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 ESSAYS BY 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
 
 11 
 
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 Introduction 
 
 We are inclined to think of Temple to-day, 
 if we ever think of him at all, as the lover to 
 whom Dorothy Osborne wrote such charming 
 letters, or as the patron under whose roof the 
 unhappy romance of Swift and Stella had its 
 birth. In the eighteenth century he stood on 
 a literary pedestal. Pope looked to him as the 
 standard of correct English. Johnson cited 
 him as " the first writer who gave cadence to 
 English prose " — a bewildering dictum from 
 the biographer, and imitator, of Sir Thomas 
 Browne. Goldsmith has told us that "his 
 style is the model by which the best prose 
 writers in the reign of Queen Anne formed 
 themselves". But Temple has a claim to 
 remembrance apart from the merely academic 
 interest of his place in the development of 
 English prose or his relation to those affaires 
 de ccxur which are all that present-day readers 
 seem to care for in the memories of the Past. 
 The nature of his claim is indicated in Elia's
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 delightful essay on "The Genteel Style in 
 Writing ". A real and living personality de- 
 taches itself from the somewhat faded back- 
 ground of his sedate and leisurely disquisition 
 — a personal note that is neither poignant nor 
 insistent, but suave, restful, and, for those who 
 have the patience to take the author on his own 
 terms, not without a peculiar fascination. 
 
 If Macaulay's famous reading of Temple's 
 character were correct, it would not be worth 
 while to listen to the pretended self-revelation 
 of one whose most intimate talks with his 
 reader were only a calculated pose. " A tem- 
 per not naturally good, but under strict com- 
 mand ; a constant regard to decorum ; a rare 
 caution in playing that mixed game of skill and 
 hazard, human life ; a disposition to be con- 
 tent with small and certain winnings rather 
 than go on doubling the stakes"; these seem 
 to Macaulay to be " the most remarkable 
 features " of Temple's character, and they are 
 features, as he reasonably enough maintains, 
 that "may be perfectly compatible with laxity 
 of principle, with coldness of heart, and with 
 the most intense selfishness ". But Macaulay 
 was notoriously incapable of appreciating the 
 more delicate shades and half-tones of char- 
 acter. He seemed even to resent the very ex- 
 istence of qualities which did not lend them-
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 selves to reproduction by his crude method of 
 glaring high lights and contrasts. 
 
 Temple's most susceptible years were spent 
 in an atmosphere of fierce political and religious 
 strife. The chief impression which was left 
 upon his mind was an aversion from the ex- 
 tremes of party spirit, or, as he preferred to 
 call it, from " faction ". The dutiful son of 
 a moderate Roundhead, he had his earliest 
 education at the hands of a Royalist uncle, 
 the pious and learned Hammond. Any bias 
 that Hammond's teaching may have given to 
 Temple's ideas was strengthened by an al- 
 liance with the daughter of an enthusiastically 
 Royalist house. Temple's domestic happiness 
 depended upon the mutual accommodation of 
 his father's standpoint and the standpoint 
 which his wife brought into her new home. 
 He was sensitive — perhaps abnormally sensi- 
 tive — to the feelings and views of those whom 
 he loved. It is not unreasonable to trace the 
 neutral complexion of his political opinions 
 as much to the necessity of conciliating alike 
 both paternal and conjugal prejudices as to 
 caution and worldly prudence. It was inevit- 
 able that he should choose diplomacy rather 
 than politics as the more desirable career. As 
 a diplomatist he established a great and de- 
 served reputation. He proved himself saga-
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 clous, frank, and winning. " He never had a 
 mind to make anybody kind to him, without 
 compassing his design." As he himself con- 
 fessed, he often acted according to Solomon's 
 advice, neither to oppose the mighty, nor to go 
 about to stop the current of a river. He had 
 little of that " heroic virtue " upon which he 
 wrote a long and rather tedious essay. Yet 
 few or none of the public men of that age could 
 honestly say, as Temple could, and did : " I 
 stand always upon the ground of having never 
 done either an unjust or ungentlemanly action 
 in my life, or an unfaithful one to the service 
 of my master or my country ". 
 
 Most of Swift's allusions to his former patron 
 suggest an unpleasing kind of pomposity. Yet 
 Swift had written in his diary, on the death of 
 Temple, that with him died '* all that was good 
 and amiable among men ". In the last years 
 of his life, living secluded and surrounded only 
 by dependents and the admiring devotion of 
 his family. Temple may have grown into some 
 of the airs of a grand seigneur. His health was 
 poor. He suffered much, and was impatient 
 of pain, disliking to be seen by anyone, except 
 a servant or two, while the fits of gout were 
 upon him. His love of a rural life was genuine. 
 He was, so his sister Lady Giffard has re- 
 corded, " sensible extremely to good air and
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 good smells " — one reason, over and above his 
 shrinking from the rough-and-tumble of politics, 
 why he w^as always anxious to escape from the 
 smoke of London to his garden at Sheen. 
 But he never forgot, in the pleasure which he 
 derived from tying up his apricots and watch- 
 ing over his white figs and soft peaches, which 
 he esteemed " the best sorts of all among us ", 
 that he was the author of the Triple Alliance; 
 and he never could bear to think with patience 
 of the failure that had so soon overtaken his 
 great experiment in Constitution-makings 
 
 There was, as Macaulay has more than 
 hinted, a strain of valetudinarianism in 
 Temple's nature. There may even have 
 been a touch of eifeminacy. His sister and 
 his wife — probably in this order of prece- 
 dency, for Lady GifFard was a strong-minded 
 woman, who accompanied her brother in his 
 most arduous tasks — filled a larger place in his 
 life than any of his men friends. Their in- 
 fluence can be felt in the purity and refinement 
 which, in an age of licence and coarseness, give 
 an almost unique distinction to his writing. 
 Probably it appears, too, in the tenacity with 
 which he clings to old associations. He loves 
 the old, long-winded romances that he had read 
 with his wife in the days of courtship. He 
 deplores the mocking tone which disfigures the
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 literature and conversation of the Restoration, 
 and looks back regretfully to the more serious, 
 dignified, and courtly spirit that reigned in 
 society when the first Charles was King. His 
 high admiration of Sir Philip Sidney was a sur- 
 vival from the boyish days when his imagination 
 was captured by the genius loci at Penshurst. 
 Even the affectation of scholarship which be- 
 trayed him into so many ludicrous blunders has 
 its sentimental side. It is his way of paying 
 tribute to the " Giants before the Flood "; the 
 portents of omnivorous but uncritical erudition 
 that flourished before learning was frightened 
 away, from Universities as well as Courts, by 
 the din of arms. When a new race of courtiers 
 sprang up, who preferred lampoons to letters, 
 Temple was ready to defend unfashionable 
 scholarship against frivolous charges of pe- 
 dantry, and speaks with regretful wonder of the 
 vast acquisitions of a Casaubon. 
 
 A stately but graceful figure, he still moves 
 amongst his green lawns and gay parterres, or 
 along the sunny side of a vine-covered wall, 
 now recalling some decorous anecdote that he 
 has gathered at Nimeguen on the Hague, now 
 moralizing on the unwisdom of attempting to 
 force Nature, " by observing how seldom God 
 Almighty does it Himself, by so few true and 
 undisputed miracles, as we see or hear of in
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the world " ; and anon falling into a more 
 solemn train of meditation, as in that famous 
 thought which Goldsmith admired so much 
 that he more than once adopted it as his own: 
 "When all is done, Human Life is, at the 
 greatest and the best, but like a froward child, 
 that must be played with, and humoured a 
 little, to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and 
 then the care is over". 
 
 Temple's writings are, in the phrase of 
 Bacon, neither to be swallowed nor chewed. 
 If we wish to savour their elusive quality aright 
 we must treat them as he would have done his 
 favourite peaches : pluck them so tenderly as 
 not to brush off the delicate bloom, and let 
 their cool freshness imperceptibly communicate 
 itself to the jaded palate. 
 
 J. A. NICKLIN.
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 Upon the Gardens of Epicurus - - 13 
 
 An Essay upon the Cure of the Gout by 
 Moxa - - . - - - 67 
 
 Of Health and Long Life . _ _ 103 
 
 Of Poetry ------ 151 
 
 An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern 
 Learning - - - - - 199 
 
 Memoirs - - - - - -251
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 divert them. This last is the common busi- 
 ness of common men, who seek it by all sorts 
 of sports, pleasures, play or business. But, be- 
 cause the two first are of short continuance, soon 
 ending with weariness, or decay of vigour and 
 appetite, the return whereof must be attended, 
 before the others can be renewed; and because 
 play grows dull if it be not enlivened with the 
 hopes of gain, the general diversion of mankind 
 seems to be business, or the pursuit of riches 
 in one kind or other; which is an amusement 
 that has this one advantage above all others, that 
 it lasts those men who engage in it to the very 
 ends of their lives: none ever growing too old 
 for the thoughts and desires of increasing his 
 wealth and fortunes, either for himself, his 
 friends, or his posterity. 
 
 In the first and most simple ages of each 
 country, the conditions and lives of men seem 
 to have been very near of kin with the rest of 
 the creatures ; they lived by the hour, or by 
 the day, and satisfied their appetite with what 
 they could get from the herbs, the fruits, the 
 springs they met with when they were hungry 
 or dry; then, with what fish, fowl, or beasts 
 they could kill, by swiftness or strength, by 
 craft or contrivance, by their hands, or such 
 instruments as wit helped or necessity forced 
 them to invent. When a man had got enough 
 for the day, he laid up the rest for the morrow, 
 and spent one day in labour that he might 
 pass the other at ease; and lured on by the 
 pleasure of this bait, when he was in vigour, 
 and his game fortunate, he would provide for 
 14
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 as many days as he could, both for himself 
 and his children, that were too young to seek 
 out for themselves. Then he cast about, how 
 by sowing of grain, and by pasture of the 
 tamer cattle, to provide for the whole year. 
 After this, dividing the lands necessary for 
 these uses, first among children, and then 
 among servants, he reserved to himself a pro- 
 portion of their gain, either in the native stock, 
 or something equivalent, which brought in the 
 use of money; and where this once came in 
 none was to be satisfied, without having 
 enough for himself and his family, and all his 
 and their posterity for ever ; so that I know 
 a certain Lord who professes to value no lease, 
 though for an hundred or a thousand years, 
 nor any estate or possession of land, that is 
 not for ever and ever. 
 
 From such small beginnings have grown 
 such vast and extravagant designs of poor 
 mortal men: yet none could ever answer the 
 naked Indian, why one man should take pains, 
 and run hazards by sea and land all his life 
 that his children might be safe and lazy all 
 theirs: and the precept of taking no care for 
 to-morrow, though never minded as impracti- 
 cable in the world, seems but to reduce man- 
 kind to their natural and original condition of 
 life. However, by these ways and degrees, 
 the endless increase of riches seems to be 
 grown the perpetual and general amusement, 
 or business of mankind. 
 
