w.s^^s!sf^yy'*^!^if^ii^^ .rrri iMtl ^^:iir/^'rUy//y /if^)^/f . ^f//'tM^ r^' fi :r^^' \' -v,-^;- J^-^^'^ /^rs -^/^ mUiv'^ll^^X r-TJ^Ksge twi i < v n i » ii iji » bwai i i i i» K * v ! % jn^in^'i^.i,-j'i>>'vx'is: ^^^ \r\r.. ^'^ AA/OnO '-fr'^^ ^^^^Q' ■^AA, '^ArN mm •fk^^^ft^m, \^/^/^A,^ '^^r\fyAn,^A.^ "•'^^,r,'^/^/^ ^.wr^^^C:^"^^' A^^^^' ^^[ SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S WORKS, VOLUME THE FOURTH, CONTAINING REPERTORIUM— LETTER TO A FRIEND— CHRISTIAN MORALS— MISCELLANY TRACTS— AND UNPUBLISHED PAPERS. -.*rr.'^ /^ ELKTATlOlSr oftheHarthSiae of the CATHEDRAL. M^M^ or (lie i7Ri:E:S"-fjlfAMJD SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S WORKS INCLUDING HIS LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE EDITED BY SIMON WILKIN F.L.S. VOLUME IV ALDI LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING JOSIAJI FLETCHER NORWICH 1835 ■tt NORWICH : PRINTED EY JOSIAH FLETCHER. stack Annex CONTJiNTS TO VOLUME FOURTH. PAGE Editor's preface i to ii REPERTORIUM, &c 1 to 32 Editor's preface to Repertorium .... 3 A LETTER TO A FRIEND, &c 37 to 52 Editor's preface to Letter, &c 35 CHRISTIAN MORALS, &c 53 to 114 Editor's preface to Christian Morals ... 55 Dedication to the Earl of Buchan ... 57 Archdeacon Jeffery's preface 58 Christian Morals 59 to 114 CERTAIN MISCELLANY TRACTS, also MISCELLANIES, &c. . . . . 115 Editor's preface 117 to 118 The publisher (Dr. Tenison) to the reader 119 to 120 Tract 1 . Observations upon several plants men- tioned in scripture . . . . . . 121 to 173 Tract 2. Of garlands and coronary plants 171- to 178 Tract 3. Of the fishes eaten by our Saviour with his Disciples after his resurrection from the dead 179 to 181 Tract 4. In answer to certain queries relating to fishes, birds, and insects . . . . 182 to 185 Tract 5. Of hawks and falconry, ancient and modern 186 to 190 Tract 6. Of cymbals, &c 191 to 192 Tract 7. Of ropalic or gradual verses, &c. 193 to 194 VI PACE Tract 8. Of languages, and particularly of the Saxon tongue 195 to 212 Tract 9. Of artificial hills, mounts, or burrows, in many parts of England ; what they are, to what end raised, and by what nations 213 to 216 Tract 10. Of Troas, what place is meant by that name. Also of the situations of Sodom, Gomorrha, Admah, Zeboim, in the Red Sea 217 to 222 Tract 11. Of the answers of the oracle of Apollo at Delphos to Croesus king of Lydia 223 to 230 Tract 12. A prophecy concerning the future state of several nations, in a letter written upon occasion of an old prophecy sent to the author from a friend, with a request that he would consider it . 231 to 238 Tract 13. Musseum Clausum, or Bibliotheca Abscondita ; containing some remarkable books, antiquities, pictures, and rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living 239 to 250 Miscellanies : — viz. concerning the too nice curi- osity of censuring the present, or judging into future dispensations 251 to 252 Upon reading Hudibras 253 An account of Island (alias Iceland,) in the year 1662 254 to 256 Latin letters from Theodore Jonas, pastor of Hitterdale, in Iceland, to Dr. Browne, 1651, 1656, and 1664 256 to 270 UNPUBLISHED PAPERS . . . . . 271 to 456 Fragment on Mummies (from transcript by Jas. Crossley, Esq.) 273 to 276 DePeste(from MS. Sloan. No. 1827, fol. 44-48)277 to 280 A brief reply to several queries (lb. 1827, fol. 49) 281 to 286 Naval fights (lb. 1827, fol. 59-60) . . 287 to 289 Amico opus arduum meditanti (lb. 1827, fol. 61-64) 290 to 293 Nauraachia (lb. 1827, fol. 65-68) ... 294 to 297 Vll pa(;e De Astragalo aut Talo (lb. 1827, fol. 69-70) 298 to 299 NonnuUaa lectione Athensei scripta (lb. 1827, fol. 71-77) 300 to 304 Nonnulla a lectione Athenaji, Platinje, Apicii de Re Culinaria, conscripta (lb. 1827, fol. 77-81) 305 to 308 Amico Clarissimo, i]^ enecante Garrulo Suo (lb. 1827, fol. 83 ad fine) . . . . 309 to 312 An account of Birds found in Norfolk (lb. 1830, fol. 5-22 and 31) 313 to 324- An account of Fishes, &c. found in Norfolk, and on the coast (lb. 1830, fol. 23-30; 32-38 : and 1882, fol. 145-6) ... 325 to 336 On the ostrich (lb. 1830, fol. 10-11; and 1847) 337 to 339 Boulimia Centenaria (lb. 1133; and MS. Rawl. 58) 340 Upon the dark thick mist happening on the 27th of November, 1674 (lb. 1833, fol. 136) 341 to 342 Oratio Anniversaria Harveiana (lb. 1833, fol. 146-150; and 1839, fol. 299-316) . 343 to 352 Account of a thunder-storm at Norwich, 1665 (lb. 1866, fol. 96) 353 to 354 On dreams (lb. 1874, fol. 112-120) . . 355 to 359 Nota in Aristotelem (lb. 1874, fol. 81) . 360 to 366 Observations on grafting (lb. 1848, fol. 44-48: 1882, fol. 136-137 ; and Add. MSS. 5233, fol. 58) 367 to 371 Fragments (MS. Rawl. 58, fol. 5 and 15) 372 to 374 Of Greenland (lb. 391) 375 Extracts from Commonplace Books, from MSS. 1843, 1848, 1862, 1866, 1869, 1874,1875, 1882, 1885 376 to 456 INDEX . . PREFACE TO THE FOURTH VOLUME. In completing this volume, I wish to offer some observations, partly in addition to the brief notices which precede several of the pieces it contains, and partly with reference to those which are now first printed from tlie original MSS. of the author. I omitted to remark, respecting the Posthumous Works, and the Christian Morals, that copies are in existence with reprint titles — that contemptible form of lying under which publishers have endeavoured to persuade the public of the rapidity of their sales. This was especially the case with the former work, which was first published in \1\2} In the 1 With this title : — Posthumou? Works of the learned Sir Thomas Browne, Knt. M.D, late of Nortcich, printed from his Original Manuscripts, viz. I. Repertorium ; or, the Antiquities of the Cathedral Church tf Norwich. II. An Account of some Urnes, Sfc. found at Brampton in Norfolk, Anno. 1667. III. Letters between Sir IVilliam Dugdale arid Sir Thomas Browne. IV. Miscellanies. To which is prefixed his Life. There is also added Antiquilates Capellcc D. Johannis Evangelistte ; hodie Scholee Regits Norwicensis. Authore .Johanne Burton, A.M. ejusdeni fjudimagistro. Illustrated with Prospects, Portraitures, Draughts of Tombs, Monuments, SfC. Lon- don, printed for E. Curll, at the Dial and Bible ; and R. Gosling, at the Mitre in Fleetstreet. 1712. Price Gs. In a copy which belonged to Mr. John Ives, (the author of Garianonum, &c.) occurs, in his hand writing, the following list of plates, which a perfect copy ought to contain. It is remarkable, however, that he has not mentioned the portrait by Vander Gucht, published with the volume, but wanting in his copy, which has in- stead of it a copy of White's portrait, engraved for the folio of 1686. " Plates in this volume, originally belonging to the book ; — PACE. The Author's Monument xix Prospect of the Cathedral 1 Parkhurst's Monument 3 Hobart's Chapel 4 Goldwell's Monument C Sir Thomas Erpingham and his Wives S Boleyne's Arms, &c 14 Bp. Redman's Herse 16 Plate of Arms 20 Ditto 22 VOL. IV. b libraries of the Royal Institution, and of E. H. Barker, Esq. are copies (the former on large paper) having a reprint title with this imprint : — Printed for W. Mears, at the Lamb with- out Temple Bar, and I. Hooke, at the Flower-de-Luce against St. Diinstans Church, in Fleetstreet. mdccxxiii. (Price six shillings.) Others are mentioned of the dates 1715; 1721, and 1722 : — the latter said to be "edited by Owen Brigstock, Esq." An assertion which was probably occasioned by a passage in Curll's preface. - We are informed that the Posthumous Work-s was a specu- lation of Curll's, by the following passage in a letter from Dr. (afterwards Bp.) Tanner, to Dr. Charlet, the master of Uni- versity College, Oxford, Oct. 20, 1712. " Curll, the book- seller, has bought, of Dr. Browne's executors, some papers of Sir Thomas Browne, one of which is some account of the Cathedral, which he is printing under the title of the Anti- quities of Norwich. If I had perfectly liked the thing, I should not have been backward to have given a cut ; but it was hurried by him into the press, without advising with any body here, or with Mr. Le Neve, who has great collections that way. However, out of regard to Mr. Hase, the herald, the Dean has suffered them to reprint his catalogue of Bishops, Deans, and Prebendaries, and, I think, to send a list of the Chancellours and Archdeacons." Ballard's MS. Letters in the Bodleian Library, vol. iv, p. 58. PAGE. Gate into the Close 24 West End of the Cathedral 26 Bp. Scambler's Monument 38 Mrs. Astley's ditto 41 Bp. Overall's ditto 48 Dr. Pepper's ditto 51 Bp. Reynolds's ditto 73 Inglott's ditto fi2 Parsley's ditto 67 Bp. Sparrow's ditto 74 Roman Urn (Miscellanies) 10 Free School 56 Besides these Mr. Ives inserted in his copy a number of other engravings, and I apprehend that the enumeration of plates given in Mr. Upcott's Topography, as be- longing to this volume, may have been taken from a similarly illustrated copy, or perhaps collected from several. ' a passage in Curll's preface.'^ " The public is here presented with those othe;' remains of the learned Sir jhomas Browne, so long since promised, (and for which we are obliged to Owen Brigstock, Esq. grandson by marriage to the author.)" XI It may be presumed, that the llepertorium was too slight a sketch to satisfy " perfectly " the antiquarian taste and know- ledge of Tanner. May we not, however, fairly urge in ex- tenuation, a similar plea to that which has been offered by D'Israeli, in defence of Dugdale, Sir Thomas's learned friend and correspondent ? — " He hurried on his itinerant labours of taking draughts and transcribing inscriptions, as he says, to preserve them for future and better times. Posterity owes to the prescient spirit of Dugdale, the ancient monuments of England, which bear the marks of the haste, as well as the zeal, which have perpetuated them." Curiosities, 8(c. Second Series^ Chapter on Prediction. Kippis says (on what autho- rity does not appear) that the work was printed in Norwich. Of the Christian Morals I have a copy which belonged to Archdeacon Wrangham, with reprint title, dated 1761 ;^ and I believe there are such copies dated 1765. I will take this opportunity to correct an error in my preface to the Christian Morals, at p. 55. It was not Dodsley, as I have there inadvertently said, but Payne, who pubhshed the second edition of that work, and for whom Dr. Johnson wrote his biographical sketch. In the first volume, p. 141,of TV^e Literary Magazine, or Universal Review, (not Register, as stated by Mr. Croker in his edition of BoswelVs Life of John- son,) I have recently met with the Doctor's review of the work ; — if that can be called a review, which comprises in the following few words all that is offered by way of stricture or opinion on the work reviewed : — " This little volume consists of short essays, written with great vigour of sentiment, variety of learning, and vehemence of style." A quotation of two pages from the Life, closes this article. In 1773 Davies re- published the Life, with those of Blake, the King of Prussia, and others, in his Fugitive and Miscellaneous Pieces, 3 vols. 8vo. vol. ii, p. 254. In the half title to Miscellany Tracts and Miscellanies, I The half title is, True Christian Morals ; by Sir Thomas Browne, M.D. Title, True Christian Morals: hy Sir Thomas Browne, M.D. Author of Religio Medici, {^c. with his Life written by the celebrated Author of the Rambler ; and explanatory Notes. The Third Edition. There is an engraved vignette of a lamb browsing in a hedge, and this imprint below : — London : printed for, and sold by Z, Stuart, at the Lamb in Paternoster Rotv, MDCCLXI. XII have omitted to number the present as the third edition of the former and second of the latter. I have also erroneously assigned to the former 1684 as the date of its first appear- ance. I have a copy of it bearing the date 1683, which be- longed to John Evelyn, and contains several important, though brief, MS. notes by himself, with his autograph and motto, " Catalogo J. Evelyni inscripttis ; — Meliora Retinete," in- scribed above the portrait ; which is by Vander Banc, and was, without doubt, published with the volume. I am in- clined, however, to think, that only a few early copies were thus dated, and that 1684 was the date of the impression. I have already remarked Browne's habit of multiplying tran- scripts of his compositions in MS. On the fly leaf of one of his volumes (MS. Sloan. No. 1827, folio,) I find two small square parchment labels, probably cut from the original cover, giving (in autograph) brief titles to the vol. with this addition, "Also in 4ht be Richard Brome, Esq. whose daughter married the heir of the Yaxleys of Yaxley, in the time of Henry VII. And one of the same name founded a chapel in the field in Norwich. There are also in St. Luke's chapel, amongst the seats on the south side, two substantial marble and crossed tombs, very ancient, said to be two priors of this convent.'^ At the entrance into the cloister, by the upper door on the right hand, next the stairs, was a handsome monument on the wall, which was pulled down in the late times, and a void place still remaineth. Upon this stone were the figures of ■• brass inscription.'] Inserted from Crimina multa feram fuerant men quando re- Burton's Account of tlie Freeschool, p. 22. pSfvertoft Kadulphus eram C-ustos Caroiulle. r- ■ , •,•.!., Christe Deus pro me passus niea crimiiia pelle! , 'P"""'", prodest miclii qmd prius hoc quod Sic exoro petas qui mea scripta let'as. Pater habebam, nosier. i o , ^ "tc. Preterit omne quod est, eo iiudug, sic venie- 6 r> -i r> ,r„ bam, Bosomes.j Bozouns. — MS. note in Sola inichi requies manet, hie non sunt mea Bodl, cony. Aiitea 'nulla quics, raodo pro nichilo michi ^ There are also, S^c.] Taken iiway c„^"fl*' J, _ <■ , , ., , ;ibout I73.S to make room for scats. — Ned fleo, dum futram modKum vcl ml Icne met , ■ n ,, pessi, MS. note tii Bodl. copi/. 12 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. two persons in a praying posture, on their knees. I was told by Mr. Sancllin, that it was said to be the monument for one of the Bigots, wlio built or beautified that arch by it, which leadeth into the church. In the choir towards the high altar, and below the ascents, there is an old tomb, which hath been generally said to have been the monument of Bishop William Herbert, founder of the church, and commonly known by the name of the foun- der's tomb- This was above an ell high ; but when the pul- pit, in the late confusion, was placed at the pillar, where Bishop Overall's monument now is, and the aldermen's seats were at the east end, and the mayor's seat in the middle at the high altar, the height of the tomb being a hindrance unto the people, it was taken down to such a lowness as it now remains in.^ He was born at Oxford ,9 in good favour with King William Rufus, and King Henry 1. removed the epis- copal see from Thetford to Norwich, built the priory for 60 monks, the cathedral church, the bishop's palace, the chvirch of St. Leonard, whose ruins still remain upon the brow of Mousehold hill ; the church of St. Nicholas at Yarmouth, of St. Margaret at Lynn, of St. Mary at Elmham, and instituted the Cluniack monks at Thetford. Malmsbury saith he was vir pecuniosi/s, which his great works declare, and had always this good saying of St. Hierom in his mouth, erravimus ju- venes, emendcmus senes. Many bishops of old might be buried about, or not far from the founder, as William Turbus, a Norman, the third bishop of Norwich, and John of Oxford the fourth, accounted among the learned men of his time, who built Trinity church in Ips- wich, and died in the reign of King John ; and it is delivered, that these two bishops were buried near to Bishop Herbert, the founder. In the same row, not far off, was buried Bf^shop Henry le Spencer, as lost brass inscriptions have declared. And Mr. * as il now remains in.~\ The present Blonirjield's His!ory of Norwich, part 1, tomb was built by the dean and prebend- p. 47 1 . aries in 1082, and t!ie latin inscription ^ Oxford.] The present inscription thereon is said to have been composed says, "qui Oxiini in Nor)>,aiiia natus;" by the learned Dr. Prideaux, who was at this is understood to allude to Iliems near that time one of the prebendaries. — See Caen. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 13 Sandlin told me, that he had seen an inscription on a grave- stone thereabouts, with the name of Henricus dc, or le Spen- cer: ^ he came young unto tlie see, and sat longer in it than any before or after him : but his time might have been shorter, if he had not escaped in the fray at Lennam^ (a town of which he was lord), where forcing the magistrate's tipstaff to be car- ried before him, the people with staves, stones, and arrows, wounded, and put his servants to flight. He was also wound- ed, and left alone, as John Fox hath set it down out of the chronicle of St. Albans. In the same row, of late times, was buried Bishop Richard Montague, as the inscription, Deposium Monlacuiii Ephcopiy doth declare. For his eminent knowledge in the Greek language, he was much countenanced by Sir Henry Savile, provost of Eaton college, and settled in a fellowship thereof: afterwards made Bishop of Chichester ; thence translated unto Norwich, where he lived about three years. He came unto Nor^vich with the evil effects of a quartan ague, which he had about a year before, and which accompanied him to his grave ; yet he studied and wrote very much, had an excellent library of books, and heaps of papers, fairly written with his own hand, concerning the ecclesiastical history. His books were sent to London ; and, as it was said, his papers against Baronius and others transmitted to Rome ; from whence they were never returned. On the other side was buried Bishop John Overall, fellow of Trinity college in Cambridge, master of Catherine Hall, regius professor, and dean of St. Paul's : and had the honour to be nominated one of the first governors of Sutton hospi- tal, by the founder himself, a person highly reverenced and beloved ; who being buried without any inscription, had a ' Sj)encerr\ The stoute and warlike coate of Spencer, upon an lielmct, his Henry Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, who episcopal! miter, and upon that Michael, supprest by his courriage and valour, that the archangell, with a drawn sword. — dangerous rebellion; and about North Peachem's Compleat Gent. p. ICl. Ed. Walshain, overthrew Litster the captaine, 1 6.34. hath (as it is to be scene upon his monu- '^ Lennani.'\ Lynn. See UhimefivUr s nient in the body of the quire of Christ- Norwich, part 1, p. 516. church, in Norwich) over his proper 14' THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. monument lately erected for him by Dr. Cosin, Lord Bishop of Durham, upon the next pillar. Under the large sandy-coloured stone was buried Bishop Richard Corbet, a person of singular wit, and an eloquent preacher, who lived bishop of this see but three years, being before Dean of Christ-church, then Bishop of Oxford. The inscription is as follows : Ricliardus Corbet Theologia; Doctor, Ecclesiae Cathedralis Christi Oxoniensis Primum alumnus, inde Decanus, exinde Episcopus, illinc hue translatus, et Hiiic in coelum, Jul. 28, Ann. 1635, The arms on it, are the see of Norwich, impaling, or. a raven sab. Corbet. Towards the upper end of the choir, and on the south side, under a fair large stone, was interred Sir William Boleyn, or Bullen, great grandfather to Queen Elizabeth. The inscrip- tion hath been long lost, which was this : Hie jacet corpus Willelmi Boleyn, militis. Qui obiit x Octobris, Ann. Dom. MCCCCCV. And I find in a good manuscript of the ancient gentry of Norfolk and Suffolk these words. Sir William Boleyn, heir unto Sir Thomas Boleyn, who married Margaret, daughter and heir of Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, died in the year 1505, and was buried on the south side of the chancel of Christ-church in Norwich. And surely the arms of few families have been more often found in any church, than those of the Boleyns, on the walls, and in the windows of the east part of this church. Many others of this noble family were buried in Blickling church. Many other bishops might be buried in this church, as we find it so asserted by some historical accounts ; but no history or tradition remaining of the place of their interment, in vain we endeavour to design and point out the same. As of Bishop Johannes de Gray, who, as it is delivered, was interred in this church, was a favourite of King John, and sent by him to the pope : he was also Lord Deputy of Ireland, and a person of great reputation, and built Gaywood Hall, by Lynn. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH, 15 As also of Bishop Roger Skerewyng [or de Skerning], in whose time happened that bloody contention between the monks and citizens, begun at a fair kept ^ before the gate ; when the church was fired : to compose which, King Henry III. came to Norwich, and WiUiam de Brunham, prior, was much to blame. — See HoUngshed, 8fc. Or of Bishop WiUiam Middleton, who succeeded him, and was buried in this church ; in whose time the church that was burnt while Skerewyng sat was repaired and consecrated, in the presence of King Edward I. Or of Bishop John Salmon, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, who died 1325, and was here interred ; his works were noble. He built the great hall in the bishop's palace ; the bishop's long chapel on the east side of the palace, which was no ordinary fabric ; and a strong handsome chapel at the west end of the church,* and appointed four priests for the daily service therein. Unto which great works he was the better enabled by obtaining a grant of the first fruits from Pope Clement. Or of Bishop Thomas Percy, brother to the Earl of Northumberland, in the reign of Richard II., who gave unto a chantry the lands about Carlton, Kimberly, and Wickle- wood ; in whose time the steeple and belfry were blown down, and rebuilt by him and a contribution from the clergy. Or of Bishop Anthony de Beck, a person of an unquiet spirit, very much hated, and poisoned by his servants. Or likewise of Bishop Thomas Browne, who, being bishop of Rochester, was chosen bishop of Norwich, while he was at the council of Basil, in the reign of King Henry VI., was a strenuous assertor of the rights of the church against the citizens. Or of Bishop William Rugge,^ in whose last year happen- ed Kett's rebellion, in the reign of Edward VI. I find his name Guil. Norwicensis among the bishops, who subscribed ^ fair kept.'] This occurred on the end of the church.] St. John's Chapel, 9th August, 1272. — See BlomeJield'.i now the Freeschool. Norwich, part 1, p. 53. ■' Rugge.] He lies in the midst of the ■• a strong handsome chapel at the west clioir. — MS. in Bodl, copy. 16 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. unto a declaration against the pope's supremacy, in the time of Henry VIII. Or of Bishop John Hopton, vrho was hishop in the time of Queen Mary, and died tlie same year with her. He is mentioned, together with his Chancellor, Dunning, by John Fox, in his Mariijrology. Or lastly, of Bishop William Redman, of Trinity College, in Cambridge, wlio was archdeacon of Canterbury. His amis are upon a board on the north side of the choir, near to the pulpit. Of the four bisliops in Queen Elizabeth's reign, Parkhurst, Freake, Seamier, and Redman, Sir John Harrington, in his History of the Bishops in her Time, writeth thus: — For the four bishops in the queen's days, they liv'd as bishops should do, and were not warriours, like Bishop Spencer, their pre- decessor. Some bishops were buried neither in the body of the church nor in the choir, but in our Lady's chapel, at the east end of the church, built by Bishop Walter de Suthfield,^ (in the reign of Henry III.) wherein he was buried, and miracles said to be wrought at his tomb, he being a person of great charity and piety. Wherein also was buried Bishop Simeon de Wanton, vel Walton, and Bishop Alexander, who had been prior of the convent ; and also, as some think. Bishop Roger Skerewyng, and probably other bishops and persons of quahty, whos» tombs and monuments we now in vain enquhe after in the church. This was a handsome chapel ; and there was a fair entrance into it out of the church, of a considerable height also, as may be seen by the outside, where it adjoined unto the wall of the church. But, being ruinous, it was, as I have heard, de- molished in the time of Dean Gardiner; but what became of the tombs, monuments, and grave-stones, we have no account. In this chapel the bishop's consistory, or court, might be kept in old time : for we find in Fox's JMartyrology, that divers persons accused of heresy were examined by the bishop, or 8 Suthfield,'] or Suffield. —S. Wd. Norwich, p. L. y.—MS. note hij Le Neve, He built the hospital of St. Giles in in Bod/. Copy. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 17 his chancellor, in St. Mary's chapel. This famous bishop, Walter deSuthfeild, who built this chapel, is also said to have built the hospital^ not far off. Again, divers bishops sat in this see, who left not their bones in this church ; for some died not here, but at distant places ; some were translated to other bishopricks ; and some, though they lived and died here, were not buried in this church. Some died at distant places, as Bishop Richard Courtney, Chancellor of Oxford, and in great favour with King Henry V. by whom he was sent unto the king of France, to challenge his right unto that crown ; but he dying in France, his body was brought into England, and interred in Westminster-abbey, among the kings. Bishop WiUiam Bateman, LL.D., born in Norwich, who founded Trinity-hall, in Cambridge, and persuaded Gonvil to build Gonvil-college, died at Avignon, in France, being sent by the king to Rome,^ and was buried in that city. Bishop William Ayermin died near London. Bishop Thomas Thirlby, doctor of law, died in Archbishop Matthew Parker's house, and was buried at Lambeth, with this inscription : — Hie jacet Thomas Thirlby, olim Episcopus Eliensis, qui obiit 26 die Augusti, Anno Domini 1570. Bishop Thomas Jann, who was Prior of Ely, died at Folk- ston-abbey, near Dover, in Kent.^ Some were translated unto other bishopricks ; as Bishop William Ralegh was removed unto Winchester, by King Henry IIL Bishop Ralph de Walpole was translated to Ely, in the time of Edward L ; he is said to have begun the building of the cloister, which is esteemed the fairest in England. Bishop WiUiam Alnwick built the church gates at the west end of the church, and the great window, and was trans- lated to Lincoln, in the reign of Henry VL ' hospUal.l Saint Giles's Hospital, Clement VI., who lived at Avignon." Bishopsgate Street. '■' Kent.] In Blomefield's Norwich " to Rome.] Kirkpatrick, in his copy, (part I, p. 543) it is stated, that what is has struck out these words, and substi- here said of his having been prior of Ely, tuted " thither," adding the following and in Le Neve's Fasti of his dying at explanatory observation, " viz. to Pope Folkston-abbey, is a mistake. VOL. IV. C 18 ■ THE ANTIQUITIES OF NOIIWICH. And of later time, Bishop Edmund Freake, who succeeded Bishop Parkhurst, was removed unto Worcester, and there lieth entombed. Bishop Samuel Harsnet, master of Pembroke-hall, in Cam- bridge, and bishop of Chichester, was thence translated to York. Bishop Francis White, almoner unto the king, formerly bishop of Carlisle, translated unto Ely. Bishop Matthew Wren, dean of the chapel, translated also to Ely. and was not buried here. Bishop John Jegon, who died 1617, was buried at Aylsham, near Norwich. He was master of Bennet-college, and dean of Norwich, whose arms, two chevrons with an eagle on a canton, are yet to be seen on the west side of the bishop's throne. My honoured friend. Bishop Joseph Hall, dean of Wor- cester, and bishop of Exon, translated to Norwich, was buried at Heigham, near Norwich, where he hath a monument. When the revenues of the church were alienated, he retired unto that suburban parish, and there ended his days, being above 80 years of age. A person of singular humility, patience, and piety : his own works are the best monument and character of himself, which was also very lively drawn in his excellent funeral sermon, preached by my learned and faithful old friend, John Whitefoot, rector of Heigham, a very deserving clerk of the convocation of Norfolk. His arms, in the Register Office of Norwich, are sable three talbots' heads erased argent. My honoured friend also, Bishop Edward Reynolds, was not buried in the church, but in the bishop's chapel; which was built by himself. He was born at Southampton, brought up at Merton-college, in Oxford, and the first bishop of Nor- wich after the king's restoration : a person much of the temper of his predecessor, Dr. Joseph Hall, of singular affa- bility, meekness, and humility ; of great learning ; a frequent preacher, and constant resident. He sat in this see about 17 years; and, though buried in his private chapel, yet his funeral sermon was preached in the cathedral, by Mr. Bene- dict Rively, now minister of St. Andrews. He was suc- ceeded by Dr. Anthony Sparrow, our worthy and honoured diocesan. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 19 It is thought that some bishops were buried in the old bishop's chapel, said to be built by Bishop John Salmon, [de- molished in the time of the late war,] for therein were many grave-stones, and some plain monuments. This old chapel was higher, broader, and much larger than the said new chapel built by Bishop Reynolds; but being covered with lead, the lead was sold, and taken away in the late rebellious times; and, the fabric growing ruinous and useless, it was taken down, and some of the stones made use of in the build- ing of the new chapel. Now, whereas, there have been so many noble and ancient families in these parts, yet we find not more of them to have been buried in this, the mother church. It may be considered, that no small numbers of them were interred in the churches and chapels of the monasteries and religious houses of this city, especially in three thereof; the Austin-friars, the Black- friars, the Carmelite, or White-friars ; for therein were buried many persons of both sexes, of great and good families, whereof there are few or no memorials in the cathedral. And in the best preserved registers of such interments of old, from monuments and inscriptions, v;e find the names of men and women of many ancient families; as of UfFord, Hastings, Radchffe, Morley, Windham, Geney, Clifton, Pigot, Hen- grave, Garney, Howell, Ferris, Bacon, Boys, Wichingham, Soterley ; of Falstolph, Ingham, Felbrigge, Talbot, Harsick, Pagrave, Berney, Woodhouse, Howldich ; of Argenton, Somerton, Gros, Benhall, Banyard, Paston, Crunthorpe, Withe, Colet, Gerbrigge, Berry, Calthorpe, Everard, Hether- set, Wachesham. All lords, knights, and esquires, with divers others. Beside the great and noble families of the Bigots, Mowbrays, Howards, were the most part interred at Thet- ford, in the religious houses of which they were founders or benefactors. The Mortimers were buried at Attleburgh ; the Aubeneys at W^ymondham, in the priory or abbey founded by them. And Camden says, that a great part of the nobility and gentry of those parts were buried at Pentney abbey. Many others were buried dispersedly in churches or religious houses, founded or endowed by themselves ; and, therefore, it is the less to be wondered at, that so many great and con- c •-> 20 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. siderable persons of this country were not interred in this church. There are twenty-four escutcheons/ viz., six on a side on the inside of the steeple over the choir, with several coats of arms, most whereof are memorials of things, persons, and families, well-wishers, pati'ons, benefactors, or such as were in special veneration, honour, and respect, from the church. As particularly the arms of England, of Edward the Confessor ; an hieroglyphical escutcheon of the Trinity, unto which this church was dedicated. Three cups within a wreath of thorns, the arms of Ely, the arms of the see of Canterbury impaling the coat of the famous and magnified John Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, Avho was bishop of Ely before ; of bishop James Goldwell, that honoured bishop of Norwich. The three lions of England, St. George's cross, the arms of the church impaled with Prior Bosviles' coat, the arms of the church impaled with the private coats of three priors, the arms of the city of Norwich. There are here likewise the coats of some great and wor- thy families ; as of Vere, Stanley, De la Pole, Wingfield, Heydon, Townshend, Bedingfield, Bruce, Clere; which be- ing little taken notice of, and time being still like to obscure, and make them past knowledge, I would not omit to have a draught thereof set down, which I keep by me. ' escutcheons.