GOD'S WISDOM AND ETERNITY (From the same) mon ears like a fable. For the world, I count it not an inn, but an hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of my own frame 5 that I cast mine eye on: for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above In my solitary and retired imagination (neque enim cum porticus aut me lectulus accepit, desum mihi)' I remember I am not alone; and therefore forget not to contemplate him and his attributes, who is ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, his wisdom and eternity. With the one I recreate, with the other 10 Atlas's shoulders. That mass of flesh that I confound, my understanding: for who can speak of eternity without a solecism, or think thereof without an ecstasy? circumscribes me limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it hath an end cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Time we may comprehend; 'tis but five days older than ourselves, and hath the same horo- 15 Though the number of the ark do measure my scope with the world; but to retire so far back as to apprehend a beginning,—to give such an infinite start forwards as to conceive an end,in an essence that we affirm hath neither the In body, it comprehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any. Ruat coelum, fiat voluntas tua,1 salveth all; so that, whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content; and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am, happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more appar one nor the other, it puts my reason to St. 20 us; something that was before the elements, Paul's sanctuary; my philosophy dares not and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature say the angels can do it. God hath not made a tells me I am the image of God, as well as creature that can comprehend him; 'tis a scripture. He that understands not thus much privilege of his nature: "I am that I am" was hath not his introduction or first lesson, and his own definition unto Moses;' and 'twas a 25 is yet to begin the alphabet of man. Let me short one to confound mortality, that durst question God, or ask him what he was. deed, he only is; all others have and shall be; but, in eternity, there is no distinction of tenses; and therefore that terrible term, pre- 30 destination, which hath troubled so many weak heads to conceive, and the wisest to explain, is in respect to God no prescious determination of our estates to come, but a definitive blast of his will already fulfilled, and 35 ent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer at the instant that he first decreed it; for, to his eternity, which is indivisible, and altogether, the last trump is already sounded, the reprobates in the flame, and the blessed in Abraham's bosom. St. Peter speaks modestly 40 when he saith, "A thousand years to God are but as one day:" for, to speak like a philosopher, those continued instances of time, which flow into a thousand years, make not to him one moment. What to us is to come, to 45 and such as can be content with a fit of happihis eternity is present; his whole duration being but one permanent point, without succession, parts, flux, or division. apprehension of anything that delights us, in our dreams, than in our waked senses. Without this I were unhappy; for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend, but my friendly dreams in the night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest; for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, ness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams, to those of the next, as the phantasms 50 of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equal delusion in both; and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other. We are somewhat more than ourselves Now for my life, it is a miracle for thirty in our sleeps; and the slumber of the body years, which to relate, were not a history, but 55 seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is THE DIVINITY IN MAN (From the same, Part II) a piece of poetry, and would sound to com the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. 1 Let the heavens perish, so thy will be done. 2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think, with the hare in the fable, that running with snails (so they count the rest of their There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive 10 schoolfellows) they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would finely take them napping. to be these: First, young scholars make this fession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, 3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, when they are new. Many boys are muddyheaded till they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. Bristol diamonds* are both bright and squared and pointed by nature, and yet are soft and worthless; whereas, Orient ones in India are rough and rugged, naturally. Hard, and dull natures of youth acquit themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts, which are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed. 4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as lief be schoolboys 30 as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as Cooper's "Dictionary" and Scapula's "Lexicon" are chained to the desks therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are bunglers in this: but God of His goodness 35 world can never set a razor's edge on that hath fitted several men for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State in all conditions may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric thereof may say, "God hewed out this stone, and appointed it to lie 40 in this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth most excellent." And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy 45 children to swallow, hanging clogs on the success. He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books, and ranks their dispositions into several forms.2 And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to 50 descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all, saving some few exceptions to, these general rules: 1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. 55 The conjunction of two such planets in a youth 1They made it possible for themselves to neglect the school by employing an usher as their proxy. 