obstinate. To conclude,
if he scape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a begger."
""
"A Prisoner" is described ""
as one that hath been a
monied man, and is still a very close fellow; whosoever
is of his acquaintance, let them make much of him, for
they shall find him as fast a friend as any in England;
he is a sure man, and you know where to find him.'
"A Taylor" is represented as "partly an alchymist;
for hee extracteth his owne apparell out of other mens
clothes; and when occasion serveth, making a brokers
shop his alembicke. . . He is in part likewise an arith-
metician; cunning enough for multiplication and addi-
tion, but cannot abide subtraction. . . For any skill in
Geometry, I dare not commend him; for hee could never
yet find out the dimensions of his owne conscience: not-
withstanding he hath many bottomes, it seemeth this is
alwaies bottomlesse." Of "an ordinary Widow" it is
said that "the end of her husband begins in teares;
and the end of her teares begins in a husband."
Finally, the "Characters" close with a description
by Sir Thomas himself of what, in his opinion, “a
Character is: "
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"If I must speake," he says, "the schoole-masters
language, I will confesse that character comes of this
infinitive moode xapáğw, which signifieth to ingrave, or`
make a deepe impression. And for that cause, a letter
(as A.B.) is called a character.
"Those elements which we learne first, leaving &
strong seale on our memories.
"Character is also taken from an Egyptian hiero-
glyphicke, for an impresse, or short embleme; in little
comprehending much.
"To square out a character by an English levell, it is
a picture (reall or personall) quaintly drawne, in various
colours, all of them heightned by one shadowing.
"It is a quicke and soft touch of many strings, all
shutting up in one musicall close: it is wits descant on
any plaine song.”
Appended to the second edition of "The Wife,"
in 1614, were certain "Conceited News, written by
(Overbury) himselfe and other learned Gentlemen his
friends," the full title of which is afterwards given as
"Newes from any Whence, or, Old Truth, under a
Supposall of Noveltie. Occasioned by divers Essaies,
and private passages of Wit, betweene sundrie Gentle-
men upon that Subject." They are very much in the
same style as the "Characters," sententious and epigram-
matic almost to obscurity. Very few, indeed, however,
are by Sir Thomas Overbury, and, of his contributions,
that entitled "Newes from Court" seems most avail-
able for quotation here:-
"It is thought that there are as great miseries beyond
happinesse, as on this side it, as being in love. That truth
is every mans by assenting. That time makes every-
-
OVERBURY'S “ CHARACTERS.”
165
thing aged, and yet it selfe was never but a minute old.
That, next sleep, the greatest devourer of time is
businesse: the greatest stretcher of it, passion: the
truest measure of it, contemplation. To be saved,
alwayes is the best plot: and vertue alwayes cleares
her way as she goes. Vice is ever behind-hand with ·
it selfe. That wit and a woman are two fraile things,、
and both the frailer by concurring.
That the
wisdom of action is discretion; the knowledge of con-
templation is truth: the knowledge of action is men.
That the first considers what should be, the latter
makes use of what is. That every man is weake in his
owne humours. That every man a little beyond him-
selfe, is a foole. That affectation is the more ridiculous
part of folly then ignorance. That the matter of
greatnesse is comparison. That God made one world
of substances; man hath made another of art and
opinion. That money is nothing but a thing which art
hath turned up trumpe. That custome is the soule of
circumstances. That custome hath so far prevailed,
that truth is now the greatest newes."
It is only when we concede the correctness of the
last remark that we are able to recognise anything but
a supposall of novelty" in these latter reflections.
66
¿
But it may not be uninteresting to contrast the
quotations I have given from the works of Overbur
with a few short extracts from the "Microcosmo-
graphy" of Bishop Earle, to which I have already
referred. It is called "A Piece of the World Charac-
* That is, "A Description of the Little World," viz., man.
"The
body of man (saith Zanchius) is the image of the world, and therefore
called Microcosmus."-RALEIGH.
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
teriz'd," and consists, like Overbury's "Characters,'
of brief, incisive descriptions of such every-day persons
as "a Childe," "a young rawe Preacher," "a grave
Divine," "a meere dull Physitian," "an Alderman,"
"a discontented Man," "an Antiquary," "a younger
Brother," and so on. It differs from Overbury's work,
however, in being less vulgar, and, on the whole, more
pungent, though scarcely so witty as some of the best
bits of the earlier writer.
Let us take the second character of those above-
named.
""
"A YOUNG RAWE PREACHER
Is a Bird not yet fledg'd, that hath hopt out of his nest
to bee Chirping on a hedge, and will bee straggling
abroad at what perill soever. His backwardnesse in
the Universitie bath set him thus forward; for had
hee not ruanted there, he had not beene so hastie a
Divine. His small standing and time hath made him
A proficient onely in boldnesse, out of which and hist
Table booke he is furnisht for a Preacher. His Col-
lections of Studie are the notes of Sermons, which
taken up at St. Maries, hee utters in the Country. And
if he write brackigraphy, his stocke is so much the
better. His writing is more than his reading; for hee
reades onely what hee gets without booke. Thus ac-
-complisht he comes down to his friends, and his first
salutation is grace and peace out of the Pulpit. His
prayer is conceited, and no man remembers his Colledge
more at large. The Pace of his Sermon is a ful careere,
and he runnes wildly over hill and dale till the clocke
stop him. The labour of it is chiefly on his lungs, and
OVERBURY'S “CHARACTERS.”
167
the onely thing hee ha's made of it himself, is the
faces. He takes on against the Pope without mercy,
and ha's a jest still in lavender for Bellarmine. Yet he
preaches heresie, if it comes in his way, though with a
mind I must needs say very Orthodoxe. His action is
all passion, and his speech interjections: He ha’s an
excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and spits
with very good grace. His stile is compounded of
some twenty several mens, onely his body imitates
some one extraordinary. He will not draw his hand-
kerchief out of his place, nor blow his nose without
discretion. His commendation is, that he never looks
upon booke, and indeed, he was never us'd to it. Hee
preaches but once a yeare, though twice on Sundy;
for the stuffe is still the same, onely the dressing is a
little alter'd. He has more tricks with a sermon than
a Tailer with an old cloak, to turne it, and piece it,
and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he
have waded farther in his profession, and would shew
reading of his own, his Authors are Postils, and his
Schoole - divinitie a Catechisme. His fashion and
demure Habit gets him in with some Town-precisian
and makes him a guest on Fryday nights. You shall
know him by his narrow Velvet cape, and Serge
facing, and his ruffe, next his haire, the shortest thing
about him. The companion of his walke is some
zealous tradesman, whom he astonisheth with strang
points, which they both understand alike. His friend
and much painfulnesse may preferre him to thirti
pounds a yeare, and this means, to a chamber-maide;
with whom wee leave him now in the bands of Wed-
locke. Next Sunday you shal have him againe."
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Putting aside some particulars which obviously dis-
tinguish this as a contemporary portrait, there still
remains much that will be recognised as a fairly accu-
rate description of the "young raw preacher" of all
times and countries. Let us see, now, how far the
"gallant" of the seventeenth century differed from the
nineteenth century "swell: "--
"A GALLANT
Is one that was born and shapt for his Cloathes: and
if Adam had not falne, had liv'd to no purpose. Hee
gratulates therefore the first sinne, and fig-leaves that
were an occasion of braverie. His first care is his
dresse, the next his bodie, and in the uniting of these
two lies his soule and its faculties. Hee observes
London trulier than the Termers, and his businesse is
the street: the Stage, the Court, and those places
where a proper man is best showne. If hee be qualified
in gaming extraordinary, he is so much the more
gentle and compleate, and hee learnes the beaste oathes
for the purpose. These are a great part of his dis-
course, and he is as curious on their newnesse as in
their fashion. His other Talke is Ladies and such
pretty things, or some jest at a Play. His Pick-tooth
beares a great parte in his discourse, so does his body;
the upper parts whereof are as starcht as his linnen,
and perchance use the same Laundresse. Hee has
learnt to ruffle his face from his Boote, and takes great
delight in his walke to heare his Spurs gingle. Though
his life passe somewhat slidingly, yet he seenies very
carefull of the time, for hee is still drawing his Watch
out of his Poket, and spends part of his houres in
OVERBURY'S "CHARACTERS.”
169
•
numbring them. He is one never serious but with his
Taylor, when hee is in conspiracie for the next device.
He is furnisht [with] his jests, as some wanderer with
his Sermons, some three for all Congregations, one
especially against the Scholler, a man to him much
ridiculous, whom hee knowes by no other definition,
but a silly fellow in blacke. He is a kind of walking
Mercer's Shop, and shewes you one Stuffe to-day, and
another to-morrow, an ornament to the roomes he
comes in, as the faire bed and Hangings be; and is
meerely rateable accordingly, fiftie or an hundred
Pound as his suit is. His maine ambition is to get a
Knighthood, and then an old Ladie, which if he be
happy in, he fits the Stage and a Coach so much
longer. Otherwise, himselfe and his Clothes grow
stale together, and he is buried commonly ere hee dies
in the Gaole, or the Country."
I am afraid that, with very slight variation indeed,
this description might serve for the man of fashion of
the days of Victoria as well as of the days of James I.
After Earle, the "Character," as a distinct species
of prose composition, died quietly out, in favour of the
revival of dramatic energy which marked the reigns
of Charles and James II. This, again, was succeeded
by the age of the essayists, who sketched the manners
and habits of their countrymen in an easier and a
livelier style than was possible in an Earle or an Over-
bury. Still, the latter had much to do in giving a
point and flexibility to the language in which Steele
and Addison afterwards satirised the England and
Englishmen of their day.

QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
FRANCIS QUARLES, born in 1592, was a native of
Essex, was educated at Cambridge and Lincoln's Inn,
and was successively cup-bearer to Elizabeth Queen of
Bohemia, secretary to Archbishop Usher, and chrono-
loger to the city of London. Having espoused the
cause of the Royalists against the Puritans, he shared
in the misfortunes which followed the downfall of the
former, and the losses he sustained, both in the way of
manuscripts and personal property, are said so to have
preyed upon his health that they probably accelerated
his death, which happened in 1644.
"
He had been a most voluminous writer. Besides
the "Emblems," which I shall come to consider pre-
sently, he was the author of "The Feast of Worms,'
a poem on the history of Jonah (1620); "Pentalogia,
or the Quintessence of Meditation (also 1620);
Hadassa, or the History of Queen Esther" (1621);
"Argalus and Parthenia," a poem, founded on an
episode in Sidney's "Arcadia," which seems to be
chiefly conspicuous for its indecency (1621); "Job
Militant, with Meditations Divine and Moral" (1624);
"Sion's Elegies wept by Jeremie the Prophet" (1624;)
""
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
171
"Sion's Sonnets sung by Solomon the King, and peri-
phras'd" (1625); "Divine Fancies, digested into
Epigrammes, Meditations, and Observations" (1632);
"Anniversaries upon his Parante" (1635); "Hiero-
glyphikes of the Life of Man" (1638); "Enchiridion,
containing Institutions, Divine (Contemplative, Practi-
cal), Moral (Ethical, Economical, Political)”—a prose
work of some merit* (1641); "Observations concern-
ing Princes and States upon Peace and War" (1642);
"Barnabas and Boanerges; Judgment and Mercy, or
Wine and Oyl for Afflicted Souls" (1644); "The
Shepherd's Oracles, delivered in certain Egloques
(1644); "The Whipper Whip'd" (1644); "Solomon's
Recantations, entitled Ecclesiastices, paraphrased
(1645); "Profest Royalist's Quarrell with the Times"
(1645); "Midnight Meditations of Death" (1646);
"The Virgin Widow"-a comedy which Langbaine
describes, somewhat comically, as "an innocent, in-
offensive play " (1649); and some other works, which
it is not necessary to mention here.
27
Indeed, Quarles, like many other prolific writers, is
only known nowadays by one "famous book," "The
Emblems, Divine and Moral," which first appeared in
1635. They were not, it is scarcely necessary to say,
the first of their kind-not even the first of their
kind in English literature, for Whitney, in 1586, and
Peacham, in 1612, had already published respectively
the "Choice of Emblemes, and other Devises," and
"Minerva Britanna; or, a Garden of Heroical De-
vises;" whilst George Wither, chiefly remembered
now for his lively verses, beginning-
* Reprinted in the "Library of Old Authors."
""
72
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair ?"
brought out, in the same year with Quarles's "Em-
blems," "A Collection of Emblemes, ancient and
modern, Quickened with Metrical Illustrations, both
moral and divine, and disposed into Lotteries, that
instruction and good counsell may be farthered by an
honest and pleasing recreation."
I have scarcely space enough to enter into the wide
question of the origin of emblem-literature, farther
than to say that the Greek word éußλnua denoted
merely "the thing, whether implement or ornament,
placed in or thrown on, and so joined to, another
thing." With this meaning attached to it, it was
applied for a long time to any pictorial representation
affixed to, or traced upon, any particular substance.
Hence it was inevitable that it should come eventually
to be used for any painting or engraving of an alle-
gorical character; and it was only when the allegory
was not sufficiently clear and patent that the artistic
production was supplemented by a literary explana-
tion of it. It was in the Middle Ages that the two
elements were generally combined in books where the
pictures or designs were accompanied by prose or
verse; and it was in 1522 that the first collection of
historical importance made its appearance in the world.
In that year Andreas Alciatus, a distinguished pro-
fessor of laws, issued an "Emblematum Libellus," or
"Little Book of Emblems," which, originally con-
sisting of not more than ninety-seven emblems and as
many wood-cuts, grew by-and-by into a large quarto
* Green's "Shakespeare and the Emblem-Writers.”
**
2
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
173
of one thousand and four pages, with thirty-seven
square inches of letterpress on each page. To this,
so many of our English emblem-writers have at
times been indebted-Wither especially-that a few
quotations from it may not be uninteresting. The
"Emblems" are all in Latin, and indicate, says Mr.
Green, the writer's full acquaintance with both the
Greek and Roman mythologies; but they are deficient
in the easy expression which distinguishes the poet
of nature above him whom learning chiefly guides, and
seldom betray either the enthusiasm of genius or depth
of imaginative power. No. cxx. runs thus:
*
"Dextra tenet lapidem, manus altera sustinet alas,
Ut me pluma levat, sic grave merget onus.
Ingenio poteram superas volitare per artes,
Me nisi paupertas invida deprimeret."
This was afterwards rendered by Wither in a
stanza, which had at least the advantage of accurately
describing the print that accompanied it. It is the
forty-second in the third book :—
"You little think what plague it is to be,
In plight like him whom pictured here you see.
His winged arm and his uplifted eyes,
Declare that he hath wit and will to rise:
The stone which clogs his other hand may show,
That poverty and fortune keep him low.'
Emblem clxxvii., in the "Libellum," is a helmet
surrounded with bees, entitled "Ex bello pax:"
"En galea, intrepidus quam miles gesserat et qua
Sæpius hostili sparsa cruore fuit,
Partâ pace opibus tenuis concessit in usum
Alveoli, atque favos grataque mella gerit.
Arma procul jaceant: fas sit, tunc sumere bellum,
Quando aliter pacis non potes arte frui."
* "Retrospective Review," vol. ix.
174
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Wither, says our authority, has an emblem with
the same design, with the addition of certain instru-
ments of war. The commencement of it will serve as
a translation of that of Alciatus, though the point is
lost:
"When you have heeded by your eyes of sense
This helmet hiving of a swarm of bees,
Consider what may gathered be from thence,
And what your eye of understanding sees.
That helmet and those other weapons there,
Betoken war; the honey-making flies
An emblem of a happy kingdom are,
Injoying peace by painful industries."
The following verses were written by Alciatus on
the occasion of a violent plague in Italy which carried
off all the young men of the locality, but left the old
untouched:
"Errabat socio Mors juncta Cupidine: secum
Mors pharetras, parvus tela gerebat Amor.
Divertêre simul, simul una et nocte cubarunt:
Cacas Amor, Mors hoc tempore cæca fuit.
Alter enim alterius male provida spicula sumpsit:
Mors aurata, tenet ossea tela puer.
Debuit inde senex qui nunc Acheronticus esse,
Ecce amat, et capiti florea serta parat.
Ast ego mutato quia Amor me perculit arcu,
Deficio injiciunt et mihi fata manum.
Parce puer,
Mors signa tenens vitricia parce :
Fac ego amem, subeat fac Acheronta senex.
""
This was afterwards amplified-one could scarcely
call it translated by Geoffrey Whitney, in the work
to which I have already referred, the full title of which
was, "A Choice of Emblemes and other Devices, for
the most part gathered out of sundrie writers, Eng-
lished and Moralised. And divers newly devised, by
Geoffrey Witney. A Worke adorned with a varietie
of matter, both pleasant and profitable, wherein those
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
175
that please maye finde to fit their fancies, because
herein, by the office of the eye and the eare, the minde
maye reape dooble delighte throughe holsome pre-
cepts, shadowed with pleasant devices, both fit for
the vertuous, to their incoraging, and for the wicked,
for their admonishing and amendment.”
Whitney's amplification of the last-quoted emblem is
as follows:-
"While furious Mors from place to place did fly,
And here, and there, his fatal darts did throw:
At length he met with Cupid, passing by,
Who likewise had been busy with his bow:
Within one inn they both together stay'd.
And for one night away their shooting lay'd.
The morrow next, they both away do haste,
And each, by chance, the other's quiver takes:
The frozen darts on Cupid's back are plac'd,
The fiery darts the lean virago shakes;
Whereby ensued such alteration strange
As all the world did wonder at the change.
For gallant youths, whom Cupid thought to wound,
Of love, and life, did make an end at once;
And aged men, whom death would bring to ground,
Began again to love, with sighs and groans;
Thus nature's laws this change infringed so,
That age did love, and youth to grave did go.
Till, at the last, as Cupid drew his bow,
Before he shot, a youngling thus did cry,
'Oh, Venus' son, thy darts thou dost not know:
They pierce too deep; for all thou hitt'st do die.
Oh spare our age, who honoured thee of old,
These darts are bone; take thou the darts of gold.'
Which being said, awhile did Cupid stay,
And saw, how youth was almost clean extinct;
And age did doat with garlands fresh and gay.
And heads all bald were new in wedlock link'd:
Wherefore he showed this error unto Mors,
Who, miscontent, did change again perforce.
Yet so, as both some darts again convey'd,
Which were not theirs; yet unto neither known,
Some bony darts in Cupid's quiver stay'd,
Some golden darts had Mors among his own.
Then, when we see untimely death appear,
Or wanton age :-it was this chance you hear.
176
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
There seems to me a decided infusion of poetry in
these lines, which are commendably free from the con-
ceits that too frequently manifest themselves in the
English verse of that period.
Take, again, the emblem entitled, "Murus æreus
sana conscientia :
"Both fresh, and green, the laurel standeth sound,
Though lightnings flash and thunder-bolts do fly,
Where other trees are blasted to the ground,
Yet, not one leaf of it is withered dry:
Even so, the man that hath a conscience clear,
When wicked men do quake at every blast,
Doth constant stand, and doth no peril fear,
When tempests rage do make the world aghast:
Such men are like unto the laurel tree,
The others like the blasted boughs that die."
This is neatly turned; the emblem I shall quote
next is not quite so successful. It is called "Strenu-
orum immortale nomen."
"Achilles' tomb upon Sigæea's shore,
This represents: where Thetis oft was seen,
And for his loss did seem for to deplore;
With gallant flowers the same was always green:
And at the top a palm did freshly bloom,
Whose branches sweet did overspread the tomb.
Which shows, though death the valiant overthrow,
Yet after fate, their fame remains behind;
And triumphs still, and doth no conquest know,
But is the badge of every noble mind;
And when in grave their corps inclosed lie,
Their famous acts do pierce the azure sky."
The following is somewhat commonplace, perhaps ;
but all elementary morality is commonplace from
one point of view, and what is stale to us in the nine-
teenth century was, I dare say, comparatively fresh to
our forefathers in the reign of Elizabeth :-
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
177
ANIMUS, NON RES.
"In christal towers, and turrets richly set
With glittering gems, that shine against the sun :
In regall rooms of jasper, and of jet,
Content of mind not always likes to won:
But oftentimes, it pleaseth her to stay
In simple cotes, closed in with walls of clay.
"Diogenes, within a tun did dwell,
No choice of place, no store of pelf he had :
And all his goods, could Bias bear right well,
And Codrus had small cotes his heart to glad:
His meat was root: his table was a stool,
Yet these for wit did set the world to school.
"Who covets still, or he that lives in fear,
As much delight is wealth unto his mind,
As music is to him that cannot hear,
Or pleasant shows and pictures to the blind;
Then sweet content oft likes the mean estate,
Which is exempt and free from fear and hate.
"What man is rich ? not he that doth abound.
What man is poor? not he that hath no store.
But he is rich that makes content his ground,
And he is poor that covets more and more,
Which proves the man was richer in the tun,
Than was the king that many lands had won. 19
I now come to notice the emblems of Henry Peacham,
a member of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was at
once travelling tutor, musician, painter, and author,
and who, falling upon evil days, "wrote penny
pamphlets for his bread." The following is a speci-
men of his verse:
VOS VOBIS.
"The painful bee, who many a bitter show'r
And storm had felt, far from his hive away,
To seek the sweetest honey-bearing flower,
That might be found, and was the pride of May.
Here lighting on the fairest he might spy,
Is beat by drones, by wasp and butterfly.
* Collier's "Bibliographical Account of Early English Poetry."
N
178
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"So men there are sometimes of good desert,
Who painfully have labour'd for the hive,
Yet must they with their merits stand apart,
And give a far inferior leave to thrive :
Or be perhaps, if gotten into grace,
By waspish envy beaten out of place."
This sounds as if it were the result of the poor writer's
personal experience; and the same may be said of the
pendent emblem which I now subjoin :-
SIC VOS NON VOBIS.
"These little creatures here, as white as milk,
That shame to sloth, are busy at their loɔm
All summer long in weaving of their silk,
Do make their webs both winding-sheet and tomb;
Thus to th' ungrateful world bequeathing all
Their lives have gotten at their funeral.
"Even so the webs our wits for others weave
Even from the highest to the meanest worm,
But siren-like in the end ourselves deceive,
Who spend our time to serve another's turn,
Or paint a fool with coat or colours gay,
To give good words or thanks, so go his way."
Peacham's book was published, I may repeat, in
1612; Wither's, from which I am about to make still
farther extracts, in 1635. It will be curious to com-
pare his work with that of his contemporary, Quarles.
Its origin is thus described in the preface: "These
emblems," he says, "graven in copper by Crispinus
Passæus (with a motto in Greek, Latin, or Italian
round about every figure, and with two lines or verses
in one of the same languages, paraphrasing these
mottoes), came to my hands almost twenty years
past. The verses were
were so mean, that they were
afterwards cut off from the plates.
Yet the
workmanship being judged very good for the most
part, and the rest excusable, some of my friends were
QUARLES'S “EMBLEMS.”
179
so much delighted in the graver's art, and in those
illustrations, which for mine own pleasure I had made
upon some few of them, that they requested me to
moralise the rest, which I condescended unto; and
they had been brought to view many years ago, but
that the copper prints (which are now gotten) could
not be procured out of Holland upon any reasonable
conditions. If they were worthy of the graver's and
printer's cost, being only dumb figures, little useful to
any but to young gravers or painters; they may now
be much more worthy, seeing the life of speech being
added unto them may make them teachers and remem-
brancers of profitable things." I quote all these
particulars because they seem to me peculiarly illus-
trative of the author's conceit, and also because it
seems to hint that the use of emblem-writing in
England was owing very much to the decline of
emblem-drawing, which must have been very bad
indeed to require such elaborate explanation. Wither,
however, quite flatters himself that his poetical illus-
trations are of remarkable value; "For when," he
says, "levity or a childish delight in trifling objects
hath allured" men "to look on the pictures, curiosity
may urge them to peep further, that they might seek
out their meanings in our annexed illustrations, in
which may lurk some sentence or expression, so
evidently pertinent to their estates, persons, or affec-
tions, as will, that instant or afterwards, make way for
those considerations, which will at last wholly change
them, or much better them in their conversation." I
am afraid few people were ever moved to goodness by
the emblem writers, though Quarles's book—and I
180
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
dare say Wither's-was very popular in his time,
and is even now to be met with in some old-fashioned
families. It would be difficult to say which of the two
is dullest; but perhaps Wither, in spite of his self-
satisfaction, is the least interesting, as he is certainly
the least famous in that particular branch of literature.
I imagine that he was not very successful in securing
readers of his curious device of what he calls a lottery.
This was put forward in deference to the wishes of his
publisher, who seems to have felt that the attractive-
ness of the emblems themselves was not very great.
The scheme was as follows:-At the end of each four
books of emblems was a string of fifty-six verses on
different tempers, virtues, qualities, and so on, the first
fifty of each of which answered to, and were illustrated
by, the fifty emblems that composed each book. At
the end of the volume were two circular indexes, one to
the books, and the other to the numbers of the verses;
and, by turning the pointer of these indexes, the book
and number of the verses were found, and the inquiries
of the curious answered.
We must not, however, be too severe upon Wither's
emblematic compositions. A critic in the "Retro-
spective Review" considers that their general cha-
racter is that of a sound morality enforced in a sensible
style, tinctured with warm religious feelings, and
some of them adorned with a few fresh and fragrant
flowers of poetry. How far this is true may be
judged from the few quotations that I have space to
include. The following is given by the aforesaid critic
as a specimen of the same morality that he attributes
to Wither:
QUARLES'S “EMBLEMS.”
181
"How fond are they, who spend their precious time
In still pursuing their deceiving pleasures!
And they, that unto airy titles climb,
Or tire themselves in hoarding up of treasures!
For, these are death's, who, when with weariness
They have acquired most, sweeps all away;
And leaves them, for their labours, to possess
Nought but a raw-bon'd carcase wrapt in, clay,
Of twenty hundred thousands, who, this hour
Vaunt much of those possessions they have got;
Of their new purchas'd honours, or the power,
By which they seem to have advanc'd their lot:
Of this great multitude, there shall not three.
Remain for any future age to know;
But perish quite, and quite forgotten be,
As beasts devoured twice ten years ago.
Thou therefore, who desir'st for aye to live,
And to possess thy labours maugre death,
To needful arts and honest actions give
Thy span of time, and thy short blast of breath.
In holy studies, exercise thy mind;
In works of charity thy hands employ;
That knowledge, and that treasure seek to find,
Which may enrich thy heart with perfect joy.
So, though obscured thou appear awhile,
Despised, poor, or born to fortunes low,
Thy virtues shall acquire a nobler stile,
Than greatest kings are able to bestow:
And gain thee those possessions, which, nor they,
Nor time, nor death have power to take away.'
The next is given as an example of the "fresh and
fragrant flowers of poetry:"
"When, all the years, our fields are fresh and green,
And, while sweet flowers, and sunshine, every day,
(As oft, as need requireth), come between
The heavens and earth; they heedless pass away.
The fulness, and continuance of a blessing,
Doth make us to be senseless of the good:
And, if it sometime fly not our possessing,
The sweetness of it is not understood.
"Had we no winter, summer would be thought
Not half so pleasing: and, if tempests were not,
Such comforts could not by a calm be brought:
For things, save by their opposites, appear not.
182
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Both health, and wealth, is tasteless unto some,
And, so is ease, and every other pleasure,
Till poor, or sick, or grieved, they become;
And, then, they relish these, in ample measure.
"God, therefore (full as kind, as He is wise),
So temp'reth all the favours He will do us,
That we his bounties may the better prize;
And make his chastisements less bitter to us.
One while, a scorching indignation burns
The flowers and blossoms of our hopes away;
Which into scarcity our plenty turns,
And changeth unmown-grass to parched hay;
Anon, his fruitful showers, and pleasing dews,
Commixt with cheerful rays, He sendeth down;
And then the barren earth her crop renews,
Which with rich harvests, hills and vallies crown:
For us to relish joys He sorrows sends,
So comfort on temptation still attends."
Nothing could well be more correct and common-
place than this; but it may be said of it, as of the
emblems of Alciatus, that it probably read "freshly'
enough to its earlier readers. Otherwise, to a nine-
teenth-century critic, the "poetry" is not particularly
ور
obvious.
Of Quarles, whose "Emblems Divine and Moral"
we now come to consider, the fame is much greater
than the fame of Wither. His work has of late years
had the advantage of being illustrated by the fanciful
and facile pencil of C. H. Bennett, and the opinion of
the great body of the critics is, on the whole, strongly
in his favour. Wood* talks of him as the "old
puritanical poet, the some time darling of our plebeian
judgment," meaning, I presume, by "puritanical,"
that he displayed in his writings the religious fervour
of the Puritans, for otherwise, as I have said, he was
a supporter of the royal cause. Baxter thought that
"Athenæ Oxonienses."
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
183
Quarles outdid all the poets, and Phillips* corroborates
Wood so far as to say that the Emblems were "in
wonderful veneration among the vulgar." "Milton,"
says Horace Walpole,† "was forced to wait till the
world had done admiring Quarles," of whom Lloyd,
whose "Memoirs" appeared in 1668, said that "his
pious books by the fancy take the heart; having taught
poetry to be witty without profaneness, wantonness, or
being satyrical; that is, without the poet's abusing
God, himself, or his neighbour." "He was a poet,
says Langbaine,‡ "that mix'd Religion and Fancy
together; and was very careful in all his Writings,
not to intrench upon Good Manners, by any Scurrility
in his Works, or any way offending against his Duty
to God, his Neighbour, and himself." "His visible
poetry," says old Fuller,§ "(I mean his 'Emblems'),
is excellent, catching therein the eye and fancy at
one draught, so that he hath out-Alciated therein, in
some men's judgement. His verses on Job are done to
the life, so that the Reader may see his sores, and
through them the anguish of his soul."
So say the elder critics. The younger are not less
unstinted in their praise. "We find in Quarles,"
says Headley, "original imagery, striking sentiment,
fertility of expression, and happy combination; to-
gether with a compression of style that merits the
observation of the writers of verse." "He is often
eloquent," says Todd, "and often extremely pathetic."
"I think," says Ryland, "Quarles may be called the
1
* "Theatrum Poetarum Anglicarum.
+ Letters," ed. 1861, iii. 99.
§
"Worthies of England," under "Essex."
""
"Dramatic Poets" (1691).
""
184
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
first, as Herbert was the second, divine poet of the
English nation." "His writings," remarks James
Montgomery, "are occasionally defaced by vulgarisms,
and deformed by quaint conceits, but his beauties
abundantly atone for his defects; the latter being
comparatively few, while his works are generally
characterized by great learning, lively fancy, and pro-
found piety." "He uses language," says Thoreau,
"sometimes as greatly as Shakespeare; and, though
there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty
of tough crooked timber. In an age when Herbert is
revived, Quarles ought surely not to be forgotten."
It is difficult it may almost seem presumptuous-
to contend against so much commendation, though the
critics quoted are scarcely, any of them, the sort of
judges to whom one would pin one's faith. To be
sure, Quarles was pious,—at least in the "Emblems,"
if not in the "Argalus and Parthenia," though his
piety is a little disfigured by the familiarity with
which he treats the most sacred subjects. The writers
of his day were always treating the Almighty, as Mr.
Arnold says so many regard Him nowadays, as the
man in the next street, whose person and character
it is allowable to discuss with as much freedom as
ignorance. Quarles was pious, no doubt, but his piety,
however suited to the Englishmen of that period, is
assuredly not suited to the Englishmen or women of
to-day, and excites in the modern mind considerably
more ridicule and disgust than edification.
I do not lay so much stress upon the thefts from
Hermann Hugo, whose emblems are constantly imitated,
and whose woodcuts were transferred bodily to the
QUARLES'S “EMBLEMS.”
185
original edition of Quarles's work. The latter were
by many considered superior to the literature by which
they were accompanied; and Pope, in his "Dunciad,"
remarks:
"Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.
""
Pope was probably thinking of a passage such as the
following, which Campbell quotes as a specimen of
the "absurdity" to which the muse of Quarles was
sometimes, I may say frequently, reduced:-
"Man is a tennis-court, his flesh the wall,
The gamesters God and Satan,—the heart's the ball;
The higher and the lower hazards are
Too bold presumption and too base despair:
The rackets which our restless balls make fly,
Adversity and sweet prosperity.
The angels keep the court, and make the place
Where the ball falls, and chalk out every chase.
The line's a civil life we often cross,
O'er which the ball, not flying, makes a loss.
Detractors are like standers-by, and bet
With charitable men, our life's the set.
Lord, in these conflicts, in these fierce assaults,
Laborious Satan makes a world of faults.
Forgive them, Lord, although he ne'er implore
For favour, they'll be set upon our score.
O take the ball before it come to ground,
For this base court has many a false rebound;
Strike, and strike hard, and strike above the line,
Strike where thou please, so as the set be thine."
Such, undoubtedly, were the elaborate metaphors that
delighted our ancestors, and probably even now delight
a few. That Quarles, however, was a poet, in the true
sense of the term, is a proposition to which, I imagine,
no critic of eminence would now assent, and of this no
better proof could be afforded than the emblem with
which his book begins, and which runs as follows. It
is called "The Invocation :
,,
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"Rouse thee, my soul; and drain thee from the dregs
Of vulgar thoughts; screw up the heightened pegs
Of thy sublime Theorbo four notes high'r,
And high'r yet, that so the shrill mouth'd quire
Of swift-wing'd seraphims may come and join,
And make the concert more than half divine.
Invoke no muse; let Heav'n be thine Apollo;
And let his sacred influences hallow
Thy high-bred strains, let his full beams inspire
Thy ravish'd brains with more heroic fire:
Snatch thee no quill from the spread eagle's wing,
And, like the morning lark, mount up and sing.
Cast off these dangling plummets, that so clog
Thy lab'ring heart, which gropes in this dark fog
Of dungeon earth; let flesh and blood forbear
To stop thy flight, till this base world appear
A thin blue landscape: let thy pinions soar
So high a pitch, that men may seem no more
Than pismires, crawling on the mole-hill earth,
Thine ear untroubled with their frantic mirth;
Let not the frailty of thy flesh disturb
Thy new-concluded peace; let reason curb
Thy hot-mouth'd passion; and let Heav'n's fire season
The fresh conceits of thy corrected reason.
Disdain to warm thee at lust's smoky fires,
Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires.
Come, come, my soul, hoist up thy higher sails,
The wind blows fair; shall we still creep like snails,
That glide their ways with their own native slimes;
No, we must fly like eagles, and our rhymes
Must mount to Heav'n, and reach the Olympic ear;
Our Heav'n-blown fire must seek no other sphere.
Thou great Theanthropos, that giv'st and ground'st
Thy gifts in dust, and from our dunghill crown'st
Reflecting honour, taking by retail
What thou hast giv'n in gross, from lapsed, frail,
And sinful man: that drink'st full draughts, wherein
Thy children's lep'rous fingers, scurf'd with sin,
Have paddled; cleanse. O cleanse my crafty soul
From secret crimes, and let thy thoughts control
My thoughts: O teach me stoutly to deny
Myself, that I may be no longer I:
Enrich my fancy, clarify my thoughts,
Refine my dross; O wink at human faults;
And through the slender conduit of my quill
Convey thy current, whose clear stream may fill
The hearts of men with love, their tongues with praise:
Crown me with glory, take, who list, the bays."
One can hardly believe that this sort of thing was
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
187
once the popular literature of England. Yet so it was.
The most unpoetical metaphors, such as I have
ventured to italicize, seem to have been regarded as
the purest emanations of the imaginative faculty; and
so long as a writer was sufficiently terse, and properly
particular in his references, it did not matter if
he resulted in being obscure and vulgar. The senti-
ments that Quarles propounds are, in themselves, no
doubt, almost all that could be desired; his aspirations
are of the most creditable nature, and probably filled
with pious emotion the hearts and minds of the good
Puritan dames of the Commonwealth. But we can
imagine how they would be treated by the gay
cavaliers of that and of the second Charles's time.
Morality, cut into lengths, and enforced by the most
eccentric diction and far-fetched metaphor, was very
different from the pabulum provided by the Sucklings
and the Lovelaces, the Sedleys and Rochesters of the
Stuart period; and we know which of the two it is that
is most likely to go down to posterity. Licentious as
much of the cavalier poetry was, it was nevertheless
poetry. They seem -these men to have had a
wonderful command of style, and their productions live
by virtue of the very felicity of form and expression
which is so conspicuously wanting in the "Emblems
of Quarles.
We must not, however, condemn him completely
till we have considered a few of those passages to
which his admirers have been wont to point as con-
taining the beauties they claim as his possession. Let
us take the good old worthy at his best, and see how
far it may be possible to modify our judgment.
1.88
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Hearken to one of his most favourable critics. " Who,"
he says, "can read such lines as the following without
fully awarding the meed that is due to them ?
'We can cross the sea, and 'midst her waves we burn;
Transporting lives, perchance, that ne'er return!
Again, when alluding to worldlings, he remarks:
'Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.'
Surely there is both truth and beauty in this picture
of the soul of the Christian :
;
'No hope deceives it, and no doubt divides it;
No grief disturbs it, and no error guides it.
No good contemns it, and no virtue blames it
No guilt condemns it, and no folly shames it
No sloth besots it, and no lust enthrals it;
No scorn afflicts it, and no passion galls it.'
The descriptions of Quarles likewise display an un-
common skill. Contemplate his portraiture of glut-
tony:
'Think'st thou that paunch, that burlies out thy coat,
Is thriving fat; or flesh, that seems so brawny ?
Thy paunch is dropsied, and thy cheeks are bloat,
Thy lips are white, and thy complexion tawny;
Thy skin's a bladder, blown with wat ry tumours;
Thy flesh a trembling bog, a quagmire full of humours.'
Quarles has, unquestionably, high merit. Passages
such as the foregoing, and of such many may be found,
compensate for all his quaintness.”
Perhaps. I cannot say I think so. The above de-
scription may be graphic; it is certainly vulgar; and it
is certainly not poetical. And our critic must be very
* Our commentator is lucky enough in this one quotation, which
is, I suppose, the solitary sentence by Quarles which lingers in the
memory of his countrymen.
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
189
thankful for small mercies if he can find anything to
admire in the first-quoted couplet. The third quota-
tion is the baldest prose. A much more favourable
specimen of Quarles's poetry may be found in the
third Emblem of Book I., which runs as follows:
"Alas, fond child,
How are thy thoughts beguil'd
To hope for honey from a nest of wasps ?
Thou may'st as well
Go seek for ease in hell,
A sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps.
"The world's a hive,
From whence thou canst derive
No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings:
But case thou meet
Some pretty-pretty sweet,
Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.
'Why dost thou make
These murm'ring troops forsake
(C
The safe protection of their waxen homes?
Their hive contains
No sweet that's worth thy pains;
There's nothing here, alas! but empty combs.
"For trash and joys
And grief-engend'ring joys,
What torment seems too sharp for flesh and blood;
What bitter pills,
Compos'd of real ills,
Men swallow down to purchase one false good!
"The dainties here
Are least what they appear;
Though sweet in hopes, yet in fruition sour;
The fruit that's yellow
Is found not always mellow;
The fairest tulip's not the sweetest flow'r.
"Fond youth, give o'er,
And vex thy soul no morc,
In seeking what were better far unfound;
Alas! thy gains
Are only present pains
To gather scorpions for a future wound.
190
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"What's earth? or in it,
That longer than a minute.
Can lend a free delight that can endure?
O who would droil
Or delve in such a soil,
Where gain's uncertain, and the pain is sure?"
Something should be said as to the manner in which
the "Emblems" are arranged. They are divided into
five books, each book containing fifteen emblems, and
each emblem consisting first of the pictorial representa-
tion, then the text, then the poetical illustration, then
one or more quotations from some of the fathers, and
then a poetical epigram. Thus the complete order of
number six of Book V. is thus:-
PSALM lxxiii. 25.
"Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I
desire beside thee?"
'I love (and have some cause to love) the earth;
She is my Maker's creature, therefore good:
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse; she gave me food:
But what a creature, Lord, compar'd with thee?
Or what's my mother, or my nurse, to me?
"I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouth'd choir sustain me with their flesh,
And with their Polyphonian notes delight me:
But what's the air, and all the sweets, that she
Can bless my soul withal, compar'd to thee?
"I love the sea; she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store:
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:
But, Lord of oceans, when compar'd with thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?
"To Heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:
But what is Heav'n, great God, compar'd to thee?
Without thy presence, Heav'n's no Heav'n to me.
QUARLES'S "EMBLEMS."
191
"Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without thy presence, Heav'n itself's no pleasure;
lf not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or Heav'n, to me
e?
"The highest honours that the world can boast
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:
The proudest flames that earth can kindle be
But nightly glow-worms, if compar'd to thee.
"Without thy presence, wealth are bags of care;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet, sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasure's but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compar'd with thee.
"In having all things, and not thee, what have I?
Not having thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but thee, what farther crave I?
And having thee alone, what have I not ?
I wish nor sea, nor land; nor would I be
Possess'd of Heav'n, Heav'n unpossess'd of thee.
ร.
"S. BONAVENT. Soliloq. cap. 1.
"Alas! my God, now I understand (but blush to confess) that the
beauty of thy creatures hath deceived mine eyes, and I have not
observed that thou art more amiable than all thy creatures; to which
thou hast communicated but one drop of thy inestimable beauty: for
who hath adorned the heavens with stars? who hath stored the air
with fowl, the waters with fish, the earth with plants and flowers?
but what are all these but a small spark of divine beauty.
"S. CHRYS. Hom. v. in Ep. ad Rom.
"In having nothing, I have all things, because I have Christ.
Having therefore all things in Him, I seek no other reward; for He is
the universal reward.
"EPIG. 6.
"Who would not throw his better thoughts about him,
And scorn this dross within him; that, without him ?
Cast up, my soul, thy clearer eye; behold,
If thou be fully melted, there's the mould."
It would appear from the dedication of the "Em-
192
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
blems," that they were written, if not at the suggestion,
at least with the encouragement of Edward Bend-
lowes, the author of "Theophila," whom Pope describes
as "propitious to blockheads," and of whom War-
burton said that he was "famous for his own bad
poetry and for patronising bad poets."
"You," says
Quarles, "have put the theorbo into my hand, and
I have played: you gave the musician the first en-
couragement; the music returneth to you for patronage.
Had it been a light air, no doubt but it had taken the
most, and among them the worst; but being a grave
strain, my hopes are, that it will please the best, and
among them you. Toyish airs please trivial ears;
they kiss the fancy and betray it. They cry, Hail,
first; and, after, Crucify. Let daws delight to immerse
themselves in dung, whilst eagles scorn so poor a game
as flies. Sir, you have art and candour; let the one
judge, let the other excuse your most affectionate
friend, Fra. Quarles."
So much to Bendlowes. To the reader Quarles
has this to say: "An emblem is but a silent parable:
Let not the tender eye check to see the allusion to our
blessed Saviour figured in these types.
In Holy
Scriptures He is sometimes called a Sower, sometimes
Fisher, sometimes a Physician; and why not presented
Before the
so, as well to the eye as to the ear?
knowledge of letters, God was known by hieroglyphics.
And, in deed what are the heavens, the earth, nay,
every creature, but Hieroglyphics and Emblems of
his glory? I have no more to say, I wish thee as
much pleasure in the reading, as I had in writing.
Farewell, reader.”

BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
THE popular conception of Sir Thomas Browne is
probably to the effect that he was a writer who, of his
own free will and choice, was accustomed to choose
dismal subjects for his works, and whose treatment of
those subjects was not of the liveliest or most inspirit-
ing character. "Religio Medici," "Hydrotaphia,"
"Pseudodoxia Epidemica," "The Garden of Cyrus:
these are not titles calculated to reassure the ordinary
student who has already but a faint idea of what Browne
really wrote. And we must not be surprised, there-
fore, if he is emphatically one of those great English
authors whose reputation is wider than the knowledge
of their writings, and with whom the acquaintance
even of the best read men is often of the most superficial
character. He is certainly not a lively writer. In-
deed, it is to be doubted if any of the prose writers of
his age were lively writers in our modern sense of the
term; and Sir Thomas Browne was especially pre-
disposed to look upon things in general with a solemn
eye. No man was probably less affected than he by
the stirring events that were enacted round him through
the greater part of his lifetime. Whilst Puritan and
Q
""
194
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Cavalier were engaged in the deadly struggle which
forms one of the most striking features of our annals,
Sir Thomas Browne was calmly occupied in the com-
position of his treatise on "Urn Burial;" and a similar
indifference to merely worldly and ephemeral matters
is to be traced in his conduct throughout all his career.
He seems to have been naturally of a reflective turn
of mind; and this habit of contemplation, united to a
learning the magnitude of which was rare even in that
age of learned men, obviously resulted in works of
literature whose leading characteristics are the depth
and breadth of their erudition and their wealth of
moralising and observation. Scarcely less remarkable,
however, than these leading features are the invariable
moderation of his tone, and his almost invariable free-
dom from the bigotry and superstition that were so
sadly rampant in the seventeenth century. To be sure,
his works exhibit occasional signs of a credulity
which is all the more conspicuous in contrast to his
customary attitude of scepticism; but the greatest
writer cannot altogether free himself from the vices
and follies of his time, and Sir Thomas would not have
been human if he had been without fault. To the
observant reader the imperfections of his works are
manifest; his style, though flowing, is not without
occasional ruggedness, and his diction is frequently
disfigured by the jargon common in writers of that
particular period. Nor is Browne a great logician :
his books seem to have been written without any
settled plan, and his thoughts were apparently set down
as they occurred to him, not because they fell in-
stinctively into their proper places. Yet the thoughts,
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
195
when they do occur, are so fine in themselves, and are so
finely expressed; his pages are generally so free from
pedantry, and are informed by so wise a spirit of charity,
that it is impossible his fame shall ever be less than
it is now, or, indeed, than it was in his lifetime.
He was born in London, on the 19th of October,
1605, and was the son of a merchant of good family,
his mother being the daughter of a Mr. Paul Garraway,
of Lewes. His father died very shortly after the birth
of Thomas, and, his mother venturing eventually
upon a second marriage, he was left to the care of his
guardians, one of whom is said to have defrauded him
of a part of his property.* He was educated, in the
first place, at Winchester, from whence he went, in
1613,† to Oxford, where he took his degree of B.A. in
1626, and that of M.A. in 1629. He then turned
his attention to the study of physic, and for a short
time, it is said, actually practised it in Oxfordshire.†
But he seems soon to have wearied of the profession,
and, "either induced by curiosity or invited by
promises, he quitted his settlement," and accom-
‡
panied his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Dutton, on a tour
of inspection of the castles and forts in Ireland. That
country, however, had, as Johnson remarks, very little
to offer at that time to the observation of a man of
letters. He therefore passed into France and Italy,
appearing first at Montpellier, then a celebrated school
of medicine, and afterwards at Padua, which was noted
for the views held by some of its members on the
subjects of astronomy and necromancy. "During his
* Whitefoote's "Character of Sir Thomas Browne."
+ Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses." Johnson's "Life of Browne.”
‡
:
196
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
residence here, Browne doubtless acquired some of his
peculiar ideas on the science of the heavens and the
black art; and, what was more, he learnt to regard
the Romanists with that abundant charity we find
throughout his works. From Padua, Browne went to
Leyden; and this sudden change from a most bigoted
Roman Catholic to a most bigoted Protestant country
was not without its effect upon his mind."* Here,
too, he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine, and
about the year 1634 he is supposed to have returned
to London.† A little later he settled as a physician
at Shipden Hall, near Halifax, and here, about the
year 1635, he is said to have composed the work to
which this chapter is devoted.
"In such a spot," says
Mr. Wilkin, §" and especially at the commencement
of his professional career, he must have had con-
siderable leisure, which it is very natural to suppose
he would endeavour to improve by reviewing and pre-
paring some memento of the events of his past life.
We may regard Religio Medici' as the result of
such a retrospect, for though not pretending to the
character of a narrative, it makes frequent allusions to
incidents and conversations which had occurred in the
course of his travels, and exhibits to us the impres-
sions made on him by the imposing ceremonies of the
Romish Church, which he had witnessed abroad."
C
+
+
"There seems no sufficient reason," says the same
writer, "to question the sincerity of Browne's declara-
tion that this piece was composed for his private exer-
* J. Willis Bund's ed. of the "Religio Medici," in the Bayard.
Series.
Watson's "History of Halifax."
+ "Biographia Britannica."
§ Bohn's Classical Library.
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
197
cise and satisfaction, and not intended for publication."
Johnson, indeed, is ungenerous enough to believe that
the first anonymous publication, in 1642, was contrived
by Browne, who, being "much pleased with his per-
formance, probably thought it might please others as
much. He therefore communicated it to his friends,
and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause with
which every man repays the grant of perusing a manų-
script, he was not very diligent to obstruct his own
praise by recalling his papers, but suffered them to
wander from hand to hand, till at last, without his
own consent, they were given to a printer. This has,
perhaps," says Johnson, "sometimes befallen others,
and this, I am willing to believe, did really happen to
Dr. Browne; but there is surely some reason to doubt
the truth of the complaint so frequently made of sur-
reptitious editions. A song or an epigram may be
easily printed without the author's knowledge, because
it may be learned when it is repeated, or may be
written out with very little trouble; but a long
treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere
zeal or curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from
hand to hand before it is multiplied by a transcript.
It is easy to convey an imperfect book, by a distant
hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
copy as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct
what is found faulty or offensive, and charge the errors
on the transcriber's depravations. This is a stratagem
by which an author panting for fame, and yet afraid
of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his
vanity and preserve the appearance of modesty-may
enter the lists and secure a retreat; and this, candour
܀
198
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
might suffer to pass undetected as an innocent fraud,
but that indeed no fraud is innocent, for the confi-
dence which makes the happiness of society is in some
degree diminished by.every man whose practice is at
variance with his words."
All this elaborate insinuation is, however, suffi-
ciently nullified by the plain and unaffected statement
of Sir Thomas himself. In the address" to the
reader," prefixed to the first authorised edition, in
1643, he says,
"Had not almost every man suffered
by the press, or were not the tyranny thereof become
universal, I had not wanted reason for complaint; but
in times wherein I have lived to behold the highest
perversion of that excellent invention, the name of his
Majesty defamed, the Houses of Parliament depraved,
the writings of both depravedly, anticipatively, coun-
terfeitly imprinted, complaints may seem ridiculous
in private persons, and men of my condition may be
as incapable of affronts, as hopeless in their repara-
tions. And truly had not the duty I owe to the im-
portunity of friends, and the allegiance I must ever
acknowledge unto truth, prevailed with me, the in-
activity of my disposition might have made these
sufferings continual, and time, that brings other things
to light, should have satisfied me in the remedy of its
oblivion. But because things evidently false are not
only printed, but many things of truth most falsely
set forth; in this latter I could not but think myself
engaged: for, though we have no power to redress the
former, yet in the other reparation, being within our-
selves, I have at present represented unto the world a
full and intended copy of that piece which was most
-
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MED'CI.”
199
;
imperfectly and surreptitiously published before. This,
I confess, about seven years past, with some others
of affinity thereto, for my private exercise and satis-
faction, I had at leisurable hours composed; which
being communicated unto one, it became common
unto many, and was by transcription successively
corrupted, until it arrived in a most depraved copy
at the press. He that shall peruse that work, and
shall take notice of sundry particulars and personal
expressions therein, will easily discern the intention
was not public."
If further proof be needed, especially in respect to
the alleged improbability of transcription, it may be
urged, as Mr. Wilkin urges most conclusively, that
there is ample proof of the work having been repeatedly
transcribed in manuscript. Two complete copies were
in Mr. Wilkin's possession, a third exists in the
Bodleian Library, and part of a fourth in the British
Museum, none of them being transcripts of an existing
edition. One of these, though so nearly approaching
the edition of 1642 as to lead to the belief that they
had a common origin, is clearly not a copy from it;
two others differ from it still more widely, but resemble
each other sufficiently to be considered as the descend-
ants of a second original manuscript; the other is a
fragment, but is interesting, Mr. Wilkin thinks, both
as possessing a date three years earlier than the
spurious edition, and as containing some curious varia-
tions from every other manuscript and edition. Mr.
Wilkin is perfectly satisfied, therefore, that Sir Thomas
Browne had several originals written by his own hand,
differing from each other. This opinion is confirmed,
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
by the information of those who knew him, "that it
was his constant practice to make repeated copies of
his compositions," as well as by an examination of
his remaining manuscripts. There are, in his com-
monplace-books, many pages occupied by passages
which, with slight variations, occur in his printed
works, especially in "Hydrotaphia," "The Garden
of Cyrus," and "Christian Morals," besides several of
the "Tracts" entire, and of the "Urn Burial" two
copies, both differing from the printed copy. There
is sufficient evidence, too, that he was very willing to
lend out his works in manuscript, and some of his
lesser pieces were even so composed at the request of
his friends and for their use. It is therefore easily
to be, supposed, that one of those copies of "Religio
Medici" which he had lent, found its way,
"without
his assent or privacy," to the press.
Meanwhile the surreptitious edition was selling with
uncommon rapidity. It was no sooner published, says
Johnson, "than it excited the attention of the public
by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment,
the quick succession of images, the multitude of
abstruse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the
strength of language.
"What is much read will be much criticized. The
Earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal
of Sir Kenelm Digby, who returned his judgment
upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain,
there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound
speculations, yet its principal claim to admiration is
that it was written in twenty-four hours, of which part
-
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI.”
201
was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in
reading it."
It appeared in the same year as the
authorised version of the " Religio Medici," printed
in the same size, and containing one hundred and
twenty-four pages. A second edition was published in
1644, and the third in 1659, with the fifth edition of
the work which it professed to criticize, and to which
it has in every succeeding edition been appended.
The "Religio" itself passed through eleven editions,
from 1643 to 1681, in which year Sir Thomas died;
but a still greater testimony to the attention it excited
is to be found in the number and importance of the
criticisms, translations, and imitations that followed its
publication.
6
In 1645 appeared an attack on Browne and Digby
from the pen of the famous" philosopher," Alexander
Ross, who has found literary immortality in the pages
of "Hudibras." His book was called " Medicus
Medicatus: or the Physician's Religion cured by a
lenitive or gentle Potion: with some animadversions
upon Sir Kenelme Digby's Observations on Religio
Medici." "Browne's too great lenity towards Papists,
his too free use of rhetorical phrases' in religious
subjects, his apparent leaning to judicial astrology
and other heresies, and the far too measured terms in
which he questioned certain opinions which Ross
roundly condemns,-form," says Wilkin, "the general
subject of his remarks, which, though often absurd and
sometimes ludicrous, are by no means devoid either of
spirit or shrewdness, though not remarkable, it must
be confessed, for candour. In his animadversions on
Sir Kenelm, which constitute a third of his book, he
202
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
chiefly attacks the metaphysics of the knight and his
Catholicism."
A publication more favourable to Browne was the
"Annotations upon all the obscure passages" in his
work, appended to the fifth edition of the "Religio,"
in 1656, and written by a Mr. Thomas Keek, "of the
Temple."
On the Continent, one of the first to express his
opinion was the celebrated Guy Patin, who, in a letter
dated Paris, April 7th, 1645, says, "Parlons d'autre
chose. On fait icy grand état du livre intitulé 'Religio
Medici.' Cet Auteur a de l'esprit. Il y a de gentilles
choses dans ce livre. C'est un mélancholique agréable
en ses pensées; mais qui, à mon jugement, cherche
maître en fait de religion comme beaucoup d'autres, et
peutêtre qu'enfin il n'en trouvera aucun. Il faut dire
de luy ce que Philippe de Comines a dit du fondateur
des Minimes, l'Hermite de Calabre, Francois de Paule,
Il est encore en vie, il peut aussi bien empirer qu'amander."
That is, "Let us speak of something else. The book
called 'Religio Medici' is in high favour here. The
author has wit, and there are some fine things in his
book. There is an agreeable melancholy in his
thoughts; but, in my opinion, he, like many others, is
searching for a master in religion, and perhaps may
find none. We must say of him what Philip de
Comines said of the founder of the Minimes, a hermit
of Calabria, Francis de Paule, He is still alive, and may
grow worse as well as better.”
Some of the German critics so far misunderstood
the book as to call the author an atheist; but, on the
other hand, Herman Conringius was wont to say, that
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI.”
203
he always read "Religio Medici" with fresh delight;
and in respect to that imputation of atheism, or
indifferency in religion, which had been circulated
with such industry by supercilious critics, he exclaims,
"Utinam nemo Medicorum, imo Theologicorum, illo
homine sit minus religiosus!" In the same way,
Frederick Heister, son of the celebrated Laurentius
Heister, thought himself obliged, on Budaeus' publica-
tion of his theses, to vindicate physicians in general,
and Sir Thomas Browne in particular, from the asper-
sions cast upon them in that work.*
It is scarcely possible to account for the various and
conflicting rumours which the "Religio" raised con-
cerning the persuasion of its author. It was regarded
by different people as the production, not only of an
atheist, but of a Romanist, and of a Quaker, though
nothing can be more distinct than Browne's assertion,
which I shall presently quote, to the effect that he
was a member of the Church of England. That the
Church of Rome, in the person of its highest authority,
did not consider Browne within her pale, is evident
from the fact that the "Religio" figured as one of
the books condemned by the Papacy in the famous
"Index Expurgatorius."
A Latin translation, by John Merryweather, appeared
at Leyden in 1644; a Dutch version issued from the
same city in 1665. It was published in French in
1668, and in German in 1746.
The imitations may be briefly noticed :-†
See his "Apologia pro Medicis."
+ See Mr. Wilkin's preface to his edition of the "Religio Medici"
(Bohn); also Lowndes's "Bibliographer's Manual."
204
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
1. "De Religione Laici," published by Lord Her:
bert in 1645, and intended to prove that ordinary
people can never attain to any certainty in religious
truth, and that they had, therefore, better be contented
with so much as his lordship had marked out for them
in his treatise, "De Veritate."
2. "De Religione Gentilium," by the same writer,
appeared in 1665, and was written to prove that his five
leading principles of Natural Religion were inscribed
by the Almighty on the minds of men, and had been
universally acknowledged from the earliest times.
3. "Religio Jurisconsultis," published in 1649.
4. "Medici Catholicon," published in 1657.
5. "
Religio Philosophi Peripatetici," published by
Christopher Davenport in 1662, and written on the
occasion of a miracle said to have been performed by
the Virgin Mary in the year 1640. "A man's leg
had been amputated, and his friends, as well as
himself, were one morning exceedingly surprised to
find it had been restored to him, and that he had two
legs instead of one. The book is written to show that
this could not have happened by natural means, and
that neither astrology, nor chemistry, nor melancholy,
nor witchcraft, nor imagination, nor the devil himself,
could do such a thing as this;-ergo, concluditur esse
miraculum. It is a curious book, full of digressions
and odd stories." Its author, a Franciscan monk, was
successively chaplain to Queen Henrietta and theolo-
gist to the consort of Charles II.
6. "The Religion of a Physician, or, Divine Medi-
tations on the Grand and Lesser Festivals," published
by Edmund Gayton in 1663.
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
205
7. "Religio Stoici, with a friendly addresse to the
Phanaticks of all Sects and Sorts," written by Sir
George Mackenzie, and published in 1665. It was
afterwards published separately under the title of
"The Religious Stoic," and among the author's "Essays
on several Moral Subjects." "My design," says the
author, “all alongst this Discourse, butts at this one
principle, that Speculations in Religion are not so
necessary, and are more dangerous than sincere prac-
tice. It is in Religion as in Heraldry, the simpler the
bearing be, it is so much the purer and ancienter.”
8. "Religio Clerici," written by a clergyman, pub-
lished in 1681, and intended to defend the Church of
England against dissenters, showing "that we never
shall have peaceable days, as long as bulkers and
cobblers are preachers, and covenanters."
9. "Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith,' pub-
lished by John Dryden in 1682. In the same year
appeared-
10. "Religio Laici," by Charles Blount, who inscribes
his work to Dryden, and says, "I have endeavoured
that my discourse shall be only a continuance of yours,
and that, as you taught men how to believe, so I
might instruct them how to live." Leland, however,
says that the treatise is little more than a translation
of the first on this list, by Herbert, the additions and
variations being so slight as scarcely to deserve
mention.
99
11. "Religio Laici, or a Layman's Faith touching
the supreme and infallible Guide of the Church,"
purports to be written by "J. R., a convert of Mr.
Bayes," and is in the form of "two letters to a friend in
206
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
the country." Bayes is the name under which Dryden
figures in Buckingham's burlesque of "The Re-
hearsal," and these letters, which are said to be "replete
with the grossest insolence, brutality, and ignorance,'
were called forth by the poet's change of faith after
the publication of his "Religio Laici."
""
12. "Religio Jurisprudentis, or the Lawyer's Advice
to his Son, in Counsels, Essays, and other Miscellanies,
Calculated chiefly to Prevent the Miscarriage of youth,
and for the orthodox establishment of their Morals in
Years of Maturity," published in 1685, and written, it
is supposed, by a certain Mark Hildesley.
13. "Religio Militis, or the Moral Duty of a Soldier,
showing how he ought to behave himself towards
God, his King, and Country," published in 1690, and
said to have been written by Morgan.
14. "The Layman's Religion, humbly offered as a
Help to a Modest Enquiry for every Man into his own
Heart, both as being the only means to judge and save
himself, and the best way to unite us against our
Common Enemies," published in 1690.
15. "
Religio Bibliopola," avowedly by Benjamin
Bridgewater, an M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and a hack writer employed by Dunton the publisher,
who speaks of him as of a "very rich genius," and
"running much upon poetry." The book is really
a mere compilation, only a portion being written by
Bridgewater, who was indebted for most of his material
to Glanvil, Howell, Norris, and Boyle. It was first
published in 1694, and again in 1704, with the follow-
ing sub-title: "The New Practice of Piety, writ in
imitation of Dr. Browne's 'Religio Medici,' or the
-
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
207
1
Christian Virtuoso, discovering the right way to
Heaven between all Extremes.'
16. "Evangelium Medici," published by Bernardo
Conner in 1697, and "a work of very curious specula-
tion, though not properly an imitation of Religio
Medici.' The most extraordinary part is that in
which he considers the resurrection, and how it is to be
accomplished. He goes through the different parts of
the body, and decides which will and which will not
find a place in our bodies when glorified."
""
·
17. "The Religion of a Prince, showing that the
precepts of the Holy Scriptures are the best Maxims
of Government," written by a Dr. Nichols against the
tenets of Hobbes, Machiavelli, and others, and pub-
lished in 1704.
18. "A Gentleman's Religion, in three Parts," by
Edward Synge, D.D., Archbishop of Tuam, forming
volume five of his "Works." The first edition was
published anonymously in 1698, and the last at the
Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1800. The first part
treats of the principles of Natural Religion; the
second and third, of the Doctrines of Christianity, both
as to faith and practice.
19. "Religio Libertini," published in 1715.
20. "The Religion of the Wits at Button's refuted,
&c., in a Dialogue between a Politician and a Divine;"
published in 1716, and consisting of an attack on the
infidel wits of the day.
21. “A Lady's Religion," published in 1748.
22. "Religio Philosophi, or the Principles of Moral-
ity and Christianity illustrated from a View of the
Universe, and of Man's Situation on it;" published in
208
SOMÉ FAMOUS BOOKS.
1753 by William Hay, who, in a brief preface, says
the object of his book is "to fix religion on a firm
basis, by rectifying men's ideas, and by removing
vulgar prejudices.'
23. "Religio Laici," published by Stephen Tempest
in 1768, and described as "the very sensible tract of
very sensible country gentleman.
a
""
""
24. "Fragmentum Isaaci Hawkins Browne, Arm.
Sive Ante-Bolingbrokius, Liber Primus, translated for
a Second Religio Medici," by Sir William Browne, Pre-
sident of the College of Physicians; published in 1768.
25. "The Religion of a Lawyer, a Crazy Tale," in
four cantos, analytical of the Kentish story of Brook-
land Steeple; published in 1786.
26. "Religio Clerici; a Churchman's Epistle;" a
poem written by the Rev. E. Smedley in reply to
the question, "Why are you a Church of England
Christian ?" and published in 1818.
"J
27. “A Churchman's Second Epistle," by the same
author; published in 1819, and containing, it is said,
some good strokes of satire.”
"In the latter part,"
the author says, "he has thought it his duty to
express firmly, though he hopes not uncharitably,
his opinions of the perils to which the Established
Church is exposed by the rapid progress of modern
Puritanism." In the concluding lines, he desires to
have it recorded in his epitaph that—
(C
"He loved established modes of serving God,
Preached from a pulpit rather than a tub,
And gave no guinea to a Bible club."
28. "Religio Christiani; a Churchman's Answer to
Religio Clerici ;" published in 1818.
BROWNE'S “RELIGIO MEDICI.”
209
29. “Religio Militis, or Christianity for the Camp;"
published in 1827.
30. "The Religion of a Church of England Man;"
the date unknown.
It is time, however, to turn from an enumeration of
these works which, if they did not copy the method, at
least parodied the title, of Sir Thomas Browne's great
work, to a consideration of the contents of that work
itself. I have not indeed sufficient space at my com-
mand to furnish a complete analysis of the book; but
I hope, by laying before the reader some characteristic
passages from it, to give him some idea of the tone
and temper in which it is written, and of the weighty
and valuable thoughts which it includes.
It opens with a curious testimony to the general
irreligion of Sir Thomas Browne's profession, and a
frank avowal of personal attachment to Christianity
which ought ever to have protected him from the
charge of atheism. "For my religion," he says,
"though there be several circumstances that might
persuade the world I have none at all-as the general
scandal of my profession, the natural course of my
studies, the indifferency of my behaviour and dis-
course in matters of religion (neither violently defend-
ing one, nor with that common ardour and contention
opposing another)-yet, in despite thereof, I dare
without usurpation assume the honourable style of a
Christian. Not that I merely owe this title to the
fact, my education, or the clime wherein I was born,
as being bred up either to confirm those principles my
parents instilled into my understanding, or by a general
consent proceed in the religion of my country; but
P
210
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS:
having, in my riper years and confirmed judgment,
seen and examined all, I find myself obliged, by the
principles of grace, and the law of mine own reason,
to embrace no other name but this. Neither doth
herein my zeal so far make me forget the general
charity I owe unto humanity, as rather to hate than
pity Turks, Infidels, and (what is worse) Jews; rather
contenting myself to enjoy that happy style, than
maligning those who refuse so glorious a title." 424
"
The name of Christian, however, having become too
general to express our faith,-"there being a geo-
graphy of religion as well as lands, and every clime
distinguished not only by their laws and limits, but
circumscribed by their doctrines and rules of faith,'
Sir Thomas hastens to explain that he is "of that
reformed new-cast religion, wherein I dislike nothing
but the name; of the same belief our Saviour taught,
the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorised, and
the martyrs confirmed; but, by the sinister ends of
princes, the ambition and avarice of prelates, and the
fatal corruption of times, so decayed, impaired, and
fallen from its native beauty, that it required the
careful and charitable hands of these times to restore it
to its native integrity."
At the same time, he cannot join with those who,
in becoming Protestants, have also become rabidly
intolerant of the Romish Church. "We have reformed
from them," he says, "not against them; for, omitting
those improper actions and terms of scurrility betwixt
us, which only difference our affections, and not our
cause, there is between us one common name and
appellation, one faith and necessary body of principles
1
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI.”
211
common to us both, and therefore I am not scrupulous
to converse and live with them, to enter churches in
defect of ours, and either pray with them or for them.
I could never perceive any rational consequence from
those many texts which prohibit the children of Israel
to pollute themselves with the temples of the heathens,
we being all Christians, and not divided by such de-
tested impieties as might profane our prayers, or the
place wherein we make them; or that a resolved con-
science may not adore her Creator anywhere, especially
in places devoted to his service; if their devotions
offend Him, mine may please Him: if theirs profane it,
mine may hallow it. Holy water and crucifix (danger-
ous to the common people) deceive not my judgment,
nor abuse my devotion at all. I am, I confess, natu-
rally inclined to that which misguided zeal terms
superstition; my common conversation I do acknow-
ledge austere, my behaviour full of rigour, sometimes
not without morosity; yet, at my devotion I love to use
the civility of my knees, my hat, and hand, with all
those outward and sensible signs which may express and
promote my invisible devotion. I should violate
my own
arm rather than a church; nor willingly deface the
name of saint or martyr. At the sight of a cross, or a
crucifix, I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with
the thought or memory of my Saviour. I could laugh:
at, but rather pity, the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or
contemn the miserable condition of friars, for though
misplaced in circumstances, there is something in it of
devotion. I could never hear the Ave-Mary bell,
without an elevation, or think it sufficient warrant,
because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in
212
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
all, that is, a silence and dumb contempt. Whilst,
therefore, they direct their devotions to her, I offered
mine to God; and rectify the errors of their prayers
by rightly ordering mine own. At a solemn proces-
sion I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind
with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess
of scorn and laughter. There are, questionless, both
in the Greek, Roman, and African Churches, solemnities
and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeals do make a
Christian use; and stand condemned by us, not as evil
in themselves, but as allurements and beds of super-
stition to those vulgar heads that look asquint on the
face of truth, and those unstable judgments that cannot
resist in the narrow point and centre of virtue without
a reel or stagger to the circumference."
These are remarkable words to proceed from the
mouth of a writer of the seventeenth century, and
they might well be repeated, if repeated sincerely, by
many
of the professing Christians of the present day.
They are not words which we could expect to fall
from one who, like Fox, was fated to live in the midst
of the great struggle between Rome and the Reformers;
but lapse of time does not necessarily bring with it
charity and moderation, and there are many in the
nineteenth century whose horizon, even now, is not so
open and extensive as that of the author of "Religio
Medici."
Sir Thomas then proceeds to make the declaration
to which I have already referred, and which is so
distinct and decisive that one wonders how his con-
temporaries would have had any difficulty in assigning
to him his place among the various religious bodies.
BROWNE'S “RELIGIO MEDICI.”
213
“To difference myself nearer, and draw into a lesser
circle; there is no Church," he says, "whose every
part so squares unto my conscience, whose articles,
constitutions, and customs, seem so consonant unto
reason, and, as it were, framed to my particular devo-
tion, as this whereof I hold my belief-the Church of
England; to whose faith I am a sworn subject, and
therefore in a double obligation, subscribe unto her
articles and endeavour to observe her constitutions:
whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe,
according to the rules of my private reason, or the
humour and fashion of my devotion; neither believing
this because Luther affirmed it, nor disproving that
because Calvin hath avouched it. I condemn not all
things in the Council of Trent, nor approve all in the
Synod of Dort. In brief, where the Scripture is silent,
the Church is my text; where that speaks, 'tis but my
comment; where there is a joint silence of both, I
borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or
Geneva, but from the dictates of my own reason.
""
It is obvious throughout the whole of the "Religio
that Sir Thomas Browne was not one of those happily-
constituted natures who, like Lord Macaulay, are so
“cocksure of everything." "I could never," he says,
"divide myself from any man upon the difference of
an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not
agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps,
within a few days, I should dissent myself." He
seems to have been pre-eminently one of those whose
minds were continually open to receive new im-
pressions, and to whom no conviction was so dear that
time and fresh knowledge could not successfully dis-
"
214
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
lodge it. In the preface to the "Religio," he is care
ful to point out that "it was set down many years past,
and was the sense of my conceptions at that time, not
an immutable law unto my advancing judgment at all
times; and therefore there might be many things
therein plausible unto my passed apprehension, which
are not agreeable unto my present self. There are
many things delivered rhetorically, many expressions
therein merely tropical, and as they best illustrate my
intention; and therefore also there are many things to
be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be
called unto the rigid test of reason. Lastly, all that
is contained therein is in submission unto maturer
discernments; and, as I have declared, shall no farther
father them than the best and most learned judgments
shall authorise them."
Nothing could well be more modest-and, therefore,
more worthy of a man of true culture-than this
declaration. The allusion to the rhetorical and tropical
expressions with which his work abounds sufficiently
blunts the edge of any adverse criticism in that
direction; and, for the rest, it is clear that Sir Thomas
had no genius, as he says, for disputes, whether in
religion or in philosophy, and that he had, as Lord
Lytton has ably pointed out, a good deal of the poet
in his nature. The time was one in which fact and
fiction, the real and the ideal, were strangely mingled
by the foremost writers, and the "Religio" evidently
contains much that it would not do to bring too
closely to the test of logic. Lord Lytton, indeed, calls
it, if I remember rightly, one of the greatest prose
poems in the language.
{
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI.”
215
If, however, Sir Thomas permitted himself wide
scope for speculation in philosophy, he assures us that
in divinity he loved to keep the road, and, though not
in an implicit, yet in an humble faith, follow the great
wheel of the Church, by which he moved, not reserving
any proper poles, or motion from the epicycle of his
own brain. By this means he had no gap for heresy,
schisms, or errors, of which, at present, he hoped he
should not injure truth to say, he had no taint, or
tincture. Yet he confessed that his greener studies
had been polluted by two or three; the first being that
of the Arabians, "that the souls of men perished with
their bodies, but should yet be raised again at the last
day not that I did absolutely conceive a mortality of
the soul, but, if that were (which faith, not philosophy,
hath yet thoroughly disproved), and that both entered
the grave together, yet I held the same conceit there
that we all do of the body, that it rise again. Surely
it is but the merits of our unworthy natures, if we
sleep in darkness until the last alarms. A serious
reflex upon my own unworthiness did make me back-
ward from challenging this prerogative of my soul: so
that I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could
with patience be nothing almost unto eternity."
His second heresy, he says, was that of Origen;
"that God would not persist in his vengeance for ever,
but, after a definite time of his wrath, would release
the damned souls from torture, which error I fell into
upon a serious contemplation of the great attribute of
God, his mercy; and did a little cherish it in myself,
because I found therein no malice, and a ready weight
to sway me from the other extreme of despair, where-
..
216
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
unto melancholy and contemplative natures are too
easily disposed.
"
His third heresy, which he says he never positively
maintained or practised, but often wished was consonant
to truth and not offensive to his religion, was prayer
for the dead, whereunto he was inclined from some
charitable inducements, whereby he could scarcely
contain his prayers for a friend at the ringing of a
bell, or behold his corpse without an orison for his
soul. ""Twas a good way, methought, to be re-
membered by posterity, and far more noble than a
history."
But though he held these opinions, he did not
maintain them with pertinacity, the first and second
any more than the third. He never endeavoured to
inveigle any man's belief unto his; he did not so
much as reveal them to, or dispute them with, his
dearest friends. "By which means," he says, "I
neither propagated them in others nor confined them
in myself: but, suffering them to flame upon their own
substance, without addition of new fuel, they went out
insensibly of themselves; therefore these opinions,
though condemned by lawful councils, were not
heresies in me, but bare errors, and single lapses
of my understanding, without a joint depravity of my
will."
He says it is only those who have depraved under-
standings and diseased affections who cannot enjoy a
singularity without a heresy, or be the authors of an
opinion without being the founders of a sect. He
seems to have seen very clearly the dangers of
sectarianism. He saw that "there must be heresies
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
217
99
not only in our Church, but also in any other; even in
the doctrines heretical there will be superheresies; and
Arians, not only divided from the church, but also
among themselves; for heads that are disposed unto
schism, and complexionally prepense to innovation, are
naturally indisposed for a community; nor will be
ever confined unto the order or economy of one body;
and therefore, when they separate from others, they
knit but loosely among themselves; nor contented
with a general breach, or dichotomy with their church
do subdivide and mince themselves almost into atoms."
At the same time, he held it to be quite possible that
a man should hold opinions which were not altogether
approved of by the Church to which he belonged.
"Men of singular parts and humours have not been
free," he says, "from singular opinions and conceits
in all ages, retaining something, not only beside the
opinion of his own Church, or any other, but also any
particular author; which, notwithstanding, a sober
judgment may do without offence or heresy; for there
is yet, after all the decrees of councils, and the niceties
of the schools, many things, untouched, unimagined,
wherein the liberty of an honest man may play and
expatiate with security, and far without the circle of a
heresy.
1 Sir Thomas, on his part, seems to have been glad of
any opportunities for exercising his abundant faith.
He complains that there are not half enough impossi-
bilities in religion, and that the deepest mysteries ours
contains have not only been illustrated, but maintained,
by syllogism and the rule of reason. He loved to lose
himself in mystery and to "pose" his "apprehension"
!
218
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
with "those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity
-with incarnation and resurrection. I can answer,
he says, "all the objections of Satan and my rebellious
reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertul-
lian, Certum est quia impossibile est.' I desire to exer-
cise my faith upon the difficultest point; for, to credit
ordinary and visible objects, is not faith, but persua-
sion. Some believe the better for seeing Christ's
sepulchre; and, when they have seen the Red Sea,
doubt not of the miracle." Of such men the mental
attitude is well described by Mr. Arnold in one of his
finest poems, where Obermann is represented as saying
that if he had but lived in the great day of Christ, its
glory would not only have filled earth and heaven, but
have "carried away his ravished spirit too."
"
46
"No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me;
For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee.
"No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ's then open grave.
"No lonely life had pass'd too slow
When I could hourly see
That wan, nail'd Form, with head dropp'd low,
Upon the bitter tree;
"Could see the Mother with the Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!"
""
But this was not the attitude of Sir Thomas Browne.
Contrarily, I bless myself," he says, "and am thank-
ful, that I lived not in the days of miracles; that I
never saw Christ or his disciples. I would not have
1
-
BROWNE'S <<
219
"'
"
RELIGIO MEDICI.been one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea ;
nor one of Christ's patients, on whom He wrought his
wonders: then had my faith been thrust upon me;
nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to
all that believe and saw not. 'Tis an easy and neces-
sary belief to credit what our eye and sense hath
believed. I believe He was dead, and buried, and rose
again; and desire to see Him in his glory, rather than
to contemplate Him in his cenotaph or sepulchre. Nor
is this much to believe; as we have reason, we owe this
faith unto history: they only had the advantage of a
bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming, who,
upon obscure prophecies and mystical types, could raise
a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities."
Let us now hear Sir Thomas in one of the best-
sustained and most powerful passages of his book; that
in which he treats of God in Nature:-
"Thus," he says, "there are two books from whence
I collect my divinity. Besides that written one of
God, one of his servant, nature, that universal and
publick manuscript, that lies expansed unto the eyes of
all. Those that never saw Him in the one have dis-
covered Him in the other: this was the Scripture and
theology of the heathen; the natural motions of the
sun made them more admire Him than its supernatural
station did the children of Israel. The ordinary effects
of nature wrought more admiration in them than, in
the other, all his miracles. Surely the heathen knew
better how to join and read these mystical letters than
we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these
common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity
from the flowers of Nature. Nor do I so forget God
220
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
as to adore the name of nature; which I define not,
with the schools, to be the principle of motion and rest,
but that straight and constant course the wisdom of
God hath ordained the actions of his creatures, accord-
ing to their several kinds. To make a revolution every
day is the nature of the sun, because of the necessary
course which God hath ordained it, from which it
cannot swerve but by a faculty from that voice which
first did give it motion. Now this course of nature
God seldom alters or perverts; but like an excellent
artist, hath so contrived his work, that, with the self-
same instrument, without a new creation, He may effect
his obscurest designs. Thus He sweeteneth the water
with a word, preserveth the creatures in the ark, which
the blast of his mouth might as easily have created;
-for God is like a skilful geometrician, who, when
more easily, and with one stroke of his compass, he
might describe or divide a right line, had yet rather do
this in a circle or longer way, according to the consti-
tuted and forelaid principles of his art: yet this rule of
his He doth sometimes pervert, to acquaint the world
with his prerogative, lest the arrogancy of our reason
should question his power, and conclude he could not.
