Produced by Al Haines
A Book of English Prose
Part II
_Arranged for Secondary and High Schools_
BY
PERCY LUBBOCK, M.A.
KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1913
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFATORY NOTE
The Editor desires to record his thanks to Messrs
Macmillan & Co., Ltd., Messrs Chatto & Windus
and Messrs Longmans, Green & Co., for their respective
permission to include in this volume passages from
Walter Pater's _Miscellaneous Studies_, from R. L. Stevenson's
_Random Memories_ and from Newman's _Historical
Sketches_.
P. L.
October 1913
CONTENTS
PAGE
Death of Sir Gawaine . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas Malory_ 1
The Queen's Speech to her last
Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . _Elizabeth, Queen of England_ 4
Death of Cleopatra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas North_ 8
The Vanity of Greatness . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Walter Ralegh_ 12
The Law of Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Richard Hooker_ 16
Of Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Francis Bacon_ 17
Meditation on Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . _William Drummond_ 19
Primitive Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas Hobbes_ 21
Character of a Plodding Student . . . . . . . . . . _John Earle_ 24
Charity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Thomas Browne_ 25
The Danger of interfering with the Liberty
of the Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Milton_ 27
Death of Falkland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Earl of Clarendon_ 30
The End of the Pilgrimage . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Bunyan_ 35
Poetry and Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Sir William Temple_ 40
A Day in the Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Samuel Pepys_ 42
Captain Singleton in China . . . . . . . . . . . . _Daniel Defoe_ 46
The Art of Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . _Jonathan Swift_ 51
The Royal Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Joseph Addison_ 56
Sir Roger de Coverley's Ancestors . . . . . . . _Richard Steele_ 60
Partridge at the Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Henry Fielding_ 65
A Journey in a Stage-coach . . . . . . . . . . . _Samuel Johnson_ 71
Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim . . . . . . . . . . _Laurence Sterne_ 76
The Funeral of George II . . . . . . . . . . . . _Horace Walpole_ 79
The Credulity of the English . . . . . . . . . . _Oliver Goldsmith_ 83
Decay of the Principles of Liberty . . . . . . . . . _Edmund Burke_ 85
The Candidate for Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . _William Cowper_ 89
Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Edward Gibbon_ 93
First Sight of Dr Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . _James Boswell_ 94
Arrival at Osbaldistone Hall . . . . . . . . . . _Sir Walter Scott_ 100
A Visit to Coleridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Charles Lamb_ 107
Diogenes and Plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _W. S. Landor_ 109
An Invitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Jane Austen_ 113
Coleridge as Preacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . _William Hazlitt_ 118
A Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas de Quincey_ 120
The Use of Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Keats_ 122
The Flight to Varennes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Thomas Carlyle_ 124
The Trial of the Seven Bishops . . . . . . . . . . _Lord Macaulay_ 130
The University of Athens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _J. H. Newman_ 135
The House of the Seven Gables . . . . . . . _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 140
Denis Duval's first journey to London . . . . . _W. M. Thackeray_ 144
Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Charles Dickens_ 149
Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester . . . . . . . . . . . _Charlotte Brontë_ 153
A Hut in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _H. D. Thoreau_ 157
A Miser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _George Eliot_ 159
Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _John Ruskin_ 163
The Child in the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Walter Pater_ 168
Diving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _R. L. Stevenson_ 171
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
{1}
SIR THOMAS MALORY 15th century
DEATH OF SIR GAWAINE
And so, as Sir Mordred was at Dover with his host, there came King
Arthur with a great navy of ships, galleys, and carracks. And there
was Sir Mordred ready waiting upon his landing, to let his own father
to land upon the land that he was king of. Then was there launching of
great boats and small, and all were full of noble men of arms; and
there was much slaughter of gentle knights, and many a full bold baron
was laid full low on both parties. But King Arthur was so courageous,
that there might no manner of knight let him to land, and his knights
fiercely followed him, and so they landed maugre Sir Mordred and all
his power, and put Sir Mordred back, that he fled and all his people.
