from me since you writ any, yet since your's of your new
year's eve came to my hands since I writ last, I reckon
it my turn to write againe; and shall either convert you
to a more sedulous correspondence, or make you so much
ashamed (which is a modesty lazy men are very inclinable
to), that you shall give over writing at all. I always
send you word of the date of those which I receive from
you, so that you can only tell whether I have had that
which you say was pretty long and troublesome; for I
have not thought any one half long enough, nor
troublesome; otherwise than (which on my conscience was
not your sense) under the notion of the vile caracters,
which is almost cipher without a key: besides that
commonly the ink and paper do so throughly incorporate,
that the letters are hardly discernable. It is possible
the Scots may take their money, if the other will pay
it; but if upon that consideration they leave the
Kingdom, or suffer the King to leave them, I will no
more pretend to divination. Let not those apprehensions
startle you nor be troubled that they seem sometimes to
make Propositions which you do not like; it being safe
and profitable to them to offer anything which they
foresee must be denied by their jealous brethren. Look
upon their Covenant, their avowed gloss upon that
Covenant published to the world, and tell me if any
contradications in Philosophy be more diametrically
opposite and impossible to be reconciled to the ends of
the Independents than those extremes. I wish I were as
sure that the King would not desert himself and his
pious and honourable principles (of which, truly I have
a great confidence) as that the Scots will stick to him,
when they are fully convinced that he is not to be
removed.
"Must I believe _H. Cressy's_[EN] resolution to be
peremptory whilst he remains in such company? Truly I am
exceedingly troubled for it.
"What scruples or scandals could work this odious
alteration (for methinks, apostacy is too cholerick a
word towards a friend) which you could not remove? It is
a great loss to the Church, but a greater to his
friends, dead and alive; for the dead suffer where their
memory and reputation is objected to question and
reproach.
"Is it a necessary consequence to the conscience, that
if a man turn to that Church, he must take orders in it?
Methinks there is a duty incumbent to the function, that
might well terrify a man that feels not a very strong
impulsion, though he were never so well satisfied in the
religion itself.
"If we can not keep him a Minister of our Church, I wish
he would continue a layman in their's, which would
somewhat lessen the defection, and it may be, preserve a
_greater proportion of his innocence_.
"I am very glad (for my own sake) that you have the
happiness to be known to my Lord Newcastle. I commit the
managing what concerns me, both in substance and
circumstance, wholly to your direction and dexterity: I
told you how far I was advanced by my Lord Withrington.
I pray remember my service to Mr. Hobbs by the same
token that Sydney Godolphin hath left to him by his
Will, a legacy of L200, and desire him for old
aquaintance sake, and for your intercession, to bestow
one of his books upon me, which I have never seen since
it was printed, and therefore know not how much it is
the same, which I had the favour to read in English. I
thank you for your wishing your self here. I am sure I
would purchase you at any price I could pay or promise,
if it were as fit for the prince, as it would be for me.
In the mean time I pray God he thinks your company as
good as they know it to be who cannot get it. But will
the good Bishop of Salisbury never come to relieve you?
What does he? Where is he? What do you answer to the
other thousand questions I have asked you?
"God send you a good New Year that may yield you a
decent plenty, till it may give you an honest peace, and
me meat enough against hunger, and cloathes enough
against cold.
"And then if the Stationers do not sue out a commission
of Bankruptcy against me for their arrears for paper and
ink, I shall not fear any other creditors, nor the
exception in the first where I will not give my place
for the best amongst the compounders, nor the worst
(that is the greatest) amongst the committee: less the
title of being.
Sir, yours, etc."
"Jersey, the 1st of January."
A Copy of Mr. Edgeman, 1646-1649.
SIR EDWARD HYDE TO DR. JOHN EARLES.
"Well, admit you do spend three hours every day, that
you may spend one with the prince, allow two hours to
your dinner, and two hours in the projecting where to
get one, you have still a fair time to yourself, and one
half hour in a week, without question, to tell me that
you are alive, and that in this dismal time of mutation,
you are so far from change, that you continue even the
same to me.
"I am not willing to tell you, that though you owe me no
letters, you have three or four of mine unanswered, but
I must tell you the last packet from Paris brought me
none from you though I found by some I received, that
mine thither had not miscarried; so you were not without
provocation.