 Some few in each country make those higher 
 flights after honour and power, and to these 
 15
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 ends sacrifice their riches, their labour, their 
 thought, and their lives; and nothing diverts 
 nor busies men more than these pursuits, 
 which are usually covered with the pretences 
 of serving a man's country, and of public 
 good. But the true service of the public is 
 a business of so much labour and so much 
 care, that though a good and wise man may 
 not refuse it, if he be called to it by his Prince 
 or his country, and thinks he can be of more 
 than vulgar use, yet he will seldom or never 
 seek it; but leaves it commonly to men who, 
 under the disguise of public good, pursue their 
 own designs of wealth, power, and such bas- 
 tard honours as usually attend them, not that 
 which is the true, and only true reward of 
 virtue. 
 
 The pursuits of ambition, though not so 
 general, yet are as endless as those of riches, 
 and as extravagant; since none ever yet thought 
 he had power or empire enough : and what 
 Prince soever seems to be so great, as to live and 
 reign without any further desires, or fears, falls 
 into the life of a private man, and enjoys but 
 those pleasures and entertainments, which a 
 great many several degrees of private fortune 
 will allow, and as much as human nature is 
 capable of enjoying. 
 
 The pleasures of the senses grow a little 
 more choice and refined; those of imagination 
 are turned upon embellishing the scenes he 
 chooses to live in; ease, conveniency, elegancy, 
 magnificence, are sought in building first, and 
 then in furnishing houses or palaces : the 
 i6 (C217)
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 admirable imitations of nature are introduced 
 by pictures, statues, tapestry, and other such 
 achievements of arts. And the most exquisite 
 delights of sense are pursued, in the contriv- 
 ance and plantation of gardens ; which, with 
 fruits, flowers, shades, fountains, and the music 
 of birds that frequent such happy places, seem 
 to furnish all the pleasures of the several senses, 
 and, with the greatest, or at least the most 
 natural perfections. 
 
 Thus the first race of Assyrian Kings, after 
 the conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, passed 
 their lives, till their empire fell to the Medes. 
 Thus the Caliphs of Egypt, till desposed by 
 their Mamalukes. Thus passed the latter 
 parts of those great lives of Scipio, Lucullus, 
 Augustus, Diocletian. Thus turned the great 
 thoughts of Henry II of France, after the end 
 of his wars with Spain. Thus the present 
 King of Morocco, after having subdued all his 
 competitors, passes his life in a country villa, 
 gives audience in a grove of orange -trees 
 planted among purling streams. And thus 
 the King of France, after all the successes 
 of his councils or arms, and in the mighty 
 elevation of his present greatness and power, 
 when he gives himself leisure from such de- 
 signs or pursuits, passes the softer and easier 
 parts of his time in country houses and gar- 
 dens, in building, planting, or adorning the 
 scenes, or in the common sports and enter- 
 tainments of such kind of lives. And those 
 mighty Emperors, who contented not them- 
 selves with these pleasures of common human- 
 ( c 217 ) 17 2
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 ity, fell Into the frantic or the extravagant; 
 they pretended to be Gods or turned to be 
 Devils, as Caligula and Nero, and too many 
 others known enough in story. 
 
 Whilst mankind is thus generally busied or 
 amused, that part of them, who have had either 
 the justice or the luck to pass in common 
 opinion for the wisest and the best part among 
 them, have followed another and very different 
 scent; and instead of the common designs of 
 satisfying their appetites and their passions, 
 and making endless provisions for both, they 
 have chosen what they thought a nearer and a 
 surer way to the ease and felicity of life, by 
 endeavouring to subdue, or at least to temper 
 their passions, and reduce their appetites to 
 what nature seems only to ask and to need. 
 And this design seems to have brought philo- 
 sophy into the world, at least that which is 
 termed moral, and appears to have an end 
 not only desirable by every man, which is 
 the ease and happiness of life, but also in 
 some degree suitable to the force and reach 
 of human nature: for, as to that part of philo- 
 sophy which is called natural, I know no end 
 it can have, but that of either busying a man's 
 brains to no purpose, or satisfying the vanity 
 so natural to most men of distinguishing them- 
 selves, by some way or other, from those that 
 seem their equals in birth, and the common 
 advantages of it; and whether this distinction 
 be made by wealth or power, or appearance of 
 knowledge, which gains esteem and applause 
 in the world, is all a case. More than this I 
 i8
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 know no advantage mankind has gained by 
 the progress of natural philosophy, during so 
 many ages it has had vogue in the world, 
 excepting always, and very justly, what we 
 owe to the mathematics, which is in a manner 
 all that seems valuable among the civilized 
 nations, more than those we call barbarous, 
 whether they are so or no, or more so than 
 ourselves. 
 
 How ancient this natural philosophy has 
 been in the world is hard to know; for we 
 find frequent mention of ancient philosophers 
 in this kind, among the most ancient now 
 extant with us. The first who found out the 
 vanity of it seems to have been Solomon, of 
 which discovery he has left such admirable 
 strains in Ecclesiastes. The next was Socrates, 
 who made it the business of his life to explode 
 it, and introduce that which we call moral in 
 its place, to busy human minds to better 
 purpose. And indeed, whoever reads with 
 thought what these two, and Marcus An- 
 toninus, have said upon the vanity of all that 
 mortal man can ever attain to know of nature, 
 in its originals or operations, may save himself 
 a great deal of pains, and justly conclude, that 
 the knowledge of such things is not our game; 
 and (like the pursuit of a stag by a little 
 spaniel) may serve to amuse and to weary us, 
 but will never be hunted down. Yet I think 
 those three I have named may justly pass for 
 the wisest triumvirate, that are left us upon 
 the records of story or of time. 
 
 After Socrates, who left nothing in writing, 
 19
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 many sects of philosophers began to spread in 
 Greece, who entered boldly upon both parts 
 of natural and moral philosophy. The first 
 with the greatest disagreement, and the most 
 eager contention that could be upon the 
 greatest subjects: as, whether the world were 
 eternal, or produced at some certain time ? 
 whether, if produced, it was by some eternal 
 Mind, and to some end, or by the fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms, or some particles of eter- 
 nal matter ? whether there was one world, or 
 many ? whether the soul of man was a part 
 of some etherial and eternal substance, or 
 was corporeal ? whether, if eternal, it was so 
 before it came into the body, or only after it 
 went out : There were the same contentions 
 about the motions of the heavens, the magni- 
 tude of the celestial bodies, the faculties of the 
 mind, and the judgment of the senses. But 
 all the different schemes of nature that have 
 been drawn of old, or of late, by Plato, Aris- 
 totle, Epicurus, Des Cartes, Hobbs, or any 
 other that I know of, seem to agree but in one 
 thing, which is, the want of demonstration or 
 satisfaction, to any thinking and unpossessed 
 man; and seem more or less probable one than 
 another, according to the wit and eloquence of 
 the authors and advocates that raise or defend 
 them; like jugglers' tricks, that have more or 
 less appearance of being real, according to the 
 dexterousness and skill of him that plays 'em; 
 whereas perhaps, if we were capable of know- 
 ing truth and nature, these fine schemes would 
 prove like rover shots, some nearer and some
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 further off, but all at great distance from the 
 mark; it may be, none in sight. 
 
 Yet in the midst of these and many other 
 such disputes and contentions in their natural 
 philosophy, they seemed to agree much better 
 in their moral; and, upon their enquiries after 
 the ultimate end of man, which was his happi- 
 ness, their contentions or differences seemed 
 to be rather in words, than in the sense of 
 their opinions, or in the true meaning of their 
 several authors or masters of their sects: all 
 concluded that happiness was the chief good, 
 and ought to be the ultimate end of man; that, 
 as this was the end of wisdom, so wisdom was 
 the way to happiness. The question then 
 was, in what this happiness consisted? The 
 contention grew warmest between the Stoics 
 and Epicureans; the other sects, in this point, 
 siding in a manner with one or the other of 
 these in their conceptions or expressions. 
 The Stoics would have it to consist in virtue, 
 and the Epicureans in pleasure; yet the most 
 reasonable of the Stoics made the pleasure of 
 virtue to be the greatest happiness; and the 
 best of the Epicureans made the greatest plea- 
 sure to consist in virtue ; and the difference 
 between these two seems not easily discovered. 
 All agreed, the greatest temper, if not the total 
 subduing of passion, and exercise of reason, 
 to be the state of the greatest felicity; to live 
 without desires or fears, or those perturbations 
 of mind and thought, which passions raise; 
 to place true riches in wanting little, rather 
 than in possessing much, and true pleasure in 
 
 21
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 temperance, rather than in satisfying the senses; 
 to live with indifference to the common enjoy- 
 ments and accidents of life, and with constancy 
 upon the greatest blows of fate or of chance; 
 not to disturb our minds with sad reflexions 
 upon what is past, nor with anxious cares or 
 raving hopes about what is to come; neither 
 to disquiet life with the fears of death, nor 
 death with the desires of life; but in both, 
 and in all things else, to follow nature; seem 
 to be the precepts most agreed among them. 
 
 Thus reason seems only to have been called 
 in to allay those disorders which itself had 
 raised, to cure its own wounds, and pretends 
 to make us wise no other way, than by render- 
 ing us insensible. This at least was the pro- 
 fession of many rigid Stoics, who would have 
 had a wise man, not only without any sort of 
 passion, but without any sense of pain, as well 
 as pleasure; and to enjoy himself in the midst 
 of diseases and torments, as well as of health 
 and ease : a principle, in my mind, against 
 common nature and common sense; and which 
 might have told us in fewer words, or with 
 less circumstance, that a man, to be wise, 
 should not be a man; and this perhaps might 
 have been easy enough to believe, but nothing 
 so hard as the other. 
 
 The Epicureans were more intelligible in 
 their notion, and fortunate in their expression, 
 when they placed a man's happiness in the 
 tranquillity of mind, and indolence of body; 
 for while we are composed of both, I doubt 
 both must have a share in the good or ill we
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 feel. As men of several languages say the same 
 things in very different words, so in several 
 ages, countries, constitutions of laws and re- 
 ligion, the same thing seems to be meant 
 by very different expressions : what is called 
 by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by 
 the Sceptics indisturbance; by the Molinists 
 quietism ; by common men peace of con- 
 science; seems all to mean but great tran- 
 quillity of mind, though it be made to proceed 
 from so diverse causes, as human wisdom, 
 innocence of life, or resignation to the will 
 of God. An old usurer had the same notion, 
 when he said. No man could have peace of 
 conscience, that ran out of his estate ; not 
 comprehending what else was meant by that 
 phrase, besides true quiet and content of mind; 
 which, however expressed, is, I suppose, 
 meant by all to be the best account that can 
 be given of the happiness of man, since no 
 man can pretend to be happy without it. 
 