So when this battle was done, King Arthur let bury his people that were
dead. And then was the noble knight Sir Gawaine found in a great boat,
lying more than half dead. When King Arthur wist that Sir Gawaine was
laid so low, he went unto him; and there the king made sorrow out of
measure, and took Sir Gawaine in his arms, and thrice he swooned. And
when he came to himself again, he said, "Alas! my sister's son, here
now thou liest, the man in the world {2} that I loved most, and now is
my joy gone. For now, my nephew Sir Gawaine, I will discover me unto
your person. In Sir Launcelot and you I most had my joy and mine
affiance, and now have I lost my joy of you both, wherefore all mine
earthly joy is gone from me." "My uncle King Arthur," said Sir
Gawaine, "wit you well that my death's day is come, and all is through
mine own hastiness and wilfulness, for I am smitten upon the old wound
that Sir Launcelot du Lake gave me, of the which I feel that I must
die; and if Sir Launcelot had been with you as he was, this unhappy war
had never begun, and of all this I myself am causer; for Sir Launcelot
and his blood, through their prowess, held all your cankered enemies in
subjection and danger. And now," said Sir Gawaine, "ye shall miss Sir
Launcelot. But alas! I would not accord with him; and therefore,"
said Sir Gawaine, "I pray you, fair uncle, that I may have paper, pen,
and ink, that I may write unto Sir Launcelot a letter with mine own
hands." And when paper and ink was brought, Sir Gawaine was set up
weakly by King Arthur, for he had been shriven a little before; and he
wrote thus unto Sir Launcelot: "Flower of all noble knights that ever I
heard of or saw in my days, I, Sir Gawaine, King Lot's son of Orkney,
sister's son unto the noble King Arthur, send unto thee greeting, and
let thee have knowledge, that the tenth day of May I was smitten upon
the old wound which thou gavest me before the city of Benwick, and
through the same wound that thou gavest me I am come unto my death day,
and I will that all the world wit that I Sir Gawaine, Knight of the
Round Table, sought my death, and not through thy deserving, {3} but it
was mine own seeking; wherefore I beseech thee, Sir Launcelot, for to
return again unto this realm and see my tomb, or pray some prayer more
or less for my soul. And that same day that I wrote this letter, I was
hurt to the death in the same wound the which I had of thy hands, Sir
Launcelot, for of a more nobler man might I not be slain. Also, Sir
Launcelot, for all the love that ever was between us, make no tarrying,
but come over the sea in all the haste that thou mayst with thy noble
knights, and rescue that noble king that made thee knight, that is my
lord and uncle King Arthur, for he is full straitly bestood with a
false traitor, which is my half-brother Sir Mordred, and he hath let
crown himself king, and he would have wedded my lady Queen Guenevere,
and so had he done, if she had not put herself in the Tower of London.
And so the tenth day of May last past, my lord and uncle King Arthur
and we all landed upon them at Dover, and there we put that false
traitor Sir Mordred to flight. And there it misfortuned me for to be
stricken upon thy stroke. And the date of this letter was written but
two hours and a half before my death, written with mine own hand, and
so subscribed with part of my heart-blood. And I require thee, as thou
art the most famost knight of the world, that thou wilt see my tomb."
And then Sir Gawaine wept, and also King Arthur wept; and then they
swooned both. And when they awaked both, the king made Sir Gawaine to
receive his Saviour. And then Sir Gawaine prayed the king to send for
Sir Launcelot, and to cherish him above all other knights. And so at
the hour of noon Sir Gawaine betook his soul into the {4} hands of our
Lord God. And then the king let bury him in a chapel within the castle
of Dover; and there yet unto this day all men may see the skull of Sir
Gawaine, and the same wound is seen that Sir Launcelot gave him in
battle. Then it was told to King Arthur that Sir Mordred had pight a
new field upon Barendown. And on the morrow the king rode thither to
him, and there was a great battle between them, and much people were
slain on both parts. But at the last King Arthur's party stood best,
and Sir Mordred and his party fled into Canterbury.
(_Morte Darthur_.)
ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ENGLAND
1533-1603
THE QUEEN'S SPEECH TO HER LAST PARLIAMENT, NOVEMBER 30, 1601
Mr Speaker,--We perceive your coming is to present thanks unto us.