And thus I call the effects of nature the works of God,
whose hand and instrument she only is; and therefore,
to ascribe his actions unto her is to devolve the honour
of the principal agent upon the instrument; which if
with reason we may do, then let our hammers rise up
and boast they have built our houses, and our pens
receive the honour of our writing. I hold there is a
general beauty in the works of God, and therefore no
deformity in any kind of species of creature whatever.
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI.”
221
I cannot tell by what logick we call a toad, a bear, or
an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward
shapes and figures which best express the actions of
their inward forms; and having passed that general
visitation of God, who saw that all that He had made
was good, that is, conformable to his will, which abhors
deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty. There
is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein, not-
withstanding, there is a kind of beauty; nature so
ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they
become sometimes more remarkable than the principal
fabrick. To speak yet more narrowly, there was never
anything ugly or mis-shapen, but the chaos; wherein,
notwithstanding, to speak rightly, there was no
deformity, because no form; nor was it yet pregnant
by the voice of God. Now nature is not at variance
with art, nor art with nature, they being both the
servants of his providence. Art is the perfection of
nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day,
there was yet chaos. Nature hath made one world,
and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for
nature is the art of God."
I have already referred to a criticism on Sir Thomas
Browne which the reader will find in Lord Lytton's
"Miscellaneous Works." Hazlitt also devotes a por-
tion of one of his lectures on "Elizabethan Literature”
to a discussion of the characteristics of Browne's
writings, in the course of which he quotes an interest-
ing, but on the whole inadequate, estimate of our
author by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. More calm, more
dispassionate, though not less depreciatory, are the
views expressed by Hallam in his "Introduction to the
222
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Literature of Europe," where he says, "The mind of
Browne was fertile, and, according to the correct use
of the word, ingenious; his analogies are original, and
sometimes brilliant; and as his learning is also in
some things out of the beaten path, this gives a pecu-
liar and uncommon air to his writings, and especially
to the Religio Medici.' He was, however, far
removed from philosophy, both by his turn of mind,
and by the nature of his erudition; he seldom reasons,
his thoughts are desultory, sometimes he appears scep-
tical or paradoxical, but credulity and deference to
authority prevail. He belonged to the class, numerous
at that time in our Church, who halted between Popery
and Protestantism; and this gives him, on all such
topics, an appearance of vacillation and irresoluteness
which probably represents the real state of his mind.
His paradoxes do not seem very original, nor does he
arrive at them by any process of argument; they are
more like traces of his reading casually suggesting
themselves, and supported by his own ingenuity. His
style is not flowing, but vigorous; his choice of words
not elegant, and even approaching to barbarism as
English phrase; yet there is an impressiveness, an air
of reflection and sincerity in Browne's writings, which
redeem many of their faults. His egotism is equal to
that of Montaigne, but with this difference, that it is
the egotism of a melancholy mind, which generally
becomes displeasing. This melancholy temperament
is characteristic of Browne. 'Let's talk of graves and
worms and epitaphs' seems his motto. His best-
written work, the Hydrotaphia,' is expressly an essay
on sepulchral urns; but the same taste for the cir-
<
<
1
BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI."
223
cumstances of mortality leavens also the 'Religio
Medici.'”
To be sure the general tendency of Browne's mind
was towards a melancholy view of life and nature; his
thoughts are certainly desultory, they are frequently
paradoxical, and deference to authority generally pre-
vails over his most sceptical suggestions. But I cannot
admit that, on the whole, this estimate of his genius is
a fair one, calm and dispassionate as it is; and that it
is not so, I venture to think I have sufficiently demon-
strated in the foregoing pages.
It now only remains to me to sketch very rapidly
the latter years of his life.
After the publication of the "Religio Medici," he
settled in Norwich, and commenced to practice there
as a physician. In 1637 he was incorporated Doctor of
Medicine at Oxford, and in 1641 he married Dorothy,
daughter of Edward Milcham, Esq., of Burlingham,
Norfolk, by whom he had a family of eleven children.
"This marriage," Johnson thinks, "could not but
draw the raillery of contemporary wits upon a man
who had just been wishing, in his new book, 'that we
might procreate, like trees, without conjunction,' and
had lately declared that the whole world was made
for man, but only the twelfth part of man for woman,'
and that 'man is the whole world, but woman only the
rib or crooked part of man. Surely it will be suffi-
cient to regard these as some of those tropical or
rhetorical expressions against which Browne was so
anxious to warn his readers.
<
In 1646 he published his "Pseudodoxia Epidemica ;
or, Enquiries into very many received Tenets, com-
224
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monly presumed Truths, which examined prove but
Vulgar and Common Errors;" a work which would
require a chapter to do it the barest justice, and which
was received, like its predecessor, with great applause,
being immediately translated into Dutch and German,
and, by-and-by, into French. It had also the honour
of being criticized by Alexander Ross. It is divided
into four books, the first of which contains "the
general part;" the second, "beginning the particular
part, Of popular and received tenets concerning mineral
and vegetable bodies;" the third, "the particular part
continued, Of popular and received tenets concerning
animals;" and the fourth, "the particular part con-
tinued, Of many popular and received tenets concern-
ing man." A brief analysis of the latter will serve to
show the general character of the work. Chapter i.
is devoted to the proposition, "that only man hath an
erect figure;" chapter ii., "that the heart is on the
left side;" chapter iii., "that pleurisies are only on
the left side;" chapter iv., "of the ring finger;
chapter v., "of the right and left hand;" chapter vi.,
"on swimming and floating;" chapter vii., "that men
weigh heavier dead than alive, and before meat than
after;" chapter viii., "that there are several passages
for meat and drink;" chapter ix., "on saluting upon
sneezing;" chapter x., "that Jews stink;" chapter xi.,
"of pigmies;" chapter xii., "of the great climacterical
year, that is, sixty-three ;" and chapter xiii., "of the
canicular or dog-days." The book had evidently been
the result of many years' labour, and is a curious
monument to the industry and originality of the
writer.
""
BROWNE'S " RELIGIO MEDICI.”
225
It was followed in 1658 by a treatise, entitled
Hydrotaphia: Urn Burial; or, a Discourse on the
Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk." This, it
will have been observed, is considered by Hallam to be
Browne's best-written work. "There is none, perhaps,"
says Johnson, "which better exemplifies his reading or
memory. It is, indeed, like other treatises of anti-
quity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
importance to know which nation buried their dead in
the ground, which threw them into the sea, or which
gave them to birds or beasts; when the practice of
cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
bones of different persons were mingled in the same
urn; what oblations were thrown into the pyre; or
how the ashes of the body were distinguished from
those of other substances." What renders the "Hydro-
taphia" valuable is not, of course, disquisitions on
such questions as these, but the lofty imagination
which presides over the whole discourse, producing
passages of the finest moral beauty.
Of the remainder of Browne's works I shall only briefly
speak. The "Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincunxcial
Lozenge of the Ancients," is more curious than valu-
able, from a literary point of view, and will be remem-
bered entirely for the ingenuity with which the author
works out a ridiculous and unnecessary proposition.
The “Letter to a Friend" concludes with a passage
which may be taken as a sample of its general charac-
ter. "Lastly, if length of days be thy portion, make
it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life;
but lie always beyond thy account. He that so often
surviveth his expectation lives many lives, and will
Q
""
226
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time
past is gone like a shadow; make times to come
present; conceive that near which may be far off.
Approximate thy latter times by present appearances
of them; be like a neighbour unto death, and think
there is but little to come. And since there is some-
thing in us that must still live on, join both lives
together, unite them in thy thoughts and actions, and
live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth
the purposes of this life, will never be far from the
next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy
conformity and close apprehension of it."
With this characteristic bit of moral reflection, I
may well close this notice of the author of "Religio
Medici," merely adding that he breathed his last on
his seventy-sixth birthday, the 19th of October, 1682.


PEPYS "DIARY."
Ir is now rather more than half a century since it was
discovered, by the merest accident, that Mr. Samuel
Pepys, for many years Secretary to the Admiralty,
and at one time President to the Royal Society, had
for ten years been in the habit of recording, in the
form of a diary, the minutest incidents of his every-
day life. Up to that time, his reputation had been
somewhat of a serious character. He had been
regarded as a hard-working official, a scientific dis-
coverer, and an accomplished member of society. It
was recorded that the administration of the Admiralty
under his régime was considered a model for order and
economy: * and few suspected that there lay hidden
among the manuscripts of the Pepysian library a com
position which, besides being of the highest historical
interest, exhibited its author in quite another and more.
familiar light than that in which he had hitherto been
remembered. Now, it is not too much to say, the
parliamentary, official, and scientific career of Pepys is
of little importance to the world at large in comparison
with the interest which no one can fail to feel in the
* Hume, "History of England," c. lxxi.
228
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
entertaining pages of his diary. The autobiography
of the least famous individual is always amusing and
instructive to the student of human nature; but that
of Pepys, though it extends over but a small portion
of his career, is so wonderfully characteristic of the
writer, is so complete in its self-revelation, is so par-
ticular in its references, that it has a charm for the
modern, and especially the English, reader, which does
not attach even to the autobiographic utterances of
Montaigne or Rousseau.
For undoubtedly the chief interest that attaches to
the Diary of Pepys, is that which arises from his own
self-portraiture. Its historical value I shall come to
presently. In the meantime, it is the man Pepys who
appears first and foremost in his lively pages, and
whose idiosyncracies we love to notice. And it is
well to remember that he was not destined from the
circumstances of his birth to mix in the high society
which he afterwards frequented. His biographer, Lord
Braybrooke, says he was descended from a younger
branch of the ancient family of Pepys, who settled at
Cottenham, in Cambridgeshire, early in the sixteenth
century, and are represented in Blomefield's "History
of Norfolk" to have been previously seated at Diss, in
that county. But he himself did not believe that his
family was ever considerable; * and certainly, what-
ever else may be brought against him, he cannot be
accused of pretending to an exalted ancestry. His
father, John, was a citizen of London, where he fol-
lowed, we are told, the trade of tailor till the year
1600. In that year he retired to Brampton, near
* "Diary," Feb. 10, 1661-2.
PEPYS' "DIARY.”
229
1
Huntingdon, where he had inherited a small property
from an elder brother, and where, according to the
best authorities,* his son Samuel was born in 1632-3.
Of Mrs. Pepys, all that we know is that her name was
Margaret, and that she died in 1666-7.
Pepys had, however, the advantage of a university
education. He received the rudiments of instruction at
a school in Huntingdon, went from thence to St. Paul's
School, London, and in 1650 had his name placed as a
sizer on the books of Trinity College, Cambridge. But,
before commencing residence, he removed to Magdalen
College, where he was elected to one of Mr. Spend-
luffe's scholarships, and in 1651 preferred to one of
Dr. Smith's foundation. Of his further progress in
scholastic life we are not informed, except so far as
may be judged from the memorandum in the registrar's
books, which relates how, on October 21, 1653, "Pepys
and Hind were solemnly admonished" by the registrar
and a Mr. Hill "for having been scandalously over-
served with drink ye night before." In this, perhaps,
one may detect the foreshadowing of a tendency
towards "cakes and ale," which, in the Diary, seems
to have grown into a decided habit.
In December, 1655, Pepys married Elizabeth St.
Michel, a native of Somersetshire, of whom it is
recorded that her father was of good family, and her
mother descended from the Cliffords of Cumberland,
though Lord Braybrooke assures us there is no evidence
to support the latter statement. The father was cer-
tainly the son of a High Sheriff of Anjou, and was dis-
*S. Knight, author of the "Life of Dean Colet," and a relation
of Pepys, says Brampton positively.
230
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
inherited on account of his conversion from Papism to
Protestantism, though he so far yielded to his Papisti-
cal sympathies as to allow his wife and two daughters
to be "inveigled" into a religious establishment,
whence Mrs. Pepys, then only twelve or thirteen years
old, and "extremely handsome," was removed to the
Convent of the Ursulines, in Paris. When she left that
convent in 1655, at the age of fifteen, it was to marry
Samuel Pepys, by whom she was ever afterwards
regarded with the most tender and, notwithstanding
some slight infidelities, generally unwavering attach-
ment.
Pepys was at this time twenty-three years of age,
and as neither he nor his wife was blessed with any
private fortune, they gladly accepted the offer of a home
with Sir Edward Montagu, a connection of our hero,
who accompanied his patron on his expedition to the
Sound, and was on his return employed as a clerk in
some office in the Exchequer, connected with the pay
of the army.
It was at this time that he began to keep a diary,
which is continued uninterruptedly from the first
entry, in January 1, 1659-60, to the last, in May 31,
1669, when he was obliged, from defective vision, to
discontinue his daily task. In his last entry, he says,
"Up very betimes, and continued all the morning with
W. Hewer, upon examining and stating my accounts,
in order to the fitting myself to go abroad beyond sea,
which the ill-condition of my eyes, and my neglect for
a year or two, hath kept me behind-hand in, and so
as to render it very difficult now, and troublesome to
my mind to do it; but I this day made a satis-
PEPYS' "DIARY.”
231
"
factory entrance therein. Had another meeting with
the Duke of York, at White Hall, on yesterday's
work, and made a good advance; and so, being called
by my wife, we to the Park, Mary Batelier, and a
Dutch gentleman, a friend of hers, being with us.
Thence to The World's End,' a drinking-house by
the Park; and there merry, and so home." Then fol-
lows the epilogue: "And thus ends all that I doubt
I shall be ever able to do with my own eyes in the
keeping of my Journal, I being not able to do it any
longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes
almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and,
therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear; and,
therefore, resolve, from this time forward, to have it
kept by my people in long-hand, and must be con-
tented to set down no more than is fit for them and
all the world to know; or, if there be anything, I
must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to
add, here and there, a note in short-hand with my
own hand. And so I betake myself to that course,
which is almost as much as to see myself go into my
grave for which, and all the discomforts that will
accompany my being blind, the good God prepare
me! "
There was no need, however, for any such
gloomy prognostication. Pepys was happily able to
obtain a few months' leave of absence from his duty,
and his tour through France and Holland probably
strengthened his sight, which remained unimpaired
during the remainder of his life.
That his Diary, as originally written, contained a
good deal of matter which it was advisable to hide
under the cover of short-hand, is sufficiently obvious
232
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
from the fact that when it was deciphered* and pub-
lished in 1815, the editor intimated that it had been
found "absolutely necessary" to make numerous cur-
tailments. As it is, the Diary is very free in its details,
though it has none of the full descriptions of Court
profligacy which make the Memoirs of the Comte de
Grammont such very questionable reading.
"If," says Leigh Hunt,† "we picture to ourselves
Pepys practising his song of 'Beauty, retire' the first
thing in the morning, then breakfasting and going to
his duties, working hard at them, fretting at corrup-
tions, yet once and away helping to patch up one him-
self; then taking a turn in the Park, to see and be
seen in his new camlet; loving the very impudence of
Lady Castlemaine,‡ yet shaking his head about her;
talking with some gossip of the last doings at Court;
cheapening an old book on a stall, or giving his money
away; then dining and going to the theatre, or to
the house of some jovial friend, and playing 'high
jinks' till supper; then supping considerably, and
again going to work, perhaps till one or two in the
morning; and, finally, saying his prayers, and think-
ing his wife positively half as pretty as Miss Mercer,
or my lady herself—if we take, we say, a dioramic view
of him after this fashion, by way of specimen of his
working hours, we shall have a tolerably accurate
sample of the stuff his life was made of during its best
*By Mr. John Smith, afterwards Rector of Baldock, Herts. The
cipher employed by Pepys appears to resemble that which, under the
name of "Rich's system," was at one time in regular use in Noncon-
formist academies.
6.
+ Men, Women, and Books."
One of the mistresses of Charles II.
PEPYS’“DIARY."
233
period, and till infirmity and his public consequence
rendered him more thoughtful and dignified.”
His rise in the public service seems to have been
remarkably rapid, though, as far as can be ascertained,
it was not more rapid than he deserved. It so happened
that he commenced his Diary just before the Restora-
tion, and therefore one of the first things he has to
record is his appointment as secretary to the two
generals of the fleet, and his journey to Scheeling, on
board the flag-ship of his patron, to bring home
Charles II. to his faithful subjects. Sir Edward Mon-
tagu being afterwards created Earl of Manchester,
Keeper of the Great Wardrobe and Clerk of the Privy
Seal, it was natural that his kinsman should benefit in
proportion, and accordingly we find Pepys nominated
Clerk of the Acts of the Navy, entering on his duties
in June, 1660, and residing in a house belonging to
the Navy Office in Seething Lane. In the prosecution
of the duties of his position, he seems to have been
everything that could be desired. Leigh Hunt cer-
tainly insinuates that he helped to patch up some of
the prevailing corruptions; but, on the other hand,
Lord Braybrooke assures us that he laboured unceas-
ingly for the good of the service, and endeavoured to
check the rapacity of the contractors by whom the
naval stores were then supplied. He strenuously advo-
cated, it is said, the promotion of the old-established
officers of the navy, striving to counteract the undue
influence exercised by the Court minions; and he dis-
countenanced the open system of selling places, which
was practised in the most unblushing manner in every
department of the State. During the Dutch war of
234
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1664, his energies were severely taxed in his endea-
vours to promote the efficiency of our marine; and
during the plague of 1665, when the metropolis was
deserted and every branch of the service completely
abandoned, the whole management of the navy devolved
upon him, and he remained at his post, regardless of
the danger that environed him on every side. Writ-
ing to Sir W. Coventry at this juncture, he says,
"The sickness in general thickens round us, and par-
ticularly upon our neighbourhood. You, sir, took
your turn of the sword; I must not, therefore, grudge
to take mine of the pestilence."* He was of equally
great service during the Great Fire of London, when
he sent up the artificers from the dockyards with
orders to blow up the houses and thus arrest the flames.
And when, in 1668, the officers of the Navy Board
were summoned before the House of Commons to
account for the disastrous results of De Ruyter's attack
on Chatham, Pepys was chosen by them to speak in
their defence-a task which he performed so manfully
and successfully, that no further proceedings were
taken against a body of men who, but for his cham-
pionship, seemed likely to lose their situations on
account of circumstances over which they had literally
no control.†
→
These, then, were the leading incidents of Pepys'
career during the period which is covered by the
Diary. That the period was one of unusual interest
will not be denied, and this in itself would be sufficient
to make the Diary a work of value, quite independently
Memoir, by Lord Braybrooke, prefixed to "Diary,” ed. 1867.
+ Lingard, "History of England," in loco.
PEPYS' "DIARY."
235
of the personal interest attaching to it. But what is
especially remarkable about this curious work is the
wonderful manner in which its author manages to see
and hear everything that is worth seeing and hearing,
and all this amidst such a pressure of official duties
as would probably have exhausted all the time and
energies of a less laborious man. He seems, says
Jeffrey,* "to have been possessed of the most extra-
ordinary activity, and the most indiscriminating,
insatiable, and miscellaneous curiosity, that ever
prompted the researches, or supplied the pen, of a
daily chronicler. He finds time to go to every play,
to every execution, to every procession, fire, concert,
riot, trial, review, city feast, public dissection, or
picture gallery that he can hear of. Nay, there
seems scarcely to have been a school examination,
a wedding, christening, charity sermon, bull-baiting,
philosophical meeting, or private merry-making in his
neighbourhood, at which he is not sure to make his
appearance, and mindful to record all the particulars.
He is the first to hear all the Court scandal, and all
the public news-to observe the changes of fashion,
and the downfall of parties-to pick up family gossip,
and to retail philosophical intelligence-to criticize
every new house or carriage that is built-every new
book or new beauty that appears-every measure the
king adopts, and every mistress he discards."
It is not necessary to follow Jeffrey in his detailed
analysis of the character of the unfortunate diarist,
whose inmost thoughts and feelings have been brought
to light by the discovery of this secret record. Granted
* Contributions to the "Edinburgh Review," No. 226.
236
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
备
​that the Diary exhibits his "almost ludicrous admira-
tion of his wife, with a wonderful devotion to the
king's mistresses, and the fair sex in general, and
a rather suspicious familiarity with various pretty
actresses and singers; " granted that it exhibits,
“above all, a practical sagacity and cunning in the
management of affairs, with so much occasional cre-
dulity, puerility, and folly, as would often tempt us
to set him down for a driveller;" granted that "he
appears before us, from first to last, with the true
temper, habits, and manners of an underling-obse-
quious to his superiors-civil and smooth to all men-
lavish in attentions to persons of influence whom he
dislikes and afraid and ashamed of being seen with
his best friends and benefactors, when they are sup-
posed to be out of favour-most solicitous to keep out
of quarrels of all sorts-and ensuring his own safety,
not only by too humble and pacific a bearing in scenes
of contention, but by such stretches of simulation and
dissimulation, as we cannot easily reconcile to our
notion of a brave and honourable man." I am not
concerned to imitate the conduct of so many modern
biographers, and to attempt the whitewashing of my
present hero. But I would suggest that the courts of
Charles II. and James II. were scarcely favourable to
the growth of noble characters; that it was hardly
possible for a man in Pepys' position to behave towards
his neighbours otherwise than he is represented as
doing by Lord Jeffrey; and that, above all, few men
have bequeathed to posterity such ample materials for
passing judgment upon his acts and thoughts. It
seems hardly fair to drag to light a private Diary, such
4
PEPYS' "DIARY.”
237
as that of Pepys' was obviously intended to be, and
then to brand its unsuspecting author with such
epithets as those used by the Edinburgh Reviewer.
However, there is the Diary; and it must be con-
fessed that its perusal, whilst in one sense it raises, in
another undoubtedly lowers, our estimate of the famous
writer. He certainly was not a noble character. Per-
haps, if he had been, his self-portraiture would not
have been so entertaining; and certainly no one but
a man of "indiscriminate, insatiable, and miscellaneous
curiosity" could possibly have accumulated such an
enormous mass of conglomerate and minute detail.
Here, again, the Book is decidedly of the Man. No
one else could have written it; like the Diary of H.
Crabb Robinson, which, however, differs from it in
many important respects, it is unique of its kind.
It is so perfectly honest. It is so delightfully incon-
gruous. The most trivial and the most striking matters
are set side by side with such an apparent ignorance
of their relative importance.
>>
It is especially characteristic of its writer, that the
very first entry in the Diary should contain one of
those references to his personal wardrobe which are
so common in this amusing work. "This morning,'
he says, "(we living lately in the garret), I rose, put
on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn
any other clothes but them. Went to Mr. Gunning's
Chapel at Exeter House, when he made a very good
sermon upon these words :-That in the fullness of
time God sent his Son, made of a woman,' etc.; show-
ing, that by 'made under the law' is meant the
circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at
238
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains
of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand.
I staid at home the whole afternoon, looking over my
accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, and
in going observed the great posts which the City work-
men set up at the Conduit in Fleet Street." This is
on the 1st of January. On the 2nd he notes:
"Walked a great while in Westminster Hall, where I
heard that Lambert was coming up to London; that
my Lord Fairfax was in the head of the Irish brigade,
but it was not certain what he would declare for.
The House was to-day upon finishing the act for the
Council of State, which they did; and for the in-
demnity to the soldiers; and were to sit again there-
upon in the afternoon. Great talk that many places
had declared for a free Parliament; and it is believed
that they will be forced to fill up the House with the
old members. From the Hall I called at home, and so
went to Mr. Crewe's; (my wife she was to go to her
father's) and Mr. Moore and I and another gentleman
went out and drank a cup of ale together in the new
market, and there I eat some bread and cheese for my
dinner." In these two short consecutive extracts, we
have an admirable sample of the contents of the whole
book. In the small space of some thirty lines, we
have references to the writer's suit of clothes, to a
sermon, to the dressing of a turkey, to the burning of
Mrs. Pepys' hand, to Pepys' accounts, to the posts set
up by the workmen in Fleet Street, to several matters
of State interest, and to a cup of ale and some bread
and cheese which Pepys enjoyed in the market. No-
thing could be more miscellaneous; nothing could be
PEPYS’“DIARY.”
239
1
more natural in the private jottings of a busy man of
the world to whom nothing was too insignificant for
observation. It may seem to some a pity that so much
that is valuable should be mingled with so much more
that is twaddle; but Pepys' Diary, to be of any value
or interest at all, must be taken as it is, and could not,
indeed, be otherwise. It is interesting and valuable
simply because it does intermingle, in the funniest way,
the great with the little, the imperial with the personal
concerns.
Let me, however, bring together some of Pepys'
more amusing references to his attire. They are not
so far apart as to require any considerable research.
Thus, on the 2nd of the month, he says: "This day I
put on my new silk suit, the first that ever I wore in
my life;" [and, therefore, all the more worthy of being
put on record!] On the 13th: "Up early, the first
day that I put on my black camlett coat with silver
buttons." On the 14th: "To the Privy Seale, and
thence to my Lord's, where Mr. Pim the tailor and I
agreed upon making me a velvet coat." On the 25th:
"This night W. Hewer brought me home from Mr.
Pim's my velvett coat and cap, the first that ever I
had." On the 22nd of another month: "This morn-
ing, hearing that the Queene grows worse again,
I sent to stop the making of my velvett cloak,
till I see whether she lives or dies." On the
30th: "To my great sorrow find myself £43 worse
than I was the last month, which was then £760, and
now it is but £717. But it hath chiefly arisen from
my layings out in clothes for myself and wife, viz.: for
her about £12, and for myself £55, or thereabouts
>>
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[observe the disproportion !]; "having made myself a
velvett cloak, two new cloth skirts, black, plain both ;
a new shag gown, trimmed with gold buttons and
twist, with a new hat, and silk tops for my legs, and
many other things, being resolved henceforward to go
like myself. And also two perriwigs, one whereof
costs me £3 and the other 40s. I have worn neither
yet, but will begin next week, God willing." On the
29th: " 'Lord's Day. This morning I put on my best
black cloth suit, trimmed with scarlett ribbon, very
neat, with my cloak lined with velvett, and a new
beaver, which altogether is very noble, with my black
silk knit canons I bought a month ago." On the
30th: "Up, and put on a bombazin suit; and being
come now to an agreement with my barber to keep
my perriwigg in good order at 20s. a year, I am like
to go very spruce, more than I used to do." Lastly,
on the 31st: "This day I got a little rent in my new
fine camlett cloak with the latch of Sir G. Carteret's
door; but it is darned up at my tailor's, that it will be
no great blemish to it; but it troubled me."
Perhaps much of this extreme regard for clothing
may be accounted for by the trade of Pepys' father,
which may have accustomed the young man to think a
good deal about dress. But more, no doubt, is owing
to the improvement which about this time took place
in Pepys' prospects and position, rendering him more
anxious than he would be otherwise to look well
among his aristocratic companions. That, as a rule,
he was not too ready to expend his money is noticeable
in one of the passages I have quoted; and that he in-
variably kept a sharp look-out upon his gains and
PEPYS' "DIARY."
241
[
losses will be seen from the retrospect which we find
him taking at the close of 1666. "To my accounts,"
he says,
"wherein at last I find them clear and right;
but to my great discontent do find that my gettings
this year have been £573 less than my last: it being
this year in all but £2,986; whereas the last year I
got £3,560. And then again, my spendings this year
have exceeded my spendings the last by £644; my
whole spendings last year being but £509; whereas
this year it appears I have spent £1,154,-which is a
sum not fit to be said that ever I should spend in one
year, before I am a master of a better estate than I
am. Yet, blessed be God! and I pray God make me
thankful for it, I do find myself worth in money, all
good, above £6,200; which is above £1,800 more
than I was the last year." On the whole, therefore,
our friend Pepys had not much to complain of; but it
must be confessed he was not of a contented nature,
and he does not seem to have been of a very generous
disposition. He records how, on the 29th, the King's
birthday, he rose early and put six spoons and a por-
ringer of silver in his pocket, to give away to a certain
child who was to be his godson. He went back to
dinner at Sir William Batten's; and then, after a walk
in the fine gardens, he went to Mrs. Brown's, where
Sir W. Pen and he were godfathers, and Mrs. Jordan
and Shipman godmothers of her boy. "And there,
before and after the christening, we were with the
woman above in her chamber; and whether we carried
ourselves well or ill I know not; but I was directed by
young Mrs. Batten. One passage, of a lady that cate
wafers with her dog, did a little displease me. I did
R
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give the midwife 10s., and the nurse 5s., and the maid
of the house 2s. But, for as much as I expected to
give the name to the childe but did not (it being called
John), I forebore then to give my plate." And there-
fore the poor boy not only lost the six spoons and the
porringer, but forfeited the inestimable opportunity of
being christened Samuel!
Nothing is more clear throughout the Diary than
that Pepys not only waxed rich in offices but in in-
come, and that his position at the Admiralty and else-
where admitted him into the best society. Sometimes,
indeed, he was permitted to entertain at his own house
some of the great people of the Court; and I quote
his description of two fashionable dinners which he
appears to have given, and which he seems to have
regarded, says Lord Jeffrey, as matters of very weighty
concernment. Thus: "My head being full of to-
morrow's dinner, went to my Lord Crewe's, there to
invite Sir Thomas, etc. Thence home; and there find
one laying of my napkins against to-morrow in figures
of all sorts, which is mighty pretty; and it seems it
is his trade, and he gets much money by it." On the
14th: "Up very betimes, and with Jane to Levett's,
there to conclude upon our dinner; and thence to the
pewterer's to buy a pewter sesterne, which I have ever
hitherto been without. Anon comes my company,
viz., my Lord Hinchinbrook and his lady, Sir Philip
Cartaret and his lady, Godolphin and my cosen Roger,
and Creed; and mighty merry; and by and by to
dinner, which was very good and plentiful (and I
should have said, and Mr. George Montagu, who came
at a very little warning, which was exceedingly kind
•
4
PEPYS' "DIARY."
243
of him). And there, among other things, my Lord
had Sir Samuel Morland's late invention for casting
up of sums of £ s. d., which is very pretty, but not
very useful. Most of our discourse was of my Lord
Sandwich and his family, as being all of us of the
family. And with extraordinary pleasure all the
afternoon, thus together eating and looking over my
closet."
The next dinner, says Lord Jeffrey, seems to have
been still more solemn and successful. "To the office
till noon, when word brought me that my Lord Sand-
wich was come; so I presently rose, and there I found
my Lords Sandwich, Peterborough, and Sir Charles
Harbord; and presently after them comes my Lord
Hinchinbrook, Mr. Sidney, and Sir William Godol-
phin. And after greeting them, and some time spent
in talk, dinner was brought up, one dish after another,
but a dish at a time; but all so good! But, above all
things, the variety of wines and excellent of their
kind I had for them. And all in so good order, that
they were mightily pleased, and myself full of content
at it and indeed it was, of a dinner of about six or
eight dishes, as noble as any man need to have, I
think; at least, all was done in the noblest manner
that ever I had any, and I have rarely seen in my life
better anywhere else, even at the Court. After dinner,
my lords to cards, and the rest of us sitting about
them and talking, and looking on my books and
pictures, and my wife's drawings, which they com-
mended mightily, and mighty merry all day long, with
exceeding great content, and so till seven at night;
and so took their leaves, it being dark and foul weather.
1
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Thus was this entertainment over-the best of its kind
and the fullest of honour and content to me that ever
I had in my life; and I shall not easily have so good
again."
But Pepys was reserved for still higher honours
than merely entertaining a few lords and gallants.
Once upon a time he was permitted to kiss a queen-
a dead one, to be sure, and then to go to a play with
his wife in a coach of his own! He tells the story in
his own inimitable way: "To Westminster Abbey,
and there did see all the tombs very finely; having
one with us alone (there being no other company this
day to see the tombs, it being Shrove-Tuesday); and
here we did see, by particular favour, the body of
Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper part
of her body in my hands,—and I did kiss her mouth!
—reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queene, and that
this was my birthday,-thirty-six years old!—that I
did kiss a queene! But here this man, who seems to
understand well, tells me that the saying is not true
that she was never buried-for she was buried." This
was on the 23rd. On the 29th, "We sat under the
boxes, and saw the fine ladies; among others, my lady
Kerneguy, who is most devillishly painted. And so
home-it being mighty pleasant to go alone with my
poor wife in a coach of our own to the play! and
makes us appear mighty great, I think, in the world;
at least, greater than ever I could, or my friends for
me, have once expected; or, I think, than any of
my family ever yet lived in my memory-but my
cosen Pepys in Salisbury Court."
I should say that the proudest day in the life of
PEPYS' "DIARY.”
245
Samuel Pepys was that on which he made the speech
before the House of Commons to which I have already
referred. On the 1st day of that memorable March,
he was "up very betimes, and by coach to Sir W.
Coventry's; and there, largely carrying with me all
notes and papers, did run over our whole defence.
in order to the answering of the House on Thursday
next, and I do think," he says, "unless they be set
without reason to ruin us, we shall make a good
defence." Nevertheless, he "spent the evening talk-
ing with W. Hewer about business of the House, and
declaring my expectation of our all being turned out."
On the 2nd," Mr. Moore was with me, and do tell me,
and so W. Hewer tells me, he hears this morning that
all the town is full of the discourse that the officers of
the Navy shall be all turned out." On the 3rd, Pepys
was "up betimes to work again, and then met at the
office, where to our great business of this answer to
the Parliament;" but on the 4th, he was "vexed and
sickish to bed, and there slept about three hours, and
then waked, and never in so much trouble in all my
life of mind, thinking of the task I have upon me, and
upon what dissatisfactory grounds, and what the issue
of it may be to me. "With these thoughts," he
says, he "lay troubling" himself till six o'clock on
the morning of the 5th,—
""
31
"The great, the important day,
Big with the fate "
-

of Pepys and his friends. At last, he got his wife to
comfort him and to promise that he would "quit his
hands of this office, and endure the trouble no longer
than he could clear himself of it." It was evident that
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he was by no means sanguine of the result of his
oratory, and so we find him going to the "Dog" and
drinking half a pint of mulled sack, and then to the
Hall at Westminster, where he drank a dram of
brandy, with the warmth of which he found himself
"in better order as to courage, truly."
"So we all up
to the lobby, and between eleven or twelve o'clock,
were called in with the mace before us, into the House,
where a mighty full House, and we stood at the
bar. . . . I perceive the whole House was full of
expectation of our defence, what it would be, and
with great prejudice. After the Speaker had told us
the dissatisfaction of the House, and read the Report
of the Committee, I began our defence most acceptably
and smoothly, and continued at it without any hesita-
tion or losse, but with full scope, and all my reason free
about me, as if it had been at my own table, from that
time till past three in the afternoon; and so ended,
without any interruption from the Speaker; but we
withdrew. And there all my Fellow-Officers, and all
the world that was within hearing, did congratulate
me, and cry up my speech as the best thing they
ever heard; and my Fellow-Officers were overjoyed
in it."

But this was nothing to the praises which were
lavished upon him the next day, and which he takes
care to record with the most minute particularity.
"Up betimes, and with Sir D. Gauden to Sir W
Coventry's chamber: where the first words he said to
me was, 'Good morrow, Mr. Pepys, that must be
Speaker of the Parliament-House,' and did protest ?
had got honour for ever in Parliament. He said that
PEPYS' "DIARY."
247
his brother,* that sat by him, admires me; and another
gentleman said that I could not get less than £1,000
a-year if I would put on the gown and plead at the
Chancery-bar; but what pleases me most, he tells me that
the Solicitor-General† did protest that he thought I
spoke the best of any man in England. . . . And by-and-
by, overtaking the King, the King and the Duke of
York came to me both; and he‡ said, 'Mr. Pepys, I
am very glad of your success yesterday,' and fell to
talk of my well speaking; and many of the lords
there." Some of the members, it appears, averred that
they had never heard such a speech delivered in that
manner, which is susceptible of a sinister interpreta-
tion; but others assured him that they thought he might
match the Solicitor-General, that he was another Cicero,
that they would go twenty miles, at any time, to hear
the like again, and that the kingdom would ring of
his abilities. "For which," says Pepys, "the Lord
God make me thankful! and that I may make use of
it not to pride and vain glory, but that, now I have
this esteem, I may do nothing to lessen it.'
""
Certainly, he did nothing to increase it. He was
Member of Parliament for more than one constituency
in the course of his career; but he never made another
speech like this one, and, indeed, he does not appear
to have possessed any real oratorical power. His
success on this solitary occasion was probably owing to
the fact that, whereas he was completely master of his
subject, the House of Commons was as completely
in the dark, and was prepared to accept his statements
as the purest gospel.
Henry Coventry.
+ Sir Heneage Finch. + The King.
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Probably his contemporaries at this period of his
life would have been less gracious than they were, if
they had known what a terrible picture of their habits
and manners he was about to bequeath to posterity.
The Diary does not, as I say, contain so many scan-
dalous descriptions as the Grammont memoirs, but it
contains sufficient indications of the profligacy which
infected the Court and high society in the reign of
Charles II., and found so congenial a reflection in the
licentious comedies of Wycherly. From these, how-
ever, I turn to notice the fulness of detail with which
our author describes the circumstances of the King's
arrival in England, the great fire of London, the great
plague of 1666, the Dutch attack on Chatham in 1669,
our ridiculous settlement at Tangier, and the various
naval actions that took place in the period over which the
Diary extends. On these, as upon many other subjects
of somewhat less importance, Pepys gives some very
curious and valuable information; among other things,
it is noticeable that the circumstance of King Charles
becoming a Roman Catholic upon his death-bed, related
by Evelyn in his "Diary," rests chiefly upon the
authority of Pepys, to whom King James himself com-
municated all the particulars of the transaction.*
For the rest, I have no space in which to enter upon
a full narrative of Pepys' later life. His wife died
in 1669, leaving him with no issue; and in 1673,
having been chosen burgess for Castle Rising, he was
unseated, for no other reason, apparently, than that he
was supposed to be "a Papist, or Popishly inclined,"
whereas there is no reason to believe he was other-
* Lord Braybrooke, " Memoir of Pepys," ut ante.
"6
PEPYS' DIARY."
249
..
wise than a faithful adherent of the Church of
England.* In the same year, he was called into the
service of the Duke of York as Secretary for the
Affairs of the Navy; but here again he was so unfor-
tunate as to be attacked by those who preferred to
wound the Duke through his dependents. Pepys and
Sir Anthony Deane were both accused (unjustly,
Evelyn believed†) of sending secret information to the
French, with a view to dethroning the King and
extirpating the Protestant religion. They were brought
to trial, sent to the Tower, and only released when it
was but too obvious that the evidence against them was
of an utterly untrustworthy character. At a later
date Pepys accompanied the expedition to Tangier,
when that possession was destroyed, to advise with the
commander of the squadron, and to estimate the com-
pensations to the householders. He was afterwards
constituted Secretary for the Affairs of the Admiralty,
with a salary of £500; but on the accession of William
and Mary he lost his official employments, and was
rejected as their representative by the electors of
Harwich. "He retired consequently into private life,
trusting that he should be allowed to end his days in
tranquillity and the enjoyment of literary society, for
which," says his biographer, "his various acquirements
so peculiarly qualified him." Nevertheless, he was
soon disturbed again by the virulence of his enemies,
who, in June, 1690, procured his committal to the
Gatehouse, upon pretence of his being too well affected
*See Burnet's "History of his Own Times," where "an honest
and memorable testimony" is borne against the enemies who brought
this charge on Pepys.
+ See his "Diary," in loco.
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to the exiled king; but he shortly obtained leave, on
account of ill-health, to return to his own house, and
there is no farther mention of the charge." In 1684,
he was appointed President of the Royal Society, and
after distinguishing himself for some years as a student
of science and an enlightened patron of its votaries,
he passed away, after a lingering illness, on May 26,
1703.


SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
THE "Table Talk" of Selden differs from the Table
Talk of any other Englishman whose utterances have
been recorded in a similar way in this particular: that
it is emphatically the outcome of one who was at once
a man of letters and a man of the world. It is not as
if Selden had been like Sir Thomas Browne, content
to remain indifferent to the course of current events,
and disposed to take no part in the stirring incidents
of that perfervid time. We know that Selden was a
man of immense learning, that he was the author of
a large number of abstruse publications, and that in
his latter years he was not inclined to make any figure
in the world of politics. But we know, besides, that in
the heyday of his career he was one of the most
conspicuous politicians of the time, that he was one of
those who "thundered against tonnage and poundage
on the floor of the House of Commons,"* and that he
was also one of those illustrious Five Members whose
history has been written so effectively by Mr. Forster.†
Not only, too, was he familiar with great affairs, but
* Hannay, “Essays from the Quarterly."
"The Arrest of the Five Members."
· 252
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
his great reputation admitted him to the society of the
best wits of the day, with whom, however, he was
well fitted to cope on their own ground, and among
whom he took as high a rank as he achieved among
his peers in Parliament. He was emphatically a man
who lived in the highest and best life of the period
in which his lot had placed him; and the result is
seen in the superiority which his "Table Talk"
exhibits over the "Table Talk" of his predecessors
and successors. The conversations of his friend
Ben Jonson are perhaps too meagrely reported by
Drummond to admit of fair and equitable comparisons,
but those of Dr. Johnson and of Coleridge, which
have come down to us with more completeness-rich
as they are in variety and suggestiveness-scarcely
impress us more favourably than the slim volume
which contains the "talk of Selden. Both were
more men of letters than men of the world. Neither
of them lived, as Selden lived, in the main current of
contemporary affairs. Yet it would appear, as Mr.
Hannay admirably remarks, that to a thoroughly good
talker something is required of the talents of active life.
"Lord Bacon, Cicero, Burke, were all men of action.
Napoleon said things which tell in history like his
battles. Luther's 'Table Talk' glows with the fire
which burnt the Pope's bull."
If to large experience of the world, and to wide
knowledge of books, we add remarkable shrewdness of
observation and a peculiar turn for humour, we have
the leading qualities exhibited by Selden in his famous
book. And when we remember that, after all, it does but
contain "stray fragments of talk separated from the
در
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
253
(
context of casual and unrestrained conversation, col-
lected probably without the speakers' knowledge-one,
two, three at a time-over a period of twenty years,*
and classified long afterwards, as seemed best to their
preserver,"† we can form some idea of the inexhaustible
fertility of Selden's intellect. If these were but the
crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, how rich
and rare must have been the intellectual dishes with
which that table was usually furnished! It should
never be forgotten that these fragments of talk are,
after all, but fragments. In the conversations recorded
by Boswell, of Dr. Johnson, we have probably the
cream of that remarkable man's genius; but in those
of Selden, as recorded by his secretary, Millward, we
have but the chips from a workshop which must have
teemed with the most massive, as well as with the most
light and airy, furniture of the mind and heart.
The “Table Talk" was published in 1689,‡ thirty-
five years after the death of its author, and nine years
after that of its recorder, who died Canon of Windsor,
Rector of Great Braxstead, and Vicar of Isleworth.
He had said, in his preface "to the Honourable Justice
Hales,§ one of the Judges of the Common Pleas, and
to the much Honoured Edward Heywood,§ John
* Probably from 1634 to 1654.
† Arber, "English Reprints-Selden."
The second edition was "printed for Jacob Tonson," in 1696.
Then came the editions of 1698 and 1716. That of 1786 was pub-
lished with a “life of the author." That of 1789 was followed by Dr.
Irving's edition of 1819. Mr. Singer's appeared in 1847, with a
biographical preface and notes. Besides Mr. Arber's reprints, the
“Table Talk" is now included in the "Library of Old Authors." It
was also printed among Selden's other works in 1726, under the
editorship of the Rev. David Wilkins.
§ Misprints for Hale and Heyward.
254
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Vaughan, and Rowland Jewks, Esquires, "Most
worthy Gentlemen, were you not Executors to that
Person, who (while he lived) was the Glory of the
Nation; yet I am Confident anything of his would
find Acceptance with you, and truly the Sense and
Notion here is wholy his, and most of the words. I
had the Opportunity to hear his Discourse twenty Years
together, and least all those Excellent Things that
usually fell from him might be lost, some of them from
time to time I faithfully committed to Writing, where
here digested into this Method, I humbly present to
your hands; you will quickly perceive them to be his
by the familiar Illustrations wherewith they are set off,
and in which way you know he was so happy, that
(with a marvelous delight to those that heard him) he
would presently convey the highest points of Religion,
and the most important Affairs of State to an ordinary
Apprehension. In reading be pleased to distinguish
Times, and in your Fancy carry along with you, the
When and the Why, many of these things were
spoken; this will give them the more Life, and the
sweeter Relish."
""
In these words, Millward indicates several important
points which should be carefully borne in mind by
those who read the "Table Talk." It must be recol-
lected that not only is it presented in the form of frag-
ments, but of fragments disassociated from the times
and places in which they were uttered; that, though
"the sense and notion here is wholly" Selden's, as
well as "most of the words," yet they do not represent
exactly what the speaker said, and are only to be
accepted as approximations towards his actual sayings.
SELDEN'S “TABLE TALK.”
255
They were probably uttered on all sorts of occasions
and at all sorts of times; but, as arranged by Mill-
ward, they appear under various headings in alpha-
betical order, beginning with "Abbies, Priories, etc.,"
and ending with "Zelots," and such cognate subjects.
as "clergy," "preaching," "tythes," and so on, are
so far apart as to suffer extremely from the distance
put between them.
The title-page runs as follows: "Table Talk: being
the Discourses of John Selden, Esq.; or his Sense of
Various Matters of Weight and High Consequence
Relating especially to Religion and State." Religion
and state are indeed the chief subjects of his discourse,
and on them his opinions seem to have been firm and
well-defined. "In this work, as elsewhere," says Mr.
Arber, "John Selden is the Champion of Human Law.
It fell to his lot to live in a time when the life of
England was convulsed, for years together, beyond
precedent; when men searched after the ultimate and
essential conditions and frames of human society;
when each strove fiercely for his rights, and then as
dogmatically asserted them. Amidst immense, pre-
posterous, and inflated assumptions; through the
horrid tyranny of the system of Thorough; in the
exciting debates of Parliament; in all the storm of
the Civil War; in the still fiercer jarring of religious
sects; amidst all the phenomena of that age; Selden
clung to the Law of the Kingdom.' All is as the
State pleases.' He advocates the supremacy of Human
Law against the so-called doctrine of Divine Right.
He thrusts out the Civil Power against all Ecclesiastical
pretensions, and raising it to be the highest authority
6
C
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in the State, denies the existence of any other co-
ordinate power. So strongly does he assert the power
of the Nation to do or not to do, that, for the purpose
of his argument, he reduces Religion almost to a habit
of thought, to be assumed or cast off, like a fashion in
dress, at will. So Religion was brought into king-
doms, so it has been continued, and so it may be cast out,
when the State pleases.' 'The Clergy tell the Prince
they have Physick good for the Souls of his People,
upon that he admits them: but when he finds by Expe-
rience they both trouble him and his People, he will
have no more to do with them, what is that to them or
any one else if a King will not go to Heaven?' The
State still makes the Religion and receives into it, what
will best agree with it.'
C
"Selden," continues Mr. Arber, "lodges the Civil
Power of England in the King and the Parliament.
He shews that our English Constitution is but one
great Contract between two equal Princes, the Sovereign
and the People, and that if that Contract be broken,
both parties are at parity again. That, by a like con-
sent, the majority in England governs; the minority
assenting to the judgeship of the majority, and being
involved in their decision. Finally, reducing all rela-
tionships to like mutual Agreements, he urges the
keeping of Contracts, as the essential bond of Human
society. 'Keep your
'Keep your Faith.""
So much for the general tendency of the "Table
Talk."
When we descend to particulars, we find
the fine old scholar enforcing his opinions by means
of the broadest and the deepest learning, as well
as by the aptest illustrations. His opening para-
-
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
257
graph indicates several of his most striking cha-
racteristics:
"The unwillingness of the Monks to part with their
Land, will fall out to be just nothing, because they
were yielded up to the King by a Supream Hand (viz.),
a Parliament. If a King conquer another Country, the
People are loth to loose their Lands. Yet no Divine
will deny, but the King may give them to whom he
please. If a Parliament make a Law concerning
Leather, or any other Commodity, you and I for
Example are Parliament Men, perhaps in respect to
our own private Interests, we are against it, yet the
Major part conclude it, we are then involv'd, and the
Law is good."
Here we see Selden exercising his "historical con-
science," and exhibiting at once his belief in the power
of the King and Parliament, with his submission to
the will of the majority. Under the heading of
"Baptism," he states a fact which is not so well
known even at the present day as it ought to be in
such an age of School-board education :—
"In the Primitive times they had God-fathers to
see the Children brought up in the Christian Religion,
because many times, when the Father was a Christian,
the Mother was not, and sometimes when the Mother
was a Christian, the Father was not, and therefore they
made choice of two or more that were Christians, to
see their Children brought up in that faith."
At another time, as under the heading of "Bas-
tard," Selden gives an explanation of a text which
was and is probably misunderstood by nine out of ten
ordinary, unlearned readers :—
8
258
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
""Tis said the 23rd of Deuteron. 2, [A Bastard
shall not enter into the Congregation of the Lord, even to
the tenth Generation.] Non ingredietur in Ecclesiam
Domini, he shall not enter into the Church. The
meaning of the Phrase is, he shall not marry a Jewish
Woman. But upon this grosly mistaken; a Bastard
at this day in the Church of Rome, without a Dispensa-
tion, cannot take Orders; the thing haply well enough,
where 'tis so setled; but 'tis upon a mistake (the
Race having no reference to the Church) appears
plainly by what follows at the third Verse [An Am-
monite or Moabite shall not enter into the Congregation of
the Lord, even to the tenth Generation.] Now you know
with the Jews an Ammonite, or a Moabite could never
be a Priest, because their Priests were born so, not
made."
Nothing, probably, delighted Selden more than the
opportunities which his scholarship afforded him of
correcting errors of this kind. Whitelocke, in his
"Memorials," records that "Divers Members of both.
Houses.
were Members of the Assembly of
Divines, and had the same Liberty with the Divines.
to sit and debate, and give their Votes in any Matter
which was in Consideration amongst them. In which
Debates Mr. Selden spake admirably, and confuted
divers of them in their own Learning. And some-
times when they had cited a text of Scripture to prove
their Assertion, he would tell them, Perhaps in your
little Pocket Bibles with gilt Leaves (which they would
often pull out and read) the Translation may be thus, but
the Greek or the Hebrew signifies thus and thus; and so
would totally silence them."
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
259
Yet Selden was a great admirer of the Authorised
Version of the Holy Scriptures :-
"The English Translation of the Bible, is," he says,
"the best Translation in the World, and renders the
Sense of the Original best, taking in for the English
Translation, the Bishop's Bible, as well as King
James's. The Translation in King James's time took
an excellent way. That part of the Bible was given
to him who was most excellent in such a Tongue (as
the Apocrypha to Andrew Downs), and then they held
together, and one read the Translation, the rest hold-
ing in their Hands some Bible, either of the learned
Tongues, or French, Spanish, Italian, &c., if they found
any Fault they spoke, if not, he read on.
"There is no Book," he adds, "so translated as the
Bible for the purpose. If I translate a French Book
into English, I turn it into English Phrase, not into
French-English [Il fait froid], I say 'tis cold, not, it
makes cold, but the Bible is rather translated into
English Words, than into English Phrase. The He-
braisms are kept, and the Phrase of that language is
kept. As for Example [He uncovered her Shame],
which is well enough, so long as Scholars have to do
with it; but when it comes among the Common People,
Lord, what Gear do they make of it!”
It is not very clear from the "Table Talk" how far.
Selden was disposed to be orthodox or otherwise in his
interpretation of the Bible. At one time he says:-
guess by, we must satisfie
Authors that liv'd about
"The Text serves only to
our selves fully out of the
those times."
At another:
-
...
260
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"Make no more Allegories in Scripture than needs
must, the Fathers were too frequent in them, they
indeed, before they fully understood the litteral Sense,
look'd out for an Allegory. The Folly whereof you
may conceive thus; here at the first sight appears to
me in my Window, a Glass and a Book, I take it for
granted 'tis a Glass and a Book, thereupon I go about
to tell you what they signifie; afterwards, upon nearer
view, they prove no such things, one is a Box made
like a Book, the other is a Picture made like a Glass,
where's now my Allegory?"
Again :-
"When Men meddle with the Litteral Text, the
question is, where they should stop; in this case a Man
might venture his Discretion, and do his best to satisfie
himself and others in those places where he doubts, for
although we call the Scripture the Word of God (as
it is) yet it was writ by a Man, a mercenary Man,
whose Copy, either might be false, or he might make it
false..
"The Scripture may have more Senses besides the
literal, because God understands all things at once,
but a Man's Writing has but one true Sense, which
is that which the Author meant when he writ it.
"When you meet with several Readings of the Text,
take heed you admit nothing against the Tenets of
your Church, but do as if you were going over a
Bridge, be sure you hold fast by the Rail, and then
you may dance there as long as you please, be sure
you keep to what is settled, and then you may flourish
upon your various Lections."
Selden has much to say about Bishops before, in,
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
261
<
and out of Parliament. His views on the subject are
entirely Erastian in their character, but they are by no
means so unfair as one might have expected from such
a man as our author, whilst they have all the quaint-
ness in conception and expression which we are unable
to disassociate from his writings. He says, "A.Bishop
as a Bishop, had never any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction."
Antiently," he remarks, "the Noble Men lay within
the City for Safety and Security. The Bishops Houses
were by the Water-side, because they were held Sacred
Persons which no body would hurt." He thinks that
"for a Bishop to preach 'tis to do other Folks Office,
as if the Steward of the House should execute the
Porters or the Cooks place; 'tis his Business to see
that they and all other about the House performs their
Duties." ((
Bishops have the same right to sit in
Parliament as the best Earls and Barons.
The
Bishops were not Barons, because they had Baronies
annext to their Bishopricks.
But they are
Barons, because they are called by Writ to the Parlia-
ment, and Bishops were in the Parliament ever since
there was any mention or sign of a Parliament in
England." "You would not," says Selden, "have
Bishops meddle with Temporal Affairs, think who you
are that say it. If a Papist, they do in your Church;
if an English Protestant, they do among you; if a
Presbiterian, where you have no Bishops, you mean
your Presbiterian Lay Elders should meddle with
Temporal Affairs as well as Spiritual. Besides, all
Jurisdiction is Temporal, and in no Church, but they
have some Jurisdiction, or other. The question
then will be reduced to Magis and Minis; They meddle
-
·
262
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
1
more in one Church than in another." He appears to
have held then, as Professor Lightfoot holds now, that
the Episcopate was originally elevated out of the
Presbyterate. "In the beginning," he says, "Bishops
and Presbyters were alike. . . . They that speak
ingeniously of Bishops and Presbyters, say, that a
Bishop is a great Presbyter, and during the time of
his being Bishop, above a Presbyter: as your President
of the Colledge of Phisitians, is above the rest, yet he
himself is no more than a Doctor of Physick." "The
words [Bishop and Presbyter] are promiscuously used,
that is confessed by all, and though the word [Bishop]
be in Timothy and Titus, yet that will not prove the
Bishop ought to have jurisdiction over the Presbyter. .
"However some of the Bishops pretend to be Jure
Divino, yet the Practice of the Kingdom had ever been
otherwise, for whatever Bishops do otherwise than the
Law permits, Westminster Hall can controul, or send
them to absolve, etc." Yet, on the other hand: "To
have no Ministers, but Presbyters, 'tis as in the
Temporal State they should have no Officers but
Constables. Bishops do best stand with Monarchy,
thus, as amongst the Laity, you have Dukes, Lords,
Lieutenants, Judges, &c., to send down the King's
pleasure to his Subjects. So you
govern the inferior Clergy. .
Bishops, there must be something else, which has the
Power of Bishops, though it be in many, and then had
you not as good keep them? If," says Selden, resort-
ing, as usual, to his mode of illustration, "you will
have no Half Crowns, but only single Pence, yet Thirty
single Pence are a Half Crown; and then had you not
""
have Bishops to
"If there be no
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
263
(C
as good keep both? But the Bishops have done ill,
'twas the Men, not the Function. As if you should
say, you would have no more Half Crowns, because
they were stolen, when the truth is they were not
stolen because they were Half Crowns, but because
they were Money and light in a Thieves Hand."
They that would pull down the Bishops and erect a
new way of Government, do as he that pulls down an
old House, and builds another, in another fashion,
there's a great deal of do, and a great deal of trouble,
the old rubbish must be carryed away, and new
materials must be brought, Workmen must be pro-
vided, and perhaps the old one would have serv'd
as well."
This is not, perhaps, the highest point of view from
which to regard the question of Church Government ;
but it was probably the one adopted by the great
majority of the laity of the time, and I have therefore
ventured to give Selden's opinions on this subject a
little more fully than I should otherwise have done.
I do not propose, however, to follow him any farther
in his speculations in this and similar directions,
though it is remarkable how large a proportion of his
“Table Talk" is devoted to the discussion of religious
questions. Thus he has something to remark upon each
of the following: Canon Law, Christmas, Christians,
Church, Church of Rome, Churches, Clergy, Confes-
sion, Consecrated Places, Council, Convocation, Creed,
Genealogy of Christ, Holy-days, Liturgy, Parson,
Penance, Pope, Popery, Prayer, Preaching, Predesti-
nation, Præmunire, Presbytery, Priests of Rome, Reli-
gion, Sabbath, Sacrament, Salvation, Transubstantia-
264
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
tion,* Vows, and so on; all of which are treated with
that remarkable admixture of learning, scepticism,
reverence, shrewdness, and humour which is peculiar
to Selden.
Let us, however, turn to some more secular matters,
in which the two latter qualities of our author are
perhaps more conspicuous than any other.
Thus, of Books:-
"In Answering a Book, 'tis best to be short, other-
wise he that I write against will suspect I intend to
weary him, not to satisfy him. Besides, in being
long I shall give my Adversary a huge advantage;
somewhere or other he will pick a hole.”.
Of Self-denial :—
""Tis much the Doctrine of the times that Men
should not please themselves, but deny themselves
everything they take delight in, not look upon Beauty,
wear no good Clothes, eat no good meat, &c., which
seems the greatest Accusation that can be upon the
maker of all good things. If they be not to be us'd,
why did God make them? The truth is, they that
preach against them, cannot make use of them their
selves, and then again they get Esteem by seeming to
contemn them.† But mark it while you live, if they
do not please themselves as much as they can, and we
live more by Example than by precept."
Of Evil Speaking:-
66
Speak not ill of a great Enemy, but rather give
Coleridge much admired Selden's definition of transubstantiation
as only Rhetorick turn'd into Logick." "The best way for a pious
Man," says Selden, "is to address himself to the Sacrament with that
Reverence and Devotion, as if Christ were really there present."
،،
+ This sentence will remind the reader of a well-known maxim by
La Bruyère.
1
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
265
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
work him to Repentance) how the Devil Tormented the
Wicked that went to Hell: the Spaniard replying, called
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 whose
hands I may fall, and if I happen into his, I hope he
will use me the better for giving him good words."
Here, evidently, was a man who believed, with
Herbert, that "Good words are worth much, and cost
little!"
How felicitous, says Mr. Hannay, is the illustration
by which Selden expresses the necessary connection
between faith and works! Thus:-
"It was an unhappy Division that has been made
between Faith and Works; though in my Intellect I
may divide them, just as in the Candle, I know there
is both light and heat. But yet put out the Candle,
and they are both gone, one remains not without the
other so 'tis betwixt Faith and Works.
"
How quietly satirical, says the same writer, is the
sarcastic question with which he concludes his observa-
tion on the pretended poverty of the friars !—
"The Fryers say they possess nothing, whose then
are the Lands they hold? not their Superiour's, he hath
vow'd Poverty as well as they, whose then? To answer
this, 'twas Decreed that they should say they were the
Popes. And why must the Fryers be more perfect
than the Pope himself?"
The passage about old friends is well known:
266
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"Old Friends are best. King James us'd to call for
his Old Shoes, they were easiest for his Feet."
"Humility," says Selden, "is a Vertue all preach
none practise, and yet everybody is content to hear.
The Master thinks it good Doctrine for his Servant, the
Laity for the Clergy, and the Clergy for the Laity."
The American humorist, Holmes, has said very
much the same thing. Humility," he remarks, "is
the greatest of all the virtues-for other people."
But illustration, rather than epigram, is the forte of
Selden. Take that "exquisite" one, as Mr. Hannay
calls it, which says,—
“Tho' some make slight of Libels, yet you may see
by them how the wind sits: As take a straw, and throw
it up into the Air, you shall see by that which way
the Wind is, which you shall not do by casting up a
Stone. More solid things do not show the complexion
of the times so well, as Ballads and Libels."
66
The truth enunciated in that remark has now become
so familiar as to form a platitude; but it should not
be forgotten that Selden, by his apposite illustrations,
was the first to fix the notion in the public mind.
(6
He is very amusing on the subject of marriages-
that theme of witty observation from the earliest
to the latest time. ((
Matrimony," it has been said,
❝is a chain so heavy that it requires two to carry it."
Marriage,” says Selden, " is a desperate thing. The
frogs in Esop were extream wise, they had a great
mind to some water, but they would not leap into the
Well, because they could not get out again." He is
equally true, if less witty, when he adds: "Of all the
actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern
,
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK."
267
other people, yet of all actions of our life, it is most
medled with by other people."
""
He has some admirable remarks under the heading
of what he calls the "Measure of Things -remarks
which testify more than ever to the breadth and acute-
ness of his penetration.
"We measure," he says, "the Excellency of other
men, by some Excellency we conceive to be in our
selves. Nash, a poet, poor enough (as Poets us'd to
be), seeing an Alderman with his Gold Chain, upon his
great Horse, by way of scorn said to one of his Com-
panions, Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he
looks? Why, that fellow cannot make a blank Verse.
As if the manufacture of blank verse were a test by
which mankind is to be judged!
"Nay," adds Selden, "we measure the goodness of
God from ourselves, we measure his Goodness, his
Justice, his Wisdom, by something we call just, good,
or wise in our selves, and in so doing we judge propor-
tionably to the Country fellow in the Play, who said if
he were a King, he would live like a Lord, and have
Pease and Bacon every day, and a Whip that cry'd
Slash."
"Money," says Selden, in another place, "makes a
man laugh. A blind Fidler playing to a Company,
and playing but scurvily, the Company laught at him;
His Boy that led him, perceiving it, cry'd, Father,
let us be gone, they do nothing but laugh at you.
Hold thy peace, Boy, said the Fidler, we shall have
their money presently, and then we will laugh at
them."
This was real philosophy.
On the subject of
268
'SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
1
"
Opinion and Affection," Selden is equally felici-
tous:
"Opinion and Affection," he observes, "extremely
differ; I may affect a Woman best, but it does not
follow I must think her the Handsomest Woman in
the World. I love Apples the best of any fruit, but it
does not follow, I must think Apples to be the best
Fruit. Opinion is something wherein I go about to
give Reason why all the World should think as I
think. Affection is a thing wherein I look after the
pleasing of myself."
"Good!" says Coleridge; "this is the true difference
betwixt the beautiful and the agreeable, which Knight
and the rest of that λños å¤eov have so beneficially
confounded, mere tricibus scilicet et Plutoni.”*
One of Selden's most characteristic sayings was
afterwards repeated almost word for word by Dr.
Johnson. "Sir," said the latter to Boswell, "your
levellers wish to level down as far as themselves, but
they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They
would all have some people under them; why not then
have some people above them ?" "This,"
This," says Selden,
"is the juggling trick of the Parity, they would have
nobody above them, but they do not tell you they
would have nobody under them."
""
He adds another to the many definitions of that
difficult word, "pleasure." Pleasure," he says, "is
nothing else but the intermission of pain, the enjoying
of something I am in great trouble for 'till I have it."
But this, after all, is very much the same as Plato's
theory, derived, as Mr. Dallas says, from Aristippus
* "Literary Remains," ii. 361.
SELDEN'S “TABLE TALK.”
269
and the Cyrenaics,—that pleasure is nothing in itself,
but only a momentary escape from pain, or a passage
from one pain to another. "In modern times this
view has been maintained independently by Kant,
whose exposition of the doctrine will be more intelli-
gible nowadays than that of the ancient philosopher."*
"'Tis most undoubtedly true," continues Selden,
“that all men are equally given to their pleasure, only
thus, one man's pleasure lyes one way, and another's
another. Pleasures are all alike, simply considered in
themselves, he that hunts, or he that governs the
Common-wealth, they both please themselves alike,
only we commend that, whereby we our selves receive
some benefit. As if a man place his delight in things
that tend to the common good, he that takes pleasure
to hear Sermons, enjoys himself as much as he that
hears Plays, and could he that loves Plays endeavour
to love Sermons, possibly he might bring himself to it
as well as to any other Pleasure. At first it may seem
harsh and tedious, but afterwards 'twould be pleasing
and delightful. So it falls out in that, which is the
great pleasure of some men, Tobacco, at first they
could not abide it, and now they cannot be with-
out it."
-
Selden is justly severe upon that greatest of all
nuisances among amateurs-the amateur poet. Verse-
making was, as we all know, a favourite amusement
among the young nobles of the Stuart period; and
therefore Selden says, ""Tis ridiculous for a Lord
to Print Verses, 'tis well enough to make them to
please himself, but to make them publick, is foolish.
"The Gay Science," ii. 34.
270
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
If a man in his private Chamber twists his Band-
strings, or plays with a Rush to please himself, 'tis
well enough, but if he should go into Fleet Street, and
sit upon a Stall, and twist a Band-string, or play with
a Rush, then all the Boys in the Street would laugh at
him."
So far, Selden is undoubtedly right; but wise as he
was, and learned, and amusing, he was not infallible,
and Coleridge very properly takes him to task for
some of his utterances upon the subject of poetry.
Thus Selden says: "The old poets had no other reason
but this, their verse was sung to music; otherwise it
had been a senseless thing to have fettered up them-
selves." "Even Selden," says Coleridge, "here talks
ignorantly. Verse is in itself a music, and the natural
symbol of that unity of passion with thought and
pleasure, which constitutes the essence of all poetry, as
contra-distinguished from science, and distinguished
from history civil or natural." Again, Selden says:
"Verse proves nothing but the quantity of syllables ;
they are not meant for logic." "True," replies Cole-
ridge; "they, that is, verses, are not logic; but they
are, or ought to be, the envoys and representatives of
that vital passion, which is the practical cement of
logic, and without which logic must remain inert.” *
A few more quotations from the more striking pas-
sages of the "Table Talk," and I have done. Take,
first, of Wives:-
"He that hath a handsome Wife, by other men is
thought happy; 'tis a pleasure to look upon her,
and be in her company, but the Husband is cloy'd
* "Literary Remains," ii. 362.
SELDEN'S "TABLE TALK.”
271
with her. We are never content with what we
have.”*
Of Wit:-
•1
"Women ought not to know their own Wit, because
they will still be showing it, and so spoil it; like
a Child that will continually be showing its fine new
Coat, till at length it all bedawbs it with its Pah-
hands."
men.
Surely the same may be as truly said of the wit of
Self-consciousness, when carried to an extreme,
is always disagreeable, and it is generally fatal to genius.
How much more charming is the woman who does not
know she is beautiful, than the woman who is only too
familiar with the fact that she is lovely!
Selden has more than one acute remark in reference
to that mysterious sex. For instance: "Men," he
says, "are not troubled to hear a Man dispraised,
because they know, though he be naught, there's
worth in others. But Women are mightily troubled
to hear any of them spoken against as if the Sex itself
were guilty of some unworthiness.”
Here I close my extracts from this interesting book.
That it is not only well worthy of its fame in litera-
ture, but is well deserving of attentive study, has, I
hope, been proved sufficiently; but, were this not so,
it would be enough to quote the opinions of some of
its more eminent critics. Coleridge thought there
was more weighty bullion sense" in it than he ever
found" in the same number of pages of any un-
inspired writer.” "O!" he cries, "to have been
(C
*"For an amusing illustration of this paragraph, see an early
chapter of Mr. Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd."
272
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
with Selden over his glass of wine, making every
accident an outlet and a vehicle of wisdom!" Dr.
Johnson said the "Table Talk" was better than all
the Ana of the Continent, and Hallam was disposed
to concur with him; "these sayings," he confessed,
"are full of a vigour, raciness, and a kind of scorn of
the half-learned, far less rude, but more cutting, than
that of Scaliger."* Mr. Hannay expresses the sur-
prise that every one must feel, that the Selden of the
"Table Talk" should be the same person as the
Selden of the "Titles of Honour."+ "Dry, grave,
and almost crabbed in his writings-his conversation
is homely, humorous, shrewd, vivid, even delightful !
He is still the great scholar and the tough Parliament-
arian, but merry, playful, and witty. The ȧvýpiμov
yêλaoua is on the sea of his vast intellect. He writes
like the opponent of Grotius; he talks like the friend
of Ben Jonson.'
·
What is very remarkable about the present fame of
Selden is the fact that it should rest more upon this
fragmentary and posthumous publication than upon
the many works of erudition which he produced in his
lifetime. It is, however, but another testimony to the
ineffectiveness of mere learning as a means of gaining
the attention of posterity. Knowledge of the kind
displayed by Selden in his "History of Tithes" and
other works, is apt to become antiquated in the course
of time; whilst knowledge of the kind displayed in
“Table Talk ”—the knowledge of the human mind
""
Introduction to the Literature of Europe."
+
"His largest English, and in the opinion of Usher, his best
work."-Johnson. It was published in 1614.
SELDEN'S “TABLE TALK.”
273
and heart is ever novel, ever interesting, and ever
valuable.
That it is presented in so unconnected and condensed
a form need not necessarily be an obstacle to the
earnest student. It is in the very nature of such
maxims and apophthegms that they should be carefully
studied, and not merely skimmed with the lightness
with which we skim a modern novel.


STEELE'S "TATLER."
THERE can be no doubt, I think, that the immediate
origin of the Periodical Essays, which Steele and
Addison brought to such perfection, and which were
afterwards so successfully cultivated by so many dis-
tinguished men, is to be found-as so much that is
important in English literature must always be found
-in the voluminous writings of Defoe.
M
It was he who, on February 19, 1704-fifteen years
after the production of Selden's "Table Talk "—pro-
duced "A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France;
Purg'd from the Errors and Partiality of News- Writers
and Petty Statesmen, of all Sides," which instantly
rose into unusual favour, and was continued triumph-
antly, through evil and through good report, from
1704 to 1713.* "The arrangement of its plan," says
* It was at first a quarto sheet, somewhat widely printed, published
weekly, and sold for a penny. After the fourth number it was reduced
to half a sheet, and sold for two-pence, in smaller print and with
double columns. After the eighth number it was published twice
a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Before the close of the first
volume, it sent forth monthly supplements, and at last it appeared on
the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday of every week; and so con-
tinued, without intermission, and written solely by De Foe, for nine
years.
STEELE'S 'TATLER.”
275
Mr. Forster," was not less original than its form. The
plan it struck out in periodical literature was, in this
respect, entirely novel. It classed the lesser and the
larger morals; it mingled personal and public themes ;
it put the gravities of life in an entertaining form; and
it at once discussed the politics, and corrected the
vices, of the age. We may best indicate the manner
in which it was done, by naming rapidly the subjects
treated in the first volume, in addition to those of poli-
tical concern. It condemned the fashionable practice
of immoderate drinking; in various ways ridiculed the
not less fashionable habit of swearing; inveighed
against the laxity of marital ties; exposed the licen-
tiousness of the stage; discussed, with great clearness
and sound knowledge, questions affecting trade and
the poor; laughed at the rage for gambling specu-
lations; and waged inveterate war with that barbarous
practice of the duel, in which Defoe had to confess,
with shame, that he had once during his life been
engaged." *
،،
Its machinery for matters non-political was a so-
called "Scandalous Club," which was organized for the
purpose of hearing and adjudicating upon complaints
brought before it. "After our Serious Matters are
over,” Defoe had said, we shall at the end of every
Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as anything
seems 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 there." The "Little Diversion "
accordingly appeared in the following form:-
* Forster's "Essays," ii. 55-6.
276
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS
"MERCURE SCANDALE:
((
OR,
ADVICE FROM THE SCANDALOUS CLUB.
Translated out of French.
"This Society is a Corporation long since established
in Paris, and we cannot compleat our Advices from
France, without entertaining the World with every-
thing we meet with from that Country.
"And, tho' Corresponding with the Queen's enemies
is prohibited; yet since the matter will be so honest, as
only to tell the World of what everybody will own to
be scandalous, we reckon we shall be welcome.
"This Corporation has been set up some months, and
open'd their first Sessions about last Bartholomew Fair 5
but having not yet obtain❜d a Patent, they have never,
till now, made their Resolves publick.
"The Business of this Society is to censure the
Actions of Men, not of Parties, and in particular those
Actions which are made publick so by their Authors,
as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general
Approbation.
They do not design to expose Persons, but things,
and of them, none but such as more than ordinarily
deserve it; they who would not be censur'd by this
Assembly, are desired to act with caution enough,
not to fall under their Hands; for they resolve to
treat Vice, and Villanous Actions, with the utmost
Severity."
The writer then goes on to notice "the first con-
siderable matter that came before this Society:
"9
"On the 10th of September last, there was," he
STEELE'S "TATLER."
277
¿
says, "a long Hearing, before the Club, of a Fellow
that said he had kill'd the Duke of Bavaria. Now as
David punished the Man that said he had kill'd King
Saul, whether it was so or no, 'twas thought this
Fellow ought to be delivered up to Justice, tho' the
Duke of Bavaria was alive.
"C
Upon the whole, 'twas voted a Scandalous Thing,、
that News-Writers sho'd kill Kings and Princes, and
bring them to life again at pleasure; and to make an
Example of this Fellow, he was dismiss'd, upon Con-
dition he should go to the Queen's-bench once a
Day, and bear Fuller, his Brother of the Faculty,
company two hours for fourteen Days together, which
cruel Punishment was executed with the utmost
Severity."
((
The reader will remember, says Mr. Forster, the
time when this review was planned.
Ensign Steele
was yet but a lounger in the lobbies of the theatres,
and Addison had not yet emerged from his garret in
the Haymarket. The details of common life had not
yet been invested with the graces of literature; the
social and polite moralities were still disregarded in
the press; the world knew not the influence of my
Lady Betty Modish, and Colonel Ranter still swore
at the waiters.* Where, then, shall we look for:
'the first sprightly runnings' of Tatlers and Specta-
tors if we have not found them in Defoe's Review?"
"There is Colonel Ranter, who never spoke without an oath
antil he saw the Lady Betty Modish; now, never gives his man an
order but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do it.' The drawers where he drinks
live in perfect happiness. Where he used to say Damn it, it is
so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must confess, he is of
another opinion; but, however, he will not insist.'"-The Tatler,
No. 10.
A
278
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"Nothing," says Professor Morley, "can be more evi-
dent than the family likeness between this forefather
of the Tatler and Spectator and its more familiar
descendants. There is a trick of voice common to all,
and some papers of Defoe's might have been written
for the Spectator."*
To be sure," the earlier was the ruder workman ;
but wit, originality, and knowledge were not less the
tools he worked with," and it seems very evident that it
was the remarkable popularity of Defoe's work that first
attracted the attention of Steele towards his project of
the Tatler. Macaulay was of opinion that it was the
facility with which Steele, as Gazetteer, was enabled to
obtain early foreign information, that suggested to him
the scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a new
plan.† But though this may have had something to
do with it, it is much more probable that the success
of the Review was the real origin of Steele's enterprise.
It was on Tuesday, the 12th of April, 1709—when the
Review was in the heyday of its career-that Steele
issued the first number of "The Tatler; or, Lucubra-
tions of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; and the new-comer
was, I dare say, received all the more kindly from the
fact that its predecessor had already obtained so strong
a hold upon the public mind.
""
Much, too, was owing to the felicity with which
Steele had hit upon the adoption of a popular and
notorious pseudonym. "It happened very luckily,"
* Introduction to his edition of the Spectator, p. xviii.
+ Edinburgh Review, July, 1843. Throughout this essay, Macaulay's
statements regarding Steele are to be taken cum grano salis. He was
too intent upon his praise of Addison to be otherwise than unfair to
Steele.
STEELE'S "TATLER."279
"
"
he says, in dedicating his first volume to a Mr.
Maynwaring, "that, a little before I had resolved
upon this design, a gentleman had written predic-
tions, and two or three other pieces in my name,
which rendered it famous through all parts of Europe;
and, by an inimitable spirit and humour, raised it to
as high a pitch of reputation as it could possibly
arrive at."
The reference here is to a pamphlet written by Swift
in 1708, in which, under the nom-de-plume of Isaac
Bickerstaff, he endeavoured, by the exercise of his
peculiar irony, "to prevent," as he said, "the people
of England from being further imposed upon by vulgar
almanac-makers." He pretended that he was himself
an adept in astrology, and among some other predic-
tions which have become historical, remarked that he
had consulted the star of the nativity of Partridge,
one of these said almanac-makers, and had found that
he would infallibly die upon the 29th of March next,
about eleven at night, of a raging fever, wherefore he
advised him to consider of it and settle his affairs in
time. This was followed in its turn by an account of
"the accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's
predictions, being an account of the death of Mr.
Partridge, the almanac-maker, upon the 29th inst."
Of course, the man, if he had been wise, would have
taken no notice of this humorous sally; but, on the
contrary, he was absurd enough to insert the following
advertisement in his next year's almanac :-"Whereas
it has been industriously given out by Isaac Bicker-
staff, Esq., and others, to prevent the sale of this
year's almanac, that John Partridge is dead; this may
280
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
inform all his loving countrymen that he is still living,
in health, and they are knaves that reported it other-
wise." To this Swift added "A Vindication of Isaac
Bickerstaff, Esq.," which is printed in his Works, and
was followed by a reply, in the character of Partridge,
called "Squire Bickerstaff Detected," which was said
to be written by Nicholas Rowe, by Dr. Yalden, or by
Congreve. The subject was once more referred to by
Steele in the first number of the Tatler, where he says,
“I have in another place, and in a paper by itself,
sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead, and,
if he has any shame, I do not doubt but that by this
time he owns it to all his acquaintance: for though
the legs and arms and whole body of that man may
still appear, and perform their animal functions; yet
since, as I have elsewhere observed, his art is gone,
the man is gone."
Thus skilfully did Steele connect his paper with the
popularity already won by his two great contempo-
raries. He was equally successful in keeping up his
character of an astrologer all through the Tatler,
though to that of an adept in necromancy he added
that of a general censor morum. “The reputation of
a conjuror having had the effect of excluding him from
public employment, he resolved," says Mr. Mont-
gomery,* "to establish a post for himself by reviving
the ancient Roman office of public censor," whose
range of observation was to be co-extensive with the
world itself.
*
Quicquid agunt homines-
Nostri est farrago libelli." †
ተ
† Juvenal, Satire i. 85-6.
"Life of Steele,” i. 145.
STEELE'S "TATLER."
281
Such was the motto he affixed to his front page;
with the translation-
K
"Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,
Our motley paper seizes for its theme."
""*
"All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertain-
ment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-
House; poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house;
learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and
domestic news, you will have from Saint James Coffee-
house; and what else I have to offer on any other
subject shall be dated from my own Apartment.