 I have often wondered how such sharp and 
 violent invectives came to be made so generally 
 against Epicurus, by the ages that followed 
 him, whose admirable wit, felicity of expres- 
 sion, excellence of nature, sweetness of con- 
 versation, temperance of life, and constancy of 
 death, made him so beloved by his friends, 
 admired by his scholars, and honoured By the 
 Athenians. But this injustice may be fastened 
 chiefly upon the envy and malignity of the 
 Stoics at first, then upon the mistakes of some 
 gross pretenders to his sect (who took pleasure 
 only to be sensual) and afterwards, upon the 
 23
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 piety of the primitive Christians, who esteemed 
 his principles of natural philosophy more 
 opposite to those of our religion, than either 
 the Platonists, the Peripatetics, or Stoics 
 themselves : yet, I confess, I do not know why 
 the account, given by Lucretius of the Gods, 
 should be thought more impious than that 
 given by Homer, who makes them not only 
 subject to all the weakest passions, but per- 
 petually busy in all the worst or meanest 
 actions of men. 
 
 But Epicurus has found so great advocates 
 of his virtue, as well as learning and inventions, 
 that there need no more ; and the testimonies 
 of Diogenes Laertius alone seem too sincere 
 and impartial to be disputed, or to want the 
 assistance of modern authors : if all failed, he 
 would be but too well defended by the excel- 
 lence of so many of his sect in all ages, and 
 especially of those who lived in the compass of 
 one, but the greatest in story, both as to per- 
 sons and events: I need name no more than 
 Cssar, Atticus, Maecenas, Lucretius, Virgil, 
 Horace ; all admirable in their several kinds, 
 and perhaps unparalleled in story. 
 
 Cc-Esar, if considered in all lights, may justly 
 challenge the first place in the registers we 
 have of mankind, equal only to himself, and 
 surpassing all others of his nation and his age, 
 in the virtues and excellencies of a statesman, 
 a captain, an orator, an historian ; besides all 
 these, a poet, a philosopher, when his leisure 
 allowed him; the greatest man of counsel and 
 of action, of design and execution; the greatest 
 24
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 nobleness of birth, of person, and of counte- 
 nance; the greatest humanity and clemency of 
 nature, in the midst of the greatest provocations, 
 occasions, and examples of cruelty and revenge: 
 'tis true, he overturned the laws and constitu- 
 tions of his country, yet 'tv/as after so many 
 others had not only begun, but proceeded very 
 far, to change and violate them; so as, in what 
 he did, he seems rather to have prevented 
 others, than to have done what himself de- 
 signed ; for, though his ambition was vast, 
 yet it seems to have been raised to those 
 heights, rather by the insolence of his enemies 
 than by his own temper ; and that what was 
 natural to him was only a desire of true glory, 
 and to acquire it by good actions as well as 
 great, by conquests of barbarous nations, ex- 
 tent of the Roman empire; defending at first 
 the liberties of the Plebeians, opposing the 
 faction that had begun in Sylla, and ended in 
 Pompey ; and, in the whole course of his 
 victories and successes, seeking all occasions 
 of bounty to his friends, and clemency to his 
 enemies. 
 
 Atticus appears to have been one of the 
 wisest and best of the Romans ; learned with- 
 out pretending, good without affectation, 
 bountiful without design, a friend to all men 
 in misfortune, a flatterer to no man in great- 
 ness or power, a lover of mankind, and beloved 
 by them all; and, by these virtues and dis- 
 positions, he passed safe and untouched, 
 through all the flames of civil dissensions 
 that ravaged his country the greatest part of
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 his life ; and, though he never entered into 
 any public affairs, or particular factions of his 
 state, yet he was favoured, honoured, and 
 courted by them all, from Sylla to Augustus. 
 
 Maecenas was the wisest counsellor, the 
 truest friend, both of his Prince and his coun- 
 try, the best Governor of Rome, the happiest 
 and ablest negotiator, the best judge of learn- 
 ing and virtue, the choicest in his friends, and 
 thereby the happiest in his conversation that 
 has been known in story; and, I think, to his 
 conduct in civil, and Agrippa's in military 
 affairs, may be truly ascribed all the fortunes 
 and greatness of Augustus, so much celebrated 
 in the world. 
 
 For Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace, they 
 deserve, in my opinion, the honour of the 
 greatest philosophers, as well as the best poets 
 of their nation or age. The two first, besides 
 \^ what looks like something more than human 
 in their poetry, were very great naturalists^ 
 and admirable in their morals : and Horace, 
 besides the sweetness and elegancy of his 
 lyrics, appears, in the rest of his writings, 
 so great a master of life, and of true sense in 
 the conduct of it, that I know none beyond 
 him. It was no mean strain of his philosophy 
 to refuse being Secretary to Augustus, when so 
 great an emperor so much desired it. But all 
 the different sects of philosophers seem to have 
 agreed in the opinion of a wise man's abstain- 
 ing from public affairs, which is thought the 
 meaning of Pythagoras's precept, to abstain 
 from baans, by which the affairs or public 
 26
 
 OF EPICURUS ^iA^'^^f. 
 
 resolutions in Athens were managed. They 
 thought that sort of business too gross and 
 material for the abstracted fineness of their 
 speculations. They esteemed it too sordid 
 and too artificial for the cleanness and simpli- 
 city of their manners and lives. They would 
 have no part in the faults of a government ; 
 and they knew too well, that the nature and 
 passions of men made them incapable of any 
 that was perfect and good ; and therefore 
 thought all the service they could do to the 
 state they lived under, was to mend the lives 
 and manners of particular men that composed 
 it. But, where factions were once entered 
 and rooted in a State, they thought it madness 
 for good men to meddle with public aff'airs; 
 which made them turn their thoughts and 
 entertainments to any thing rather than this ; 
 and Heraclitus, having, upon the factions of 
 the citizens, quitted the government of his 
 city, and amusing himself to play with the 
 boys in the porch of the temple, asked those 
 who wondered at him. Whether 'twas not 
 better to play with such boys, than govern 
 such men? But above all, they esteemed 
 public business the most contrary of all 
 others to that tranquillity of mind, which they 
 esteemed and taught to be the only true felicity 
 of man. 
 
 For this reason Epicurus passed his life 
 wholly in his garden; there he studied, there he 
 exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and, 
 indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contri- 
 bute so much to both the tranquillity of mind 
 27
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 and indolence of body, which he made his chief 
 ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasantness 
 of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness 
 and lightness of food, the exercises of working 
 or walking, but above all, the exemption from 
 cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour 
 and improve both contemplation and health, 
 the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and 
 thereby the quiet and ease both of the body 
 and mind. 
 
 Though Epicurus be said to have been the 
 first that had a garden in Athens, whose 
 citizens before him had theirs in their villas 
 or farms without the city ; yet the use of 
 gardens seems to have been the most ancient 
 and most general of any sorts of possession 
 among mankind, and to have preceded those 
 of corn or of cattle, as yielding the easier, the 
 pleasanter, and more natural food. As it has 
 been the inclination of Kings and the choice 
 of philosophers, so it has been the common 
 favourite of public and private men; a pleasure 
 of the greatest, and the care of the meanest; 
 and indeed an employment and a possession, 
 for which no man is too high nor too low. 
 
 If we believe the Scripture, we must allow 
 that God Almighty esteemed the life of a man 
 in a garden the happiest he could give him, or 
 else he would not have placed Adam in that 
 of Eden ; that it was the state of innocence 
 and pleasure ; and that the life of husbandry 
 and cities came after the fall, with guilt and 
 with labour. 
 
 Where Par.idise was has been much debated, 
 28
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 and little agreed ; but what sort of place 
 is meant by it may perhaps easier be con- 
 jectured. It seems to have been a Persian 
 word, since Xenophon and other Greek 
 authors mention it, as what was much in use 
 and delight among the Kings of those eastern 
 countries. Strabo, describing Jericho, says, 
 " Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt etiam 
 aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax, palmis 
 abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus 
 irriguus, ibi est Regia et Balsami Paradisus". 
 He mentions another place to be " prope 
 Libanum et Paradisum". And Alexander 
 is written to have seen Cyrus's tomb in a 
 Paradise, being a tower not very great, and 
 covered with a shade of trees about it. So 
 that a Paradise among them seems to have 
 been a large space of ground, adorned and 
 beautified with all sorts of trees, both of fruits 
 and of forest, either found there before it was 
 inclosed, or planted after ; either cultivated 
 like gardens, for shades and for walks, with 
 fountains or streams, and all sorts of plants 
 usual in the climate, and pleasant to the eye, 
 the smell, or the taste; or else employed, like 
 our parks, for inclosure and harbour of all 
 sorts of wild beasts, as well as for the pleasure 
 of riding and walking : and so they were of 
 more or less extent, and of different entertain- 
 ment, according to the several humours of the 
 Princes that ordered and inclosed them. 
 
 Semiramis is the first we are told of in story 
 that brought them in use through her empire, 
 and was so fond of them, as to make one 
 29
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 wherever she built, and in all, or most of the 
 provinces she subdued; which are said to have 
 been from Babylon as far as India. The 
 Assyrian Kings continued this custom and 
 care, or rather this pleasure, till one of them 
 brought in the use of smaller and more regular 
 gardens : for having married a wife he was 
 fond of, out of one of the provinces, where 
 such Paradises or gardens were much in use, 
 and the country lady not well bearing the 
 air or inclosure of the palace in Babylon to 
 which the Assyrian Kings used to confine 
 themselves ; he made her gardens, not only 
 within the palaces, but upon terraces raised 
 with earth, over the arched roofs, and even 
 upon the top of the highest tower; planted 
 them with all sorts of fruit trees, as well as 
 other plants and flowers, the most pleasant 
 of that country ; and thereby made at least 
 the most airy gardens, as well as the most 
 costly, that have been heard of in the world. 
 This lady may probably have been native of 
 the provinces of Chasimir, or of Damascus, 
 which have in all times been the happiest 
 regions for fruits of all the East, by the excel- 
 lence of soil, the position of mountains, the 
 frequency of streams, rather than the advan- 
 tages of climate. And 'tis great pity we do 
 not yet see the history of Chasimir, which 
 Monsieur Bernier assured me he had trans- 
 lated out of Persian, and intended to publish; 
 and of which he has given such a taste in his 
 excellent Memoirs of the Mogul's country. 
 The next gardens we read of are those of 
 30
 
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 Solomon, planted with all sorts of fruit trees 
 and watered with fountains; and, though we 
 have no more particular description of them, 
 yet we may find they were the places where 
 he passed the times of his leisure and delight, 
 where the houses as well as grounds were 
 adorned with all that could be of pleasing 
 and elegant, and were the retreats and enter- 
 tainments of those among his wives that he 
 loved the best; and 'tis not improbable that 
 the Paradises mentioned by Strabo were 
 planted by this great and wisest king. But 
 the idea of the garden must be very great, 
 if it answers at all to that of the gardener, 
 who must have employed a great deal of his 
 care, and of his study, as well as of his leisure 
 and thought, in these entertainments, since he 
 writ of all plants, from the cedar to the shrub. 
 