Know I accept them with no less joy than your loves can desire to offer
such a present, and do more esteem it than any treasure or riches; for
those we know how to prize, but loyalty, love, and thanks, I account
them invaluable; and though God hath raised me high, yet this I account
the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves. This makes
that I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a queen, as
to be a queen over so thankful a people, and to be the means under God
to conserve you in safety, and {5} preserve you from danger, yea to be
the instrument to deliver you from dishonour, from shame and from
infamy, to keep you from out of servitude, and from slavery under our
enemies, and cruel tyranny, and vile oppression intended against us;
for the better withstanding whereof, we take very acceptable your
intended helps, and chiefly in that it manifesteth your loves and
largeness of hearts to your sovereign. Of myself I must say this, I
never was any greedy scraping grasper, nor a strict fasting-holding
prince, nor yet a waster; my heart was never set upon any worldly
goods, but only for my subjects' good. What you do bestow on me I will
not hoard up, but receive it to bestow on you again; yea, mine own
properties I account yours to be expended for your good, and your eyes
shall see the bestowing of it for your welfare.
Mr Speaker, I would wish you and the rest to stand up, for I fear I
shall yet trouble you with longer speech.
Mr Speaker, you give me thanks, but I am more to thank you, and I
charge you thank them of the Lower House from me; for had I not
received knowledge from you, I might a' fallen into the lapse of an
error, only for want of true information. Since I was queen, yet did I
never put my pen to any grant but upon pretext and semblance made me
that it was for the good and avail of my subjects generally, though a
private profit to some of my ancient servants, who have deserved well;
but that my grants shall be made grievances to my people, and
oppressions to be privileged under colour of our patents, our princely
dignity shall not suffer it.
When I heard it, I could give no rest unto my {6} thoughts until I had
reformed it, and those varlets, lewd persons, abusers of my bounty,
shall know I will not suffer it. And, Mr Speaker, tell the House from
me, I take it exceeding grateful that the knowledge of these things is
come unto me from them. And though amongst them the principal members
are such as are not touched in private, and therefore need not speak
from any feeling of the grief, yet we have heard that other gentlemen
also of the House, who stand as free, have spoken freely in it; which
gives us to know that no respects or interests have moved them, other
than the minds they bear to suffer no diminution of our honour and our
subjects' love unto us. The zeal of which affection tending to ease my
people and knit their hearts unto us, I embrace with a princely care
far above all earthly treasures. I esteem my people's love, more than
which I desire not to merit: and God, that gave me here to sit, and
placed me over you, knows that I never respected myself, but as your
good was conserved in me; yet what dangers, what practices, what perils
I have passed, some, if not all of you, know; but none of these things
do move me, or ever made me fear, but it's God that hath delivered me.
And in my governing this land, I have ever set the last judgment day
before mine eyes, and so to rule as I shall be judged and answer before
a higher Judge, to whose judgment seat I do appeal; in that thought was
never cherished in my heart that tended not to my people's good.
And if my princely bounty have been abused, and my grants turned to the
hurt of my people contrary to {7} my will and meaning, or if any in
authority under me have neglected, or have converted what I have
committed unto them, I hope God will not lay their culps to my charge.
To be a king, and wear a crown, is a thing more glorious to them that
see it than it's pleasant to them that bear it: for myself, I never was
so much enticed with the glorious name of a king, or the royal
authority of a queen, as delighted that God hath made me his instrument
to maintain his truth and glory, and to defend this kingdom from
dishonour, damage, tyranny, and oppression. But should I ascribe any
of these things to myself or my sexly weakness, I were not worthy to
live, and of all most unworthy of the mercies I have received at God's
hands, but to God only and wholly all is given and ascribed.
The cares and troubles of a crown I cannot more fitly resemble than to
the drugs of a learned physician, perfumed with some aromatical savour,
or to bitter pills gilded over, by which they are made more acceptable
or less offensive, which indeed are bitter and unpleasant to take; and
for my own part, were it not for conscience sake to discharge the duty
that God hath laid upon me, and to maintain his glory, and keep you in
safety, in mine own disposition I should be willing to resign the place
I hold to any other, and glad to be freed of the glory with the
labours, for it is not my desire to live nor to reign longer than my
life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had and may
have many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you
never had or shall have any that will love you better.
