Page images
PDF
EPUB

sun, and studied conceits to perpetuate their name in heaven. The various cosmography of that part hath already varied the names of contrived constellations. Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in the Dog-star. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we find they are but like the earth, durable in their main bodies, alterable in their parts; whereof, beside comets and new stars, perspectives begin to tell tales, and the spots that wander about the sun, with Pharethon's favour, would make clear conviction.

Urn Burial.

OWEN FELLTHAM, OR FEL-
THAM,

born about 1608, died about 1678, lived for
some years in the family of the Earl of Tho-
mond, was the author of Resolves, Divine,
Moral, and Political, Lond., without date,
12mo; 2d edit., Lond., 1628, 4to; 3d, the first
complete edit., Lond., 1628, 4to; 12th edit..
1709, 13th edit., 1806, &c., 14th edit., 1820,
&c. Both of the last two editions were
edited, with an Account of the Author, by J.
Cumming. New edit., Lond., Pickering,
1839, 12mo; Century I., 1840, cr. 4to; The
Beauties of Owen Feltham, Selected from
his Resolves, by J. A., Lond., 1818, 12mo.

procure us far more honour than underhandedly seeking to disparage her. The former would show that we loved what we commended, while the latter tells the world we grudge that in others which we want in ourselves. It is one of the basest offices of man to make his tongue the lash of the worthy. Even if we do know of faults in others, I think we can scarcely show ourselves more nobly virtuous than in having the charity to conceal them; so that we do not flatter or encourage them in their failings. But to relate anything we may know against our neighbour, in his absence, is most unbeseeming conduct. And who will not condemn him as a traitor to reputation and society who tells the private fault of his friend to the public and ill-natured world? When two friends part they should lock up one another's secrets, and exchange their keys. The honest man will rather be a grave to his neighbour's errors than in any way expose them.

OF NEGLECT.

There is the same difference between diligence and neglect that there is between a garden properly cultivated and the sluggard's field which fell under Solomon's view. when overgrown with nettles and thorns. "We lay aside the Resolves as we part from our The one is clothed with beauty, the other is dearest friends, in the hope of frequently returning to them. We recommend the whole of them unpleasant and disgusting to the sight. to our readers' perusal. They will find therein Negligence is the rust of the soul, that cormore solid maxims, as much piety, and far better rodes through all her best resolutions. What writing, than in most of the pulpit lectures now nature made for use, for strength, for or current among us." (London) Retrospective Re-nament, neglect alone converts to trouble. view, x. 365. weakness, and deformity. We need only sit still, and diseases will arise from the mere want of exercise.

"For myself, I can only say that Feltham appears not only a laboured and artificial, but a shallow writer. Among his many faults, none strike me more than a want of depth, which his pointed and sententious manner renders more ridiculous.... He is one of our worst writers in point of style; with little vigour, he has less elegance."-HALLAM: Lit. Hist. of Europe, Introduc.

AGAINST DETRACTION.

In some dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride, that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth as excellent; so that, when they hear one justly praised, they will either openly detract from his virtues, or, if those virtues be like a clear and shining light, eminent and distinguished, so that he cannot be safely traduced by the tongue, they will then raise a suspicion against him by a mysterious silence, as if there were something remaining to be told, which over-clouded even his brightest glory. Surely, if we considered detraction to proceed, as it does, from envy, and to belong only to deficient minds, we should find that to applaud virtue would

How fair soever the soul may be, yet while connected with our fleshy nature it requires continual care and vigilance to prevent its being soiled and discoloured. Take the weeders from the Floralium and a very little time will change it to a wilderness. and turn that which was before a recreation for men into a habitation for vermin. Our life is a warfare; and we ought not, while passing through it, to sleep without a sentinel, or march without a scout. He who neglects either of these precautions exposes himself to surprise, and to becoming a prey to the diligence and perseverance of his adversary. The mounds of life and virtue, as well as those of pastures, will decay; and if we do not repair them, all the beasts of the field will enter, and tear up everything good which grows within them. With the religious and well-disposed a slight deviation from wisdom's laws will disturb the mind's fair peace. Macarius did penance for only killing a gnat in anger. Like the Jewish