^ These are now cover- 9. Vere, Earl of Oxford, ed by the painted ceiling. In Blom- 10. Townshend. field's Norwich the author complains 11. Bedingfield. that these escutcheons are "misplaced, 12. Clere impaling Dovedale. and wrong described ; " the arrange- west side. ment on the annexed plate, and in the 13. Priory impaling Prior Spynk (1488). following description, has consequently 14. Priory impaling Prior Bozoun( 1471). been adopted : — 1,5. Norwich. EAST SIDE. 16. St. George. , „ J T- 1 J .1 !'• Priory impaling Prior Molet (14.t3). 1. France and England quarterly. io u- -JT r t> • u ^ j « T.J J i_ /-. r- " 18. Priory impaling Prior Heverlond 2. Edward the Confessor. n4'?n 3. Emblem of the Trinity. ^ '^\.„„^„ e,^. . T. ., r .1. c . NORTH SIDE. 4. Emblem of the Sacrament. m d ■ i- T^ u i „ P , 19. Brewse impaling Debenham. 5. East Angles. 20. Wingfield quartering Bovill. 6. Canterbury bee impaling Moreton. r,, tt j soLTH SIDE. 22. Stanley and his quarterings, and 7. Stanley, Earl of Derby, and his quar- Plais quartering Ufford. terings ; impaling France and Eng- 23. De la Pole impaling Burwash. land quarterly. 24. Norwich See impaling Bishop Gold- 8. England. well's coat and devices. THE ANTIQUITIES OV NORWICH. 21 There are also many coats of arms, on the walls, and in the windows of the east end of the church ; but none so often as those of the Boleyns, viz. in a field Arg. a Chev. Gul. between three bulls heads' couped sab. armed or ; whereof some are quartered with the arms of noble fami- lies. As also about the church, the arms of Hastings, De la Pole, Heydon, Stapleton, Windham, Wichingham, Clifton, Heveningham, Bokenham, Inglos. In the north window of Jesus' chapel are the arms of Radcliff' and Cecil ; and in the east window of the same chapel the coats of Branch and of Beale. There are several escutcheon boards fastened to the upper seats of the choir : upon the three lowest on the south side are the arms of Bishop Jegon, of the Pastons, and of the Hobarts ; and in one above the arms of the Howards. On the board on the north side are the arms of Bishop Redmayn; and of the Howards. Upon the outside of the gate, next to the school, are the escutcheons and arms of Erpingham, who built the gates. [Also the coats of Clopton and Walton,] being an orle of martlets ; or such families who married with the Erpinghams. The word jjoena" often upon the gates, shews it to have been built upon penance. At the west end of the church are chiefly observable the figure of King William Rufus, or King Henry I., and a bishop on his knees receiving the charter from him : or else of King Henry VI., in whose reign this gate and fair window were built. Also the manned statues of bishops, whose copes are garnished and charged with a cross moline : and at their feet, escutcheons, with the arms of the church ; and also escutcheons with crosses molines. That these, or some of them, were tJie statues of Bishop William Alnwick, seems more than probable ; for he built the three gates, and the great window^ at the west end of the church ; and where the ^ pncna.l This word is not Poena but his tombstone. — See Dlomeficld's Nor- UfllK tlie old way of writing think, «"5''. VArtU, p. 39, and Britton's Nor- /.»,; „ c . . 1 1 .1 1 . T-» ivicli Cathedral. (this was first suggested by tlie late Dr. Sayers,) it appears to have been intend- ^ ''"^ S>'ef*^ tviiidow.] The great we.^^t ed for his motto; as was also the word window has been found on a late survey ^cU)ar on a brass label at the corner of ^o have been put in like a frame into the 22 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORNVICII. arms of the see are in a roundele, are these words, Orate pro anima Domini Willelmi Alnwyk. Also in another escutcheon, charged with a cross moline, there is the same motto round about it. Upon the wooden door on the outside, there are also the three mitres, which are the arms of the see upon one leaf, and a cross moline on the other. Upon the outside of the end of the north cross aisle, there is a statue of an old person ; which, being formerly covered and obscured by plaster and mortar over it, was discovered upon the late reparation or whitening of that end of the aisle. This may probably be the statue of Bishop Richard Nicks,^ or the Blind Bishop ; for he built the aisle, or that part thereof, and also the roof, where his arms ar? to be seen, a chevron between three leopards' heads gules. The roof of the church is noble and adorned with figures. In the roof of the body of the church there are no coats of arms, but representations from scripture story, as the story of Pharaoh ; of Sampson towards the east end ; figures of the last supper, and of our Saviour on the cross, towards the west end f besides others of foliage and the like ornamental figures. The north wall of the cloister was handsomely beautified, with the arms of some of the nobility in their proper colours, with their crests, niantlings, supporters, and the whole achievement quartered with the several coats of their matches, drawn very large from the upper part of the wall, and took up about half of the wall. They are eleven in number, parti- cularly these. 1. An empty escutcheon. 2, The achieve- ment of Howard, Duke of Norfolk. 3. Of Clinton. 4. Russel. 5. Cheyney. G. The Queen's achievement. 7. Hastings. 8. Dudley. 9. Cecil. 10. Carey. 11. Hatton. west front, and being ready to fall out field^s History of Norwich, part I, p. was fastened with irons; Dean Bullock, 546. about 1748, chipt oif all the outer or- * eiid.'\ This part was done in the nament of the west front and new cased time of, if not by Bisliop Lyhert, as ap- it. — MS. note probably by Ires. pears by his arms and his rebus alter- ■* Nicks.] Bishop Nix only re-built nately upon the pillars on each side, the roof, the effigy is of Herbert, the where the foundations of the vaulted founder, it being exactly in the same roof begin upon the old work. — Kirk' manner as that on his seal. — Blame- patrick's .MS. volc''. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 2o They were made soon after Queen Elizabeth came to Nor- wich, ami. 1578, where she remained a week, and lodged at the bishop's palace, in the time of Bishop Freake, attended by many of the nobility, and particularly by those whose arms are here set down. They made a very handsome show, especially at that time, when the cloister windows were painted unto the cross bars. The figures of those coats, in their distinguishable and dis- cernable colours, are not beyond my remembrance. But in the late times, when the lead was faulty and the stone work decayed, the rain falling upon the wall washed them away. The pavement also of the cloister on the same side was broken and the stones taken away, a floor of dust remaining : but that side is now handsomely paved by the beneficence of my worthy friend William Burleigh, Esq. At the stone cistern^ in the cloister, there is yet perceivable a lion rampant, argent, in a field sable, which coat is now quartered in the arms of the Howards. In the painted glass in the cloister, which hath been above the cross bars, there are several coats. And I find by an account taken thereof and set down in their proper colours, that here were these following, viz. the arms of Morley, Shelton, Scales, Erpingham, Gournay, Mowbray, Savage now Rivers, three coats of Thorpes and one of a lion rampant, gules in a field or, not well known to what family it belongeth. Between the lately demohslied chapter-house and St. Luke's chapel, there is an handsome chapel, wherein the consistory or bishop's court is kept, with a noble gilded roof. This goeth under no name, but may well be called Beauch- ampe's chapel or the chapel of our Lady and All Saints, as being built by William Beauchampe, according to this in- scription^ — In honore Beate Marie Virgtnis, et omnium ^ cistern.'] The lavatories at the south- Second's time, as out of the records of west angle. the church may be collected. The said '' inscription. 1 Kirkpatrick, in his William I'auchun being often mentioned JIS. notes to his copy of the Posthumous therein, but Beauchamp never." It Works, (now in the possession of Dr. also appears from Kirkpatrick's sketch Sutton,) says, "that it was certainly of the inscription, that there was not William Bauchun who was the founder sufficient space on the stone for more of this chapel and gaue lands to it, in than " l>auchun." the latter end of Kins Edward the 24 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. sanctorum Willelmus Beauchampe capellam hanc ordinavit, et ex propriis sumptibus construxit. This incription is in old letters on the outside of the wall, at the south side of the chapel, and almost obliterated. He was buried under an arch in the wall v/hich was richly gilded ; and some part of the gilding is yet to be perceived, though obscured and blinded by the bench on the inside. I have heard there is a vault below gilded like the roof of the chapel. The founder of this chapel, William Beauchampe or de Bello Campo, might be one of the Beauchampes, who were Lords of Aberga- venny; for William Lord Abergavenny had lands and manors in this country. And in the register of institutions it is to be seen, that William Beauchampe, Lord of Abergavenny, was lord patron of Berg cum Apton, five miles distant from Nor- wich, and presented clerks to that living, 1406, and after- ward : so that if he lived a few years after, he might be buried in the latter end of Henry IV., or in the reign of Henry V., or in the beginning of Henry VL Where to find Heydon's chapeP is more obscure, if not altogether unknown; for such a place there was, and known by the name of Hey- don's chapel, as I find in a manuscript concerning some an- cient families of Norfolk, in these words; — John Heydon of Baconsthoipe, Ksq. died in the reign of Edward IV., ann. 1479. He built a chapel on the south side of the cathedral church of Norwich, where he was buried. He was in great fai^our with King Henry VI., and took part with the house of Lancaster against that of York. Henry Heydon, Knight, his heir, built the church of Salt- house, and made the causey between Thursford and Wal- singham, at his own charge. He died in the time of Henry VII., and was buried in Heydon's chapel, joining to the ca- thedral aforesaid. The arms of the Heydons are argent, and gules a cross engrailed counter-changed, make the third escutcheon in the north-row over the choir, and are in several places in the glass windows, especially on the south side, and once in the deanery. * Heydon's rhapelJ] This chapel is or Bachun's chnpcl ; sec iilaii in Blomc- placed on the west side of Beauchamiic's field's Norwich. THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 25 There was a chapel ^ to the south side of the gaol or prison, into which there is one door out of the entry of the cloister ; and there was another out of the cloister itself, which is now made up of brick work : the stone work which remaineth on the inside is strong and handsome. This seems to have been a much frequented chapel of the priory by the wearing of the steppings unto it, which are on the cloister side. Many other chapels there were within the walls and circuit of the priory, as of St. Mary of the Marsh, of St. Ethel- bert, and others.^ But a strong and handsome fabric of one is still remaining, which is the chapel of St. John the Evan- gelist, said to have been founded by Bishop John Salmon, who died ann. l'32o, and four priests were entertained for the daily service therein : that which was properly the chapel, is now the free school : the adjoining buildings made up the refectory, chambers, and offices of the society. Under the chapel, there was a charnel-house, which was a remarkable one in former times, and the name is still re- tained. In an old manuscript of a sacrist of the church, com- municated to me by my worthy friend, Mr. John Burton, the learned and very deserving master of the free school, I find that the priests had a provisional allowance from the rectory of Westhall, in Suffolk. And of the charnel-house it is de- livered, that with the leave of the sacrist, the bones of such as were buried in Norwich, might be brought into it. In carnario subtus dictam capellam sancti Johannis constituto, ossa humana in civitate Norwici humata, tie licentia sacristan, qui dicti carnani clavem et custodiam habehit specialem lit usque ad resurrectionem generalem Itoneste conserventur a carnibus integre denudata reponi volumus et obsignari. Pro- bably the bones were piled in good order, the skulls, arms, and ^ There was, c^-r.] There can be lit- in the centre of which, in tlie intersect- tle doubt but tliat this was the original ing groins is n boss, containing the re- chapter-house ; its octangular east end presentation of the head of a king, and its situation corresponding with which I think can be no other than that those of the cathedrals of Durham, Here- of St. Edmund, and that we may with ford, Worcester, Gloucester, Lincoln^ propriety consider this place as the &c. chapel dedicated to St. Edmund. Ad- ■ and others-l The chapel of St. joining this, north, was another chapel, Edmund has been placed by Blomefieid with a semicircular east end ; correspond- on the site of the chapter-house. In ing with tliat on the east side of the the late repairs, part of the old gaol has north transept. This was probably the been appropriated to the dean's vestry. Priors' Chapel. 26 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. leg bones, in their distinct rows and courses, as in many char- nel-houses. How these bones were afterwards disposed of we have no account ; or whether they had not the like re- moval wuth those in the charnel-house of St. Paul, kept under a chapel, on the north side of St. Paul's church-yard : for when the chapel was demolished, the bones which lay in the vault, amounting to more than a thousand cart loads, were conveyed into Finsbury Fields, and there laid in a moorish place, with so much soil to cover them as raised the ground for three windmills to stand on, which have since been built there, according as John Stow hath delivered in his survey of London. There was formerly a fair and large but plain organ in the church, and in the same place with this at present. (It was agreed in a chapter by the dean and prebends, that a new organ be made, and timber fitted to make a loft for it, June 6, ann. 1607, repaired 1626, and £ 10. which Abel Colls gave to the church, was bestowed upon it.) That in the late tumultuous time was pulled down, broken, sold, and made away. But since his Majesty's restoration, another fair, well- tuned, plain organ, was set up by Dean Crofts and the chap- ter," and afterwards painted, and beautifully adorned, by the care and cost of my honovu*ed friend Dr. Herbert Astley, the present worthy dean. There were also five or six copes be- longing to the church ; which, though they looked somewhat old, were richly embroidered. These were formerly carried into the market-place;^ some blowing the organ pipes before - another organ, SfC-l Finished in cost of tlie founder and skill of the ma- lfiG4. — MS. K/rkp. son ; what piping on the destroyed organ ^ Market p(ace.'\ This occurred on pipes ; vestments, botli copes and sur- the 9th I\Iarch, 1644; of which the fol- plices, together with the leaden cross, lowing curious account is given in Bishop which had been newly sawed down from Hall's I^urd Measure, p. 63. over the greenyard pulpit, and the sing- " It is tragical to relate the furious ing books and service books were carried sacrilege committed under the authority to the fire in the public market-place ; a of Linsey, Tofts the sheriff, and Green- lewd wretch walking before the train in wood ; what clattering of glasses, what his cope trailing in the dirt, with a ser- bcating down of walls, what tearing vice book in his hand, imitating, in an down of monuments, what pulling down impious scorn, the tune, and usurping of seats, and wresting out of irons and the words of the litany, the ordnance brass from the windows and graves ; being discharged on the Guild day, the what defacing of arms, what demolishing cathedral was filled with musketeers, of curious stone-work, that had not any drinking and tobacconing as freely as if representation in the world, but of the it had turned alehouse." THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. 2t them, and were cast into a fire provided for that purpose, with shouting and rejoicing : so that, at present, there is but one cope belonging to the church, which was presented thereunto by PhiHp Harbord, Esq. the present high sheriff of Norfolk, my honoured friend. Before the late times, the combination* sermons were preached in the summer time at the cross in the green-yard,^ where there was a good accommodation for the auditors. The mayor, aldermen, with their wives and officers, had a well-contrived place built against the wall of the bishop's palace, covered with lead ; so that they were not offended by rain. Upon the North-side of the church,^ places were built gallery-wise, one above another ; where the dean, pre- bends, and their wives, gentlemen, and the better sort, very well heard the sermon : the rest either stood, or sat in the green, upon long forms provided for them, paying a penny, or halfpenny apiece, as they did at St. Paul's cross in Lon- don. The bishop and chancellor heard the sermons at the windows of the bishop's palace : the pulpit had a large cover- ing of lead over it, and a cross upon it ; and there were eight or ten stairs of stone about it, upon which the hospital boys and others stood. The preacher had his face to the South, and there was a painted board, of a foot and a half broad, and about a yard and a half long, hanging over his head ■• combination.^ Dr. Littleton tlius (J. Part built by Bishop Salmon, A.D. defines the word; "A combination, or 1320. circle of preachers in a cathedral or uni- H. Ditto by Bishop Reynolds, A.D. 1660. vcrsity church." — Vide Lat. Diet. ® cliurch.'\ See the elevation accom- The combination preachers were ap- panying the plan shewing the extent of pointed by the bishops from the clergy galleries. of the diocese; to come and preach a I. Entrance to the green-yard, sermon in the cathedral, or its preaching K. Joist holes of the first floor, yard, at their own charges: the Suffolk L. Ditto of the second floor, preachers in the summer half-year and M. Presumed height of the roof, the Norfolk in the winter; which is still N. Series of holes, 4 inches by .'5. continued. The galleries appear to have extended ^ green-yard.'\ See the annexed plan, nearly across the three compartments: A. North aisle of the cathedral. the masonry of the centre compartment B. Entrance to the green-yard. has been very much altered and disturb- C. Gallery of the dean and prebend- ed ; the double billet string-course is ob- aries. literated on each side of the window ; D. Ditto of the mayor and aldermen. two of the columns directly above the E. Presumed site of the pulpit. centre of the window are removed, ap- F. Remains of the palace built by Bi- parently to form a passage iVom the shop Herbert, A.D. 1100. chm-ch into the upper gallery. 28 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. before, upon which were painted the arms of the benefactors ^ towards the combination sermon, which he particularly com- memorated in his prayer, and they were these ; Sir John Suckling, Sir John Pettus, Edward Nuttel, Henry Fasset, John Myngay. But when the church was sequestered, and the service put down, this pvdpit was taken down, and placed in New Hall green, which had been the artillery-yard, and the public sermon was there preached. But the heirs of the benefactors denying to pay the wonted beneficence for any sermon out of Christ-church, (the cathedral being now com- monly so called) some other ways were found to provide a minister, at a yearly salary, to preach every Sunday, either in that pulpit in the summer, or elsewhere in the winter. I must not omit to say something of the shaft or spire of this church, commonly called the pinnacle, as being a hand- some and well-proportioned fabric, and one of the highest in England, higher than the noted spires of Lichfield, Chi- chester, or Grantham, but lower than that at Salisbury, (at a general chapter, holden June 4, 1633, it was agreed that the steeple should be mended ^) for that spire being raised upon a very high tower, becomes higher from the ground ; but this spire, considered by itself, seems, at least, to equal that. It is an hundred and five yards and two feet from the top of the pinnacle unto the pavement of the choir under it. The spire is very strongly built, though the inside be of brick. The upper aperture, or window, is the highest ascent inward- ly ; out of which, sometimes a long streamer hath been hang- ed, upon the guild, or mayor's day. But at his Majesty's restoration, when the top was to be mended, and a new gilded weathercock was to be placed upon it, there were stayings made at the upper window, and divers persons went up to the top of the pinnacle. They first went up into the belfry, and then by eight ladders, on the inside of the spire, till they came to the upper hole, or window ; then went out ' benefactors.l These gentlemen, in each preacher is paid one guinea towards consideration of the expense necessarily his expences. incurred by the preachers in coming to ^ at a general chapter, <^c.] Christ- Norwich, devised certain estates, &c. to church pinnacle was re-edified 1636. — the corporation in trust, out of which MS. Slarliiig. Kirkp. THE ANTIQUITIKS OF NOUWICII. 29 unto the outside, where a staying was set, and so ascended up unto the top stone, on which the weathercock standetli. The cock is three quarters of a yard high, and one yard and two inches long ; as is also the cross bar, and top stone of the spire, which is not flat, but consists of a half globe and channel about it ; and from thence are eight leaves of stone spreading outward, under which begin the eight rows of crockets, which go down the spire at five feet distance. From the top there is a prospect all about the country. Mousehold hill seems low, and flat ground. The Castle hill, and high buildings, do very much diminish. The river looks like a ditch. The city, with the streets, make a pleasant show, like a garden with several walks in it.'-* Though this church for its spire, may compare, in a man- ner, with any in England, yet in its tombs and monuments it is exceeded by mafiy. No kings have honoured the same with their ashes, and but few with their presence.^ And it is not without some wonder, that Norwich having been for a long time so consi- derable a place, so few kings have visited it ; of which num- ber, among so many monarchs since the conquest, we find but four, viz. King Henry III. Edward I. Queen Elizabeth, and our gracious Sovereign now reigning, King Charles II. of which I had particular reason to take notice.^ ' walks in it.'} The sea is also to be wich 1341, and was there again in 1342 seen from the North-west towards Wells, and 1344. to the South-east off the Suffolk coast; Richard II. visited Norwich in 1383, and with tlic aid of a telescope, vessels according to HoVnig.shed. are to be seen sailing along the coast Henry IV. visited the city in 1406 as between Happisburgh and Lowestoft. appears by the Norwich Assembly ' presence.} This is certainly an Book. — Blnmcfield. error ; — Henry V. visited Norwich. — Kirhpa- Henry 1. spent his Christmas at Nor- Irick's MS. notes. wich. — Sax. Chron. 1122. Henry VI. visited Norwich in 1448 and Richard I. visited Norwich. — Kirkpa- 1449. — BlomefieUl. trick's MS. notes. Edward IV. was in Norwicli in 14G9. — King John was at his castle in Norwich [hid. on the 12th and 13th October, 1205. Richard III. was in Norwich in 1483. — Arch(BoIogia, vol. 22, p. 142. — Ibid. Henry III. visited Norwich, 1256 and Henry VII. kept his Christmas at Nor- 1272.— See litmnefield. wich in 14SG.— /iirf. Edward I. kept his Easter at Norwich, Elizabeth came on her progress to Nor- 1277. — Stowe. wich in 1578. — Ibid. Edward II. was at Norwich in January, CharlesII. visited Norwichin 1671, and is 1327. — Blomefield. the last sovereign who visited that city. Edward III. held a tournament at Nor- - Sir Thomas being then knighted. 30 THE ANTIQUITIES OF NORWICH. The castle was taken by tlie forces of King William the Conqueror ; but we find not that he was here. King Henry VII. by the way of Cambridge, made a pilgrimage unto Wal- singham ; but records tell us not that he was at Norwich.^ King James I. came sometimes to Thetford for his hunting recreation, but never vouchsafed to advance twenty miles farther. Not long after the writing of these papers, Dean Herbert Astley died, a civil, generous, and public-minded person, who had travelled in France, Italy, and Turkey, and was interred near the monument of Sir James Hobart : unto whom suc- ceeded my honoured friend Dr. John Sharpe, a prebend of this church, and rector of St. Giles's in the fields, London ; a person of singular worth, and deserved estimation, the ho- nour and love of all men ; in the first year of whose deanery, 1681, the prebends were these : Mr. Joseph Loveland, ^ ( Dr. William Smith, Dr. Hezekiah Burton, >- < Mr. Nathaniel liodges, Dr. William Hawkins, ) ( Mr. Humphrey Prideaux. (But Dr. Burton dying in that year, Mr. Richard Kidder succeeded,) worthy persons, learned men, and very good preachers. ^ but records, Spc.'] From the author- that this sovereign visited Norwich in ities cited by Blomefield (Norwich, part his way to Walsingham. I, p. 174) there can be no doubt but THE ANTlQUrriKS OF NORWICH. ul ADDENDA. I have by me the picture of Chancellor Spencer,* drawn when he was ninety years old, as the inscription doth declare, which was sent unto me from Colney. Though Bishop Nix sat long in the see of Norwich, yet is not there much delivered of him : Fox in his Martyrology hath said something of him in the story of Thomas Bilney, who was burnt in Lollard's pit, without Bishopsgate, in his time. Bishop Spencer lived in the reign of Richard II. and Hen- ry IV., sat in the see of Norwich 37 years : of a soldier made a bishop, and sometimes exercising the life of a soldier in his episcopacy ; for he led an army into Flanders on the behalf of Pope Urban VI. in opposition to Clement the Anti-pope ; and also overcame the rebellious forces of Litster, the dyer, in Norfolk, by North Walsham, in the reign of King Richard II. Those that would know the names of the citizens who were chief actors in the tumult in Bishop Skerewyng's time, may find them set down in the bull of Pope Gregory X. Some bishops, though they lived and died here, might not be buried in this church, as some bishops probably of old, more certainly of later time. Here concludes Sir Thomas Browne s MS.^ ^ the picture of Chancellor Spencer.~\ of Norfolk's liouse in Norwicli, a.d. P. L. Neve saw this picture in 1715, at 1715." the house of Mr. Statham — MS. note in •' Here condndes, S^-n.'] This is the his copy in the liodleiav. In Kirkpa- editor's memorandum in the l*osthunious trick's copy occurs this note : " This M'orks. Mis continuations are omitted or another such picture is at the Duke in the present edition. 3LettertoajFrtett'&> UPON OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF HIS INTIMATE FRIEND. THIRD EDITION. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1690. VOL. IV. EDITOR'S PREFACE. The Letter to a Friend was printed, after the author's death, by his son, as a foHo pamphlet, in 1690. The only copy I ever saw is in the library of the British Museum. It was re-printed, in the Posthumous Works, in 1712; and the latter portion of it (from page 48, Posthumous Works,) was included in the Christian Morals, and for that reason is not here re-printed. From a collation with a MS. copy in the British Museum, (MS. Sloan. 1862,) several additional passages are given. D 2 iLetter to a jFrientr* (jrlVE me leave to wonder that news of this nature should have such heavy wings that you should hear so little con- cerning your dearest friend, and that I must make that un- willing repetition to tell you, ad portam rigidos calces ex- tendit, that he is dead and buried, and by this time no puny among the mighty nations of the dead ; for though he left this world not very many days past, yet every hour you know largely addeth unto that dark society ; and considering the incessant mortality of mankind, you cannot conceive there dieth in the whole earth so few as a thousand an hour. Although at this distance you had no early account or par- ticular of his death, yet your affection may cease to wonder that you had not some secret sense or intimation thereof by dreams, thoughtful whisperings, mercurisms, airy nuncios or sympathetica! insinuations, which many seem to have had at the death of their dearest friends : for since we find in that famous story, that spirits themselves were fain to tell their fellows at a distance that the great Antonio was dead, we have a sufficient excuse for our ignorance in such particulars, and must rest content with the common road, and Appian way of knowledge by information. Though the uncertainty of the end of this world hath confounded all human pre- dictions ; yet they who shall live to see the sun and moon darkened and the stars to fidl from heaven, will hardly be de- ceived in the advent of the last day ; and therefore strange it is, that the common fallacy of consumptive persons, who 38 LETTER TO A FRIEND. feel not themselves dying, and therefore still hope to live, should also reach their friends in perfect health and judg- ment ; — that you should be so little acquainted with Plautus's sick complexion, or that almost an Hippocratical face should not alarum you to higher fears, or rather despair, of his con- tinuation in such an emaciated state, wherein medical predic- tions fail not, as sometimes in acute diseases, and wherein 'tis as dangerous to be sentenced by a physician as a judge. Upon my first visit I was bold to tell them who had not let fall all hopes of his recovery, that in my sad opinion he was not like to behold a grasshopper, much less to pluck another fig ; and in no long time after seemed to discover that odd mortal symptom in him not mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, to lose his own face, and look like some of his near re- lations; for he maintained not his proper countenance, but looked like his uncle, the lines of whose face lay deep and invisible in his healthful visage before : for as from our be- ginning we run through variety of looks, before we come to consistent and settled faces ; so before our end, by sick and languishing alterations, we put on new visages : and in our retreat to earth, may fall upon such looks which from com- munity of seminal originals were before latent in us. He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage by change of air, and imbibing the pure aerial nitre of these parts ; and therefore, being so far spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli,^ and the most healthful air of little effect, where death had set his broad arrow ; - for he lived not unto the middle of May, and confirmed the observation of Hippocra- tes^ of that mortal time of the year when the leaves of the fig-tree resemble a daw's claw. He is happily seated who lives in places whose air, earth, and water, promote not the infirmities of his weaker parts, or is early removed into regions that correct them. He that is tabidly inclined, were unwise to pass his days in Portugal: cholical persons will find little comfort in Austria or Vienna : he that is weak-legged must not be in love with Rome, nor an infirm head with ' TivoU.'