XI.

Thus would I double my life’s fading space,

For he that runs it well twice runs his race.

And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,

I would not fear, nor wish my fate,

But boldly say each night,

To-morrow let my sun his beams display

Or in clouds hide them—I have lived to-day.

You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the

conclusion is taken out of Horace), and perhaps it was the immature and

immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, these

characters in me. They were like letters cut into the bark of a young

tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But how this love

came to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can

tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such

chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there. For I remember

when I begun to read and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to

lie in my mother’s parlour. (I know not by what accident, for she

herself never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there was

wont to lie Spenser’s works; this I happened to fall upon, and was

infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and

monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there (though my

understanding had little to do with all this); and by degrees with the

tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had

read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet

as immediately as a child is made an eunuch. With these affections of

mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university, but

was soon torn from thence by that violent public storm which would suffer

nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the

princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could

have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family

of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best

princesses of the world. Now though I was here engaged in ways most

contrary to the original design of my life, that is, into much company,

and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant

and triumphant, for that was the state then of the English and French

Courts; yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only

added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural

inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the

nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with

when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me

when I saw that it was adulterate. I met with several great persons,

whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their

greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or

content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and

bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with

my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found

anywhere, though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though

I ate at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present

subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in

banishment and public distresses, yet I could not abstain from renewing

my old schoolboy’s wish in a copy of verses to the same effect.

Well then; I now do plainly see,

This busy world and I shall ne’er agree, etc.

And I never then proposed to myself another advantage from His Majesty’s

happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately convenient

retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have

compassed, as well as some others, with no greater probabilities or

pretences have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before

written a shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me

in the truth, though not in the elegance of it.

Thou, neither great at court nor in the war,

Nor at th’ exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar;

Content thyself with the small barren praise,

Which neglected verse does raise, etc.

However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not

quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it _A corps

perdu_, without making capitulations or taking counsel of fortune. But

God laughs at a man who says to his soul, “Take thy ease”: I met

presently not only with many little encumbrances and impediments, but

with so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the

happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither repent nor

alter my course. _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_. Nothing shall

separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, and have now at

last married, though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived

yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.

—_Nec vos_, _dulcissima mundi_

_Nomina_, _vos Musæ_, _libertas_, _otia_, _libri_,

_Hortique sylvesque anima remanente relinquam_.

Nor by me e’er shall you,

You of all names the sweetest, and the best,

You Muses, books, and liberty, and rest;

You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be,

As long as life itself forsakes not me.

But this is a very petty ejaculation. Because I have concluded all the

other chapters with a copy of verses, I will maintain the humour to the

last.