THOMAS STANLEY-SIR WILLIAM DUGDALE- During this period there lived several writers of great industry, whose works, though not on subjects calculated to give the names of the authors much popular celebrity, have yet been of considerable use to subsequent literary men. THOMAS STANLEY (1625-1678) is the author of an erudite and bulky compilation, entitled The History of Philosophy; containing the Lives, Opinions, Actions, and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect. Of this the first volume appeared in 1655, and the fourth in 1662. Its style is uncouth and obscure; and the work, though still resorted to as a mine of information, has been in other respects superseded by more elegant and less voluminous productions. SIR WILLIAM DUGDALE (1605-1686) was highly distinguished for his knowledge of heraldry and antiquities. His work entitled The Baronage of England, is esteemed as without a rival in its own department; and his Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated (1656), has been placed in the foremost rank of county histories. He published also a History of St Paul's Cathedral; and three volumes of a great work entitled Monasticon Anglicanum (1655-1673), intended to embrace the history of the monastic and other religious foundations which existed in England before the Reformation. Besides several other publications, Dugdale left a large collection of manuscripts, which are now to be found in the Bodleian library at Oxford, and at the Herald's college. ANTHONY WOOD (1632-1695), a native of Oxford, was addicted to similar pursuits. He published, in 1691, a well-known work entitled Athena Oxonienses, being an account of the lives and writings of almost all the eminent authors educated at Oxford, and many of those educated at the university of Cambridge. This book has been of much utility to the compilers of biographical works, though, in point of composition and impartiality, it is held in little esteem. Wood appears to have been a respecter of truth, but to have been frequently misled by narrow-minded prejudices and hastily-formed opinions. His style is poor and vulgar, and his mind seems to have been the reverse of philosophical. He compiled also a work on the history and antiquities of the university of Oxford, which was published only in Latin, the translation into that language being made by Dr Fell, bishop of Oxford. ELIAS ASHMOLE (1617-1692), a famous antiquary and virtuoso, was a friend of Sir William Dugdale, whose daughter he married. In the earlier part of his life he was addicted to astrology and alchemy, but afterwards devoted his attention more exclusively to antiquities, heraldry, and the collection of coins and other rarities. His most celebrated work, entitled The Institution, Laws, and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, was published in 1672. A collection of rarities, books, and manuscripts, which he presented to the university of Oxford, constituted the foundation of the Ashmolean museum now existing there. JOHN AUBREY (16261700) studied at Oxford, and, while there, aided in the collection of materials for Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum;' at a later period, he furnished valuable assistance to Anthony Wood. His only published work is a collection of popular superstitions relative to dreams, portents, ghosts, witchcraft, &c., under the title of Miscellanies. His manuscripts, of which * Take the following sentence as a specimen: Scepticism is a faculty opposing phenomena and intelligibles all manner of ways; whereby we proceed through the equivalence of contrary things and speeches, first to suspension, then to indistur bance.' many are preserved in the Ashmolean museum and the library of the Royal Society, prove his researches to have been very extensive, and have furnished much useful information to later antiquaries. Aubrey has been too harshly censured by Gifford as a credulous fool; yet it must be admitted that his power of discriminating truth from falsehood was by no means remarkable. Three volumes, published in 1813, under the title of Letters written by Eminent Persons in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, &c. with Lives of Eminent Men, are occupied principally by very curious literary anecdotes, which Aubrey communicated to Anthony Wood. THOMAS RYMER, a distinguished historical antiquary, is the last of his class whom we shall mention at present. Having been appointed royal historiographer in 1692, he availed himself of the opportunities of research which his office afforded him, and in 1704 began to publish a collection of public treaties and compacts, under the title of Fadera, Conventiones, et cujuscunque generis Acta Publica, inter Reges Anglia et alios Principes, ab anno 1101. Of this work he published fifteen volumes folio, being assisted in his labours by Robert Sanderson, another industrious antiquary, by whom five more were added after Rymer's death in 1715. The Fodera,' though immethodical and ill digested, is a highly valuable publication, and, indeed, is indispensable to those who desire to be accurately acquainted with the