Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar Part 4

I mon hae it for Carr.'

During all these anxious months Hariot was Sir Walter's close-mouthed and trusted Mercury, a silent messenger who floated frequently by the tide on the Thames between the Tower and his residence at Sion, a pensioner of, and one of Percy's staff of wise men, but really Raleigh's strong right hand. He adroitly and faithfully served two masters, preserving his own independence and self reliance, and not losing the confidence of either.

From the trial at Winchester to the final transfer of Sherburne, a period of some five years, every step against Raleigh was taken through the high Courts of Justice. That the cannie monarch was capable of all this moral wrong and legal crookedness need not surprise any one who has investigated his antecedents and proclivities, but that he on coming to England should have developed that masterly power of warping great minds and bending the English Courts of Justice to his purposes, and even crunching its strong old oaken Bench and Bar into his own royal privy pocket, does surprise one. The secret of this unenglish strength, however, has been attributed partly to his Bur-leigh help.

When Raleigh found the cords thus tightening round him, he offered sundry concessions and services for life and liberty. He would carry out his schemes for enriching the king and the kingdom by conquering and exploring Guiana; he would accept exile in Holland; or emigrate to Virginia, and help to build up a new English empire in the West; but all in vain. It was feared that his unexpired and dormant patent might interfere with the King's own Virginia charter. So Raleigh and Hariot worked on, but relieved the tedium by ever changing study. Every year or two, as long as he could command through himself or friends the resources, Raleigh sent privately a reconnoitring and intelligence ship to Guiana, to keep that pet enterprise alive. In this delicate matter Hariot was Sir Walter's geographer and a.s.sayer, while Hariot's old college friend, Keymis, was his factor or shipping agent.

Then come Raleigh's Essays and smaller writing with his hopeful correspondence with the Queen and Prince Henry. Lady Raleigh's privileges, after six years, ceased in 1611; probably about the time that Cecil was for some unaccountable reason prospecting actively for new evidence against both Sir Walter and Percy. The years 1610 and 1611 were anxious times for them both; but they were bright days for Hariot, with his invention of the telescope and his discoveries. Whether in the Tower, administering new scientific delicacies and delights to the prisoners; or at Sion, unlocking the secrets of the starry firmament by night, in his observatory; or floating between Sion and the Tower by day on the broad bosom of the Thames, prying into the optical secrets of lenses, and inventing his perspective trunks by which he could bring distant objects near, Hariot in foggy England of the north was working out almost the same brilliant series of discoveries that Galileo was making in Italy. To this day, with our undated and indefinite material, even with the new and much more precise evidence now for the first time herewith produced, it is difficult to decide which of them first invented the telescope, or first by actual observation with that marvellous instrument confirmed the truth of the Copernican System by revealing the spots on the Sun, the orbit of Mars, the horns of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, the mountains in the Moon, the elliptical orbits of comets, _etc._ It is manifest, however, that they were both working in the same groove and at the same time.

Hariot was undoubtedly as great a mathematician and astronomer as Galileo. In 1607 at Ilfracombe and in South Wales, he had taken by hand and Jacob's staff, the old patriarchal method, valuable observations of the comet of that year, and compared notes with his astronomical pupil William Lower, and afterwards with Kepler. This comet, now known as Halley's, ought perhaps to have been named Hariot's, for it confirmed his notions that the motions of the planets were not perfect circles and afforded probably the germ of his reasoning out the elliptical orbits of comets, especially afterhis friend and correspondent [see infra, pages 178-180] Kepler's book _de Motibus Stella Atartis_ came out in 1609, and he had invented and improved his telescope or perspective ' truncke' or cylinder in 1609-10.

It is not positively stated that Hariot held direct correspondence with Galileo in 1609 and 1610 or even later, but the evidence is strong that he was promptly kept informedof what was going on in Italy in astronomical and mathematical discovery, as well as in Germany and elsewhere. That he was using a ' perspective truncke ' or telescope as early as the winter of 1609-10, and that his ' servaunte ' Christopher Tooke (or as Lower in 1611 familiarly called him' Kitt') made lenses for him and fitted them into his 'trunckcs' for sale by himself, is known.