"Indeed you are to blame to trust me so much with myself
in this terrible conflict; with which most men are so
unworthily appalled: for truly your advice and
approbation is of singular comfort and encouragement to
me. And now I pray tell me what is that '_Charitas
Patriae_' which all moral and divine authors have so
much magnified. That I must not concur in the acts of
impiety and injustice of my country, though never so
generally practised, or do a thing in itself wicked to
save or preserve my country from any suffering, is I
doubt not very clear. But is that Charitas Patriae
utterly to be abolished and extinguished, for its
practise of that impiety and injustice? Should I wish
their irreligion destroyed by an army of Turks, or their
licence subdued by a power that would make them slaves?
Was it well said of Alcibiades, that he is truly a lover
of his country, not that refuseth to invade the country
he hath wrongfully lost but desires so much to be in it,
as by any means he can he will attempt to recover it?
Was not Jocasta more Christian to her Son Polynices;
_Petendo patriam perdis; ut fiat tua, vis esse nullam_.
"I pray, say somewhat to me of this argument; that I may
really know how far I may comply with passion and
provocation; and whether as no infirmity or impiety in
my prince can warrant or excuse my declension of
allegiance towards him, there be not some candour and
kindness to remain towards a man's country, though
infected with the most raging rebellion."
God preserve you!
8th of January 1646.
A rough Draught, corrected, and endorsed by himself.
SIR EDWARD HYDE TO DR. JOHN EARLES.
"SIR,
"I told you long since that when I came to speak of that
unhappy battle of Newbury, I would enlarge upon the
memory of our dear friend that perished there: to which
I concieve myself obliged, not more by the rights of
friendship than of history, which ought to transmit the
virtue of excellent persons to posterity: and therefore
I am careful to do justice to every man that hath fallen
in the quarrel, on which side soever, as you will find
by what I have said of Mr. Hambden himself.
"I am now past that point, and being quickened by your
most elegant and ([EO]political) commemoration of him
and from hints there, thinking it necessary to say
somewhat for his vindication in such particulars as may
possibly have made impression in good men, it may be I
have insisted longer upon the argument than may be
agreeable to the rules to be observed in such a work,
though it be not much longer than Livy is in
recollecting the virtues of one of the Scipio's after
his death. I wish it were with you that you might read
it, for if you thought it unproportionable for the place
where it is I could be willingly diverted to make it a
piece by itself, and inlarge it into the whole size of
his life; and that way it would sooner be communicated
to the world. And you know Tacitus published the life of
Julius Agricola before either his annals or his history.
"I am contented you should laugh at me for a fop in
talking of Livy and Tacitus; when all I can hope for is
to side Hollingshead, and Stow, or (because he is a poor
knight too, and worse than either of them) Sir Richard
Baker. But if I had not hooked them in this way, how
should I have been able to tell you, that I have this
year read over Livy and Tacitus; which will never be
found by the language and less by the Latin. We have had
no boat out of Normandy these ten days, so that we have
heard nothing from the Isle of Wight since the Kings
first message thence. God send us good news that we may
again (in what condition soever) enjoy one another;
which will be a very great satisfaction to; your most
affectionate humble servant."
"Jersey this 14 Dec. St. vet."
A Copy, endorsed by himself.
* * * * *
There are two very long letters of Feb. 12th and March 16th, 1647--too
long to quote in full--from which I have thought it worth while to make
extracts.
Concerning the subject of the Charitas Patriae, "I cannot" he says,
"rejoice at foreign powers being at peace" that there might be "forces
vacant for the reduction of England,"--but he appeals to Earle for "advice
and direction; upon whose judgment, discretion, and conscience I do so
much depend that I do really suspect my own when I find it at all differ
from yours." He speaks too of Earle's company being so comforting to his
fellow-exiles. Jersey Feb. 12th.
In the letter of March 16th, speaking of possible deterioration of
character--of "innocence destroyed," of "wiping out the old loved prints,"
he adds that the "shame of communicating his thoughts" to Earle [in case
of his (the writer's) falling away] will, he hopes, keep him from any
"alteration." In the same letter there is another reference to what Earle
had written about Lord Falkland--no such work I understand survives--"I
would desire you at your leisure to send me that discourse of your own
which you read to me in the end of your _Contemplations upon the Proverbs_
in memory of my Lord Falkland: of whom, in its place, I intend to speak
largely--"so far from being an indecorum (it will be) no less the business
of history than the truth of things."