{8}
SIR THOMAS NORTH 1535-1601
DEATH OF CLEOPATRA
Shortly after Caesar came himself in person to see her, and to comfort
her. Cleopatra being laid upon a little low bed in poor estate, when
she saw Caesar come in to her chamber, she suddenly rose up, naked in
her smock, and fell down at his feet marvellously disfigured: both for
that she had plucked her hair from her head, as also for that she had
martyred all her face with her nails, and besides, her voice was small
and trembling, her eyes sunk into her head with continual blubbering:
and moreover, they might see the most part of her stomach torn in
sunder. To be short, her body was not much better than her mind: yet
her good grace and comeliness and the force of her beauty was not
altogether defaced. But notwithstanding this ugly and pitiful state of
hers, yet she shewed herself within, by her outward looks and
countenance. When Caesar had made her lie down again, and sat by her
bedside, Cleopatra began to clear and excuse herself for that she had
done, laying all to the fear she had of Antonius. Caesar, in contrary
manner, reproved her in every point. Then she suddenly altered her
speech, and prayed him to pardon her, as though she were afraid to die,
and desirous to live. At length she gave him a brief and memorial of
all the ready money and treasure she had. But by chance there stood
Seleucus by, one of her treasurers, who, to seem a good servant, came
straight to Caesar to disprove {9} Cleopatra, that she had not set in
all, but kept many things back of purpose. Cleopatra was in such a
rage with him, that she flew upon him, and took him by the hair of the
head, and boxed him well-favouredly. Caesar fell a-laughing, and
parted the fray. "Alas," said she, "O Caesar, is not this a great
shame and reproach, that thou having vouchsafed to take the pains to
come unto me, and hast done me this honour, poor wretch, and caitiff
creature, brought into this pitiful and miserable estate: and that mine
own servants should come now to accuse me, though it may be I have
reserved some jewels and trifles meet for women, but not for me (poor
soul) to set out myself withal, but meaning to give some pretty
presents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia, that they making means and
intercession for me to thee, thou mightest yet extend thy favour and
mercy upon me?" Caesar was glad to hear her say so, persuading himself
thereby that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made her
answer, that he did not only give her that to dispose of at her
pleasure, which she had kept back, but further promised to use her more
honourably and bountifully than she would think for: and so he took his
leave of her, supposing he had deceived her, but indeed he was deceived
himself.
There was a young gentleman Cornelius Dolabella, that was one of
Caesar's very great familiars, and besides did bear no evil will unto
Cleopatra. He sent her word secretly as she had requested him, that
Caesar determined to take his journey through Syria, and that within
three days he would send her away before with her children. When this
was told Cleopatra, she requested Caesar that {10} it would please him
to suffer her to offer the last oblations of the dead, unto the soul of
Antonius. This being granted her, she was carried to the place where
his tomb was, and there falling down on her knees, embracing the tomb
with her women, the tears running down her cheeks, she began to speak
in this sort: "O my dear Lord Antonius, not long sithence I buried thee
here, being a free woman: and now I offer unto thee the funeral
sprinklings and oblations, being a captive and prisoner; and yet I am
forbidden and kept from tearing and murdering this captive body of mine
with blows, which they carefully guard and keep, only to triumph of
thee: look therefore henceforth for no other honours, offerings, nor
sacrifices from me, for these are the last which Cleopatra can give
thee, sith now they carry her away. Whilst we lived together, nothing
could sever our companies: but now at our death, I fear me they will
make us change our countries. For as thou, being a Roman, hast been
buried in Egypt: even so, wretched creature I, an Egyptian, shall be
buried in Italy, which shall be all the good that I have received by
thy country. If therefore the gods where thou art now have any power
and authority, sith our gods here have forsaken us, suffer not thy true
friend and lover to be carried away alive, that in me they triumph of
thee: but receive me with thee, and let me be buried in one self tomb
with thee. For though my griefs and miseries be infinite, yet none
hath grieved me more, nor that I could less bear withal, than this
small time which I have been driven to live without thee." Then,
having ended these doleful plaints, and crowned the tomb with garlands
and sundry {11} nosegays, and marvellous lovingly embraced the same,
she commanded they should prepare her bath, and when she had bathed and
washed herself, she fell to her meat and was sumptuously served.
