Microcosmography Part 33

"Well Sir! I will grumble no more, since you have vouchsaft to answer me at last, I was afraid you had thought you could not be enimy to the Court of Honour enough, except you renounc'd all civilitye. I could be verie angry with Mr. Vaughan for defrauding me of your punctuale letter, by not taking his leave of you, but he tells me, he was at your chamber in the Temple every day, and not finding you there, knew not where to seek you. Well I hope one day you will meet with some trustye messenger whose pockett may be capable of the great _arcana_[EJ] of your letter. I am not altogether without some intelligence how things pa.s.se, though by no such authenticall men as you are, yet such as G. Morley, who though he was not a man of such imployment, yet was one of less leasure then you for this fortnight, being to make a much longer speech then you, and in as good companye, for which I heare he is not thankd, as perchance nor you neyther. May you not trust with a carier, the telling me how he did, or how my Lord of Falkland does, since he is resolved I shall understand nothing of him by himselfe. I will not unthriftily spill my letters any more there, where they returne me no fruit. My father is your servant, for Sir _Cph_[EK]

Widington, I hope he will compose this quarell without a suite. Is T. Triplett at London yett, or have you any great occasion to draw him up. These are all safe things to be convey'd by a porter to a carier, and by him to me, though my Lord Marshalls himself had feed them to intercept, or brake open your letters. Well when you are most idle, for I must confesse the thinking of me is not worth any time, wherein you may doe any thing els, say something to me. I that have leasure for us both, (as indeed what business here can fill a man's leasure that does not hunt nor drinke nor play at cardes) am content with so much patience from you as to read me when you will not write to

Your most humble servant JO. EARLES."

[EL] "Bishopston."

"Bish. Dec. 9."

"Pray remember my service to Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Harding."

_An Original endorsed by Mr. Hyde._[EM]

[Addressed] To my most honor'd frend Mr. Edward Hyde at Sir Thomas Aylesburies house in Westminster in the Deans yard.

[Endorsed by Hyde] Mr. Earles 10ber. 1640.

LETTERS OF CLARENDON TO EARLE, A.D. 1647.

SIR EDWARD HYDE TO DR. JOHN EARLES.

"Sir,

"Though I believe you have received two or three letters 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 inc.u.mbent 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 G.o.dolphin hath left to him by his Will, a legacy of 200, 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 G.o.d 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?

"G.o.d 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sion 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."

G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.dly,"--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 t.i.tle and leaf are preserved, with the addition of a proof t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle--Ex dono _editoris_ (altered to _impressoris_)--have the initials J. H. below them. There are also three advertis.e.m.e.nts 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 cla.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.s for a genius at Olney."[ET]