\ Cum mors venerit, in rests they set the figure of a broad arrow medio Tibure Sardinia est. upon trees that are to be cut down. ^ icherv death, Sfc.'] In the king's fo- ^ubseiTatio7iof,t'yc.'\ See Hip. Epidem, LETTER TO A FRIEND. dil Venice or Paris. Death hath not only particular stars in heaven, but malevolent places on earth, which single out our hifirmities, and strike at our weaker parts ; in which concern, passager and migrant birds have the great advantages ; who are naturally constituted for distant habitations, whom no seas nor places limit, but in their appointed seasons will visit us from Greenland and Mount Atlas, and as some think, even from the Antipodes. * Though we could not have his life, yet we missed not our desires in his soft departure, which was scarce an expiration ; and his end not unlike his beginning, when the salient point scarce affords a sensible motion, and his departure so like unto sheep, that he scarce needed the civil ceremony of closing his eyes ; contrary unto the common way, wherein death draws up, sheep let fall their eye-lids. With what strife and pains we came into the world we know not ; but 'tis commonly no easy matter to get out of it : yet if it could be made out, that such who have easy nativities have commonly hard deaths, and contrarily ; his departure was so easy, that we might justly suspect his birth was of another nature, and that some Juno sat cross-legged at his nativity. Besides his soft death, the incurable state of his disease might somewhat extenuate your sorrow, who know that monsters but seldom happen, miracles more rarely in physic.^ Angelus Victorius gives a serious account of a consumptive, hectical, phthisical woman, who was suddenly cured by the intercession of Ignatius.*^ We read not of any in scripture who in this case applied unto our Saviour, though some may be contained in that large expression, that he went about Galilee healing all manner of sickness and all manner of dis- eases.' Amulets, spells, sigils, and incantations, practised in other diseases, are seldom pretended in this ; and we find no sigil in the Archidoxis of Paracelsus to cure an extreme con- sumption or marasmus, which, if other diseases fail, will put a period unto long livers, and at last makes dust of all. And * Antipodes.'l Bellonius de Avibus. and rare escapes there happen sometimes ■' who know thai moitxtvrs but seldom in physic." happen, mirncles, &;c.~\ Monstra contiii- '' Aiigeli Viclorii Considlationcs. guilt in medicina. IIlppoc. — "Strange ^ Malt, iv, 25. 40 LETTER TO A FRIEND. therefore the stoics could not but think that the fiery princi- ple would wear out all the rest, and at last make an end of the world, which notwithstanding without such a lingering period the Creator may effect at his pleasure : and to make an end of all things on earth, and our planetical system of the world, he need but put out the sun, I was not so curious to entitle the stars unto any concern of his death, yet could not but take notice that he died when the moon was in motion from the meridian ; at which time an old Italian long ago would persuade me that the greatest part of men died : but herein I confess I could never satisfy my curiosity ; although from the time of tides in places upon or near the sea, there may be considerable deductions; and Pliny ^ hath an odd and remarkable passage concerning the death of men and animals upon the recess or ebb of the sea. However, certain it is, he died in the dead and deep part of the night, when Nox might be most apprehensibly said to be the daughter of Chaos, the mother of sleep and death, ac- cording to old genealogy; and so went out of this world about that hour when our blessed Saviour entered it, and about what time many conceive he will return again imto it. Cardan hath a peculiar and no hard observation from a man's hand to know whether he was born in the day or night, which I confess holdeth in my own. And Scaliger to that purpose hath another from the tip of the ear:^ most men are begotten in the night, animals in the day ; but whether more persons have been born in the night or the day, were a curi- osity undecidable, though more have perished by violent deaths in the day ; yet in natural dissolutions both times may hold an indifferency, at least but contingent inequality. The whole course of time runs out in the nativity and death of things ; which whether they happen by succession or coinci- dence, are best computed by the natural not artificial day. That Charles the Fifth was crowned upon the day of his nativity, it being in his own power so to order it, makes no * Pliny.'] Aristoteles nullum animal " Scaliger, t^r.] Auris pars pendula nisi aestu recedente expirare affirmat : ob- lobus dicitur, non omnibus ea pars est servatum id multum in Gallico Oceano et auribus; non enim iis qui noctu nati sunt, duntaxat in homine compertum, lib. 2, sed qui interdiu, maxima ex parte. — cap. 101. Com. in ArisM. dc /Inimah lib. 1. LETTER TO A FRIEND. 41 singular animadversion ; but that he should also take King Francis prisoner upon that day, was an unexpected coinci- dence, which made the same remarkable. Antipater who had an anniversary feast every year upon his birth-day, needed no astrological revolution to know what day he should die on. When the fixed stars have made a revolution unto the points from whence they first set out, some of the an- cients thought the world would have an end ; which was a kind of dying upon the day of its nativity. Now the disease pre- vailing and swiftly advancing about the time of his nativity, some were of opinion that he would leave the world on the day he entered into it : but this being a lingering disease, and creeping softly on, nothing critical was found or expected, and he died not before fifteen days after. Nothing is more common with infants than to die on the day of their nativity, to behold the worldly hours, and bvit the fractions thereof; and even to perish before their nativity in the hidden world of the womb, and before their good angel is conceived to under- take them. But in persons who out-live many years, and when there are no less than three hundred and sixty-five days to determine their lives in every year ; that the first day should make the last, that the tail of the snake should return into its mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their nativity,^ is indeed a remarkable coinci- dence, which, though astrology hath taken witty pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in making predictions of it. In this consumptive condition and remarkable extenuation, he came to be almost half himself, and left a great part be- hind him, which he carried not to the grave. And though that story of Duke John Ernestus Mansfield - be not so ea- sily swallowed, that at his death his heart was found not to be so big as a nut ; yet if the bones of a good skeleton weigh little more than twenty pounds, his inwards and flesh remain- ing could make no bouffage,"' but a light bit for the grave. I never more lively beheld the starved characters of Dante * in any living fiice ; an aruspex might have read a lecture upon ' nativity.^ According to the Egyp- ^ bovffage.'} Probably from hotiffce, tian hieroglyphic. inflation. " John Ernestus jMansJicld.] Turkisii ■* Dante.~\ In the poet Dante's de- Iiistory. scription. 42 LETTER TO A TRIEND. liiin without exenteration, his flesh being so consumed, that he might, in a manner, have discerned his bowels without opening of him: so that to be carried, sextd cervice,^ to the grave, was but a civil unnecessity ; and the complements of the coffin might outweigh the subject of it. Omnibonus Ferrarius ^ in mortal dysenteries of children looks for a spot behind the ear ; in consumptive diseases some eye the complexion of moles ; Cardan eagerly views the nails, some the lines of the hand, the thenar or muscle of the thumb ; some are so curious as to observe the depth of the throat-pit, how the proportion varieth of the small of the legs unto the calf, or the compass of the neck unto the circumference of the head : but all these, with many more, were so drowned m a mortal visage, and last face of Hippocrates, that a weak physiognomist might say at first eye, this was a face of earth, and that Morta' had set her hard seal upon his temples, easily perceiving what caricatura^ draughts death makes upon pined faces, and unto what an unkno^vn degree a man may live backward. Though the beard be only made a distinction of sex, and sign of masculine heat by Ulmus,^ yet the precocity and early growth thereof in him, was not to be liked in reference unto long life. Lewis, that virtuous but unfortunate King of Hungary, who lost his life at the battle of Mohacz, was said to be born without a skin, to have bearded at fifteen, and to have shewn some grey hairs about twenty ; from whence the diviners conjectui'ed that he would be spoiled of his kingdom, and have but a short life : but hairs make fallible predictions, and many temples early grey have out-lived the psalmist's period.^ Hairs which have most amused me have not been in the face or head, but on the back, and not in men but children, as I long ago observed in that endemial distemper of little children in Languedoc, called the morgellons," ^ sextd cerince.l i. e. " by six per- animals, the Italians call it, to be drawn sons." in caricatura. ® Ovmiboiius Ferrarius.^ De Mortis ^ Ulmus,'\ Ulmus de usu harhee hti- Pueronm. mancp. ' Morta.l ^lorta, the deity of death ' period.] The life of a man is threc- of fate. score and ten. * caricatura.'} AVhen men's faces are ' morgellons.} See Picotiis de Rheu- drawn with resemblance to some other malismo. LETTER TO A TRIEND. 43 wherein they critically break out with harsh hairs on their backs, which takes off the unquiet symptoms of the disease, and deHvers them from coughs and convulsions.^ The Egyptian mummies that I have seen, have had their mouths open, and somewhat gaping, wliich affordeth a good opportunity to view and observe their teeth, wherein 'tis not easy to find any wanting or decayed ; and therefore in Egypt, where one man practised but one operation, or the diseases but of single parts, it must needs be a barren profession to confine unto that of drawing of teeth, and little better than to have been tooth-drawer unto King Pyrrhus,* who had but two in his head. How the banyans of India maintain the in- tegrity of those parts, I find not particularly observed ; who notwithstanding have an advantage of their preservation by abstaining from all flesh, and employing their teeth in such food unto which they may seem at first framed, from their figure and conformation: but sharp and corroding rheums had so early mouldered those rocks and hardest parts of his fabric, that a man might well conceive that his years were never like to double or twice tell over his teeth. ^ Corruption had dealt more severely with them than sepulchral fires and smart flames with those of burnt bodies of old ; for in the burnt fragments of urns which I have enquired into, although I seem to find few incisors or shearers, yet the dog teeth and grinders do notably resist those fires.^ " convulsions. "l The following occurs ' teeth.] Twice tell over his teeth, in MS. Sloan, 1862: — 'Though hairs af- never live to threescore years. ford but fallible conjectures, yet we can- '^ fires.] In the MS. Sloan. 18(52, oc- not but take notice of them. They grow curs the following paragraph : — not equally on bodies after death : wo- ' Affection had so blinded some of his men's skulls afford moss as well as men's, nearest relations, as to retain some hope and the best I have seen was upon a wo- of a postliminious life, and that he migiit man's skull, taken up and laid in a room come to life again, and therefore would after twenty-five yeai's' burial. Though not have him coffined before the third the skin be made the place of hairs, yet day. Some such virbiasses, [so in MS.] I sometimes they are found on the heart confess, we find in story, and one or two I and inward parts. The plica or gluey remember myself, but they lived not long locks happen unto both sexes, and being after. Some contingent re-animations cut off will come again : but they are are to be hoped in diseases wherein the wary of cutting off the same, for fear of lamp of life is but puffed out and seeming- headache and other diseases.' — MS. Sloan, ly choaked, and not where the oil is 1862. quite spent and exhausted. Though ■* King Pyrrhus.] His upper and Nonnus will have it a fever, yet of what lower jaw being solid, and without dis- disease Lazarus first died, is imcertain tinct rows of teeth. from the text, as his second death from 44? LETTER TO A FRIEND. In the years of his childhood he had languished under the disease of his country, the rickets ; after which, notwithstand- ing, many have become strong and active men ; but whether any have attained unto very great years, the disease is scarce so old as to afTord good observation. Whether the children of the English plantations be subject unto the same infirmity, may be worth the observing. Whether lameness and halting do still increase among the inhabitants of Rovigno in Istria, I know not ; yet scarce twenty years ago Monsieur du Loyr observed that a third part of that people halted : but too cer- tain it is, that the rickets encreaseth among us ; the small-pox grows more pernicious than the great: the king's purse knows that the king's evil grows more common. Quartan agues are become no strangers in Ireland ; more common and mortal in England : and though the ancients gave that dis- ease ^ very good words, yet now that bell makes no strange sound which rings out for the effects thereof.^ Some think there were few consumptions in the old world, when men lived much upon milk ; and that the ancient inha- bitants of this island were less troubled with coughs when they went naked and slept in caves and woods, than men now good authentic history ; but since some to live again as far from sin as death, and persons conceived to be dead do some- arise like our Saviour for ever, are the times return again unto evidence of life, only satisfactions of well-weighed expect- that miracle was wisely managed by our ations.' Saviour; forbad he not been dead four '' dhease,'\ ' AapaXsgrarog xa/ pfj/ff- days and under corruption, there had rog, securissima et facillima. — Hippoc. not wanted enough who would have 8 ^;,„; j^^^^ ^.^-^ ^w febre quartana cavilled [at] the same, which the scrip- ^.^y^ go^gj campana. The following ture now puts out of doubt: and tradition paragraph occurs here in 3IS. Sloan. also confirmeth, that he lived thirty years i$Q2 -. after, and being pursued by the Jews, ' Some I observed to wonder how, in his came by sea into Provence, by Marseilles, consumptive state, his hair held on so with Mary Magdalen, Maximmus, and well, without that considerable defluvium others : where remarkable places carry ,,,],icij j^ ^ne of the last symptoms in their names unto this day. But to arise s^ch diseases ; but they took not notice iVom the grave to return again into it, is ^f a mark in his face, which if he had but an uncomfortable reviction. Few ^^^^ ^vas a probable security against men would be content to cradle it once baldness (if the observation of Aristotle again : except a man can lead his second ^vill hold, that persons are less apt to be life better than the first, a man may be ^aij ,vho are double-chinned), nor of the doubly condemned for living evilly twice, various and knotted veins in his legs, which were but to n-ake the second ^^hich they that have, in the same au- death in scripture the third, and to ac- tho^.g assertions, are less disposed to cumulate in the punishment of two bad baldness. ( According as Theodoras Ga- hversatthelastday. To liavc perform- ^^ renders it: though Scaliger renders ed the duty of corruption in the grave, ^i,;, text otherwise.)' LETTER TO A FRIEND. 45 in chambers and featherbeds. Plato will tell us, that there was no such disease as a catarrh in Homer's time, and that it was but new in Greece in his age. Polydore Virgil deliver- eth that pleurisies were rare in England, who lived but in the days of Henry the Eighth. Some will allow no diseases to be new, others think that many old ones are ceased : and that such which are esteemed new, will have but their time : how- ever, the mercy of God hath scattered the great heap of diseases, and not loaded any one country with all : some may be new in one country which have been old in another. New discoveries of the earth discover new diseases : for besides the common swarm, there are endemial and local infirmities pro- per unto certain regions, which in the whole earth make no small number : and if Asia, Africa, and America should bring in their list. Pandora's box would swell, and there must be a strange pathology. Most men expected to find a consumed kell,^ empty and bladder-like guts, livid and marbled lungs, and a withered pericardium in this exsuccous corpse : but some seemed too much to wonder that two lobes of his lungs adhered unto his side ; for the like I have often found in bodies of no suspected consumptions or difficulty of respiration. And the same more often happeneth in men than other animals ; and some think in women than in men ; but the most remarkable I have met with, was in a man, after a cough of almost fifty years, in whom all the lobes adhered unto the pleura,^ and each lobe unto another ; who having also been much troubled with the gout, brake the rule of Cardan,- and died of the stone in the bladder. Aristotle makes a query, why some animals cough, as man ; some not, as oxen. If coughing be taken as it con- sisteth of a natural and voluntary motion, including expecto- ration and spitting out, it may be as proper unto man as bleeding at the nose ; otherwise we find that Vegetius and rural writers have not left so many medicines in vain against the coughs of cattle ; and men who perish by coughs die the " /cell.] The caul, or omentum. Podagr(e, that they are delivered there- ' pleura.~\ So A. F. by from the phthisis and stone in the - Cardan.] Cardan in his Encomium bladder. /Wn^r/' reckoneth this among the Donti 46 LETTER TO A FRIEND. death of sheep, cats, and lions : and though birds have no mid- riff, yet we meet with divers remedies in Arrianus against the coughs of hawks. And though it might be thought that all animals who have lungs do cough ; yet in cetaceous fishes, who have large and strong lungs, the same is not observed ; nor yet in oviparous quadrupeds : and in the greatest thereof, the crocodile, although we read much of their tears, we find no- thing of that motion. From the thoughts of sleep, when the soul was conceived nearest unto divinity, the ancients erected an art of divination, wherein while they too widely expatiated in loose and incon- sequent conjectures, Hippocrates ^ wisely considered dreams as they presaged alterations in the body, and so afforded hints toward the preservation of health, and prevention of diseases ; and therein was so serious as to advise alteration of diet, exercise, sweating, bathing, and vomiting ; and also so religious as to order prayers and supplications unto respective deities, in good dreams unto Sol, Jupiter coelestis, Jupiter opulentus, Minerva, Mercurius, and Apollo; in bad unto Tellus and the heroes. And therefore I could not but take notice how his female friends were irrationally curious so strictly to examine his dreams, and in this low state to hope for the phantasms of health. He was now past the healthful dreams of the sun, moon, and stars, in their clarity and proper courses. 'Twas too late to dream of flying, of limpid fountains, smooth waters, white vestments, and fruitful green trees, which are the visions of healthful sleeps, and at good distance from the grave. And they were also too deeply dejected that he should dream of his dead friends, inconsequently divining, that he would not be long from them ; for strange it was not th^t he should sometimes dream of the dead, whose thoughts run always upon death; beside, to dream of the dead, so they appear not in dark habits, and take nothing away from us, in Hippocrates' sense was of good signification : for we live by the dead, and every thing is or must be so before it becomes our nourishment. And Cardan, who dreamed that he dis- coursed with his dead father in the moon, made thereof no ' Hippocrafes.'] Hippof. fk Insommis. LETTER TO A FRIEND. 47 mortal interpretation : and even to dream that we are dead, was no condemnable phantasm in old oneirocriticism, as having a signification of liberty, vacuity from cares, exemption and freedom from troubles unknown unto the dead. Some dreams I confess may admit of easy and feminine ex- position ; he who dreamed that he could not see his right shoulder, might easily fear to lose the sight of his right eye ; he that before a journey dreamed that his feet were cut off^ had a plain warning not to undertake his intended journey. But why to dream of lettuce should presage some ensuing disease, why to eat figs should signify foolish talk, why to eat eggs great trouble, and to dream of blindness should be so highly commended, according to the oneirocritical verses of Astrampsychus and Nicephorus, I shall leave unto your divination. He was willing to quit the world alone and altogether, leaving no earnest behind him for corruption or after-grave, having small content in that common satisfaction to survive or live in another, but amply satisfied that his disease should die with himself, nor revive in a posterity to puzzle physic, and make sad mementos of their parent hereditary. Leprosy awakes not sometimes before forty, the gout and stone often later; but consumptive and tabid ^ roots sprout more early, and at the fairest make seventeen years of our life doubtful before that age. They that enter the world with original dieases as well as sin, have not only common mortality but sick traduc- tions to destroy them, make connnonly short courses, and live not at length but in figures ; so that a sound Caesarcan nati- vity ^ may out-last a natural birth, and a knife may sometimes make way for a more lasting fruit than a midwife ; which makes so few infants now able to endure the old test of the river,*^ and many to have feeble children who could scarce have been married at Sparta, and those provident states who studied strong and healthful generations ; which happen but contingently in mere pecuniary matches or marriages made by the candle, wherein notwithstanding there is little redress to ■• tabid.'] Tabes maxime contingiint cliild cut out of the body of the mother, ab aiiuo deeimo octavo ad tiigcsimuni '' rifci-.] Natos ad fluniina priinuni quintum. — Hippnc. dcferimus sajvoque gclu duramus ct " a .loiiml Co'sareau nulivifi/.] A sound uiidis. 48 LETTER TO A FRIEND. be hoped from an astrologer or a lawyer, and a good discern- ino- physician were hke to prove the most successful counsellor. Julius Scaliger, who in a sleepless fit of the gout could make two hundred verses in a night, would have but five' plain words upon his tomb. And this serious person, though no minor wit, left the poetry of his epitaph unto others ; either unwilling to commend himself or to be judged by a distich, and perhaps considering how unhappy great poets have been in versifying their own epitaphs : wherein Petrarca, Dante, and Ariosto, have so unhappily failed, that if their tombs should out-last their works, posterity would find so little of Apollo on them, as to mistake them for Ciceronian poets. In this deliberate and creeping progress unto the grave, he was somewhat too young and of too noble a mind, to fall upon that stupid symptom observable in divers persons near their journey's end, and which may be reckoned among the mortal symptoms of their last disease ; that is, to become more narrow minded, miserable, and tenacious, unready to part with any thing, when they are ready to part with all, and afraid to want when they have no time to spend ; mean while physicians, who know that many are mad but in a single de- praved imagination, and one prevalent decipiency ; and that beside and out of such single deliriums a man may meet with sober actions and good sense in bedlam ; cannot but smile to see the heirs and concerned relations gratulating themselves on the sober departure of their friends ; and though they be- hold such mad covetous passages, content to think they die in good understanding, and in their sober senses. Avarice, which is not only infidelity but idolatry, either from covetous progeny or questuary education, had no root in his breast, who made good works the expression of his faith, and was big with desires unto public and lasting charities ; and surely where good wishes and charitable intentions exceed abilities, theorical beneficency may be more than a dream. They build not castles in the air who would build churches on earth; and though they leave no such structures here, may lay good foundations in heaven. In brief, his life and ' but Jive.] Julii Ca;saiis Scaligeri quod fuit. — Joseph. Scaliger in vita patris. LETTER TO A FRIEND. 49 death were such, that I could not blame them who wished the like, and almost to have been himself; almost, I say ; for though we may wish the prosperous appurtenances of others, or to be another in his happy accidents, yet so intrinsical is every man unto himself, that some doubt may be made, whe- ther any would exchange his being, or substantially become another man. He had wisely seen the world at home and abroad, and thereby observed under what variety men are deluded in the pursuit of that which is not here to be found. And although he had no opinion of reputed felicities below, and apprehend- ed men widely out in the estimate of such happiness ; yet his sober contempt of the world wrought no Democritism or Cy- nicism, no laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding there are not felicities in this world to satisfy a serious mind ; and therefore, to soften the stream of our lives, we are fain to take in the reputed contentions of this world, to unite with the crowd in their beatitudes, and to make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion, or co-existimation : for strictly to se- parate from received and customary felicities, and to confine unto the rigour of realities, were to contract the consolation of our beings unto too uncomfortable chcumscriptions. Not to fear death," nor desire it, was short of his resolution : to be dissolved, and be with Christ, was his dying ditty. He conceived his thread long, in no long course of years, and when he had scarce out-lived the second life of Lazarus f es- teeming it enough to approach the years of his Saviour, who so ordered his own human state, as not to be old upon earth. But to be content with death may be better than to desire it : a miserable life may make us wish for death, but a virtu- ous one to rest in it ; which is the advantage of those resolved christians, who looking on death not only as the sting, but the period and end of sin, the horizon and isthmus between this life and a better, and the death of this world but as a nativity of another, do contentedly submit unto the common necessity, and envy not Enoch or Elias. '^ death.'\ Summum nee metuas diem and tradition, is said to have lived thirty nee optes. years after he was raised by our Saviour. ^ Lazarus.'] Who upon iome accounts, — Barcnius. VOL. IV. E oO LETTER TO A FRIEND. Not to be content with life is the unsatisfoctory state of those who destroy themsehes ; ^ who being afraid to Uve, run blindly upon their own death, which no man fears by ex- perience : and the stoics had a notable doctrine to take away the fear thereof; that is, in such extremities, to desire that which is not to be avoided, and wish wliat might be feared ; and so made evils voluntary, and to suit with their own de- sires, which took off the terror of them. But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged by such fal- lacies ; who, though they feared not death, were afraid to be their own executioners ; and therefore thought it more wis- dom to crucify their lusts than their bodies, to circumcise than stab their hearts, and to mortify than kill themselves. His willingness to leave this world about that age, when most men think they may best enjoy it, though paradoxical unto worldly ears, was not strange unto mine, who have so often observed, that many, though old, oft stick fast unto the world, and seem to be drawn like Cacus's oxen, backward, with great struggling and reluctancy unto the grave. The long habit of living makes mere men more hardly to part with life, and all to be nothing, but what is to come. To live at the rate of the old world, when some could scarce remem- ber themselves young, may afford no better digested death than a more moderate period. IMany would have thought it an happiness to have had their lot of life in some notable conjunctures of ages past ; but the uncertainty of future times hath tempted few to make a part in ages to come. And sure- ly, he that hath taken the true altitude of things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hun- dred years hence, when no man can comfortably imagine what face this world will carrv : and therefore since every aee makes a step unto the end of all things, and the scripture affords so hard a character of the last times ; quiet minds w ill be content with their generations, and rather bless ages past, than be ambitious of those to come. themselves.] In the speech of Vul- cupias quodcunque necesse est.' ' All fear teius in Lucan, animating his soldiers in is over, do but resolve to die, and make a great struggle to kill one another. — 'De- your desires meet necessity.' cernite lethum, et nietus omnis abest, LETTER TO A FRIEND. 