Not that the Tatler was by any means to be confined
to metropolitan gossip. The editor originated a system
of rural correspondence, much of which he took the
liberty of writing himself, and of which he says,
"Doubtless among friends, bred as we have been to
the knowledge of books as well as men, a letter dated
from a garden, a wood, a meadow, or the banks of a
river, may be more entertaining than one from Tom's,
White's, or St. James's. Such a frame of mind," as
he goes on to say, "raises that sweet enthusiasm which
warms the imagination at the sight of every work of
nature, and turns all round you into picture and land-
scape."+
66
Du reste, the general aim and intention of the Tatler
are best described in the words of its originator, who,
in the opening sentences of his first number, says,
Though the other papers, which are published for the
use of the people of England, have certainly very
wholesome effects, and are laudable in their particular
† Ibid, No. 89.
* Tatler, No. 1.
282
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
kinds, they do not seem to come up to the main design
of such variations, which I humbly presume should
be principally intended for the use of politic persons,
who are so public spirited as to neglect their own
affairs to look into transactions of state. Now these
gentlemen, for the most part, being persons of strong
zeal, and weak intellects, it is both a charitable and
necessary work to offer something, whereby such
worthy and well-affected members of the common-
wealth may be instructed, after their reading, what
to think; which shall be the end and purpose of this
my paper, wherein I shall, from time to time, report
and consider all matters of what kind soever shall
occur to me, and publish such my advices and reflec-
tions every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in the
week, for the convenience of the post.* I resolve,"
he says, "to have something which may be of enter-
tainment to the fair sex, in honour of whom I have
taken the title of this paper.
""
By-and-by, however, his ideas broadened, and, in
the dedication I have already referred to, he declares
"the general purpose" of his paper to be, "to expose
the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of
cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a
general simplicity in our dress, our discourses, and our
behaviour;" also, "to rally all those singularities of
life, through the different professions and characters in
it, which obstructed anything that was truly good and
great;"† and, again, “to allure the reader with the
* The Tatler was originally printed on a half-sheet folio. The first
four numbers were given gratis; afterwards each number cost a
penny.
+ Preface to the "Drummer."
STEELE'S "TATLER."
283
variety of his subjects, and insinuate, if he could, the
weight of reason with the agreeableness of wit."*
Of the general character of the contents of the
Tatler some idea may be obtained if I give a brief
analysis of the opening numbers. In No. 1, we have,
from White's Coffee-house, an account of a young man
who fell in love with a lady whom he had only seen
once, and whom he thought of all day long, to the
neglect of his business and to the detriment of his
health; from Will's Coffee-house, a criticism on a per-
formance of "the celebrated comedy called 'Love for
Love,'” in which "those excellent players, Mrs. Barry,
Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. Dogget," took part; from
St. James's Coffee-house, various items of foreign
news; and from his own apartment, the reference to
Partridge which I have already quoted. In No. 2 we
have from Will's Coffee-house "a tale" in verse,
"for
the Ladies," called "The Medicine," contributed by
the Mr. William Harrison, who, aided by Swift, who
probably thought that he had some claim to the
paternity of the Tatler, afterwards started a second
Tatler in the month of the original's decease; from St.
James's Coffee-house, items of foreign news as before;
and from his own apartment a contradiction of the
statement currently made by the English news-
writers, that France was in the most deplorable con-
dition, and that her people were dying in great multi-
tudes. In No. 3 we have, from Will's Coffee-house, a
criticism on a performance of "The comedy called the
Country Wife," in which Wycherly is rebuked for
his licentiousness, and a certain young nobleman for
* Concluding paper of the Tatler.
1
284
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
""
coming to theatre drunk, with some animadversions on
a recent poem by Blackmore; from St. James's Coffee-
house, the usual foreign intelligence; and from hist
own apartment, a recommendation to the reader to go
to the play that evening, when the "Stratagom" is to
be acted for the benefit of his near kinsman, Mr. John
Bickerstaff, a real actor of that name. In No. 4, after
being requested to understand that the author does not
pretend to raise a credit for his work upon the weight
of his politic news only, but, as the Latin sentence
on the title-page informs us, will take anything that
offers for the subject of his discourse, we have, from
White's Chocolate-house, a description of the differing
charms of two ladies, Chloe and Clarissa, "who have
for some time engrossed the dominion of the town;
from Will's Coffee-house, a criticism on the opera of
"Pyrrhus and Demetrius," which induces Steele to
protest against "being pleased with the suspense" of
our faculties "for three hours together, and the being
given up to the shallow satisfaction of the eyes and ears
only;" from St. James's Coffee-house, another quota of
foreign news; and from his own apartment, a fanciful
allusion to the state of parties in Britain, which figures
under the fictitious name of Fidelia. In No. 5 we
have, from White's Chocolate-house, a further reference
to the gentleman whose melancholy love affair is men-
tioned in No. 1; from Will's Coffee-house, a short
notice of Swift's recently-published "Project for the
Advancement of Religion," which is declared to be
written by one whose virtue sits easy about him, and
to whom vice is thoroughly contemptible;" from St.
James's Coffee-house, the usual news from abroad; and
"
•
STEELE'S "TATLER.”
285
from his own apartment, an essay which begins with a
story of the siege of Namur, and ends with an eulogium
on the Duke of Marlborough. In No. 6, the last that
I shall notice seriatim, we have, from Will's Coffee-
house, two bits of criticism-one on a passage in
"Paradise Lost," and another on a peculiarity in
Virgil's characterizations of his hero,* which seems to
have been communicated to Steele by Addison, and
which was the first intimation, it is said, that Addison
received of his friend's connection with the new
periodical; from Grécian Coffee-house, an endeavour
"to put the actions of Homer's Iliad into an exact
journal;" from St. James's Coffee-house, foreign intel-
ligence of the usual character; and from his own
àpartment, some considerations on the respective cha-
racteristics of Alexander and Cæsar.
Even this, however, gives the reader but a faint con-
ception of the remarkable variety of topics touched
upon by Steele in the pages of the Tatler. A list of
the characters and sketches with which they are
enlivened would in itself occupy more space than I
have at my disposal. They are so numerous that,
as Mr. Forster says, "the difficulty is in selection.
Shall we take the wealthy wags who give one another
credit in discourse according to their purses, who jest
by the pound, and make answers as they honour bills;
It is generally pius or pater Eneas; but in the meeting with
Dido in the cave, "where," says Steele, "Pius Eneas would have
been absurd and Pater Æneas a burlesque, the poet wisely dropped
them both for Dux Trojanus; which he has repeated twice in Juno's
speech and in his own narration; for he very well knew a loose action
might be consistent enough with the usual manners of a soldier,
though it became neither the chastity of a pious man nor the gravity
of the father of a people."
286
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
and who, with unmoved muscles for the most exquisite
wit, whose banker's balance they are not acquainted
with, smirk at every word each speaks to the other ?*
Shall we take the modest young Bachelor of Arts, who,
thinking himself fit for anything he can get, is above
nothing that is offered; and having come to town
recommended to a chaplain's place, but finding none
vacant, modestly accepts that of a postilion ?† Shall
we introduce the eminent story-teller and politician,
who owes the regularity and fluency of his dulness
entirely to his snuffbox? Shall we make acquaint-
ance with the whimsical young gentleman, so ambi-
tious to be thought worse than he is, that in his degree
of understanding he sets up for a free-thinker, and
talks atheistically in coffee-houses all day, though
every morning and evening, it can be proved upon
him, he regularly at home says his prayers?§ Shall
the well-meaning Umbra take us by the button, and
talk half an hour to us upon matters wholly insignifi-
cant with an air of the utmost solemnity, that we may
teach ourselves the charity of not being offended with
what has a good intention in it, by remembering that
to little men little things are of weight, and that
though our courteous friend never served us, he is ever
willing to do it, and believes he really does it ? || Or,
while Mr. Bickerstaff thus teaches us that impotent
kindness is to be tolerated, shall Mrs. Jenny Distaff
show us that impotent malice is not, and that society
should scout the fool who cannot listen to praise with-
out whispering detraction, or hear a man of worth
* Tatler, No. 57.
† Ibid., No. 52.
§ Ibid., No. 77.
‡ Ibid., No. 35.
Ibid., No. 37.
STEELÉ'S "TATLER.”
237
named without recounting the worst passages of his
life ?" *
Putting aside such graphic portraitures as those of
Will Dactyle, that "smallest of pedants;" of Senecio,
that "best-natured of old men;" of Will Courtley, of
Sophronius, of Jack Dimple, and of many others; let
us take the account of the famous club at the
Trumpet,-the worthy successor of the Scandal Club
of Defoe-and no less worthy predecessor of the
Spectator Club of Addison. There is Sir Jeffrey
Notch, the elder and foreman of the Club; a decayed
gentleman of ancient family, who, having come to a
large estate before he arrived at years of discretion,
squandered it rapidly in hounds and horses and cock-
fighting, and now regards himself in the light of an
honest worthy gentleman, who has been the victim of
misfortune. Next comes Major Matchlock, who served
in the last civil wars, and has all the battles by heart;
who does not think any action in Europe worthy of
comparison with Marston Moor, and tells every night
the story of how he was knocked off his horse at the
rising of the London apprentices. There is old Dick
Reptile, a good-natured easy-going creature, who does
not say much for himself, but laughs very heartily at
the jokes of the others. And, lastly, there is the elderly
bencher of the Temple, who has by heart ten couplets
of "Hudibras," which he never fails to apply before
leaving the Club every evening, and who, if any
modern wit or town frolic be mentioned, shakes his
head over the dulness of the present age, and tells a
story of the notorious Jack Ogle, who was an associate
* Tatler, No. 31.
.
288
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
of Rochester in most of that erring noble's deeds of
darkness and daring.* As for Mr. Bickerstaff himself,
who says it was his usual custom" to relax and unbend
in the conversation of such as were rather easy than
shining companions," he seems to have been esteemed
by them because they saw that he was "something
respected by others;" but though they conceded to
him a great deal of learning, they did not credit him
with much knowledge of the world, "insomuch that
the Major sometimes in the height of his military
pride, calls me the philosopher; and Sir Jeffrey, no
longer 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 ?""
I have already quoted a reference to Mrs. Jenny
Distaff, half-sister of Bickerstaff, who was probably
introduced as the exponent of the views and interests
of her sex. His three nephews appear for the
apparent purpose of enabling Steele to promulgate his
opinions on the subject of education; and the dramatis
personæ are completed in the person of a familiar spirit
called Pacolet, who is the vehicle for conveying a
variety of information beyond human ken or experience.
Especially notable in the Tatler is the fact, that
though full of the most admirable moral lessons, the moral
is never obviously or ostentatiously stated, but is rather
insinuated by means of such sketches of character as
have been already referred to. Vice is attacked in the
concrete, not in the abstract; follies are laughed at, not
as abstractions, but a personified in the many indi-
Tatler, No. 132.
STEELE'S "TATLER.33
"
289
viduals who appear in these pages.
Thus a lesson
against over-easiness in temper is learnt from the crafty
old cit in No. 176, who, speaking of a well-natured
young fellow, set up with a good stock in Lombard
Street, says, “I will lay no more money in his hands,
for he never denied me anything." The vanity of
silly fathers is corrected in the narrative of the Shoe-
lane pastrycook, who, in No. 173, has an objection to
take his son from his learning, but is resolved, as soon
as he has a little smattering in the Greek, to put him
apprentice to a soap-boiler. The story of the country
squire who set up for a man of the town, and went
home, "in the gaiety of his heart," to beat his wife,
illustrates the discredit which the morals of the stage
then cast upon marriage, and the separate beds, the
silent tables, and the solitary homes, to which it was
the ambition of the men of pleasure at that time to
contribute. We are taught in No. 151 to observe the
sudden source of pride in the two sisters, one of whom
holds up her head higher than ordinary from having
on a pair of striped garters; whilst we are taught to
notice the more extravagant forms of the same passion
in the cobbler of Ludgate Hill, who, being naturally a
lover of respect, and considering that his circumstances
are such that no man living will give it him, reverses
the law of idolatry, which requires the man to worship
the image, and contrives an inferior to himself in the
wooden figure of a beau, which, hat in one hand, and
in a posture of profound respect, holds out obsequi-
ously in the other what is needful to its master's
occasions.
Again: it is to be remarked of the Tatler, that it
U
290
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
""
exhibits the most wonderful power of obtaining wisdom
out of trifles, of turning the most insignificant
incidents to humorous or didactical account. "With-
out gravely translating his humorous announcement
that, when any part of his paper appeared dull, it was
to be noted that there was a design in it, we may say,'
says Mr. Forster, "with perfect truth, that he had a
design in everything. But a laugh never yet looked
so wise as a frown, and unless you are at pains to look
a little beneath it, the wisdom of Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff
may now and then escape you. The humorous old
gentleman who is always prying into his neighbour's
concerns, when he is not gossiping of his own; to
whom the young beau is made responsible for wearing
red-heeled shoes, and the young belle for showing her
self too long at her glass; who turns the same easy
artillery of wit against the rattling dice-box and the
roaring pulpit; who has early notice of most of the
love affairs in town, can tell you of half the domestic
quarrels, and knows more of a widow with a handsome
jointure than her own lawyer or next of kin; whose
tastes take a range as wide as his experience, to
whom Plutarch is not less familiar than a pretty
fellow, and who has for his clients not only the scholars
of the Grecian, but the poets at Will's, the men
of fashion at White's, and the quidnuncs of the St.
James's,-this old humorist, you would say, is about
the last man to pass for a Socrates; and yet there
was something more than whim in the old Isaac's
ambition to have it said of his lucubrations, that,
whereas Socrates had brought philosophy down from
heaven to inhabit among men, he had himself aimed to
STEELE'S "TATLER."
291
-
bring philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools
and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-
tables and in coffee-houses."
It is Steele's great characteristic, more perhaps than
that of any man of his time, that what he wrote
was written from life, not books, and that when he
took up a book, it was not for a bookish purpose;
he was thinking always of the life around him.*
"Addison," says Hazlitt, "seems to have spent
most of his time in his study, and to have spun
out and wire-drawn the hints which he borrowed
from Steele, or took from Nature, to the utmost."+
"Wit more piercing or more keen, a reflective
spirit of wider scope, a style more correct and pure,
even humour more consummate than his own, will
be found, in the way of comment upon life, among
his friends and fellow-labourers; but for that which
vividly brings actual life before us, which touches the
heart as with a present experience, which sympathizes
to the very core of all that moves the joys or sorrows
of his fellows, and which still, even as then, can
make the follies of men ridiculous and their vices hate-
ful, without branding ridicule or hate upon the men
themselves, we must turn to Steele. In his little
pictures of the world, that open new and unexpected
views of it; in his wonderfully pathetic little stories,
that fill our eyes with tears; in those trivial details by
which he would make life easier and happier; in those
accidents, the most common and familiar out of which
he draws secrets of humanity; what most, after all,
impresses us is a something independent of authorship.'
+ "Comic Writers."
* Forster's "Essays," ii. 128.
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The morality of Addison and Johnson is perhaps a
little too obvious and decided to be altogether enjoyable
or impressive. The former has always the air and
lemeanour of a parson in a tie-wig, as he was once
happily characterized by Mandeville; but Steele is not
so far above us as to overshadow us by his superiority.
“We like him all the better for being nearer and more
like ourselves, not for being higher or standing apart;
and it is still the man whom his writings make pleasant
to us, more than the author, the wit, the partizan, or
the fine gentleman."
-
Apart, however, from Steele's fidelity to human
nature, is the admirable picture that his work affords
us of the men and manners of the times in which he
lived.
A great work of literature has always this
double interest for posterity,—that it is at once a
picture of the permanent and transient phenomena of
human nature. And the Tatler, valuable as it is for
the insight it affords us into the characteristics of
mankind in general, is equally valuable for the light it
sheds upon the England and Englishmen of the reigns.
of Anne and George I. "As we read these delightful
volumes," says Thackeray,* "the past age returns,
the England of our ancestors is revivified. The
Maypole rises in the Strand again in London; 'the
churches are thronged with daily worshippers; the
beaux are gathering in the coffee-houses; the gentry
are going to the Drawing-room; the ladies are
thronging to the toy-shops; the chairmen are jostling
in the streets; the footmen are running with links
before the chariots, or fighting round the theatre
* "Lectures on the Humourists: Steele."
1
STEELE'S "TATLER.'
""
293
doors. In the country I see the young Squire
riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and
Will Wimble, the friend of the family, to see
him safe. To make that journey from the Squire's
and back, Will is a week on horseback. The coach
The
takes five days between London and Bath.
judges and the bar ride the circuit. If my lady
comes to town in her post-chariot, her people carry
pistols to fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he
should appear, and her couriers ride ahead to prepare
apartments for her at the great caravanserais on the
road; Boniface receives her under the creaking sign of
the 'Bell,' or the 'Ram,' and he and his chamberlains
bow her up the great stair to the state-apartments, whilst
her carriage rumbles into the court-yard, where the
'Exeter Fly' is housed, that performs the journey in
eight days, God willing, having achieved its daily
flight of twenty miles, and landed its passengers for
supper and sleep. The curate is taking his pipe in the
kitchen, where the Captain's man-having hung up
his master's half-pike-is at his bacon and eggs,
bragging of Ramilies and Malplaquet to the town's
folk, who have their club in the chimney-corner. The
Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden
gallery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty
young mistress that has come in the coach. The
pack-horses are in the great stable, and the drivers
and ostlers carousing in the tap; and in Mrs. Land-
lady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a gentle-
man of military appearance, who travels with pistols,
as all the rest of the world does, and has a rattling
grey mare in the stables, which will be saddled and
f
1
(
294
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away with its owner half an hour before the 'Fly
sets on its last day's flight. And some five miles
on the road, as the Exeter Fly' comes jingling
and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought
to a halt by a gentleman on a grey mare, with a
black vizard on his face, who thrusts a long pistol
into the coach window, and bids the company to
hand out their purses."
Such was England in the days when the Tatler first
made its appearance, and became so popular as effec-
tually to cast the Review into the shade. It was issued
for three half-pence in such a form that the good
people in town could add, on a blank sheet, a few
words to their friends in the country; and in this way
it penetrated to the most remote parts of the land.
For instance, in the fens of Lincolnshire, the Antiquary,
Maurice Johnson, collected his neighbours of Spalding.
Taking care," it is said, "not to alarm the country
gentlemen by any premature mention of antiquities,
he endeavoured at first to allure them into the more
flowery paths of literature. In 1709 a few of them
were brought together every post-day at the coffee-
house in the Abbey Yard; and after one of the party
had read aloud the last number of the Tatler, they
proceeded to talk over the subject among themselves."
When, after 271 numbers had appeared, the Tatler
was discontinued, and the Spectator started under the
editorship of Addison, the sorrow in the reading world
was profound, and people went about mourning for the
It is
defunct journal as for their dearest friend.
probable that the Spectator never at any time attained
to the popularity of its predecessor, and for my own
""
STEELE'S "TATLER."
295
1
""*
part, I agree with those who, notwithstanding the
great fame of Addison, have a decided preference for
Steele and for his delightful paper. It is generally
observed that the morality of the Spectator is of a
loftier character than that of the Tatler, and certainly
the moralising is more deliberate, but not on that
account the more impressive. "Addison," says Mr.
Arnold, "has not on his subject of morals the force of
ideas of the moralists of the first class-the classical
moralists; he has not the best ideas attainable in or
about his time, and which were, so to speak, in the air
then to be seized by the finest spirits; he is not to be
compared for power, searchingness, or delicacy of
thought, to Pascal, or La Bruyère, or Vauvenargues.
He is not to be compared, I venture to say, to Steele;
and as for style, there are many who have seen in the
style of Steele more grace and buoyancy than they can
detect in the style of Addison. I have already quoted
two sentences from Hazlitt's admirable criticism. Let
me quote a few more. "I am far," he says, "from
wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, but I am
anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, I think, upon
the whole a less artificial and more original writer.
The humorous descriptions of Steele resemble loose
sketches or fragments of a comedy; those of Addison
are rather comments or ingenious paraphrases on the
genuine text. The characters of the club, not only in
the Tatler, but in the Spectator, were drawn by Steele.
That of Sir Roger de Coverley is among the number.'
And if any one is inclined to insist upon the superior
literary acumen of Addison, the admirer of Steele is
"Essays in Criticism."
""
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
justified in pointing out that it was he, and not Addison,
who first had the daring to insist upon the superlative
beauties of Shakespeare and Milton. "I prefer," says
Hazlitt, "Steele's occasional selection of beautiful
poetical passages, without any affectation of analysing
their beauties, to Addison's finer spun theories." And
the pathos of Steele's occasional real or fictitious narra-
tives is always recognised. "I might refer,"
"I might refer,” says the
same critic, "to those of the lover and his mistress,
when the theatre, in which they were, caught fire; of
the bridegroom who by accident kills his bride on the
day of their marriage; the story of Mr. Eustace and
his wife; and the fine dream about his own mistress when
a youth."
But a comparison between his abilities and Addison's
is the last thing which Steele himself would have
thought of instituting. They had been friends in
youth, and remained friends in their manhood and
old age; and not content with celebrating his friend,
under a fictitious name, in the body of the Tatler,
Steele hastens, in his Preface to the octavo edition of
1710, to praise him in terms which are more than ade-
"I have,” he says,
quate to the occasion.
only one
gentleman, who will be nameless, to thank for any
frequent assistance to me, which indeed it would have
been barbarous in him to have denied to one with
whom he has lived in an intimacy from childhood,
considering the great ease with which he is able to
dispatch the most entertaining pieces of this nature.
This good office he performed with such force of
genius, humour, wit, and learning, that I fared like a
distressed prince; I was undone by my auxiliary;
""
STEELE'S "TATLER.”
297
when I had once called him in I could not subsist
without dependence on him."*
As a matter of fact, out of two hundred and seventy-
one numbers, forty-one only are given to Addison.
Thirty-four were written by Steele and Addison in
conjunction. Swift is credited with portions, at least,
of Nos. 9, 32, 35, 59, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 238, and
258, and with the whole of No. 230. It was in refer-
ence to him that Steele wrote, in his general Preface,
"I must acknowledge also that, at my first entering
on this work, a certain uncommon way of thinking,
and a turn in conversation peculiar to that agreeable
gentleman, rendered his company very advantageous
to one whose imagination was to be continually em-
ployed upon obvious and common subjects, though at
the same time obliged to treat them in a new and
unbeaten method."
The other occasional contributors to the Tatler may
be dismissed very briefly. I have already mentioned
the Mr. Harrison who contributed to No. 2. Among
others are the celebrated John Hughes, who is said
to have written Nos. 64, 66, 73, 76, 113, and 194;
Mr. Swysden, who sent the humorous genealogy of
the Bickerstaff family for No. 11; a Mr. Fuller, who
was the author of No. 205; Mr. James Greenwood,
who wrote No. 234;
No. 234; Anthony Henley, Charles
Dartiquenave, and Mr. Asplin.
These were the men who from time to time assisted
""
Pope says, in "Spence's Anecdotes," that Addison would now
and then "play upon
Steele, and that Steele would take it very
kindly. I dare say he did. Johnson, we know, was accustomed to
do the same kind office for Goldsmith; but one would rather be
Goldsmith than Johnson, after all.
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Steele in his difficult enterprise; but Steele was the
origin and animating spirit of the whole, and to him,
almost entirely, is the credit due. It is different when
we come to the Spectator, to which he in turn was only
a contributor; but I think most of us would rather
have written the Tatler than the Spectator, and I am
sure most of us would rather have been Steele than
Addison. The latter probably was, of the two, the
most irreproachable; but the former had, I believe,
the quicker intelligence and the kindlier heart. He
was not, perhaps, the "Christian Hero" that he
painted; but his pulses throbbed with the noblest sym-
pathy with, and charity towards, his fellow-man.


DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
IT is remarkable that to Defoe, to whom we owe the
foundation of the English periodical essay, we should
also owe the origin of the modern English novel. To
be sure,
"Robinson Crusoe" itself cannot be said to
be a novel in our present sense of the term; but its
success undoubtedly suggested to Defoe the composi-
tion of those other stories and romances which must
have quickened and stimulated the genius of Fielding,
Smollett, Sterne, and Richardson.*
We must first, however, settle the question as to
whether "Robinson Crusoe" was or was not really
the work of its reputed author. The reader will pro-
bably be unaware that there ever existed any doubt
on the subject; but it is no less true that the author-
ship of the famous story has been assigned to at least
two other persons than Defoe. In the "
In the "Biographia
Britannica," nearly fifty years after its first publica-
tion, it was attributed to the pen of the Dr. Arbuthnot
who wrote the celebrated "History of John Bull;
"
* "Swift," says Mr. Forster, "directly copied from him; Richardson
founded his style of minute narrative wholly upon him; Fielding,
Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith, Godwin, Scott, Bulwer, and
Dickens, have been more or less indebted to him."
300
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
and eight years afterwards Thomas Warton gravely
stated that the Rev. Benjamin Holloway, of Middleton
Stony, told him that Lord Sunderland assured him
that the first volume of "Robinson Crusoe" was
written by the Earl of Oxford while a prisoner in the
Tower, "as an amusement under confinement;” that
it was given to Defoe, who visited him there; and that
it was printed by him as his own, the second volume,
"the inferiority of which is generally acknowledged,
being added, with the approbation of the noble lord!
The first allegation is happily contradicted by the
writer himself, who, at the close of his account,
observes that "Robinson Crusoe " was "the delectable
Offspring of the teeming Brain of Daniel Defoe, a
Writer famous in his Generation for Politics and
Poetry." The second is equally susceptible of refuta-
tion. In the first place, Lord Oxford was so prostrated
by illness, during the greater part of his imprison-
ment, that it was a matter of speculation whether or
not he would live to be tried. He was incapable of
preparing his defence, and on that account, says Mr.
Lee, the House of Lords, from time to time, granted
his petitions for postponement of the trial. He could
not therefore have been able to compose a story
(C as
an amusement" whilst "under confinement." In the
second place, he was discharged from prison two years
before "Robinson Crusoe" was heard of. In the third
place, only the Earl of Oxford and Defoe could have
known the truth of the matter, and there is no evi-
*
""
* In the introduction to an edition of "Robinson Crusoe," which
has the immense advantage of being printed from the first edition, but
is sadly disfigured by the caricature-illustrations of M. Ernest Griset.
I am largely indebted to Mr. Lee throughout the next few pages.
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE."
301
dence to prove that either of them uttered a word on
the subject. In the fourth place, Lord Sunderland
would have been the last person to whom they would
have communicated; because, in the fifth place, he had
always spoken and voted against Lord Oxford, and
there could be no intercourse between the prisoner and
the man who believed him to be a traitor and desired
to bring him to the block. In the sixth place, Defoe
was, during the imprisonment of the Earl of Oxford,
in the service of the Government and under the control
of Sunderland. And, lastly, granting (what Mr. Lee,
wrongly, I think, does not seem inclined to grant) that
the second volume of "Robinson Crusoe" is inferior
to the first, it is not the less certainly the production
of the same man as he who wrote the opening volume.
If, indeed, further evidence is required of Defoe's
claim to the authorship of the story with which his
name is always connected, it is to be found in none of
the circumstances which followed its first publication.
Thus, in the year of its appearance, and before the
second volume was published, a mutilated abridgment
of the first part was clandestinely printed for a man
called Cox, who, when threatened and remonstrated
with, merely replied by an advertisement in the
Flying Post in which he abused Defoe with a
bitterness that would have been absurd if not directed
against the author of the story. In the same year,
also, Charles Gildon published a satirical pamphlet,
entitled "The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures
Mr. D De F, of London, Hosier, who has
lived above fifty years by himself, in the Kingdoms of
North and South Britain. The various Shapes he has
302
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
appear'd in, and the Discoveries he has made for the
Benefit of his Country. In a Dialogue between Him,
Robinson Crusoe, and his Man Friday. With Remarks
Serious and Comical upon the Life of Crusoe." In
"An Epistle to D D'F-e, the reputed author
of Robinson Crusoe," the writer confesses that
“Crusoe” was already "fam'd from Tattle Street to
Limehouse-hole. There is not an old Woman," he
says, "that can go to the price of it, but buys the
'Life and Adventures,' and leaves it as a Legacy, with
the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' the 'Practice of Piety,' and
'God's Revenge against Murther,' to her Posterity."
A few years afterwards, when Bishop Hoadley pub-
lished in the London Journal some strictures about
Robinson Crusoe filling his pockets with biscuits, after
previously divesting himself of his clothes, Defoe
replied very warmly in a contemporary print; and it is
said he was so extremely angry when one of the
pirates, who then infested the coasts of Carolina and
Virginia, named his ship the "Robinson Crusoe," that
he called him "a most bloody-minded murdering
Rogue." A collateral and inferential bearing on the
fact of Defoe's authorship may be found, adds Mr.
Lee, in the chagrin of the booksellers against Mr.
William Taylor, for his having secured to himself the
great profits arising from the publication of "Robinson
Crusoe," and in the further fact that seven or more of
them eventually entered into a confederacy for the
joint publication of such works of fiction as Defoe
might afterwards write.
Assuming, then, that Daniel Defoe was really and
truly the author of "Robinson Crusoe," it becomes an
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.'
""
303
interesting subject of inquiry as to the sources of his
inspiration. Where, it may be asked, did Defoe
obtain the first hint of his remarkable work?
66
He himself assures us, in the Preface to his "Serious
Reflections," of which I hope to give some description
presently, that he intended "Robinson Crusoe" to be,
at least in some sense, a kind of type of what the
dangers and vicissitudes and surprising escapes of his
own life had been." Speaking in the person of his
hero, he informs the reader that "the Story, though
Allegorical, is also Historical, and that it is the beautiful
Representation of a life of unexampled Misfortunes,
and of a Variety not to be met with in the World. .
Farther, that there is a Man alive, and well known too,
the Actions of whose life are the just Subject of these
Volumes, and to whom all or most Part of the
Story directly alludes; this may be depended upon
for Truth, and to this I set my Name. The famous
History of Don Quixote, a Work which thousands
read with Pleasure, to one that knows the Meaning
of it, was an emblematic History of, and a just
Satyr upon, the Duke de Medina Sidonia, a person very
remarkable at that Time in Spain. To those who
knew the Original, the Figures were lively and easily
discovered themselves, as they are also here, and the
Images were just; and therefore when a malicious, but
foolish writer, in the abundance of his Gall, spoke of
the Quixotism of R. Crusoe, as he called it, he shewed
evidently that he knew nothing of what he said, and
perhaps will be a little startled when I shall tell him,
that what was meant for a Satyr, was the greatest of
Panegyrics.
The Adventures of Robinson
304
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Crusoe are one whole Scheme of real Life of eight-and-
twenty Years, spent in the most wandering desolate
and afflicting Circumstances that ever Man went
through, and in which I have liv'd so long in a Life of
Wonders, in continu'd Storms, and fought with the
worst kind of Savages and Man-eaters, by unaccount-
able surprising Incidents; fed by Miracles greater than
that of Ravens, suffered all Manner of Violences and
Oppressions, injurious Reproaches, contempt of Men,
Attacks of Devils, Corrections from Heaven, and Opposi-
tions on Earth; have had innumerable Ups and Downs
in Matters of Fortune; been in worse Slavery than
Turkish; escaped by as exquisite Management as that
in the story of Xury and the Boat at Sallee; been
taken up at Sea in Distress; rais'd again, and depress'd
again, and that oftner, perhaps, in one Man's Life than
ever was known before; Shipwreck'd often, tho'
more by Land than by Sea; in a Word, there's not a
Circumstance in the imaginary Story but has its just
Allusion to a real Story, and chimes, Part for Part, and
Step for Step, with the inimitable life of Robinson
Crusoe."
No statement could well be more distinct than that,
and I confess I see no reason for casting discredit upon
its even literal accuracy. "Robinson Crusoe" is indeed
what Mr. Forster calls it, "the romance of solitude and
self-sustainment, and could only so perfectly have been
written by a man whose own life had for the most
part been passed in the independence of unaided
thought, accustomed to great reverses, of inexhaustible
resources in confronting calamities, leaning over his
Bible in sober and satisfied belief, and not afraid at any
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
305
time to find himself Alone, in communion with nature
and with God." The career of Defoe, whose ideas and
aims were so far in advance of his contemporaries, had
been one of almost absolute isolation, and no doubt
much of the intense reality that characterizes his
famous work was owing to the striking sympathy with
which he was able to follow the fortunes of his hero.
He had known what it was to be a political prisoner, *
and it is not fanciful to suppose, as a recent writer has
suggested, that confinement in his prison is represented
in his book by confinement in an island.
"In
other words, this novel, too, like many of the best
ever written, has in it something of the autobiogra-
phical element, which makes a man speak from
greater depths of feeling than in a purely imaginary
story."+
At the same time, it has always been a matter of
belief that the origin of "Robinson Crusoe" is to be
found in the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, a
Scotch seaman, on the island of Juan Fernandez. It
is probable that the interest of Defoe had previously
been awakened by those stories of maritime adventure ‡
*""Tis as reasonable," says Defoe, in the same Preface, "to
represent one kind of Imprisonment by another, as it is to represent
any Thing that really exists by what exists not. Had the common
way of writing a Man's private History been taken, and I had given
you the conduct or life of a Man you know, and whose Misfortunes
and Infirmities perhaps you had sometimes unjustly triumphed over;
all I could have said would have yielded no Diversion, and perhaps
scarce have obtained a reading, or at best no attention. The Teacher,
like a greater, having no Honour in his own country."
+ Leslie Stephen, "Hours in a Library,”
"The conception of a solitary mariner thrown on an uninhabited
island was one," says Professor Masson,
says Professor Masson, "as really belonging to the
fact of that time as those which formed the subject of De Foe's less
read fictions of coarse English life. Dampier and the bucaniers
X
306
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
in the days of Elizabeth which still stir the soul of
Englishmen, to use a fine expression of Sir Philip
Sidney's, like a trumpet. But the curious experiences
of Selkirk, related as they were, first, in Captain
Woodes Rogers' "Cruising Voyage Round the World,"
in 1712; afterwards, in a volume published by Captain
Edward Cooke, in the same year; and finally, by Sir
Richard Steele in No. 26 of the Englishman pub-
lished in 1710,* could scarcely have failed to have
come to the knowledge of Defoe, and to have sug-
gested the notion of his solitary on a desert island.
I do not propose, indeed, to enter at any length into
a narrative of the career of Selkirk; but I think a few
particulars may be stated for the guidance of those
who may like to judge for themselves how far Defoe
was indebted to the real Crusoe.
The circumstances of Selkirk's stay on Juan Fer-
nandez were as follows:-Born in 1676, at Largo, a
small seaport town on the coast of Fife, he was the
seventh son and seventh child of John Selcraig and
his wife, Euphan Mackie, and, according to a venerable
superstition, was fated from his birth to be the hero of
extraordinary adventures. He early displayed much
quickness of intelligence, as well as considerable way-
wardness of temper, and set the seal on various juvenile
enormities by going off to sea in 1695, wandering
were roving the South Seas, and there yet remained parts of the land
surface of the earth of which man had not taken possession, and on
which sailors were occasionally thrown adrift by the brutality of
captains."
"Do you know," writes Lamb to one of Defoe's biographers,
"the paper in the Englishman by Sir Richard Steele, giving an
account of Selkirk ? It is admirable, and has all the germs of
'Crusoe.'"
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
307
about for six years in every imaginable quarter of the
globe, and doubtless acquiring no inconsiderable know-
ledge of nautical affairs and things in general. He
returned to Largo in 1701; but, being apparently
unable to remain in peace with his brethren, once more
quitted the scene of his youthful follies, and went to
England with the view of engaging himself on board
some ship destined to cruise against the Spanish pos-
sessions in the Southern Seas. Here he fell in with
the notorious bucanier, Dampier, who was organizing
an expedition against certain Spanish galleons of great
value that he imagined to be stationed in the river
Plata. With him Selkirk accordingly set sail in 1703;
Dampier in command of a ship called the St. George,
Selkirk as sailing master of a ship called the Cinque
Ports, with one Charles Pickering as captain, and one
Thomas Stradling as lieutenant. On the 24th of
November of the same year the ships anchored at La
Granda, in Brazil, where Captain Pickering died, and
the command devolved upon Lieutenant Stradling,
who seems to have been a man of arbitrary and violent
disposition. With him, Selkirk found it impossible to
agree, and when, on anchoring for a second time off
Juan Fernandez, he heard from two of his sailors who
had been left there on the previous visit, a glowing
description of the island, he determined to leave the
vessel, and take his chance of securing a return to
England in some passing ship. Accordingly, when
the galley was fully refitted, it was loaded with all his
effects, and he leaped on shore in a temporary trans-
port of joy and freedom. He shook hands with his
comrades, and bade them adieu in a hearty manner; but
308
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
¿
no sooner, says Howell,* did the dip of their oars, as
they left the beach, sound upon his ears, than the
horrors of being alone, cut off from all human society,
perhaps for ever, rushed upon his mind. His heart
sank within him, and all his resolution failed. He
rushed into the water, and implored those on board to
take him with them. But Stradling laughed at his
entreaties, and declared that his present situation was
the most proper for so discontented and rebellious an
individual.
The manner in which he supported himself on the
island, until taken up five years afterwards by an
expedition sent against the French and Spanish, by
some Bristol merchants, may best and briefly be told in
the simple and graphic description of Woodes Rogers.
It appears that Selkirk had with him his clothes and
bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets, and
tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, some
practical pieces, and his mathematical instruments and
books. He diverted and provided for himself as well
as he could; but, for the first eight months, had much
ado to bear up against melancholy, and the terror of
being left alone in such a desolate place. He built two
huts with pimento-trees, covered with long grass, and
lined them with the skins of goats, which he killed
with his gun as he wanted, so long as his powder
lasted, which was but a pound; and that being almost
spent, he obtained fire by rubbing two sticks of
pimento-wood together upon his knee. In the lesser
hut, at some distance from the other, he dressed his
victuals; and in the larger he slept, and employed
* Howell, "Life of Alexander Selkirk." (1829.)
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE."
309
himself in reading, singing psalms, and praying, so
that, he said, he was a better Christian while in this
solitude than he ever was before, or than, he was
afraid, he should ever be again. It was at this time,
more than at any other, that he could have sung, as he
was afterwards made to sing by Cowper:-
Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word.
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell,
Nor smiled when a Sabbath appeared."
At first he never ate anything till hunger constrained
him, partly for grief, and partly for want of bread and
salt; nor did he go to bed until he could watch no
longer. The pimento-wood, which burned very clearly,
served him both for fire and candle, and refreshed him
with its fragrant smell. He might have had fish
enough, but would not eat them for want of salt, because
they occasioned a looseness, except crayfish, which
were as large as lobsters, and very good. These he
sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did
his goats' desh, of which he made very good broth,
He kept an account of five hundred goats that he killed
while there, and caught as many more, which he
marked on the ear, and then let go. When his powder
failed, he took them by speed of foot; for his way of
living-continual exercise in walking and running—
bared him, says our authority, of all gross humours, so
that he ran with wonderful swiftness through the
woods and up the rocks and hills. He afterwards told
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how his agility in pursuing a goat had once like to
have cost him his life. He pursued it with so much
eagerness, that he caught hold of it on the brink of a
precipice, of which he was not aware, the bushes
hiding it from him, so that he fell with the goat down
the precipice, a great height, and was so stunned and
bruised with the fall that he narrowly escaped with his
life; and when he came to his senses, he found the
goat dead under him. He lay there about twenty-four
hours, and was scarce able to crawl to his hut, which
was about a mile distant, or to stir abroad again in ten
days.
He came at last to relish his meat well enough
without salt and bread; and, in the season, had plenty
of good turnips, which had been sown there by
Dampier's men, and had, at the end of the five years,
overspread some acres of ground. He had enough
of good cabbage from the cabbage-trees, and seasoned
his meat with the fruit of the pimento-trees, which is
the same as Jamaica pepper, and smells deliciously.
