which I shall forbear to name, because I will Auc. And I hope so too, though I fear it will. PISC. Gentlemen, let not prejudice pre- 10 possess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation, calm and quiet; we seldom take the name of God into our mouths, but it is either to praise Him or pray to Him; if others use it vainly in the midst 15 of their recreations, so vainly as if they meant to conjure, I must tell you it is neither our fault nor our custom; we protest against it. But pray remember, I accuse nobody; for as I would not make "a watery discourse," so 20 I would not put too much vinegar into it; nor would I raise the reputation of my own art by the diminution of another's. And so much for the prologue to what I meant to say. increase of wood to be from water of rain, or from dew, and not to be from any other element. And they affirm, they can reduce this wood back again to water; and they affirm, 5 also, the same may be done in any animal or vegetable. And this I take to be a fair testimony of the excellency of my element of water. The water is more productive than the earth. Nay, the earth hath no fruitfulness without showers or dews; for all the herbs, and flowers and fruits, are produced and thrive by the water; and the very minerals are fed by streams that run underground, whose natural course carries them to the tops of many high mountains, as we see by several springs breaking forth on the tops of the highest hills; and this is also witnessed by the daily trial and testimony of several miners. Nay, the increase of those creatures that are bred and fed in the water are not only more and more miraculous, but more advantageous to man, not only for the lengthening of his life, but for the preventing of sickness; 25 for 'tis observed by the most learned physicians, that the casting off of Lent and other fish days, which hath not only given the lie to so many learned, pious, wise founders of colleges, for which we should be ashamed, And now for the water, the element that I trade in. The water is the eldest daughter of the creation, the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move (Gen. i. 2), the element which God commanded to bring forth 30 hath doubtless been the chief cause of those many putrid, shaking, intermitting agues, unto which this nation of ours is now more subject than those wiser countries that feed on herbs, salads, and plenty of fish; of which living creatures abundantly; and without which those that inhabit the land, even all creatures that have breath in their nostrils, must suddenly return to putrefaction. Moses, the great law giver, and chief philosopher, skilled in all 35 it is observed in story, that the greatest part the learning of the Egyptians, who was called the friend of God, and knew the mind of the Almighty, names this element the first in the creation; this is the element upon which the Spirit of God did first move, and is the chief 40 ingredient in the creation: many philosophers have made it to comprehend all the other elements, and most allow it the chiefest in the mixtion12 of all living creatures. of the world now do. And it may be fit to remember that Moses (Lev. xi. 9, Deut. xiv. 9) appointed fish to be the chief diet for the best commonwealth that ever yet was. And it is observable, not only that there are fish, as namely, the whale, three times as big as the mighty elephant, that is so fierce in battle; but that the mightiest feasts have been of fish. The Romans in the height of their There be that profess to believe that all 45 glory have made fish the mistress of all their bodies are made of water, and may be reduced back again to water only; they endeavour to demonstrate it thus: Take a willow, or any like speedy-growing entertainments; they have had music to usher in their sturgeons, lampreys, 13 and mullets, which they would purchase at rates rather to be wondered at than believed. He that shall may be confirmed and informed of this, and of 13 The lamprey, when full grown, resembles an eel, and is considered a delicacy. plant, newly rooted in a box or barrel full of 50 view the writings of Macrobius, 14 or Varro, 15 earth, weigh them all together exactly when the trees begin to grow, and then weigh all together after the tree is increased from its first rooting to weigh an hundred pound weight more than when it was first rooted and weighed; 55 and you shall find this augment of the tree to be without the diminution of one drachm weight of the earth. Hence they infer this 12 Mixture. 14 A Latin writer of the fifth century. In his Convivia Saturnalia, he speaks of a certain Roman villa which, although not large, was put up for sale at four million sesterces, because of its fish ponds. 15 Marcus Terentius Varro Reatinus (116-28 B. C.), a voluminous writer, called "the most learned of the Romans." In his treatise on husbandry he speaks of the fresh and salt water fish ponds of the Romans. (De Re Rustica, III. 17, 2). the incredible value of their fish and fish- saved; but his second will was, that those only ponds. SELECTION FROM THE LIFE OF (From Walton's Lives, 1665) I return to Mr. Hooker in his college,1 where he continued his studies with all quietness, for the space of three years; about which time he entered into sacred orders, being then made deacon and priest, and, not long after, was appointed to preach at St. Paul's Cross. should be saved that did live answerable to that degree of grace which he had offered or afforded them." 5 But the justifying of this doctrine did not prove of so bad consequence, as the kindness of Mrs. Churchman's curing him of his late distemper and cold; for that was so gratefully apprehended by Mr. Hooker, that he thought 10 himself bound in conscience to believe all that she said: so the good man came to be persuaded by her, "that he was a man of tender constitution; and that it was best for him to have a wife, that might prove a nurse 15 to him; such a one as might both prolong his life, and make it more comfortable; and such a one she could and would provide for him, if he thought fit to marry." And he, not considering that "the children of this world are In order to which Sermon, to London he came, and immediately to the Shunamite's house; which is a