 What the gardens of the Hesperides were, 
 we have little or no account, further than the 
 mention of them, and thereby the testimony 
 of their having been in use and request, in 
 such remoteness of place and antiquity of 
 time. 
 
 The garden of Alcinous, described by 
 Homer, seems wholly poetical, and made at 
 the pleasure of the painter; like the rest of 
 the romantic palace in that little barren island 
 of Phasacia or Corfu. Yet, as all the pieces 
 of this transcendent genius are composed with 
 excellent knowledge, as well as fancy, so they 
 seldom fail of instruction as well as delight, 
 to all that read him. The seat of this garden, 
 joining to the gates of the palace, the compass 
 31
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 of the inclosure being four acres, the tall trees 
 of shade, as well as those of fruit, the two 
 fountains, the one for the use of the garden, 
 and the other of the palace, the continual 
 succession of fruits throughout the whole 
 year, are, for aught I know, the best rules 
 or provisions that can go towards composing 
 the best gardens ; nor is it unlikely that 
 Homer may have drawn this picture after 
 the life of some he had seen in Ionia, the 
 country and usual abode of this divine poet; 
 and indeed, the region of the most refined 
 pleasures and luxury, as well as invention and 
 wit : for the humour and custom of gardens 
 may have descended earlier into the lower 
 Asia, from Damascus, Assyria, and other parts 
 of the eastern empires, though they seem 
 to have made late entrance, and smaller im- 
 provement in those of Greece and Rome ; at 
 least in no proportion to their other inven- 
 tions or refinements of pleasure and luxury. 
 The long and flourishing peace of the two 
 first empires gave earlier rise and growth to 
 learning and civility, and all the consequences 
 of them, in magnificence and elegancy of build- 
 ing and gardening; whereas Greece and Rome 
 were almost perpetually engaged in quarrels 
 and wars either abroad or at home, and so 
 were busy in actions that were done under 
 the sun, rather than those under the shade. 
 These were the entertainments of the softer 
 nations, that fell under the virtue and prowess 
 of the two last empires, which from those 
 conquests brought home mighty increases 
 32
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 both of riches and luxury, and so perhaps 
 lost more than they got by the spoils of 
 the East. 
 
 There may be another reason for the small 
 advance of gardening in those excellent and 
 more temperate climates, where the air and 
 soil were so apt of themselves to produce 
 the best sorts of fruits, without the necessity 
 of cultivating them by labour and care; 
 whereas the hotter climates, as well as the 
 cold, are forced upon industry and skill, to 
 produce or improve many fruits that grow 
 of themselves in the more temperate regions. 
 However it were, we have very little mention 
 of gardens in old Greece, or in old Rome, 
 for pleasure or with elegance, nor of much 
 curiousness or care, to introduce the fruits 
 of foreign climates, contenting themselves with 
 those which were native of their own; and 
 these were the vine, the olive, the fig, the 
 pear, and the apple: Cato, as I remember, 
 mentions no more; and their gardens were 
 then but the necessary part of their farms, 
 intended particularly for the cheap and easy 
 food of their hinds or slaves employed in 
 their agriculture, and so were turned chiefly 
 to all the common sorts of plants, herbs, 
 or legumes (as the French call them) proper 
 for common nourishment; and the name of 
 " hortus " is taken to be from " ortus ", 
 because it perpetually furnishes some rise or 
 production of something new in the world. 
 
 Lucullus, after the Mithridatic war, first 
 brought cherries from Pontus into Italy, 
 ( c 217 ) 33 3
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 which so generally pleased, and were so 
 easily propagated in all climates, that within 
 the space of about an hundred years, having 
 travelled westward with the Roman con- 
 quests, they grew common as far as the 
 Rhine, and passed over into Britain. After 
 the conquest of Afric, Greece, the lesser 
 Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy all 
 the sorts of their " mala ", which we inter- 
 pret apples, and might signify no more at 
 first, but were afterwards applied to many 
 other foreign fruits : the apricots, coming 
 from Epire, were called "mala Epirotica"; 
 peaches from Persia, "mala Persica"; citrons 
 of Media, " Medica " ; pomegranates from 
 Carthage, "Punica"; quinces, " Cathonea ", 
 from a small island in the Grecian seas; their 
 best pears were brought from Alexandria, 
 Numidia, Greece, and Numantia, as appears 
 by their several appellations: their plums, from 
 Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. 
 The kinds of these are reckoned, in Nero's 
 time, to have been near thirty, as well as 
 of figs; and many of them were entertained 
 at Rome with so great applause, and so 
 general vogue, that the great Captains, and 
 even consular men, who first brought them 
 over, took pride in giving them their own 
 names (by which they ran a great while in 
 Rome), as in memory of some great service 
 or pleasure they had done their country; so 
 that not only laws and battles, but several 
 sorts of apples or " mala ", and of pears, 
 were called Manlian and Claudian, Pompeian 
 34
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 and Tiberian ; and by several other such 
 noble names. 
 
 Thus the fruits of Rome, in about an 
 hundred years, came from countries as far 
 as their conquests had reached ; and like 
 learning, architecture, painting, and statuary, 
 made their great advances in Italy about the 
 Augustan age. What was of most request 
 in their common gardens in Virgil's time, 
 or at least in his youth, may be conjectured 
 by the description of his old Corycian's gar- 
 dens in the fourth of the Georgics, which 
 begins: 
 
 Namque sub Oebali^e memini me turribus altis. 
 
 Among flowers, the roses had the first place, 
 especially a kind which bore twice a year; and 
 none other sorts are here mentioned besides 
 the narcissus, though the violet and the lily 
 were very common, and the next in esteem, 
 especially the " breve lilium ", which was the 
 tuberose. The plants he mentions are the 
 *' apium ", which though commonly inter- 
 preted parsley, yet comprehends all sorts of 
 smallage, whereof celery is one; '^cucumis", 
 which takes in all sorts of melons, as well 
 as cucumbers; "olus", which is a common 
 word for all sorts of pot-herbs and legumes; 
 "verbenas", which signifies all kinds of sweet 
 or sacred plants that were used for adorning 
 the altars; as bays, olive, rosemary, myrtle: 
 the " acanthus " seems to be what we called 
 pericanthe; but what their "heders" were, that 
 deserved place in a garden, I cannot guess, 
 35
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 unless they had sorts of ivy unknown to us; 
 nor what his " vescum papaver " was, since 
 poppies with us are of no use in eating. 
 The fruits mentioned are only apples, pears, 
 and plums; for olives, vines, and figs were 
 grown to be fruits of their fields, rather than 
 of their gardens. The shades were the elm, 
 the pine, the lime tree, and the " platanus ", or 
 plane tree, whose leaf and shade, of all others, 
 was the most in request; and, having been 
 brought out of Persia, was such an inclination 
 among the Greeks and Romans, that they 
 usually fed it with wine instead of water: they 
 believed this tree loved that liquor, as well 
 as those that used to drink under its shade; 
 which was a great humour and custom, and 
 perhaps gave rise to the other, by observing 
 the growth of the tree, or largeness of the 
 leaves, where much wine was spilt or left, 
 and thrown upon the roots. 
 
 'Tis great pity the haste, which Virgil 
 seems here to have been in, should have 
 hindered him from entering farther into the 
 account or instructions of gardening, which he 
 said he could have given, and which he seems 
 to have so much esteemed and loved, by that 
 admirable picture of this old man's felicity, 
 which he draws like so great a master, with 
 one stroke of a pencil in those four words: 
 
 Regum ffiquabat opes animis — 
 
 that in the midst of these small possessions, 
 
 upon a few acres of barren ground, yet he 
 
 equalled all the wealth and opulence of 
 
 36
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 Kings, in the ease, content, and freedom of 
 his mind. 
 
 I am not satisfied with the common accepta- 
 tion of the "mala aurea " for oranges; nor do 
 I find any passage in the authors of that age, 
 which gives me the opinion that these were 
 otherwise known to the Romans than as fruits 
 of the eastern climates. I should take their 
 " mala aurea " to be rather some kind of 
 apples, so called from the golden colour, as 
 some are amongst us ; for otherwise, the 
 orange tree is too noble in the beauty, taste, 
 and smell of its fruit ; in the perfume and 
 virtue of its flowers ; in the perpetual verdure 
 of its leaves, and in the excellent uses of 
 all these, both for pleasure and health, not 
 to have deserved any particular mention in 
 the writings of an age and nation so refined 
 and exquisite in all sorts of delicious luxury. 
 
 The charming description Virgil makes of 
 the happy apple must be intended either 
 for the citron, or for some sort of orange 
 growing in Media, which was either so 
 proper to that country, as not to grow in 
 any other, (as a certain sort of fig was to 
 Damascus) or to have lost its virtue by 
 changing soils, or to have had its effect of 
 curing some sort of poison that was usual 
 in that country, but particular to it: I can- 
 not forbear inserting those few lines out of 
 the second of Virgil's Georgics, not having 
 ever heard any body else take notice of them: 
 
 Media fert tristes succos, tarduiiicjue saporem 
 Felicis mali; quo non prsesentius ullum, 
 37
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 Pocula si quando sasvas infecere novercse, 
 Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena. 
 Ipsa ingens arbos, faciemque similliina lauro; 
 Et, si non alios late jactaret odores, 
 Laurus erit: folia baud ullis labentia ventis; 
 Flos apprima tenax: animas et olentia Medi 
 Ora fovent illo, ac senibus medicantur anhellis. 
 
 Media brings pois'nous herbs, and the flat taste 
 Of the bless'd apple, than which ne'er was found 
 A help more present, when curs'd step-dames mix 
 Their mortal cups, to drive the venom out. 
 'T is a large tree, and like a bays in hue; 
 And, did it not such odours cast about, 
 'T would be a bays; the leaves with no winds tall, 
 The flowers all excel: with these the Medes 
 Perfume their breaths, and cure old pursy men. 
 