51 Though age had set no seal upon his face, yet a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in his actions ; and therefore, since wisdom is the grey hair, and an unspotted life old age ; al- though iiis years came short, he might have been said to have held up with longer livers, and to have been Solomon's ^ old man. And surely if we deduct all those days of our life which we might wish unlived, and which abate the comfort of those we now hve ; if we reckon up only those days which God hath accepted of our lives, a life of good years will hard- ly be a span long : the son in this sense may out-live the father, and none be climacterically old. He that early arriveth unto tlie parts and prudence of age, is happily old without the un- comfortable attendants of it ; and 'tis superfluous to live unto grey hairs, when in a precocious temper we anticipate the vir- tues of them. In brief, he cannot be accounted young who out-liveth the old man. He that hath early arrived unto the measure of a perfect stature in Christ, hath already fulfilled the prime and longest intention of his being : and one day lived after the perfect rule of piety, is to be preferred before sinning immortality. Although he attained not unto the years of his predeces- sors, yet he wanted riot those preserving virtues which confirm the thread of weaker constitutions. Cautelous chastity and crafty sobriety were far from him ; those jewels wexeparagoriy without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud in him : which affords me a hint to proceed in these good wishes, and few mementos unto you. ^ Solomon s-l Wisdom, cap. iv. *«* The rest of this letter served as the basis for liis larger work, the Clirislinn Mornh, in which having, with some few alterations, been included, it is here omitted. E 2 C|)ri6t(an JHorals. PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL AND COttUECT MANUSCRIPT OF THE AUTHOB, BY JOHN JEFFERY, D.D. ARCHDBACON OK NORWICH. WITH NOTES, ADDED TO THE SECOND EDITIO.V, BY DR. JOHNSON. TUIKD EDITION. OKIUINALLY I'UHLISUED IN 171G. EDITOR'S PREFACE. The original edition of the Christian Morals, by Arch- deacon JefFery, was printed at Cambridge, in 1716; and is one of the rarer of Sir Thomas's detached works. Dodsley, in 1756, brought out a new edition, with additional notes, and a life by Dr. Johnson. It has been said that Dr. Johnson inserted in the Literary Magazine a review of the work, but I have not been able to find it. The sixth volume of Memoirs of Literature contains a meagre account of the Posthumous Works, but no notice of the Christian Morals. The latter portion of the Letter to a Friend is incorporated in various parts of the Christian Morals ; except some pas- sages, which are given in notes to the present edition; toge- ther with some various readings from MSS. in the British Museum. TO THE lUGHT HONOURABLE DAVID, EARL OF BUCHAN, VISCOUNT AIXIITERHOL'SE, LOKD CARDnOSS ANO GLBNDOVACHIE, ONE OK THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE, AND LORD LIEUTENANT OP THE COUNTIES OF STIRLING AND CLACKMANNAN IN NORTH BRITAIN. My Lord, The honour you have done our family obligeth us to make all just acknowledgments of it: and there is no form of acknowledgment in our power, more worthy of your lord- ship's acceptance, than this dedication of the last work of our honoured and learned father. Encouraged hereunto by the knowledge we have of your lordship's judicious rehsh of universal learning, and sublime virtue, we beg the favour of your acceptance of it, which will very much oblige our family in general, and her in particular, who is. My Lord, Your lordship's most humble servant, ELIZABETH LITTLETON. THE PREFACE. If any one, after he has read Religio Medici, and the ensuing discourse, can make doubt whether the same person was the author of them both, he may be assured, by the testimony of Mrs. Littleton, Sir Thomas Browne's daughter, who Uved with her father when it was composed by him ; and who, at the time, read it written by his own hand : and also by the testimony of others (of whom I am one) who read the manuscript of the author, immediately after his death, and who have since read the same ; from which it hath been faith- fully and exactly transcribed for the press. The reason why it was not printed sooner is, because it was unhappily lost, by being mislaid among other manuscripts, for which search was lately made in the presence of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, of which his Grace, by letter, informed Mrs. Littleton, when he sent the manuscript to her. There is nothing printed in the discourse, or in the short notes, but what is found in the original manuscript of the author, except only where an oversight had made the addition or transposi- tion of some words necessary. JOHN JEFFERY, Archdeacon of Noinvich. C|)ristiait JWorals;. PART THE FIRST. 1 READ softly and circumspectly in this fimambulatory track ^ and narrow path of goodness : pursue virtue virtuously:" leaven not good actions, nor render virtue disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul intentions : maim not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor circumstantially deprave substan- tial goodness. Consider^ whereabout thou art in Cebes's ■* table, or that old philosophical phiax^ of the life of man: whether thou art yet in the road of uncertainties ; whether thou hast yet entered the narrow gate, got up the hill and asperous way, which leadeth unto the house of sanity ; or taken that puri- fying potion from the hand of sincere erudition, which may send thee clear and pure away unto a virtuous and happy Hfe. In this virtuous voyage of thy life hull not about like the ark, without the use of rudder, mast, or sail, and bound for * fiiitambulatory trad;.] Narrow, like paragraphs of the closing reflections to the walk of a rope-dancer. — Dr. J. the Letter to a Friend. * Tread, <^c.] Tliis sentence begins ■* Cehcs's tablc-l The table or picture the closing reflections to the Letter to a of Cebes, an allegorical representation of Friend, which were afterwards amplified the characters and conditions of nian- into the C/i/v'i/ian .l/ora/,-.-, and, therefore, kind; which is translated by Mr. Col- have been omitted as dnplicatc in the licr, and added to the Miditationx of present edition. .tntoiiiuiis J)r. ,/. [ ("(Visider, .^-c] 'l"hc remainder of ■* piiiar.'] ririurc. — F>r. ./. this section comprises the 2ng,Sf 0.1 That is, thy turbulent and irascible passions. For the Lapithytes and Centaurs, see Ovid. —Dr. J. ^ th,/self.] In MS. Sloan. 1848, I met with the following passage, which may be fitly introduced as a continuation to this section : — 'To restrain the rise of extravagances, and timely to ostracise the most ovcrgrowinc enormitic rrrtlkcs f CHRISTIAN MORALS. ' Gl Sect, in.* — He that is chaste and continent not to impair liis strength, or honest for fear of contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not this virtue until that temper, when Cato ^ could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs write satires upon lust ; but be chaste in thy flaming days, when Alexander dared not trust his eyes upon the fair sisters of Darius, and when so many think there is no other way but Origen's. * Sect, iv.^ — Show thy art in honesty, and lose not thy vir- tue by the bad managery of it. Be temperate and sober ; not to preserve your body in an abiUty for wanton ends ; not to avoid the infamy of common transgressors that way, and thereby to hope to expiate or paUiate obscure and closer vices ; not to spare your purse, nor simply to enjoy health ; but, in one word, that thereby you may truly serve God, which every sickness will tell you you cannot well do without health. The sick man's sacrifice is but a lame oblation. Pious treasures, laid up in healthful days, plead for sick non-performances : without which we must needs look back with anxiety upon the lost opportunities of health ; and may have cause rather to envy than pity the ends of penitent public sufferers, who go with healthful prayers unto the last scene of their lives, and in the integrity of their faculties " return their spirit unto God that gave it. Sect. v. — Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let ' Who is said to have castratoil himself. a calm and quiet state in the doniinioii of nafe us here, and chiefly condemn us ourselves, for vices have their ambitions, hereafter, and will stand in capital letters and will be above one another; but over our heads as the titles of our suffer- though many may possess us, yet is ings.' there commonly one that hath the do- ' Sect, hi.] The 4th paragraph of minion over us ; one that lordeth over closing reflections to the Letter to a all, and the rest remain slaves unto the Friend. humour of it. Such towering vices arc '' Cnto.'] The censor, who is frequent- not to be temporally cxostracised, but ly confounded, and by Pope, amongst perpetually exiled, or rather to be served others, with Cato of Utica. — Dr. J. like the rank poppies in Taiquin's garden, * Sect, iv.] Except the first sen- and made shorter by the head ; for the tence, this section concludes the first sharpest arrows are to be let fly against paragraph of the concluding reflections all such imperious vices, which, neither of Letler to a Friend. enduring priority or eiiuality, Ca-sareati " and in llic iii/egrit_i/,S:n.'\ M'ith their or Pompeian primity, nuist be absolute fai-ulties unimpaired. — Dr. J. over all ; for these opprobiously denomi- 62 CHRISTIAN" MORALS. thy iniiid hold pace with tliem ; and think it not enough to be hberal, but munificent. Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed ; and treat the poor, as our Saviour did the multitude, to the reliques of some baskets.^ Diffuse thy beneficence early, and while thy treasures call thee master; there may be an atropos^ of thy fortunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth cut off before that hour, when all men shall be poor ; for the justice of death looks equally upon the dead, and Charon expects no more from Alexander than from Irus. Sect. vi. — Give not only unto seven, but also unto eight, that is unto more than many. * Though to give unto every one that asketh may seem severe advice, f yet give thou also before asking ; that is, where want is silently clamorous, and men's necessities not their tongues do loudly call for thy mercies. For though sometimes necessitousness be dumb, or misery speak not out, yet true charity is sagacious, and will find out hints for beneficence. Acquaint thyself with the physiognomy of want, and let the dead colours and first lines of necessity suffice to tell thee there is an object for thy bounty. Spare not where thou canst not easily be prodigal, and fear not to be undone by mercy ; for since he who hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Almighty rewarder, who observes no ides ^ but every day for his payments, charity becomes pious usury, christian liberality the most thriving in- dustry; and what we adventure in a cockboat may return in a carrack unto us. He who thus casts his bread upon the water shall surely find it again ; for though it falleth to the bottom, it sinks but like the axe of the prophet, to rise again unto him. * Ecclesiasticus. f Luke. ^ lie charUahle, S^-c.'] The preceding ' ides, ^-c] The ides was the time part ol" this section constitutes tlie 5tli when money lent out at interest was paragraph of the closing reflections of commonly repaid. Letter to a Friend. Fcenerator Alphius " alropox.'\ Atropos is tlic lady of Suam relegit Idibus pecuniam, destiny that cuts the thread of life. — Quaerit calendis ponere. />'•• J- HoK.— Dr. ./ I CHRISTIAN MORALS. 63 Sect, vir.'^ — If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment. Miserable men commiserate not themselves, bowelless unto others, and merciless unto their own bowels. Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and think it moi'e satisfaction to live richly than die rich. For since thy good works, not thy goods, will follow thee ; since wealth is an appurtenance of life, and no dead man is rich ; to famish in plenty, and live poorly to die rich, were a multiply- ing improvement in madness, and use upon use in folly. Sect, viii.^— Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, and say not unto it, thou art my confidence. Kiss not thy hand to that terrestrial sun, nor bore thy ear unto its servitude. A slave unto mammon makes no servant unto God. Covet- ousness cracks the sinews of faith ; numbs the apprehension of any thing above sense ; and, only affected with the cer- tainty of things present, makes a peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one world, nor hopes but fears another; makes their own death sweet unto others, bitter unto them- selves ; brings formal sadness, scenical mourning, and no wet eyes at the grave. Sect, ix.* — Persons lightly dipt, not grained in generous honesty,^ are but pale in goodness, and faint hued in integrity. But be thou what thou virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash away thy tincture. Stand magnetically upon that axis,'' when prudent simplicity hath fixt there ; and let no attraction invert the poles of thy honesty. That vice may be uneasy and even monstrous unto thee, let iterated good acts and long confirmed habits make virtue almost natural, or a second nature in thee. Since virtuous superstructions have com- monly generous foundations, dive into thy inclinations, and early discover what nature bids thee to be or tells thee thou mayest be. They who thus timely descend into themselves, and cultivate the good seeds which nature hath set in them. * Sect. VII.] Pamgiaph 7thofclos- deeply tinged, not dyed ingrain. — Dr. J. \ng rejections of Letter to a Frictid. '^ that u.ris.'} Tliat is, "with a po- ^ Sect, viii.] Par. Gtli of closing sition as iiniiiutable as that of the mag- reflections to the Letter to a Friend. iietical axis," whicii is popularly sup- ■• Sect, ix.] Par. 8th of closing re- posed to be invariably parallel to the flections to the Letter to a Friend. meridian, or to stand exactly north and * vol grained in generous, 4'C.] Not south. — Dr. J. 64 CHRISTIAN MORALS. prove not shrubs but cedars in tlieir generation. And to be in the form of the best of the bad* or the worst of the good, will be no satisfaction unto them. Sect, x.^ — Make not the consequence of virtue the ends thereof. Be not beneficent for a name or cymbal of ap- plause ; nor exact and just in commerce for the advantages of trust and credit, which attend the reputation of true and punctual dealing : for these rewards, though unsought for, plain virtue will bring with her. To have other by-ends in good actions sours laudable performances, which must have deeper roots, motives, and instigations, to give them the stamp of virtues.® Sect, xi.*-* — Let not the law of thy country be the non ultra of thy honesty ; nor think that always good enough which the law will make good. Narrow not the law of cha- rity, equity, mercy. Join gospel righteousness with legal right. Be not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let the ser- mon in the mount be thy targum unto the law of Sinai. ^ Sect. xii. — Live by old ethicks and the classical rules of honesty. Put no new^ names or notions upon authentic vir- tues and vices.- Think not, that morality is ambulatory; that vices in one age are not vices in another; or that virtues, which are under the everlasting seal of right reason, may be stamped by opinion. And therefore, though vicious times in- vert the opinions of things, and set up new ethicks against virtue, yet hold thou unto old morality ; and rather than fol- * Optimi malorum pessimi bonorum. ' Sect, x.] Par. 10th of closing re- flections to the Letter to a Friend. * virtues.'] The following (11th par. of closing reflections to the Letter, ifc.) seems to have been omitted in the Christian Morals: — 'Though human in- firmity may betray thy heedless days into the popular ways of extravagancy, yet let not thine own depravity, or the torrent of vicious times, carry thee into desperate enormities in opinions, man- ners, or actions: if thou hast dipped thy foot in the river, yet venture not over Rubicon ; run not into extremities from whence there is no regression, nor be ever so closely shut up within the holds of vice and iniquity, as not to find some escape by a postern of recipiscency.' ** Sect, xi.] Par. 9th of closing re- flections to the Letter to a Friend. ' targum, <^c.] A paraphrase or am- plification. - vices.'] From MS. Sloan. 1S47, the following clause is added : — ' Think not modesty will never gild its like ; fortitude will not be degraded into audacity and foolhardiness ; liberality will not be put oif wiih the name of prodigality, nor frugality exchange its name with avarice and solid parsimony, and so our vices be exalted into virtues.' CHRISTIAN MORALS. 65 low a multitude to do evil, stand like Pompey's pillar conspi- cuous by thyself, and single in integrity. And since the worst of times afford imitable examples of virtue ; since no deluge of vice is like to be so general but more than eight will escape ; ^ eye well those heroes who have held their heads above water, who have touched pitch and not been defiled, and in the common contagion have remained uncorrupted. Sect, xiii.* — Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks; be content to be envied, but envy not. Emulation may be plausible and indignation allowable, but admit no treaty with that passion which no circumstance can make good. A displacency at the good of others because they en- joy it, though not unworthy of it, is an absurd depravity, sticking fast unto corrupted nature, and often too hard for humility and charity, the great suppressors of envy. This surely is a lion not to be strangled but by Hercules himself, or the highest stress of our minds, and an atom of that power which subdueth all things unto itself. Sect, xiv.^ — Owe not thy humility unto humiliation from adversity, but look humbly down in that state when others look upwards upon thee. Think not thy own shadow longer than that of others, nor delight to take the altitude of thy- self. Be patient in the age of pride, when men live by short intervals of reason under the dominion of humour and pas- sion, when it's in the power of every one to transform thee out of thyself, and run thee into the short madness. If you cannot imitate Job, yet come not short of Socrates,'' and those patient Pagans who tired the tongues of their enemies, while they perceived they spit their malice at brazen walls and statues. Sect, xv.^ — Let not the sun in Capricorn* go down upon thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in ashes. Draw the curtain * Even wher. the days are shortest. ' eight will escape.'] AlIudinR to the '^"i partem accepts saiva inter vincia cicutse fl 1 f M 1 jAccusatori nollet dare. — .luv. tlooa 01 iNOah. >,ol so mild ■) hales, nor Chrysippus thought ; •• Sect. XIII.] Par. 13th of closing ^^"f 'he good man who drank the pois'nous reflections to the Letter to a Friend. wuh mind serene, and could not wish to see ■"'Sect. XIV.l l^ir. 12tll of closing j/is vile accuser drink as deep as he : a ... ^ .1 J- ,, X n ■ I Exalted Socrates! i^RElxu.—Dr. J. reflections to tlie Letter to a trtrna. 6 Socrates.] Sect, xv.] Par. l.'ith of closing Dulcique sencx vicinus Uymetto, reflections to the Letter to a Friend. VOL. IV. F 66 CHRISTIAN MORALS. of night upon injuries, shut them up in the tower of oblivion,* and let them be as though they had not been. To forgive our enemies, yet hope that God will punish them, is not to forgive enough. To forgive them ourselves, and not to pray God to forgive them, is a partial piece of charity. Forgive thine enemies totally, and without any reserve that however God will revenge thee. Sect, xvi." — While thou so hotly disclaimest the devil, be not guilty of diabolism. Fall not into one name with that unclean spirit, nor act his nature whom thou so much abhor- rest; that is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite, whisper, detract, or sinistrously interpret others. Degenerous depravities, and narrow-minded vices ! not only below St. Paul's noble Christ- ian but Aristotle's true gentleman.f Trust not with some that the epistle of St. James is apocryphal, and so read with less fear that stabbing truth, that in company with this vice "thy religion is in vain." Moses broke the tables without break- ing of the law ; but where charity is broke, the law itself is shattered, which cannot be whole without love, which is " the fulfilling of it." Look humbly upon thy virtues ; and though thou art rich in some, yet think thyself poor and naked without that crowning grace, which " thinketh no evil, which envieth not, which beareth, hopeth, believeth, eh- dureth all things." With these sure graces, while busy tongues are crying out for a drop of cold water, mutes may be in happiness, and sing the trisagion% in heaven. Sect. xvii. — However thy understanding may waver in the theories of true and false, yet fasten the rudder of thy will, steer straight unto good and fall not foul on evil. Imagina- tion is apt to rove, and conjecture to keep no bounds. Some have run out so far, as to fancy the stars might be but the light of the crystalline heaven shot through perforations on the bodies of the orbs. Others more ingeniously doubt whether there hath not been a vast tract of land in the * Alluding unto the tower of oblivion mentioned by Procopius, which was the name of a tower of imprisonment among the Persians : whoever was put therein was as it were buried alive, and it was death for any but to name him. t See Aristotle's Ethics, chapter of Magnanimity. % Holy, holy, holy. * Sect, xvi.] Par. Uth of closing reflections to the Letter to a Friend. CHRISTIAN MORALS. 67 Atlantic ocean, which earthquakes and violent causes have long ago devoured.^ Speculative misapprehensions may be innocuous, but immorahty pernicious ; theoretical mistakes and physical deviations may condemn our judgments, not lead us into judgment. But perversity of will, immoral and sin- ful enormities walk with Adraste and Nemesis^ at their backs, pursue us unto judgment, and leave us viciously miserable. Sect, xviii. — Bid early defiance unto those vices which are of thine inward family, and having a root in thy temper plead a right and propriety in thee. Raise timely batteries against those strong holds built upon the rock of nature, and make this a great part of the militia of thy life. Delude not thyself into iniquities from participation or community, which abate the sense but not the obliquity of them. To conceive sins less or less of sins, because others also transgress, were morally to commit that natural fallacy of man, to take com- fort from society, and think adversities less because others also suffer them. The politic nature of vice must be opposed by policy; and, therefore, wiser honesties project and plot against it : wherein, notwithstanding, we are not to rest in generals, or the trite stratagems of art. That may succeed with one, which may prove successless with another: there is no community or commonweal of virtue : every man must study his own economy, and adapt such rules unto the figure of himself. Sect, xix.- — Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others ; and let the world be de- ceived in thee, as they are in the lights of heaven. Hang early plummets upon the heels of pride, and let ambition have but an epicycle ' and narrow circuit in thee. Measure not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the extent of thy grave ; and reckon thyself above the earth, by the hne thou ' devoured.'] Add from MS. cix Raivl. ing reflections to the Letter to a Friend. " Whether there liath not been a passage ^epicycle.'] An epicycle is a small from the Mediterranean into the Red revolution made by one planet in the Sea, and whether the ocean at first had wider orbit of another planet. The a passage into the Mediterranean by the meaning is, "Let not ambition form thy straits of Hercules." circle of action, but move upon other ' Adraste and Nemesis.] The powers principles; and let ambition only ope- of vengeance.— Z)r. J. rate as something extrinsic and adven ' Sect, xix,] Paragraph 16th of clos- titious."— i)r. J. F 2 68 CHRISTIAN MORALS. must be contented with under it. Spread not into boundless expansions either of designs or desires. Think not that mankind hveth but for a few ; and that the rest are born but to serve those ambitions, which make but flies of men and wildernesses of whole nations. Swell not into vehement actions which imbroil and confound the earth ; but be one of those violent ones which force the kingdom of heaven.* If thou must needs rule, be Zeno's king,* and enjoy that empire which every man gives himself. He who is thus his own monarch contentedly sways the sceptre of himself, not envy- ing the glory of crowned heads and elohims of the earth. Could the world unite in the practice of that despised train of virtues, which the divine ethics of our Saviour hath so in- culcated upon us, the furious face of things must disappear ; Eden would be yet to be found, and the angels might look down, not with pity, but joy upon us. Sect, xx.^ — Though the quickness of thine ear were able to reach the noise of the moon, which some think it maketh in its rapid revolution ; though the number of thy ears should equal Argus's eyes ; yet stop them all with the wise man's wax,^ and be deaf unto the suggestions of tale-bearers, calum- niators, pickthank or malevolent delators, who, while quiet men sleep, sowing the tares of discord and division, distract the tranquillity of charity and all friendly society. These are the tongues that set the world on fire, cankers of reputation, and like that of Jonas's gourd, wither a good name in a night. Evil spirits may sit still, while these spirits walk about and perform the business of hell. To speak more strictly, our corrupted hearts are the factories of the devil, which may be at work without his presence ; for when that circumvent- ing spirit hath drawn malice, envy, and all unrighteousness * Matthew xi. * Zeno's k'mg.'] That is, " the king lowed, without break, by the whole of of the stoics," whose founder was Zeno, the 17th Section, with slight variations, and who held, that the wise man alone and with the addition which is now add- had power and royalty. — Dr. J. ed to that Section, in a note at p. 67. * Sect, xx.] The first part of this ® ivise man's w«j.] Alluding to the Section, varying slightly, is preserved in story of Ulysses, who stopped the ears of MSS. in the Rawlinson collection at Ox- his companions with wax when they ford, NO. cix. It is immediately fol- passed by the Sirens. — Dr. J. CHRISTIAN MORALS. 69 unto well rooted habits in his disciples, iniquity then goes on upon its own legs ; and if the gate of hell were shut up for a time, vice would still be fertile and produce the fruits of hell. Thus when God forsakes us, Satan also leaves us : for such offenders he looks upon as sure and sealed up, and his temp- tations then needless unto them. Sect. xxi. — Annihilate not the mercies of God by the ob- livion of ingratitude ; for oblivion is a kind of annihilation ; and for things to be as though they had not been, is like unto never being. Make not thy head a grave, but a repository of God's mercies. Though thou hadst the memory of Se- neca, or Simonides, and conscience the punctual memorist within us, yet trust not to thy remembrance in things which need phylacteries. ^ Register not only strange, but merciful occurrences. Let Ephemerides not Olympiads '^ give thee account of his mercies : let thy diaries stand thick with duti- ful mementos and asterisks of acknowledgment. And to be complete and forget nothing, date not his mercy from thy nativity ; look beyond the world, and before the aera of Adam. Sect. xxii. — Paint not the sepulchre of thyself, and strive not to beautify thy corruption. Be not an advocate for thy vices, nor call for many hour-glasses ^ to justify thy imperfec- tions. Think not that always good which thou thinkest thou canst always make good, nor that concealed which the sun doth not behold : that which the sun doth not now see, will be visible when the sun is out, and the stars are fallen from heaven. Meanwhile there is no darkness unto conscience ; which can see without light, and in the deepest obscurity give aclear draught of things, which the cloud of dissimulation hath concealed from all eyes. There is a natural standing court within us, examining, acquitting, and condemning at the tri- bunal of ourselves ; wherein iniquities have their natural ' phylacteries.] A phylactery is a ing several years under one notation, writing boiind upon the forehead, contain- An Ephenieris is a diary, an Olympiad ing something to be kept constantly in is the space of four years. — Dr. J. mind. This was practised by the Jewish ^hour-glasses, ■^■c.'] That is, "do doctors with regard to the Mosaic law. not speak much or long in justification — Dr. J. of thy faults." The ancient pleaders * Olympiads. Sfc] Particular journals talked by a clepsydra, or measurer of of every day, not abstracts comprehend- time. — Dr. J. 70 CHRISTIAN MORALS. thetas ^ and no nocent - is absolved by the verdict of himself. And therefore although our transgressions shall be tried at the last bar, the process need not be long: for the judge of all knoweth all, and every man will nakedly know himself; and when so few are like to plead not guilty, the assize must soon have an end. Sect, xxiii. — Comply with some humours, bear with others, but serve none. Civil complacency consists with decent ho- nesty : flattery is a juggler, and no kin unto sincerity. But while thou maintainest the plain path, and scornest to flatter others, fall not into self-adulation, and become not thine own parasite. Be deaf unto thyself, and be not betrayed at home. Self-credulity, pride, and levity lead unto self-idolatry. There is no Damocles ^ like unto self-opinion, nor any Syren to our own fawning conceptions. To magnify our minor things, or hug ourselves in our apparitions ; * to afford a credulous ear unto the clawing suggestions ^ of fancy ; to pass our days in painted mistakes of ourselves ; and though we behold our own blood,^ to think ourselves the sons of Jupiter ; * are blandish- ments of self-love, worse than outward delusion. By this im- posture, wise men sometimes are mistaken in their elevation, and look above themselves. And fools, which are antipodes "^ unto the wise, conceive themselves to be but their periceci,^ and in the same parallel with them. Sect. xxiv. — Be not a Hercules furens abroad, and a pol- troon within thyself. To chase our enemies out of the field, and be led captive by our vices ; to beat down our foes, and fall down to our concupiscences ; are solecisms in moral schools, and no laurel attends them. To well manage our * As Alexander the Great did. ' thetas.] a tbeta inscribed upon flattering. A clawback is an old word the judge's tessera or ballot was a mark f"*" * flatterer. Jewel calls some wri- for death or capital condemnation.— ters for popery " the pope's clawbacks." Dr. J. —Dr. J. itwcent.'] Se ^ our own hlood.'] That is, " though Judice nemo nocens atjsolvitur.^ _^^ ^ ^.g ^leed when we are wounded, though ^ Damocles.'] Damocles was a flatterer ^^ ^"'1 '" ourselves the imperfections of of Dionysius Dr. J. humanity."—/);-. J. ■* apparitions.] Appearances without ' avtipodes.] Opposites. — Dr. J. realities Dr. J, " perioeci.] Only placed at a dis- •'■ dafci>igsiigisesiio)is,^-c.] Tickling, tance in the same line — Dr. J. CHRISTIAN MORALS. 71 affections, and wild horses of Plato, are the highest circen- ses:^ and the noblest digladiation ^ is in the theatre of our- selves; for therein our inward antagonists, not only like common gladiators, with ordinary weapons and down-right blows make at us, but also, like retiary and laqueary - com- batants, with nets, frauds, and entanglements fall upon us. Weapons for such combats, are not to be forged at Lipara: ^ Vulcan's art doth nothing in this internal militia ; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glorious day, and triumphs not leading up into capitols, but up into the highest heavens. And, therefore, while so many think it the only valour to command and master others, study thou the dominion of thyself, and quiet thine own com- motions. Let right reason be thy Lycurgus,* and lift up thy hand unto the law of it : move by the intelligences of the su- perior faculties, not by the rapt of passion, nor merely by that of temper and constitution. They who are merely carried on by the wheel of such inclinations, without the hand and gui- dance of sovereign reason, are but the automatons ^ part of mankind, rather lived than living, or at least underliving themselves. Sect. xxv. — Let not fortune, which hath no name in scrip- ture, have any in thy divinity. Let providence, not chance, have the honour of thy acknowledgments, and be thy OEdi- pus in contingencies. Mark well the paths and winding ways thereof ; but be not too wise in the construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of providence writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphics or short characters, which, like the laconism on the wall,*^ are not to be made out but by a hint or key from that spirit which indicted them. Leave fu- ture occurrences to their uncertainties, think that which is ' circenses.'