Anthony Wood's opinion [Bliss's reference to Wood is very brief] of Earle
may be added to Clarendon's testimonies: "This Dr. Earl was a [EP]_very
genteel man_, a contemner of the world, religious, and most worthy of the
office of a Bishop." He is elsewhere styled by him "learned and
godly,"--but the epithet "genteel" gives an extra touch that we should be
loth to lose. In reference to his Latin Translation of Hooker's
Ecclesiastical Polity he adds: "He was only the fit man to make the
learned of all nations happy." Of the Hortus Mertonensis he tells us that
it was one "of several copies of his ingenuity and poetry that were
greedily gathered up" at the University.
I have said in the Preface that nothing is known to Earle's disparagement.
It is true that Ludlow says[EQ]: "Dr. Earle told me that by abolishing
episcopacy we took away all the encouragement to learning; for that men
would not send their sons to the University had they not some hopes that
they would attain preferment." And he is very severe on "this sordid
principle and consideration." That it was not the recommendation of
learning to Earle is abundantly proved by the Microcosmography--but he
might well think the University ought not to lose the advantage of any
material inducements such as might appeal to ordinary men.
Earle, moreover, was a humourist, and may have amused himself with
arguments which seemed good enough for his audience. Lord Macaulay must
not be supposed indifferent to learning because he told his nephew to "get
a good degree at College and become a Fellow--_for then_ he would have
almonds and raisins for the rest of his life for nothing!"
My interleaved copy of Bliss has on the fly-leaf the words "the castrated
title and leaf are preserved, with the addition of a proof title page with
Dr. Bliss's name omitted." The copy is announced in a catalogue slip
pasted in at the end of the book as containing[ER] MS. notes by Joseph
Haslewood and Dr. Bliss. The words above the title--Ex dono _editoris_
(altered to _impressoris_)--have the initials J. H. below them. There are
also three advertisements of Bliss's book, "published this day," two of
them on coloured paper pasted in the beginning; the third is supplemented
by a notice from the Monthly Review, Feb. 1812, which runs as
follows:--"We recommend the perusal of this work to every class of
readers, since it is in truth a store house of wit and wisdom ... The old
fashioned dress in which these acute strictures on human life appear,
while it takes little or nothing from their intelligibility, adds much to
their force and liveliness. The lovers of proverbial wit, for many of
these characters are strings of judicious adages, are therefore greatly
obliged to Mr. Bliss for his pleasing republication of so pregnant a
volume. The notes are instructive without prolixity: the index is
extremely useful, for it is really astonishing[ES] _how large a quantity
of good matter_ is scattered up and down the present _duodecimo_ (the
advt. calls it _octavo_), and the appendix contains an ample store of
black-letter information, and will introduce almost every reader to some
new acquaintances, who have singularity at least, if nothing else to
recommend them. The Life of the Bishop, and the list of his works are
particularly interesting."
All readers of Cowper will remember what a weight of authority the
criticism of the Monthly Review carried with it, and the pathetic appeal
of the Author to the Editor--"but oh!, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for
a genius at Olney."[ET]
The notes and illustrations which Dr. Bliss did _not_ make use of in his
edition are as follows.[EU]
Two are on the serving-man, 'In querpo.'
"I am borne sweet lady
To a poore fortune that will keep myself
And Footman, as you see, to bear my sword
In Cuerpo after me."
--_Mayne's City Match, a Comedy, 4to, 1658._
"You shall see him in the morning in the gallery--first, at noon in the
Bullion, in the evening in Quirpo."--Massinger's Fatal Dowry.
"Dr. Johnson explains querpo, which he says is corrupted from cuerpo
(Spanish), as a dress close to the body. Dryden uses it."
On the same character he has a quotation from Religio Regis, 12mo, 1715:
King James in his advice to his son Henry, Prince of Wales, says "hawking
is not to be condemned, but nevertheless, give me leave to say, it is more
uncertain than the others (hunting), and subject to mischances."
On the "She-precise Hypocrite" he has a note--on "Geneva."
Like a Geneva weaver in black, who left
The loom and entered into the ministry
For Conscience Sake.--_Mayne's City Match._
On 'door-posts' in 'The Aldermen' he quotes, "a pair of such brothers were
fitter for posts without dore indeed, to make a shew at a new-chosen
magistrate's gate."--_The Widow_, 4to, 1652.
