By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Anon 9 their loud alarums he doth hear; And being low, never reliev'd by any." 1. Purblind parblind, half-blind. Compare parboil = partboil. 2. Musets, plans, the result of musings. 3. In the old sense, to bring his foes into a maze. 4. Cunning knowing. 5. Assorteth. 6. Note the alliterative words in this line. 7. Mental resource. 8. A diminutive from = kenning = an old word, ming. Compare drip, dribble; mud, muddle. 9. Anon = an one at once, or immediately. An is the old form of the preposition on, and is more generally found in the short form a, as in aloft, abroad, ashore. 10. The re in return must have the emphasis in reading. 11. Here Shakspeare's heart speaks out. His sympathy with the hare has been gradually growing. At first it was with the hunters. Ex. 4. Extract the idea common to all the four passages (a), (b), (c), and (d), and state it as clearly as possible. Ex. 5. Comment on the words in italics in the passages (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), and (j), somewhat in the following way: (e) There is some soul of goodness in things evil Would men observingly distil it out. Shakspeare indicates, by using the word distil, that it requires trouble and care and thought to find out the goodness in what appears to us evil-the same kind of thought as is employed by the distiller of perfumes, who rejects the impurities and the refuse of the plants he is at work upon, but carefully treasures every drop of the essential extract. The force of the word distil is strengthened by the adverb observingly. Good, Shakspeare seems to say, does not come to us in this world spontaneously; we must work for it; and the rejection of good along with evil is the result of thoughtlessness and want of consideration. (f) Shakspeare uses the word touch, because that sense is the truest, and the least liable to error. Spenser expresses the same idea in the phrase True as touch, etc. Ex. 6. Explain fully the metaphor in passage (k), and especially its appropriateness to the state of a king. Ex. 7. Select all the Latin words in passages (m), (n), (0), (p), (q), and (r); and give, if possible, pure English equivalents for them. Thus: Multitudinous crowding and crowded. = redden.. 1. CHAPTER IX. PROSE-WRITERS OF THE SHAKSPEARIAN AGE. HE five most prominent prose-writers in Shakspeare's time are SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, RICHARD HOOKER, JOHN LYLY, and FRANCIS BACON. Each of these men left his mark upon the English language, and was a powerful factor in influencing the thought of the age. 2. WALTER RALEIGH was born at Hayes Farm in Devonshire, in 1552. He was sent to Oriel College, Oxford; but he left at the early age of seventeen to fight on the side of the Huguenots in France. He spent nine years on the Continent; and in 1578 accepted the offer of his step-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to sail with him to Newfoundland. On his return he went to Ireland to aid in putting down the Desmond rebellion; and so brilliantly had Captain Raleigh distinguished himself, that he was selected to carry home the despatches to Queen Elizabeth. He was now attached to the court; and while engaged thus, he found and used the opportunity of placing his velvet cloak on a muddy crossing under the feet of her majesty. In a few years he was knighted, appointed Captain of the Queen's Body-Guard, and received a grant of 12,000 acres of land in Ireland from the forfeited estates of the Tyrones. But he could not rest. He obtained a patent for the colonization of North America, and made two expeditions for this purpose across the Atlantic. Both were unsuccessful; the natives attacked and beat off the settlers. The only result of these attempts was the introduction into Europe of the potato and of tobacco, two plants that have done more to modify the form of our civilization than any other, except the vine. Raleigh called the country in which he landed Virginia, in honour of the queen; and the name of the capital of North Carolina, Raleigh, is another historical mark of the past. He commanded a ship in the fight with the Armada. He married, contrary to the express com. mand of the queen, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who built the Exchange, and gave his name to Throgmorton Street. He then sailed up the Orinoco, and took possession of Guiana in the queen's name. But, with the accession of James the First, a terrible change struck his fortunes. He was accused of having taken part in the plot to seize the king, and place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne; and he was brought to trial in Winchester Castle. He was sentenced to death; but King James did not dare to carry out the sentence, and Raleigh lay in the Tower for twelve years. During this imprisonment he wrote his History of the World, a most daring design, as even now the materials for so vast an idea do not nearly exist. In 1617 the king was in one of his numerous straits for money, and bethought himself of a story of a gold-mine he had heard of on the Orinoco. Raleigh was sent out with fourteen ships to find this and other treasures. He attacked St. Thomas, a Spanish settlement, and took it, but found in it only two bars of gold; and he lost his eldest son, Walter, in the assault. Broken-hearted, and, as he wrote to his wife, "with broken brains," he returned to England. The Spanish ambassador demanded that Raleigh should be treated as a pirate; and James, who at the time was eager to marry Charles to the Infanta, ordered him to be executed upon the old sentence passed fifteen years before. Whether we look at the circumstances or at the motives of this act, we are compelled to consider it perhaps the meanest and most dastardly piece of injustice ever perpetrated by a person in authority. Before kneeling down, Raleigh felt the edge of the axe: "This is a sharp medicine," said he, "but it will cure all diseases." He was executed at Westminster, on the 29th of October 1618. 