\ Circenses were Roman near Italy, being volcanoes, were fabled horse races. — Dr. J. to contain the forges of the Cyclops — ' digladiation.'] Fencing match. — Dr. J. Dr. J. * Lijcurgus.'} Thy lawgiver. ^ retiary and laqueart/.l The refi- * automatous.'\ Moved not by choice, ariun or laqueariits was a prize-fighter, but by some mechanical impulse, — Dr. J. who entangled liis opponent in a net, ^ laconism on the wall.l The short which by some dexterous management sentence written on the wall of Belshaz- he threw upon him. — Dr. J. zar. Sec Danie!. — Dr. J. ■• Lipara} The Lipar. J. 83.— Dr. ./," ' ^ 1 1 CHRISTIAN MORALS. or transanimation, but into thine own body, and that after a long time ; and then also unto wail or bliss, according to thy first and fundamental life. Upon a curricle in this world de- pends a long course of the next, and upon a narrow scene here an endless expansion hereafter. In vain some think to have an end of their beings with their lives. Things cannot get out of their natures, or be or not be in despite of their constitutions. Rational existences in heaven perish not at all, and but partially on earth : that which is thus once, will in some way be always : the first living human soul is still alive, and all Adam hath found no period. Sect. xxiv. — Since the stars of heaven do differ in glory ; since it hath pleased the Almighty hand to honour the north pole with lights above the south ; since there are some stars so bright that they can hardly be looked on, some so dim that they can scarce be seen, and vast numbers not to be seen at all, even by artificial eyes ; read thou the earth in heaven, and things below from above. Look contentedly upon the scat- tered difference of things, and expect not equality in lustre, dignity, or perfection, in regions or persons below ; where nu- merous numbers must be content to stand like lacteous or nebulous stars, little taken notice of, or dim in their genera- tions. All which may be contentedly allowable in the affairs and ends of this world, and in suspension unto what will be in the order of things hereafter, and the new system of man- kind which will be in the world to come ; when the last may be the first, and the first the last ; when Lazarus may sit above Caesar, and the just, obscure on earth, shall shine like the sun in heaven ; when personations shall cease, and his- trionism of happiness be over ; when reality shall rule, and all shall be as they shall be for ever. Sect. xxv. — When the stoic said that Hfe *' would not be accepted, if it were offered unto such as knew it, he spoke too meanly of that state of being which placeth us in the form of men. It more depreciates the value of this life, that men would not live it over again ; for although they would still live on, yet few or none can endure to think of being twice the same men upon earth, and some had rather never have lived * Vitam nemo accipcret, si daretur scientibus. — Seneca, CHRISTIAN MORALS. 1 1 1 than to tread over their days once more. Cicero in a pros- perous state had not the patience to think of beginning in a cradle again.^ Job would not only curse the day of his nati- vity, but also of his renascency, if he were to act over his dis- asters and the miseries of the dunghill. But the greatest underweening of this life is to undervalue that, unto which this is but exordial or a passage leading unto it. The great advantage of this mean life is thereby to stand in a capacity of a better ; for the colonies of heaven must be drawn from earth, and the sons of the first Adam are only heirs unto the second. Thus Adam came into this world with the power also of another ; not only to replenish the earth, but the ever- lasting mansions of heaven. Where we were when the foun- dations of the earth were laid, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,*' He must answer who asked it ; who understands entities of preordina- tion, and beings yet unbeing; who hath in his intellect the ideal existences of things, and entities before their ex- tances. Though it looks but like an imaginary kind of exis- tency, to be before we are ; yet since we are under the decree or prescience of a sure and omnipotent power, it may be somewhat more than a non-entity, to be in that mind, unto which all things are present. Sect. xxvi. — If the end of the world shall have the same foregoing signs, as the period of empires, states, and dominions in it, that is, corruption of manners, inhuman degenerations, and deluge of iniquities; it may be doubted, whether that final time be so far off, of whose day and hour there can be no prescience. But while all men doubt, and none can de- termine how long the world shall last, some may wonder that it hath spun out so long and unto our days. For if the Al- mighty had not determined a fixed duration unto it, accord- ing to his mighty and merciful designments in it ; if he had not said unto it, as he did unto a part of it, hitherto shalt thou go and no farther ; if we consider the incessant and cutting * Job xxxviii. ^Cicero, i^c] Si quis Dens niihi vagiam, valdc iccnscm. — Cic. dc Hencc- largiatur, ut repuerascam et in cunis tule. — Dr. J. 112 CHRISTIAN MORALS. provocations from the earth ; it is not without amazement, how his patience hath permitted so long a continuance unto it ; how he, who cursed the earth in the first days of the first man, and drowned it in the tenth generation after, should thus lastingly contend with flesh, and yet defer the last flames. For since he is sharply provoked every moment, yet punish- eth to pardon, and forgives to forgive again ; what patience could be content to act over such vicissitudes, or accept of repentances which must have after-penitences, his goodness can only tell us. And surely if the patience of heaven were not proportionable unto the provocations from earth, there needed an intercessor not only for the sins, but the duration of this world, and to lead it up unto the present computation. Without such a merciful longanimity, the heavens would never be so aged as to grow old like a garment. It were in vain to infer from the doctrine of the sphere, that the time might come, when Capella, a noble northern star, would have its motion in the equator ; that the northern zodiacal signs would at length be the southern, the southern the northern, and Capricorn become our Cancer. However, therefore, the wisdom of the creator hath ordered the duration of the world, yet since the end thereof brings the accomplishment of our happiness, since some would be content that it should have no end, since evil men and spirits do fear it may be too short, since good men hope it may not be too long ; the prayer of the saints under the altar will be the supplication of the right- eous world, that his mercy would abridge their languishing expectation, and hasten the accomplishment of their happy state to come. Sect, xxvii. — Though good men are often taken away from the evil to come ; though some in evil days have been glad that they were old, nor long to behold the iniquities of a wicked world, or judgments threatened by them; yet is it no small satisfaction unto honest minds, to leave the world in virtuous well-tempered times, under a prospect of good to come, and continuation of worthy ways acceptable unto God and man. Men who die in deplorable days, which they re- gretfully behold, have not their eyes closed with the like con- tent ; while they cannot avoid the thoughts of proceeding or I CHRISTIAN MORALS. 113 growing enormities, displeasing unto that spirit unto whom they are then going, whose honour they desire in all times and throughout all generations. If Lucifer could be freed from his dismal place, he would little care though the rest were left behind. Too many there may be of Nero's mind,^ who, if their own turn were served, would not regard what became of others ; and when they die themselves, care not if all perish. But good men's wishes extend beyond their lives, for the happiness of times to come, and never to be known unto them. And, therefore, while so many question prayers for the dead, they charitably pray for those who are not yet alive ; they are not so enviously ambitious to go to heaven by themselves ; they cannot but humbly wish, that the little flock might be greater, the narrow gate wider, and that, as many are called, so not a few might be chosen. Sect, xxviii. — That a greater number of angels remained in heaven, than fell from it, the school-men will tell us ; that the number of blessed souls will not come short of that vast number of fallen spirits, we have the favourable calculation of others. What age or century hath sent most souls unto heaven, he can tell who vouchsafeth that honour unto them. Though the number of the blessed must be complete before the world can pass away ; yet since the world itself seems in the wane, and we hpe no such comfortable prognosticks of latter times ; since a greater part of time is spun than is to come, and the blessed roll already much replenished ; happy are those pie- ties, which solicitously look about, and hasten to make one of that already much filled and abbreviated list to come. Sect. xxix. — Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it. And if we should allow of the old tradition, that the world should last six thousand years, it could scarce have the name of old, since the first man lived near a sixth part tliereof, and seven Methuselahs would exceed its whole ' Nero's mind.] Nero often had tliis ilead, let the earth and fire be jumbled saying in liis mouth, 'E^ctou '^dvovTo: together." — Dr. J. yaTa fii-x&i]TU vv^i : " when I am once VOL. IV. I 114 CHRISTIAN MORALS. duration. However, to palliate the shortness of our lives, and somewhat to compensate our brief term in this world, it 's good to know as much as we can of it ; and also, so far as possibly in us lieth, to hold such a theory of times past, as though we had seen the same. He who hath thus considered the world, as also how therein things long past have been an- swered by things present ; how matters in one age have been acted over in another ; and how there is nothing new under the sun ; may conceive himself in some manner to have lived fi*om the beginning, and to be as old as the world ; and if he should still live on, 'twould be but the same thing. Sect, xxx.^ — Lastly ; - if length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life : think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow ; make time to come present. Ap- proximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them : be like a neighbour unto the grave, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and live in one but for the other. He w^ho thus ordereth the purposes of this life, will never be far from the next ; and is in some manner al- ready in it, by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of it. And if, as we have elsewhere declared,^ any have been so happy, as personally to understand christian annihi- lation, extacy, exolution, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, and ingression into the divine shadow, according to mystical theology, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven ; the world is in a manner over, and the earth in ashes unto them. ' Sect, xxx.] This Section, termi- ^ declared.'] In his treatise of Urn- nating at the words " and close appre- burial. Some other parts of these essays hension of it," concludes the Letter to a are printed in a letter among Browne's Friend. — Dr. J. Posthumous Works. Those references to 2 Zaslly.l '''* °^^'^ books prove these essays to be Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremuva, genuine. — Dr. J. Grata superveniet quae lion sperabiturhora. ]„ the present edition, the "other Horace. ,, , . , . , T, ,. „ .1 . ■ ■ • parts here mentioned are pomted out, iiclievc, that ev ry mormnf! s ray "^ , ,• „„ r Ilath lighted up ihv latest day; and some passages from llie Letter to a \v''i?r',il"i:i'"7''?''' '^*"n ^.^ !'''"^' Friend, arc given, which were not includ- W ah double lustre shall it shine. ,.',.. ', , .I'KANcis.— Dr. 7. eo in (hrislian Morals, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1684. iHtscellantes* " ORIGINALLY PURLISHED WITH HIS POSTHUMOUS WORKS IN 1712. I 2 EDITOR'S PREFACE. Most of these Tracts were (as Archbishop Tenison re- marks in his preface,) Letters, in reply to enquiries addressed to the author, by various, and some very eminent corre- spondents. ' The second, "Of Garlands, Sfc." was written to Evelyn, as I find from his own hand-writing, in the margin of liis copy of the original edition. On the same authority, (probably from the information of Sir Thomas himself,) we learn that the greater number were addressed to Sir Nicholas Bacon. See MS. Note in first page. The ninth, " Of Artificial Hills" was in reply to Sir WilUam Dugdale. Such enquiries he delighted to satisfy ; and the immense stores of information amassed during a long life of curious reading,- and inquisitive research, eminently qualified him for resolving questions on subjects the most dissimilar. Scarcely any could be brought before him, upon which he could not bring to bear the results of reiterated experiments, or of an extensive acquaintance with the most singular and recondite literature ; and, where these treasures failed him, there re- mained the inexhaustible resources of his own matchless fancy. The first and second Tracts have been collated with MS. Sloan. No. 1841 ; the eighth, tenth, and eleventh, with Nos. 1827 and 1839: the thirteenth with No. 1874; the twelfth with MS. Rawlinson, No. ^S, in the Bodleian— and all the others with MS. Sloan. No. 1827. Whatever discre- pancies seemed of sufficient importance have been preserved in notes. The second edition were published with the folio edition of his works, in IG86 ; and none have since been re-printed, 118 editor's preface. except Museum Clausumj which, with IlydriotapJiia, and the Letter to a Friend, were published in a neat 18mo. volume, by Mr. Crossley, of Manchester. For the sake of keeping distinct the whole of the unpub- lished works, I have added to the Miscellany Tracts, his re- marks on Iceland, together with some miscellaneous observa- tions, which made their appearance in that ill-assorted collec- tion, the Posthumous Works, in 1712. THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. The papers from which these Tracts were printed, were, a while since, deliverecl to me by those worthy persons, the lady and son of the excellent author. He himself gave no charge concerning his manuscripts, either for the suppressing or the publishing of them. Yet, seeing he had procured transcripts of them, and had kept those copies by him, it seemeth probable, that he designed them for public use. Thus much of his intention being presumed, and many who had tasted of the fruits of his former studies being covetous of more of the like kind ; also these Tracts having been perused and much approved of by some judicious and learned men; I was not unwiUing to be instrumental in fitting them for the press. To this end, I selected them out of many disordered pa- pers, and disposed them into such a method as they seemed capable of; beginning first with plants, going on to animals, proceeding farther to things relating to men, and concluding with matters of a various nature. Concerning the plants, I did, on purpose, forbear to range them (as some advised) according to their tribes and families; because, by so doing, I should have represented that as a studied and formal work, which is but a collection of occasi- onal essays. And, indeed, both this Tract, and those which follow, were rather the diversions than the labours of his pen: and, because he did, as it were, drop down his thoughts of a sudden, in those little spaces of vacancy which he snatched from those very many occasions which gave him hourly in- terruption. If there appears, here and there, any incor- rectness in the style, a small degree of candour sufficeth to excuse it. If there be any such errors in the words, I am sure the press has not made them fewer ; but I do not hold myself obUged to answer for that which I could not perfectly govern. \20 THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER. However, tlie matter is not of any great moment: such errors will not mislead a learned reader ; and he who is not such in some competent degree, is not a fit peruser of these letters. Such these Tracts are; but, for the persons to whom they were written, I cannot well learn their names from those few obscure marks which the author has set at the beginning of them. And these essays being letters, as many as take ofience at some few familiar things which the author hath mixed with them, find fault with decency. Men are not wont to set down oracles in every line they write to their acquaintance. There still remain other brief discourses written by this most learned and ingenious author. Those, also, may come forth, when some of his fi'iends shall have sufficient leisure ; and at such due distance from these Tracts, that they may follow rather than stifle them. Amongst these manuscripts there is one which gives a brief account of all the monuments of the cathedral of Norwich. It was written merely for private use : and the relations of the author expect such justice from those into whose hands some imperfect copies of it are fallen, that, without their consent first obtained, they forbear the publishing of it. The truth is, matter equal to the skill of the antiquary, was not there affijrded : had a fit subject of that nature oflfered itself, he would scarce have been guilty of an oversight like to that of Ausonius, who, in the description of his native city of Bordeaux, omitted the two famous antiquities of it, Palais de Tutele, and Palais de GaUen. Concerning the author himself, I choose to be silent, though I have had the happiness to have been, for some years, known to him. There is on foot a design of writing his life ; and there are already, some memorials collected by one of his ancient friends. Till that work be perfected, the reader may content himself with these present Tracts; all which commending themselves by their learning, curiosity, and bre- vity, if he be not pleased with them, he seemeth to me to be distempered with such a niceness of imagination, as no wise man is concerned to humour. THOMAS TENISON. jHiscellanj) Cracts* Til ACT I. » observations upon several plants mentioned in scripture. Sir, 1 HOUGH many ordinary heads run smoothly over the Scrip- ture, yet I must acknowledge it is one of the hardest books I have met with ; and therefore well deserveth those nu- merous comments, expositions, and annotations, which make up a good part of our libraries. However, so affected I am therewith, that I wish there had been more of it, and a larger volume of that divine piece, which leaveth such welcome impressions, and somewhat more, in the readers, than the words and sense after it. At least, who would not be glad that many things barely hinted were at large delivered in it ? The particulars of the dispute between the doctors and our Saviour could not but be wel- come to those who have every word in honour which pro- ceeded from his mouth, or was otherwise delivered by him ; and so would be glad to be assured, what he wrote with his finger on the gi'ound : but especially to have a particular of that instructing narration or discourse which he made unto the disciples after his resurrection, where 'tis said: "And " Tract i.] " Most of these letters in a copy formerly belonging to him, uou< were written to Sir Nicholas Bacon.'' — in the Editor' ^ possession. MS, Note, written in pencil, by Evelyn, 122 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tract I. beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself." But, to omit theological obscurities, you must needs ob- serve that most sciences do seem to have something more nearly to consider in the expressions of the Scripture. Astronomers find herein the names but of few stars, scarce 80 many as in Achilles's buckler in Homer, and almost the very same. But in some passages of the Old Testament they think they discover the zodiacal course of the sun ; and they, also, conceive an astronomical sense in that elegant ex- pression of St. James " concerning the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning :" and therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical conversion of the sun, whereby ensueth a variation of heat, light, and also of shadows from it. But whether the stellce erratics, or wandering stars, in St. Jude, may be referred to the ce- lestial planets or some metereological wandering stars, ignes fatui, stellcc cadentes et errat'icce, or had any allusion unto the impostor Barchochebas - or Stellas Filius, who afterward appeared, and wandered about in the time of Adrianus, they leave unto conjecture. Chirurgeons may find their whole art in that one passage, concerning the rib which God took out of Adam ; that is, their Bial^ssi; in opening the flesh ; l^ai^saig in taking out the rib ; and evv^ioig in closing and healing the part again. Rhetoricians and orators take singular notice of very many excellent passages, stately metaphors, noble tropes and ele- gant expressions, not to be found or paralleled in any other author. IVIineralists look earnestly into the twenty-eighth of Job ; take special notice of the early artifice in brass and u'on, ^ Barchochchas.'\ One of the im- postors who assumed the character of Messias ; he changed his true name, Bar-Coziba, son of a lie, to that oi Bar- chochebas, son of a star I He excited a revolt against the Romans which led to a very sanguinary contest, terminating with his death, at the storming of Bither, by tile Romans, under Julius Sevcrus. Bossuet supposes him to be the star mentioned in the 8th chap, of Revelation. The apostle Jude more probably allud- ed to the term ' star,' by which the Jews often designated their teachers, and ap- plied it here to some of the Christian teachers, whose unholy motives, erroneous doctrines, or wandering and unsettled habits exposed them to his rebuke. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 123 under Tubal Cain : and find also mention of gold, silver, brass, tin, lead, iron ; beside refining, soldering, dross,^ nitre, salt-pits, and in some manner also of antimony.* Gemmary naturalists read diligently the precious stones in the holy city of the Apocalypse ; examine the breast plate of Aaron, and various gems upon it; and think the second row^ the nobler of the four. They wonder to find the art of en- gravery so ancient upon precious stones and signets ; together with the ancient use of earrings and bracelets. And are pleased to find pearl, coral, amber, and crystal, in those sacred leaves, according to our translation. And when they often meet with flints and marbles, cannot but take notice that there is no mention of the magnet or loadstone, which in so many similitudes, comparisons, and allusions, could hardly have been omitted in the works of Solomon : if it were true that he knew either the attractive or directive power thereof, as some have believed. Navigators consider the ark, which was pitched without and within, and could endure the ocean without mast or sails : they take special notice of the twenty-seventh of Ezekiel ; the mighty traffic and great navigation of Tyre, with particular mention of their sails, their masts of cedar, oars of oak, their skilful pilots, mariners, and caulkers ; as also of the long voy- ages of the fleets of Solomon ; of Jehosaphat's ships broken at Ezion-Geber ; of the notable voyage and shipwreck of St. Paul so accurately delivered in the Acts. Oneirocritical diviners apprehend some hints of their know- ledge, even from divine dreams ; while they take notice of the dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and the angels on Jacob's ladder ; and find, in Artemidorus and Achmetes, that ladders signify travels, and the scales thereof preferment ; and that oxen lean and fat naturally denote scarcity or plenty, and the successes of agriculture. Physiognomists will largely put in from very many passages of scripture. And when they find in Aristotle, quibus frotia • Depinxit octilos stihio. 2 Kings ix, 30; Jereni. iv, 30; Ezek. xxiii, 40. ' dross."] MS. Sloan. 1841, adds, * second row.'] The emerald, sap- " sulphur." phire, and diamond. 124 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT 1. quailraugulacommensurata, fortes, refer untur ad leones, can- not but take special notice of that expression concerning the Gadites ; mighty men of war, fit for battle, whose faces were as the faces of lions. Geometrical and architectonical artists look narrowly upon the description of the ark, the fabric of the temple, and the holy city in the Apocalypse. But the botanical artist meets every where with vegetables, and from the fig leaf in Genesis to the star wormwood in the Apocalypse, are variously interspersed expressions from plants, elegantly advantaging the significancy of the text : whereof many being delivered in a language proper unto Ju- daea and neighbour countries, are imperfectly apprehended by the common reader, and now doubtfully made out, even by the Jewish expositor. And even in those which are confessedly known, the ele- gancy is often lost in the apprehension of the reader, unac- quainted with such vegetables, or but nakedly knowing their natures : whereof holding a pertinent apprehension, you can- not pass over such expressions without some doubt or want of satisfaction^ in your judgment. Hereof we shall only hint or discourse some few which I could not but take notice of in the reading of holy Scripture. Many plants are mentioned in iScripture which are not dis- tinctly known in our countries, or under such names in the original, as they are fain to be rendered by analogy, or by the name of vegetables of good affinity unto them, and so maintain the textual sense, though in some variation from identity. 1. That plant which afforded a shade unto Jonah,* men- tioned by the name of Mkaion, and still retained, at least marginally, in some translations, to avoid obscurity Jerome rendered hedera or ivy ; ^ which notwithstanding (except in * Jonah, iv, G. a gourd. * want nf sat'isfaci.ion.'\ "Insatisfac- the riw^M,? ; and according to Dioscorides, tion." MS. Sloan. 1841. of rapid growth; bearing a berry from ** Jeroine rendcreth ivy.~\ Augustine which an oil is expressed ; rising to the called it a gourd, and accused Jerome of height often or twelve feet, and furnish- heresy for the opinion he held. Yet ed with very large leaves, lilie those of they both seem to have been wrong. It the plane-tree; so that the people of the was in all probabihty the kiki of the East plant it before their shops for the I'^gyptians, a plant of the same family as sake of its shade. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 125 its scandent nature) agreed not fully with the other, that is, to grow up in a night, or be consumed with a worm ; ivy being of no swift growth, little subject unto worms, and a scarce plant about Babylon. 2. That hyssop " is taken for that plant which cleansed the leper, being a well scented and very abstersive simple, may well be admitted ; so we be not too confident, that it is strictly the same with our common hyssop : the hyssop of those parts differing from that of ours ; as Bellonius hath observed in the hyssop which grows in Judeea, and the hyssop of the wall mentioned in the works of Solomon, no kind of our hyssop ; and may tolerably be taken for some kind of minor capillary, which best makes out the antithesis with the cedar. Nor when we meet with libanotis, is it to be conceived our com- mon rosemary, which is rather the first kind thereof amongst several others, used by the ancients. 3. That it must be taken for hemlock, which is twice so rendered in our translation,* will hardly be made out, other- wise than in the intended sense, and implying some plant, wherein bitterness or a poisonous quality is considerable. 4. What Tremellius rendereth spina, and the vulgar trans- lation paliurus, and others make some kind of rhamnus, is al- lowable in the sense ; and we contend not about the species, since they are known thorns in those countries, and in our fields or gardens among us : and so common in Judaea, that men conclude the thorny crown ^ of our Saviour was made either oi paliurus or rhamnus. 5. Whether the bush which burnt and consumed not, were properly a riibiis or bramble, was somewhat doubtful from the original and some translations, had not the Evangelist, and St. Paul expressed the same by the Greek word /3aroj, which, from the description of Dioscorides, herbarists accept • Hosea, x, 4; Amos, vi, 2. ' hyssop.] A diminutive herb of a * thorny crown.] Our Lord's crown very bitter taste, wliich llasselquist men- was supposed by liodaeus and Theophy- tions as growing on the mountains near lact to have been made of some species Jerusalem, as well as on the walls of the of acacia. llasselquist considers it to city. Pliny mentions it in connection have been the rhamnus, or nuhca paliurus with the vinegar and the sponge. Nal. Athcnei. Hist. lib. xxiii, c. 1 . 1^6 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. for rnbus ; although the same word /Sarog expresseth not only the rjfbns or kinds of bramble, but other thorny bushes, and the hip-briar is also named y.vm^droc, or the dog-briar or bramble. G. That myrica is rendered heath,^* sounds instructively enouf^h to our ears, who behold that plant so common in bar- ren plains among us : but you cannot but take notice that erica, or our heath, is not the same plant with myrica or ta- marice, described by Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and which Bellonius declareth'togrow so plentifully in the deserts of Judaea and Arabia. 7. That the ^or^jc tti; yJjrrsoZ, botrus cypri, or clusters of cy- press,^ t should have any reference to the cypress tree, accord- ing to the original, copher, or clusters of the noble vme of Cyprus, which might be planted into Judaea, may seem to others allowable in some latitude. But there seeming some noble odour to be implied in this place, you may probably conceive that the expression drives at the ?c6, Psalm i, M, 12, TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 139 as our translation, * lodgeth,' and the Rhemish, * resteth in the branches.' 