2 Groups, or classes, as those given in the succeeding passage. which hath no steel in it. Such boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boatmakers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics which will not serve for scholars. He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. He is, and will be known to be, an absolute monarch in his school. If cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons an exemption from his rod (to live as it were in a peculiar, out of their master's jurisdiction), with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the late custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn youth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting with Naturally bright or clever. + Small quartz crystals found near the city of Bristol. him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away be- scholars, after their studying in the university, fore his obstinacy hath infected others. preferred to beggary. He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name raidoтpißns3 than waιdaywyós, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate the Muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies. Junius complains de insolento carnificina of his school- 10 master, by whom conscindebatur flagris septies aut octies in dies singulos. Yea, hear the lamentable verses of poor Tusser' in his own life: "From Paul's I went, to Eton sent, "For fault but small, or none at all, It came to pass thus beat I was; See Udall, 10 see, the mercy of thee, To me, poor lad." He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to teach his scholars 5 logic. For, besides that logic may have an action of trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they had before. 15 Out of his school he is no whit pedantical in carriage or discourse; contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not jingle with it in every company wherein he comes. To conclude, let this amongst other motives make schoolmasters careful in their place, that the eminencies of their scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who otherwise in obscurity had 20 altogether been forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned Ascham,12 his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly school, in the same county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr. Whitaker?13 Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as for his scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. 14 This made the Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their Such an Orbilius11 mars more scholars than 25 he makes: their tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer, which spake plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence; and whose mauling 30 founder, to sacrifice a ram to the memory of them about their heads hath dulled those who, in quickness, exceeded their master. He makes his school free to him who sues to him in forma pauperis. And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he 35 is a beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays the scholar in his whipping. Rather are diligent lads to be encouraged with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard concern- 40 ing Mr. Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who would never suffer any wandering begging scholar (such as justly the statute hath ranked in the forefront of rogues) to come into his school, but would thrust him out 45 with earnestness (however privately charitable unto him), lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books by seeing some Conidas, his schoolmaster that first instructed OF SELF-PRAISING He whose own worth doth speak, need not speak his own worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from emptiness of desert: whereas the conquerors in the Olympian games did not put on the laurels on their own heads, but waited till some other did it. Only anchorets1 that want company may crown themselves with their own commendations. It showeth more wit but no less vanity to commend one's self not in a straight line but by reflection. Some sail to the port of their own praise by a side-wind; as when they dispraise themselves, stripping themselves naked Paidotribes, one who teaches boys wrestling, or 50 of what is their due, that the modesty of the gymnastics. A pedagogue, a teacher. 7 About the excessive chastisement. He was torn to pieces by scourges seven or right times daily. Thomas Tusser (1524?-1580), chiefly remembered by his rugged but shrewd and entertaining rhymes the Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. 10 Nicholas Udall (1505-1556), headmaster of Eton in 1534, and author of the early comedy, Ralph Roister Doister. 11 Orbilius Pupillus, a Roman schoolmaster noted for his severity. Horace, one of his pupils, calls him plagosus Orbilius, Orbilius fond of flogging. beholders may clothe them with it again; or when they flatter another to his face, tossing the ball to him that he may throw it back again to them; or when they commend that quality, 12 Roger Ascham, v. p. 133. 13 William Whitaker (1547-1595), a learned theologian, professor of divinity, and master of St. John's college, Cambridge. 14 Lancelot Andrews (1555-1626), successively Bishop of Chichester and of Winchester. 1 Anchorites. wherein themselves excel, in another man Once a dunce, void of learning but full of books, flouted a library-less scholar with these words, Salve, doctor sine libris:2 but the next day the scholar coming into this jeerer's study 5 crowded with books,-Salvete, libri, saith he, sine doctore.3 2. Few books well selected are best. Yet, as a certain fool bought all the pictures that came out, because he might have his choice; such is the vain humour of many men in gathering of books: yet when they have done all, they miss their end, it being in the editions of authors as in the fashions of clothes, when a man thinks he hath gotten the latest and newest, presently another newer comes out. 3. Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of. Namely, first voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, only to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them you look through them; and he that peeps through the casement of the index sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when it comes most violently from him in his own defence. For though modesty binds a man's tongue to the peace in this point, yet, 15 being assaulted in his credit, he may stand upon his guard, and then he doth not so much praise as purge himself. One braved a gentleman to his face that in skill and valour he came far behind him. ."Tis true," said the other, 20 "for when I fought with you, you ran away before me." In such a case it was well returned, and without any just aspersion of pride. He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil. Yet 25 cannot be excused who perfunctorily pass some glory in their shame, counting the stains of sin the best complexion for their souls. These men make me believe it may be true what Mandeville writes of the Isle of Somabarre, in the East Indies, that all the nobility 30 have long lived in those places where they thereof brand their faces with a hot iron in token of honour. He that boasts of sins never committed is a double devil. . . . Some, who would sooner over authors of consequence, and only trade in their tables of contents. These, like citycheaters, having gotten the names of all country gentlemen, make silly people believe they never were, and flourish with skill in those authors they never seriously studied. 