Of 'Paul's Walk' there is yet one more illustration. "Walk in the middle
Ile in Paul's, and gentlemen's teeth walk not faster at ordinaries than
there a whole day togeather about inquirie after newes."--Theeves falling
out true men come by their good, or the Belman wanted a clapper, _4to,
Lond., 1615._
On the Pot-Poet he has a quotation from _Whimzies, a new cast of
Characters_, 8vo, Lond., 1633, an illustration of the "_strange monster
out of Germany_." "Nor comes his invention farre short of his imagination:
for want of truer relations, for a neede he can find a Sussex dragone,
some sea or Inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man in a
gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder."
At the end of the Characters there is an extract from a letter of
Clarendon which mentions that the deanery of Westminster "was designed to
a person of very known and confessed merit," (most probably Dr. John
Earle) _written below_. He quotes Anthony Wood on the other side of this
leaf for Earle's friendships, with Henry Cary, first Earle of
Monmouth--with George Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Morley and
Earle lived together at Antwerp till they were called to attend on the
Duke of York in France. Two passages of Anthony Wood, which he does not
quote, are worth recalling. Morley was sent by Charles II. to "thank
Salmasius for his Apology for his Martyrd father, but not with a purse of
gold as Joh. Milton, the impudent lyer, reported." Henry Cary was "well
skill'd in the modern languages, and a general scholar"; and thus "was
capacitated [by a forced retiredness in the troublesome times of
Rebellion] to exercise himself in studies, while others of the nobility
were fain to truckle to their inferiors for company sake."
I have only given two title-pages of editions in the year of publication.
A table of editions is given on the next page.
[_Title-page of first edition of 1628._]
Micro-cosmographie;
or,
A Peece of
The World
discovered;
In Essayes and
Characters.
[Here is inserted in MS.--"Written by John Earles
of Merton Coll."]
_Newly composed for the Northerne parts
of this Kingdome._
AT LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. S., FOR ED. BLOUNT.
1628.
[_Title-page of 3rd edition of 1628._]
Micro-cosmographie;
or,
A Peece of
The World
discovered;
In Essayes and
Characters.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM STANSBURY, FOR
ROBERT ALLOT, 1628.
[W. H. Allnutt, in a MS. note inserted in the Bodleian
copy of Arber's Reprint of the Characters, states
that Arber has mistaken the order of priority of the
three 1628 edd. Arber places the ed. with the above
title-page second, and that of which the title is copied
on p. 330, third. The second ed., called by Arber
the first, is not in the Bodleian.]
The last written page of the Durham MS. has by way of Colophon
Finis.
December anno Do
This 14th mini
day 1627.
"This little volume in calf binding, about 12mo size, is doubtless one of
those referred to by Ed. Blount in his address to the Reader. The MS. is
written in an exceedingly neat and small hand on the pages of the
previously bound book, with margin lines ruled in red. At the top of the
first page is written in a different hand, 'Edw. Blunt, Author.' The MS.
contains 46 Characters in all, and is free from some evident blunders in
the first printed copies, as if they had been done from dictation."
This MS. in the Durham Cathedral Library is entered in the catalogue (of
the Hunter MSS.) as "Characters by Edward Blunt," and dated "about 1636,"
the date _in the MS._ having been overlooked.
Dr. Fowler in _Notes and Queries_, Nov. 4th, 1871.
EARLE'S MICROCOSMOGRAPHY.
--------------------------------------+------+----------+-----+-------+--------
| | |Bliss| |
|Bliss,| Bliss, |Sale,|British|
EDITION. |1811 .| 1812-57. |1858.|Museum |Bodleian
--------------------------------------+------+----------+-----+-------+--------
"W. Stansby for Edward Blount,"[EV] | | | | |
1628(_a_) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes
"W. Stansby for Robert Allot," 1628 | | | | |
(_b_)[EW] | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
"W. S. for Ed. Blount," 1628 (_c_)[EX]| Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
4th | No | No | No | No | No
5th 1629 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
6th 1630 | No | No | No | Yes | No
"6th" 1633 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
7th 1638 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
(A reprint of one of the | | | | |
first four) 1650 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
(Very doubtful) 1659 | No |"Mr. | No | No | No
| |Gilchrist"| | |
| |told him | | |
| |he possessed a | |
| |copy by the same| |
| |printers as in | |
| |1669 but with | |
| |"1659." | | |
8th 1664 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
9th 1669 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No
(1669 edition, with new title) 1676 | No | Yes | Yes | No | No
(Reprint of 1633 edition) 1732 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
(1732 edition, with new title | | | | |
and small changes) 1740 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | Yes
(Reprint of 1650 edition) 1786 | Yes | | Yes | Yes | No
(Bliss's edition) 1811 | | | Yes | Yes | Yes
(Arber's edition) 1868 or 1869 | | | | Yes | Yes
--------------------------------------+------+----------+-----+-------+--------
_British
Museum._ _Bodleian._ _Bliss._
_As to the three 1628 editions_--
A is regarded as 1st 2nd 3rd
B " " 2nd 3rd 2nd
C " " 3rd 1st 1st
C has "Newly composed for the Northerne parts of this Kingdome."