THOMAS FULLER.

touch of things unclean, the least miscarriage requires purification. Man is like a watch: if evening and morning he be not wound up with prayer and circumspection he is unprofitable and false, or serves to mislead. If the instrument be not truly set it will be harsh and out of tune: the diapason dies when every string does not perform his part. Surely without a union to God we cannot be secure or well. Can he be happy who from happiness is divided? To be united to God we must be influenced by his goodness and strive to imitate his perfections. Diligence alone is a good patrimony; but neglect will waste the fairest fortune. One preserves and gathers; the other, like death, is the dissolution of all. The industrious bee, by her sedulity in summer, lives on honey all the winter. But the drone is not only cast out from the hive, but beaten and punished. Resolves.

THOMAS FULLER, born 1608, died 1661, was the author of The Historie of the Holy Warre, Camb., 1639, fol., The Holy and Profane State, Camb., 1642, fol., The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Jesus Christ untill the Year MDCXLVIII., Lond., 1655, fol., The History of the Worthies of England, Lond., 1662, fol., and other works.

"Next to Shakspeare, I am not certain whether Thomas Fuller beyond all other writers does not excite in me the sense and emotion of the marvellous; the degree in which any given faculty, or combination of faculties, is possessed and manifested, so far surpassing what we would have thought possible in a single mind, as to give one's admiration the flavour and quality of wonder. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, great man of an age that boasted of a galaxy of great men. In all his numerous volumes, on So many different subjects, it is

scarcely too much to say, that you will hardly find a page in which some one sentence out of every three does not deserve to be quoted for itself as a

motto or as a maxim."-S. T. COLERIDGE.

The historical works of Fuller are simply a caricature of the species of composition to which they professedly belong; a systematic violation of all its proprieties. The gravity and dignity of the historic muse are continually violated by him. But not only is he continually cracking his jokes and perpetrating his puns; his matter is as full of treason against the laws of history as his manner." -HENRY ROGERS: Edin. Rev., 1xxiv. 352-353, and in his Essays.

RULES FOR IMPROVING THE MEMORY. First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to remember. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened? Whereas those notions which get

61

in by "violenta possessio" will abide there till "ejectio firma," sickness, or extreme age dispossess them. It is best knocking in the nail overnight, and clinching it the next morning.

Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave! Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be overfull that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it: take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memorable; being above fourscore years of age, he perfectly could say by heart any Greek chapter in St. Paul's epistles, or anything else which he had learnt long before, but forgot whatsoever was newly told him; his memory, like an inn, retaining old guests, but having no room to entertain new.

Spoil not thy memory by thine own jealousy, nor make it bad by suspecting it. How canst thou find that true which thou

wilt not trust? St. Augustine tells of his friend Simplicius, who, being asked, could tell all Virgil's verses backward and forward, and yet the same party avowed to God that he knew not that he could do it till they did try him. Sure there is concealed strength in men's memories, which they

take no notice of.

Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than when it lies untoward flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most portable.

Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it betwixt thy memory and thy note-books. He that with Bias carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be beggared and bankrupt if a violent disease, a merciless thief, should rob and strip him. I know some have a commonplace against commonplace books, and yet, perchance, will privately make use of what they publicly declaim against. A commonplace book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning.

CONVERSATION.

The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion that heats not; whereas conference teaches and exercises at once. If I confer with an understanding man and a rude jester, he presses hard upon me on both sides; his imaginations raise up mine in more than ordinary pitch. Jealousy, glory, and contention stimulate and raise

[ocr errors]

as

it; and, provided it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved; and accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by way of civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it. . . . In earnest, I rather choose the frequentation of those that ruffle me than those that fear me. 'Tis a dull and hurtful pleasure to have to do with people who admire us and approve of all we say.

JOHN MILTON,

born 1608, died 1674, is but little known to

general readers as a prose writer, great as he was in this species of composition. We give some specimens,-taken from the Reason of Church Government urged against Prelatory, in two Books, Lond., 1641, 4to, Letter to Master Hartlib on Education, Lond.. 1544, 4to, and Areopagitica; a Speech to the Parliament of England for the liberty of unlicensed Printing, Lond., 1644, 4to.