From this circ.u.mstance,and from the fact that he disposed of many '

trunckes ' by his will, and left a considerable stock of them to Tooke, it is manifest that he manufactured and traded in telescopes from 1609 to 1621. With his invention of the telescope then it required no correspondence with Galileo to induce him to rake the heavens and sweep our planetary system for new astronomical discoveries. To an astronomer of his activity and mathematical ac.u.men these discoveries followed as a matter of course. Like Galileo he may have borrowed from the Dutch (or quite as likely they of him) the idea that by a combination of lenses it was possible to bring distant objects near, but that he worked out the idea independently of Galileo admits hardly of a doubt. But he seems to have been less ambitious than Galileo to claim priority in either the invention or the discoveries that immediately followed. In this connection the following hitherto unpublished letter will be read with interest:

LETTER OF SIR WILLIAM LOWER _in South Wales to_

THOMAS HARIOT _at Sion_ 21 _June_ 1610.

_Printed from the holograph original in the British Museum_

I gaue your letter a double welcome, both because it came from you and contained newes of that strange nature ; although that wch I craued, you haue deserved till another time. Me thinkes my diligent Galileus hath done more in his three fold discouerie then Magellane in openinge the streightes to the South sea or the dutch men that weare eaten by beares in Noua Zembla. I am sure with more ease and saftie to him selfe and more pleasure to mee. I am so affected with this newes as I wish sommer were past that I mighte obserue these phenomenes also, in the moone I had formerlie observed a strange spotted-nesse al ouer, but had no conceite that anie parte therof mighte be shadowes; since I haue obserued three degrees in the darke partes, of wch the lighter sorte hath some resemblance of shadinesse but that they grow shorter or longer I cannot yet pceaue. ther are three starres in Orion below the three in his girdle so neere togeather as they appeared vnto me alwayes like a longe starre, insomuch as aboute 4 yeares since I was a writing you newes out of Cornwall of a view a strange phenomenon but asking some that had better eyes then my selfe they told me, they were three starres lying close togeather in a right line, thes starres with my cylinder this last winter I often observed, and it was longe er I beleued that I saw them, they appearinge through the Cylinder so farre and distinctlie asunder that without I can not yet disseuer. the discouerie of thes made me then obserue the 7 starres also in, ### [Taurus], wch before I alwayes rather beleued to be, 7. then euer could nomber them, through my Cylinder I saw thes also plainelie and far asunder, and more then, 7.

to, but because I was prejugd with that number, I beleved not myne eyes nor was carefull to obserue how manie; the next winter now that you have opened mine eyes you shall heare much fro me of this argument, of the third and greatest (that I confesse pleased me most) I have least to say, sauing that just at the instance that I receaved your letters wee Traventane Philosophers were a consideringe of Kepler's* reasons [*pag.

106. Noua Stella Serpentarii] by wch he indeauors to ouerthrow Nola.n.u.s and Gilberts opinions concerninge the immensitie of the Spheare of the starres and. that opinion particularlie of Nola.n.u.s by wch he affirmed that the eye beinge placed in anie parte of the Univers the apparence would be still all one as vnto us here. When I was a sayinge that although Kepler had sayd somethinge to moste that mighte be vrged for that opinion of Nola.n.u.s, yet of one princ.i.p.all thinge hee had not thought; for although it may be true that to the ey placed in anie starre of, ### [Cancer], the starres in Capricorne will vanish, yet he hath not therfore so soundlie concluded (as he thinkes) that therfore towards that parte of the world ther wilbe a voidnesse or thin scattering of little starres wheras els round about ther will appeare huge starres close thruste togeather: for sayd I (hauinge heard you say often as much) what is in that huge s.p.a.ce betweene the starres and Saturne, ther remaine euer fixed infinite nombers wch may supplie the apparence to the eye that shalbe placed in ### [Cancer], wch by reason of ther lesser magnitudes doe flie our sighte what is aboute ### [Saturn], ### [Jupiter], ### [Mars], etc. ther moue other planets also wch appeare not. just as I was a saying this comes your letter, wch when I had redd, loe, qd I, what I spoke probablie experience hath made good ; so that we both with wonder and delighte fell a consideringe your letter, we are here so on fire with thes thinges that I must renew my request and your promise to send mee of all sortes of thes Cylinders. my man shal deliuer you monie for anie charge requisite, and contente your man for his paines and skill. Send me so manie as you thinke needfull vnto thes obseruations, and in requitall, I will send you store of observations. Send me also one of Galileus bookes if anie yet be come ouer and you can get them. Concerning my doubte in Kepler, you see what it is to bee so far fro you. What troubled me a month you satisfyed in a minute. I have supplied verie fitlie my wante of a spheare, in the desolution of a hogshead, for the hopes therof haue framed me a verie fine one. I pray also at your leasure answere the other pointes of my last letter concerning Vieta, Kepler and your selfe. I have nothinge to presence you in counter, but grat.i.tude with a will in act to be vsefull vnto you and a power in proxima potentia ; wch I will not leaue also till I haue broughte ad actum. If you in the meane time can further it, tell wher in I may doe you seruice, and see how wholie you shall dispose of me.