Now whilst she was at dinner there came a countryman, and brought her a
basket. The soldiers that warded at the gates, asked him straight what
he had in his basket. He opened the basket, and took out the leaves
that covered the figs, and shewed them that they were figs he brought.
They all of them marvelled to see so goodly figs. The countryman
laughed to hear them, and bade them take some if they would. They
believed he told them truly, and so bade him carry them in.
After Cleopatra had dined, she sent a certain table written and sealed
unto Caesar, and commanded them all to go out of the tombs where she
was, but the two women; then she shut the doors to her. Caesar, when
he received this table, and began to read her lamentation and petition,
requesting him that he would let her be buried with Antonius, found
straight what she meant, and thought to have gone thither himself:
howbeit he sent one before in all haste that might be, to see what it
was. Her death was very sudden. For those whom Caesar sent unto her
ran thither in all haste possible, and found the soldiers standing at
the gate, mistrusting nothing, nor understanding of her death. But
when they had opened the doors, they found Cleopatra stark dead, laid
upon a bed of gold, attired and arrayed in her royal robes, and one of
her two women, which was called Iras, dead at her feet: and her other
woman, called Charmion, half dead, and trembling, trimming the diadem
which {12} Cleopatra ware upon her head. One of the soldiers, seeing
her, angrily said unto her: "Is that well done, Charmion?" "Very
well," said she again, "and meet for a princess descended from the race
of so many noble kings." She said no more, but fell down dead hard by
the bed.
(_Plutarch's Lives_.)
SIR WALTER RALEGH 1552-1618
THE VANITY OF GREATNESS
By this which we have already set down is seen the beginning and end of
the three first monarchies of the world; whereof the founders and
erecters thought, that they could never have ended. That of Rome,
which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We
have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, having rooted up
or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world.
But after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had;
the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one
against another; her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a
rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.
Now these great kings and conquering nations have been the subject of
those ancient histories which have been preserved and yet remain among
us; and withal of so many tragical poets, as in the persons of powerful
princes and other mighty men have complained against {13} infidelity,
time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldly
things and instability of fortune. To these undertakings these great
lords of the world have been stirred up, rather by the desire of fame,
which plougheth up the air and soweth in the wind, than by the
affection of bearing rule, which draweth after it so much vexation and
so many cares. And that this is true, the good advice of Cineas to
Pyrrhus proves. And certainly, as fame hath often been dangerous to
the living, so it is to the dead of no use at all, because separate
from knowledge. Which were it otherwise, and the extreme ill bargain
of buying this lasting discourse understood by them which are
dissolved, they themselves would then rather have wished to have stolen
out of the world without noise, than to be put in mind that they have
purchased the report of their actions in the world by rapine,
oppression, and cruelty, by giving in spoil the innocent and labouring
soul to the idle and insolent, and by having emptied the cities of the
world of their ancient inhabitants, and fitted them again with so many
and so variable sorts of sorrows.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire (omitting that of the Germans, which
had neither greatness nor continuance) there hath been no state fearful
in the east but that of the Turk; nor in the west any prince that hath
spread his wings far over his nest but the Spaniard; who, since the
time that Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Grenado, have made many
attempts to make themselves masters of all Europe. And it is true that
by the treasures of both Indies, and by the many kingdoms which they
possess in Europe, they are at this day the most {14} powerful. But as
the Turk is now counterpoised by the Persian, so instead of so many
millions as have been spent by the English, French, and Netherlands in
a defensive war and in diversions against them, it is easy to
demonstrate that with the charge of two hundred thousand pound
continued but for two years, or three at the most, they may not only be
persuaded to live in peace, but all their swelling and overflowing
streams may be brought back into their natural channels and old banks.
These two nations, I say, are at this day the most eminent and to be
regarded; the one seeking to root out the Christian religion
altogether, the other the truth and sincere profession thereof; the one
to join all Europe to Asia, the other the rest of all Europe to Spain.