4. The genius of the author is commonly dis covered in the dedicatory epistle. Many place creep into a scabbard than draw a sword, 35 the purest grain in the mouth of the sack for boast of their robberies, to usurp the esteem of valour; whereas, first let them be well whipped for their lying, and as they like that let them come afterward and entitle themselves to the gallows. OF BOOKS (From the same) Solomon saith truly, "Of making many books there is no end;" so insatiable is the thirst of men therein: as also endless is the desire of many in buying and reading them. But we come to our rules. 1. It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a large library. As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well furnished armory. I guess chapmen to handle or buy; and from the dedication one may probably guess at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus, when once a gentleman admired how 40 so pithy, learned, and witty a dedication was matched to a flat, dull, foolish book: "In truth," said another, "they may be well matched together, for I profess they are nothing akin." 45 5. Proportion an hour's meditation to an hour's reading of a staple author. This makes a man master of his learning, and dispirits the book into the scholar. The King of Sweden never filed his men above six deep in one com 50 pany, because he would not have them lie in useless clusters in his army, but so that every particular soldier might be drawn out into service. Books that stand thin on the shelves, yet so as the owner of them can bring forth good housekeeping by the smoking, not the 55 every one of them into use, are better than far number of the tunnels, as knowing that many better libraries. 2 Good-day, doctor without books. 3 Greeting to you, books, without a scholar. 4 Swindlers, "confidence men.' " Breathes the soul of the book from it into the scholar. 6 Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon 1608-1674 AT NOTTINGHAM 6. Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printer hath lost. Arias Montanus, in printing the Hebrew Bible, (commonly called the Bible of the King of Spain) much wasted himself, and was accused in the court 5 CHARLES I. SETS UP HIS STANDARD of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, pro tantorum laborum præmio, vix veniam impetravit. Likewise, Christopher Plantin, by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp, through the unreasonable 10 actions of the king's officers, sunk and almost ruined his estate. And our worthy English knight, who set forth the golden-mouthed Fathers in a silver print, was a loser by it. (From The History of the Rebellion, 1704–7) (His Majesty) forthwith published a declaration, that had been long ready, in which he recapitulated all the insolent and rebellious actions which the two houses had committed against him: and declared them "to be guilty; 7. Whereas foolish pamphlets prove most 15 and forbad all his subjects to yield any obedi ence to them:" and, at the same time, published his proclamation; by which "he required all men who could bear arms, to repair to him at Nottingham, by the twenty-fifth of August1 beneficial to the printers. When a French printer complained that he was utterly undone by printing a solid serious book of Rabelais concerning physic, Rabelais, to make him recompense, made that his jesting, scurrilous 20 following; on which day he would set up his work, which repaired the printer's loss with advantage. Such books the world swarms too much with. When one had set out a witless pamphlet, writing Finis at the end thereof, another wittily wrote beneath it, . . . "Nay, there thou liest, my friend, In writing foolish books there is no end." And surely such scurrilous, scandalous papers do more than conceivable mischief. First, their lusciousness puts many palates out of taste, that they can never after relish any solid and wholesome writers; secondly, they cast dirt on the faces of many innocent persons, which, dried on by continuance of time, can 35 never after be washed off; thirdly, the pamphlets of this age may pass for records with the next (because publicly uncontrolled), and what we laugh at, our children may believe; fourthly, grant the things true they jeer at, 40 yet this music is unlawful in any Christian church, to play upon the sins and miseries of others, the fitter object of the elegies and the satires of all truly religious. royal standard there, which all good subjects were obliged to attend." . . The king came to Nottingham two or three days before the day he had appointed to set 25 up the standard; having taken Lincoln in his way, and drawn some arms from the train bands of that country with him to Nottingham; from whence, the next day, he went to take a view of his horse; whereof there were several 30 troops well armed, and under good officers, to the number of seven or eight hundred men; with which, being informed, "that there were some regiments of foot marching towards Coventry, by the Earl of Essex's orders," he made haste thither; making little doubt but that he should be able to get thither before them, and so to possess himself of that city; and he did get thither the day before they came; but found not only the gates shut against him, but some of his servants shot and wounded from the walls: nor could all his messages and summons prevail with the mayor and magistrates, before there was any garrison there, to suffer the king to enter into the city. So great an interest and reputation the parliament had gotten over the affections of the people, whose hearts were alienated from any reverence to the government. But what do I speaking against multiplicity 45 of books in this age, who trespass in this nature myself? What was a learned man's compliment, may serve for my confession and conclusion:-Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen a scribendo temperare non possint.' A Spanish oriental scholar of the 16th century. A French printer, who became a resident of Antwerp, and established a famous printing-house there about 1555. Here he published a polyglot Bible in 1569-72. The king could not remedy the affront, but 50 went that night to Stonely, the house then of Sir Thomas Lee; where he was well received; and, the next day, his body of horse, having a clear view, upon an open campania, for five or six miles together, of the enemy's small body St. John, a father of the Greek Church, called Chrysostom, or golden-mouthed," on account of his elo- 55 of foot, which consisted not of above twelve quence. A magnificent and costly edition of Chrysostom's works was issued by the great English scholar Sir Henry Sarile, between 1610 and 1613. Many like myself struggle with this complaint, that while they do not know how to write, they are yet unable to refrain from writing. hundred men, with one troop of horse, which marched with them over that plain, retired before them, without giving them one charge; 1 In the year 1642. |