Your most a.s.sured and louing friend Tra'uenti the longest day of, 1610. Willm Lower.

~ _Addressed:_ To his espesial good frind Mr. Thomas Hariot

Seal of Arms, _(B. M. Add._ 6789.) at Sion neere London.

[Tra'venti or Trafenty, near Lower Court, is eight or nine miles south-west of Caermarthen, near the confluence of the rivers Taf and Cywyn.]

The writer is fortunately able to throw some light upon these letters of Lower to Hariot. In _the Monatlicbe Correspondenz Vol._ 8, 1803, published by F. X. von Zach at Gotha, pages 47-56, is a most interesting fragment of an original letter inEnglish toHariot. Dr Zach says that he found this letter at Petworth in 1784, and it being without date or signature he confidently a.s.signed its authorship to the Earl of Northumberland, and guessed the date to have been prior to 1619. In his many notes he is in raptures over his discovery, and deplores the misfortune of its breaking off in the most interesting place just as the Earl was about to announce the discovery of the elliptical orbit of the comet of 1607, as reasoned out of Hariot's observations and the writings of Kepler. This famous letter has been used or copied in many places, particularly in Ersch and Gru-ber's Algemeine Encyklopadie under Hariot.

The mystery is now solved by giving here the letter in full. It is even more important than Dr Zach with all his enthusiasm supposed. It is not, however, from the pen of Northumberland, though none the less interesting on that account. The letter is in the well-known handwriting of Lower, of Tra'venti, on Mount Martin, near Llanfihangel, in South Wales, to his dearly loved friend and master Hariot at Sion, and is dated the 6th of February, 1610. The letter fills two sheets of foolscap paper. The first sheet of four pages Dr Zach found at Petworth, and it is to be hoped that it still exists there. The other sheet of four pages is preserved in the British Museum (Add. 6789). How long these two sheets have been separated it is difficult to tell, but probably from Hariot's day, that is, for more than two centuries and a half. The two fragments are now brought together and printed for the first time complete, the first half from Dr Zach's text, and the latter half copied verbatim direct from the original autograph ma.n.u.script, Brit. Mus. Add.

6789.

LETTER FROM SIR WILLIAM LOWER MATHEMATICIAN

AND ASTRONOMER TO THOMAS HARIOT AT SION

FEBRUARY 6, 1610.

I have receeved the perspective Cylinder that you promised me and am sorrie that my man gave you not more warning, that I might have had also the 2 or 3 more that you mentioned to chuse for me. Hence forward he shall have order to attend you better and to defray the charge of this and others, that he forgot to pay the worke man. According as you wished I have observed the Mone in all his changes. In the new I discover manifestlie the earthshine, a little before the Dichotomic, that spot which reprefents unto me the Man in the Moone (but without a head) is first to be feene. a little after neare the brimme of the gibbous parts towards the upper corner appeare luminous parts like starres much brighter then the rest and the whole brimme along, lookes like unto the Description of Coasts in the dutch bookes of voyages, in the full she appeares like a tarte that my Cooke made me the last Weeke.

here a vaine of bright stuffe, and there of darke, and so consufedlie al over. I muft confesse I can see none of this without my cylinder. Yet an ingenious younge man that accompanies me here often, and loves you, and these studies much, sees manie of these things even without the helpe of the instrument, but with it sees them most plainielie. I meane the younge Mr. Protherbe.

Kepler I read diligentlie. but therein I find what it is to be so far from you. For as himfelf, he hath almoft put me out of my wits, his Aequanes, his sections of excentricities, librations in the diameters of Epicycles, revolutions in ellipses, have fo thoroughlie seased upon my imagination as I do not onlie ever dreame of them, but oftentimes awake lose my selfe, and power of thinkinge with to much wantinge to it. not of his caufes for I cannot phansie those magnetical natures, but aboute his theorie which me thinks (although I cannot yet overmafter manie of his particulars) he eftablifheth soundlie and as you say overthrowes the circular Aftronomie.