He also found a black pepper, called Malageta.
He soon wore out all his shoes and clothes by
running in the woods; and, at last, being forced to
shift without them, his feet became so hard that he ran
everywhere without difficulty, and it was some time
before he could wear shoes after he was found by
Woodes Rogers; for, not being used to any for so long
a time, his feet swelled when he first came to wear
them again.
After he had conquered his melancholy, he diverted
himself sometimes by cutting his name upon the trees,
and the time of his being left, and continuance there.
DEFOE'S “ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
311
He was at first much pestered by cats and rats, which
bred in great numbers from some of each species that
had got ashore from ships that put in there to wood
and water. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes while
he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats
with his goats' flesh, by which many of them became
so tame that they would lie about him in hundreds,
and soon delivered him from the rats. He likewise
tamed some kids, and, to divert himself, would now
and then sing and dance with them and his cats; so
that, by the favour of Providence, and vigour of his
youth, being then but thirty years old, he came at last
to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and
to be very easy.
When he first came on board of Woodes Rogers' ship,
he had so far forgot his native language, that he could
scarcely be understood. He seemed, says the narrator,
to speak his words by halves. They offered him a
dram, but he would not touch it, having drank nothing
but water since left on the island; and it was some
time before he could relish their victuals.
The story of his delivery is told by Howell.* Selkirk,
it appears, could scarcely believe the vessels he saw
coming in sight were real, for he had often been deceived
before. But gradually they approached the island, and
he at length ascertained them to be English. "Great
was the tumult of passions that rose in his mind; but
the love of home overpowered them all. It was late
in the afternoon when they first came in sight; and lest
* See, also, "Providence Displayed; or, the Remarkable Adventures
of Alexander Selkirk," by Isaac James, of Bristol (1800), and
"Crusoniana," by Lieut.-Col. Thomas Sutcliffe, Governor of Juan
Fernandez (1843).
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they should sail again without knowing that there was
a person on the island, he prepared a quantity of wood
to burn as soon as it was dark. He kept his eye fixed
upon them until night-fall, and then kindled his fire,
and kept it up till morning dawned. His hopes and
fears having banished all desire for sleep, he employed
himself in killing several goats, and in preparing an
entertainment for his expected guests, knowing how
acceptable it would be to them after their long run,
with nothing but salt provisions to live upon.
""
men.
The next day, about noon, Woodes Rogers sent a
boat on shore, and the reader can imagine how eagerly
Selkirk would hasten to welcome his fellow-country-
He embraced them one after another; but, at
first, excess of joy fettered his voice, and he could not
speak. He had at this time his last shirt upon his
back; his feet and legs were bare; the skins of wild
animals partly covered his thighs and body. His
beard was of patriarchal length, and a rough goat's
skin cap covered his unkempt locks. After the first
transports of delight were over, he plied the new-
comers with questions; and, curiosity having been
satisfied on both sides, the boat's crew returned to the
ship, taking Selkirk with them. For ten days, the
expedition remained at the island, refitting and collect-
ing supplies of water, fuel, and fresh meat, and then
Selkirk bade final adieu to the singular and romantic life
which was destined to suggest to a man of genius one
of the finest and most popular romances in the English
language.
It would be interesting to know whether Defoe was
acquainted with the story of that Spanish sailor, called
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
313
Peter Serrano, who was cast upon one of the cluster of
islands now called the Serrano Keys, lying in the
Caribbean Sea, about two degrees further south and
eighteen degrees further east than the locality attri-
buted to Crusoe's island. The narrative is contained
in the well-known book, published in 1688, called
"The Royal Commentaries of Peru, written originally
in Spanish by the Don Garcillasso de la Vega, and
rendered into English by Sir Paul Rycaut, Kt."
Serrano's experience was, however, so far distinct from
that of Selkirk, that he was wrecked on an island where
there was neither water, wood, nor grass, nor anything
for the support of human life. It is described as
covered all over with a dead sand; so that all Serrano's
nourishment was obtained from the sea. Having con-
trived to kindle a fire by means of flints, he gathered
a great quantity of sea-weed, thrown up by the waves,
which, with the shells of fish, and the planks of ships
which had been wrecked on these shoals, afforded the
requisite fuel, and, lest sudden showers should extin-
guish the blaze, he made a little covering, like a small
hut, with the shells of the largest turtles or tortoises
that he killed. In the space of two months, or sooner,
he was as unprovided with everything as he was at
first; for, with the great rains, heat, and moisture of
that climate, his provisions were corrupted; and the
rays of the sun poured down so strongly upon him,
who had neither clothes to cover nor shadow to shelter
him, that when he was, as it were, broiled by the
exceeding heat, he had no remedy but to run into the
sea. In this misery and care, says his historian, he
passed three years, during which time he saw several
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ships at sea, and often made his smoke; but none
turned out of their way to see what it meant, for fear of
those shelves and sands which wary pilots avoid with
all imaginable circumstance; so that the poor wretch,
despairing of all manner of relief, esteemed it a mercy
for him to die, and arrive at that period which could
only put an end to his miseries.
At the end of the three years, an accident occurred
which bears, I think, a remarkable resemblance to a
similar scene in "Robinson Crusoe.” Serrano, we
are told, was one day "strangely surprised with the
appearance of a man on his island, whose ship had the
night before been cast away upon the sands, and had
saved himself on the plank of a vessel. So soon as it
was day, he espied the smoke, and, imagining where it
was, made towards it. So soon as they saw each other,
it is hard to say which was the most amazed. Serrano
imagined it was the Devil who came in the shape of a
man to tempt him to despair. The new-comer believed
Serrano to be the Devil in his own proper shape and
figure, being covered over with hair and beard; in fine,
they were both afraid, flying one from the other.
Peter Serrano cried out as he ran, Jesus, Jesus,
deliver me from the Devil!' The other, hearing this,
took courage, and returning again to him, called out,
'Brother, brother, don't fly from me, for I am a
Christian as thou art!' and, because he saw that
Serrano still ran from him, he repeated the Credo, or
Apostles' Creed, in words aloud; which, when Serrano
heard, he knew it was no devil would recite those
words, and thereupon gave a stop to his flight, and
returning to him, with great kindness they embraced
"
·
DEFOE'S “ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
315
each other with sighs and tears, lamenting their sad
estate without any hopes of deliverance."
""
It was on the 25th of April, 1719, thirty-one years
after the publication of the above, and six years after
Steele recounted in the Englishman his conversation
with the seaman Selkirk, that the first volume of
"Robinson Crusoe" was given to the world. The
title-page ran as follows:-"The Life and Strange
Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York,
Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all
alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of
America, near the Mouth of the Great River
Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck,
wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An
Account how he was at last as strangely deliver❜d by
Pyrates. Written by Himself. London. Printed for
W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noster Row. MDCCXIX.
The Preface was written by Defoe in the character of
the editor of the work, and was thus worded :—“ If
ever the Story of any private Man's Adventures in the
World were worth making Public, and were acceptable
when Publish'd, the Editor of this Account thinks
this will be so. The Wonders of this Man's Life
exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the
Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater
Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with
Seriousness, and with a Religious Application of
Events the Uses to which wise Men always apply them
(viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example,
and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence
in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them
happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing
316
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
to be a just History of fact; neither is there any
Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks,
because all such things are dispatch'd, that the
Improvement of it, as well to the Diversion, as to
the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and
as such, he thinks, without farther Compliment to
the World, he does them a great Service in the
Publication."
This first volume was, as everybody knows, so
extremely and immediately popular, that a second
edition was issued on the 12th of May, only seventeen
days after the first; a third appeared on the 6th of
June; a spurious one was published on the 7th of
August; and a fifth (the fourth authorised one) was
sent forth on the following day.
Meanwhile the author had been busy with the
preparation of his second volume, which appeared
on the 20th of August, with the following title-
page: "The Farther Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe; being the Second and Last Part of his
Life, and of the Strange Surprising Account of his
Travels Round Three Parts of the Globe. Written by
Himself. To which is added a Map of the World, in
which is delineated the Voyages of Robinson Crusoe.
London: Printed for W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-
Noster Row. MDCCXIX." The Preface said, "The
Success the former Part of this Work has met with in
the World, has yet been no other than is acknowledg'd
to be due to the surprising Variety of the Subject, and
to the agreeable Manner of the Performance. All the
Endeavours of Envious People to reproach it with
being a Romance, to search for Errors in Geography,
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE."
317
瓜
​Inconsistency in the Relation, and Contradictions in
the Fact, have proved abortive, and as impotent as
malicious. The just Application of every Incident, the
religious and useful Inferences drawn from every Part,
are so many Testimonies to the Good Design of
making it Public, and must legitimate all the Part
that may be called Invention, or Parable in the Story.
The Second Part, if the Editor's opinion may pass, is
(contrary to the Usage of Second Parts) every way as
entertaining as the First, contains as strange and
surprising Incidents, and as great Variety of them;
nor is the Application less serious, or suitable; and
doubtless will, to the sober, as well as ingenious
Reader, be every-way as profitable and diverting;
and this makes the abridging this Work, as scan-
dalous, as it is knavish and ridiculous; seeing, while
to shorten the Book, that they may seem to reduce
the Value, they strip it of all those Reflections, as
well religious as moral, which are not only the
greatest Beauties of the Work, but are calculated for
the infinite Advantage of the Reader. By this they
leave the Work naked of its brightest Ornaments; and
if they would, at the same Time pretend, that the
Author has supply'd the Story out of his Invention,
they take from it the Improvement, which alone
recommends that Invention to wise and good Men.
The Injury these Men do the Proprietor of this Work,
is a practice all honest Men abhor; and he believes he
may challenge them to show the Difference between
that and Robbing on the Highway, or Breaking open
a House. If they can't show any Difference in the
Crime, they will find it hard to show why there should
318
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be any Difference in the Punishment: And he will
answer for it, that nothing shall be wanting on his
Part, to do them Justice."
During the same year, 1719, both first and second
volumes were translated into German and French; and
they were reprinted, in weekly portions, from the 7th
of October, 1719, to the 19th of October, 1720, in a
newspaper called "The Original London Post, or
Heathcote's Intelligencer."
Since then, the editions of "Robinson Crusoe" have
been more numerous than I can possibly mention.
The fifth authorised edition was an abridgment, in
one volume, published in 1720; the sixth, in two
volumes, in 1721; the seventh in 1722, and the
eighth, in two volumes, with fourteen copper plates, in
the course of the same year. After this, the reprints
became countless, and the variety of the foreign trans-
lations is equally remarkable. Not only has almost
every living language produced a version of Defoe's
romance, but it has appeared in the classical languages
of Greece and Rome.*
A still more striking testimony to the influence of
"Robinson Crusoe" is to be found in the number of
imitations of which it has formed the subject, and of
which I may briefly indicate a few.
1. "The Adventures and Surprizing Deliverance of
James Dubourdieu and his Wife, from the uninhabited
Part of the Island of Paradise, &c. Also the Adven-
* "Robinson Crusoe,' says Mr. Forster, "is a standard piece in
every European language; its popularity has extended to every
civilised nation. The traveller Burckhardt found it translated into
Arabic, and heard it read aloud among the wandering tribes in the
cool of the evening."
"""

DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE."
319
tures of Alexander Vendchurch, set on Shore on an
Island in the South Sea," &c. Here, "Vendchurch "
is obviously a travestied synonym for "Sel-kirk."
Published in October, 1719.
2. "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of
Major Alexander Ramkins," &c. Published in De-
cember, 1719.
3. "The Voyages, Travels, and Dangerous Adven-
tures of Captain Richard Falconer," &c. Also pub-
lished in December, 1719.
Defoe himself further contributed to this sort of
literature by writing-
4. "The King of Pirates: Being an Account of the
Famous Enterprises of Captain Avery, the Mock King
of Madagascar," &c. Published in December, 1719.
And again, by writing-
5. "The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the
Famous Captain Singleton," &c. Published in June,
1720, and accounted one of the best of Defoe's minor
works.
6. "The Voyages and Adventures of Miles Phillips,
a West Country Sailor, &c. Written by Himself,"
&c. Published in February, 1724.
7. "The Strange Adventures and Signal Deliverances
of Mr. Philip Ashton, Jun., &c., who lived alone upon
a Desolate Island in the Gulph of Honduras, for about
Sixteen Months."
8. "The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert
Boyle," &c. Published in March, 1726.
9. "Travels into several Remote Nations of the
World, by Lemuel Gulliver." Published in October,
1726, and evidently suggested by Defoe's romance,
320
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
though otherwise so strikingly original as scarcely to
deserve the name of imitation.
10. "The Hermit: or, the Unparalleled Sufferings
and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Philip Quarll, an
Englishman. Who was discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a
Bristol Merchant, upon an uninhabited Island in the
South Sea; where he has lived above Fifty Years, with-
out any human Assistance, still continues to reside, and
will not come away," &c. This, with one exception, to
be hereafter mentioned, is the most able and popular
of the imitations of Crusoe, and has been frequently
reprinted. It appeared in 1727.*
11. "A Voyage to Cacklogallinia. By Captain
S. Brunt." Published in July, 1727.
12. “The Pleasant and Surprizing Adventures of
Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years' Captivity
on the Island of Madagascar," &c. Published in May,
1729. And, lastly-
13. "The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a
Cornish Man. Taken from his own Mouth, in his
Passage to England from off Cape Horn in America, in
the Ship Hector." Written by Robert Pultock, and
published in 1750.
The latter is a very curious work indeed, almost
deserving a chapter to itself; but probably the book
which, written in avowed imitation of Defoe, has ob-
tained the largest acceptance among English readers,
is, "The Swiss Family Robinson; or, The Adventures
of a Shipwrecked Family on a Desolate Island,"
"
"I do not know," says Lamb, "who wrote Quarl.' I never
thought of Quarl' as having an author. It is a poor imitation; the
monkey is the best in it, and his pretty dishes made of shells."
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.'
321
written by Joachim Heinrich Kampe, the tutor of
Baron Humboldt, and abounding both in instruction
and amusement. It is defective as a work of art, on
account of its many anachronisms, which were happily
exposed by Captain Marryat. "To be sure," says
Miss Yonge, "when one comes to think of it, no one
but a German could have thought it practicable to
land a whole family in a row of washing-tubs nailed
together between planks-and the island did contain
peculiar fauna and flora; but the book is an extremely
engaging one for all that, and one decidedly would
prefer reading it at this moment than the rather
characterless Masterman Ready.'"* "The Swiss
Robinson," says M. Nodier, "is Robinson Crusoe in
the bosom of his family. Instead of the rash, obstinate
sailor who struggles against death in a prolonged
agony, it is a father, a mother, their charming children,
so different in age, character, and mind, who engage
our interest. The new author's combination has
changed the entire economy of his fable; it transports
you from the final abode of a solitary adventurer to
the cradle of human society."†
It is somewhat late in the day, perhaps, to put for-
ward an estimate of so famous a work as this of Defoe's;
but, on the other hand, it may not be unprofitable if I
put together briefly some of the impressions which the
book has made upon our leading critics.
In the first place, then, it is obvious that it is not
* "Macmillan's Magazine," July, 1869.
† In Messrs. Reade and Boucicault's "Foul Play," which is the last
of the Crusoe stories worth recording, the hero and heroine are wrecked
upon a coral reef, with an attendant who eventually succumbs to
hunger and exhaustion.
Y
322
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
،
one to which the grown man is accustomed to turn, as
he turns to the novels of a later age. There is much,
no doubt, in "Robinson Crusoe " from which the
general reader may obtain instruction; but, on the face
of it, the story of the mariner of York is one which
must always be peculiarly interesting to the youth of
all nations. “The universal admiration it has ob-
tained may," says Roscoe, "be the admiration of men;
but it is founded on the liking of boys. Few educated
men or women would care to read it for the first time
after the age of five-and-twenty. Even Lamb could
say it only holds its place by tough prescription.'
The boy revels in it. It furnishes him with food for
his imagination in the very direction in which, of all
others, it loves to occupy itself. It is not that he cares
for Robinson Crusoe—that dull, ingenious, seafaring
creature, with his strange mixture of cowardice and
boldness, his unleavened, coarsely sagacious, mechanic
nature, his keen trade instincts, and his rude religious
experiences. The boy becomes his own Robinson
Crusoe. It is little Tom Smith himself, curled up in
a remote corner of the playground, who makes those
troublesome voyages on the raft, and rejoices over the
goods he saves from the wreck; who contrives his
palisades and twisted cables to protect his cave;
clothes himself quaintly in skins; is terrified at the
savages; and rejoices in his jurisdiction over the docile
Friday, who, he thinks, would be better than a dog,
and almost as good as a pony. He does not care a
farthing about Crusoe as a separate person from him-
self. This is one reason why he rejects the religious
reflections" [on which, it will be remembered, Defoe
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
323
himself professes to lay so much stress, but which, it
must be confessed, are not very edifying either to the
juvenile or the adult reader] "as a strange and un-
desirable element in a work otherwise so fascinating.
He cannot enter into Crusoe's sense of wickedness,
and does not feel the least concern for his soul.
a grown man reads the book in after years, it is
to recall the sensations of youth, or curiously to
examine the secret of the unbounded popularity it
has enjoyed."*
If
Apart, however, from the way in which the youthful
reader identifies himself with Crusoe, it is obviously
the exquisite realism of Defoe that attracts him in the
first place, and afterwards holds him as if enchained
and entranced. Perfection of vraisemblance, appro-
priateness of incident, if not of reflection-that is the
great charm of "Robinson Crusoe," and it is that
which makes it the best book for boys that was ever
written. Of any other quality of the ordinary fictitious
narrative it is utterly destitute. It has nothing of
imagination proper; it has plenty of invention, of the
kind which delights in recording the minutest inci-
dents; but it has none of that poetic glamour that
usually gives an interest to fiction; and as for pathos,
nothing could well be more absolutely cold-blooded or
prosaic than this, the masterpiece of our first great
novelist.† As for delineation of character, such as we
are accustomed to in the works of Fielding and Smol-
* W. Caldwell Roscoe, "Poems and Essays," ii. 237, 238.
† "Pathos," says Sir Walter Scott, "is not De Foe's general
characteristic; he had too little delicacy of mind; when it comes it
comes uncalled, and is created by the circumstances, not sought for
by the author."
324
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
lett, Dickens and Thackeray, there is just as little.
Robinson Crusoe, his man Friday, and perhaps Will
Atkins and his wife-these still linger in the memories
of the man long after he has ceased to be a boy at
school. But if they do so linger, it is less as the result
of any conscious character-painting on the part of
Defoe than on account of the incidents associated with
them.
I suppose that even boys, when they come to the first
appearance on the island of Robinson Crusoe's country-
men, begin to lose their interest in the narrative of
that worthy's troubles. When once he ceases to be a
solitary, and is brought again within the range of
civilisation, the dramatic interest of the story is, as
M. Nodier well remarks, at an end. "Robinson
Crusoe has his fields, his plantations, his houses, his
kingdom. The new-comers will be his workmen, his
servants, his tenants, his subjects. The dearest neces-
sities of the heart, nevertheless, are forgotten in Defoe's
immortal work; you nowhere hear the consoling voice
of woman, or the delightful prattle of children, you
love nobody, not even Crusoe; the sympathy which
attracts you to him throughout his heroic struggle
with destiny is not the result of any tender feeling; it
is simply the involuntary reaction of your thought
upon yourself; it is that universal instinct of egotism
or pity which associates you in imagination with the
sufferings you yourself might have undergone. And
would you know up to what point Crusoe has really
interested you, how great an abstraction has been pro-
duced by the desolate position in which the romancist
has placed him? Ask yourself what becomes of him
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
325
when he quits his island, and admit, frankly, that you
have never cared to ascertain.” *
All the critics are agreed as to the comparative want
of interest in the "farther adventures of "Robinson
Crusoe." Defoe himself seems clearly to have seen the
risk he ran in attempting to prolong his first success,
and his anxiety was only too well founded.
"The
second part," says Sir Walter Scott, "though contain-
ing many passages which display the author's genius,
does not rise high in character above the Memoirs of
Captain Singleton,' or the other imaginary voyages of
the author." "When we get to the second part," says
Mr. Leslie Stephen, "with the Spaniards and Will
Atkins talking natural theology to his wife, it sinks to
the level of the secondary stories."
"
It only remains for me to contrast the celebrated
tribute of Rousseau with the less flattering criticism of
one of the greatest of Defoe's successors.
""
"Since we must have books," says the author of
"Emile," "this is one which, in my opinion, is a most
excellent treatise on natural education. This is the
first my Emilius shall read; his whole library shall
long consist of this work only, which shall preserve an
eminent rank to the very last. It shall be the text to
which all our conversations on natural science are to
serve only as a comment. It shall be our guide during
our progress to maturity of judgment; and so long as
our taste is not adulterated, the perusal of this book shall
afford us pleasure. And what surprising book is this?
Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny? Is it Buffon? No; it
is 'Robinson Crusoe.' The value and importance of
*Introduction to "Le Robinson Suisse."
326
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
the various arts are ordinarily estimated, not according
to their real utility, but by the gratification which they
administer to the fantastic desires of mankind. But
Emilius shall be taught to view them in a different
light; Robinson Crusoe' shall teach him to value the
stock of an ironmonger above that of the most magni-
ficent toy-shop in Europe."
"You remember," says Dickens, writing to his
friend, Mr. Forster, "my saying to you some time ago
how curious I thought it that Robinson Crusoe'
should be the only instance of an universally popular
book that could make no one laugh and could make no
one cry. I have been reading it again just now, in the
course of my numerous refreshments at those English
wells, and I will venture to say there is not in
literature a more surprising instance of an utter want
of tenderness and sentiment, than the death of Friday.
It is as heartless as 'Gil Blas,' in a very different and
far more serious way. But the second part altogether
will not bear inquiry. In the second part of 'Don
Quixote' are some of the finest things. But the
second part of Robinson Crusoe' is perfectly con-
temptible, in the glaring defect that it exhibits the
man who was thirty years on that desert island with
no visible effect made on his character by that ex-
perience. Defoe's women, too-Robinson Crusoe's
wife, for instance-are dull commonplace fellows with-
out breeches."*
6
C
The "Serious Reflections," from the Preface of
which I have already quoted, were published in 1720,
and were intended to draw still further and more
* "Life of Dickens," iii. 112.
}
DEFOE'S “ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
327
elaborate morals from the life of Crusoe than had been
attempted in the original work. Here," says Defoe,
in the person of Crusoe, "is the just and only good
End of all Parable or Allegorick History brought to
pass, viz., for moral and religious improvement. Here
is invincible Patience recommended under the worst
of Misery; indefatigable Application and undaunted
Resolution under the greatest and most discouraging
Circumstances; I say, these are recommended, as the
only Way to work through those Miseries, and their
Success appears sufficient to support the most dead-
hearted Creature in the World."
("
The full title runs :
"Serious Reflections during
the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe with his Vision of the Angelick World.
Written by Himself. London: Printed for W. Taylor,
at the Ship & Black-Swan in Pater-noster-Row. 1720."
The "Serious Reflections" have this introduc-
tion:-"I must have made very little Use of my
solitary and wandering Years, if after such a Scene of
Wonders, as my Life may justly be call'd, I had
nothing to say, and had made no Observations which
might be useful and instructing, as well as pleasant
and diverting to those that are to come after me."
Thereafter follows Chapter I., in which Crusoe treats
"of Solitude," and points out "how incapable" it is
"to make us happy, and how unqualify'd to a Christian
life."
The second chapter is "An Essay upon
Honesty," discoursing first upon "Honesty in Gene-
ral;" then of "the Tryal of Honesty," concerning
which the propositions are laid down, "that 'tis an
easy thing to maintain the Character of Honesty and
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SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
""
Uprightness, when a Man has no Business to be em-
ploy'd in, and no Want to press him," and "that
when Exigences and Distresses pinch a Man, then is
the Time to prove the Honesty of his Principle;
then "of Honesty in Promises," in which it is ob-
served that "he who is forward to reproach the
Infirmities of other Men's Honesty, is very near a
Breach of his own," that "he that hastily reproaches.
Another without sufficient Ground, cannot be an honest.
Man," and that "where there may be sufficient
Ground of Reproach, yet an Honest Man is always
tender of his Neighbour's Character from the Sense of
his own Frailty;" and then "of Relative Honesty."
The third chapter treats "of the Immorality of Con-
versation, and the Vulgar Errors of Behaviour,” and
takes up the subject under the several heads of “un-
fitting our selves for Conversation," of "the Immo-
rality of Conversation in General,” of “reforming the
Errors of Conversation," of "Atheistical and Prophane
Discourse," of "Lewd and Immodest Discourse," and
of "Talking Falsely." The fourth chapter, devoted
generally to "An Essay on the present State of
Religion in the World," takes up such matters as
"Differences in Religion" and the "wonderful Excel-
lency of Negative Religion and Negative Virtue," and
includes some remarkable verses by Defoe on such
solemn and tremendous subjects as "Faith" and
Eternity." The fifth chapter is "Of listening to the
Voice of Providence," including the propositions “that
this Eternal God guides by his Providence the whole
World, which He has created by his Power," and "that
this Providence manifests a Particular Care over, and
""
DEFOE'S "ROBINSON CRUSOE.”
329
Concern in, the governing and directing Man, the best
and last created Creature on Earth;" lastly, that
"there is scarce any particular Providence attends our
Lives, but we shall find, in giving due Weight to it,
that it calls upon us, either (1) To look up, and acknow-
ledge the Goodness of God in sparing us, the Bounty
of God in providing for us, the Power of God in de-
livering and protecting us, not forgetting to look up,
and acknowledge, and be humble under the Justice of
God, in being angry with, and afflicting us. (2) Or
to look out, and take the needful Caution and Warning
given of evil approaching, and prepare either to meet
or avoid it. (3) Or to look in, and reflect upon what
we find Heaven animadverting upon, and afflicting us
for, taking Notice of the Summons to repent and
reform." The sixth, and last, chapter, "Of the Pro-
portion between the Christian and Pagan World," is
remarkable for the passage in which the writer says,
"I, Robinson Crusoe, grown old in affliction, born
down by Calumny and Reproach, but supported from
within, boldly prescribe this Remedy against universal
Clamours and Contempt of Mankind; Patience, a
steady Life of Vertue and Sobriety, and a comforting
Dependance on the Justice of Providence, will first or
last restore the Patient to the Opinion of his Friends,
and justify him in the Face of his Enemies, and, in the
meantime, will support him comfortably, in despising
those who want Manners and Charity, and leave them
to be cursed from Heaven with their own Passions and
Rage." Here it is evident that the writer is drawing,
more than anywhere, upon the unhappy, but not
ignoble, experiences of his own career.
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Of his "Vision of the Angelick World," I have no
room to speak, further than to quote the few opening
sentences of the work, in which Defoe explains the ob-
ject with which it had been written. "They," he says,
“must be much taken up with the satisfaction of what
they are already, that never spare their Thoughts upon
the Subject of what they shall be. The Place, the
Company, the Employment which we expect to know
so much hereafter, must certainly be worth our while
to enquire after here." Therefore he will " endeavour
to reason upon them clearly, and, if possible, convey
some such Ideas of the invisible World to the Thoughts
of Men, as may not be confused and indigested, and so
leave them darker than I found them." He does not
perhaps leave us darker than he found us, but he
leaves us equally dark; though the "Vision" is by no
means destitute of interest to the curious in such
speculations.
Not the least remarkable portion of the book, it may
be added, is the map of Crusoe's island, which forms
the frontispiece of the volume. It is so utterly out of
proportion that it defies description; but it is very
amusing, and should be reproduced, I think, in every
future edition of the great work of fiction which it
professes to illustrate.


CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS."
"THE name of Chesterfield," says Mr. Hayward, "has
become a synonym for good breeding and politeness.
It is associated in our minds with all that is graceful
in manner and cold in heart, attractive in appearance
and unamiable in reality. The image it calls up is that
of a man rather below the middle height, in a court
suit and blue riband, with regular features, wearing
an habitual expression of gentlemanlike ease. His
address is insinuating, his bow is perfect, his compli-
ments rival those of Le Grand Monarque in delicacy:
laughter is too demonstrative for him, but the smile
of courtesy is ever on his lip; and by the time he has
gone through the circle, the avowed object of his daily
ambition is accomplished-all the women are already
half in love with him, and every man is desirous to be
his friend."
The description, so far as it goes, is not inappli-
cable. The pity is that it should occasionally err so
seriously, and that it should entirely omit those par-
ticulars on which the fame of Chesterfield ought by
right to rest. It is true that he was graceful in
manner, but it is not true, so far as I can see, that
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he was cold in heart. So far is this from the case,
that, on one human being at least, he lavished an
amount of affection such as is rarely witnessed in the
intercourse of fathers and sons; and, so far as history
tells us, he never acted ungenerously by man or woman.
He may have been, and I believe he was, attractive in
appearance, but that he was unamiable in reality is
nowhere stated. There is no necessary connection
between the politeness of which we know Chesterfield
was a master, and the insincerity of which he is gene-
rally suspected. On the contrary, it is the essence of
politeness that it should proceed from a desire to put
one's fellow-creatures at their ease, and good breeding
is supposed to show itself in no way more strikingly
than in courteous consideration of other people's feel-
ings. I am afraid that when people talk of a bow or
of a smile that is worthy of a Chesterfield, they refer
to the bow which is only one of ironical deference,
and a smile which has more of sarcasm than good
humour. But in neither case does the reference dis-
play an accurate knowledge of the distinguished states-
man, the brilliant orator, the graceful essayist, and
the elegant wit, whose name is so frequently and so
ignorantly taken in vain.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was
born on the 22nd of September, 1694, and was, I need
scarcely say, the descendant of an illustrious race.
Yet he had none of that excessive veneration for "the
claims of high descent" that is usually attributed to
men of noble family. He is said to have placed among
the portraits of his ancestors the figures of a man and
a woman, labelled respectively Adam de Stanhope and
►
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS."
333
Eve de Stanhope, by which means he successfully
preserved himself from any ridiculous genealogical
pretensions. Perhaps he found his natural tendency
to admiration and belief in his progenitors arrested by
the unattractiveness of his father, who is described as
a man of morose disposition and of violent passions.
From him, young Stanhope could hope for little
attention, and his education therefore devolved almost
entirely upon the energies of his grandmother, Lady
Halifax, who, on the contrary, is described as a woman
of conduct, understanding, and sensibility, and whose
house was the resort of the leading people of the time.
He was himself, it seems, most anxious to acquire
information, and no doubt he took advantage of every
opportunity afforded him. "He was very young,
says Dr. Maty, "when Lord Galway-who, though
not a very fortunate General, was a man of uncommon
penetration and merit, and who often visited the
Marchioness of Halifax-observing in him a strong
inclination for a political life, but at the same time an
ungovernable taste for pleasure, with some tincture of
laziness, gave him the following advice: If you.
intend to be a man of business you must be an early
riser. In the distinguished posts your parts, rank,
and fortune will entitle you to fill, you will be liable
to have visitors every day, and unless you will rise
constantly at an early hour you will never have any
leisure to yourself.""* He took the hint, and acted
upon it through life; nor, though his education till his
eighteenth year was strictly private, does he appear
ever to have wanted the spur of emulation which it is
* "Life," prefixed to "Miscellaneous Works," ed. 1777.
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thought the peculiar privilege of a public school to
apply.* “When I was at your age," he tells his son,
then eleven, "I should have been ashamed if any boy
of that age had learned his book better, or played at
any play better than I did; and I should not have
rested a moment till I had got before him.”
When he was eighteen he went to Trinity College,
Cambridge, and studied there civil laws and phi-
losophy, attending also the mathematical classes of
Saunderson, the blind professor. He read Greek
fluently, and sent accounts of his progress in French
to his old tutor, M. Joumeau, a French clergyman
and refugee. "Lord Chesterfield," says M. Sainte
Beuve," had, when a child, learnt our tongue from a
Norman nurse who attended him;" and though he
spoke it beautifully, it was always with a perceptible
Norman accent. There is a curious passage in one of
his letters to his tutor, where he says, "I find this
college infinitely the best in the whole university, for
it is the smallest, and it is filled with lawyers, who
have been in the world and understand life. We have
but one clergyman, who is also the only man in the
college who gets drunk. Let them say what they will,
there is very little debauchery in this university, and
particularly among the people of condition, for it
requires the taste of a porter to put up with it here."
Here, I think, may be discerned, thus early, the desire
to "understand life," and to avoid the coarser forms
of pleasure, which Chesterfield afterwards endeavoured
to instil into his son. The sentence about the clergy-
man is also very characteristic of the times.
* Hayward's "Essays," First Series.
CHESTERFIELD'S
cc
335
LETTERS."
Chesterfield remained two years at college, and then,
like all young noblemen of that period, started on a
grand tour of the Continent, though not under the
guardianship of a tutor. He went from Holland to
Italy, and from Italy to France, and wrote from Paris,
in 1714, to say that he was continually being taken
for a Frenchman, yet he had evidently not acquired
that air and deportment for which the Parisian gentle-
man was then, as now, distinguished, or, when he
made his appearances in their society, he would pro-
bably have suffered less from mauvaise honte than
appears to have been the case with him at first. He
himself tells the story of how he once was bold enough
to go up to a lady, and to tell her he thought it was a
warm day, and how, having said so much as that, all
further conversation suddenly ceased, so far as he was
concerned. Happily, the lady was good enough to talk
to him, and said, "I see your embarrassment, and I am
sure the few words you said to me cost you a good
deal; but do not be discouraged for that reason, and
avoid good company. We see that you desire to
please, and that is the main point; you want only the
manner, and you think that you want it still more
than you do. You must go through your noviciate
before you can profess good breeding; and, if you will
be my novice, I will present you to my acquaintance
as such."
"You will easily imagine," says Chesterfield, "how
much this speech pleased me, and how awkwardly I
answered it. I hemmed once or twice (for it gave me
a burr in my throat) before I could tell her that I was
very much obliged to her; that it was true I had a
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<
good deal of reason to distrust my own behaviour, not
being used to fine company; and that I should be
proud of being her novice and receiving her instruc-
tions. As soon as I had fumbled out this answer she
called up three or four people, and said, 'Sçavez-vous'
(for she was a foreigner, and I was abroad), que j'ai
entrepris ce jeune homme et qu'il le faut rassurer ?
Pour moi, je crois en avoir fait la conquête, car il
s'est émancipé dans le moment au point de me dire
en tremblant qu'il faisoit chaud. Il faut que vous
m'aidiez à le dérouiller. Il lui faut nécessairement
une passion, et s'il ne me juge pas digne, nous lui en
chercherons quelque autre. Au reste, mon novice,
n'allez-vous pas encanailler avec des filles de l'opéra et
des comédiennes, qui vous épargneront les frais et du
sentiment et de la politesse, mais qui vous en couteront
bien plus à tout autre égard.'
"""
I quote this anecdote so fully because it shows that
Chesterfield, in pressing upon his son the necessity of
a good address, was arguing from his own experience,
and because it affords a defence against the charge of
immorality which is so commonly, but unjustly, brought
against him. It is true that he advises his son to form
a liaison with a married woman by way of apprentice-
ship to the art of pleasing; but we must not, as Mr.
Hayward successfully points out, run away with the
idea that Lord Chesterfield thought it a becoming
thing for a young man to intrude upon the peace of a
family, corrupt the mind of a young wife and mother,
The
and lead her to eventual disgrace and ruin.
"Letters" must be read in the light of the times in
which they were written of the times in which it
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.337
"
"
was the custom of the ladies of fashion to be addicted
to gallantry, and when a husband who attempted to
interfere with his wife's liberty in this respect would
have been regarded as a monster of iniquity. "Il lui
faut nécessairement une passion," said Lord Chester-
field's own protectress, "et s'il ne m'en juge pas digne,
nous lui en chercherons quelque autre." It was better,
she thought, that he should learn the airs and
graces
of society from the women of his own rank and circle,
than that he should fall into the hands of women of
equal fascination, but of lower rank and of lower
morals. And, therefore, when Chesterfield gave very
similar advice to his son, he was only acting like a
man of the world, and choosing the lesser of two evils,
just," says Mr. Hayward, “as many a more virtuous
father would recommend his son to fight a duel if
imperatively required by the law of honour, though
perfectly aware that he was recommending an action
forbidden by the law of God. Lord Chesterfield may
have done wrong; the advice may have been bad
advice, particularly as regards the person to whom it
was addressed; but we protest against its being argued
that he systematically disregarded virtue, or made
light of principle, because he submitted to this com-
promise with expediency."
"
The death of Queen Anne opened up a new career
for every young man of an ambitious turn of mind,
and Lord Stanhope (as he was called until the death
of his father in 1726) hastened home to offer his
allegiance to the Hanoverian dynasty. Strangely
enough, however, he was never at any time a suc-
cessful politician; and though his services were con-
Z
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sidered worthy of such rewards as the positions of
Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales,
and Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, he never
made his mark as a speaker in the House of Commons.
"He was not fitted, either by nature or study, for
a popular assembly. His style wanted the requisite
degree of nerve and muscle, as much as his physical
frame. His very taste and refinement were against
him; and it is impossible to conceive a man succeeding
in that House who made it his chief duty to avoid
giving way to strong excitement, or engaging in
rough competition of any kind." It is also stated by
Dr. Maty that there was another reason for his com-
parative failure as a debater. “There was a member,"
he says,
"of that House, who, though not possessed of
superior powers, had the dangerous talent of making
those whom he answered appear ridiculous, by imi-
tating their tone and action." Lord Chesterfield, we
know, was especially sensitive to ridicule. He says
himself, in one of his "Letters," that "ridicule,
though not founded upon truth, will stick for some
time, and, if thrown by a skilful hand, will stick for
ever." And probably he kept silence frequently from
the fear of giving occasion for the exercise of his
opponent's powers.
When, in 1726, he succeeded to the House of Lords,
he found there a much more congenial field for his
peculiar genius. There, his high-bred ease, delicate
irony, fine humour, persuasive tones, and gracefully
flowing periods, were appreciated at their proper
worth; he was no longer subjected to coarse freedom
or unmannerly interruption; and his total want of
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
339
those energetic bursts of feeling and impulsive
moments, which are inseparable from the highest
efforts of eloquence, was deemed, says one of his
biographers, rather a merit than a defect. Yet it
cannot be said that he was more successful in the
House of Lords than in the House of Commons. It
was expected that when George II. came to the throne,
Chesterfield would reap the reward of his fidelity to the
king when heir-apparent. But he had made the fatal
mistake of paying his court to the royal mistresses
instead of to the royal mistress, the Queen Caroline, who
was destined to play so prominent a part in politics
during her husband's reign; and Chesterfield was
distanced in her good graces by the lumbering but
more effective devotion of Sir Robert Walpole. In
like manner, his easy address and fascinating con-
versation were quite powerless at a later period, to
prevent the triumph of the Duke of Newcastle. He
had been so far recompensed for his efforts that,
after the resignation of Lord Carteret in 1744, he
came into power as the head of the coalition or "broad
bottom" party, and he served first as Ambassador
to Holland, then as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland,
and lastly as Secretary of State for England. But
though at all times a noted politician, whether in
office or in opposition, he was never, as Sainte
Beuve says, either a powerful or even a very influential
minister.
Yet he deserved, I am sure, to obtain more con-
sideration than he did. He was full of political zeal;
and Dr. Maty tells an amusing story in illustration of
his enthusiasm. "The late Lord R
"The late Lord R," he says,
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"with many good qualities, and even learning and
parts, had a strong desire of being thought skilful in
physic, and was very expert in bleeding. Lord
Chesterfield, who knew his foible, and on a particular
occasion wished to have his vote, came to him one
morning, and after having conversed on indifferent
matters, complained of headache, and desired his lord-
ship to feel his pulse. It was found to beat high, and
a hint of losing blood given. 'I have no objection,
and as I hear your lordship has a masterly hand, will
you favour me with trying your lancet upon me?