 The tree being so like a bays or laurel, the 
 slow or dull taste of the apple, the virtue of it 
 against poison, seem to describe the citron. 
 The perfume of the flowers and virtues of 
 them, to cure ill scents of mouth or breath, or 
 shortness of wind in pursy old men, seem to 
 agree most with the orange: if " flos apprima 
 tenax " mean only the excellence of the flower 
 above all others, it may be intended for the 
 orange; if it signifies the flowers growing most 
 upon the tops of the trees, it may be rather the 
 citron; for I have been so curious as to bring 
 up a citron from a kernel, which at twelve 
 years of age began to flower; and I observed all 
 the flowers to grow upon the top branches of 
 the tree, but to be nothing so high or sweet- 
 scented as the orange. On the other side, 
 I have always heard oranges to pass for a 
 cordial juice, and a great preservative against 
 38
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 the plague, which is a sort of venom; so that 
 I know not to which of these we are to ascribe 
 this lovely picture of the happy apple; but 
 I am satisfied by it, that neither of them was at 
 all common, if at all known in Italy, at that 
 time, or long after, though the fruit be now so 
 frequent there in fields (at least in some parts), 
 and make so common and delicious a part of 
 gardening, even in these northern climates. 
 
 'Tis certain those noble fruits, the citron, 
 the orange, and the lemon, are the native 
 product of those noble regions, Assyria, 
 Media, and Persia ; and, though they have 
 been from thence transplanted and propagated 
 in many parts of Europe, yet they have not 
 arrived at such perfection in beauty, taste, or 
 virtue, as in their native soil and climate. 
 This made it generally observed among the 
 Greeks and Romans, that the fruits of the East 
 far excelled those of the West. And several 
 writers have trifled away their time in deducing 
 the reasons of this difference, from the more 
 benign or powerful influences of the rising sun. 
 But there is nothing more evident to any man 
 that has the least knowledge of the globe, and 
 gives himself leave to think, than the folly of 
 such wise reasons, since the regions that are 
 East to us are West to some others ; and the 
 sun rises alike to all that lie in the same 
 latitude, with the same heat and virtue upon 
 its first approaches, as well as in its progress. 
 Besides, if the eastern fruits were the better 
 only for that position of climate, then those of 
 India should excel those of Persia; which we 
 39
 
 UPON THH GARDENS 
 
 do not find by comparing the accounts of those 
 countries: but Assyria, Media, and Persia have 
 been ever esteemed, and will be ever found the 
 true regions of the best and noblest fruits 
 in the world. The reason of it can be no 
 other than that of an excellent and proper soil, 
 being there extended under the best climate 
 for the production of all sorts of the best fruits; 
 which seems to be from about twenty-five to 
 about thirty-five degrees of latitude. Now the 
 regions under this climate in the present 
 Persian empire (which comprehends most of 
 the other two, called anciently Assyria and 
 Media) are composed of many provinces full 
 of great and fertile plains, bounded by high 
 mountains, especially to the North; watered 
 naturally with many rivers, and those, by art 
 and labour, derived into many more and 
 smaller streams, which all conspire to form a 
 country, in all circumstances the most proper 
 and agreeable for production of the best and 
 noblest fruits. Whereas if we survey the 
 regions of the western world, lying in the same 
 latitude between twenty-five and thirty-five 
 degrees, we shall find them extend either over 
 the Mediterranean Sea, the ocean, or the sandy 
 barren countries of Africa; and that no part of 
 the continent of Europe lies so southward as 
 thirty-five degrees. Which may serve to dis- 
 cover the true genuine reason why the fruits of 
 the East have been always observed and agreed 
 to transcend those of the West. 
 
 In our north-west climates, our gardens are 
 very different from what they were in Greece 
 40
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 and Italy, and from what they are now in 
 those regions in Spain or the southern parts 
 of France. And as most general customs in 
 countries grow from the different nature of 
 climate, soils, or situations, and from the 
 necessities or industry they impose, so do 
 these. 
 
 In the warmer regions, fruits and flowers 
 of the best sorts are so common and of so 
 easy production, that they grow in fields, and 
 are not worth the cost of inclosing, or the 
 care of more than ordinary cultivating. On 
 the other side, the great pleasures of those 
 climates are coolness of air, and whatever 
 looks cool even to the eyes, and relieves 
 them from the unpleasant sight of dusty 
 streets, or parched fields. This makes the 
 gardens of those countries to be chiefly valued 
 by largeness of extent (which gives greater play 
 and openness of air), by shades of trees, by 
 frequency of living streams, or fountains, by 
 perspectives, by statues, and by pillars and 
 obelisks of stone scattered up and down, which 
 all conspire _to make any place look fresh and 
 cool. On the contrary, the more northern 
 climates, as they suffer little by heat, make 
 little provision against it, and are careless of 
 shade, and seldom curious in fountains. Good 
 statues are in the reach of few men, and 
 common ones are generally and justly despised 
 or neglected. But no sorts of good fruits or 
 flowers, being natives of the climates, or usual 
 among us (nor indeed the best sort of plants, 
 herbs, salads for our kitchen ~ gardens them- 
 41
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 selves), and the best fruits not ripening without 
 the advantage of walls and palisadoes, by 
 reflexion of the faint heat we receive from the 
 sun, our gardens are made of smaller compass, 
 seldom exceeding four, six, or eight acres ; 
 inclosed with walls, and laid out in a manner 
 wholly for advantage of fruits, flowers, and 
 the product of kitchen-gardens in all sorts 
 of herbs, salads, plants, and legumes, for the 
 common use of tables. 
 
 These are usually the gardens of England 
 and Holland, as the first sort are those of Italy, 
 and were so of old. In the more temperate 
 parts of France and in Brabant (where I take 
 gardening to be at its greatest height) they 
 are composed of both sorts, the extent more 
 spacious than ours; part laid out for flowers, 
 others for fruits; some standards, some against 
 walls or palisadoes, some for forest trees and 
 groves for shade, some parts wild, some exact; 
 and fountains much in request among them. 
 
 But after so much ramble into ancient times, 
 and remote places, to return home and con- 
 sider the present way and humour of our 
 gardening in England; which seem to have 
 grown into such vogue, and to have been so 
 mightily improved in three or four and twenty 
 years of his Majesty's reign, that perhaps few 
 countries are before us, either in the elegance 
 of our gardens, or in the number of our plants; 
 and, I believe, none equals us in the variety of 
 fruits which may be justly called good; and 
 from the earliest cherry and strawberry, to the 
 last apples and pears, may furnish every day of 
 42
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 the circling year. For the taste and perfection 
 of what we esteem the best, I may truly say 
 that the French, who have eaten my peaches 
 and grapes at Sheen, in no very ill year, have 
 generally concluded that the last are as good as 
 any they have eaten in France, on this side 
 Fontainebleau; and the first as good as any 
 they have eat in Gascony; I mean those 
 which come from the stone, and are properly 
 called peaches, not those which are hard, and 
 are termed pavies; for these cannot grow in too 
 warm a climate, nor ever be good in a cold; 
 and are better at Madrid than in Gascony 
 itself. Italians have agreed my white figs to be 
 as good as any of that sort in Italy, which 
 is the earlier kind of white fig there; for in 
 the latter kind, and the blue, we cannot 
 come near the warm climates, no more than 
 in the Fontignac or Muscat grape. 
 
 My orange trees are as large as any I saw 
 when I was young in France, except those of 
 Fontainebleau, or what I have seen since in the 
 Low Countries, except some very old ones of 
 the Prince of Orange's; as laden with flowers 
 as any can well be, as full of fruit as I suffer 
 or desire them, and as well tasted as are com- 
 monly brought over, except the best sorts of 
 Seville and Portugal. And thus much I could 
 not but say in defence of our climate, which is 
 so much and so generally decried abroad, by 
 those who never saw it; or, if they have been 
 here, have yet perhaps seen no more of it than 
 what belongs to inns, or to taverns and 
 ordinaries; who accuse our country for their 
 43
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 own defaults, and speak ill, not only of our 
 gardens and houses, but of our humours, our 
 breeding, our customs and manners of life, by 
 what they have observed of the meaner and 
 baser sort of mankind; and of company among 
 us, because they wanted themselves, perhaps, 
 either fortune or birth, either quality or merit, 
 to introduce them among the good. 
 
 I must needs add one thing more in favour 
 of our climate, which I heard the King say, 
 and I thought new and right, and truly like a 
 King of England that loved and esteemed his 
 own country; 'twas in reply to some of the 
 company that were reviling our climate, and 
 extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least of 
 France: he said, he thought that was the best 
 climate where he could be abroad in the air 
 with pleasure, or at least without trouble or 
 inconvenience, the most days of the year, and 
 the most hours of the day; and this he thought 
 he could be in England, more than in any 
 country he knew of in Europe. And I believe 
 it is true, not only of the hot and the cold, but 
 even among our neighbours in France, and the 
 Low Countries themselves; where the heats or 
 the colds, and changes of seasons, are less 
 treatable than they are with us. 
 
 The truth is, our climate wants no heat to 
 produce excellent fruits; and the default of it 
 is only the short season of our heats or 
 summers, by which many of the latter are left 
 behind and imperfect with us. But all such as 
 are ripe before the end of August are, for aught 
 I know, as good with us as any where else. 
 
 44
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 This makes me esteem the true region of 
 gardens in England to be the compass of ten 
 miles about London; where the accidental 
 warmth of air, from the fires and steams of so 
 vast a town, makes fruits, as well as corn, a 
 great deal forwarder than in Hampshire or 
 Wiltshire, though more southward by a full 
 degree. 
 
 There are, besides the temper of our climate, 
 two things particular to us, that contribute 
 much to the beauty and elegance of our 
 gardens, which are the gravel of our walks, and 
 the fineness and almost perpetual greenness of 
 our turf. The first is not known any where 
 else, which leaves all their dry walks, in other 
 countries, very unpleasant and uneasy. The 
 other cannot be found in France or in Holland 
 as we have it, the soil not admitting that fine- 
 ness of blade in Holland, nor the sun that 
 greenness in France, during most of the 
 summer; nor indeed is it to be found but in 
 the finest of our soils. 
 
 Whoever begins a garden ought, in the first 
 place and above all, to consider the soil, upon 
 which the taste of not only his fruits, but his 
 legumes, and even herbs and salads, will wholly 
 depend; and the default of soil is without 
 remedy: for, although all borders of fruit may 
 be made with what earth you please (if you 
 will be at the charge), yet it must be renewed 
 in two or three years, or it runs into the nature 
 of the ground where it is brought. Old trees 
 spread their roots further than any body's care 
 extends, or the forms of the garden will allow; 
 45
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 and, after all, where the soil about you is ill, 
 the air is so too in a degree, and has influence 
 upon the taste of fruit. What Horace says of 
 the productions of kitchen-gardens, under the 
 name of " caulis ", is true of all the best sorts 
 of fruits, and may determine the choice of 
 soil for all gardens. 
 