Do you not here startle, to see every day some of your inventions taken from you ; for I remember long since you told me as much, that the motions of the planets were not perfect circles. So you taught me the curious way to observe weight in Water, and within a while after Ghetaldi comes out with it in print, a little before Vieta prevented [antic.i.p.ated] you of the gharland of the greate Invention of Algebra, al these were your deues and manie others that I could mention ; and yet to great reservednesse had robd you of these glories, but although the inventions be greate, the first and last I meane, yet when I survei your storehouse, I see they are the smallest things and such as in comparison of manie others are of smal or no value. Onlie let this remember you, that it is possible by to much procrastination to be prevented in the honor of some of your rarest inventions and speculations. Let your Countrie and frinds injoye the comforts they would have in the true and greate honor you would purchase your selfe by publishing some of your choise workes, but you know best what you have to doe. Onlie I, because I wish you all good, with this, and sometimes the more longinglie, because in one of your letters you gave me some kind of hope therof.

But againe to Kepler I have read him twice over cursoridlie. I read him now with Calculation. Some times I find a difference of minutes, sometimes false prints, and sometimes an utter confufion in his accounts, these difficulties are so manie, and often as here againe I want your conference, for I know an hower with you, would advance my studies more than a yeare heare, to give you a taft of some of thes difficulties that you may judge of my capacitie, I will send you onlie this one [upon the _Loc.u.m Martis_ out of Kepler's Astronomy, de motibus Stella: Martis, etc. Pragae, 1609, folio Ch. xxvi, page 137.]

For this theorie I am much in love with these particulars;

1 his permutation of the medial to the apparent motions, for it is more rational that all dimensions as of Eccentricities, apogacies, etc.. . . should depend rather of the habitude to the sun, then to the imaginarie circle of orbis annuus.

2 His elliptical iter planetarum. for me thinks it shiews a Way to the folving of the unknown walks of comets. For ai his Ellipfis in the Earths motion is more a circle _[here endeth Dr Zacb's fragment, and here beginneth the continuation from tie original in the Brit.i.th Museum]_ and in Mars is more longe and in some of the other planets may be longer againe so in thos commets that are appeard fixed the ellipsis may be neere a right line.

3. His phansie of ecliptica media or his via regia of the sun, vnto wch the walke of al the other planets is obliqj more or lesse; even the ecliptica uera under wch the earth walkes his yeares journie; by wch he solues handsomelie the mutation of the starres lat.i.tudes. Indeed I am much delighted with his booke, but he is so tough in rnanie places as I cannot bite him. I pray write me some instructions in your next, how I may deale with him to ouermaster him for I am readie to take paines, te modo jura dantem indigeo, dictatorem exposco. But in his booke I am much out of loue with thes particulars. I.

First his manie and intolerable atechnies, whence deriue thos manie and vncertaine a.s.sayes of calculation. 2. His finding fault with Vieta for mending the like things in Ptol: Cop.....

but se the justice Vieta speakes sleightlie of Copernicus a greater then Atlas. Kepler speakes as slightlie of Vieta, a greater then Appollonius whom Kepler everie wher admires. For whosoever can doe the things that Kepler cannot doe, shalbe to him great Appollonius. But enough of Kepler let me once againe intreate your counsel how to read him with best profit, for I am wholie possessed with Astronomical speculations and desires. For your declaration of Vieta's appendicle it is so full and plaine, as you haue aboundantlie satisfyed my desire, for wch I yield you the thankes I ought, onlie in a word tell me whether by it he can solue Copernicus, 5 cap: of his 5.

booke. The last of Vieta's probleames you leaue to speake of because (you say) I had a better of you, wch was more vniuersal and more easilie demonstrated, and findeth the point, E. as wel out of the plaine of the triangle giuen, as in the plaine. I pray here helpe my memorie or vnderstand-inge, for although I haue bethought my selfe vsq ad insaniam, I cannot remember or conceaue what proposition you meane. If I haue had such a one of you, tel me what one it is and by what tokens I may know it ; If I haue not had, then let me now haue it, for you know how much I loue your things and of all wayes of teaching for richnesse and fullnesse for stuffe and forme, yours vnto me are incomparablie most satisfactorie. If your leasure giue you leaue imparte also unto me somewhat els of your riches in this argument.

