Page 15. _Fertur equis_, &c. From the close of Virgil’s first Georgic:
said of horses in a chariot race,
Nor reins, nor curbs, nor threatening cries they fear,
But force along the trembling charioteer.
_Dryden’s translation_.
Page 16. _En Romanos_, &c. Virgil, Æneid I., when Jove says,
The people Romans call, the city Rome,
To them no bounds of empire I assign,
Nor term of years to their immortal line.
_Dryden’s Virgil_.
Page 18. “Laveer with every wind.” Laveer is an old sea term for
working the ship against the wind. Lord Clarendon used its noun, “the
schoolmen are the best laveerers in the world, and would have taught a
ship to catch the wind that it should have gained half and half, though
it had been contrary.”
Page 24. _Amatorem trecentæ Pirithoum cohibent catenæ_. Horace’s Ode,
Bk. IV., end of ode 4. Three hundred chains bind the lover, Pirithous:
Wrath waits on sin, three hundred chains
Pirithous bind in endless pains.
_Creech’s Translation_.
Page 25. _Aliena negotia_, &c. From Horace’s Satires, sixth of Book II.
Page 25. _Dors_, cockchafers.
Page 26. _Pan huper sebastos_. Lord over All.
Page 27. _Perditur hæc inter misero Lux_. Horace, Satires, II., 6.
This whole Satire is in harmony with the spirit of Cowley’s Essays.
Page 29. _A slave in Saturnalibus_. In the Saturnalia, when Roman
slaves had licence to disport themselves.
Page 29. _Unciatim_, &c. Terence’s Phormio, Act I., scene 1, in the
opening: “All that this poor fellow has, by starving himself, bit by bit,
with much ado, scraped together out of his pitiful allowance—(must go at
one swoop, people never considering the price it cost him the getting).”
_Eachard’s Terence_.
Page 30. _κακὰ θηρία_, &c. Paul to Titus, “The Cretans are always
liars, _evil beasts_, _slow bellies_.”
Page 31. _Quisnam igitur_, &c. Horace’s Satires, II., 7. “Who then is
free? The wise man, who has absolute rule over himself.”
Page 31. Oenomaus, father of Hippodameia, would give her only to the
suitor who could overcome him in a chariot race. Suitors whom he could
overtake he killed. He killed himself when outstripped by Pelops, whom a
god assisted, or, according to one version, a man who took the nails out
of Oenomaus’ chariot wheels, and brought him down with a crash.
Page 41. _Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus_. Never less alone than
when alone.
Page 47. _Sic ego_, &c. From Tibullus, IV., 13.
Page 51. _O quis me gelidis_, &c. From the Second Book of Virgil’s
Georgics, in a passage expressing the poet’s wish:
Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fired,
My soul is ravished and my brain inspired;
Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear,
Would you your poet’s first petition hear:
Give me the ways of wandering stars to know;
The depths of Heaven above, and Earth below;
Teach me, &c. . . .
. . .
But if my heavy blood restrain the flight
Of my free soul aspiring to the height
Of Nature, and unclouded fields of light:
My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life.
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley and a lofty wood;
Some god conduct me to the sacred shades
Where bacchanals are sung by Spartan maids,
Or lift me high to Hæmus hilly crown,
Or in the vales of Tempè lay me down,
Or lead me to some solitary place,
And cover my retreat from human race.
_Dryden’s translation_.
Page 56. _Nam neque divitibus_. Horace’s Epistles, I., 18.
Page 58. Tankerwoman, “water-bearer, one who carried water from the
conduits.”
Page 60. _Bucephalus_, the horse of Alexander. Domitian is said to have
given a consulship to his horse _Incitatus_.
Page 60. The glory of Cato and Aristides. See the parallel lives in
Plutarch.
Page 64. _O fortunatos nimium_, &c. Men all too happy, and they knew
their good.
Page 70. _Hinc atque hinc_. From Virgil’s Æneid, Book I.
Page 75. Mr. Hartlib . . . _if the gentleman be yet alive_. Samuel
Hartlib, a public-spirited man of a rich Polish family, came to England
in 1640. He interested himself in education and other subjects, as well
as agriculture. In 1645 he edited a treatise of Flemish Agriculture that
added greatly to the knowledge of English farmers, and thereby to the
wealth of England. He spent a large fortune among us for the public
good. Cromwell recognised his services by a pension of £300 a year,
which ceased at the Restoration, and Hartlib then fell into such
obscurity that Cowley could not say whether he were alive or no.
Page 75. _Nescio qua_, &c. Ovid. Epistles from Pontus.
Page 76. _Pariter_, &c. Ovid’s Fasti, Book I. Referring to the happy
souls who first looked up to the stars, Ovid suggests that in like manner
they must have lifted their heads above the vices and the jests of man.
Cowley has here turned “locis” into “jocis.”
Page 80. _Ut nos in Epistolis scribendis adjuvet_. That he might help
us in writing letters.
Page 81. _Qui quid sit pulchrum_, &c. Who tells more fully than
Chrysippus or Crantor what is fair what is foul, what useful and what
not.
Page 92. _Swerd of bacon_, skin of bacon. First English _sweard_. So
green sward is green surface covering.
Page 100. The Country Life is a translation from Cowley’s own Latin Poem
on Plants.
Page 105. Evelyn had dedicated to Cowley his Kalendarium Hortense.