history of England. Fifty-eight manuscript volumes, containing a great variety of historical materials collected by Rymer, are preserved in the British museum. TOM D'URFEY AND TOM BROWN. Very different in character from these grave and ponderous authors were their contemporaries Toм D'URFEY and Toм BROWN, who entertained the public in the reign of William III. with occasional whimsical compositions both in prose and verse, which are now valued only as conveying some notion of the taste and manners of the time. D'Urfey's comedies, which possess much farcical humour, have long been considered too licentious for the stage. As Why, thou diminutive inconsiderable wretch, said I in a great passion to him, thou worthless idle loggerhead, thou pigmy in sin, thou Tom Thumb in iniquity, how dares such a puny insect, as thou art, have the impudence to enter the lists with Louis le Grand! Thou valuest thyself upon firing a church, but how! when the mistress of the house was gone out to assist Olympias. Tis plain, thou hadst not the courage to do it when the goddess was present, and upon the spot. But what is this to what my royal master can boast of, that had destroyed a hundred and a hundred such foolish fabrics in his time. a merry and facetious companion, his society was which was two hundred years a-building; therefore, greatly courted, and he was a distinguished com- gentlemen, lavish not away all your praises, I beseech poser of jovial and party songs. In the 29th num-you, upon one man, but allow others their share. ber of The Guardian,' Steele mentions a collection of sonnets published under the title of Laugh and be Fat, or Pills to Purge Melancholy; at the same time censuring the world for ungratefully neglecting to reward the jocose labours of D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this treatise, and to whose humorous productions so many rural squires in the remotest part of this island are obliged for the dig. nity and state which corpulency gives them.' In the 67th number of the same work, Addison humorously solicits the attendance of his readers at a play for D'Urfey's benefit. The produce seems to have relieved the necessities of the poet, who continued to give forth his drolleries till his death in 1723. TOM BROWN, who died in 1704, was a merry fellow' and libertine, who, having by his immoral conduct lost the situation of schoolmaster at Kingston-uponThames, became a professional author and libeller in the metropolis. His writings, which consist of dialogues, letters, poems, and other miscellanies, display considerable learning as well as shrewdness and humour, but are deformed by obscene and scurrilous buffoonery. From the ephemeral nature of the subjects, very few of them can now be perused with interest; indeed the following extracts comprise nearly all the readable passages that can with delicacy be presented in these modern times. He had no sooner made his exit, but, cries an odd sort of a spark, with his hat buttoned up before, like a country scraper, Under favour, sir, what do you think of me? Why, who are you? replied I to him. Who am I, answered he; why, Nero, "the sixth emperor of Rome, that murdered my Come, said I to him, to stop your prating, I know your history well as yourself, that murdered your mother, kicked your wife down stairs, despatched two apostles out of the world, begun the first persecution against the Christians, and lastly, put your master Seneca to death. [These actions are made light of, and the sarcastic shade proceeds-] Whereas, his most Christian majesty, whose advocate I am resolved to be against all opposers whatever, has bravely and generously starved a million of poor Hugonots at home, and sent t'other million of [Letter from Scarron in the Next World to Louis XIV.] them a-grazing into foreign countries, contrary to solemn edicts, and repeated promises, for no other All the conversation of this lower world at present provocation, that I know of, but because they were runs upon you; and the devil a word we can hear in such coxcombs as to place him upon the throne. In any of our coffee-houses, but what his Gallic majesty short, friend Nero, thou mayest pass for a rogue is more or less concerned in. 'Tis agreed on by all the third or fourth class; but be advised by a stranger, our virtuosos, that since the days of Dioclesian, no and never show thyself such a fool as to dispute the prince has been so great a benefactor to hell as your-pre-eminence with Louis le Grand, who has murdered self; and as much a master of eloquence as I was once more men in his reign, let me tell thee, than thou hast thought to be at Paris, I want words to tell you how murdered tunes, for all thou art the vilest thrummer much you are commended here for so heroically tramp-upon cat-gut the sun ever beheld. However, to give ling under foot the treaty of Ryswick, and opening a new scene of war in your great climacteric, at which age most of the princes before you were such recreants, as to think of making up their scores with heaven, and leaving their neighbours in peace. But you, they say, are above such sordid