Let me intreate you to advise and direct this bearer Mr.

Vaughan wher and how to prouide himselfe of a fit sphere ; that by the contemplation of that our imaginations here may be releued in manie speculations that perplexe our vnderstandings with diagrammed in plano. He hath monie to prouide doe you but tell him wher the are to be had and what manner of sphere (I meant with what and how manie circles) wilbe most vsefull for vs to thes studies. After all this I must needs tell you my sorrowes. G.o.d that gaue him, hath taken from me my onlie sun, by continual and strange fits of Epelepsie or Apoloxie, when in apparence, as he was most pleasant and goodlie, he was most healthie, but amongst other things, I haue learnt of you to setle and submit my desires to the will of G.o.d ; onlie my wife with more greife beares this affliction, yet now againe she begins to be comforted. Let me heare fro you and according to your leasure and frindshippe haue directions in the course of studie I am in. Aboue al things take care of your health, keepe correspondence with Kepler and wherinsoeuer you can haue vse of me, require it with all libertie. Soe I rest ever,

Your a.s.sured and true friend to be vsed in

all things that you please.

Willm Lower.

Tra'vent on Mount Martin [in South Wales.] 6 February, 1610.

Let me not make my selfe more able then ther is cause. I can not order the calculation by the construction you sent me of Vieta's 3. probleme, to find the distances of C. & D. & B.

from the Apegen or the proportion of ia. to ac. the eccentricitie. I tooke Copernicus, 3. observations in the, 6.

chap, of his, 5. booke, therfore helpe here once againe.

_Addressed:_ To his especiall good friend

Mr. THO : HARRYOT at Sion neere London.

About this time, it is understood, Raleigh took up seriously and earnestly the great literary work of his life, _The History of the World._ It must have been brewing in his mind for years, for in his preface he expressed the fears he had entertained 'that the darkness of age and death would have overtaken him long before the performance.' The work, according to Camden, was published in April 1614, just before the meeting of Parliament. It appeared anonymously, and for obvious reasons was not entered at Stationers' Hall. James is said to have had his conscience so p.r.i.c.ked by certain pa.s.sages which everywhere pervade the work on the power, conduct and responsibility of princes, that strenuous efforts were made in January 1615 to call in and suppress it, but the king might as well have attempted to call back a departed spirit by Act of Parliament as to call in that ' History of the World' by royal proclamation. The Book was in type and in the hands of the people of England. It could therefore no more be suppressed at that day by princely power than could manifest destiny itself. The second edition of 1621 was the first with Raleigh's name.

This grand work, which in almost everychapter shows the masterly hand of Raleigh himself, needs no comment here. It is however no disparagement of the book (but the contrary) to say that in the collection, arrangement and condensation of its materials; that in unlocking the muniment room of antiquity and perusing the chief authors of the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics from Heroditus to Livy and Eusebius, covering a period of near four thousand years, he must have had at cheerful beck powerful and competent aid. To collect, read, collate, note down, and digest these vast and scattered treasures into reasonable and presentable shape for the master mind, required not a bevy of poets and parsons, but one masterly scholar of scientific, a.n.a.lytic, mathematical, philosophical and religious training. Such a man was Hariot.

We read of Gibbon's twenty years' f.a.g and toil on the materials of the History of the Roman Empire alone, and at a time when there were many aids not existing in Raleigh's day. Gibbon personally ransacked the libraries of Europe. Raleigh had scarcely four years to cover the four most ancient empires and a much longer period, and was himself confined to Tower Hill. But he had at command a Hariot, a sort of winged Mercury, who was neither entowered nor hide-bound with conceit or ignorance. He was a marvellously good Greek and Latin scholar, who wrote Latin with almost as much ease as English. One has but to read the vast number of notes, citations and particular references in the History of the World to see the height, depth, and perfect modelling of the structure.

Raleigh was unquestionably the designer, the architect and the finisher of his History of the World. To him is due the honor and credit of the work. But who was the builder ? The answer manifestly is Thomas Hariot of Sion on Thames, learned, patient, self-forgetting, painstaking, long-waiting, devoted Hariot. Many writers have claimed to be, or have been named as, Sir Walter's a.s.sistants and polishers. Ben Jonson, Rev.