F. MADAN, _Sub-Librarian Bodleian Library_,
_February 11th, 1897._
This table was compiled for me most kindly by Mr. MADAN. It answers the
question, what editions Bliss knew of at _various times_.
The following passage from Evelyn's Diary adds one more testimony to
Earle. _Nov. 30th, 1662._ "Invited by the Deane of Westminster (Dr. Earle)
to his consecration dinner and ceremony on his being made Bishop of
Worcester. Dr. Bolton preached in the Abbey Church--then followed the
consecration.... After this was one of the most plentiful and magnificent
dinners that in my life I ever saw. It cost neere L600.... Here were the
Judges, Nobility, Clergy, and gentlemen innumerable, this Bishop being
universally belov'd for his sweete and gentle disposition. He was author
of those characters which go under the name of Blount. He translated his
late Majesty's Icon into Latine, was Clerk of his Closet, Chaplaine, Deane
of Westminster, and yet a most humble, meeke, but cheerful man, an
_excellent scholar_,[EY] and rare preacher. I had the honour to be loved
by him. He married me at Paris, during his Majesties and the Churches
exile. When I tooke leave of him he brought me to the Cloysters in his
episcopal habit." He elsewhere speaks of "going to St. Germans to desire
of Dr. Earle," then in attendance at the Prince of Wales' Court, that he
would marry him "at the chapel of his Majesty's Resident at the Court of
France," June 10th, 1647. A sermon of Earle's, "my deare friend now Deane
of Westminster" is mentioned on Christmas Day 1660. It was one "condoling
the breache made in the public joy by the lamented death of the Princess
of Orange." My attention was drawn to these passages by a friend who
claims descent from Bishop Earle--Mr. W. B. Alt, of New College, Oxford.
A testimony from another _hand_[EZ] is quoted in Bliss's annotated copy.
"How well he understood the world in his younger days appears by his smart
characters; how little he valued it was seen in the careless indifference
of his holy contemplative life."
In Burnet's History of his own Times we are told that Charles II. "who had
a secret pleasure in finding out anything that lessened a man esteemed
eminent for piety, yet had a value for him (Earle) beyond all the men of
his order." (See Arber's Reprint.) On the other hand the Parliament in
1645 had named him as one to be summoned to the Assembly of Divines, but
he declined to come.[FA]
In 1654 there was printed at the Hague an Elzevir volume--"morum
exemplar," _Latin_ characters by one Louis du Moulin. He aspires he says
in the preface to be the Virgil or Seneca to Earle's Theocritus or
Menander.
This is his testimony to the characters.
"Et sane salivam primum mihi movit vester Earles cujus characteribus, non
puto quicquam exstare vel severius ubi seria tractat, vel festivius quands
_innoxie_ jocatur: ant pictorem unquam penicillo propius ad nativam
speciem expressisse hominis vultus, quam ille ejus mores patria lingua
descripserit."
It may be of interest to mention in connection with the title of Earle's
book that the phrase of Menenius Agrippa in Coriolanus.--"The _Map_ of my
Microcosm" actually occurs as a title of a book of characters by H.
Broune, 1642, the alternative description being "a morall description of
man newly compiled into Essays.
Bliss's MS. book illustrates what I have said in the preface of the change
in the character-sketch. The essay and the pamphlet gradually usurp the
place of social studies. The great mass of the "characters" of the last
half of the seventeenth century are political or religious. On the other
hand, while the only _prose_ character in Bliss of the sixteenth century
deals with the criminal classes, "a discoverie of ten English leapers
verie noisome and hurtfull to the Church and Commonwealth," quoted in his
MS. notebook, mixes such characters with "the Simoniacke," "the murmurer,"
"the covetous man." The date is 1592. (The Tincker of Torvey (1630) also
exhibits this mixture.)
It may be worth while to add a few titles of books of characters, as
illustrating the range of this class of literature, or as being in
themselves interesting. They are from Bliss's own notes in his own copy of
his book or in the MS. note book before referred to.
1. "The Coffee-House--a character."