precedents; and rather than Pluto should want men to people his dominions, are willing to spare him half a million of your own subjects, and that at a juncture, too, when you are not overstocked with them. This has gained you a universal applause in these regions; the three Furies sing your praises in every street: Bellona swears there's never a prince in Christendom worth hanging besides yourself; and Charon bustles for you in all companies. He desired me about a week ago to present his most humble respects to you, adding, that if it had not been for your majesty, he, with his wife and children, must long ago been quartered upon the parish; for which reason he duly drinks your health every morning in a cup of cold Styx next his conscience. * Last week, as I was sitting with some of my acquaintance in a public-house, after a great deal of impertinent chat about the affairs of the Milanese, and the intended siege of Mantua, the whole company fell a-talking of your majesty, and what glorious exploits you had performed in your time. Why, gentlemen, says an ill-looked rascal, who proved to be Herostratus, for Pluto's sake let not the grand monarch run away with all your praises. I have done something memorable in my time too; 'twas I who, out of the gaieté de cœur, and to perpetuate my name, fired the famous temple of the Ephesian Diana, and in two hours consumed that magnificent structure, the devil his due, I will say it before thy face, and behind thy back, that if thou hadst reigned as many years as my gracious master has done, and hadst had, instead of Tigellinus, a Jesuit or two to have governed thy conscience, thou mightest, in all probability, bave made a much more magnificent figure, and been inferior to none but the mighty monarch I have been talking of. Having put my Roman emperor to silence, I looked about me, and saw a pack of grammarians (for so I guessed them to be by their impertinence and noise) disputing it very fiercely at the next table; the mat ter in debate was, which was the most heroical age; and one of them, who valued himself very much upen his reading, maintained, that the heroical age, pr perly so called, began with the Theban, and ended with the Trojan war, in which compass of time that glorious constellation of heroes, Hercules, Jason, The seus, Tideus, with Agamemnon, Ajax, Achilles, Het tor, Troilus, and Diomedes flourished; men that had all signalised themselves by their personal gallantry and valour. His next neighbour argued very fiercely for the age wherein Alexander founded the Grecian | monarchy, and saw so many noble generals and commanders about him. The third was as obstreperous for that of Julius Caesar, and managed his argument with so much heat, that I expected every minute when these puppies would have gone to loggerheads in good earnest. To put an end to your controversy, gentle men, says I to them, you may talk till your lungs are foundered; but this I positively assert, that the present age we live in is the most heroical age, and that my master, Louis le Grand, is the greatest hero of it. Hark you me, sir, how do you make that appear H * * cried the whole pack of them, opening upon me all at once. By your leave, gentlemen, answered I, two to one is odds at foot-ball; but having a hero's cause to defend, I find myself possessed with a hero's vigour and resolution, and don't doubt but I shall bring you over to my party. That age, therefore, is the most heroical which is the boldest and bravest; the ancients, I grant you, got drunk and cut throats as well as we do; but, gentlemen, they did not sin upon the same foot as we, nor had so many discouragements to deter them; so 'tis a plain case, you see, that the heroism lies on our side. To apply this, then, to my royal master; he has filled all Christendom with blood and confusion; he has broke through the most solemn treaties sworn at the altar; he has strayed and undone infinite numbers of poor wretches; and all this for his own glory and ambition, when he's assured that hell gapes every moment for him. Now, tell me, whether your Jasons, your Agamemnons, or Alexanders, durst have ventured so heroically; or whether your pitiful emperors of Germany, your mechanic kings of England and Sweden, or your lousy states of Holland, have courage enough to write after so illustrious a copy. Thus, sir, you may see with what zeal I appear in your majesty's behalf, and that I omit no opportunity of magnifying your great exploits to the utmost of my poor abilities. At the same time, I must freely own to you, that I have met with some rough-hewn saucy rascals, that have stopped me in my full career when I have been expatiating upon your praises, and have so dumbfounded me with their villanous objections, that I could not tell how to reply to them. An Exhortatory Letter to an Old Lady that Smoked Tobacco. Madam-Though the ill-natured world censures you for smoking, yet I would advise you, madam, not to part with so innocent a diversion. In the first place, it is healthful; and, as Galen rightly observes, is a sovereign remedy for the toothache, the constant persecutor of old