Apropos,' said Lord Chesterfield, after the operation
was over, 'do you go to the House to-day?' Lord
R- answered, I did not intend to go, not being
sufficiently informed of the question which is to be
debated; but you who have considered it, which side
will you be of ?' The Earl, having gained his con-
fidence, easily directed his judgment; he carried him
to the House, and got him to vote as he pleased. He
used afterwards to say that none of his friends had
done so much as he, having literally bled for the good
of his country."
On another occasion, he was chosen, or had volun-
teered, to obtain the King's assent to an appointment
of which His Majesty was known to disapprove. He
produced the commission, and on mentioning the name,
was angrily refused. "I would rather have the devil,"
said the King. "With all my heart," said the Earl,
"I only beg leave to put your Majesty in mind, that
the commission is to be addressed to our right trusty and
well-beloved cousin." The King laughed, and said, "My
lord, do as you please."
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
341
I do not propose to lay any stress upon Chesterfield's
really remarkable career as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
in which capacity he obtained the highest successes of
his life. I have to consider him here less as the far-
seeing statesman and the brilliant orator, than as the
wit and man of the world, who devoted so large a portion.
of his time and thoughts to the education of his illegiti-
mate son. And, therefore, my object has merely been
to show that when in 1732, that son was born, Lord
Chesterfield had earned all the experience of men
and manners, and acquired all the classical and mis-
cellaneous knowledge, which he was afterwards to
utilise perhaps to so little immediate purpose, but
with so perceptible an effect upon his subsequent
reputation.
Let us endeavour to realise the position of him who
thus undertook, in a long series of the most charm-
ingly written letters, to form the mind and character
of his favourite child. When Chesterfield began this
famous correspondence, he held the distinguished post
above referred to, and he continued it long after his
appointment to the office of Secretary of State. He was
then in the prime of his powers and in the hey-
day of his success. He was not only a prominent
politician, but he was the friend of Pope and
Addison, the introducer into England of Montes-
quieu and Voltaire, the correspondent of Fontenelle ·
and Madame de Tencin, and one of whom Montesquieu
could write that nothing was so flattering to him as his
approbation, and that nothing could be more instructive
to him than his observations upon the famous work,
"L'Esprit des Lois," which he had recently published.
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"Celebrated," says Mrs. Stanhope,
Mrs. Stanhope,* "all over Europe
for his superior Talents as an Epistolary writer, for the
brilliancy of his Wit, and the solidity of his extensive
Knowledge, will it be thought too presumptuous to
assert, that he exerted all those faculties to their utmost,
upon his favourite subject-Education? and that, in
order to form the Mind of a darling Son, he even
exhausted those powers which he was so universally
allowed to possess ?”
(6 a
99
Lord Chesterfield had married, in 1733, Melusina
de Schulemberg, the reputed daughter of George I.
by the Duchess of Kendal; but, previous to that, he
had met at the Hague a Mademoiselle de Bouchet,
beautiful young lady, a governess or dame de campagnie,'
who "set," says Mr. Friswell,† "her wits against his,
and suffered the usual penalty; she fell, and this son,
to whom these letters are written, was the result." He
was born, as I have said, in 1732, and in 1737, when the
boy, who was called Philip Stanhope, was but five years
old, his father commenced that work of instruction
which was fated to bear him such bitter and such
unexpected fruits.
The first few letters are in French, and refer almost
entirely to the elements of Greek and Roman mythology,
from which the writer selects what he probably thought
were the most edifying and most necessary stories.
By-and-by, Roman mythology gives way to Roman
history, and on July 15th, 1739, Lord Chesterfield
writes his first (extant) English letter to his son. He
is glad to hear that the boy has been complimented by
• The widow of the recipient of the "Letters."
↑ Prefatory Remarks to the Bayard edition of the "Letters."
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
343
his teacher, but prays he will take care to deserve what
is said of him. He is to remember that praise, when it
is not deserved, is the severest satire and abuse,* and
the most effectual way of exposing people's vices and
follies. "This is a figure of speech called irony, which
is saying directly the contrary of what you mean; but
yet it is not a lie, because you plainly show, that you
mean directly the contrary of what you say; so that
you deceive nobody.
Therefore, when you
are commended for anything, consider fairly, with
yourself, whether you deserve it or not; and if you do
not deserve it, remember that you are only abused and
laughed at, and endeavour to deserve better for the
future, and to prevent the irony."
On July 24th, the father writes: "I was pleased
with your asking me, the last time I saw you, why I
had left off writing, for I looked upon it as a sign that
you
liked and minded my letters: if that be the case,
you shall hear from me often enough; and my letters
may be of use if you will give attention to them,
otherwise it is only giving myself trouble to no purpose ;
for it signifies nothing to read a thing once, if one does
not mind and remember it. It is a sure sign of a little
mind to be doing one thing, and at the same time to be
either thinking of another, or not thinking at all. One
should always think of what one is about: when one is
learning one should not think of play; and when one
is at play, one should not think of one's learning."
Again: "One of the most important points of life is
decency: which is to do what is proper, and where it
* As he afterwards quotes, from Pope:
"Praise undeserved is satire in disguise."
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is proper; for many things are proper at one time
and in one place, that are extremely improper in
another."
In the next letter comes a disquisition on the nature
of verse.
On September 10th, the writer sketches the
characteristics of geography and history, and on
September 15th, insists upon the importance of chro-
nology. On the 17th he returns to a consideration of
history more particularly by itself, and, in a following
letter, enlarges upon chronology once more. On
October 17th, the Earl expresses his belief that Philip
Stanhope is the first boy to whom (under the age of
eight years) one has ventured to mention the figures of
rhetoric, as he did in his last; yet he is of opinion that
we cannot begin to think too young, and that the art
which teaches us how to persuade the mind, and touch
the heart, must surely deserve the earliest attention.
“You cannot but be convinced that a man who speaks
and writes with elegance and grace, who makes choice
of good words, and adorns and embellishes the subject
upon which he either speaks or writes, will persuade
better and succeed more easily in obtaining what he
wishes than a man who does not explain himself clearly,
speaks his language ill, or makes use of low and vulgar
expressions, and who has neither grace nor elegance
in anything that he says. Now it is by rhetoric that
the art of speaking eloquently is taught; and, though
I cannot think of grounding you in it as yet, I would
wish, however, to give you an idea of it suitable to your
age. The first thing you should attend to is-to speak
whatever language you do speak, in its greatest purity,
and according to the rules of grammar; for we must
CHESTERFIELD'S “LETTERS.”
345
never offend against grammar, nor make use of words
which are not really words. This is not all; for not to
speak ill is not sufficient; we must speak well: and the
best method of attaining to that is, to read the best
authors with attention; and to observe how people
of fashion speak, and those who express themselves
best."
On October 26th, Chesterfield analyzes some verses
by Waller, in order to point out the difference between
prose and verse. On the 29th, he writes in French
to give his son his first lesson in deportment, and
says, “Modesty is a very good quality, and which*
generally accompanies true merit: it engages and
captivates the minds of people; as, on the other hand,
nothing is more shocking and disgustful, than pre-
sumption and impudence. We cannot like a man who
is always commending and speaking well of himself,
and who is the hero of his own story. On the con-
trary, a man who endeavours to conceal his own merit;
who sets that of other people in its true light; who
speaks but little of himself, and with modesty: such a
man makes a favourable impression upon the under-
standing of his hearers, and acquires their love and
esteem.
Chesterfield is careful, however, to distinguish be
tween modesty and awkward bashfulness, which is, he
says, as ridiculous as true modesty is commendable.
"It is as absurd to be a simpleton, as to be an
impudent fellow; and one ought to know how to come
into a room, speak to people, and answer them, without
* A grammatical error which, curiously enough, is to be found in
the writings of the most accomplished men of letters.
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being out of countenance, or without embarrassment.
The English are generally apt to be bashful; and have
not those easy, free, and at the same time polite
manners, which the French have. A mean fellow, or
a country bumpkin, is ashamed when he comes into
good company, he appears embarrassed, does not know
what to do with his hands, is disconcerted when
spoken to,
to, answers with difficulty, and almost
stammers; whereas a gentleman, who is used to the
world, comes into company with a graceful and proper
assurance, speaks even to people he does not know,
without embarrassment, and in a natural and easy
manner. This is called usage of the world, and good
breeding; a most necessary and important knowledge
in the intercourse of life. It frequently happens that
a man of a great deal of sense, but with little usage
of the world, is not so well received as one of inferior
parts, but with a gentleman-like behaviour. These are
matters worthy your attention; reflect on them, and
unite modesty to a polite and easy assurance."
On November 1st, the letter is devoted to "the
business of Oratory," which is, it says, "to please
people," and "you will easily feel," says Chesterfield,
"that to please people is a great step towards per-
suading them." On November 20th he points how
many examples of virtue and magnanimity are afforded
by Roman History, and, in the following letter,
expresses the hope that, with all the advantages he
has, Philip will never be an ignorant man. There
is," he says, "a very pretty French epigram upon the
death of such an ignorant, insignificant fellow, the sting
of which is, that all that can be said of him is, that he
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
347
1
was once alive, and that he is now dead.*
epigram, which you may get off by heart:-
'Colas est mort de maladie,
Tu veux que j'en pleure le sort,
Que diable veux-tu que j'en die?
Colas vivoit, Colas est mort.'
Take care," says Chesterfield, "not to deserve the
name of Colas."
This is the
I have quoted enough, however, to give the reader
an idea of the easy and the desultory manner in which
Chesterfield communicated information and advice to
his correspondent.† Of course, in the later letters, a
* The reader will remember the celebrated epigram on one of the
Guelph princes :—
"Here lies Fred,
Who was alive and is dead;
Had it been his father,
We had much rather;
Had it been his brother,
"Twere well as any other;
Had it been his sister,
We should not have missed her;
But as it is only Fred,
Who was alive and is dead,-
There is no more to be said."
+ And yet, according to Mrs. Stanhope, the correspondence was not
entirely without system.
She says,
"The following Letters, the
Reader will observe, begin with those dawnings of instruction adapted`
to the capacity of a Boy, and rising gradually by precepts and
monitions, calculated to direct and guard the age of incautious Youth,
finish with the advice and knowledge requisite to form the Man,
ambitious to shine as an accomplished Courtier, an Orator in the
Senate, or a Minister at foreign Courts. In order to effect these
purposes, his lordship, ever anxious to fix in his son a scrupulous
adherence to the strictest Morality, appears to have thought it the
first and most indispensable object to lay, in the earliest period of life,
a firm foundation on good Principles and sound Religion. His next
point was, to give him a perfect knowledge of the dead Languages, and
all the different branches of solid learning, by the Study of the best
ancient Authors; and also such a general idea of the Sciences, as it is
a disgrace to a Gentleman not to possess." Afterwards, he insisted
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higher and less elementary tone is manifest; but the
system is throughout the same: the father writes upon
just those circumstances and affairs that happen to
occur to him, without the slightest touch of pedantry,
and with the graceful manner of an accomplished man
of the world. The style is admirable, a perfect model
of epistolary writing, and more French in its exquisite
clearness and pithiness than any other with which I
am acquainted. Never before, I suppose, and never
since, I am sure, has instruction been imparted in so
pleasant a form; and for this reason, if for this alone,
the advice of Dr. Johnson should be followed, and the
work should be put into the hands of every young man
entering life.
There is no need to "take out the immorality," for
there is no immorality to take out. There may be
plenty of cynicism, if by cynicism we understand an
unsparing exposure of the art by which men please
and are pleased; but otherwise the tone of the letters
is remarkably high, when we consider the times in
which they were written, and very high indeed when
compared with some of those more recent publications,
in which the virtues are inculcated and lauded only
so far as they conduce to one's success in life.
"You will find," says Chesterfield, writing in 1740,
when his son was eighteen years old, "that virtue
consists in doing good, and in speaking truth; that
the effects of it are advantageous to all mankind, and
upon the study of "that useful and extensive Science, the Knowledge
of Mankind in the course of which appears the nicest investigation
of the Human Heart, and the springs of Human Actions. From hence
we find him induced to lay so great a stress on what are generally
called Accomplishments, as most indispensably requisite to finish the
amiable and brilliant part of a complete Character."
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.'
""
349
to oneself in particular. Virtue makes us pity and
relieve the misfortunes of mankind; it makes us
promote justice and good order in society; and, in
general, contributes to whatever tends to the real good
of mankind. To ourselves it gives an inward comfort
and satisfaction, which nothing can rob us of. All
other advantages depend upon others, as much as upon
ourselves. Riches, power, and greatness may be taken
away from us, by the violence and injustice of others,
or by inevitable accidents; but virtue depends only
upon ourselves, and nobody can take it away from us.
Sickness may deprive us of all the pleasures of the
body, but it cannot deprive us of our virtue, nor of the
satisfaction which we feel from it. A virtuous man,
under all the misfortunes of life, still finds an inward
comfort and satisfaction, which makes him happier
than any wicked man can be, with all the other advan-
tages of life."
Could anything be more unexceptionable than that?
Suppose that Chesterfield does insist, very frequently,
upon the necessity of good breeding and politeness.
Was his son not especially intended for a diplomatic
career, in which these qualities were absolutely
essential to success? It should never be forgotten, in
judging of a great work of literature, such as the
"Letters" are, that it was written under circumstances
which determined its aim and form, and that the critic
has no right to quarrel with these circumstances. The
"Letters of Lord Chesterfield were written from
time to time, amidst the pressure of great public
duties, to a boy, and afterwards to a youth, whom he
had from his birth indicated for public life, and whom
""
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he therefore sought to indoctrinate with a previous
knowledge of the world. "The Letters which Lord
Chesterfield wrote to his son, and which contain," says
M. Sainte Beuve, "a whole world of savoir vivre and
worldly science, are interesting in this particular, that
there has been no idea of forming a model for
imitation, but they are simply intended to bring a
pupil into the closest intimacy. They are confidential
letters, which, suddenly produced in the light of
day"-they were published by his son's widow in
1774, six years after Philip Stanhope's death, and a
year after his father's-"have betrayed all the secrets.
and the ingenious artifices of paternal solicitude.”
"If," again, "in reading them nowadays, we are
struck with the excessive importance attached to
incidental and promiscuous circumstances, with pure
details of costume, we are not less struck with the
durable part, with that which belongs to human obser-
vation in all ages; this last part is much more con-
siderable," says the same able critic, "than at a
superficial glance would be imagined." Let me quote
a few of those passages which seem to me to show
peculiar acuteness, and which fully justify M. Sainte
Beuve in calling Chesterfield the Larochefoucauld of
England :—
"Almost all people are born with all the passions,
to a certain degree, but almost every man has a
prevailing one to which the others are subordinate.
Search every one for that ruling passion; pry into
the recesses of his heart, and observe the different
workings of the same passion in different people.
And, when you have found out the prevailing passion
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
351
of any man, remember never to trust him, where that
passion is concerned."
"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not
tell them so."
"Individuals forgive sometimes, but bodies and
societies never do."
"There is nothing that people bear more im-
patiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an
injury is much sooner forgiven than an insult."
"Women are much more like each other than men;
they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love:
these are their universal characteristics."
But every page of the "Letters" is full of wisdom;
wisdom of the worldly kind, no doubt, but still
wisdom. I confess I cannot bring myself to be angry
with Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope for giving to the world
what was originally only intended for one pair of eyes.
It is this that makes the book so very remarkable.
What, we may well say, might not Chesterfield have
written in this direction, if he had only sat down to
put it into an elaborate book! Yet, on the other hand,
it is probable that his mind moved more freely in the
sphere of private correspondence than it could have
possibly done in a more public area. His published
essays were elegant in the extreme, but they lack the
charm of the "Letters; " they are not so spontaneous,
so real, so earnest; nor are they expressed so
admirably. And, on the whole, I do not think the
lady was too highly paid when she received her
£1,500 for the copyright of her father-in-law's corre-
spondence.
The fact that they are so interesting to posterity
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would be sufficient to excuse them for their uselessness
as regards the person to whom they were addressed.
But, for my part, I cannot see that they failed so
egregiously to effect their purpose. They did not,
certainly, convert Philip Stanhope into a paragon
of perfection,-
"The perfect monster that the world ne'er saw."
But they did the best they could with the materials
they had at their disposal, and I do not see that they
could have done any more. I do not believe for a
moment that Lord Chesterfield cherished for his son
the extravagant hopes with which Mrs. Oliphant*
credits him, or that the result of all his care and
teaching was so far below the expectations he had been
led to form. "We are not told," says this lady
biographer, "by what gradual process the statesman's
high hopes were brought down to a certain satis-
faction, or pretended satisfaction, with this poor level
of possibility. Chesterfield is heroic in his silence;
he leaves not a word behind him to express the
passionate disappointment, the bitter mortification,
which must have been his as he looked on the
commonplace figure of which his imagination had
made a hero. Neither to the young man himself, nor
to any of his correspondents, does he bewail the down-
fall, or blame the heavy soul which thus resisted all his
efforts." How, then, comes Mrs. Oliphant to be cog-
nisant of all this bitter mortification and all this
passionate despair? It is in the highest degree im-
probable that Lord Chesterfield permitted himself to be
* "Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II."
CHESTERFIELD'S "LETTERS.”
353
deluded into any such absurdity. He was kept well
aware of his son's progress, or want of progress, and I
dare say had a very clear idea of the appearances in life
he was destined to make. Hence, I believe, his incessant
harping upon the necessity of the graces. He knew
that Philip had most of the ordinary virtues, and
more than the ordinary amount of knowledge, and pre-
ferred to insist upon what he did not possess.
Perhaps, indeed, the young man would have been
the better if he had not been so prematurely learned.
But, apart from that, the verdict passed upon him by
his contemporaries is far from unflattering. He was
not a brilliant person, and so far was not a credit to
the race of Chesterfield. Yet Johnson's Boswell could
say of him, "Mr. Stanhope's character has been un-
justly represented as being diametrically opposite to
what Lord Chesterfield wished him to be. He has
been called dull, gross, and awkward; but I knew him
at Dresden when he was envoy to that court, and
though he could not boast of the graces, he was in fact
a sensible, civil, well-behaved man." Besides, he died
so young-he was only thirty-six-that it is im-
possible to say he might not have done something
worthy of his father's fame.
As it was, he left behind him a wife and two chil-
dren, of whose existence the Earl had not been con-
scious until his son was dead. Then, instead of visiting
the bereaved family with his wrath, as so many other
fathers would have done, Lord Chesterfield devolved
upon his grandchildren the love which he had pre-
viously given to his Philip-to the Philip who repaid
his kindness by contracting a marriage without his
A A
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consent. It is thus that, borne down in his later years
by the infirmities of old age, he could write to the two
innocent children of his erring son :-
"To CHARLES and PHILIP STANHOPE.
"I received, a few days ago, two of the best-written
letters I ever saw in my life-the one signed Charles
Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you,
Charles, I did not wonder at it, for you will take
pains, and are a lover of letters; but you idle rogue,
you Phil, how came you to write so well that one can
almost say of you two, Et cantare pares et respondere
parati? Charles will explain this Latin to you.
“I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at
school, from your intimacy with Master Strangeways,
and that they called you Master Strangerways-for to
be sure you are a strange boy. Is this true?
"Tell me what you would have me bring both from
home, and I will bring it you when I come to town.
In the meantime, God bless you both!"
<
"With this last touch of nature," I can say, with
Mrs. Oliphant, "let us wind up the pathetic record.
'Give Dayrolles a chair' were the dying man's last
words, they say; and the attendant doctor calls the
world to observe that his good breeding quitted him
only with his life.' But with all deference to esta-
blished preferences, we believe our readers will con-
clude with us, that the tender little letter above is a
more true conclusion to that strange force of paternal
love which lasted as long as Chesterfield's life.”

**
LAMB'S “ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
WHEN, in the August of 1820, Charles Lamb began
to contribute to the London Magazine his "Essays of
Elia,” he had already obtained some share of distinc-
tion as a miscellaneous writer. He had published
three sonnets in a volume issued by Coleridge in
1796; he had written the tender and graceful story of
"Rosamund Gray;" he had contributed to a book of
"Blank Verse," printed by Charles Lloyd in 1799;
he had essayed tragedy, though not very successfully,
in his play of "John Woodvill;" he had turned the
stories of Shakespeare's plays into characteristic prose;
and he had given to the world his annotated "Speci-
mens" of those old dramatic poets whom he loved so
well. Moreover his "Works" had attained, in 1818,
the honour of separate publication, though, as he said,
they were in fact his recreations, and his true works
were to be found on the shelves of the East India
House, Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios.
His true work, I venture to think, is not to be
found in any of the books I have mentioned, but in
the "Essays of Elia." There Lamb shines supreme;
there he found just that exact scope and opportunity
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which was necessary to bring out his nature in all its
exquisite richness.* He had done fairly in poetry ;
there can be no doubt he had a touch of the poetical
spirit; every great writer has just as every really
great writer has at least a soupçon of humour. He
had done still more fairly in prose, in his Shakespeare
stories, publicly, and still more happily in his private
letters, which rival his essays in their quaint ori-
ginality of thought and style. But the time had yet
to come, when, within the limits of short papers in a
magazine, he should be compelled to concentrate all
his wealth of observation and of humorous fancy.
Hitherto he had been only feeling his way; now, in
the "Essays of Elia," he found exactly that field in
which his faculties enabled him to expatiate most
freely. He could follow the bent of his inclination,
and say, in his own inimitable way, whatever came
uppermost in his fertile mind.
It was not as if Lamb had regarded the Essay, as
so many now regard it, in the light of a treatise in
which the writer goes about solemnly to prove some
edifying and tremendous proposition. It is the great
charm of the " Essays of Elia" that they are so
entirely egotistical; † that while, to be sure, they have
their particular subjects, their interest is derived more
from the writer than from the topic he writes on;
* Lord Lytton, "Miscellaneous Works," i. 120.
t "His essays, like his sonnets, are reflections of his own feelings.
And so, I think, should essays generally be. A history or sketch
of science, or a logical effort, may help the reader some way up the
ladder of learning, but they do not link themselves with his affections.
I myself," says Mr. Procter, "prefer the affections to the sciences.
The story of the heart is the deepest of all histories; and Shakespeare
is profounder and longer-lived than Maclaurin or Malthus or Ricardo."
LAMB'S "ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
357
and that so far from being, as a treatise should be,
methodical and premeditated in form and treatment,
they are as eccentric in arrangement as in matter, and
as characteristic in the style as in the thoughts. They
fulfil the two leading requirements of all literature
that can hope to live: they are unique and perfect, and
their unique and their perfect character is owing to the
fact that their creator was himself unique and perfect
in his way.
You cannot imagine another Charles
Lamb. You can imagine another Hazlitt with less
difficulty, and there is no reason why Leigh Hunt should
not be reproduced under similar circumstances; but
we cannot hope again for the combination that pro-
duced our 66
Elia," and therefore we cannot hope for
another such series of such essays.
The "
Essays of Elia" are the mature outcome of a
mind which, essentially humorous in fibre, had had to
pass through trials which threatened to overcome that
mind with melancholy. Everybody knows the story
of Charles Lamb and his imbecile father; of the sister
who, in a moment of insanity, killed the mother, and
who was ever afterwards subject to attacks of that
terrible evil. "To protect and save this sister-a
gentle woman who had watched like a mother over
his own infancy-the whole length of his life was
devoted. What he endured, through the space of
nearly forty years, from the incessant fear and fre-
quent recurrence of his sister's insanity, can now only
be conjectured. In this constant and uncomplaining
endurance, and in his steady adherence to a great
principle of conduct, his life was heroic." He had
probably some slight taint of madness himself—a
·
•
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very slight taint indeed, but just enough to give the
peculiar turn of thought that is observable in his
writings. Certainly the effects of his father's and his
sister's malady were upon him all his life, and had
much to do in forming that state of mind in which he
produced his "Essays."
There we observe, I say, an originally rollicking
humour struggling against a load of melancholy that
threatens to extinguish it; and the result is such a
combination of quaintness and simplicity and tender-
ness and fun and fancy, as has never before been seen
in literature. It is as different as possible from the
humour of Steele, of which geniality is the essence;
or the humour of Addison, of which refinement is the
principal characteristic. It is not overflowing like
Fielding's, or saturnine like Smollett's, or sardonic
like Swift's, or sentimental like Sterne's. It is, as I
say, unique and perfect of its kind; so unique and so
perfect that the "Essays of Elia"-the record of the
thoughts and fancies of a poor East India House
clerk-form one of the most famous books in the
language, and will live, I dare say, as long as, if not
longer than, any of those masterpieces of which I have
already treated. They will always live in the memory
of men of culture. They are not, indeed, calculated
to attract the ordinary reader; but we will hope that
as the years go by, culture will spread as rapidly as
wealth accumulates, and that Charles Lamb will be
read by everybody who can read at all.
The "Essays of Elia" should be studied if only for
the light they throw on the circumstances of the life
of their author. Never were essays more rich in auto-
LAMB'S "ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
359
biographical matter than those of Elia's; not even
Montaigne is more garrulous about himself, his friends,
and his opinions.* And first, about himself: he opens
the essay on the "Old Benchers of the Inner Temple"
by saying, "I was born and passed the first seven
years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its
gardens, its fountains, its river, I had almost said-for
in those young years, what was this king of rivers to
me but a stream that watered our pleasant places ?—
these are my oldest recollections." He then goes on,
by-and-by, to sketch the figure of old Samuel Salt,
whose confidential clerk Lamb's father was, and of
whom, of course, Lamb entertained very lively recol-
lections. When seven or eight years old the boy
became a scholar of Christ's Hospital, and of that
venerable establishment the man has left a description,
in his "Essays," which is very interesting in the in-
formation it affords us about Lamb's school-days. This
and another, not included in the "Elia" series, show,
when read together, the different (favourable or un-
favourable) points of this famous institution,+ which
seems to have added another to the many elements of
gloom which already surrounded the poor boy's life.
"I was a hypochondriac lad," says Lamb; and his
hypochondria was not likely to be decreased so long
as he remained within the bounds of the sad hospital,
where hunger was a not uncommon affliction, and
where he had continually to witness the cruelty
* The reader must be careful, however, to distinguish between the
real and the fictitious autobiography, for Lamb was fond of mystifying
his public in this way, and frequently speaks in the person of another.
For instance, the poor boy, in the essay on "Christ's Hospital," who
has such cheerless, homeless holidays, is not Lamb, but Coleridge.
+ Barry Cornwall's "Memoir of Charles Lamb."
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with which his schoolfellows would treat each other.
He was only happy when, in common with the rest,
he obtained " whole-day leaves," and merrily sallied
forth into the fields, "to strip under the first warmth
of the sun, and wanton like young dace in the
streams." Yet it was at Christ's Hospital that he
first enjoyed the friendship, among others, of the
poet Coleridge, of whom he gives us many pleasing
glimpses. "Come back in memory," he says, "like
as thou wert in the day-spring of thy fancies, with
hope like a fiery column before thee-the dark pillar
not yet turned-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, logician,
metaphysician, bard! How have I seen the casual
passer through the cloisters stand still, entranced
with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion
between the speech and the garb of the young Miran-
dula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet
intonations, the mysteries of Jamblicus or Plotinus
for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such
philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek,
or Pindar, while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-
echoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy !”
It was something to have been a scholar at Christ's
Hospital, if only to have made the life-long acquaint-
ance of so exquisite, if unstable, a genius as that of the
author of the "Ancient Mariner.”
Of the South Sea House, where Lamb afterwards
passed a short time under the control of his brother
John, who had a clerkship there, some account is
given in another essay; but his most familiar memo-
ries gathered round the accountant's office of the
East India Company, in Leadenhall Street, where he
LAMB'S “ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
361
obtained a clerkship in 1792, when he was seventeen
years of age, and where he remained in the same
capacity until the beginning of 1825, when he was
fifty years old. He himself tells the story of his
release from drudgery in his essay, "The Super-
annuated Man," which is otherwise full of the most
charmingly interesting autobiography. He tells how,
independently of the rigours of attendance, he had
ever been haunted with a sense (perhaps, he says, a
mere caprice, and such undoubtedly it was) of incapa-
city for business. This, during his latter years, had
increased to such a degree that it was visible in all the
lines of his countenance. His health and his good
spirits flagged. He had perpetually a dread of some
crisis to which he should be found unequal. Besides
his daily servitude, he served over again in his
sleep, and would wake with terrors of imaginary false
entries, errors in his accounts, and the like. He was,
as I have said, fifty years of age, and no prospect of
emancipation presented itself. "I had grown to my
desk, as it were, and the wood had entered into my
soul." Suddenly he received an awful summons to
attend the presence of the directors* in what he calls
the "formidable back parlour." He thought that
now his time had surely come, that he had done for
himself, that he was going to be told that they had
no longer any occasion for his services. L—, I
could see, smiled at the terror I was in, which was a
little relief to me, when, to my utter astonishment,
B—, the eldest partner, began a formal harangue to
me on the length of my services, my very meritorious
*Described in the essay as
#
CC a firm."
""
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conduct during the whole of the time (the deuce,
thought I, how did he find out that? I protest I
never had the confidence to think as much). He went
on to descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain
time of life (how my heart panted !), and, asking me
a few questions as to the amount of my own property,
of which I have a little, ended with a proposal, to
which his three partners nodded a grave assent, that
I should accept from the house, which I had served so
well, a pension for life to the amount of two-thirds of
my accustomed salary*-a magnificent offer! I do
not know what I answered, between surprise and
gratitude, but it was understood that I accepted their
proposal, and I was told that I was free from that
hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow,
and at just ten minutes before eight I went home-for
For the first day or two," he says, “I felt
stunned, overwhelmed. I could only apprehend my
felicity; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I
wandered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing
I was not. I was in the condition of a prisoner in the
old Bastile, suddenly let loose after a forty years' con-
finement. I could scarcely trust myself with myself.
It was like passing out of time into eternity, for it is
a sort of eternity for a man to have his time all to
himself. It seemed to me that I had more time on
my hands than I could ever manage."
ever.
At one period of his career, Lamb added to his
salary by concocting pleasantries for the morning
journals, and he has recorded his experiences in this
way in his essay on Newspapers Thirty-five Years
* That is, £400.
((
LAMB'S “ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
363
.
Ago." "In those days," he says, "every Morning
Paper, as an essential retainer to its establishment,
kept an author, who was bound to furnish daily a
quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke—and
it was thought pretty high, too-was Dan Stuart's*
settled remuneration in these cases. The chat of the
day, scandal, but, above all, dress, furnished the
material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed
seven lines. Shorter they might be, but they must be
poignant. . . . Somebody has said, that to swallow six
cross-buns daily, consecutively for a fortnight, would
surfeit the stoutest digestion. But to have to furnish
so many jokes daily, and that not for a fortnight, but
for a long twelvemonth, as we were constrained to do,
was a little harder exertion.
No Egyptian task-
master ever devised a slavery like to that, our
slavery.
Half-a-dozen jests in a day (bating
Sundays, too), why it seems nothing! We make twice
the number every day of our lives as a matter of
course, and claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then
they come into our head. But when the head has to
go out to them--when the mountain must go to
Mahomet-Reader, try it for once, only for one short
twelvemonth."
But to collect all the personal references to Lamb
and to Lamb's friends, from the pages of "Elia,"
would be to occupy more space than I can possibly
spare. Let me only glance for a moment at some of
the more striking and characteristic of the Essays,
especially those which illustrate Lamb's quaint humour
and peculiar views.
* Daniel Stuart, editor of the Morning Chronicle.
364
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
"Mrs.
Who does not remember the famous essay on
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 insufferable
trifles are the curse of a table. One of these 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 loved a
thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She
took, and gave, no concessions. She hated favours.
She never made a revoke, nor ever passed it over in an
enemy without exacting the utmost forfeiture. She
fought a good fight: cut and thrust.
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, mis-
cellaneous conversation during its process. As she
emphatically observed, cards were cards; and if I ever
saw unmingled distaste in her fine last-century coun-
tenance, it was at the airs of a young gentleman of a
- LAMB'S "ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
365
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 un-
bending 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 all 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 afterwards over
a book."
Who has not known many a Sarah Battle, of both
sexes, each and all of whom have regarded a game of
whist as one which involved the most solemn responsi-
bilities on the part of its votaries ?
Who, again, does not remember the delightful
Chapter on Ears," which Lamb begins, quasi-
sensationally, by saying that "he has no ear?" It
is not that he was "by nature destitute of those
exterior twin appendages, hanging ornaments, and
(architecturally speaking) handsome volutes to the
human capital." Quite the reverse. He was, he
thought, "rather delicately than copiously provided
with those conduits." When he said he had no ears,
we were to understand him to mean for music. Senti-
mentally, indeed, he was disposed to harmony, but
organically he was incapable of a tune. "I have been
practising," he says, "God Save the King' all my
life, whistling and humming it over to myself in
solitary corners; and yet am not yet arrived, they
tell me, within many quavers of it. Yet hath the
loyalty of Elia never been impeached. I am not
without suspicion," he goes on to say, "that I have
""
366
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
an undeveloped faculty of music within me. For
thrumming, in my wild way on my friend A.'s piano,
the other morning, while he was engaged in an adjoining
parlour,-on his return he was pleased to say, 'he
thought it could not be the maid!' On his first surprise
at hearing the keys touched in somewhat an airy and
masterful way, not dreaming of me, his suspicions had
lighted upon Jenny. But a grace, snatched from a
superior refinement, soon convinced him that some
being-technically perhaps deficient but higher in-
formed upon a principle common to all the fine arts-
had swayed the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all
her (less cultivated) enthusiasm, could never have
elicited from them. I mention this," says Lamb, "as a
proof of my friend's penetration, and not with any
view of disparaging Jenny."
In the essay on "All Fools' Day," he says he would
give a trifle to know, historically and authentically,
who was the greatest fool that ever lived, and proceeds
to apostrophize some distinguished individuals in a very
free-and-easy manner:-" Good Master Empedocles,*
you are welcome. It is long since you went a-sala-
mander-gathering down Etna. Worse than samphire-
picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did
not singe your moustachios. Ha, Cleombrotus! and
what salads, in faith, did you light upon at the bottom
of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I think, of
the disinterested sect of the Calenturists.-Gebir, my
old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel,
bring in your trowel, most ancient Gaul! You have a
* The hero, it will be remembered, of a fine poem by Mr. Matthew
Arnold.
LAMB'S "ESSAYS OF ELIA."
367
claim to sit here at my right hand, as patron of the
stammerers. What, the magnanimous Alexander
in tears? Cry, baby; put its finger in its eye. It
shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty
moppet!—Good Master Raymund Lully, you look
wise. Pray correct that error.-Duns, spare your defi-
nition. I must fine you a bumper, or a paradox. We
will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day.
Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman
break the tender shins of his apprehension, stumbling
across them." "I love a fool," says Lamb, characteris-
tically, a little farther on; "as naturally, as if I were
kith and kin to him.”
He contrived to extract delicious fun out of " a
Quakers' meeting," and had to answer for it to his
good friend Bernard Barton, the poet, who was of that
persuasion. But more famous still is the paper, ori-
ginally headed, "Jews, Quakers, Scotchmen, and other
Imperfect Sympathies," now more correctly and simply
headed, “Imperfect Sympathies," in which he gives
an amusing description of the difficulty he always had
in getting on with Scotchmen, Jews, and Quakers. Of
Scotchmen, his humorous dislike was such that he said
they ought to have double punishment, fire without
brimstone; and his analysis of the national character
will always be remembered for its combined quaintness
and acuteness. "There is," he says, "an order of
imperfect intellects (under which mine must be content
to rank) which in its constitution is essentially anti-
Caledonian. The owners of the sort of faculties I allude
to, have minds rather suggestive than comprehensive.
They have no pretence to much clearness or precision
368
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing them
Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few
whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments
and scattered pieces of Truth. She presents no full
front to them-a feature or side-face at the most. Hints
and glimpses, germs and crude essays at a system, is
the utmost they can pretend to. They beat up a little
game peradventure, and leave it to knottier heads, more
robust constitutions, to run it down. The light that
lights them is not steady and polar, but mutable and
shifting; waxing, and again waning. Their conversa-
tion is accordingly. They will throw out a random
word in or out of season, and be content to let it pass
for what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if
they were upon their oath, but must be understood,
speaking or writing, with some abatement. They
seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring it
to market in the green ear. They delight to impart
their defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting
for their full development. They are no systematizers,
and would but err more by attempting it. The brain
of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is consti-
tuted upon quite a different plan. His Minerva is
born in panoply. You are never admitted to see his
ideas in their growth-if, indeed, they do grow, and
are not rather put together upon the principle of clock-
work. You never catch his mind in undress. He
never hints or suggests anything, but unlades his stock
of ideas in perfect order and completeness. He brings
his total wealth into company, and gravely unpacks it.
His riches are always about him. .. You never
witness his first apprehension of a thing. His under-
LAMB'S " ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
369
standing is always at its meridian; you never see the
first dawn, the early streaks. He has no falterings of
self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings, half-
intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illuminations,
dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his
brain, or his vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety
never falls upon him. Is he orthodox-he has no
doubts. Is he an infidel-he has none either. Be-
tween the affirmative and the negative there is no
border-land with him. You cannot hover with him on
the confines of truth, or wander in the maze of a
probable argument."
.
I am afraid I ought to conclude with this admirable
specimen of Lamb at his best; but I cannot leave so
many of his best essays so much as unreferred to.
Shall I stop without allusion to the charming paper on
"Valentine's Day," in which he speaks of the postman
sinking beneath a load of "delicate embarrassments, not
his own," and tells the touching story about E. B. and
his valentine; to that in which he discourses of his
relations; to that in which he chats about Bridget
Elia and Mackery End; to that in which he speaks of
the first plays he witnessed; or to that in which he refuses
to believe in modern gallantry, until he sees Dorimant
hand a fish-wife across a kennel, or assist the apple-
woman to pick up her wandering fruit, which some
unlucky dray just dissipated? There is that character-
istic one in which he objects to graces before meat as
awkward and unseasonable, and asks why there are
none for books, those spiritual repasts-a grace before
Milton, a grace before Shakespeare, a devotional ex-
ercise proper to be said before reading the "Faery
B B
370
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Quesn." There is "Dream Children: a Reverie," with
its charming autobiographical allusions. There is that
in praise of chimney-sweepers, and that complaining of
the decay of beggars in the metropolis. In another he
explains the origin of roast pig, and describes the dish
with a gusto full of genuine and unparalleled humour.
He devotes a paper to complaining, as a bachelor, of
the behaviour of married people before company, espe-
cially of their excessive pride in one another, and of their
attitude which seems to say to man or woman, as the
case may be, “You have lost your chance of being the
proprietor of me!" He revels in his recollections of
old actors; he is at home in his loving disquisition on-
the artificial comedy of the last century. There is
that inimitable character of the poor relation, too long
and too familiar to be quoted; and there are those
thoroughly Lambish thoughts on books and readings,
which include so many felicitous and original judg-
ments, and in which he is so particular about the bind-
ings of his books, and so precise as to the when and
where in which books should be read. Everybody re-
members "The Old Margate Hoy," and the essay in
which Lamb contends for the perfect sanity of true
genius, declaring that the greatest wits will ever be
found to be the sanest writers.
It was in August, 1820, that (as already stated)
Lamb began to contribute to the pages of the London
Magazine, which had been established in that year by
its publishers, Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.
"Never," says Talfourd, "was a periodical work com-
menced with happier auspices, numbering a list of
contributors more original in thought, more fresh in、
LAMB'S (6
371
ESSAYS OF ELIA.”
spirit, more sportive in fancy, or directed by an editor
better qualified by nature and study to preside, than
this London. There was Lamb, with humanity ripened
among town-bred experiences, and pathos matured by
sorrow, at his wisest, sagest, airiest, indiscreetest, best;
Barry Cornwall, in the first bloom of his modest and
enduring fame, streaking the darkest passion with
beauty; John Hamilton Reynolds, lighting up tha
wildest eccentricities and most striking features of
many-coloured life with vivid fancy; and, with others
of less note, Hazlitt, whose pen, unloosed from the
chain which earnest thought and metaphysical dream-
ings had woven, gave radiant expression to the results
of the solitary musings of many years.