house so called, for that, besides the stipend paid the preacher, there is provision made also for his lodging and diet 20 wiser in their generation than the children of for two days before, and one day after his sermon. This house was then kept by John Churchman, sometime a draper of good note in Watling Street, upon whom poverty had light;" but, like a true Nathanael, fearing no guile, because he meant none, did give her such a power as Eleazar was trusted with,— you may read it in the book of Genesis,-when at last come like an armed man, and brought 25 he was sent to choose a wife for Isaac; for even so he trusted her to choose for him, promising upon a fair summons to return to London, and accept her choice; and he did so in that, or about the year following. Now, the wife provided for him was her daughter Joan, who brought him neither beauty nor portion: and for her conditions, they were too like that wife's, which is by Solomon compared to a dripping house; so that the good man had no reason to “rejoice in the wife of his youth;" but too just cause to say with the holy prophet, "Woe is that I am constrained to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar." him into a necessitous condition; which, though it be a punishment, is not always an argument of God's disfavor; for he was a virtuous man. I shall not yet give the like testimony of his wife, but leave the reader to judge by what 30 follows. But to this house Mr. Hooker came so wet, so weary, and weatherbeaten, that he was never known to express more passion, than against a friend that dissuaded him from footing it to London, and for finding him no 35 easier a horse,-supposing the horse trotted when he did not;-and at this time also, such a faintness and fear possessed him, that he would not be persuaded two days' rest and quietness, or any other means could be used 40 to make him preach his Sunday's sermon: but a warm bed, and rest, and drink proper for a cold, given him by Mrs. Churchman, and her diligent attendance added unto it, enabled him to perform the office of the day, which was in 45 the race to the swift" nor "bread to the wise," or about the year 1581. me, This choice of Mr. Hooker's-if it were his choice-may be wondered at; but let us consider that the Prophet Ezekiel says, "There is a wheel within a wheel;" a secret sacred wheel of Providence,-most visible in marriages,-guided by His hand that “allows not nor good wives to good men: and he that can And in this first public appearance to the bring good out of evil-for mortals are blind world, he was not so happy as to be free from to this reason-only knows why this blessing exceptions against a point of doctrine delivered was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, in his sermon; which was, "That in God there 50 and to our as meek and patient Mr. Hooker. were two wills; an antecedent and a consequent will; his first will that all mankind should be 1 i. e., Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Hooker was sent to Oxford in 1567, when he was in his fifteenth year. He graduated M. A. in 1577, and obtained his Fellowship in 55 the same year. About three years later (having taken holy orders in 1581) he received the appointment to preach in London to which Walton here refers. A reference to the woman of Shunem (Shunamite) who entertained the prophet Elisha, and "constrained him to eat bread." II Kings, iv, 8:11. But so it was; and let the reader cease to wonder, for affliction is a divine diet; which though it be not pleasing to mankind, yet Almighty God hath often, very often, imposed it as good, though bitter physic to those children whose souls are dearest to him. And by this marriage the good man was drawn from the tranquility of his college; from the garden of piety, of pleasure, of peace, and a sweet conversation, into the thorny wilderness of a busy world; into those corroding cares that attend a married priest, and a country parsonage; which was Drayton-beauchamp in Buckinghamshire, not far from Aylesbury, and 5 in the diocese of Lincoln; to which he was presented by John Cheney, Esq.,-then patron of it-the 9th of December, 1584, where he behaved himself so as to give no occasion of evil, but as St. Paul adviseth a minister of God-“in much patience, in afflictions, in anguishes, in necessities, in poverty" and no doubt "in long suffering;" yet troubling no man with his discontents and wants. 10 20 25 And in this condition he continued about a 15 year; in which time his two pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, took a journey to see their tutor; where they found him with a book in his hand,-it was the Odes of Horace, --he being then like humble and innocent Abel, tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field, which he told his pupils he was forced to do then, for his servant was gone home to dine, and assist his wife to do some necessary household business. But when his servant returned and released him, then his two pupils attended him unto his house, where their best entertainment was his quiet company, which was presently denied them; for Richard was called to rock the cradle; and the 30 rest of their welcome was so like this, that they stayed but till next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition; and they having in that time rejoiced in the remembrance, and then para- 35 phrased on the many innocent recreations of their younger days, and other like diversions, and thereby given him as much present comfort as they were able, they were forced to leave him to the company of his wife Joan, 40 and seek themselves a quieter lodging for next night. But at their parting from him, Mr. Cranmer said, "Good tutor, I am sorry your lot is fallen in no better ground, as to your parsonage; and more sorry that your wife 45 proves not a more comfortable companion, after you have wearied yourself in your restless studies." To whom the good man replied, "My dear George, if saints have usually a double share in the miseries of this life, I, that 50 am none, ought not to repine at what my wise Creator hath appointed for me; but labour-as indeed I do daily-to submit mine to his will, and possess my soul in patience and peace." Sir Edwin Sandys (c. 1561-1629), who assisted the Pilgrims in chartering the Mayflower. i. e.. repeated their "innocent recreations," with such amplification or difference as there is between a paraphrase I the original text. 55 John Earle 1601?