For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of
this boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hath
been already said, that the kings and princes of the world have always
laid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great ones
which preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the
one, but they never mind the misery of the other, till they find the
experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while they
enjoy life or hope it; but they follow the counsel of Death upon his
first approach. It is he that puts into man all wisdom of the world,
without speaking a word; which God with all the words of His law,
promises or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which hateth and
destroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath him and loves him, is
always deferred. _I have considered_ (saith Solomon) _all the works
that are wider the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of {15}
spirit_: but who believes it, till Death tells it us? It was Death,
which, opening the conscience of Charles the fifth, made him enjoin his
son Philip to restore Navarre; and King Francis the first of France, to
command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the
Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected.
It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself.
He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humbles
them at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent, yea, even to
hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich and
proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but
in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes
of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and
rottenness, and they acknowledge it.
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast
persuaded; what none hath dared thou hast done; and whom all the world
hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised.
Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the
pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these
two narrow words, _Hic jacet_.
(_History of the World_.)
{16}
RICHARD HOOKER 1554-1600
THE LAW OF NATIONS
Now besides that law which simply concerneth men as men, and that which
belongeth unto them as they are men linked with others in some form of
politic society, there is a third kind of law which toucheth all such
several bodies politic, so far forth as one of them hath public
commerce with another. And this third is the Law of Nations. Between
men and beasts there is no possibility of social communion, because the
well-spring of that communion is a natural delight which man hath to
transfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others into
himself especially those things wherein the excellency of his kind doth
most consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore is
speech, because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceits
of our reasonable understanding. And for that cause seeing beasts are
not hereof capable, forasmuch as with them we can use no such
conference, they being in degree, although above other creatures on
earth to whom nature hath denied sense, yet lower than to be sociable
companions of man to whom nature hath given reason; it is of Adam said
that amongst the beasts "he found not for himself any meet companion."
Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any private kind
of solitary living, because in society this good of mutual
participation is so much larger than otherwise. Herewith
notwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet {17} (if it might
be) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all mankind.
Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a citizen,
not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world. And an effect of
that very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after a
sort an universal fellowship with all men) appeareth by the wonderful
delight men have, some to visit foreign countries, some to discover
nations not heard of in former ages, we all to know the affairs and
dealings of other people, yea to be in league of amity with them: and
this not only for traffic's sake, or to the end that when many are
confederated each may make other the more strong; but for such cause
also as moved the Queen of Saba to visit Solomon; and in a word,
because nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world,
so many gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should be
towards men.
(_Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_.)
FRANCIS BACON 1561-1626
OF STUDIES
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief
use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in
discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of
business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of
particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, and
the marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To
spend too much time in {18} studies is sloth; to use them too much for
ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the
humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by
experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need
pruning by study: and studies themselves do give forth directions too
much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men
contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for
they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and
above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute,
nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse,
but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be
swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books
are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and
some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some
books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others:
but that would be only in the less important arguments and the meaner
sort of books: else distilled books are like common distilled waters,
flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and
writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had
need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a
present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to
seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets witty,
the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, logic and
rhetoric able to contend: _Abeunt studia in mores_. Nay, there is no
stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought {19} out by fit
studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises.
Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and
breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the
like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics;
for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he
must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find
differences, let him study the school-men; for they are _Cymini
sectores_. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one
thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers'
cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
(_Essays_.)
WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649
MEDITATION ON DEATH
If on the great theatre of this earth among the numberless number of
men, _to die_ were only proper to thee and thine, then undoubtedly thou
had reason to repine at so severe and partial a law. But since it is a
necessity, from which never any age by-past hath been exempted, and
unto which they which be, and so many as are to come, are thralled (no
consequent of life being more common and familiar), why shouldst thou
with unprofitable and nought-availing stubbornness, oppose so
inevitable and necessary a condition? This is the high-way of
morality, and our general home: Behold what millions have trod it
before thee, what multitudes shall after thee, with them which at that
same instant {20} run. In so universal a calamity (if Death be one)
private complaints cannot be heard: with so many royal palaces, it is
no loss to see thy poor cabin burn. Shall the heavens stay their
ever-rolling wheels (for what is the motion of them but the motion of a
swift and ever-whirling wheel, which twineth forth and again uprolleth
our life), and hold still time to prolong thy miserable days, as if the
highest of their working were to do homage unto thee? Thy death is a
pace of the order of this _All_, a part of the life of this world; for
while the world is the world, some creatures must die, and others take
life. Eternal things are raised far above this sphere of generation
and corruption, where the first matter, like an ever flowing and ebbing
sea, with divers waves, but the same water, keepeth a restless and
never tiring current; what is below in the universality of the kind,
not in itself doth abide: _Man_ a long line of years hath continued,
_This man_ every hundred is swept away. This globe environed with air
is the sole region of Death, the grave where everything that taketh
life must rot, the stage of fortune and change, only glorious in the
inconstancy and varying alterations of it, which though many, seem yet
to abide one, and being a certain entire one, are ever many. The never
agreeing bodies of the elemental brethren turn one into another; the
earth changeth her countenance with the seasons, sometimes looking cold
and naked, other times hot and flowery: nay, I cannot tell how, but
even the lowest of those celestial bodies, that mother of months, and
empress of seas and moisture, as if she were a mirror of our constant
mutability, appeareth (by her too great nearness {21} unto us) to
participate of our changes, never seeing us twice with that same face:
now looking black, then pale and wan, sometimes again in the perfection
and fulness of her beauty shining over us. Death no less than life
doth here act a part, the taking away of what is old being the making
way for what is young.
(_A Cypress Grove_.)
THOMAS HOBBES 1588-1679
PRIMITIVE LIFE
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is
enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time, wherein men
live without other security, than what their own strength and their own
invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no
place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and
consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the
commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no
instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force;
no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no
letters; no society; and, which is worst of all, continual fear, and
danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty,
brutish, and short.
It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things,
that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade and
destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this
inference, {22} made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same
confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself, when
taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied;
when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he
locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public
officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what
opinion he has of his fellow-subjects, when he rides armed; of his
fellow-citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children and
servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse
mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse
man's nature in it. The desires and other passions of man are in
themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those
passions, till they know a law that forbids them; which, till laws be
made, they cannot know; nor can any law be made, till they have agreed
upon the person that shall make it.
It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor
condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so over
all the world; but there are many places where they live so now. For
the savage people in many places of America, except the government of
small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no
government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I
said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life there
would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of
life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government
used to degenerate into in a civil war.
{23} But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men
were in a condition of war one against another; yet in all times, kings
and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are
in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators:
having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another;
that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their
kingdoms; and continual spies upon their neighbours; which is a posture
of war. But, because they uphold thereby the industry of their
subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies
the liberty of particular men.
To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent,
that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice
and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power,
there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in
war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the
faculties, neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be
in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and
passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in
solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be
no propriety, no dominion, no _mine_ and _thine_ distinct; but only
that to be every man's, that he can get; and for so long as he can keep
it. And thus much for the ill condition, which man by mere nature is
actually placed in: though with a possibility to come out of it,
consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason.
(_Leviathan_.)
{24}
JOHN EARLE 1601?-1665
CHARACTER OF A PLODDING STUDENT
_A Plodding Student_ is a kind of alchemist or persecutor of Nature,
that would change the dull lead of his brain into finer metal, with
success many times as unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost,
to wit, of his own oil and candles. He has a strange forced appetite
to learning, and to achieve it brings nothing but patience and a body.
His study is not great, but continual, and consists much in the sitting
up till after midnight in a rug gown and a nightcap, to the vanquishing
perhaps of some six lines: yet what he has, he has perfect, for he
reads it so long to understand it, till he gets it without book. He
may with much industry make a breach into logic, and arrive at some
ability in an argument; but for politer studies, he dare not skirmish
with them, and for poetry, accounts it impregnable. His invention is
no more than the finding out of his papers, and his few gleanings
there; and his disposition of them is as just as the book-binder's, a
setting or glueing of them together. He is a great discomforter of
young students, by telling them what travail it has cost him, and how
often his brain turned at philosophy, and makes others fear studying as
a cause of duncery. He is a man much given to apothegms, which serve
him for wit, and seldom breaks any jest but which belonged to some
Lacedaemonian or Roman in _Lycosthenes_. He is like {25} a dull
carrier's horse, that will go a whole week together, but never out of a
foot-pace: and he that sets forth on the Saturday shall overtake him.
(_Microcosmography_.)
SIR THOMAS BROWNE 1605-1682
CHARITY
Now for that other virtue of charity, without which faith is a mere
notion and of no existence, I have ever endeavoured to nourish the
merciful disposition and humane inclination I borrowed from my parents,
and regulate it to the written and prescribed laws of charity. And, if
I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framed
to such a piece of virtue; for I am of a constitution so general that
it consorts and sympathizeth with all things; I have no antipathy, or
rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humour, air, anything. I wonder not at
the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, and toadstools, nor at
the Jews for locusts and grasshoppers; but, being amongst them, make
them my common viands; and I find they agree with my stomach as well as
theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in
a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion,
lizard, or salamander; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find in me no
desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those
common antipathies that I discover in others: those national
repugnances do not touch me, {26} nor do I behold with prejudice the
French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch; but, where I find their actions in
balance with my countrymen's, I honour, love, and embrace them, in the
same degree. I was born in the eighth climate, but seem to be framed
and constellated unto all. I am no plant that will not prosper out of
a garden. All places, all airs, make unto me one country; I am in
England everywhere, and under any meridian. I have been shipwrecked,
yet am not enemy with the sea or winds; I can study, play, or sleep in
a tempest. In brief, I am averse from nothing: my conscience would
give me the lie if I should say I absolutely detest or hate any
essence, but the devil, or so at least abhor anything, but that we
might come to composition. If there be any among those common objects
of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason,
virtue, and religion, the multitude; that numerous piece of
monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable
creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and
a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra. It is no breach of charity
to call these _Fools_; it is the style all holy writers have afforded
them, set down by Solomon in canonical scripture, and a point of our
faith to believe so. Neither in the name of _multitude_ do I only
include the base and minor sort of people: there is a rabble even
amongst the gentry; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with
the same wheel as these; men in the same level with mechanics, though
their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses
compound for their follies. But, as in casting account three or four
men {27} together come short in account of one man placed by himself
below them, so neither are a troop of these ignorant _Doradoes_ of that
true esteem and value as many a forlorn person, whose condition doth
place him below their feet. Let us speak like politicians; there is a
nobility without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked
with another, another filed before him, according to the quality of his
desert, and pre-eminence of his good parts. Though the corruption of
these times, and the bias of present practice, wheel another way, thus
it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the
integrity and cradle of well-ordered polities: till corruption getteth
ground; ruder desires labouring after that which wiser considerations
contemn; every one having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and
they a licence or faculty to do or purchase anything.
(_Religio Medici_.)
JOHN MILTON 1608-1674
THE DANGER OF INTERFERING WITH THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS
First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her
navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance and
battle oft rumoured to be marching up, even to her walls and suburb
trenches; that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other
times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and {28} most
important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning,
reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity and admiration,
things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singular
good will, contentedness and confidence in your prudent foresight, and
safe government, lords and commons; and from thence derives itself to a
gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as if
there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was who
when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that
piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped his
own regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy
success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the
spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational
faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit
and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and condition the body is;
so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it
has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to
spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of
controversy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor
drooping to a fatal decay, by casting off the old and wrinkled skin of
corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering the
glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great
and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble
and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and
shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her
mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at {29} the full midday
beam; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain
itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and
flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about,
amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would
prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.
What would ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop of
knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this city?
Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a
famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is
measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, lords and commons! they
who counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress
yourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the
immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there
cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild and free and humane
government; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which your own
valorous and happy counsels have purchased us; liberty which is the
nurse of all great wits: this is that which hath rarified and
enlightened our spirits like the influence of Heaven; this is that
which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehensions
degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less
knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make
yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our
true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and
slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye
cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary and tyrannous, as they were from whom
ye have freed us. {30} That our hearts are now more capacious, our
thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and
exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye
cannot suppress that, unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless
law, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. And who
shall then stick closest to thee and excite others? Not he who takes
up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt.
Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my
peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter,
and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
(_Areopagitica_.)
EARL OF CLARENDON 1609-1674
DEATH OF FALKLAND