Dr Burhill, John Hoskins the poet, and others have each had their advocates,but without sufficient evidence. It may well be questioned if any one of them possessed either the ability, the time, the access to the Tower, or the opportunity to perform such herculean labors of love.

These claims are apparently all based on pure conjecture, or unrectified gossip, as shown by Mr Bolton Corney in his razorly reply to Mr Isaac D'israeli. But Thomas Hariot, on the contrary, possessed abundantly what they all lacked, the necessary credentials. For proof of this a.s.sertion the doubter, as well as the lover of confirmed historical accuracy, is referred to the Hariot papers still preserved partly at Petworth and partly in the British Museum.

The Hariot ma.n.u.scripts, of which there are thousands of folio pages all in his own handwriting, seem to be still in the same confused state in which he left them. He directed that the 'waste' should be weeded out of his mathematical papers and destroyed. But this duty seems, fortunately for us, to have been neglected by his executors, and hence among this 'waste' one has even now no great difficulty in recognizing in the well-known Latin handwriting of the' magician,' many jottings in chronology, geography and science, and many abstracts and citations of the cla.s.sics, that in their time must have played parts in the _History of the World._ The Will now first produced lets in a flood of light on the history of these valued papers, and dispels a great deal of the heaps of foreign pretension, domestic a.s.sertion, and mixed charlatanism that have since 1784 beclouded the memories of both Raleigh and Hariot.

It is true that on a hint in the previous century from Camden of a will by the great mathematician, many conjectures were afloat from the days of Pell, Collins, Wallis and Wood, but it has not been possible until now for one, with due knowledge of the main events in the lives of these two men, each equally great in his own sphere, to satisfactorily clear away any considerable portion of the misconception and misstatements of biographers and historians concerning them and their achievements. The dawn however is coming, when these new materials now first printed by the Hercules Club, but not worked up, may attract the attention of some historian competent to give them a thorough scientific scrutiny and 'pen their doctrine.'

It is not our purpose here to dwell upon Raleigh's masterpiece. From the preface of the _History of the World,_ which opens with 'the boundless ambition of mortal man,' to the epilogue which closes up the work with the glorious triumph of Death, the whole book is replete with lessons of wisdom and warning. No one can rise from its perusal without perceiving that the modern author has made himself by apt ill.u.s.tration an accomplished actor in ancient history, while the ancient characters are made in their vera effigies to strut on modern stages. His pictures of great actions and great men, n.o.ble deeds and n.o.bler princes, are drawn with such masterly perspective of truth, that they serve for all time ; while his portraiture of tyrants, villains, and dishonorable characters are no less lifelike and human. One marvels not therefore that King James, whose political creed was that the people are bound to princes by iron, and princes to the people by cobwebs, should see in Raleigh's portraiture of the upright kings no likeness to himself, but had no difficulty in recognizing in the deformed greatness and selfish virtues of the old monarchs qualities suggestive of himself and his favorites.

This grand history, extending from the creation over the four great monarchies of the world, near four thousand years, closes with the final triumph of Emilius Paullus in these memorable and oft-repeated words from the first edition of 1614.

Kings and Princes have alwayes laid before them, the actions, but not the ends, of those great Ones which precededthem. They are alwayes transported with the glorie of the one, but they never minde the miserie of the other, till they finde the experience themselves. They neglect the advice of G.o.d, while they enioy life, or hope it; but they follow the counsell of Death, upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdome of the world, without speaking a word ; which G.o.d with all the words of His Law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse.

Death which hateth and destroyeth man, is beleeved ; G.o.d, which hath made him and loves him, is alwayes deferred. I have considered, saith Solomon, all the workes that are under the Sunne, and behold, all is vanitie and vexation of spirit: but who beleeves it, till Death tells it us. It was Death, which opening the conscience of Charles the fift, made him enjoyne his sonne Philip to restore Navarre ; and King Francis the First of France, to command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man know himselfe. He tells the proud and insolent, that they are but Abjects, and humbles them at the instant ; makes them crie, complaine, and repent; yea, even to hate their forepa.s.sed happinesse. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked begger, which hath interest in nothing, but in the grauell that filles his mouth. He holds a gla.s.se before the eyes of the most beautifull, and makes them see therein their deformitie and rottennesse; and they acknowledge it.