"9
The origin of Lamb's signature of "Elia" is thus
explained by the same writer. Its adoption, he says,
was purely accidental. His first contribution to the
magazine was the description of the old South Sea
House, to which I have already referred, and, remem-
bering the name of a gay, light-hearted foreigner, who
fluttered there during Lamb's short novitiate as a
clerk, he subscribed his name to the essay. It was
afterwards affixed to subsequent contributions, and
Lamb used it until, in his "Last Essays of Elia,” he
bade it a sad farewell.
This was in 1833, when the "Last Essays" were
published in a complete form, with a characteristic
preface. The first series had extended over rather
more than two years, between August, 1820, and
October, 1822, and was first collected in 1823. The
second series was begun in May, 1824, and continued
until August, 1825. It does not seem to have been
372
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
written very heartily.
"Some men's brains," says
Lamb, "can bear only one skimming;" and he did
not do his work so con amore as before. The preface
purports to be composed "by a friend of the late
Elia," who "for some months past" is said to have
"been in a declining way," and had "at length paid
his final tribute to nature." "To say truth," says
Lamb, "it was time he were gone. The humour of
the thing, if it ever had much in it, was pretty well
exhausted; and a two years and a half existence has
been a tolerable duration for a phantom." Thus
modestly, says Mr. Procter, does he speak of essays
which have delighted all cultivated readers.
INDEX.
'Acts and Monuments,' Fox's. See
Book of Martyrs.
Addison, Joseph, his 'Cato' quoted,
245; compared with Steele, 291,
292, 295.
Egidius, Latinised name of Peter
Giles, 5; his appearance in 'Uto-
pia,' 11; More's letter to, 29.
Eneas, Virgil's characterizations
of, 285.
Alciatus, Andreas, his 'Emblema-
tum Libellus,' when published,
172; extracts from, 173-177.
Alexander, William, Earl of Stir-
ling, his supplement to' Arcadia,'
127.
Allegories in Scripture, Selden on,
260.
All Fools' Day, Charles Lamb's
essay on, 366, 367.
Almanack-Maker, an, Overbury's
character of, 157, 158.
Alyface, Annot, in Ralph Royster
Doyster,' 80.
Amateur poetry, Selden on, 269,
270.
Amaurot, chief city of 'Utopia,' 19,
20.
America, discovery of, 4.
Amphialus, in Siduey's 'Arcadia,'
138.
Anaxsus, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,' 139.
'Andromana,' Shirley's play of,
124.
Anemolius, laureate of Utopia, 6.
Anider, chief river of Utopia, 20.
Arber's reprints referred to, 6, 8, 12,
75, 96, 102, 145, 253.
Arbuthnot, Dr., authorship of 'Ro-
binson Crusoe' ascribed to, 299.
'Arcadia,' Sannazzaro's, alluded
to, 123.
'Arcadia, the Countess of Pem-
broke's,' characterized by Wal-
pole, 114, 115; by Hazlitt, 116–
118; praised by Harvey, Heylin,
Zouch, Hakewell, and Drake,
119; by Hallam, Fuller, Cowper,
Lamb, 120; by Professor Masson,
121; by the Retrospective Re-
view,' 121; described by Sidney
himself, 122, 123; its origin, 123;
its originality, 124, 125; Mr.
Stigant's criticism, 125; the
Elizabethan epic, 126; its cha-
racters identified, 126, 127; its
various editious, 127, 128; its
popularity, 128; sketch of its plot,
129-142; the poetical portions,
143.
'Argenis,' Barclay's romance of,
31.
Aristotle, Politics' of, quoted, 3.
Armies, standing, reprobated by
More, 15.
↓
Arnold, Mr. Matthew, cited, 184;
his poem of Obermann' quoted,
218; his Essays in Criticism'
quoted, 295.
Arostus, secretary to Gorboduc, 63.
Ascham, Roger, his birth and edu-
cation, 87; his career at Cam-
bridge, 88, 89; his Protestantism,
90; lectures on Greek, 91; pub-
lishes Toxophilus,' 92-96; pub-
lic orator to the University and
374
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
royal tutor, 96, 97; his Conti-
nental tour, 97, 98; his later
years, 98. See Scholemaster,
The.
Ashby on 'Gorboduc,' 58.
'Ashton, Mr. Philip, Adventures
and Deliverances of,' 319.
Askew, Anne, the last days of, de-
scibed by Fox, 49–52.
'Athenæ Cantabrigienses,' Cooper's,
quoted, 98.
'Athenæ Oxonienses.' See Wood.
Athenagoras, a saying of, 12.
Atlantis, The New,' of Lord Ba-
con, 30, 31.
Attentiveness, Lord Chesterfield on,
343.
Auldsworth, the Old Lady of, 42.
Avery, Captain, the King of Pi-
rates, 319.
Aylmer, Bishop, referred to, 46.
Bacon's New Atlantis' referred
to, 30, 31.
Barclay's 'Argenis,' 31.
Bashfulness distinguished from
modesty, 345, 346.
Basilius, king of Arcadia, 133.
Bastard, Selden's definition of, 257,
258.
Battle, Mrs., her opinions on whist,
364, 365.
Bendlowes, the patron of Quarles,
192; characterized by Pope and
Warburton, 192.
Berners, Lord, referred to, 94, 121.
Bible, interpretation of, Selden on
the, 259, 260.
Bickerstaff, Isaac, nom de plume of
Swift and Steele, 278, 280, 288,
290.
Biographia Britannica,' quoted, 38.
Bishops, Selden on, 260-263.
Blount's 'Religio Laici,' 205.
Bonchrost, Gerard, the correspond-
ent of Erasmus, 5.
Book of Martyrs, the, by whom
suggested, 46; when begun, 46;
its publication in England, 47;
its success, 47; some eulogistic
opinions, 48; scope of the work,
48, 49; its influence on the growth
of Protestantism, 49; an episode
from its pages, 49-52.
Books, Selden on, 264.
Bouchet, Mdlle. de, mother
Philip Stanhope, 342.
Bourne, Mr. Fox, quoted, 123.
Boyle, Captain, Voyages of,' 319.
Braybrooke's Life
•
of Pepys'
quoted, 228.
Brewer, Rev. J. S., cited, 5.
Bridgewater's Religio Bibliopolæ,'
"
206.
Brooke, Lord, on Sidney's 'Arca-
dia,' 126.
Browne, Sir Thomas, not a lively
writer, 193; his indifference to
politics, 193, 194; characteristics
of his writings, 194, 195; his birth
and education, 195; his travels,
195, 196; settles in England, 196;
on his 'Religio Medici,'199-203;
his religious opinions, 209-213;
his three heresies, 215, 216; his
views of church polity, 216, 217;
his philosophical attitude, 218,
219; on God in Nature, 219; cha-
racterized by Hallam, 221-223;
his later carcer, 223; his minor
works, 223-226. See Religio
Medici.
'Brunt's (Captain S.) Voyage to
Cacklogallinia,' 320.
Buchanan's epitaph on Ascham, 98.
Buckhurst. See Sackville.
Burnet, his translation of 'Utopia,'
8; his 'History of his Own Times'
quoted, 249; on Fox's Book of
Martyrs, 48.
Busleyden, Jerome, referred to, 5.
Butler's 'Erewhon,' 31.
Camden on Fox's Book of Mar-
tyrs, 48.
Campbell, Thomas, on Quarles, 185;
on Overbury, 150.
Carew's 'He that loves a rosy
cheek' referred to, 150.
Cavalier poets of England, the, 187
INDEX.
375
}
1
Cecropia, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,'
127.
Character, a, Overbury's descrip-
tion of, 164.
'Characters of Vertues and Vices,'
Bishop Hall's, 146.
• Characters, or Witty Descrip-
tions,' Overbury's, 146.
Cheke, Sir John, on the writing of
English, 94.
Chesterfield, Lord, according to the
popular conception, 331; as he
really was, 332; his birth, 332;
his education, 333, 334; his Con-
tinental tour, 335-337; his ca-
reer as a politician, 337-339;
illustrations of his political zeal,
339, 340; his fame among con-
temporaries, 341, 342; his mar-
riage and his son, 342; extracts
from his 'Letters' to the latter,
342-351; his conduct towards
his grandchildren, 353; his death,
354.
Children, necessity of kindness to,
in teaching, 103, 104, 106.
'Christ Crucified,' Fox's sermon of,
55, 56.
Christo Triumphante, De,' Fox's
comedy of, 53, 51.
Christ's Hospital, Lamb and Cole-
ridge at, 359, 360.
• Churchman's Second Epistle,' 208.
'Church of England Man, Religion
of a,' 209.
Clayton, Duke of Cornwall, in 'Gor-
boduc,' 63.
Colas, French epigram on, 347.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, his
''Table Talk,' 252; on Selden, 264,
268, 270, 271, 272; at Christ's
Hospital, 359, 360.
Collier's History of Dramatic
Poetry' quoted, 59, 77; his 'Ac-
count of Early English Litera-
ture' cited, 71, 177.
Columbus's discovery of America, 4.
Comedy, the first English, 73-85.
Coming Race,' Lytton's, 31.
'Conceited News,' Overbury's, 164.
'
Conringius, Herman, on 'Religio
Medici,' 202, 203.
Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigiensis '
cited, 98.
952
Cornwall, Barry, on Sidney, 121
his 'Memoir of Charles Lamb
cited, 359; described by Tal-
fourd, 371.
Country Wife, The,' Wycherly's
comedy of, 283.
Courtley, Will, in Steele's Tatler,'
287.
"
Coverley, Sir Roger, created by
Steele, 295.
Cowper's verses on Alexander Sel-
kirk quoted, 309.
Cranmer, and the Reformers, 39;
his answer to Gardiner on the
Sacrament, 44.
'Crumms fal'n from King James's
Table,' 150.
'Cupid's Revenge,' Beaumont and
Fletcher's, 124.
Custance, Dame Christian, in 'Ralph
Royster Doyster,' 78.
Dactyle, Will, in the 'Tatler,' 287.
Daïphantus, in Sidney's' Arcadia,'
133.
Dallas's 'Gay Science' quoted, 268,
269.
Day, John, the printer, 45.
Defoe, Daniel, value of his writings,
274; his 'Weekly Review,' 274
-278; the founder of the English
novel, 299; his authorship of
"Robinson Crusoe,' 299-302;
his own conception of that work,
303, 304; his preface to the second
part, 316-318; his imitators,
318-321; his want of pathos,
323; his realism, 323; character-
ized by Dickens, 326; his 'Se-
rious Reflections,' 326-329; his
'Vision of the Angelick World,'
330. See Robinson Crusoe.
Deodati's 'Collection of Voyages'
quoted, 12.
Diana,' Montemayor's, referred to,
123, 124.
,
376
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
'Diary,' Pepys', when began, 230;
how written, 231, 232; time co-
vered by it, 233, 234; its charac-
teristics described, 237; selections
from, 237-247; its historical
value, 248. See Pepys.
Dibdin's edition of Utopia,' 8.
Dickens, Charles, on Robinson
Crusoe,' 326.
Digby, Sir Kenelm, his book on
Brown's 'Religio Medici,' 200;
is attacked by Ross, 201.
Dimple, Jack, in Steele's 'Tatler,'
287.
Dordan, in Sackville's Gorboduc,'
63.
Dorset.
See Sackville.
Doughtie, Dobinet, in Ralph Roy-
ster Doyster,' 81.
Drake's 'Shakespeare, his Times'
cited, 119.
'Dramatic Poetry, The History of,'
quoted, 59, 77.
Drury, Mr. R., adventures of, 320.
Dryden's Religio Laici,' 205.
Dubourdieu, James, adventures of,
3.8, 319.
Dunlop's 'History of Fiction '
quoted, 124, 125.
Earle's 'Microcosmography,' when
first published, 146; described,
165, 166; quoted, 166-169.
'Early English Literature, Account
of,' cited, 74, 177.
Ears, Lamb's Chapter on, 365, 366.
East India House, Lamb's remi-
niscences of, 360–362.
Elia, Essays of,' the best work of
Lamb, 356; their uniqueness and
perfectness, 357; the result of
humour combating with melan-
choly, 357, 358; their autobio-
graphic character, 358-363;
sketches of their characteristics,
864-370; origin of the word
Elia, 371; when published, 371,
372. See Lamb.
'Emblematum Libellus,' Alciatus',
172; extracts from, 173-177.
C
'Emblemes, Collection of;" Wi-
ther's, 172.
Emblem literature, origin of, 179;
Quarles on, 192.
"Emblems, Choice of,' Whitney's,
171.
'Emblems, Divine and Moral,'
when first published, 171; cha-
racterized by Wood, 182; by
Baxter, Phillips, Walpole, Lloyd,
Langbaine, Fuller,
Fuller, Headley,
Todd, Ryland, 183; by Montgo-
mery and Thoreau. 184; by Pope
and Campbell, 185; extracts from,
186; their piety and obscurity.,
187; further quotations, 188
191; Quarles on his own work,
192.
English, on the writing of, 94.
Erasinus, his friendship with More,
2, 5; his opinion of Utopia,' 7.
'Erewhon,' Butler's, 31.
Essex, the Countess of, and Over-
bury, 146, 147, 149.
Euarchus, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,' 127.
Eubulus, in Sackville's' Gorboduc,'
63.
Euhemeros, his 'Panchaia' referred
to, 4.
'Euphues,' Lyly's, 123.
Eustace, Mr., and his wife, in
Steele's 'Tatler,' 296.
'Evangelium Medici,' 207.
Evil-speaking, Selden on, 264, 265.
'Ezechias,' Udall's drama of, 77.
(
Faire and Happy Milk-Mayd,
The,' Overbury's character of,
151–153.
Faith and works, the connection
between, Selden on, 265.
'Falconer, Captain, Voyages of,' 319.
Fergus, Duke of Albany, in 'Gor-
bodur,' G3.
Ferrex in Sackville's 'Gorboduc,'
63.
Floures for Latine Spekynge,'
Udall's, 75.
Forster, John, his 'Arrest of the
Five Members' cited, 251; on
INDEX.
377
Defoe's 'Weekly Review,' 274,
275, 277; on Steele's 'Tatler,
285-287, 290, 291, 292; on De-
foe's 'Robinson Crusoe,' 299, 304,
318; his Life of Dickens'
quoted, 326.
Fox, John, his birth, 34; his edu-
cation at Oxford, 35; becomes a
Protestant, 36; his personal
piety, 37, 38; charged with
heresy, 38; his marriage, 39;
his disappearance and trials in
London, 39, 40; tutor to the
children of the Duke of Norfolk,
40, 41; at Ryegate, 41, 42; per-
secuted by Bishop Gardiner, 42;
his flight to the Continent, 43;
associated with the early Re-
formers, 44; returns to England,
44; literary editor for Day the
printer, 45; his great work be-
gun, 46; its publication and suc-
cess, 47; his other works, 53-
55; his Sermon on Christ Cru-
cified,' 55, 56; his death, 56.
"Fragmentum Isaaci Hawkins
Browne,' 208.
Franklyn, a, Overbury's character
of, 153–155.
M
Frederick, Prince of Wales, epi-
gram on, 347.
Friars, the poverty of, Selden on,
265.
Friends, old, Selden on, 265, 266.
Friswell, J. Hain, his introduction
to Arcadia' quoted, 115, 116;
his introduction to Chesterfield's
'Letters' quoted, 342.
Frobenius, printer of Utopia, 7.
Fuller, his Church History' cited,
43, 45; on Quarles, 183.
'Gentlemen of Verona, The Two,"
124.
Gildon's attack on Defoe, 301, 302.
Giles, Peter, the friend of More, 5.
See Ægidius.
Godfathers, Selden on the origin
of, 257.
God in Nature, Browne on, 219—
221.
Goodlucke, Gawin, in 'Ralph Roy-
ster Doyster,' 79.
'Gorboduc,' the first English tra-
gedy, 57; the authorship of, 57,
58; its authors, 59, 60; praised
by Sidney and Pope, 60, 61;
characterized by Hazlitt and
Warton, 61; its first appear-
ance, 62; its argument, 62; the
dramatis persona, 63; its peculiar
arrangement, 64; analysis of the
plot, 64-72; a Tennysouian
couplet, 73.
Gourmont, Gilles de, printer of
Utopia, 7.
6
Grant's Vita Aschami' cited, 87.
Graphæus, Cornelius. See Schry-
Gallant, a, Earle's description of,
168, 169.
• Garden of Cyrus,' Browne's, 225.
Gardiner, Bishop, persecutes John
Fox, 42, 43; and favours As-
cham, 97.
'Gentleman's Religion,' Synge's,
207.
ver.
Green's 'Shakespeare and the
Emblem Writers' quoted, 172,
173.
Grey, Lady Jane, her famous inter-
view with Ascham, 97, 107.
Grindal, Archbishop, referred to, 46.
Grub Street in the days of Fox, 45.
'Gulliver, Travels of,' 319.
Gwenard, Duke of Cumberland, in
'Gorboduc,' 63.
Gynecia, queen of Arcadia, 133.
Hakewell quoted, 119.
Hali's (Bishop) Mundus Alter et
Idem,' 31; Characters of Ver-
tues and Vices,' 146.
Hallam's Introduction to the Lite-
rature of Europe' quoted, 13,
119, 120, 151, 221-223, 272.
'Hamlet,' Shakespeare's, referred
to, 126.
Hannay on Selden's 'Table Talk,'
251, 252, 265, 272.
378
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
1
Hardy's Far from the Madding
Crowd' cited, 271.
Harrington's 'Oceana' referred to,
31.
Harvey, Gabriel, on 'Arcadia,' 119.
Hayward's Essays' quoted, 331,
337.
'
Hazlitt on 'Gorboduc,' 61, 71; on
Sydney's 'Arcadia,' 116-118; on
Browne, 221; on Addison and
Steele, 291; described by Tal-
fourd, 371.
Headley on Quarles, 183.
Heister on 'Religio Medici,' 203.
Helen of Corinth, Queen, in 'Ar-
cadia,' 139.
Heliodorus, the Greek novelist, 123.
Henry VIII., the age of, 2; flat-
tered by More, 10, 11.
Herbert, Lord, his 'De Religione
Laici' and 'De Religione Gen-
tilium,' 204.
'Hermit, The; or, the Adventures
of Mr. Philip Quarll,' 320
Hermon, in Sackville's' Gorboduc,'
63.
Heylin's 'Description of Arcadia'
quoted, 119.
Heywood, Jasper, quoted, 59.
Hildesley's Religio Jurisprudentis,'
206.
Hippodamos, the Greek philoso-
pher, 3.
Hoadley, Bishop, his strictures on
'Robinson Crusoe,' 302.
Hooper's 'Appellatio ad Parlemen-
tum,' 47.
Howell's 'Life of Selkirk' quoted,
308, 311.
Hugo, Hermann, the 'Emblems'
of, 184, 185.
Hume's History of England'
quoted, 227.
Humility, Selden and Holmes on,
266.
Humour, Lamb's, compared with
that of Steele, Addison, Fielding,
Smollett, and Sterne, 358.
Hunt, Leigh, his, 'Men, Women,
and Books' quoted, 232, 233.
'Hydrotaphia,' Browne's, 225.
Hythloday, Raphael, in Utopia,'
11, 12.
Imperfect sympathies, Lamb on,
367, 368.
Improvident young gallant, an,
Overbury's character of, 156,
157.
Irony, Chesterfield on, 343.
Italianated Englishman, the, de-
scribed by Ascham, 111, 112.
James's 'Providence Displayed'
cited, 311.
Jeffrey, Lord, on Pepys, 235.
Johnson, Dr., quoted, 88, 89, 195,
197, 198; his 'Table Talk,' 252,
253, 268.
'John Woodvill,' Lamb's drama
of, 355.
Jonson, Ben, on 'Arcadia,' 126;
his 'Table Talk,' 252.
Kalander, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,'
131.
Keek's 'Annotations on Religio
Medici,' 202.
'Lady's Religion, A,' 207.
Lamb, Charles, on Hazlitt, 118;
on Steele's Englishman,' 306;
on 'The Hermit' (q.v.), 320; his
works enumerated, 355; his
Essays of Elia,' 355-372; his
unique character, 357; his un-
happy family circumstances, 357,
358; his autobiographic sketches,
358-363; his connection with
the 'London Magazine,' 370, 371;
his own opinion of 'Elia,' 372;
described by Talfourd, 371.
Langbaine's 'Dramatic Poets'
quoted, 183.
Lawyer, Religion of a,' 208.
'Layman's Religion, The,' 206.
Learning, Ascham's seven plain
notes of, 104, 105.
Lee's Life of Defoe' cited, 300,
et seq.
C
INDEX.
379
•
Leland, John, notices of, 74, 75.
Le Neve's Ancient English Poets'
quoted, 149.
"Letter to a Friend,' Browne's, 225,
226.
'Letters,' Chesterfield's, to whom
addressed, 342; extracts from,
342-347; characterized by Mrs.
Stanhope, 347, 348; how written,
349; described by M.Sainte Beuve,
350; price of the copyright, 351.
See Chesterfield.
Libels, Selden's famous maxim on,
266.
Lingard's
cited, 234.
6
History of England'
Lloyd on Quarles, 183.
'Love for Love,' the comedy of, 283.
Lucy, Sir Thomas, of Charlecote,
alluded to, 39.
Lupset, Thomas, his edition of
'Utopia,' 7.
Luther's Table Talk' character-
ized, 252.
Lyly's 'Euphues' cited, 123.
Lytton, Lord, his Coming Race,'
31; on Sir Thomas Browne, 214;
on Lamb, 356.
Macaulay, Lord, on Steele and Ad-
dison, 278.
Mackenzie's 'Religio Stoici,' 205.
Mackintosh, Sir James, quoted,
7, 8, 32.
Mandud, Duke of Leogris, in 'Gor-
boduc,' 63.
C
Marcella, in 'Gorboduc,' 63.
Markham, Gervase, his English
Arcadia' alluded to, 128.
Marriage, Selden on, 266.
Martin, Theodore, printer of' Uto-
pia,' 5.
Masson, Professor, quoted, 31, 120,
121, 305.
6
Matchlock, Major, in the 'Tatler,'
287.
Maty's Life of Chesterfield' quoted,
333, 338, 339, 340.
Measure of things, the, Selden on,
267.
'Medici Catholicon,' 204.
'Medicine, The,' a poem by W.
Harrison, 283.
Merrygreek, Matthew, in 'Ralph
Royster Doyster,' 78, 85.
'Microcosmography,' Earle's, when
first published, 146; described,
165, 166; quoted, 166-169.
Millward, Selden's editor, 253, 254.
Milton quoted, 94.
Modesty distinguished from bash-
fulness, 345, 346.
Modish, Lady Betty, in the 'Tat-
ler, 277.
Money, Selden on, 267.
Monks, the, Selden on, 257.
Montemayor's 'Diana' referred to,
123.
Montesquieu and Chesterfield, 341.
Montgomery, James,on Quarles, 184.
Montgomery's 'Life of Steele'
quoted, 280.
More, Sir Thomas, his conception of
the Utopia,' 2; his moderate
views, 2, 3; his indebtedness to
the ancient philosophers, 3, 4;
his embassy to Charles V., 4;
his friendship with Erasmus, 5;
his correspondence about Úto-
pia,' 5, 7; characterized by Ro-
binson, 9, 10; his skill as a tac-
tician, 10, 11; his fabled meeting
with Hythloday, 11-13; his pa-
tron, Archbishop Morton, 14; his
letter to Ægidius, 29; his claims
to remembrance as a writer of
prose, 32; his 'History of Ed-
ward V.' and Latin epigrams, 32
his controversial writings, 32, 33;
compared with Fox, 34.
Morley, Professor Henry, quoted,
45, 278, 294.
Morton, Archbishop, alluded to,
14, 32.
Mumblecrust, Madge, in 'Ralph
Royster Doyster,' 80.
'Mundus Alter et Idem,' Bishop.
Hall's, 31.
Musidorus, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,*
126.
380
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
Newes from Any Whence,' Over-
bury's, 164, 165.
Newspapers thirty-five years ago,
Lamb on, 362, 363.
Nichols's 'Progresses of Queen Eli-
zabeth' cited, 77.
Noble spirit, a, Overbury's charac-
ter of, 158-160.
C
Nodier, M. Charles, on the Swiss
Family Robinson,' 321; on Ro-
binson Crusoe,' 324.
Norfolk, Duke of, committed to the
Tower, 40; his campaign against
Wyatt, 42.
Norton, Thomas, his connection
with 'Gorbodac,' 57; sketch of
his life, 59.
Notch, Sir Geoffrey, in the 'Tatler,'
287, 288.
See Bon-
Noviomagus, Gerardus.
chrost.
Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, at
Oxford, 35, 36; his funeral ser-
mon on Ascham, 98.
Nuntius, in Sackville's' Gorboduc,'
63.
"Obermann,' Arnold's, quoted, 218.
Oceana,' Harrington's, 31.
Oliphant, Mrs., her
Sketches' quoted, 352.
Historical
Opinion and affection, Selden on,
208.
."
Oporinus, the printer, Fox's rela-
tions with, 43.
Original London Post, The; or,
Heathcote's Intelligencer,' 318.
Overbury, Sir Thomas, his myste-
rious death, 146; his poem of
'The Wife,' 146-148;Of the
Choyce of a Wife,' 149, 150; his
minor works, 150; his Charac-
ters, or Witty Descriptions,' 151
-165.
،
Oxford, Earl of, the authorship of
'Robinson Crusoe' attributed to,
300.
Pacolet, in Steele's 'Tatler,' 288.
Palladius, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,' 133.
Paludanus, friend of More and
Erasmus, 5, 6.
Pamela, in Sidney's' Arcadia,' 126.
Patin, Guy, on Browne's 'Religio
Medici,' 282.
Peacham's 'Minerva
Minerva Britanna,'
when published, 171; quoted
177, 178.
Pepys, Samuel, the fame of his
'Diary,' 227, 228; his lineage,
228; his birth, education, and
marriage, 229; begins to keep a
diary, 230; his weak eyesight,
231; described by Leigh Hunt,
232; his rise in the public service,
233, 234; characterized by Lord
Jeffrey, 235, 236; his love of
finery, 237, 239-242; his fashion-
able dinners, 242, 243; his visit
to Westminster Abbey, 244; his
speech in the House of Commons,
244-247; his historical memo-
randa, 248; his later career, 249,
250.
Persuasion, the art of, Chesterfield
on, 344, 345.
Phaleas of Chalcedon, philosophy
of, 3.
Philander, in Sackville's 'Gor-
boduc,' 63.
'Phillips, Miles, Voyages of,' 319.
Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum
quoted, 183.
Philocle, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,'
126.
'Physician, Religion of a,' 204.
Plato, the Republic' of, referred
to, 3.
Pleasure, Selden's definition of,
268, 269.
Poetry, Selden and Coleridge on,
270.
Pope, on Gorboduc,' 60, 61; on
Sidney, 115; on Quarles, 185;
on Bendlowes, 192; quoted, 343,
354.
Porrex, in Sackville's Gorboduc,'
63.
'Preacher, a Young Rawe,' Earle's
description of, 166, 167.
INDEX.
381
"Prince, Religion ofa,' Dr. Nichols's,
207.
Princes, the characteristics of, 13.
Prisoner, a, Overbury's description
of, 163.
6
Procter, Bryan Waller, on Lamb's
Essays of Elia,' 356, 359, 372.
Protestantism, influence of the
Book of Martyrs on, in Eng-
land, 49.
'Pseudodoxia Epidemica,'Browne's,
223, 224.
Pulci, the 'Morgante Maggiore' of,
quoted, 4.
Pultock's 'Peter Wilkins' noticed,
320.
Pyrocles, in Sidney's 'Arcadia,'
126.
Quarles, Francis, sketch of his
life, 170; his miscellaneous
works, 170, 171; his Emblems,
Divine and Moral' (q.v.).
'Quarll, Philip, Sufferings and Ad-
ventures of,' 320.
+
'Ralph Royster Dorster,' when
published, 73; its author, 74
-77; origin of the title, 77; its
form and purpose, 77, 78; ana-
lysis of its plot, 78–85; charac-
terized, 85.
'Ramkius, Major A., Adventures
of,' 319.
Ranter, Colonel, in the 'Tatler,' 277.
Reade and Boucicault's 'Foul Play
alluded to, 321.
Reformers, the, in the time of Fox,
44.
'Religio Bibliopola,' Bridgewater's,
? 206.
C
'Religio Christiani,' 208.
Religio Clerici,' 205; Smedley's,
208.
C
'Religio Jurisconsultis,' 204.
Religio Jurisprudentis,' Hildes-
ley's, 206.
Religio Laici,' Lord Herbert's,
204; Dryden's, Blount's, and
J. R.'s, 205; Tempest's, 208.
Religio Libertini,' 207.
'Religio Medici,' when composed,
196; its origin, 196-198; de-
scribed by the writer, 198, 199;
existing manuscripts of, 199, 200;
when published, 200, 201; at-
tacked by Alexander Ross, 201,
202; characterized by Guy Patin,
202; by Conringius and Heister,
202, 203; condemned by the Pope,
203; its imitations, 203-209;
analyzed, 209-221; criticized
by Hazlitt, 221; by Hallam,
221-223.
Religio Militis,' 206, 209.
Religio Philosophi,' 207.
'Religio Philosophi Peripatetici,'
204.
،
'Religio Stoici,' Mackenzie's, 205.
'Religion of the Wits at Button's
refuted,' 207.
'Religione Gentilium, De,' Lord
Herbert's, 204.
'Remedy of Love, The,' of Over-
bury, 150.
Reptile, Dick, in the 'Tatler,' 287.
Reynolds, John Hamilton, described
by Talfourd, 371.
Richmond, the Duchess of, Fox's
benefactress, 40, 41.
'Robinson Crusoe,' its authorship
discussed, 299-303; how con-
ceived by Defoe, 303, 304; the
romance of solitude, 304, 305;
suggested by Selkirk's adven-
tures, 305, 306; perhaps by Ser-
rano's, 312, 313; the first part
published, 315; Defoe's preface,
315, 316; popularity of the work,
316; publication of second part,
316; Defoe's preface, 316-318;
numerous editions of the com-
plete book, 318; its imitators
enumerated, 318-321; the best
boys' book in the world, 321-
323; its vraisemblance and want
of imagination, 323; its dramatic
interest, 324; inferiority of se-
cond part, 325; Rousseau's cri-
ticism, 325; Dickens's strictures.
382
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
?
326; the 'Serious Reflections,'
326-329; the Vision of the
Angelick World,' 330.
Robinson, H. Crabb, his 'Diary'
mentioned, 237
Robinson, Ralph, his translation of
Utopia,' 8-10.
Rogers, Woodes, his account of
Selkirk cited, 306.
Rosamund Gray,' Lamb's, 355.
Ross, Alexander, his attack on
'Religio Medici,' 201, 202.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, on Ro-
binson Crusoe,' 325, 326.
'Rule of Reason,' Wilson's, quoted,
•
74.
Ryegate in the time of Fox, 41, 42.
Ryland on Quarles, 183, 184.
6
Sackville, Earl of Dorset, author of
Gorboduc,' 58; sketch of his
life, 59, 60; his 'Induction to the
Mirror of Magistrates,' 58, 60.
Sainte Beuve quoted, 334, 339, 350.
Sannazzaro's "Arcadia,' 123.
Saylor, a, Overbury's character
of, 160, 161.
،
1
Scandalous Club, the, in Defoe's
'Weekly Review,' 275–277.
'Scholemaster, The,' when pub-
lished, 99; its origin, 99, 100;
when commenced, 101, 102; the
first book analyzed, 102-112;
the second book, 112, 113.
'Schole of Shooting, The.' See
Toxophilus.
Schryver, Cornelius, of Antwerp, 6.
Scotchmen, the characteristics of,
described by Lamb, 367-369.
Scott, Sir Walter, on 'Robinson
Crusoe,' 323, 325.
Selden, John, a man of letters and
a man of the world, 251; cha-
racterized by Mr. Arber, 255,
256; selections from his Table
Talk' (q.v.).
Self-denial, Selden on, 264.
Selkirk, Alexander, narrative of the
adventures of, 305--312.
Serious Reflections,' Defoe's, when
published, 326; analyzed, 327—
329.
Serrano, Peter, his adventures de-
scribed, 312-315.
Shakespeare's indebtedness to Sid-
ney, 124, 126, 128.
Shirley's' Andromana,' 124.
Sidney, Sir Philip, Walpole on,
114, 115; his popularity amongst
his contemporaries, 115, 116;
described by Hazlitt, 116-118;
praised by Harvey, Heylin,
Zouch, Hakewell, and Drake,
119; by Hallam, Fuller, Cowper,
and Lamb, 120; his own view of
the 'Arcadia,' 122, 123; his
'Apologie for Poetrie' quoted, 60,
123.
Singleton, Captain, adventures of,
319.
•
Socrates on the acquisition of learn-
ing, 106.
Sophronius, in Steele's 'Tatler,' 287.
Spence's' Anecdotes' quoted, 297.
Stanhope, Mrs., quoted, 342, 347,
348.
Stanhope, Philip, his birth, 342;
extracts from his father's letters,
342-351; described by Boswell,
353.
Steele, Sir Richard, projects the
Tatler,' 278; adopts nom de
plume of Bickerstaff, 279, 280;
characterized by Forster, 290;
by Hazlitt, 291; compared with
Addison, 295; his own opinion
of Addison, 296; and of Swift,
297; his good-heartedness, 298;
his account of Selkirk, 306. See
Tatler.
Stella, Sidney's, 126, 127.
Stephen's Hours in a Library '
quoted, 305, 325.
Stigant, Mr., on Sidney's Arca-
dia,' 125, 126.
St. John, J. A., cited, 4, 30.
Strype on Fox's Book of Martyrs,
48.
Sturmius's 'De Institutione Prin-
cipis,' 108.
INDEX.
383
F
1
،
Sutcliffe's Crusoniana' cited, 311.
Swift's 'Project for the Advance-
ment of Religion,' 284; his con-
tribution to the 'Tatler,' 297; his
'Gulliver,' 319.
Swiss Family Robinson, The,' by
whom written, 320, 321; charac-
terized by Miss Yonge and
Nodier, 321.
Synge's 'Gentleman's Religion,'207.
'Table Talk,' Selden's, character-
istics of, 251; extent of time
over which it ranges, 253; its
fragmentary nature, 253; when
published, 253; the preface
quoted, 254; the contents, 255;
the title-page, 255; described by
Mr. Arber, 255, 256; selections
from, 256-271; criticized by
Coleridge, Johnson, Hallam,
and Hannay, 271, 272.
Talfourd, Lamb, Barry Cornwall,
John Hamilton Reynolds, and
Hazlitt described by, 371.
Talkapace, Tibet, in Ralph Roy-
ster Doyster,' 80.
'Tatler, The,' suggested by the
Thackeray on England in the
eighteenth century, 292–294.
Theft, punishment of, in the time
of More, 14, 15.
Theodoricus. See Martin.
Theopompus of Chios, the Oavμaσia
of, 3, 4.
Thoreau on Quarles, 184.
Tinker, a, Overbury's description
of, 162, 163.
"Weekly Review,' 277, 278; pro-
jected by Steele, 278; its object
described by the editor, 280-
283; contents of the first six
numbers, 283-285; variety of
its topics, 285-287; its charac-
ter sketches, 287, 288; its moral
lessons, 288, 289; its power of
extracting wisdom from trifles,
290, 21; its fulness of life, 291,
292; its pictures of contemporary
men and manners, 292; its popu-
larity, 294; compared with the
'Spectator,' 295; praised by Haz-
litt, 295, 296; the occasional
contributors, 297.
Taylor, a, Overbury's description
of, 163.
Temple, the, Lamb's reminiscences
of, 359.
Tennyson's versification, 73; his
'Idylls of the King,' 126.
'Tithes, History of,' by Selden, 272.
'Titles of Honour,' Selden's, 272.
Todd on Quarles, 183.
"Toxophilus, Ascham's, quoted
from, 87, 88; when published,
92; described, 95, 96.
Tragedy, the first English, 57—73.
Transubstantiation, Selden's defi-
nition of, 264.
Trunnion, Commodore, referred to,
161.
Tunstall, Bishop, his embassy to
Charles V., 4: his correspond-
ence with More, 6.
Tusser's Five Hundreth Points of
Good Husbandrie' quoted, 76.
Tyndar, a parasite, in' Gorboduc,'
63.
}
Udall, Nicholas, his authorship of
'Ralph Royster Doyster,' 73, 74;
sketch of his life and works, 74
-77.
Umbra, in the 'Tatler,' 286.
'Urn Burials,' Browne's, 225.
Utopia, meaning of the word, 18;
natural features of the fabled
island, 18, 19; its internal eco-
nomy, 19; its chief city, 19, 20;
its chief river, 20; its system of
government, 21, 22; trades and
manner of life of its inhabitants,
22-25; their moral teaching, 25,
27; their religious opinions, 27,
28.
Utopia,' More's, its intrinsic and
relative value, 1; a product of
the age, 2; its origin in Plato
and other ancient writers, 3, 4;
its immediate origin, 4, 5; its
384
SOME FAMOUS BOOKS.
first appearance, 5, 6; its reception
in Europe, 6, 7; its successive
editions, 7, 8; its translation into
English, 8, 9; described by Ralph
Robinson, 9, 10; its tactical
skilfulness, 10, 11; the story of
Hythloday, 11-13; character-
istics of and quotations from
the first book, 13-18; analysis
of the second book, 18-28; the
vraisemblance of the narrativé,
28-30; its successors, 30, 31.
Valentine's Day, Lamb on, 369.
Videna, in Sackville's Gorboduc,'
63.
C
Virtue, the blessings of, Chester-
field on, 348, 349.
"Vision of the Angelick World,'
Defoe's, 330.
Walpole's 'Royal and Noble Au-
thors' quoted, 114, 115; on
Quarles, 183.
Warton on Sackville's' Gorboduc,'
58, 61, 64.
Watson's History of Halifax'
cited, 196.
'Weekly Review,' Defoe's, when
started, 274; described by Mr.
Forster, 275; its Scandalous Club,
275-277; the origin of the
''Tatler,' 277, 278.
'Whist, Mrs. Battle's Opinions on,'
364.
Whitefoote's
•
Character of Sir
Thomas Browne' cited, 195.
Whitelocke's 'Memorials' quoted,
258.
Whitgift, Archbishop, on Fox's
Book of Martyrs, 48.
Whitney's Choice of Emblemes,'
when published, 171; quoted,
174-177.
Widow, an ordinary, Overbury's
description of, 163.
'Wife, The,' Overbury's poem of,
146-149; his poem of "The
Choyce of a Wife,' 149, 150; his
character of A Good Wife,'
155.
Wilkin's memoir of Browne quoted,
196, 199.
'Wilkins, Peter, The Life and Ad-
ventures of,' 320.
Wilson's 'Rule of Reason' quoted,
74.
Wither's 'Collection of Emblemes,'
172.
Wit of Women, the, Selden on, 271.
Women, Selden on, 271.
Wood's 'Athenæ Oxonienses'
cited, 35, 37, 39, 48, 54, 59, 74,
182, 195; Fasti Oxonienses
cited, 74.
Wycherly's comedies, 248, 283.
،
·
Yonge, Miss, the Swiss Family
Robinson' characterized by, 321.
Youth, Ascham on the upbringing
of, 109, 110.
Zelmane, assumed name of Pyro-
cles in 'Arcadia,' 136.
THE END.

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