ladies. Secondly, tobacco, though it be a heathenish weed, it is a great help to Christian meditations; which is the reason, I suppose, that recommends it to your parsons, the generality of whom can no more write a sermon without a pipe in their mouths, than a concordance in their hands; besides, every pipe you break may serve to put you in mind of mortality, and show you upon what slender accidents man's life depends. I knew a dissenting minister who, on fast-days, used to mortify upon a rump of beef, because it put him, as he said, in mind that all flesh was grass; but, I am sure, much more is to be learnt from tobacco. It may instruct you that riches, beauty, and all the glories of the world, vanish like a vapour. Thirdly, it is a pretty plaything. Fourthly, and lastly, it is fashionable, at least 'tis in a fair way of becoming so. Cold tea, you know, has been a long while in reputation at court, and the gill as naturally ushers in the pipe, as the sword-bearer walks before the lord mayor. [An Indian's Account of a London Gaming-House.] The English pretend that they worship but one God, but for my part I don't believe what they say; for besides several living divinities, to which we may see them daily offer their vows, they have several other inanimate ones to whom they pay sacrifices, as I have observed at one of their public meetings, where I happened once to be. In this place there is a great altar to be seen, built round and covered with a green wachum, lighted in the midst, and encompassed by several persons in a sitting posture, as we do at our domestic sacrifices. At the very moment I came into the room, one of those, who I supposed was the priest, spread upon the altar certain leaves which he took out of a little book that he held in his hand. Upon these leaves were represented certain figures very awkwardly painted; however, they must needs be the images of some divinities; for, in proportion as they were distributed round, each one of the assistants made an offering to it, greater or less, according to his devotion. I observed that these offerings were more considerable than those they make in their other temples. After the aforesaid ceremony is over, the priest lays his hand in a trembling manner, as it were, upon the rest of the book, and continues some time in this posture, seized with fear, and without any action at all. All the rest of the company, attentive to what he does, are in suspense all the while, and the unmoveable assistants are all of them in their turn possessed by different agitations, according to the spirit which happens to seize them. One joins his hands together, and blesses Heaven; another, very earnestly looking upon his image, grinds his teeth; a third bites his fingers, and stamps upon the ground with his feet. Every one of them, in short, makes such extraordinary postures and contortions, that they seem to be no longer rational creatures. But scarce has the priest returned a certain leaf, but he is likewise seized by the same fury with the rest. He tears the book, and devours it in his rage, throws down the altar, and curses the sacrifice. Nothing now is to be heard but complaints and groans, cries and imprecations. Seeing them so transported and so furious, I judge that the God that they worship is a jealous deity, who, to punish them for what they sacrifice to others, sends to each of them an evil demon to possess him. Laconics, or New Maxims of State and Conversation. Though a soldier in time of peace is like a chimney in summer, yet what wise man would pluck down his chimney because his almanac tells him it is the middle of June? War, as the world goes at present, is a nursery for the gallows, as Hoxton is for the meetings, and Bartholomew fair for the two playhouses. Covetousness, like jealousy, when it has once taken root, never leaves a man but with his life. A rich banker in Lombard Street, finding himself very ill, sent for a parson to administer the last consolations of the church to him. While the ceremony was performing, old Gripewell falls into a fit. As soon as he was a little recovered, the doctor offered the chalice to him. No no,' cries he; 'I can't afford to lend you above twenty shillings upon't; upon my word I can't now.' Though a clergyman preached like an angel, yet he ought to consider that two hour-glasses of divinity are too much at once for the most patient constitution. In the late civil wars, Stephen Marshal split his text into twenty-four parts. Upon this, one of the congregation immediately runs out of church. Why, what's the matter?' sa, s a neighbour. Only going for my night-gown and slippers, for I find we must take up quarters here to-night.' If your friend is in want, don't carry him to the tavern, where you treat yourself as well as him, and entail a thirst and headache upon him next morning. To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, or fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of lace ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back. Put something into his pocket. What is sauce for a goose is sauce for a gander. When any calamities befell