24. " And it came to pass that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness, and behold the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds." * In the contention of the tribes and decision of priority and primogeniture of Aaron, declared by the rod, which in a night budded, flowered, and brought forth almonds, you can- not but apprehend a propriety in the miracle from that spe- cies of tree which leadeth in the vernal germination of the year, unto all the classes of trees; and so apprehend how properly in a night and short space of time the miracle arose, and somewhat answerable unto its nature the flowers and fruit appeared in this precocious tree, and whose original name f implieth such speedy efflorescence, as in its proper nature flowering in February, and shewing its fruit in March. This consideration of that tree maketh the expression in Jeremy more emphatical, when 't is said, " What seest thou ? and he said, a rod of an almond tree. Then said the Lord unto me, thou hast well seen, for I will hasten the word to perform it." % I will be quick and forward hke the almond tree, to produce the effects of my word, and hasten to dis- play my judgments upon them. And we may hereby more easily apprehend the expression in Ecclesiastes ; "when the almond tree shall flourish," § that is, when the head, which is the prime part, and first sheweth itself in the world, shall grow white, like the flowers of the almond tree, whose fruit, as Athenaeus delivereth, was first called xag?jvov, or the head, from some resemblance and covering parts of it. How properly the priority was confirmed by a rod or staff", and why the rods and staffs of the princes were chosen for this decision, philologists will consider. For these were the badges, signs, and cognisances of their places, and were a kind of sceptre in their hands, denoting their super-eminen- * The Rod of Aaron, Numb, xvii, 8. t Shacher, from ijhachar festinus fiiit or maturuil. J Jcr. i, 11. § Ecclcs. xii, 5. 140 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [TRACT I. cies. Tlie staff of divinity is ordinarily described in the hands of gods and goddesses in old draughts. Trojan and Grecian princes were not without the like, whereof the shoul- ders of Thersites felt from the hands of Ulysses. Achilles in Homer, as by a desperate oath, swears by his wooden sceptre, which should never bud nor bear leaves again ; which seeming the greatest impossibility to him, advanceth the miracle of Aaron's rod. And if it could be well made out that Homer had seen the books of Moses, in that expres- sion of Achilles, he might allude unto this miracle. That power which proposed the experiment by blossoms in the rod, added also the fruit of almonds ; the text not strictly making out the leaves, and so omitting the middle germination; the leaves properly coming after the flowers, and before the almonds. And therefore if you have well pe- rused medals, you cannot but observe how in the impress of many shekels, which pass among us by the name of the Jerusa- lem shekels, the rod of Aaron is improperly laden with many leaves, whereas that which is shewn under the name of the Samaritan shekel, seems most conformable unto the text, which describeth the fruit without»leaves. 25. "Binding^ his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine." That vines, which are commonly supported, should grow so large and bulky, as to be fit to fasten their juments, and beasts of labovu' unto them, may seem a hard expression unto many : which notwithstanding may easily be admitted, if we consider the account of Pliny, that in many places out of Italy vines do grow without any stay or support : nor will' it be otherwise conceived of lusty vines, if we call to mind how the same author * delivereth, that the statua of Jupiter was made out of a vine ; and that out of one single cyprian vine a scale or ladder was made that reached unto the roof of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. * I'/lii. lib. xiv. *" Bbxiing, c^-c] In some parts of the vintage, to browse on the vines, some Persia, it was formerly the custom to of wliich are so hirge tliat a man can turn their cattle into the vineyards after scarcely compass their trunks in his arms. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. Ml 26. "I was exalted as a palm tree in Engaddi, and as a rose plant ^ in Jericho." That the rose of Jericho, or that plant which passeth among us under that denomination, was signified in this text, you are not like to apprehend with some, who also name it the rose of St. Mary, and deliver, tliat it openeth the branches, and flowers upon the eve of our Savi- our's nativity : but rather conceive it some proper kind of rose, which thrived and prospered in Jericho more than in the neighbour countries. For our rose of Jericho is a very low and hard plant, a few inches above the ground ; one whereof brought from Judaea I have kept by me many years, nothing resembling a rose tree, either in flowers, branches, leaves, or growth ; and so improper to answer the emphatical word of exaltation in the text: growing not only about Jericho, but other parts of Judaea and Arabia, as Bellonius hath observed : which being a dry and hgneous plant, is pre- served many years, and though crumpled and furled up, yet, if infused in water, will swell and display its parts. 27. Quasi Terehinthus extendi raynos, when it is said in the same chapter, "as a turpentine tree** have I stretched out my branches." It will not seem strange unto such as have either seen that tree or examined its description : for it is a plant that widely displayeth its branches : and though in some European countries it be but of a low and fruticeous growth, yet Pliny observeth that it is great in Syria* and so allowably, or at least not improperly mentioned in the ex- pression of Hosea f according to the vulgar translation, Su- * Terebintlnis in Macedonia fruticat, in Syria, magna est, lib. xiii, PUtt. t llos. iv, 13. ' rose plant in Jericho.'\ Sir R. K. vated, and prieed by the natives. Their Porter gives the following description of gardens and courts are crowded with its the oriental rose trees probably here in- plants, their rooms ornamented with tended: — " On first entering this bower vases filled with its gathered bunches, of fairy land, I was struck with the ap- and every bath strewed with the full pearance of two rose trees ; full fourteen blown flowers, plucked from the ever feet high, laden with thousands of flow- replenished stems." ers, in every degree of expansion, and "* turpentine trec.^ An evergreen of of a bloom and delicacy of scent, that moderate size, with a top and branches imbued the whole atmosphere with the large in proportion ; leaves like ihc olive, most exquisite perfume ; indeed, I be- but green, mixed with red and purple ; lieve that in no country of the world, the flowers purple, growing in branches, does the rose grow in such perfection, as like the vine ; fruit like that of the jn- in Persia, in no country is it so culti- niper, and of a ruddy purple. 142 OnSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. per capita montium sacrificant, ^c, sub quercu, populo, et terebintho, quoniam bona est umbra ejus. And this difTu- sion and spreading of its branches, hath afforded the proverb of terebintho stultior, appliable unto arrogant or boasting per- sons, who spread and display their own acts, as Erasmus hath observed. 28. It is said in our translation, " Saul tarried in th6 up- permost parts of Gibeah, under a pomegranate tree which is in Migron : and the people which were with him were about six hundred men." And when it is said in some Latin trans- lations, Saul morabatur Jixo tentorio sub malogranatOy you will not be ready to take it in the common literal sense, who know that a pomegranate tree is but low of growth, and very unfit to pitch a tent under it ; and may rather apprehend it as the name of a place, or the rock of Rimmon, or Pome- granate ; so named from pomegranates which grew there, and which many think to have been the same place mentioned in Judges.* 29. It is said in the book of Wisdom, " Where water stood before, dry land appeared, and out of the red sea a way ap- peared without impediment, and out of the violent streams a green field ;" or as the Latin renders it, campus germinans de profundo : whereby it seems implied that the Israelites passed over a green field at the bottom of the sea: and though most would have this but a metaphorical expression, yet may it be literally tolerable ; and so may be safely appre- hended by those that sensibly know what great number of vegetables (as the several varieties of algce, sea lettuce, phasganium, conferva, caulis marina, abies, erica, tamarice, divers sorts of muscus, fucus, quercus marina, and corallines) are found at the bottom of the sea. Since it is also now well known, that the western ocean, for many degrees, is covered with sargasso or lenticula marina, and found to arise from the bottom of that sea; since, upon the coast of Provence by the isles of Eres, there is a part of the Mediterranean sea, called la Prairie, or the meadowy sea, from the bottom thereof so plentifully covered with plants : since vast heaps of weeds are found in the bellies of some whales taken in the * Judges XX, 46, 47. ch. xxi, 13. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 143 northern ocean, and at a great distance from the shore : and since the providence of nature hath provided this shelter for minor fishes ; both for their spawn, and safety of their young ones. And this might be more pecuHarly allowed to be spoken of the red sea, since the Hebrews named it suph or the weedy sea: and, also, seeing Theophrastus and Pliny, observing the growth of vegetables under water, have made their chief illustrations from those in the Red sea. 30. You will readily discover how widely they are mistaken, who accept the sycamore mentioned in several parts of Scrip- ture for the sycamore or tree of that denomination with us ; which is properly but one kind or difference of acer, and bears no fruit with any resemblance unto a fig. But you will rather, thereby, apprehend the true and genuine sycamore or sycaminus, which is a stranger in our parts. A tree (according to the description of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Galen,) resembling a mulberry tree in the leaf, but in the fruit a fig ;9 which it produceth not in the twigs but in the trunk or greater branches, answerable to the sycamore of Egypt, the Egyptian fig or giame;: of the Ara- bians, described by Prosper Alpinus, with a leaf somewhat broader than a mulberry, and in its fruit like a fig. Inso- much that some have fancied it to have had its first produc- tion from a fig tree grafted on a mulberry. It is a tree com- mon in Judaea, whereof they made frequent use in buildings ; and so understood, it explaineth that expression in Isaiah :* " Sycamori excisi sunt, cedros substituemus. The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewen stones : the syca- mores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." It is a broad spreading tree, not only fit for walks, groves, and shade, but also affording profit. And therefore it is said that King Davidf appointed Baalhanan to be over his olive trees and sycamores, which were in great plenty ; and it is accordingly dehvered, that " Solomon made cedars to be as the sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance."| » Isaiah ix, 10. f 1 Chron. xxvii, 28. % 1 Kings x, 27. ' resembling in fruit a Jig.'\ In smell growth; they grow in clusters at the end and figure, but not in the mode of of a fruit stalk, not singly like ligs. 144' OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT 1. That is, he planted many, though they did not come to per- fection in his days. And as it grew plentifully about the plains, so was the fruit good for food ; and, as Bellonius and late accounts deliver, very refreshing unto travellers in those hot and dry countries : whereby the expression of Amos* becomes more inteUigible, when he said he was an herdsman, and a gatherer of syca- more fruit. And the expression of David f also becomes more emphatical ; " He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost." That is, their sicmoth in the original, a word in the sound not far from the sycamore. Thus, when it is said, " If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, be thou plucked up by the roots, and be thou placed in the sea, and it should obey you : " J it might be more significantly spoken of this sycamore ; this being described to be arbor vasta, a large and well-rooted tree, whose removal was more difficult than many others. And so the instance in that text, is very properly made in the sycamore tree, one of the largest and less remov- able trees among them. A tree so lasting and well-rooted, that the sycamore which Zaccheus ascended, is still shewn in Judeea unto travellers ; as also the hollow sycamore at Matu- raea in Egypt, where the blessed virgin is said to have re- mained : which though it relisheth of the legend, yet it plainly declareth what opinion they had of the lasting condition of that tree, to countenance the tradition ; for which they might not be without some experience, since the learned describer of the pyramids § observeth, that the old Egyptians made coffins of this wood, which he found yet fresh and undecayed among divers of their mummies. And thus, also, when Zaccheus climbed up into a sycamore above any other tree, this being a large and fair one, it cannot be denied that he made choice of a proper and advantageous tree to look down upon our Saviour. 31. Whether the expression of our Saviour in the parable of the sower, and the increase of the seed unto thirty, sixty, * Amos, vii, 14. f Psalm, Ixxviii, 47. X Luke, xvii, 6. § D. Greaves. TRACT I.J MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 145 and a hundred fold, had any reference unto the ages of be- lievers, and measure of their faith, as children, young and old persons, as to beginners, well advanced and strongly con- firmed Christians, as learned men have hinted ; or whether in this progressional ascent there were any latent mystery, as the mystical interpreters of numbers may apprehend, I pre- tend not to determine. But, how this multiplication may well be conceived, and in what way apprehended, and that this centesimal increase is not naturally strange, you that are no stranger in agriculture, old and new, are not like to make great doubt. That every grain should produce an ear affording an hun- dred grains, is not like to be their conjecture who behold the growth of corn in our fields, wherein a common grain doth produce far less in number. For barley, consisting but of two versus or rows, seldom exceedeth twenty grains, that is, ten upon each aror/oi, or row; rye, of a square figure, is very fruitful at forty : wheat, besides the frit and uruncus, or im- perfect grains of the small husks at the top and bottom of the ear, is fruitful at ten treble gliimi or husks in a row, each containing but three grains in breadth, if the middle grain arriveth at all to perfection ; and so maketh up threescore grains in both sides. Yet even this centesimal fructification may be admitted in some sorts of cerealia, and grains from one ear : if we take in triticum centigranum, or fertilissimum Plinii, Indian wheat, and panicum; which, in every ear, containeth hundreds of grains. But this increase may easily be conceived of grains in their total multiplication, in good and fertile ground, since, if every grain of wheat produceth but three cars, the increase will arise above that number. Nor are we without examples of some grounds which have produced many more ears, and above this centesimal increase : as Pliny hath left recorded of the Byzacian field in Africa.* Misit ex co loco procurator ex uno grano quadraginta paucis mmus gcrmina. Misit et Neroni similiter tercentum quadraginta stipulas ex una grano. Cum centesimos quidem Leontini Sicilicc campi * rUn. Hist. Nat. lib, xviii, cap. 21. VOL. IV. L 146 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. fundimt, aliique, et tola Baiica, et imprimis j^gyptus. And even in our own country, from one grain of wheat sowed in a garden, I have numbered many more than an hundred.-^ And though many grains are commonly lost which come not to sprouting or earing, yet the same is also verified in measure ; as that one bushel should produce a hundred, as is exemplied by the corn in Gerar ; " Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundred fold." * That is, as the Chaldee explaineth it, a hundred for one, when he measured it. And this P^ny seems to intend, when he saith of the fertile Byzacian territory before mentioned, ex uno centeni quinquaginta modii redduntur. And may be favour- ably apprehended of the fertility of some grounds in Poland ; wherein, after the accounts of Gaguinus, from rye sowed in August, come thirty or forty ears, and a man on horseback can scarce look over it. In the sabbatical crop of Judasa, there must be admitted a large increase, and probably not short of this centfesimal multiplication : for it supplied part of the sixth year, the whole seventh, and eighth vmtil the harvest of that year. The seven years of plenty in Egypt must be of high in- crease ; when, by storing up but the fifth part, they supplied the whole land, and many of their neighbours after : for it is said, "the famine was in all the land about them,"t And therefore though the causes of the dearth in Egypt be made out from the defect of the overflow of Nilus, according to the dream of Pharaoh ; yet was that no cause of the scarcity in the land of Canaan, which may rather be ascribed to the want of the former and latter rains, for some succeeding years, if their famine held time and duration with that of Egypt ; as may be probably gathered from that expression of Joseph, " come down unto me (into Egypt) and tarry not, and there will I nourish thee : for yet there are five years of famine, lest thou and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty." J * Gen. xxvi, 12. t Gen. xli, 56. % Gen xlv, 9, 11. ' many more than an hundred.'\ The "no less than three hundred stalks and manuscript in the British Museum reads, ears." — MS. Sloan. 1S41. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. ' 147 How they preserved their corn so long in Egypt may seem hard unto northern and moist chmates, except we consider the many ways of preservation practised by antiquity, and also take in that handsome account of Pliny ; what corn so- ever is laid up in the ear, it taketh no harm keep it as long as you will, although the best and most assured way to keep corn is in caves and vaults under ground, according to the practice of Cappadocia and Thracia. In Egypt and Mauritania above all things they look to this, that their granaries stand on high ground ; and how dry soever their floor be, they lay a course of chaff betwixt it and the ground. Besides, they put up their corn in grana- ries and bins together with the ear. And Varro delivereth that wheat laid up in that manner will last fifty years ; millet an hundred ; and beans so conserved, in a cave of Ambracia, were known to live an hundred and twenty years ; that is, from the time of King Pyrrhus, unto the Pyratick war under the conduct of Pompey. More strange it may seem how, after seven years, the grains conserved should be fruitful for a new production. For it is said that Joseph delivered seed unto the Egyptians, to sow their land for the eighth year: and corn after seven years is like to afford little or no production, according to Theophrastus ; " ad sementem semen anniculum optinmm im- tatur^ binum deterius et trinnm ; ultra sterile ferme est, quan- quam ad usum cibarmm idoneum.* Yet since, from former exemplifications, corn may be made to last so long, the fructifying power may well be conceived to last in some good proportion, according to the region and place of its conservation, as the same Theophrastus hath ob- served, and left a notable example from Cappadocia, where corn might be kept sixty years, and remain fertile at forty ; according to his expression thus translated ; in Cappadocice loco quodam Petra dicta, tiitictim ad qiiadraginta annos foscundum est, et ad sementem percommodum durare pro- ditum est, sexagenos aut septuagenos ad tisum cibarium ser- vari posse idoneum. The situation of that conservatory, was, as he delivereth, l-^nkhv, euxvouv, sDaugov, high, airy, and exposed * Thcoph. Hist. lib. viii. L -2 148 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. to favourable winds. And upon such consideration of winds and ventilation, some conceived the Egyptian granaries were made open, the country being free from rain. However it was, that contrivance could not be without some hazard : for the great mists and dews of that country might dispose the corn unto corruption.* More plainly may they mistake, who from some analogy of name (as if pyramid were derived from '^rb^ov, triticum), con- ceive the Egyptian pyramids to have been built for granaries, or look for any settled monuments about the deserts erected for that intention ; since their store-houses were made in the great towns, according to Scripture expression, " He gather- ed up all the food for seven years, which was in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities : the food of the field which was round about every city, laid he up in the same."f 32. " For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wert grafted, contrary to nature, into a good olive tree, how much more shall these which be the na- tural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree ? " In which place, how answerable - to the doctrine of husbandry this expression of St. Paul is, you will readily apprehend who understand the rules of insition or grafting, and that way of vegetable propagation; wherein it is contrary to nature, or natural rules which art observeth : viz. to make use of scions more ignoble than the stock, or to graft wild upon domestic and good plants, according as Theophrastus hath anciently observed,^ and, making instance in the olive, hath left this doctrine unto us ; tirhanum sylvestribus ut satis oleastris in- serere. Nam si t contrario sylvestrem in urhanos severis, etsi differentia qucedam erit, tamen bonce friigis arbor nun- quam profecto reddetur : § which is also agreeable unto our present practice, who graft pears on thorns, and apples upon crab stocks, not using the contrary insition. And when it is said, "how much more shall these, which are the natural » Egypt o/iiy^Xubrig, xai b^oSioog. Vide Theophrastum. t Gen. xli, 48. + Z)c Cnusis Plant, lib. i, cap. 7. ' lioiv answerable.'] "How geographically answerable." — J^IS. Sloan, 1841. TRACT I.J MEiNTIONED IN SCIUPTUllE. 111) branches, be grafted into their own natural olive tree ? " this is also agreeable unto the rule of the same author; 'i. f Prosper Alpinus, dc Balsamo. 152 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. naturally renew in Arabia, they probably concluded, that those of Judaea were foreign and transplanted from these parts. All which notwithstanding, since the same plant may grow naturally and spontaneously in several countries, and either from inward or outward causes be lost in one region, while it continueth and subsisteth in another, the balsam tree might possibly be a native of Judaea as well as of Arabia ; which because de facto it cannot be clearly made out, the ancient expressions of scripture become doubtful in this point. But since this plant hath not for a long time grown in Judaea, and still plentifully prospers in Arabia, that which now comes in precious parcels to us, and still is called the balsam of Judaea, i^iay now surrender its name, and more properly be called the balsam of Arabia. * o5. " And the flax and the barley was smitten ; for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled, but the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they w ere not grown up." * How the barley and the flax should be smitten in the plague of hail in Egypt, and the wheat and rye escape, because they were not yet grown up, may seem strange unto English observers, who call barley summer corn, sown so many months after w^heat, and [who] beside {hordeum pohjsticlion, or big barley), sow not barley in the winter to anticipate the growth of wheat. And the same may also seem a preposterous expression unto all who do not consider the various agriculture, and dif- ferent husbandry of nations, and such as was practised in Egypt, and fairly proved to have been also used in Judaea, wherein their barley harvest w'as before that of wheat; as is confirmable from that expression in Ruth, that she came into Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest, and staid unto the end of wheat harvest ; from the death of Manasses the father of Judith, emphatically expressed to have happened in the wheat harvest, and more advanced heat of the sun ; and from the custom of the Jews, to ofier the barley sheaf of the first-fruits in March, and a cake of wheat flour but at the end of Pentecost, consonant unto the practice of the Egyptians, • Exod. ix, 31. '' Arahia.'\ See note on the babani, or Balm of Gilcad, at page 130. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 153 who (as Theophrastus delivereth) sowed their barley early in reference to their first-fruits ; and also the common rural practice, recorded by the same author, mature seritur triti- cum, hordeum, quod et'iarn maturiiis seritur ; wheat and bar- ley are sowed early, but barley earlier of the two. Flax was also an early plant, as may be illustrated from the neighbour country of Canaan. For the Israelites kept the passover in Gilgal, in the fourteenth day of the first month, answering unto part of our March, having newly pass, ed Jordan : and the spies which were sent from Shittim unto Jericho, not many days before, were hid by Rahab under the stalks of flax, which lay drying on the top of her house; which sheweth that the flax was already and newly gathered. « For this was the first preparation of flax, and before fluvia- tion or rotting, which, after Pliny's account, was after wheat harvest. " But the wheat and the rye were not smitten, for they were not grown up." The original signifies that it was hid- den, or dark, the vulgar and septuagint that it was serotinous or late, and our old translation that it was late sown. And so the expression and interposition of Moses, who well under- stood the husbandry of Egypt, might emphatically declare the state of wheat and rye in that particular year ; and if so, the same is solvable from the time of the flood of Nilus, and the measure of its inundation. For if it were very high, and over drenching the ground, they were forced to later seed- time ; and so the wheat and the rye escaped ; for they were more slowly growing grains, and, by reason of the greater inundation of the river, were sown later than ordinary that year, especially in the plains near the river, where the ground drieth latest. Some think the plagues of Egypt were acted in one month, others but in the compass of twelve. In the delivery of Scripture there is no account of what time of the year or particular month they fell out ; but the account of these grains, which were either smitten or escaped, makes the pla- gue of hail to have probably happened in February. This may be collected from the new and old account of the seed- time and harvest in Egypt. For, according to the account 154 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [TRACT I. of Radzivil,* the river rising in June, and the banks being cut in September, they sow about St. Andrew's, when the flood is retired, and the moderate dryness of the ground permitteth. So that the barley, anticipating the wheat, either in time of sowing or growing, might be in ear in February. The account of Pliny f is little different. They cast their seed upon the slime and mud when the river is down, which commonly happeneth in the beginning of November. They begin to reap and cut down a little before the calends of April, or about the middle of March, and in the month of May their harvest is in. So that barley, anticipating wheat, it might be in ear in February, and w^heat not yet growui up, at least to the spindle or ear, to be destroyed by the hail. For they cut down about the middle of March, at least their forward corns, and in the month of May all sorts of corn were in. The " turning of the river into blood " shews in what month this happened not. That is, not when the river had overflown ; for it is said, " the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink," which they could not have done if the river had been out and the fields under water. In the same text you cannot, without some hesitation, pass over the translation of rye, which the original nameth cassu- meth, the Greek rendereth olyra, the French and Dutch spelta, the Latin zea, and not secale, the known word for rye. But this common rye, so well understood at present, was not distinctly described, or not well known from early antiquity. And, therefore, in this uncertainty, some have thought it to have been the typha of the ancients. Cordus will have it to be olyra, and Ruellius some kind of oryza. But having no vulgar and well-known name for those grains, we warily em- brace an appellation of near affinity, and tolerably render it rye. While flax, barley, wheat, and rye are named, some may wonder why no mention is made of rice, wherewith, at pre- sent, Egypt so much aboundeth. But whether that plant grew so early in that country, some doubt may be made ; for * liadzivirs Travels. _ f PUn, lib. xviii, cap. 18 TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 155 rice is originally a grain of India, and might not then be transplanted into Egypt. 36, " Let them become as the grass growing upon the house top, wliich withereth before it be plucked up, wherewith the mower filletli not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom."* Though the *' filling of the hand," and mention of " sheaves of hay " may seem strange unto us, who use neither handfuU or sheaves in that kind of husbandry, yet may it be properly taken, and you are not like to doubt there- of, who may find the like expressions in the authors De Re Rustica, concerning the old way of this husbandry. Columella,-}- delivering what works were not to be permitted upon the Roman ferice, or festivals, among others, sets down that upon such days it was not lawful to carry or bind up hay, Nee foenum vincire nee vehere per religiones pontifi- cum licet. Marco Varro % is more particular ; Primum de pratis her- barum cum crescere ilesiit, subsecarifalcihus debet, et quoad peracescat furcilUs rersari, cum peiaciiit, de his manipulos fieri et vehi in villam. And their course of mowing seems somewhat different from ours. For they cut not down clear at once, but used an after section, which they peculiarly called sicilitium, accord- ing as the word is expounded by Georgius Alexandrinus and Beroaldus, after Pliny : Sicilire estfalcibus consectari quccjoi- nisecce praeteriertint, nut ea secure qucefceniseccBprceterierunt. 37. When 't is said that Ehas lay and slept under a juniper tree, some may wonder how that tree, wliich in our parts groweth but low and shrubby, should afford him shade and covering.^ But others know that there is a lesser and a larger kind of that vegetable ; that it makes a tree in its proper soil and region. And may find in Phny that in the temple of Diana Saguntina, in Spain, the rafters were made of juniper. In that expression of David, § " Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper." Though juniper be left out in * Psalm cxxix, 7. f Columella, lib. ii, cap. 22. I Varro, lib. i, cap. dS). § Psalm cxx, 4. * When 'I is said, Sfc] rarkhursl this humble shelter for mint of a better. suggests that the prophet took up with 156 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. the last translation, yet may there be an emphatical sense from that word ; since juniper abounds with a piercing oil, and makes a smart fire. And the rather, if that quality be half true, which Pliny affirmeth, that the coals of juniper raked up will keep a glowing fire for the space of a year. For so the expression will emphatically imply, not only the " smart burning but the lasting fire of their malice." That passage of Job,* wherein he complains that poor and half-famished fellows despised him, is of greater difficulty ; *' For want and famine they were solitary, they cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for meat." Wherein we might at first doubt the translation, not only from the Greek text, but the assertion of Dioscorides, who affirmeth that the roots of juniper are of a venomous quality. But Scaliger hath disproved the same from the practice of the African physi- cians, who use the decoction of juniper roots against the vene- real disease. The Chaldee reads it genista, or some kind of broom, which will be also unusual and hard diet, except thereby we understand the orobanche, or broom rape, which groweth from the roots of broom ; and which, according to Dioscorides, men used to eat raw or boiled, in the manner of asparagus. And, therefore, this expression doth highly declare the misery, poverty, and extremity of the persons who were now mockers of him ; they being so contemptible and necessitous, that they were fain to be content, not with a mean diet, but such as was no diet at all, the roots of trees, the roots of ju- niper, which none would make use of for food, but in the lowest necessity, and some degree of famishing. 