-1665 A CRITIC1 (From Microcosmographie, 1628) A Critic is one that has spelled over a great many of books, and his observation is the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds of dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments and Desunt mulla's,2 and if he piece it up with two lines, he is more proud of that book than the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their syntaxes, and thinks all learning comprised in learning Latin. He tastes styles, as some descreeter palates do wine; and tells you which is genuine, which sophicated and bastard. deceased long before the Cæsars, and entombed His own phrase is a miscellany of old words, by Varro, and the modernest man he follows is Plautus. He writes omneis at length, and quicquid, and his gerund is most incomformable. He is a troublesome vexer of the dead, 3 which after so long sparing must rise up to the judgment of his castigations. He is one that makes all books sell dearer, while he swells them into folios with his comments. Sir Thomas Browne 1605-1682 DEATH AND IMMORTALITY Now since these dead bones1 have already out-lasted the living ones of Methuselah, and in a yard underground, and thin walls of clay, out-worn all the strong and specious buildings above it; and quietly rested under the drums 1 John Earle, a learned and witty man and a successful writer, was Chaplain to Charles II in exile, and after the Restoration became successively Bishop of Worcester and of Salisbury. The nature of the Microsmographie, his chief work, is suggested in its sub-title-A Piece of the World Discovered in Essays and Characters. The numerous character studies of the seventeenth century "form a link between the 'humors' of the old comedy on the one hand and the familiar essay and novel of the eighteenth century on the other.' Among these "characterwriters," Earle holds a foremost place. 2 Many things are lacking i. e. in the text of the work he is editing. 3 Plautus, one of the masters of Latin comedy, died 181 B. C. Hence he lived some time before the learned scholar and writer Varro, who died about 28 B. C. and before the Augustan Age of Latin literature,-the age of Vergil, Horace, and their great contemporaries. 4 These are instances of the obsolete or antiquated Latin usage followed by the pedantic critic. This essay was suggested by the discovery of "he tween forty and fifty urns" in a field of Old Walsingham, Norfolk, containing human boncs, with boxes, combs, and other articles. In a preceding chapter, Browne contends that "these were the urns of Romans.' and tramplings of three conquests: what prince can promise such diuturnity unto his relicks, or might not gladly say, mal-content of Job, who cursed not the day of his life, but his nativity; content to have so far been, as to have a title to future being, although he had lived here but in an hidden 5 state of life, and as it were, an abortion. What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the per Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim?3 Time which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments. In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatorics, when to be unknown was the means of 10 sons of these ossuaries? entered the famous their continuation, and obscurity their protection. If they died by violent hands, and were thrust into their urns, these bones become considerable, and some old philosophers would 4 nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a ques honour them, whose souls they conceived most 15 tion above antiquarism; not to be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, 10 or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their pure, which were thus snatched from their bodies, and to retain a stronger propension unto them; whereas they weariedly left a languishing corpse, and with faint desires of re-union. If they fell by long and aged decay, 20 relicks, they had not so grossly erred in the yet wrapt up in the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but one blot with infants. If we begin to die when we live, and long life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad composition; we live with death, 25 unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and art of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes which in the oblivion of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vainglory, and madding vices. Pagan vain-glories which thought the world might last forever, and die not in a moment. How many pulses made up the life of Methuselah, were work for Archimedes: common counters sum up the life of Moses his man. Our days become considerable, like petty sums, by minute accumu- 30 had encouragement for ambition; and finding lations; where numerous fractions make up but small round numbers; and our days of a span long, make not one little finger." no atropos11 unto the immortality of their names, were never dampt with the necessity of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, who acting early, and before the probable meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already out-lasted their monuments, and mechanical preservations. If the nearness of our last necessity brought a nearer conformity into it, there was a happi- 35 ness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; when avarice makes us the sport of death, when even David grew politickly cruel, and Solomon could hardly be 40 But in this latter scene of time, we cannot ex said to be the wisest of men. But many are 2 English, Danish, and Roman. 3 Thus I wish to be buried when I am turned into bones. Means of preservation. Inclination towards them. i. e., Moses's man. The average length of man's life as estimated by Moses (Pslm. xe. 10) is but seventy or eighty years, hence while it would take a great mathematician (an Archimedes) to calculate the number of pulses, or heart-beats in the life of Methuselah, ordinary reckoners can readily sum up the short span of man's life according to Moses' computation. 