 Caale soburbano, qai siccis crevit in agris, 
 Dulciorj irriguis nihil est elutius hortis. 
 
 Plar.'s :'::::-. dry fields those of the town excel; 
 Nc-.r.:r._ :r.:re tasteless is than watered grounds. 
 
 Any rr.sn had better thro-.v a-.vay his care 
 5:-i h:5 rr rey upon any thing else, than upon 
 £ V r::r. :.- vet or moist ground. Peaches 
 ;-.: .r rt- ' ■'". have no taste but upon a sand 
 c: iTi-.e.; zu: the richer these are, the better; 
 and neither salads, pease, or beans have at all 
 the taste upon a clay or rich earth, as they 
 have upon either of the others, though the 
 size and colour of fruits and plants may, 
 perhaps, be more upon the worse soils. 
 
 Next to your choice of soil, is to suit your 
 plants to your ground, since of this everyone 
 is not master ; though perhaps Varro's judg- 
 ment, upon this case, is the wisest and the 
 best; for to one that asked him, "v. hat he 
 should do if his father or ancestors had left 
 him. a seat in :\l air, or ur . ill soil?" he 
 
 answered, " Wi-.v, seil i:. ' uv another in 
 
 good." "But -.vhat if I _-r::: 'get half the 
 worth?" " Wi'v, ti'.en, ::--.e a cuarter; but 
 however sell it for any thing, rather than live 
 upon it." 
 
 46
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 Of all sorts of soil, the best is that upon 
 a sandy gravel, or a rosiny sand; whoever lies 
 upon either of these may run boldly into all 
 the best sort of peaches and grapes, how shallow 
 soever the turf be upon them ; and whatever 
 other tree will thrive in these soils, the fruits 
 shall be of a much finer taste than any other: 
 a richer soil will do well enough for apricots, 
 plums, pears, or figs; but still the more of the 
 sand in your earth the better, and the worse 
 the more of the clay, which is proper for oaks, 
 and no other tree that I know of 
 
 Fruits should be suited to the climate among 
 us, as well as the soil; for there are degrees of 
 one and the other in England, where 'tis to 
 little purpose to plant any of the best fruits; 
 as peaches or grapes hardly, I doubt, beyond 
 Northampshire, at the furthest northwards ; 
 and I thought it very prudent in a gentleman 
 of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a great 
 lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, 
 though his soil be good enough, than to the 
 perfection of plums; and in these (by bestow- 
 ing south walls upon them) he has very well 
 succeeded, which he could never have done 
 in attempts upon peaches and grapes; and a 
 good plum is certainly better than an ill peach. 
 
 When I was at Cosevelt, with that Bishop 
 of Munster that made so much noise in his 
 time, I observed no other trees but cherries 
 in a great garden he had made. He told me 
 the reason was, because he found no other 
 fruit would ripen well in that climate, or upon 
 that soil ; and therefore, instead of being 
 47
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 curious in others, he had only been so in the 
 sorts of that, whereof he had so many as never 
 to be without them from May to the end of 
 September. 
 
 As to the size of a garden, which will 
 perhaps, in time, grow extravagant among us, 
 I think from four or five to seven or eight 
 acres is as much as any gentleman need 
 design, and will furnish as much of all that 
 is expected from it as any nobleman will 
 have occasion to use in his family. 
 
 In every garden, four things are necessary 
 to be provided for, flowers, fruit, shade, and 
 water; and whoever lays out a garden without 
 all these, must not pretend it in any perfection: 
 it ought to lie to the best parts of the house, 
 or to those of the master's commonest use, 
 so as to be but like one of the rooms out of 
 which you step into another. The part of 
 your garden next your house (besides the 
 walks that go round it) should be a parterre 
 for flowers, or grass plots bordered with flowers; 
 or if, according to the newest mode, it be cast 
 all into grass plots and gravel walks, the dryness 
 of these should be relieved with fountains, and 
 the plainness of those with statues; otherwise, 
 if large, they have an ill effect upon the eye. 
 However, the part next the house should be 
 open, and no other fruit but upon the walls. 
 If this take up one half of the garden, the 
 other should be fruit trees, unless some grove 
 for shade lie in the middle. If it take up a 
 third part only, then the next third may be 
 dwarf trees, and the last standard fruit; or else 
 48
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 the second part fruit trees, and the third all 
 sorts of winter greens, which provide for all 
 seasons of the year. 
 
 I will not enter upon any account of flowers, 
 having only pleased myself with seeing or 
 smelling them, and not troubled myself with 
 the care, which is more the ladies' part than 
 the men's ; but the success is wholly in the 
 gardener. For fruits, the best we have in 
 England, or, I believe, can ever hope for, are, 
 of peaches, the white and red maudlin, the 
 minion, the chevereuse, the ramboullet, the 
 musk, the admirable, which is late ; all the 
 rest are either varied by names, or not to be 
 named with these, nor worth troubling a 
 garden in my opinion. Of the pavies or hard 
 peaches, I know none good here but the 
 Newington, nor will that easily hang till 'tis 
 full ripe. The forward peaches are to be 
 esteemed only because they are early, but 
 should find room in a good garden, at least 
 the white and brown nutmeg, the Persian, and 
 the violet musk. The only good nectarines 
 are the murry and the French; of these there 
 are two sorts, one very round, and the other 
 something long, but the round is the best: of 
 the murry there are several sorts, but, being 
 all hard, they are seldom well ripened with us. 
 
 Of grapes, the best are the chasselas, which 
 is the better sort of our white muscadine (as 
 the usual name was about Sheen); 'tis called 
 the pearl grape, and ripens well enough in 
 common years, but not so well as the common 
 black, or currant, which is something a worse 
 
 ( C 217 ) 49 4
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 grape. The parsley is good, and proper 
 enough to our climate ; but all white fron- 
 tiniacs are difficult, and seldom ripe unless 
 in extraordinary summers. 
 
 I have had the honour of bringing over four 
 sorts into England ; the arboyse from the 
 Franche Comte, which is a small white grape, 
 or rather runs into some small and some great 
 upon the same bunch ; it agrees well with 
 our climate, but is very choice in soil, and 
 must have a sharp gravel ; it is the most 
 delicious of all grapes that are not muscat. 
 The Burgundy, which is a grizelin or pale 
 red, and of all others is surest to ripen in our 
 climate, so that I have never known them to 
 fail one summer these fifteen years, when all 
 others have; and have had it very good upon 
 an east wall. A black muscat, which is called 
 the dowager, and ripens as well as the common 
 white grape. And the fourth is the grizelin 
 frontignac, being of that colour, and the 
 highest of that taste, and the noblest of all 
 grapes I ever eat in England ; but requires 
 the hottest wall and the sharpest gravel ; and 
 must be favoured by the summer too, to be 
 very good. All these are, I suppose, by this 
 time, pretty common among some gardeners 
 in my neighbourhood, as well as several per- 
 sons of quality ; for I have ever thought all 
 things of this kind, the commoner they are 
 made, the better. 
 
 Of figs there are among us the white, the 
 blue, and the tawny: the last is very small, 
 bears ill, and I think but a bawble. Of the 
 50
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 blue there are two or three sorts, but little 
 different, one something longer than the other; 
 but that kind, which smells most, is ever the 
 best. Of the white I know but two sorts, and 
 both excellent, one ripe in the beginning of 
 July, the other in the end of September, and 
 is yellower than the first; but this is hard to 
 be found among us, and difficult to raise, 
 though an excellent fruit. 
 
 Of apricots, the best are the common 
 old sort, and the largest masculine; of which 
 this last is much improved by budding upon 
 a peach stock. I esteem none of this fruit 
 but the Brussels apricot, which grows a 
 standard, and is one of the best fruits we 
 have ; and which I first brought over among 
 us. 
 
 The number of good pears, especially 
 summer, is very great, but the best are the 
 blanquet, robin, rousselet, rosati, sans, pepin, 
 jargonel. Of the autumn, the buree, the verte 
 — longue, and the bergamot. Of the winter, 
 the vergoluz, chasseray, St. Michael, St. Ger- 
 main, and ambret. I esteem the bon-chretien 
 with us good for nothing but to bake. 
 
 Of plums, the best are St. Julian, St. Cath- 
 erine, white and blue pedrigon, queen-mother. 
 Sheen plum, and cheston. 
 
 Beyond the sorts I have named, none I 
 think need trouble himself, but multiply these 
 rather than make room for more kinds; and 
 I am content to leave this register, having been 
 so often desired it by my friends upon their 
 designs of gardening. 
 
 51
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 I need say nothing of apples, being so well 
 known among us; but the best of our climate, 
 and I believe of all others, is the golden pippin; 
 and for all sorts of uses ; the next is the 
 Kentish pippin; but these I think are as far 
 from their perfection with us as grapes, and 
 yield to those of Normandy, as these to 
 those in Anjou, and even these to those in 
 Gascony. In other fruits the defect of sun 
 is in a great measure supplied by the advan- 
 tage of walls. 
 
 The next care to that of suiting trees with 
 the soil, is that of suiting fruits to the position 
 of walls : grapes, peaches, and winter pears, 
 to be good, must be planted upon full south, 
 or south-east : figs are best upon south-east, 
 but will do well upon east and south-west : 
 the west are proper for cherries, plums, or 
 apricots, but all of them are improved by a 
 south wall both as to early and taste: north, 
 north-west, or north-east deserve nothing but 
 greens; these should be divided by woodbines 
 or jessamines between every green, and the 
 other walls, by a vine between every fruit tree; 
 the best sorts upon the south walls, the com- 
 mon white and black upon east and west, 
 because the other trees being many of them 
 (especially peaches) very transitory; some apt 
 to die with hard winters, others to be cut 
 down and make room for new fruits : without 
 this method the walls are left for several years 
 unfurnished ; whereas the vines on each side 
 cover the void space in one summer, and, 
 when the other trees are grown, make only 
 52
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 a pillar between them of two or three foot 
 broad. 
 
 Whoever would have the best fruits, in the 
 most perfection our climate will allow, should 
 not only take care of giving them as much 
 sun, but also as much air as he can; no tree, 
 unless dwarf, should be suffered to grow 
 within forty foot of your best walls, but the 
 farther they lie open is still the better. Of 
 all others, this care is most necessary in vines, 
 which are observed abroad to make the best 
 wines, where they lie upon sides of hills, and 
 so most exposed to the air and the winds. 
 The way of pruning them too is best learned 
 from the vineyards, where you see nothing 
 in winter but what looks like a dead stump; 
 and upon our walls they should be left but 
 like a ragged staff, not above two or three eyes 
 at most upon the bearing branches; and the 
 lower the vine and fewer the branches, the 
 grapes will be still the better. 
 