38. While some have disputed whether Theophrastus knew the scarlet berry, others may doubt whether that noble tincture were known unto the Hebrews, which, notwithstand- ing, seems clear from the early and iterated expressions of Scripture concerning the scarlet tincture, and is the less to be doubted, because the scarlet ben*y grew plentifully in the land of Canaan, and so they were furnished with the ma- terials of that colour. For though Dioscorides saith it grow- eth in Armenia and Cappadocia ; yet that it also grew in * Juh x.\.\, 'S, '1, TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 157 Judaea, seems more than probable from the account of Bello- nius, who observed it to be so plentiful in that country, that it afforded a profitable commodity, and great quantity thereof was transported by the Venetian merchants. How this should be fitly expressed by the word tolagnoth, vermis, or worm, may be made out from Pliny, who calls it coccus scolecius, or the wormy berry ; as also from the name of that colour called vermilion, or the worm colour : and which is also answerable unto the true nature of it. For this is no proper berry containing the fructifying part, but a kind of vesicular excrescence, adhering commonly to the leaf of the ilex coccigera, or dwarf and small kind of oak, whose leaves are always green, and its proper seminal parts acorns. This Uttle bag containeth a red pulp, Avliich, if not timely gathered, or left to itself, produceth small red flies, and part- ly a red powder, both serviceable unto the tincture. And, therefore, to prevent the generation of flies, when it is first gathered, they sprinkle it over with vinegar, especially such as make use of the fresh pulp for the confection of alkermes ; which still retaineth the Arabic name, from the kermes-hernj ; which is agreeable unto the description of Bellonius and Quin- queranus. And the same we have beheld in Provence and Languedoc, where it is plentifully gathered, and called manna rusticorum, from the considerable profit which the peasants make by gathering of it. 39. Mention is made of oaks in divers parts of Scripture, which though the Latin sometimes renders a turpentine ti-ee, yet surely some kind of oak may be understood thereby ; but whether our common oak, as is commonly apprehended, you may well doubt ; for the common oak, which prospereth so well with us, dehghteth not in hot regions. And that diligent botanist, Bellonius, who took such particular notice of the plants of Syria and Judaea, observed not the vulgar oak in those parts. But he found the ilex, chesne vert, or evergreen oak, in many places ; as also that kind of oak which is properly named escnlus : and he makes mention thereof in places about Jerusalem, and in his journey from thence unto Da- mascus, where he found monies ilice, et escido virentes ; which in his discourse of Lemnos, he saith are always green. 158 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. And therefore when it is said of Absalom, that "his mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth," * that oak might be some ilex or rather esculus. For that is a thick and bushy kind, in orhem comosa, as Dalechampius ; ramis in orhem dispositis comans, as Rene- almus describeth it. And when it is said that " Ezechias broke doivn the images, and cut down the groves," f they might much consist of oaks, which were sacred unto Pagan deities, as this more particularly, according to that of Virgil, Nemorumque Jovi quae maxima frondet Esculus. And, in Judaea, where no hogs were eaten by the Jews, and few kept by others, 'tis not unlikely that they most cherished the esculus, which might serve for food for men. For the acorns thereof are the sweetest of any oak, and taste like chesnuts ; and so, producing an edulious or esculent fruit, is properly named esculus. They which know the ilex or evergreen oak, with some- what prickled leaves, named Tg/cos, will better understand the irreconcileable answer of the two elders, when the one ac- cused Susanna of incontinency under a vpvog or evergreen oak, the other under a ayrjog, lentiscus, or mastic tree, which are so different in bigness, boughs, leaves, and fruit, the one bearing acorns, the other berries: and without the know- ledge, will not emphatically or distinctly understand that of the poet, Flavaque de viiidi stillabant ilice mella. 40. When we often meet with the cedars of Libanus, that expression may be used, not only because they grew in a known and neighbour country, but also because they were of the noblest and largest kind of that vegetable : and we find the Phoenician cedar magnified by the ancients. The cedar of Libanus is a coniferous tree, bearing cones or clogs, (not * 2 Sam. xviii, 9, 14. ■}• 2 Kings xviii, 4. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 159 berries) of such a vastness, that Melchior Lussy, a great traveller, found one upon Libanus, as big as seven men could compass. Some are now so curious as to keep the branches and cones thereof among their rare collections. And, though much cedar wood be now brought from America, yet 'tis time to take notice of the true cedar of Libanus, employed in the temple of Solomon: for they have been much de- stroyed and neglected, and become at last but thin. Bello- nius could reckon but twenty-eight, Rowolfius and Radzivil but twenty-four, and Bidulphus the same number. And a later account of some English travellers* saith, that they are now but in one place, and in a small compass, in Libanus. ^ Quando ingressi fueritis terram, et jjlantaveritis in ilia ligna pomifera, auferetis prcBputia eoruni. Potna quce ger- minatit, immunda erunt vobis, nee edetis ex eis. Quarto autem anno, omnis fructus eorum satictijicabitur, laudabilis domino. Quinto autem anno comedetis fructus. By this law they were enjoined not to eat of the fruits of the trees which they planted for the first three years : and, as the vulgar expresseth it, to take away the pre^mces, from such trees, during that time ; the fruits of the fourth year being holy unto the Lord, and those of the fifth allowable unto others. Now if auferre prceputia be taken, as many learned men have thought, to pluck away the bearing buds, before they proceed unto flowers or fruit, you will readily apprehend the metaphor, from the analogy and similitude of those sprouts and buds, which, shutting up the fruitful particle, resembleth the preputial part. * A Journey to Jerusalem, 1(572. ^ in a small compass, ^c.} Burck- base; the branches and foliage of the liardt thus describes the cedars of Li- others were lower, but I saw none whose banus: — " They stand on uneven ground, leaves touched the ground, like those in and form a small wood. Of the oldest Kew Gardens. The trunks of the old and best-looking trees, I counted eleven trees are covered with the names of tra- or twelve ; twenty-five very large ones : vellers and other persons who have vi- about fifty of middling size ; and more sited them : I saw a date of the seven- than three hundred smaller and younger teenth century. The trunks of the old- ones. The oldest trees are distinguished, est trees seem to be quite dead; the by having the foliage and small branches wood is of a grey tint." — Travels in at the top only, and by four, five, or Syria, 19, 20. even seven trunks springing from one 100 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. And you may also find herein a piece of husbandry not mentioned in Theophrastus or Columella. For by taking away of the buds and hindering fructification, the trees be- come more vigorous, both in growth and fiiture production. By such a way King Pyrrhus got into a lusty race of beeves, and such as were desired over all Greece, by keeping them from generation until the ninth year. And you may also discover a physical advantage in the goodness of the fruit, which becometh less crude and more wholesome, upon the fourth or fifth year's produc- tion. 41. While you read in Theophrastus or modern herbaUsts, a strict division of plants, into arbor, fridex, siiffrutex et herha, you cannot but take notice of the Scriptural division at the creation, into tree and herb : and this may seem too narrow to comprehend the class of vegetables ; which, not- withstanding, may be sufficient, and a plain and intelligible division thereof. And therefore in this difficulty concerning the division of plants, the learned botanist, Ceesalpinus, thus concludeth, clarius agemus si altera divisione neglecta, duo tanturti plantarum genera substituamus, arborem scilicet, et hei'bam, conjungentes cum arboribus frutices, et cum herba suffrutices ; frutices being the lesser trees, and suffrutices the larger, harder, and more solid herbs. And this division into herb and tree may also suffice, if we take in that natural ground of the division of perfect plants, and such as grow from seeds. For plants, in their first production, do send forth two leaves adjoining to the seed; and then afterwards, do either produce two other leaves, and so successively before any stalk ; and such go under the name of cm, jSoTuvrj or herb ; or else, after the two first leaves succeeded to the seed leaves, they send forth a stalk or rudiment of a stalk, before any other leaves, and such fall under the classes of d'svo^ov or tree. So that, in this natural division, there are but two grand differences, that is, tree and herb. The frutex and suffrutex have the way of production from the seed, and in other respects the suffruti' ces or cremla, have a middle and participating nature, and referable unto herbs. TRACT I.] MENTIONtU IN SCRIPTURE. IGl 4'2. '" I have seen the ungodly in great power, and flourish- ing like a green bay tree."^ Both Scripture and human writers draw frequent illustrations from plants. Scribonius Largus illustrates the old cymbals from the cotyledon palus- tris or umbilicus veneris. Who would expect to find Aaron's mitre in any plant? Yet Josephus hath taken some pains to make out the same in the seminal knop of hyoscyamus or henbane. The Scripture compares the figure of manna unto the seed of coriander. In Jeremy* we find the expression, " straight as a palm tree." And here the wicked in their flourishing state are likened unto a bay tree. Which, suffi- ciently answering the sense of the text, we are unwilling to exclude that noble plant from the honour of having its name in Scripture. Yet we cannot but observe, that the septu- agint renders it cedars, and the vulgar accordingly, vidi itnpimn superexaltatiim, et elevatum sicut cedros Libani ; and the translation of Tremellius mentions neither bay nor cedar ; sese explicantem tanqiiam arbor indigena virens ; which seems to have been followed by the last low Dutch transla- tion. A private translation renders it like a green self-grow- ing laurel.f The high Dutch of Luther's Bible retains the word laurel ; and so doth the old Saxon and Iceland transla- tion ; so also the French, Spanish, and Italian of Diodati : yet his notes acknowledge that some think it rather a cedar, and others any large tree in a prospering and natural soil. But however these translations differ, the sense is allow- able and obvious unto apprehension: when no particular plant is named, any proper to the sense may be supposed ; where either cedar or laurel is mentioned, if the preceding words (exalted and elevated) be used, they are more appli- able unto the cedar ; where the word (flourishing) is used, it is more agreeable unto the laurel, which, in its prosperity, abounds with pleasant flowers, whereas those of the cedar * Jer. X, 5. f Ainsworth. ' flourishing, iSj-c] " Spreading liim- native soil, not having suffered by trans- self (is the English version) like a plantation, and therefore spreading itself green bay tree :" — more accurately "like luxuriantly. — Psalm xxxvii, 35. a native tree " — a tree growing in its VOL. IV. M IG'2 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. are very little, and scarce perceptible, answerable to the fir, pine, and other coniferous trees. 43. "And in the morning, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry ; and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon ; and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves : for the time of figs was not yet." Singular concep- tions have passed from learned men to make out this passage of St. Mark which St. Matthew* so plainly delivereth ; most men doubting why our Saviour should curse the tree for bearing no fruit, when the time of fruit was not yet come ; or why it is said that the time of figs was not yet,*^ when, not- withstanding, figs might be found at that season. HeinsiuSjf who thinks that Elias must salve the doubt, ac- cording to the received reading of the text, undertaketh to vary the same, reading ou ya^ r,v, -/.ai^hg guKuv, that is, for where he was, it was the season or time for figs. A learned interpreter X of our own, without alteration of accents or words, endeavours to salve all, by another inter- pretation of the same, ou yag x.ai^hg cvxuv, for it was not a good or seasonable year for figs. But, because men part not easily with old beliefs or the re- ceived construction of words, we shall briefly set down what may be alleged for it. And, first, for the better comprehension of all deductions hereupon, we may consider the several differences and dis- tinctions both of fig trees and their fruits. Suidas upon the word /V;^/as makes four divisions of figs, oXuv%g, fnkrit,, eZxw and 'la-xag. But because fn^^nB, makes no considerable distinc- tion, learned men do chiefly insist upon the three others; * Marl: xi, 13. Malt, xx'i, 19. f Heinsius in Nonnum. X Dr. Hammond. ^ for the time of figs, &;c.'\ The diffi- figs, was, in fact, to find a barren fi.g tree. ciilty of this passage is simply and ade- In reference to the mode in which the quately solved, by reading, though the fig free vegetates, Jortin has the follow- fig harvest luas not yet. When it is con- iiig beautiful remark: — "A good man sidered that the fig tree produces its fruit may be said to resemble the fig tree ; before its leaves, our Saviour was justi- which, without producing blossoms and fied in looking for fruit on a fig tree flowers, like some other trees, and rais- which was in leaf, and before the time ing expectations which are often deceitful, for gathering figs had arrived. To find seldom fails to produce fruit in its season." a tree which was, at that time, tvithoiit — Jortiti's Tracts, vol. 2, p. 537. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IxV SCRIPTURE. 163 that is, '(i'kw%g, ot grossus, which are the buttons, or small sort of figs, either not ripe, or not ordinarily proceeding to ripeness, but fall away at least in the greatest part, and espe- cially in sharp winters, which are also named amdhi, and dis- tinguished from the fruit of the wild fig, or caprificus, which is named Ipviog, and never cometh unto ripeness. The second is called oi/xov or Jicus, which commonly proceedeth unto ripe- ness in its due season. A third, the ripe fig dried, which maketh the isyjibic, or carrier. Of fig trees there are also many divisions : for some arc ■prodromi or precocious, which bear fruit very early, whether they bear once or oftner in the year ; some are proterica'y which are the most early of the precocious trees, and bear soonest of any; some are cestivce, which bear in the common season of the summer, and some serotince which bear very late. Some are biferous and triferons, which bear twice or thrice in the year, and some are of the ordinary standing course, which make up the expected season of figs. Again, some fig trees, either in their proper kind, or fer- tility in some single ones, do bear fruit or rudiments of fruit all the year long ; as is annually observable in some kind of fig trees in hot and proper regions ; and may also be observed in some fig trees of more temperate countries, in years of no great disadvantage, w^herein, when the summer ripe fig is past, others begin to appear, and so standing in buttons all the winter, do either fall away before the spring, or else pro- ceed to ripeness. Now according to these distinctions, we may measure the intent of the text, and endeavour to make out the expression. For, considering the diversity of these trees and their several fructifications, probable or possible it is that some thereof were implied, and may literally afford a solution. And first, though it was not the season for figs, yet some fruit might have been expected, even in ordinary bearing- trees. For the grossi or buttons appear before the leaves, especially before the leaves are well grown. Some might have stood during the winter, and by this time been of some growth : though many fall oft', yet some might remain on, and iSI 2 1()4 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [TRACT I. proceed towards maturity. And we find that good husbands had an art to make them hold on as is dehvered by Theophrastus. The eZy.ov or common summer fig, was not expected ; for that is placed by Galen among the fructus horarii or horaei, which ripen in' that part of summer, called w^a, and stands commended by him above other fruits of that season. And of this kind might be the figs which were brought unto Cleopatra in a basket together with an asp, according to the time of her death, on the nineteenth of August. And that our Saviour expected not such figs, but some other kind, seems to be implied in the indefinite expression, " if haply he mifht find any thing thereon ;" which in that country, and the variety of such trees, might not be despaired of, at this season, and very probably hoped for in the first precocious and early bearing trees. And that there were precocious and early bearing trees in Judaea, may be illustrated from some expressions in Scripture concerning precocious figs ; calathus uniis liabehat jiciis honas nimis, stent solent essejicns primi temporis; " one basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe."* And the like might be more especially expected in this place, if this remarkable tree be rightly placed in some maps of Jerusalem ; for it is placed, by Adrichomius, in or near Bethphage, which some con- jectures will have to be the house of figs : and at this place fig trees are still to be found, if we consult the travels of Bidulphus. Again, in this great variety of fig trees, as precocious, pro- terical, biferous, triferous, and always bearing trees, some- thing might have been expected, though the time of common figs was not yet. For some trees bear in a manner all the year; as may be illustrated from the epistle of the Emperour Julian, concerning his present of Damascus figs, which he commendeth from their successive and continued growing and bearing, after the manner of the fruits which Homer de- scribeth in the garden of Alcinous. And though it were then but about the eleventh of March, yet, in the latitude of Jerusalem, the sun at that time hath a good power in the * Jer. xxiv, 2. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 1G5 day, and might advance the maturity of precocious often- bearing or ever-bearing figs. And therefore when it is said that St. Peter* stood and warmed himself by the fire in the judgment hall, and the reason is added ("for it was cold"-}-), that expression might be interposed either to denote the coolness in the morning, according to hot countries, or some extraordinary and unusual coldness, which happened at that time. For the same Bidulphus, who was at that time of the year at Jerusalem, saith, that it was then as hot as at Mid- summer in England : and we find in Scripture that the first sheaf of barley was offered in March. Our Saviour, therefore, seeing a fig tree with leaves well spread, and so as to be distinguished afar ofT, went unto it, and when he came, found nothing but leaves; he found it to be no precocious or always-bearing tree : and though it were not the time for summer figs, yet he found no rudiments thereof; and though he expected not common figs, yet some- thing might haply have been expected of some other kind, according to different fertility and variety of production; but, discovering nothing, he found a tree answering the state of the Jewish rulers, barren unto all expectation. And this is consonant unto the mystery of the story, wherein the fig tree denoteth the synagogue and rulers of the Jews, whom God having peculiarly cultivated, singularly blessed and cherished, he expected from them no ordinary, slow, or customary fructification, but an earliness in good works, a precocious or continued fi-uctification, and was not content with common after-bearing ; and might justly have expostulated with the Jews, as God by the prophet Micah did with their forefathers ; J incccoquas ficus desideravit anima mea, " my soul longed for (or desired) early ripe fruits, but ye are become as a vine already gathered, and there is no cluster upon you." Lastly, in this account of the fig tree, the mystery and symbolical senge is chiefly to be looked upon. Our Saviour, therefore, taking a hint from his hunger to go unto this spe- cious tree, and intending, by this tree, to declare a judgment * 5"/. Mark xiv, G7. Si. Luke xxii, 55, 56. t St. John xviii, 18. % Mkali, vii, 1. 166 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [TRACT I. upon the synagogue and people of the Jews, he came unto the tree, and, after the usual manner, inquired, and looked about for some kind of fruit, as he had done before in the Jews, but found nothing but leaves and specious outsides, as he had also found in .them ; and when it bore no fruit like them, when he expected it, and come to look for it, though it were not the time of ordinary fruit, yet failing when he required it, in the mysterious sense, 't was fruitless longer to expect it. For he had come vmto them, and they were nothing fructified by it, his departure approached, and his time of preaching was now at an end. Now, in this account, besides the miracle, some things are naturally considerable. For it may be questioned how the fig tree, naturally a fi-uitful plant, became barren, for it had no show or so much as rudiment of fruit : and it was in old time, a signal judgment of God, that " the fig tree should bear no fruit : " and therefore this tree may naturally be con- ceived to have been under some disease indisposing it to such fructification. And this, in the pathology of plants, may be the disease of ipvXKo/j^avia, iiJjOuXkiO'Mc,, or superfoliation mention- ed by Theophrastus ; whereby the fructifying juice is starved by the excess of leaves ; which in this tree were already so full spread, that it might be known and distinguished afar off*. And this was, also, a sharp resemblance of the hypocrisy of the rulers, made up of specious outsides, and fruitless osten- tation, contrary to the fruit of the fig tree, which, filled with a sweet and pleasant pulp, makes no shew without, not so much as of any flower. Some naturals are also considerable from the propriety of this punishment settled upon a fig tree : for infertility and barrenness seems more intolerable in this tree than any, as being a vegetable singularly constituted for production ; so far from bearing no fruit that it may be made to bear almost any. And therefore the ancients singled out this as the fittest tree Avhereon to graft and propagate other fruits, as containing a plentiful and Hvely sap, whereby other scions would prosper : and, therefore, this tree was also sacred unto the deity of fer- tility ; and the statua of Priapus was made of the fig tree ; Olim trunciis eram ficulneus inutile lignum. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. 167 It hath also a peculiar advantage to produce and maintain its fruit above all other plants, as not subject to miscarry in flowers and blossoms, from accidents of wind and weather. For it beareth no flowers outwardly, and such as it hath, are within the coat, as the later examination of naturaUsts hath discovered. Lastly, it was a tree wholly constituted for fruit, wherein if it faileth, it is in a manner useless, the wood thereof being of so Httle use, that it afTordeth proverbial expressions, homo Jiculneus, argumenlum jiculneum, or things of no validity. 44. " I said I will go up into the palm tree, and take hold of the boughs thereof." * This expression is more agreeable unto the palm than is commonly apprehended, for that it is a tall bare tree, bearing its boughs but at the top and upper part ; so that it must be ascended before its boughs or fruit can be attained : and the going, getting, or climbing up, may be emphatical in this tree ; for the trunk or body thereof is naturally contrived for ascension, and made with advantage for getting up, as having many welts and eminences, and so as it were a natural ladder, and staves by which it may be climbed, as Pliny observeth palma; teretes atque proceres, densis quadratisque poUicibus faciles se ad scandendum j)rcebent,f by this way men are able to get up into it. And the figures of Indians thus climbing the same are graphically described in the travels of Linschoten. This tree is often mentioned in Scripture, and was so remarkable in Judaea, that in after-times it became the emblem of that country, as may be seen in that medal of the Emperor Titus, with a captive woman sitting under a palm, and the inscription of Judcea capta. And Pliny confirmeth the same when he saith Ju- dcca palmis inclyta. 45. Many things are mentioned in Scripture, which have an emphasis from this or the neighbour countries : for besides the cedars, the Syrian lilies are taken notice of by writers. That expression in the Canticles, " thou art fair, thou art fair, thou hast dove's eyes," J receives a particular character, * Cant, vii, 8, \ P/in. xiii, cap. 4. J Cant, iv, 1. 168 OBSERVATIONS UPON PLANTS [tRACT I. if we look, not upon our common pigeons, but the beauteous and fine eyed doves of Syria. When the rump is so strictly taken notice of in the sacrifice of the peace offering, in these words, " the whole rump, it shall betaken off hard by the back-bone,"* it becomes the more considerable in reference to this country, where sheep had so large tails; which, according to Aristotle, f were a cubit broad ; and so they are still, as Bellonius hath delivered. When 't is said in the Canticles, " thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them ;" J it may seem hard unto us of these parts to find whole flocks bearing twins, and not one barren among them ; yet may this be better conceived in the fertile flocks of those countries, where sheep have so often two, sometimes three, and some- times four, and which is so frequently observed by writers of the neighbour country of Egypt. And this fecundity, and fruitfulness of their flocks, is answerable unto the expression of the psalmist, " that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets." § And hereby, besides what was spent at their tables, a good supply was made for the great consumption of sheep in their several kinds of sacri- fices ; and of so many thousand male unblemished yearling Iambs, which were required at their passovers. Nor need we wonder to find so frequent mention both of garden and field plants ; since Syria was notable of old for this curiosity and variety, according to Pliny, Syria hortis operosissima ; and since Bellonius hath so lately observed of Jerusalem, that its hilly parts did so abound with plants, that they might be compared unto mount Ida in Crete or Candia ; which is the most noted place for noble simples yet known. 46. Though so many plants have their express names in Scripture, yet others are implied in some texts which are not explicitly mentioned. In the feast of tabernacles or booths, the law was this, " thou shalt take unto thee boughs of goodly trees, branches of the palm, and the boughs of thick trees, Levit. iii, 9. f Arist. Hist. Animal, lib. viii. % Cant, iv, 2. § Psalw cxliv, 13. TRACT I.] MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE. ]GD and willows of the brook." Now though the text descendeth not unto particulars of the goodly trees and thick trees ; yet Maimonides will tell us that for a goodly tree they made use of the citron tree, which is fair and goodly to the eye, and well prospering in that country : and that for the thick trees they used the myrtle, which was no rare or infrequent plant among them. And though it groweth but low in our gar- dens, was not a little tree in those parts ; in which plant also the leaves grew thick, and almost covered the stalk. And Curtius Symphorianus * in his description of the exotic myr- tle, makes \i folio densissimo senis in ordinem versibiis. The paschal lamb was to be eaten with bitterness or bitter herbs, not particularly set down in Scripture : but the Jewish writers declare, that they made use of succory, and wild lettuce, which herbs while some conceive they could not get down, as being very bitter, rough, and prickly, they may consider that the time of the passover was in the spring, when these herbs are young and tender, and consequently less unpleasant : be- sides, according to the Jewish custom, these herbs were dip- ped in the charoseth, or sauce made of raisins stamped with vinegar, and were also eaten with bread ; and they had four cups of wine allowed unto them ; and it was sufficient to take but a pittance of herbs, or the quantity of an olive. 47. Though the famous paper reed of Egypt be only par- ticularly named in scripture ; yet when reeds are so often mentioned without special name or distinction, we may con- ceive their differences may be comprehended, and that they were not all of one kind, or that the common reed was only implied. For mention is made in Ezekielf of "a measuring reed of six cubits ; " we find that they smote our Saviour on the head with a reed,:}: and put a sponge with vinegar on a reed, which was long enough to reach to his mouth,^ while he was upon the cross. And with such differences of reeds, vallatory, sagittar?/, scrlptory, and others they might be fur- nished in Judaea. For we find in the portion of Ephraim,§ * Curtius de Ilortis. f EzeU. xl. 5. X St. Matt, xxvii. 30, 48. § Josh. xvi. 17 ' A reed which was long cnoiij [/.oi^riytvii oX^iodaifiov, Libere dicam sed in aurem, ego versibus hujusmodi ropalicis, longo syrmate protractis, Ceraunium affigo. He that affecteth such restrained poetry, may peruse the long poem of Hugbaldus the monk, wherein every word be- ginneth with a C, penned in the praise of calvities or bald- ness, to the honour of Carolus Calvus, King of France, Carmina clarisonae calvis cantate Camsenx. The rest may be seen at large in the Adversaria of Bar- thius : or if he delighteth in odd contrived fancies, may he please himself with antistrophes, counterpetories, retrogrades, • El f'inct. in Juson. VOL. IV. O 194 OF GRADUAL VERSES. [tRACT VII. rebuses, leonine verses, &c. to be found in Sieur des Ac- cords. But these and the like are to be looked upon, not pursued. Odd work might be made by such ways ; and for your recreation I propose these few lines unto you.