348. _Cistertian Monastery_. [Sonnet III.]
'Here man more purely lives,' &c.
'Bonum est nos hic esse, quia homo vivit purius, cadit rarius, surgit
velocius, incedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur felicius, purgatur
utius, praemiatur copiosius.'--Bernard. 'This sentence,' says Dr.
Whitaker, 'is usually inscribed in some conspicuous part of the
Cistertian houses.'
349. _Waldenses_.
'Whom obloquy pursues with hideous bark.' [Sonnet XIV. l. 8.]
The list of foul names bestowed upon those poor creatures is long and
curious;--and, as is, alas! too natural, most of the opprobrious
appellations are drawn from circumstances into which they were forced by
their persecutors, who even consolidated their miseries into one
reproachful term, calling them Patarenians, or Paturins, from _pati_, to
suffer.
Dwellers with wolves, she names them, for the pine
And green oak are their covert; as the gloom
Of night oft foils their enemy's design,
She calls them Riders on the flying broom;
Sorcerers, whose frame and aspect have become
One and the same through practices malign.
350. _Borrowed Lines_.
'And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.' [Sonnet XXI. ll. 7-8.]
These two lines are adopted from a MS., written about 1770, which
accidentally fell into my possession. The close of the preceding Sonnet
'On Monastic Voluptuousness' is taken from the same source, as is the
verse, 'Where Venus sits,' &c., and the line, 'Once ye were holy, ye are
holy still,' in a subsequent Sonnet.
851. _Transfiguration_.
'One (like those prophets whom God sent of old)
Transfigured,' &c. [Sonnet XXXIV. ll. 4-5.]
'M. Latimer suffered his keeper very quietly to pull off his hose, and
his other array, which to looke unto was very simple: and being stripped
unto his shrowd, he seemed as comely a person to them that were present,
as one should lightly see: and whereas in his clothes hee appeared a
withered and crooked sillie (weak) olde man, he now stood bolt upright,
as comely a father as one might lightly behold.... Then they brought a
faggotte, kindled with fire, and laid the same downe at doctor Ridley's
feete. To whome M. Latimer spake in this manner, "Bee of good comfort,
master Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle
by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never bee put out."'--_Fox's
Acts, &c._
Similar alterations in the outward figure and deportment of persons
brought to like trial were not uncommon. See note to the above passage
in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, for an example in an
humble Welsh fisherman.
352. _Craft_.
----'craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad.' [Sonnet XLI. l. 11.]
A common device in religious and political conflicts. See Strype in
support of this instance.
353. _The Virgin Mountain_. [Sonnet XLIII.]
Jung-frau.
354. _Laud_. [Sonnet XLV.]
In this age a word cannot be said in praise of Laud, or even in
compassion for his fate, without incurring a charge of bigotry; but
fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, 'that it is sufficient
for his vindication to observe that his errors were the most excusable
of all those which prevailed during that zealous period.' A key to the
right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most
odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of
his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:--'Ever since I came in
place, I have laboured nothing more than that the external publick
worship of God, so much slighted in divers parts of this kingdom, might
be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be.
For I evidently saw that the publick neglect of God's service in the
outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that
service, _had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of
God, which while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all
little enough to keep it in any vigour_.'
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