7i. e., not one hundred years. According to an ancient method of counting on the fingers, the crooking of the little finger of the right hand signified a hundred. In the story of Alemena, Jupiter delays the rising of Phoebus, and makes one night as long as three. pect such mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias,12 and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector. i. e., those whose bones were deposited in these urns (or ossuaries). 10 The guardian spirits of a particular place; tutelary obserrators, guardian angels of the persons buried there. 11 The Fate who cuts the thread of life. 12 i. e., of the prophet Elijah, called Elias in the New Testament. The prophecy was, that the world was to last but six thousand years. The world would thus come to an end in 2000 A. D. Should this prophecy be fulfilled, Charles V., who died in 1558, could not possibly be remembered more than 442 years, while Hector (assuming his death to have taken place about 1100 or 1200 B. C.) had been already remembered some 2700 or 2800 years when Browne wrote. Therefore in 1658, the date of Browne's essay. Hector's fame had already exceeded the greatest possible duration of that of Charles V. by over two thousand years, or by more than double the length of Methuselah's life (tro Methuselahs), which would be only 1938 years. According to a passage in the Talmud, the tradition of this prophecy was handed down "by the house" (i. e. the disciples or school) of Elijah. And therefore, restless inquietude for the diuturnity of our memories unto present considerations seems a vanity almost out of date, and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope to live so long in our names, as some have done in their persons. One face of Janus 13 holds no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To extend our memories by monu- 10 And who had not rather have been the good tion and judgment of himself. Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates's patients, or Achilles's horses in Homer, under naked nominations, without deserts and noble acts, which are the 5 balsam of our memories, the entelechia" and soul of our subsistences? To be nameless in worthy deeds, exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name, than Herodias with one. ments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope, without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We thief, than Pilate? But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpe whose generations are ordained in this setting 15 tuity. Who can but pity the founder of the part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations; and, being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, are naturally constituted unto thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably decline the con- 20 sideration of that duration, which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment. Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right lined circle11 must 25 conclude and shut up all. There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things: our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. 30 Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscriptions like many in Gruter, 15 to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or 35 first letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries, who we were, and have new names given us like many of the mummies, are cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages. To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether they know more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan;16 disparaging his horoscopal inclina 13 Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, and hence especially associated with gates and other places of entrance. He was represented with two faces, looking in different directions, possibly because at the moment of beginning we naturally look backward to what is ended and forward to what is to come. Browne (adopting this interpretation) declares that the face of Janus which poks forward to the future, is out of all proportion to the face which looks towards the past; i. e. that the world's past will greatly exceed its future, the larger part of the six thousand years being already spent. i.e., the Greek letter theta, e, the symbol of death. Among the Greeks, when a man's fate was decided by vote, those in favor of his death marked their ballots with the letter, that being the first letter of the word eávāros, or death. The fatal letter thus came to be a sign of death, and as such is found on Roman grave stones. 15 Jan Gruter, a Dutch scholar, whose principal work was a book of Roman inscriptions. 16 A famous Italian mathematician and scientist of pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, 18 confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only chronicle. Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows 40 when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetick, which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina 19 of life, and even Pagans could doubt, the 16th century. The reference is to a sentence in his autobiography, which may be translated as follows: "I wish to be known because I am, I do not require that I should be known as I am." 17 Entelechy, the complete realization, or full expression of a thing. Here, our noble acts are regarded as the entelechia, the perfect, or essential, part of our subsistence, or remembrance upon earth. 18 The historian Dion Cassius, after commenting on the delight which the Emperor Hadrian (Adrian) took in hunting, adds: "What he Hadrian] did for a horse called Baristhenes, which he commonly used for hunting, may let us see how far the excess of this passion carried him, since when he died he raised him a monument in the form of a pillar, on which he engraved his epitaph." Hadrian was buried in a splendid mausoleum on the bank of the Tiber. There is an inscription to him in the interior of the tomb, which was not explored until 1825, so that his epitaph was not eventually confounded by time, as was the case when Browne wrote. 19 The Roman goddess of birth. Death is the Lucino (Lat. lux, light, lucina, light-bringing), or heavenl power that presides over our birth into a true life. |