the Roman empire, the pagans used to lay it to the charge of the Christians :: when Christianity became the imperial religion, the Christians returned the same compliment to the pagans. That which passes for current doctrine at one juncture, and in one climate, won't do so in another. The cavaliers, in the beginning of the troubles, used to trump up the 12th of the Romans upon the parliament; the parliament trump'd it upon the army, when they would not disband; the army back again upon the parliament, when they disputed their orders. Never was poor chapter so unmercifully tossed to and fro again. Not to flatter ourselves, we English are none of the most constant and easy people in the world. When the late war pinched us, Oh! when shall we have a peace and trade again! We had no sooner a peace, but, Huzza, boys, for a new war! and that we shall soon be sick of. It may be no scandal for us to imitate one good quality of a neighbouring nation, who are like the turf they burn, slow in kindling, but, when once thoroughly lighted, keep their fire. What a fine thing it is to be well-mannered upon occasion! In the reign of King Charles II., a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon :'In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place, which 'tis not good manners to mention here.' To quote St Ambrose, or St Jerome, or any other red-lettered father, to prove any such important truth as this, That virtue is commendable, and all excess to be avoided, is like sending for the sheriff to come with the posse comitatus to disperse a few boys at foot-ball, when it may be done without him. Some divines make the same use of fathers and councils as our beaus do of their canes, not for support or defence, but mere ornament or show; and cover themselves with fine cobweb distinctions, as Homer's gods did with a cloud. Some books, like the city of London, fare the better for being burnt. Twas a merry saying of Rabelais, that a man ought to buy all the bad books that come out, because they will never be printed again. dard writers on the law of Scotland, and likewise published various political and antiquarian tracts. An important historical production of his pen, entitled Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, from the Restoration of Charles II., lay undiscovered in manu script till the present century, and was not printed till 1821. Though personally disposed to humanity and moderation, the severities which he was instru mental in perpetrating against the covenanters, in his capacity of Lord Advocate under a tyrannical government, excited against him a degree of popu lar odium which has not even yet entirely subsided. SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE. During this period Scotland produced many eminent men, but scarcely any who attempted composition in the English language. The difference between the common speech of the one country and that which was used in the other, had been widening ever since the days of Chaucer and James I., but particularly since the accession of James VI. to the English throne; the Scotch remaining stationary or declining, while the English was advancing in refinement of both structure and pronunciation. Accordingly, except the works of Drummond of Hawthornden, who had studied and acquired the language of Drayton and Jonson, there did not appear in Scotland any estimable pecimen of vernacular prose or poetry between the time of Maitland and Montgomery and that of SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, Lord Advocate under Charles II. and James II. (1636-1691), who seems to have been the only learned man of his time that maintained an acquaintance with the lighter departments of contemporary English literature. Sir George was a friend of Dryden, by whom he is mentioned with great respect; and he himself composed poetry, which, if it has no other merit, is at least in pure English, and appears to have been fashioned after the best models of the time. He also wrote some moral essays, which possess the same merits. These are entitled, On Happiness; The Religious Stoic; Sir George Mackenzie's Monument, Grayfriars He is more honourably distinguished as the founder of the library of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. At the Revolution, he retired to England, where his death took place in 1691. With the exception of his essays, the only compositions bearing a resemblance to English, which appeared in Scotland during the seventeenth century, were controversial pamphlets in politics and divinity, now generally forgotten. From the following specimens, the reader will perceive that Sir George Mackenzie was less successful in verse than in prose; and that even in the latter, his sentences are sometimes incorrectly and loosely constructed. The fourth extract is curious as a strong expression of his opinion of the more violent and enthusiastic religionists of his time. [Praise of a Country Life.] O happy country life! pure like its air; No passion here but love: here is no wound Display'd in Cælia, when she will be kind! [Against Envy.] We may cure envy in ourselves, either by considering how useless or how ill these things were, for which we envy our neighbours; or else how we possess as much or as good things. If I envy his greatness, I consider that he wants my quiet as also I consider that he possibly envies me as much as I do him; and that when I begun to examine exactly his perfections, and to balance them with my own, I found myself as happy as he was. And though many envy others, yet very few would change their condition even with those whom they envy, all being considered. And I have oft admired why we have suffered ourselves to be so cheated by contradictory vices, as to contemn this day him whom we envied the last; or why we envy so many, since there are so few whom we think to deserve as much as we do. Another great help against envy is, that we ought to consider how much the thing envied costs him whom we envy, and if we would take it at the price. Thus, when I envy a man for being learned, I consider how much of his health and time that learning consumes: if for being great, how he must flatter and serve for it; and if I would not pay his price, no reason I ought to have what he has got. Sometimes, also, I consider that there is no reason for my envy: he whom I envy deserves more than he has, and I less than I possess. And by thinking much of these, I repress their envy, which grows still from the contempt of our neighbour and the overrating ourselves. As also I consider that the perfections envied by me may be advantageous to me; and thus I check myself for envying a great pleader, but am rather glad that there is such a man, who may defend my innocence: or to envy a great soldier, because his valour may defend my estate or country. And when any of my countrymen begin to raise envy in me, I alter the scene, and begin to be glad that Scotland can boast of so fine a man ; and I remember, that though now I am angry at him when I compare him with myself, yet if I were discoursing of my nation abroad, I would be glad of that merit in him which now displeases me. Nothing is envied but what appears beautiful and charming; and it is strange that I should be troubled at the sight of what is pleasant. I endeavour also to make such my friends as deserve my envy; and no man is so base as to envy his friend. Thus, whilst others look on the angry side of merit, and thereby trouble themselves, I am pleased in admiring the beauties and charms which burn them as a fire, whilst they warm me as the sun. [Fame.] I smile to see underling pretenders, and who live in a country scarce designed in the exactest maps, sweat and toil for so unmassy a reputation, that, when it is hammered out to the most stretching dimensions, will not yet reach the nearest towns of a neighbouring country: whereas, examine such as have but lately returned from travelling in most flourishing kingdoms, and though curiosity was their greatest errand, yet ye will find that they scarce know who is chancellor or president in these places; and in the exactest histories, we hear but few news of the famousest pleaders, divines, or physicians; and by soldiers these are undervalued as pedants, and these by them as madcaps, and both by philosophers as fools. The first pernicious effect of bigotry is, that it obtrudes on us things of no moment as matters of the greatest importance. Now, as it would be a great defect in a man's sense to take a star for the sun, or in an orator to insist tenaciously on a point which deserved no consideration, so it must be a much greater error in a Christian to prefer, or even to equal, a mere circumstance to the solid points of religion. But these mistakes become more dangerous, by inducing their votaries to believe that, because they are orthodox in these matters, they are the only people of God, and all who join not are aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. And from this springs, first, that they, as friends of God, may be familiar with Him, and, as friends do one to another, may speak to Him without distance or premeditation. * Bigotry having thus corrupted our reasoning in matters of religion, it easily depraves it in the whole course of our morals and politics. The bigots, in the second place, proceed to fancy that they who differ from them are enemies to God, because they differ from God's people; and then the Old Testament is consulted for expressions denouncing vengeance against them: all murders become sacrifices, by the example of Phineas and Ehud; all rapines are hallowed by the Israelites borrowing the earrings of the Egyptians; and rebellions have a hundred forced texts of Scripture brought to patronise them. But I oftentimes wonder where they find precedents in the Old Testament for murdering and robbing men's reputation, or for lying so impudently for what they think the good old cause, which God foreseeing, has commanded us not to lie, even for his sake. The third link of this chain is-That they, fancying themselves to be the only Israel, conclude that God sees no sin in them, all is allowable to them; and (as one of themselves said) they will be as good to God another way.' |