Their manly voices, but when in their fists They breath wild whistles, and the beasts rude eare Heares their Curres barking, then by heapes they flie, Headlong together; So men, beastly giuen, 5 The manly soules voice, sacred Poesie, Whose Hymnes the Angels euer sing in heauen, Contemne, and heare not; but when brutish noises For Gaine, Lust, Honour, in litigious Prose Are bellow'd-out, and cracke the barbarous voices 10 Of Turkish Stentors, O! ye leane to those, Like itching Horse to blockes or high May-poles; And breake nought but the wind of wealth; wealth, All In all your Documents; your Asinine soules, Proud of their burthens, feele not how they gall. 15 But as an Asse, that in a field of weeds 20 Affects a thistle, and falles fiercely to it, That pricks and gals him, yet he feeds, and bleeds, Forbeares a while, and licks, but cannot woo it To leaue the sharpnes; when, to wreake his smart, He beates it with his foote, then backward kickes, Because the Thistle gald his forward part; Nor leaues till all be eate, for all the prickes ; Then falles to others with as hote a strife; And in that honourable warre doth waste 25 The tall heate of his stomacke, and his life; 30 So, in this world of weeds, you worldlings taste Your most-lou'd dainties; with such warre buy peace; Hunger for torment, vertue kicke for vice; Cares for your states do with your states increase, EDMUND BOLTON HYPERCRITICA, OR A RULE OF JUDGMENT FOR WRITING OR READING OUR HISTORY'S 1618? The chief Points or Summs of the Addresses. I. CONCERNING the Historical Use of the old Book of BRUTE, dedicated to ROBERT Earl of GLOCESTER, Brother of the Empress MAWD. II. The religious Necessity of Impartiality in Historiographers, and of Abstinence, in general, from Censure. III. 5 The Historical States of Times among us, from JULIUS 10 CESAR till King HENRY the Seventh, with Discovery's of our chief Historical Dangers. IV. Prime Gardens for gathering English: according to the true Gage or Standard of the Tongue, about 15 or 15 16 years ago. 83 Hypercritica: or A Rule of Judgement, for writing or reading our History's. ADDRESSE THE FIRST. To write the History of England is a Work superfluous, if it ever had an History: but, having had all other Honours, it only wanteth that. Polydor Virgil in England, and Paulus Æmilius in France, both of them Italians, 5 were entertain'd of Purpose. As if their Narrations ought to have most Belief, which were written by their Pens, who had least Interest in the Argument, or Relation to the Party's. This Counsel, whatsoever it seem'd to the Givers or Receivers, found less in Success among us 10 then it had in Probability. Many great Volumes carry among us the Titles of History's. But Learned men, and 1Sr Henry Savil one of them, absolutely deny that any of ours discharge that Office which the Titles promise. For my part I think that the most of them have their 15 Praises, and all of them their Uses towards the composition of an universal History for England. 1 Sect. II. Among the greatest wants in our ancient Authours are the wants of Art and Style, which, as they add to the lustre of the Works and Delights of the Reader, yet add 20 they nothing to the Truth; which they so esteemed, as they seem to have regarded nothing else. For without Truth, Art and Style come into the Nature of Crimes by Imposture. It is an act of high Wisdom, and not of 1 The place is set down in my third Addresse, Eloquence only, to write the History of so great and noble a People as the English. For the Causes of things are not only wonderfully wrapt one within the other, but placed oftentimes far above the ordinary Reach's of human Wit; and he who relates Events without their 5 Premisses and Circumstances deserves not the name of an Historian, as being like to him who numbers the Bones of a Man anatomized, or presenteth unto us the Bare Skeleton, without declaring the Nature of the Fabrick or teaching the Use of Parts. Sect. III. 10 The Part of heavenly Providence in the Actions of Men is generally left out by most of the Ethnicks in their Histories. Among whom copious Livy seems worthily the most religious, and consequently of theirs the best as Cornelius Tacitus (let not plain Dealing 15 offend his other Admirers) either the most irreligious, or with the most, and therefore the less worthy to be in Honour as a Cabinet Counsellour with any man to whom Piety towards powers divine is pretious.1 This some affirm deliberately: notwithstanding all that which Bocca- 20 lini in his late Lucianical Ragualias hath undertaken on his Behalf; as in their Anti-Tacitus, for Justification of those censures of levity, malice, and most apparent falsehood, which Tertullian, Orosius, and other of the ancient, Casaubon and other of the modern, brand upon him, is 25 (as they conceive) fully proved. On the other side Christian Authors, while for their ease they shuffled up the reasons of events, in briefly referring all causes immediately to the Will of God, have generally neglected Epist. ad Hen. 4tum, Gall. Reg. ante Polybium: illos excusari non posse judicamus, qui unicum hunc historicum omnibus aliis anteponunt. Quid enim principi, præsertim juveni, lectione illorum Annalium esse queat perniciosius? to inform their Readers in the ordinary means of Carriage in human Affairs, and thereby singularly maimed their Narrations. Philip de Comines and our Sr Thomas More (both of them great Counsellours of State to their several 5 Princes) are two of those very few Worthies, who, respecting as well the superior as the inferior Efficients of Operations in the World, come near to accomplish the most difficult duty of Historians. In which number as I wish to be one, so there is no fault to endeavour to be Io the only one; for, according to that of Quinctilian: Quid erat futurum, si nemo plus fecisset eo quem sequebatur ? 15 Sect. IV. Truth is the soveraigne praise of an History. For want whereof Lucian did condemn unto his hell Ctesias, Herodotus, and other of his Country men. And although himself were as false a Companion as any, yet Learning and Reason told him that Truth in Story was only to be sacrificed unto, as the Goddess of that brave Province, and that all other respects came after, with a very large distance between. Which makes Velleius Paterculus, that 20 courtly Historian, with his bis penetrata Britannia in flattery of Cæsar, rather to live for his Latin, and conceitful notions, then for his authority in matter; and Ammianus Marcellinus, notwithstanding his half barbarous style, to have a better and a greater Fame then polite 25 Paterculus. Sect. V. There is a great complaint among some of the most Learned, against Galfridus Arthurius, or Galfridus Monumethensis, for want of Truth and Modesty, as creating a BRUTE unto us for the Founder of our Britain. But 30 who is he that, proving it to be a Fiction, can prove it withal to be his? If that Work be quite abolished, |