3. Professor Minto says that Raleigh wrote some of the "most flowing and modern-looking prose of this period;" but that only the preface and the conclusion of his History of the World have much literary value. The first extract here given is from the preface, and the second from the end of his history. But let every man value his own wisdom, as he pleaseth. Let the Rich man think all fools, that cannot equal his abundance; the Revenger esteem all negligent that have not trodden down their opposites 1; the Politician, 1 Opposites, i.e., enemies. It was a favourite trick of the seventeenth century writers to use adjectives as nouns, and to give them plurals. all gross that cannot merchandise 1 their faith: Yet when we once come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighed again, the Navigation of life takes end: Then it is, I say, that our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the uttermost 2 for all the pleasing passages of our life past. THE FOLLY OF AMBITION, AND POWER OF DEATH. 66 If we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add, that the kings and princes of the world have always laid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great ones which preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God while they enjoy life, or hope it, but they follow the counsel of Death upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdom of the world without speaking a word, which God, with all the words of His law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath made him, and loves him, is always deferred. "I have considered," saith Solomon, "all the works that are under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit; " but who believes it, till death tells it us? It was death, which, opening the conscience of Charles V., made him enjoin his son Philip to restore Navarre; and King Francis I. of France to command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects,3 and humbles them at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent, yea, even to hate their forepassed 5 happiness. He takes the account of 6 the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel7 1 Merchandise their faith, sell their convictions. 2 Uttermost a most irregular formation. Utter is a comparative of out; m is a fragment of an old superlative in ema; and ost is a second superlative (more usually found with the spelling est). We have therefore in one word, one comparative and two superlatives. 3 Abjects-see note 1, previous page. 4 At the instant, instantaneously. 5 Forepassed, former. 6 Takes the account of, like the mercantile phrase, "takes stock of," looks over and adds up his real value. 7 Gravel, Old French gravele, diminutive of grave = gravel. The word is of Celtic origin. that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. O eloquent, just, and mighty1 Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched 2 greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, hic jacet.3 4. PHILIP SIDNEY was born at Penshurst in Kent, in the year 1554. He was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and nephew to the Earl of Leicester. He was educated at Shrewsbury School; and he then went to Christ Church, Oxford. In 1572, when only seventeen, he set out to make the "grand tour" on the Continent for three years; and he happened to be in Paris, but living in the English embassy, during the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. During his travels, he visited all the great European scholars and statesmen, and made an earnest study of foreign politics. William the Silent of Orange pronounced him, at the age of twentytwo, one of the ripest statesmen in Europe. In 1580 he wrote the Arcadia, an heroic romance, and dedicated it to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. In 1581, he wrote the Apologie for Poetrie. In 1585 Elizabeth sent Lord Leicester with an army to help the Dutch Protestants in their struggle with Spain, and appointed Sidney Governor of Flushing. Sidney led a brigade in Leicester's army, and was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Zutphen. It was when riding, mortally wounded, from the field of battle that the incident of the cup of water occurred. He died in 1586, at the early age of thirty-two, and was buried in St. Paul's. 5. He writes a purer and more modern English than any writer of the sixteenth century. His diction is rich and varied; but his sentences are sometimes long and wearisome. His opinions on poetry are sound and thoughtful; and he enlarges on the power of poetry in human life with as much truth as eloquence. He says that 1 Eloquent, just, and mighty. Eloquent, because he can persuade and convince all hearers; just, because he gives every one his due. 2 Far-stretched, perhaps far-stretching would be nearer the meaning. But farstretched is in stronger contrast with narrow. 3 Hic jacet here lies. J |