As

me up to something above myself; and a consent of judgment is a quality totally offensive in conference. But, as our minds fortify themselves by the communication of vigorous and able understandings, 'tis not to be expressed how much they lose and degenerate by the continual commerce and frequentation we have with those that are mean and low. There is no contagion that spreads like that. I know sufficiently, by experience, what 'tis worth a yard. I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great persons, and to vaunt of a man's wit and eloquence, is in my opinion very unbecoming a man of honour. Impertinency is a scurvy quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease, little inferior to impertinence itself, and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. I enter into conference and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and wherein to take any deep root: no propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, though never so contrary "It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. to my own. There is no frivolous and excompositions, they deserve the attention of every travagant fancy that does not seem to me man who wishes to become acquainted with the suitable to the product of human wit.. full power of the English language. They abound The contradictions of judgments, then, do with passages compared with which the finest decneither offend nor alter, they only rouse lamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They and exercise me. We evade correction, are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is whereas we ought to offer and present ourstiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has the great selves to it, especially when it appears in poet ever risen higher than in those parts of his the form of conference, and not of authority. controversial works in which his feelings, excited At every opposition, we do not consider by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and whether or no it be just, but right or wrong lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic how to disengage ourselves; instead of ex-language, a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and tending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell me that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what. I love stout expressions amongst brave men, and to have them speak as they think. We must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity in conversation; a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigour of communication, like love in biting and scratching. It is not vigorous and generous enough if it be not quarrelsome; if civilized and artificial, if it treads nicely, and fears the shock. When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger; I advance towards him that controverts, that instructs me. The cause of truth ought to be the common cause both of one and the other. . . . I embrace and caress truth in what hand soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself and my conquered arms, as far off as I can discover

harping symphonies.'"-LORD MACAULAY: Edin. Rev., xliii. 345, and in his Essays.

"His prose writings are disagreeable, though not altogether deficient in genius."-HUME: Hist. of Eng.

"Milton's prose works are exceedingly stiff and pedantic."-DR. RICHARD FARMER: Goodhugh'■ E. G. Lib. Man., 43.

LITERARY ASPIRATIONS.

After I had, from my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, whom God recompense, been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at the schools, it was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or be taken to of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly the latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier, in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favoured to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at under twenty

JOHN MILTON.

or thereabout (for the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there), met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things which I had shifted, in scarcity of books and conveniences, to patch up among them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps, I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home; and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined to the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written, to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die. These thoughts at once possessed me, and these other, that if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruction of my country. For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, that were a toilsome vanity; but to be an interpreter, and relater of the best and safest things among my own citizens throughout this island, in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world, whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics. . . . Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; not to be obtained by the invocation of dame memory and her syren daughters; but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar,

63

to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them. The Reason of Church Government.

TRUE AND FALSE EDUCATION. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful: first we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year. . . .

And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old error of the universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with arts most easy (and those be such as are most obvious to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics, so that they having but newly left those gymnastic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under another climate, to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do for the most part grow into hatred and contempt of learning, mocked and deluded all this while with ragged notions and babblements, while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge; till poverty or youthful years call them importunately their several ways, and hasten them, with the sway of friends, either to an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous divinity; some allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promis

ing and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees; others betake them to state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery and courtshifts, and tyrannous aphorisms, appear to them the highest points of wisdom; instilling their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery; if, as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit retire themselves (knowing no better) to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in feasts and jollity; which, indeed, is the wisest and the safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. And these are the errors, and these are the fruits of misspending our prime youth at schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned.

I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious, indeed, at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire of such a happy nature, than we have now to hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of sowthistles and brambles which is commonly set before them, as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docile age.

I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.

Letter to Master Hartlib on Education.

THE CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. I deny not but that it is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

|

And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Tis true no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and soft essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life. . . . When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which is done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that writ before him; if in this the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities, can bring him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of book-writing; and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title, to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer; it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning. And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching; how can he be a doctor in his book, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whereas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction, of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? Areopagitica.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »