Lines on sir John Burroughs 199
Lines on the death of the earl of Pembroke 201
Lines on Mr. Beaumont 203
Dedication to the Latin translation of the [Greek: Eikon Basilike] 207
Inscription on Dr. Heylin's monument 211
Correspondence between Dr. Earle and Mr. Bagster 213
Inscription in Streglethorp church 217
Chronological List of Books of Characters, from 1567
to 1700 219
Corrections and additions 279
A note on bishop Earle's arms, from _Guillim's Heraldry_ 282
_Supplementary Appendix, 1897, (Durham MS., Letters
of Earle and Clarendon, etc.)_ 303
FOOTNOTES:
[AS] It will be remarked, that Dr. Earle's name is frequently spelled
_Earle_ and _Earles_ in the following pages. Wherever the editor has had
occasion to use the name himself, he has invariably called it _Earle_,
conceiving that to be the proper orthography. Wherever it is found
_Earles_, he has attended strictly to the original, from which the article
or information has been derived.
TO THE READER[AT].
I have (for once) adventured to play the midwife's part, helping to bring
forth these infants into the world, which the father would have smothered;
who having left them lapt up in loose sheets, as soon as his fancy was
delivered of them, written especially for his private recreation, to pass
away the time in the country, and by the forcible request of friends drawn
from him: yet, passing severally from hand to hand, in written copies,
grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume: and among so many
sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious had
liked to have passed the press, if the author had not used speedy means of
prevention; when, perceiving the hazard he ran to be wronged, was
unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world.
If any faults have escaped the press (as few books can be printed
without), impose them not on the author, I intreat thee; but rather impute
them to mine and the printer's oversight, who seriously promise, on the
re-impression hereof, by greater care and diligence for this our former
default, to make thee ample satisfaction. In the mean while, I remain
Thine,
ED. BLOUNT[AV].
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[AT] _Gentile, or Gentle_, 8th edit. 1650.
[AU] Willingly, 8th edit. evidently a typographical error.
[AV] Edward Blount, who lived at the Black Bear, Saint Paul's Church-yard,
appears to have been a bookseller of respectability, and in some respects
a man of letters. Many dedications and prefaces, with as much merit as
compositions of this nature generally possess, bear his name, and there is
every reason to suppose that he translated a work from the Italian, which
is intituled "_The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles_," &c. 4to. 1600. Mr.
Ames has discovered, from the Stationer's Register, that he was the son of
Ralph Blount or Blunt, merchant-taylor of London; that he was apprenticed
to William Ponsonby, in 1578, and made free in 1588. It is no slight
honour to his taste and judgment, that he was one of the partners in the
first edition of Shakspeare.
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
_or_,
_A piece of the World characterized_.
I.
A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of
Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can
only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil,
which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white
paper[1] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length,
it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no
evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives
not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by
fore-seeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod
is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him,
and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. He plays
yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of
melancholy. [[2]All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve
him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his
tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best
company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish ports,
Shakspeare, of a child, says,
"---- the hand of time
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume."
_K. John II._ i.
but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but
the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his
own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot
remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he
grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much
worse in his breeches.[3] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's
relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his
simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got
eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So Washbourne, in his _Divine Poems_, 12mo. 1654:
"---- ere 'tis accustom'd unto sin,
_The mind white paper_ is, and will admit
Of any lesson you will write in it."--p. 26.
[2] This, and every other passage throughout the volume, [included between
brackets,] does not appear in the first edition of 1628.
[3] Adam did not, to use the words of the old Geneva Bible, "make himself
breeches," till he knew sin: the meaning of the passage in the text is
merely that, as a child advances in age, he commonly proceeds in the
knowledge and commission of vice and immorality.
II.
A YOUNG RAW PREACHER
Is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping
on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. His
backwardness in the university hath set him thus forward; for had he not
truanted there, he had not been so hasty a divine. His small standing, and
time, hath made him a proficient only in boldness, out of which, and his
table-book, he is furnished for a preacher. His collections of study are
the notes of sermons, which, taken up at St. Mary's,[4] he utters in the
country: and if he write brachigraphy,[5] his stock is so much the
better. His writing is more than his reading, for he reads only what he
gets without book. Thus accomplished he comes down to his friends, and his
first salutation is grace and peace out of the pulpit. His prayer is
conceited, and no man remembers his college more at large.[6] The pace of
his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly over hill and dale, till
the clock stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his lungs; and the only
thing he has made[7] _in_ it himself, is the faces. He takes on against
the pope without mercy, and has a jest still in lavender for Bellarmine:
yet he preaches heresy, if it comes in his way, though with a mind, I must
needs say, very orthodox. His action is all passion, and his speech
interjections. He has an excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and
spits with a very good grace. [His stile is compounded of twenty several
men's, only his body imitates some one extraordinary.] He will not draw
his handkercher out of his place, nor blow his nose without discretion.
His commendation is, that he never looks upon book; and indeed he was
never used to it. He preaches but once a year, though twice on Sunday; for
the stuff is still the same, only the dressing a little altered: he has
more tricks with a sermon, than a taylor with an old cloak, to turn it,
and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have
waded farther in his profession, and would shew reading of his own, his
authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. His fashion and
demure habit gets him in with some town-precisian, and makes him a guest
on Friday nights. You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and serge
facing; and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest thing about him. The
companion of his walk is some zealous tradesman, whom he astonishes with
strange points, which they both understand alike. His friends and much
painfulness may prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and this means to a
chambermaid; with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock:--next
Sunday you shall have him again.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] St. Mary's church was originally built by king Alfred, and annexed to
the University of Oxford, for the use of the scholars, when St. Giles's
and St. Peter's (which were till then appropriated to them,) had been
mined by the violence of the Danes. It was totally rebuilt during the
reign of Henry VII., who gave forty oaks towards the materials; and is, to
this day, the place of worship in which the public sermons are preached
before the members of the university.
[5] _Brachigraphy_, or short-hand-writing, appears to have been much
studied in our author's time, and was probably esteemed a fashionable
accomplishment. It was first introduced into this country by Peter Bales,
who, in 1590, published _The Writing Schoolmaster_, a treatise consisting
of three parts, the first "of Brachygraphie, that is, to write as fast as
a man speaketh treatably, writing but one letter for a word;" the second,
of Orthography; and the third, of Calligraphy. Imprinted at London, by T.
Orwin, &c. 1590. 4to. A second edition, "with sundry new additions,"
appeared in 1597. 12mo. Imprinted at London, by George Shawe, &c.
Holinshed gives the following description of one of Bale's
performances:--"The tenth of August (1575,) a rare peece of worke, and
almost incredible, was brought to passe by an Englishman borne in the
citie of London, named Peter Bales, who by his industrie and practise of
his pen, contriued and writ within the compasse of a penie, in Latine, the
Lord's praier, the creed, the ten commandements, a praier to God, a praier
for the queene, his posie, his name, the daie of the moneth, the yeare of
our Lord, and the reigne of the queene. And on the seuenteenthe of August
next following, at Hampton court, he presented the same to the queene's
maiestie, in the head of a ring of gold, couered with a christall; and
presented therewith an excellent spectacle by him deuised, for the easier
reading thereof: wherewith hir maiestie read all that was written therein
with great admiration, and commended the same to the lords of the
councell, and the ambassadors, and did weare the same manie times vpon hir
finger." _Holinshed's Chronicle, page 1262, b. edit, folio, Lond. 1587._
[6] It is customary in all sermons delivered before the University, to use
an introductory prayer for the founder of, and principal benefactors to,
the preacher's individual college, as well as for the officers and members
of the university in general. This, however, would appear very ridiculous
when "_he comes down to his friends_" or, in other words, preaches before
a country congregation.
[7] _of_, first edit. 1628.
III.
A GRAVE DIVINE
Is one that knows the burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make his
shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch forth of
his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning, and the
wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end of his
studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts his way.
He counts it not prophaneness to be polished with human reading, or to
smooth his way by Aristotle to school-divinity. He has sounded both
religions, and anchored in the best, and is a protestant out of judgment,
not faction; not because his country, but his reason is on this side. The
ministry is his choice, not refuge, and yet the pulpit not his itch, but
fear. His discourse is substance, not all rhetoric, and he utters more
things than words. His speech is not helped with inforced action, but the
matter acts itself. He shoots all his meditations at one but; and beats
upon his text, not the cushion; making his hearers, not the pulpit groan.
In citing of popish errors, he cuts them with arguments, not cudgels them
with barren invectives; and labours more to shew the truth of his cause
than the spleen. His sermon is limited by the method, not the hour-glass;
and his devotion goes along with him out of the pulpit. He comes not up
thrice a week, because he would not be idle; nor talks three hours
together, because he would not talk nothing: but his tongue preaches at
fit times, and his conversation is the every day's exercise. In matters
of ceremony, he is not ceremonious, but thinks he owes that reverence to
the church to bow his judgement to it, and make more conscience of schism,
than a surplice. He esteems the church hierarchy as the church's glory,
and however we jar with Rome, would not have our confusion distinguish us.
In simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes in the bargain, and is
loath to come by promotion so dear; yet his worth at length advances him,
and the price of his own merit buys him a living. He is no base grater of
his tythes, and will not wrangle for the odd egg. The lawyer is the only
man he hinders, by whom he is spited for taking up quarrels. He is a main
pillar of our church, though not yet dean or canon, and his life our
religion's best apology. His death is the last sermon, where, in the
pulpit of his bed, he instructs men to die by his example.[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] I cannot forbear to close this admirable character with the beautiful
description of a "_poure Persone_," _riche of holy thought and werk_,
given by the father of English poetry:--
"Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversite ful patient:
And swiche he was ypreved often sithes.
Ful loth were him to cursen for his tythes,
But rather wolde he yeven out of doute,
Unto his poure parishens aboute,
Of his offring, and eke of his substance.
He coude in litel thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne left nought for no rain ne thonder,
In sikenesse and in mischief to visite
The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite,
Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf.
* * * * *
And though he holy were, and vertuous,
He was to sinful men not dispitous,
Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne,
But in his teching discrete and benigne.
To drawen folk to heven, with fairenesse,
By good ensample, was his besinesse.
* * * * *
He waited after no pompe ne reverence,
Ne maked him no spiced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folwed it himselve."
_Chaucer, Prol. to Cant. Tales, v._ 485.
We may surely conclude with a line from the same poem,
"A better preest I trowe that nowher non is."
IV.
A MEER DULL PHYSICIAN.
His practice is some business at bedsides, and his speculation an urinal:
he is distinguished from an empiric, by a round velvet cap and doctor's
gown, yet no man takes degrees more superfluously, for he is doctor
howsoever. He is sworn to Galen and Hippocrates, as university men to
their statutes, though they never saw them; and his discourse is all
aphorisms, though his reading be only Alexis of Piedmont,[9] or the
Regiment of Health.[10] The best cure he has done, is upon his own purse,
which from a lean sickliness he hath made lusty, and in flesh. His
learning consists much in reckoning up the hard names of diseases, and the
superscriptions of gally-pots in his apothecary's shop, which are ranked
in his shelves, and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only languaged in
diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If he have been
but a by-stander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered with it
though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that his
practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes best the
smell of urine, and holds Vespasian's[11] rule, that no gain is unsavory.
If you send this once to him you must resolve to be sick howsoever, for he
will never leave examining your water, till he has shaked it into a
disease:[12] then follows a writ to his drugger in a strange tongue, which
he understands, though he cannot conster. If he see you himself, his
presence is the worst visitation: for if he cannot heal your sickness, he
will be sure to help it. He translates his apothecary's shop into your
chamber, and the very windows and benches must take physic. He tells you
your malady in Greek, though it be but a cold, or headach; which by good
endeavour and diligence he may bring to some moment indeed. His most
unfaithful act is, that he leaves a man gasping, and his pretence is,
death and he have a quarrel and must not meet; but his fear is, lest the
carkass should bleed.[13] Anatomies, and other spectacles of mortality,
have hardened him, and he is no more struck with a funeral than a
grave-maker. Noble-men use him for a director of their stomach, and ladies
for wantonness,[14] especially if he be a proper man.[15] If he be single,
he is in league with his she-apothecary; and because it is the physician,
the husband is patient. If he have leisure to be idle (that is to study,)
he has a smatch at alcumy, and is sick of the philosopher's stone; a
disease uncurable, but by an abundant phlebotomy of the purse. His two
main opposites are a mountebank and a good woman, and he never shews his
learning so much as in an invective against them and their boxes. In
conclusion, he is a sucking consumption, and a very brother to the worms,
for they are both engendered out of man's corruption.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _The secretes of the reverende maister Alexis of Piemount, containyng
excellente remedies against diuers diseases_, &c. appear to have been a
very favourite study either with the physicians, or their patients, about
this period.
They were originally written in Italian, and were translated into English
by William Warde, of which editions were printed at London, in 1558, 1562,
1595, and 1615. In 1603, a _fourth_ edition of a Latin version appeared at
Basil; and from Ward's dedication to "the lorde Russell, erle of Bedford,"
it seems that the French and Dutch were not without so great a treasure in
their own languages. A specimen of the importance of this publication may
be given in the title of the first secret. "The maner and secrete to
conserue a man's youth, and to holde back olde age, to maintaine a man
always in helth and strength, as in the fayrest floure of his yeres."
[10] _The Regiment of Helthe_, by Thomas Paynell, is another volume of the
same description, and was printed by Thomas Berthelette, in 1541. 4to.
[11] _Vespatian_, tenth emperor of Rome, imposed a tax upon urine, and
when his son Titus remonstrated with him on the meanness of the act,
"Pecuniam," says Suetonius, "ex prima pensione admovit ad nares, suscitans
_num odore offenderetur_? et illo negante, atqui, inquit, e lotio est."
[12] "Vpon the market-day he is much haunted with vrinals, where, if he
finde any thing, (though he knowe nothing,) yet hee will say some-what,
which if it hit to some purpose, with a fewe fustian words, hee will seeme
a piece of strange stuffe." Character of an unworthy physician. "_The Good
and the Badde_," by Nicholas Breton. 4to. 1618.
[13] That the murdered body bleeds at the approach of the murderer, was,
in our author's time, a commonly received opinion. Holinshed affirms that
the corps of Henry the Sixth bled as it was carrying for interment; and
Sir Kenelm Digby so firmly believed in the truth of the report, that he
has endeavoured to explain the reason. It is remarked by Mr. Steevens, in
a note to _Shakspeare_, that the opinion seems to be derived from the
ancient Swedes, or Northern nations, from whom we descend; as they
practised this method of trial in all dubious cases.
[14]
"Faith, doctor, it is well, thy study is to please
The female sex, and how their corp'rall griefes to ease."
Goddard's "_Mastif Whelp_." Satires. 4to. Without date. Sat. 17.
[15] _Proper_ for handsome.
V.
AN ALDERMAN.
He is venerable in his gown, more in his beard, wherewith he sets not
forth so much his own, as the face of a city. You must look on him as one
of the town gates, and consider him not as a body, but a corporation. His
eminency above others hath made him a man of worship, for he had never
been preferred, but that he was worth thousands. He over-sees the
commonwealth, as his shop, and it is an argument of his policy, that he
has thriven by his craft. He is a rigorous magistrate in his ward; yet his
scale of justice is suspected, lest it be like the balances in his
warehouse. A ponderous man he is, and substantial, for his weight is
commonly extraordinary, and in his preferment nothing rises so much as his
belly. His head is of no great depth, yet well furnished; and when it is
in conjunction with his brethren, may bring forth a city apophthegm, or
some such sage matter. He is one that will not hastily run into error, for
he treads with great deliberation, and his judgment consists much in his
pace. His discourse is commonly the annals of his mayoralty, and what good
government there was in the days of his gold chain, though the door posts
were the only things that suffered reformation. He seems most sincerely
religious, especially on solemn days; for he comes often to church to make
a shew, [and is a part of the quire hangings.] He is the highest stair of
his profession, and an example to his trade, what in time they may come
to. He makes very much of his authority, but more of his sattin doublet,
which, though of good years, bears its age very well, and looks fresh
every Sunday: but his scarlet gown is a monument, and lasts from
generation to generation.
VI.
A DISCONTENTED MAN
Is one that is fallen out with the world, and will be revenged on himself.
Fortune has denied him in something, and he now takes pet, and will be
miserable in spite. The root of his disease is a self-humouring pride, and
an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in his fancy; and the occasion
commonly of one of these three, a hard father, a peevish wench, or his
ambition thwarted. He considered not the nature of the world till he felt
it, and all blows fall on him heavier, because they light not first on his
expectation. He has now foregone all but his pride, and is yet
vain-glorious in the ostentation of his melancholy. His composure of
himself is a studied carelessness, with his arms across, and a neglected
hanging of his head and cloak; and he is as great an enemy to an hat-band,
as fortune. He quarrels at the time and up-starts, and sighs at the
neglect of men of parts, that is, such as himself. His life is a perpetual
satyr, and he is still girding[16] the age's vanity, when this very anger
shews he too much esteems it. He is much displeased to see men merry, and
wonders what they can find to laugh at. He never draws his own lips higher
than a smile, and frowns wrinkle him before forty. He at last falls into
that deadly melancholy to be a bitter hater of men, and is the most apt
companion for any mischief. He is the spark that kindles the commonwealth,
and the bellows himself to blow it: and if he turn anything, it is
commonly one of these, either friar, traitor, or mad-man.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] To _gird_, is to sneer at, or scorn any one. Falstaff says, "men of
all sorts take a pride to _gird_ at me."--_Henry IV. Part 2._
VII.
AN ANTIQUARY;