^ Arcu paratiir quod arcui sufficit. Misellorum clainoiibiis accurrere non tarn humaiumi quam sulphuveum est. Asino teratur quae asino teritur. Ne asphodelos comedas, phcenices manduca. Ccelum aliquid potest, sed quae mira prasstat papilio est. Not to put you unto endless amusement, the key hereof is the homonomy of the Greek made use of in the Latin words, which rendereth all plain. More enigmatical and dark ex- pressions might be made if any one would speak or compose them out of the numerical characters or characteristical num- bers set down by Robertus de Fluctibus.- * As for your question concerning the contrary expressions of the Italians and Spaniards in their common affirmative an- swers, the Spaniard answering cy Sennor, the Italian Signior cy, you must be content with this distich. Why saith the Italian Signior cij, the Spaniard Sij Sennor ? Because the one puts that behind, the other puts before. And because you are so happy in some translations, I pray return me these two verses in English, Occidit hen tandem multos quae occidit aniantes, Et cinis est hodie quaa fuit ignis heri.^ My occasions make me to take off my pen. I am, &c. * Tract 2, part lib. i. • and, c^-c] MS. Sloan, reads thus, mention, though scarce worth your no- " And I remember I once pleased a tice : — Two pestels and a book come young hopeful person with a dialogue short of a retort, as much as a spear and between two travellers, beginning in an ass exceed a dog's tail. This to be this manner : well drunk, my old friend, expounded by the numerical characters, the famous King of Macedon ; that is, or characteristical numbers set down by well overtaken, my old friend Alexan- Robertus de Fluctibus, and speaks only der, your friend may proceed. With this text: — two and four come short of another way I shall not omit to acquaint six, as much as ten exceed six ; the figure you, and for your recreation I present of an ass standing for a cipher." these few lines." ^ Occidit heu tandem, ^-c] \n MS. * More enigmatical, Sfc.'] These are Sloan. 1827, is the following translation more largely noticed in MS. Sloan. " she is dead at last, who many made expire 1837: thus, "One way more I shall Is dust to day which yesterday was fire." TRACT VIII.] OF LANGUAGES. 195 TRACT VIII. OF LANGUAGES, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE SAXON TONGUE. Sir, The last discourse we had of the Saxon tongue recalled to my mind some forgotten considerations.^ Though the earth were widely peopled before the flood, (as many learned men conceive) yet whether, after a large dispersion, and the space of sixteen hundred years, men maintained so uniform a lan- guage in all parts, as to be strictly of one tongue, and readily to understand each other, may very well be doubted. For though the world preserved in the family of Noah before the confusion of tongues might be said to be of one lip, yet even permitted to themselves their humours, inventions, necessi- ties, and new objects (without the miracle of confusion at first), in so long a tract of time, there had probably been a Babel. For whether America were first peopled by one or several nations, yet cannot that number of different planting nations answer the multiplicity of their present different languages, of no affinity unto each other, and even in their northern nations and incommunicating angles,*^ their languages are widely differing. A native interpreter brought from Cali- fornia proved of no use ^ unto the Spaniards upon the neigh- bour shore. From Chiapa to Guatemala, S. Salvador, Honduras, there are at least eighteen several languages ; and so numerous are they both in the Peruvian and Mexican regions, that the great princes are fain to have one common language, which, besides their vernaculous and mother tongues, may serve for commerce between them. And since the confusion of tongues at first fell only upon those which were present in Sinaar at the work of Babel, ' forgotten considerations.^ " Both of conceived to have most single originals." that and other languages." — MS. Sloan. ^ of no use.'\ "Of little use." — MS. ^ (mgks.~\ "Where they may be best Sloan, O 2 19G OF LANGUAGES. [tRACT VII. whether the primitive language from Noah were only pre- served in the family of Heber, and not also in divers others, which might be absent at the same, whether all came away, and many might not be left behind in their first plantations about the foot of the hills, whereabout the ark rested, and Noah became an husbandman,* is not absurdly doubted. For so the primitive tongue might in time branch out into several parts of Europe and Asia, and thereby the first or Hebrew tongue, which seems to be ingredient into so many languages, might have larger originals and grounds of its communication and traduction than from the family of Abra- ham, the country of Canaan, and words contained in the Bible, which come short of the full of that language. And this would become more probable from the Septuagint or Greek Chronology strenuously asserted by Vossius ; for making five hundred years between the deluge and the days of Peleg, there ariseth a large latitude of multiplication and dispersion of people into several parts, before the descent of that body which followed Nimrod unto Sinaar from the east. They who derive the bulk of European tongues from the Scythian and the Greek, though they may speak probably in many points, yet must needs allow vast difference or cor- ruptions from so few originals, which, however, might be tolerably made out in the old Saxon, yet hath time much confounded the clearer derivations. And as the knowledge thereof now stands in reference unto ourselves, I find many words totally lost, divers of harsh sound disused or refined in the pronunciation, and many words we have also in com- mon use not to be found in that tongue, or venially derivable from any other from whence we have largely borrowed, and yet so much still remaineth with us that it maketh the gross of our language. The religious obligation unto the Hebrew language hath so notably continued the same, that it might still be under- * husbandma?!.'] MS. Sloan. 1827, northward, eastward, or southward, and adds here the following clause ; *' whether many of the posterity of Noah might not in that space of 150 years, according to disperse themselves before the great mi- common compute, before the conduct of gration unto Sinaar, and many also after- Nimrod, many might not expatriate wards ; is not, &c." TKACT Vni.J OF LANGUAGES. 197 Stood by Abraham, whereas by the Mazorite points and Chaldee character the old letter stands so transformed, that if Moses were alive again, he must be taught to read his own law.^ The Chinese, who live at the bounds of the earth, who have admitted Httle communication, and suffered successive incursions from one nation, may possibly give account of a very ancient language : but, consisting of many nations and tongues, confusion, admixtion, and corruption in length of time might probably so have crept in, as, without the virtue of a common character and lasting letter of things, they could never probably make out those strange memorials which they pretend, while they still make use of the works of their great Confucius many hundred years before Christ, and in a series ascend as high as Poncuus, who is conceived our Noah. The present Welch, and remnant of the old Britons, hold so much of that ancient language, that they make a shift to under- stand the poems of Merlin, Enerin, Telesin, a thousand years ago, whereas the Herulian Pater Noster, set down by Wolf- gangus Lazius, is not without much criticism made out, and but in some words ; and the present Parisians can hardly hack out those few lines of the league between Charles and Lewis, the sons of Ludovicus Pius, yet remaining in old French. The Spaniards in their corruptive traduction and romance, have so happily retained the terminations from the Latin, that, notwithstanding the Gothic and Moorish intrusion of words, they are able ^ to make a discourse completely Consist- * law.'\ In MS. Sloan. 1827, the fol- biguous, that translations so little agree ; lowing additional paragraph occurs; — and since, though the radices consist but " Though this language be duly niagni- of three letters, yet they make two syl- fied, and always of high esteem, yet if, lables in speaking; and since the pronun- with Geropius Becanus, we admit that ciation is such, as St. Jerome, who was tongue to be most perfect which is most born in a barbarous country, thought the copious or expressive, most delucid and words anhelent, strident, and of very clear unto the understanding, most short, harsh sound. or soon delivered, and best pronounced * they are able.] " This will ap- with most ease unto the organs of speech, pear very unlikely to a man that consi- the Hebrew now known unto us will ders the Spanish terminations; and hardly obtain the place ; since it consist- Howel, who was eminently skilful in the eth of fewer words than many others, three provincial languages, declares, that audits words begin not with vowels, since after many essays he never could effect it is so full of homonymies, and words it." — Dr. .Johnson. which signify many things, and so am- 198 OF LANGUAGES. [tract viir. ing of grammatical Latin and Spanish, wherein the ItaUans and French will be very much to seekJ The learned Casaubon conceiveth that a dialogue might be composed in Saxon, only of such words as are derivable from the Greek, which surely might be effected, and so as the learned might not uneasily find it out. Verstegan made no doubt that he could contrive a letter which might be un- derstood by the English, Dutch, and East Frislander, which, as the present confusion standeth, might have proved no very clear piece, and hardly to be hammered out : yet so much of the Saxon still remaineth in our English, as may admit an or- derly discourse and series of good sense, such as not only the present English, but ^Elfric, Bede, and Alfred might under- stand after so many hundred years. Nations that live promiscuously under the power and laws of conquest, do seldom escape the loss of their language with their liberties ; wherein the Romans were so strict, that the Grecians were fain to conform in their judicial processes;^ which made the Jews lose more in seventy years dispersion in the provinces of Babylon, than in many hundred in their distinct habitation in Egypt; and the English which dwelt dispersedly to lose their language in Ireland, whereas more tolerable reliques there are thereof in Fingall, wh^e they were closely and almost solely planted ; and the Moors which were most huddled together and united about ^ see/f.] The following paragraphs occur here, in MS. Sloan. 1827. " The many mother tongues spoke in divers corners of Europe, and quite dif- ferent from one another, are not recon- cileable to any one common original ; whereas the great languages of Spain, France, and Italy, are derivative from the Latin ; that of Greece and its islands from the old Greek ; the rest of the fa- mily of the Dutch or Schlavonian. As for the lingua Fullana, spoken in part of Friuli, and the lingua Curvallea in Rhse- tia, they are corruptions of the Italian, as that of Sardinia is also of the Spanish. " Even the Latin itself, which hath embroiled so many languages of Europe, if it had been the speech of one country, and not continued by writers, and the consent and study of all ages since, it had found the same fate, and been swallowed like other languages ; since, in its an- cient state, one age could scarce under- stand another, and that of some genera- tions before must be read by a dictionary by a few successions after ; as, beside the famous pillar of Quillius, may be illus- trated in these few lines, ' Eundo om- nibus honestitudo prsterbitunda nemo escit. Quianam itaque istuc effexis haus- cio, temperi et toppertutemet tam hibus insegne, quod ningribus potestur aut ruspare nevolt. Sapsam saperdae sene- ciones sardare nequinunt cuoi siemps et socienum quissis sperit? ' " ^ to conform in their, §'c.] " To con- form, and make use of Latin in their, &c." —MS. Sloan. TRACT VIII.] OF LANGUAGES. 199 Granada have yet left their Arvirage among the Granadian Spaniards. But shut up in angles and inaccessible corners, divided by laws and manners, they often continue long with little mixture, which hath afforded that lasting life unto the Cantabrian and Bi'itish tongues, wherein the Britons are remarkable, who having lived four hundred years together with the Romans, retained so much of the British as it may be esteemed a lan- guage ; which either they resolutely maintained in their co- habitation with them in Britain, or retiring after in the time of the Saxons into countries and parts^ less civilized and con- versant with the Romans, they found the people distinct, the language more entire, and so fell into it again. But surely no languages have been so straitly locked up as not to admit of commixture. The Irish, although they retain a kind of a Saxon character,^ yet have admitted many words of Latin and English. In the Welch are found many words from Latin, some from Greek and Saxon. In what ^)arity and incommixture the language of that people stood, which were casually discovered in the heart of Spain, be- tween the mountains of Castile, no longer ago than in the time of Duke D'Alva, we have not met with a good account; any farther than that their words were Basquish or Canta- brian: but the present Basquensa, one of the minor mother tongues of Europe, is not without commixture of Latin and Castilian, while we meet with santifica, tentationeten, gloria, puissanea, and four more [words] in the short form of the Lord's prayer, set down by Paulus Merula : but although in this brief form we may find such commixture, yet the bulk of their language seems more distinct, consisting of words of no affinity unto others, of numerals totally different, of differing grammatical rules, as may be observed in the Dictionary and short Basquensa Grammar, composed by Raphael Nicoleta, a priest of Bilboa. And if they use the auxiliary verbs of equi7i and 7/san, ° into cottntries, SfC.'\ " Info Wales, Anglo-Saxons, does not prove any affi- and countries, &c." — MS. Sloan. nity of language, nor does it exist. ' The Irish, although they, ^c] The They both took their alphabet from the Irish using the same characters with the Roman. — G. 200 OF LANGUAGES. [tRACT Vlll. answerable unto hazer and ser, to have, and be, in the Spanish, which forms came in with the northern nations into the Italian, Spanish, and French, and if that form were used by them before, and crept not in from imitation of their neighbours, it may shew some ancienter traduc- tion from northern nations," or else must seem very strange : since the southern nations had it not of old, and I know not whether any such mode be found in the languages of any part of America. The Romans, who made the great commixture and alter- ation of languages in the world, effected the same, not only by their proper language, but those also of their military forces, employed in several provinces, as holding a standing militia in all countries, and commonly of strange nations ; so while the cohorts and forces of the Britons were quartered in Egypt, Armenia, Spain, Illyria, &c., the Stablaesians and Dalmatians here, the Gauls, Spaniards, and Germans, in other countries, and other nations in theirs, they could not but leave many words behind them, and carry away man)* with them, which might make, that, in many words of very distinct nations, some may still remain of very unknown and doubtful genealogy. And if, as the learned Buxhornius contendeth,^ the Scy- thian language as the mother tongue runs through the nations of Europe, and even as far as Persia, the community in many words, between so many nations, hath a more reasonable ori- ginal traduction, and were rather derivable from the common tongue diffused through them all, than from any particular nation, which hath also borrowed and holdeth but at second hand. The Saxons, settling over all England, maintained an uni- form language, only diversified in dialects, idioms, and minor differences, according to their different nations which came in unto the common conquest, which may yet be a cause of ' traduction from northern nations.'\ also classes it by itself. — G. Adelung considers the Basque to be ra- •* And if, <^t.] Dr. Jamieson lias dis- dically different from any European tribe cussed this subject in his Hermes Scy- of languages — though many words are thicus, the object of which work is to Teutonic borrowed from the Visigoths. connect the Goths and Greeks, through The great Danish philologist, Rask, the Pelasgi and Scythians. — G, TRACT VIII.] or LANGUAGES. 201 the variation in the speech and words of several parts of Enffland, where different nations most abode or settled, and having expelled the Britons, their wars were chiefly among themselves, with little action with foreign nations until the union of the heptarchy under Egbert: after which time, al- though the Danes infested this land, and scarce left any part free, yet their incursions made more havoc in buildings, churches, and cities, than [in] the language of the country,* because their language was in effect the same, and such as whereby they might easily understand one another. And if the Normans, which came into Neustria or Nor- mandy with Rollo the Dane, had preserved their language in their new acquists, the succeeding conquest of England, by Duke William of his race, had not begot among us such notable alterations; but having lost their language in their abode in Normandy, before they adventured upon England, they confounded the Enghsh with their French, and made the grand mutation, which was successively increased by our possessions in Normandy, Guien, and Acquitain, by our long wars in France, by frequent resort of the French, who, to the number of some thousands, came over with Isabel, Queen to Edward the Second, and the several matches of England with the daughters of France before and since that time. But this commixture, though sufficient to confuse, proved not of ability to abolish the Saxon words, for from the French we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives, and some verbs, but the great body of numerals, auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting part of a language, remain with us from the Saxon, which, having suffered no great alteration for many hundred years, may probably still remain, though the English swell with the inmates of Italian, French, and Latin. An example whereof may be observed in this following: — * yet their incursions, i^r.] Vet the fioin the former part, and it is called the Danes had a great effect upon the Saxon Dano-Saxon — it is not, however, so language. The portion of the Saxon marked a departure from the early Anglo- Chronicle written during tlieir sway in Saxon, as the next dialect — the Norman- England, is quite in a different dialect Saxon. — G. 202 OF LANGUAGES. [TRACT VIII. English i. — The first and foremost step to all good works is the dread and fear of the Lord of heaven and earth, which through the Holy Ghost enlightneth the blindness of our sin- ful hearts to tread the ways of wisdom, and leads our feet into the land of blessing. Saxon i, — The erst and fyrmost staep to eal gode weorka is the drsed and feurt of the Lauord of heofan and eorth, while thurh the Heilig Gast onlihtneth the blindnesse of ure sinfull heorte to trsed the waeg of wisdome, and thone laed ure fet into the land of blessunsf. English ii. — For to forget his law is the door, the gate, and key to let in all unrighteousness, making our eyes, ears, and mouths to answer the lust of sin, our brains dull to good thoughts, our lips dumb to his praise, our ears deaf to his gos- pel, and our eyes dim to behold his wonders, which witness against us that we have not well learned the word of God, that we are the children of wrath, unworthy of the love and manifold gifts of God, greedily following after the ways of the devil and witchcraft of the world, doing nothing to free and keep ourselves from the burning fire of hell, till we be buried in sin and swallowed in death, not to arise again in any hope of Christ's kingdom. Saxon ii. — For to fuorgytan his laga is the dure, the gat, and cseg to let in eal unrightwisnysse, makend ure eyge, eore, and muth to answare the lust of sin, ure braegan dole to gode theoht, ure lippan dumb to his preys, ure earen deaf to his gospel, and ure eyge dim to behealden his wundra, while ge witnysse ongen us that wee oef noht wel gelsered the weord of God, that wee are the cilda of ured, unwyrthe of the lufe and maenigfeald gift of God, grediglice felygend asfter the waegen of the deoful and wiccraft of the weorld, doend no- thing to fry and ceep ure saula from the byrnend fyr of hell, till we be geburied in synne and swolgen in death, not to arise agen in aenig hope of Christes kynedome. English hi. — Which draw from above the bitter doom of the Almighty of hunger, sword, sickness, and brings more sad plagues than those of hail, storms, thunder, blood, frogs, swarms of gnats and grasshoppers, which ate the corn, grass, and leaves of the trees in Egypt. TRACT VIII.] OF LANGUAGES. 203 Saxon hi. — While drag from buf the bitter dome of the Almagan of hunger, sweorde, seoknesse, and bring mere sad plag, thone they of hagal, storme, thunner, blode, frog, swearme of gnset and gaersupper, while eaten the corn, gaers, and leaf of the treowen in i^gypt. English iv. — If we read his book and holy writ, these, among many others, we shall find to be the tokens of his hate, which gathered together might mind us of his will, and teach us when his wrath beginneth, which sometimes comes in open strength and full sail, oft steals like a thief in the night, like shafts shot from a bow at midnight, before we think upon them. Saxon iv. — Gyf we rasd his boc and heilig gewrit, these eemoncp maenig othern, we sceall findan the tacna of his ha- tung, while gegatherod together miht gemind us of his willan, and teae us whone his ured onginneth, while sometima come in open strength and fill seyle, oft stael gelyc a theof in the niht, gelyc sceaft scoten fram a boge at midneoht, befor an we thinck uppen them. English v. — And though they were a deal less, and rather short than beyond our sins, yet do we not a whit withstand or forbear them, we are wedded to, not weary of our misdeeds, we seldom look upward, and are not ashamed under sin ; we cleanse not ourselves from the blackness and deep hue of our guilt ; we want tears and sorrow, we weep not, fast not, we crave not forgiveness from the mildness, sweetness and good- ness of God, and with all livelihood and steadfastness to our uttermost will hunt after the evil of guile, pride, cursing, swearing, drunkenness, over-eating, uncleanness, all idle lust of the flesh, yes many uncouth and nameless sins, hid in our inmost breast and bosoms, which stand betwixt our forgive- ness, and keep God and man asunder. Saxon v. — And theow they wasre a dael lesse, and reither scort thone begond oure sinnan, get do we naht a whit with- stand and forbeare them, we eare bewudded to, noht werig of ure agen misdeed, we seldon loc upweard, and ear not ofsehae- mod under sinne, we cleans noht ure selvan from the blacnesse and daep hue of ure guilt ; we wan teare and sara, we weope noht, ffEst noht, we craft noht forcgyfnessc fram the mildnesse, 204 OF LANGUAGES. [tRACT VIII. sweetnesse and goodnesse of God, and mit eal lifelyhood and stedfastnesse to ure uttermost will hunt asfter the ufel of guile, pride, cursung, swearung, druncennesse, overeat, uncleannesse and eal idle lust of the flsesc, yis magnig uncuth and nameleas sinnan, hid in ure inmasst brist and bosome, while stand be- twixt ure foregyfnesse, and caep God and man asynder. English vi. — Thus are we far beneath and also worse than the rest of God's works; for the sun and moon, the king and queen of stars, snow, ice, rain, frost, dew, mist, wind, fourfooted and creeping things, fishes and feathered birds, and fowls either of sea or land, do all hold the laws of his will. Saxon vi. — Thus eare we far beneoth and ealso wyrse thone the rest of Gods weorka; for the sun and mone, the cyng and cquen of stearran, snaw, ise, ren, frost, deaw, miste, wind, feower fet and crypend dinga, fix yefetherod brid, and faglan auther in S£e or land do eal heold the lag of his willan. Thus have you seen in few words how near the Saxon and English meet.^ Now of this account the French will be able to make no- thing; the modern Danes and Germans, though from several words they may conjecture at the meaning, yet will they be much to seek in the orderly sense and continued construction thereof. Whether the Danes can continue such a series of sense out of their present language and the old Runick, as to be intelligible unto present and ancient times, some doubt may well be made ; and if the present French would attempt a discourse in words common unto their present tongue and the old Romana Riistica spoken in elder times, or in the old language of the Francks, which came to be in use some suc- ^ Jiow near the Saxon, .^c] Johnson coincides with that of a still higher autho- observes, " the woids are, indeed, Sax- rity, Miss Gurney, of Northrepps Cottage, on, but the phraseology is English; and, the translator of the Saxon Chronicle ; on I think, would not have been understood whose recommendation I have preferred by Bede or ^Ifric, notwithstanding the to reprint the Saxon passages as they confidence of our author. He has, how- stand, rather than to adopt any additions ever, sufficiently proved his position, or variations from partial transcripts of that the English resembles its parental them in the British Museum and Bod- language more than any modern Euro- leian. pcan dialect." This opinion exactly TRACT VIII.] OF LANGUAGES. 205 cessions after Pharamond, it might prove a work of some trouble to effect. It were not impossible to make an original reduction of many words of no general reception in England, but of com- mon use in Norfolk, or peculiar to the East Angle countries; as, bawnd, bunny, thurck, enemmis, sammodithee, mawther, kedge, seele, straft, clever, matchly, dere, nicked, stingy, noneare, feft, thepes, gosgood, kamp, sibrit, fangast, sap, cothish, thokish, bide owe, paxwax:^ of these and some ^ Bawnd, SfC.'] Some time before the appearance of " The Vocabulary of East Anglia, by the Rev. W. Forby," I had been favoured with valuable illustrations of this curious list of words in common use in Norfolk during Sir Thomas's life, by Miss (iurney, and Mr. Black, of the British Museum, of which I have availed myself in the following notes. Bawnd; — swollen. Not in present use ; at least, not known to be so. Isl. bon, tumidus — Forby. Bunny ; — a common word for a rabbit, especially among children. — Blk. A small swelling caused by a fall or blow. Perhaps a diminutive bump. One would be glad to derive it from the Greek ^ovvog, a hillock. It may be so through the Gothic. — Forby. Thurck ; — appears to mean dark, if it be the same as in the Promploriuvi Par- vulorum Clericorum — MS. Harl. 221. " Therke or dyrk, tenebrosus, cali- ginosus ; terknesse or derknesse." — Blk. Dark. So say Hickes and Ray ; may have been for ought we can say to the contrary Forby. Fjuemmis; — Qu. et ncanmoins? — G. 1 will not say that this is the old word anempst for anenst (anent iu modern Scottish), about, concerning; because I know not its proper collocation — Blk. Of very obscure and doubtful mean- ing, like most of Sir Thomas Browne's words. Hickes says it means lest (ne forte), and he derives it from Isl. cinema, an adv. of exclusion, as he says. It may mean, notwithstanding, N. Vr. iiemis. Or it may be an adjective, signi- fying variable, as evimis is in L. sc. which Jam. derives from Isl. ymiss, varius. But as the word is quite extinct, it is impossible to decide upon its mean- ing, wlien it was in use. — Forby The word is not extinct, but still used in Norfolk in the sense of lest : though its usual sound would rather lead us to spell it enammons. Sammodithee; — Samod o 'thi ; the like of that. — G. Sammodithee is an old oath or asseveration, sd mot I the, so may I thrive. " Als mote I the " is common in ancient English, and " So the ik " in Chaucer. See Tyrwhitt's and other Glossaries, in v. The, which is the A. S. dean, to thrive. — Blk. This uncouth cluster of little words (for such it is) is recorded by Sir Thomas Browne as cur- rent in his time. It is now totally ex- tinct It stands thus in the eighth tract, " On Languages." Dr. Hickes has taken the liberty of changing it to sammoditha, and interprets it, " Say me how dost thou;" in pure Saxon '■'sag me hu destthu." "Say me," for "tell me," is in use to this day in some coun- ties. It is in the dialect of Sedgmoor. Ray adduces, as a sort of parallel to this jumble of words, one which he says was common in his time ; vtuchgooditte, " much good do it thee." — F. Mawther; — the same as the vulgar mawkes, a wench — Blk. A girl. Tus- ser uses it. So does B. Johnson : — *' You talk like a foolish mauther," sa.ys Restive to Dame Pliant, in the Alchemist. It seems peculiarly an East Anglian word. So at least it was considered by Sir Henry Spelman. It is highly amusing to find so grave an antiquary endeavour- ing earnestly, and at no inconsiderable length, to vindicate the honour of his mother-tongue ; and to rescue this impor- tant word from the contempt with which some, as it seems, through their igno- rance, were disposed to treat it. " Quod rident ca;teri Angli," says he, " vocis nescienfes probitatem." He assures us that it was applied by our very early an- cestors, even to the noble virgins who 206 OF LANGUAGES. [tract VHI. Others of no easy originals, when time will permit, the resolu- tion may be attempted ; which to effect, the Danish language were selected to sing the praises of heroes. They were called scald-moers, q. d. sing- ing mauthers! "En quantum in spreta jam voce antiquae gloriae ! " He com- plains that the old word vioer had been corrupted to mother, and so confounded with a very different word. We distin- guish them very eftectually by pronuncia- tion, and, what is more, we actually come very near to the original word in the abbreviated form we use in address- ing a mauther. We commonly call her mau'r. Dan. moer. Belg. modde, in- nupta puella Forhy. Kedge ; — I should rather think is the " Kygge or Joly, Jocundus, Hillaris," of Prompt, than " cadge, to carry, of Wilbr. Appendix." — Blk. Brisk, active. This is Sir Thomas Browne's spelling. We pronounce it kidge, and apply it ex- clusively, or nearly so, to hale and cheer- ful old persons. In Hay, the word cadge has the same meaning. It is by mere change of vowels cadge, hedge, kidge. Dan. kaud, lascivus. Lowland Scotch hedgie and caigie. — Fo7-by. Seele ; — is this our sell, haysell, or seel time ? — G. Take these from Prompt. "sefe,horsys barneys, arquillus." "Selle, stoddyng howse cella." " Sylle of an howse. Silla Solma." I cannot oiTer any thing else. — Blk. Seal, time, season. Hay-seal, wheat-«e«/, barley- sea/, are the respective seasons of mow- ing or sowing those products of the earth. But it goes as low as hours. Of an idle and dissipated fellow, we say that he '* keeps bad seals," of poachers, that they are out at all seals of the night ; of a sober, regular, and industrious man, that he attends to his business at all seals," or that " he keeps good seals and meals." Sir Thomas Browne spells it seele ; but we seem to come nearer to the Saxon Seel, opportunitas Forbij. Straft ; — Iratus, ira exclamans, vox in agro Norf. usitata. Hickes derivat ab Is. straffa, objurgere, corripere, increpare. L. Junius Etymol. I cannot find the passage on a cursory examination of Hickes in his little Diet. Islandicum. In the 2nd vol. of the Thesaur. p. 8