 The best figure of a garden is either a 
 square or an oblong, and either upon a flat 
 or a descent ; they have all their beauties, 
 but the best I esteem an oblong upon a de- 
 scent. The beauty, the air, the view makes 
 amends for the expense, which is very great in 
 finishing and supporting the terrace walks, in 
 levelling the parterres, and in the stone stairs 
 that are necessary from one to the other. 
 
 The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, 
 
 either at home or abroad, wae that of Moor 
 
 Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about 
 
 thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess 
 
 53
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits 
 of her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne; 
 and with very great care, excellent contrivance, 
 and much cost ; but greater sums may be 
 thrown away without effect or honour, if 
 there want sense in proportion to money, or 
 if nature be not followed ; which I take to be 
 the great rule in this, and perhaps in every 
 thing else, as far as the conduct not only of 
 our lives, but our governments. And whether 
 the greatest of mortal men should attempt the 
 forcing of nature, may best be judged by 
 observing how seldom God Almighty does 
 it himself, by so few true and undisputed 
 miracles as we see or hear of in the world. 
 For my own part, I know not three wiser 
 precepts for the conduct either of Princes 
 or private men, than 
 
 . . . Servare modum, finemque tueri, 
 Naturamque fequi. 
 
 Because I take the garden I have named to 
 have been in all kinds the most beautiful and 
 perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, 
 that I have ever seen, I will describe it for 
 a model to those that meet with such a situa- 
 tion, and are above the regards of common 
 expense. It lies on the side of a hill (upon 
 which the house stands) but not very steep. 
 The length of the house, where the best rooms 
 and of most use or pleasure are, lies upon the 
 breadth of the garden, the great parlour opens 
 into the middle of a terrace gravel walk that 
 lies even with it, and which may be, as I 
 54
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 remember, about three hundred paces long, 
 and broad in proportion; the border set with 
 standard laurels, and at large distances, which 
 have the beauty of orange trees, out of flower 
 and fruit: from this walk are three descents by- 
 many stone steps, in the middle and at each 
 end, into a very large parterre. This is 
 divided into quarters by gravel walks, and 
 adorned with two fountains and eight statues 
 in the several quarters; at the end of the 
 terrace walk are two summer - houses, and 
 the sides of the parterre are ranged with two 
 large cloisters, open to the garden, upon arches 
 of stone, and ending with two other summer- 
 houses even with the cloisters, which are paved 
 with stone, and designed for walks of shade, 
 there being none other in the whole parterre. 
 Over these two cloisters are two terraces 
 covered with lead, and fenced with balusters; 
 and the passage into these airy walks is out 
 of the two summer-houses, at the end of the 
 first terrace walk. The cloister facing the 
 south is covered with vines, and would have 
 been proper for an orange house, and the other 
 for myrtles, or other more common greens; 
 and had, I doubt not, been cast for that pur- 
 pose, if this piece of gardening had been then 
 in as much vogue as it is now. 
 
 From the middle of the parterre is a descent 
 by many steps flying on each side of a grotto 
 that lies between them (covered with lead, and 
 flat) into the lower garden, which is all fruit 
 trees ranged about the several quarters of a 
 wilderness which is very shady; the walks 
 55
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 here are all green, the grotto embellished 
 with figures of shell rockwork, fountains, and 
 waterworks. If the hill had not ended with 
 the lower garden, and the wall were not 
 bounded by a common way that goes through 
 the park, they might have added a third 
 quarter of all greens; but this want is sup- 
 plied by a garden the other side the house, 
 which is all of that sort, very wild, shady, and 
 adorned with rough rockwork and fountains. 
 
 This was Moor Park when I was acquainted 
 with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that 
 I have seen in my life, either before or since, 
 at home or abroad; what it is now, I can give 
 little account, having passed through several 
 hands that have made great changes in gardens 
 as well as houses ; but the remembrance of 
 what it was is too pleasant ever to forget, 
 and therefore I do not believe to have mis- 
 taken the figure of it, which may serve for 
 a pattern to the best gardens of our manner, 
 and that are most proper for our country and 
 climate. 
 
 What I have said of the best forms of 
 gardens, is meant only of such as are in 
 some sort regular ; for there may be other 
 forms wholly irregular that may, for aught 
 I know, have more beauty than any of the 
 others ; but they must owe it to some ex- 
 traordinary dispositions of nature in the seat, 
 or some great race of fancy or judgment in 
 the contrivance, which may reduce many dis- 
 agreeing parts into some figure, which shall 
 yet, upon the whole, be very agreeable. 
 56
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 Something of this I have seen in some 
 places, but heard more of it from others 
 who have lived much among the Chinese ; 
 a people whose way of thinking seems to 
 lie as wide of ours in Europe, as their 
 country does. Among us, the beauty of 
 building and planting is placed chiefly iil 
 some certain proportions, symmetries, or uni- 
 formities ; our walks and our trees ranged 
 so as to answer one another, and at exact 
 distances. The Chinese scorn this way of 
 planting, and say, a boy that can tell an 
 hundred may plant walks of trees in straight 
 lines, and over against one another, and to 
 what length and extent he pleases. But their 
 greatest reach of imagination is employed in 
 contriving figures, where the beauty shall be 
 great, and strike the eye, but without any 
 order or disposition of parts that shall be 
 commonly or easily observed : and, though 
 we have hardly any notion of this sort of 
 beauty, yet they have a particular word to ex- 
 press it, and, where they find it hit their eye 
 at first sight, they say the " sharawadgi " is 
 fine or is admirable, or any such expression 
 of esteem. And whoever observes the work 
 upon the best India gowns, or the painting 
 upon their best screens or porcelains, will find 
 their beauty is all of this kind (that is) without 
 order. But I should hardly advise any of these 
 attempts in the figure of gardens among us; 
 they are adventures of too hard achievement 
 for any common hands; and, though there may 
 be more honour if they succeed well, yet there 
 57
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 is more dishonour If they fail, and 'tis twenty 
 to one they will ; whereas, in regular figures, 
 'tis hard to make any great and remarkable 
 faults. 
 
 The picture I have met with in some re- 
 lations of a garden made by a Dutch Governor 
 of their colony, upon the Cap de Bonne 
 Esperance, is admirable, and described to be 
 of an oblong figure, very large extent, and 
 divided into four quarters, by long and cross 
 walks, ranged with all sorts of orange trees, 
 lemons, limes, and citrons ; each of these four 
 quarters is planted with the trees, fruits, 
 flowers, and plants that are native and proper 
 to each of the four parts of the world; so as in 
 this one inclosure are to be found the several 
 gardens of Europe, Asia, Afric, and America. 
 There could not be, in my mind, a greater 
 thought of a gardener, nor a nobler idea of a 
 garden, nor better suited or chosen for the 
 climate, which is about thirty degrees, and may 
 pass for the Hesperides of our age, whatever or 
 wherever the other was. Yet this is agr-eed by 
 all to have been in the islands or continent upon 
 the south-west of Africa: but what their forms 
 or their fruits were, none, that I know, pretend 
 to tell; nor whether their golden apples were 
 for taste, or only for sight, as those of Monte- 
 zuma were in Mexico, who had large trees, 
 with stocks, branches, leaves, and fruits, all 
 admirably composed and wrought of gold ; but 
 this was only stupendous in cost and art, and 
 answers not at all, in my opinion, the delicious 
 varieties of nature in other gardens. 
 58
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 What I have said of gardening is perhaps 
 enough for any gentleman to know, so as to 
 make no great faults, nor be much imposed 
 upon in the designs of that kind, which I 
 think ought to be applauded, and encouraged 
 in all countries; that and building being a sort 
 of creation, that raise beautiful fabrics and 
 figures out of nothing, that make the con- 
 venience and pleasure of all private habitations, 
 that employ many hands, and circulate much 
 money among the poorer sort and artisans, that 
 are a public service to one's country, by the 
 example as well as effect, which adorn the 
 scene, improve the earth, and even the air 
 itself in some degree. The rest, that be- 
 longs to this subject, must be a gardener's 
 part ; upon whose skill, diligence, and care, 
 the beauty of the grounds and excellence of 
 the fruits will much depend. Though if the 
 soil and sorts be well chosen, well suited, and 
 disposed to the walls, the ignorance or care- 
 lessness of the servants can hardly leave the 
 master disappointed, 
 
 I will not enter further upon his trade, than 
 by three short directions or advices: first, in all 
 plantations, either for his master or himself, to 
 draw his trees out of some nursery that is 
 upon a leaner and lighter soil than his own 
 where he removes them: without this care they 
 will not thrive in several years, perhaps never, 
 and must make way for new, which should be 
 avoided all that can be; for life is too short and 
 uncertain, to be renewing often your planta- 
 tions. The walls of your garden, without their 
 59
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 furniture, look as ill as those of your house; so 
 that you cannot dig up your garden too often, 
 nor too seldom cut them down. 
 
 The second is, in all trees you raise, to have 
 some regard to the stock, as well as the graft or 
 bud; for the first will have a share in giving 
 taste and season to the fruits it produces, how 
 little soever it is usually observed by our gar- 
 deners. I have found grafts of the same tree, 
 upon a bon-chretien stock bring chasseray pears 
 that lasted till March, but with a rind green 
 and rough : and others, upon a metre-john- 
 stock, with a smooth and yellow skin, which 
 were rotten in November. I am apt to think, 
 all the difference between the St. Michael and 
 the ambrette pear (which has puzzled our gar- 
 deners) is only what comes from this variety of 
 the stocks; and by this, perhaps, as well as by 
 raising from stones and kernels, most of the new 
 fruits are produced every age. So the grafting 
 a crab upon a white thorn brings the lazarolli, 
 a fruit esteemed at Rome, though I do not find 
 it worth cultivating here ; and I believe the 
 cidrato (or hermaphrodite) came from budding 
 a citron upon an orange. The best peaches 
 are raised by buds of the best fruits upon 
 stocks, growing from stones of the best 
 peaches ; and so the best apples and pears, 
 from the best kinds grafted upon stocks, from 
 kernels also of the best sorts, with respect to 
 the season, as well as beauty and taste. And 
 I believe so many excellent winter pears, as 
 have come into France since forty years, may 
 have been found out by grafting summer pears 
 60
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 of the finest taste and most water upon winter 
 stocks. 
 
 The third advice is, to take the greatest care 
 and pains in preserving your trees from the 
 worst disease, to which those of the best fruits 
 are subject in the best soils, and upon the best 
 walls. 'Tis what has not been (that I know 
 of) taken notice of with us, till I was forced to 
 observe it by the experience of my gardens, 
 though I have since met with it in books both 
 ancient and modern. I found my vines, 
 peaches, apricots, and plums upon my best 
 south walls, and sometimes upon my west, 
 apt for several years to a soot, or smuttiness 
 upon their leaves first, and then upon their 
 fruits, which were good for nothing the years 
 they were so affected. My orange trees were 
 likewise subject to it, and never prospered 
 while they were so: and I have known some 
 collections quite destroyed by it. But I can- 
 not say that ever I found either my figs or 
 pears infected with it, nor any trees upon my 
 east walls, though I do not well conjecture at 
 the reason. The rest were so spoiled with it, 
 that I complained to several of the oldest and 
 best gardeners of England, who knew nothing 
 of it, but that they often fell into the same 
 misfortune, and esteemed it some blight of the 
 spring. I observed after some years, that the 
 diseased trees had very frequent, upon their 
 stocks and branches, a small insect of a dark 
 brown colour, figured like a shield, and about 
 the size of a large wheat-corn; they stuck close 
 to the bark, and in many places covered it, 
 
 bi
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 especially about the joints: in winter they 
 are dry, and thin-shelled, hut in spring they 
 begin to grow soft, and to fill with moisture, 
 and to throw a spawn like a black dust 
 upon the stocks, as well as the leaves and 
 fruits. 
 
 I met afterwards with the mention of this 
 disease, as known among orange trees, in a 
 book written upon that subject in Holland, and 
 since in Pausanias, as a thing so much taken 
 notice of in Greece, that the author describes 
 a certain sort of earth which cures pedicuhs v'ltls, 
 or the lice of the vine. This is of all others 
 the most pestilent disease of the best fruit 
 trees, and upon the very best soils of gravel 
 and sand (especially where they are too hungry) ; 
 and is so contagious, that it is propagated to 
 new plants raised from old trees that are 
 infected, and spreads to new ones that are 
 planted near them, which makes me imagine 
 that it lies in the root, and that the best cure 
 were by application there. But I have tried 
 all sorts of soil without effect, and can prescribe 
 no other remedy, than to prune your trees as 
 close as you can, especially the tainted wood, 
 then to wash them very clean with a wet brush, 
 so as not to leave one shell upon them that you 
 can discern: and upon your oranges to pick off 
 every one that you can find, by turning every 
 leaf, as well as brushing clean the stocks and 
 branches. Without these cares and diligences, 
 you had better root up any trees that are 
 infected, renew all the mould in your borders 
 or boxes, and plant new sound trees, rather 
 62
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 than suffer the disappointments and vexation 
 of your old ones. 
 
 I may perhaps be allowed to know some- 
 thing of this trade, since I have so long 
 allowed myself to be good for nothing else, 
 which few men will do, or enjoy their gardens, 
 without often looking abroad to see how other 
 matters play, what motions in the State, and 
 what invitations they may hope for into other 
 scenes. 
 
 For my own part, as the country life, and 
 this part of it more particularly, were the 
 inclination of my youth itself, so they are the 
 pleasure of my age; and I can truly say, that, 
 among many great employments that have 
 fallen to my share, I have never asked or 
 sought for any one of them, but often 
 endeavoured to escape from them, into the 
 ease and freedom of a private scene, where a 
 man may go his own way and his own pace, 
 in the common paths or circles of life. 
 
 Inter cuncta leges et percunctabere doctos 
 Qua ratione queas traducere leniter asvum, 
 Quid curas minuat, quid te tibi reddet amicum, 
 Quid pure tranquillet, honos, an dulce lucellum, 
 An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitae. 
 
 But above all the learned read, and ask 
 
 By what means you may gently pass your age, 
 
 What lessens care, what makes thee thine own 
 
 friend, 
 What truly calms the mind; honour, or wealth, 
 Or else a private path of stealing life. 
 
 These are questions that a man ought at 
 least to ask himself, whether he asks others or 
 63
 
 UPON THE GARDENS 
 
 no, and to choose his course of life rather by 
 his own humour and temper, than by common 
 accidents, or advice of friends; at least if the 
 Spanish proverb be true, that a fool knows 
 more in his own house than a wise man in 
 another's. 
 
 The measure of choosing well is, whether a 
 man likes what he has chosen; which, I thank 
 God, has befallen me; and though, among the 
 follies of my life, building and planting have 
 not been the least, and have cost me more than 
 I have the confidence to own; yet they have 
 been fully recompensed by the sweetness and 
 satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my 
 resolution taken of never entering again into 
 any public employments, I have passed five 
 years without ever going once to town, though 
 I am almost in sight of it, and have a house 
 there always ready to receive me. Nor has 
 this been any sort of affectation, as some have 
 thought it, but a mere want of desire or 
 humour to make so small a remove; for when 
 I am in this corner, I can truly say with 
 Horace: 
 
 Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, 
 
 Quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice, precari? 
 
 Sit mihi, quod nunc est, etiam minus, ut mihi 
 
 vivam 
 Quod superest xvi, si quid superesse volcnt Di. 
 Sit bona librorum et provisas frugis in annum 
 Copia, ne fluitem dubia? spe pendulus horae. 
 Hoc fatis est orasse Jovem, qui donat et aufert. 
 
 Me when the cold Digentian stream revives. 
 What does my friend believe I think or ask.? 
 64
 
 OF EPICURUS 
 
 Let me yet less possess, so I may live, 
 Whate'er of life remains, unto myself. 
 May I have books enough, and one year's store, 
 Not to depend upon each doubtful hour; 
 This is enough of mighty Jove to pray, 
 Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away. 
 
 That which makes the cares of gardening 
 more necessary, or at least more excusable, is, 
 that all men eat fruit that can get it; so as 
 the choice is only, whether one will eat good 
 or ill; and between these the difference is not 
 greater in point of taste and delicacy, than it is 
 of health: for the first I will only say, that 
 whoever has used to eat good will do very great 
 penance, when he comes to ill: and, for the 
 other, I think nothing is more evident than, as 
 ill or unripe fruit is extremely unwholesome, 
 and causes so many untimely deaths, or so 
 much sickness about autumn, in all great cities 
 where 'tis greedily sold as well as eaten; so 
 no part of diet, in any season, is so healthful, 
 so natural, and so agreeable to the stomach, as 
 good and well-ripened fruits; for this I make 
 the measure of their being good: and, let the 
 kinds be what they will, if they will not ripen 
 perfectly in our climate, they are better never 
 planted, or never eaten. I can say it for myself 
 at least, and all my friends, that the season of 
 summer fruits is ever the season of health with 
 us, which I reckon from the beginning of June 
 to the end of September: and for all sicknesses 
 of the stomach (from which most others are 
 judged to proceed) I do not think any that are, 
 like me, the most subject to them, shall com- 
 ( c 217 ) 65 5
 
 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 
 
 plain, whenever they eat thirty or forty cherries 
 before meals, or the like proportion of straw- 
 berries, white ligs, soft peaches, or grapes 
 perfectly ripe. But these after Michaelmas 
 I do not think wholesome with us, unless 
 attended by some fit of hot and dry weather, 
 more than is usual after that season: when the 
 frosts or the rain hath taken them they grow 
 dangerous, and nothing but the autumn and 
 winter pears are to be reckoned in season, 
 besides apples, which, with cherries, are of all 
 others the most innocent food, and perhaps the 
 best physic. Now whoever will be sure to eat 
 good fruit, must do it out of a garden of his 
 own; for, besides the choice so necessary in 
 the sorts, the soil, and so many other circum- 
 stances that go to compose a good garden, or 
 produce good fruits, there is something very 
 nice in gathering them, and choosing the best, 
 even from the same tree. The best sorts of all 
 among us, which I esteem the white figs and 
 the soft peaches, will not carry without suffer- 
 ing. The best fruit that is bought has no more 
 of the master's care, than how to raise the 
 greatest gains; his business is to have as much 
 fruit as he can upon as few trees; whereas the 
 way to have it excellent is to have but little 
 upon many trees. So that for all things out of 
 a garden, either of salads or fruits, a poor man 
 will eat better, that has one of his own, than 
 a rich man that has none. And this is all 
 I think of necessary and useful to be known 
 upon this subject. 
 
 66
 
 An Essay upon the Cure 
 of the Gout by Moxa 
 
 (Written to Monsieur De Zulichem) 
 
 NiMEGUEN, June 1 8, 1677. 
 
 I never thought it would have befallen me 
 to be the first that should try a new experi- 
 ment, any more than to be author of any 
 new invention: being little inclined to practise 
 upon others, and as little that others should 
 practise upon me. The same warmth of head 
 disposes men to both, though one be commonly 
 esteemed an honour, and the other a reproach. 
 I am sorry the first, and the worst of the two, 
 is fallen to my share, by which all a man can 
 hope is to avoid censure, and that is much harder 
 than to gain applause; for this may be done by 
 one great or wise action in an age; but to 
 avoid censure, a man must pass his life with- 
 out saying or doing one ill or foolish thing. 
 
 This might serve the turn, if all men were 
 just; but, as they are, I doubt nothing will, 
 and that 'tis the idlest pretension in the world 
 67
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 to live without it; the meanest subjects 
 censuring the actions of the greatest Prince; 
 the silliest servants, of the u'isest master; 
 and young children, of the oldest parents. 
 Therefore I have not troubled myself to give 
 any account of an experiment I made by your 
 persuasion, to satisfy those who imputed it to 
 folly, rashness, or impatience; but to satisfy 
 you who proposed the thing in kindness to 
 me, and desired the relation of it in kindness 
 to other men. 
 
 I confess your engaging me first in this 
 adventure of the Moxa, and desiring the story 
 of it from me, is like giving one the torture, 
 and then asking his confession; which is hard 
 usage to an innocent man and a friend. Be- 
 sides, having suffered the first, I took myself 
 to have a right of refusing the other. But I 
 find your authority with me is too great to be 
 disputed in either; and the pretence of public 
 good is a cheat that will ever pass in the world, 
 though so often abused by ill men, that I 
 wonder the good do not grow ashamed to use 
 it any longer. Let it be as it will, you have 
 what you asked, and cannot but say that I have 
 done, as well as suffered, what you had a mind 
 to engage me in. I have told you the story 
 with the more circumstance, because many 
 questioned the disease, that they might not 
 allow of the cure; though the certainty of one, 
 and force of the other, has been enough 
 evidenced by two returns since I left you at 
 the Hague, which passed with the same 
 success. The reasonings upon this method, 
 
 68
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 which seem to confirm the experiment, and 
 other remedies for the gout here reflected on, are 
 aimed at the same end for which you seemed 
 so much to desire this relation. The digres- 
 sions I cannot excuse otherwise, than by the 
 confidence that no man will read them, who 
 has not at least as much leisure as I had when 
 I writ them; and whosoever dislikes or grows 
 weary of them, may throw them away. For 
 those about temperance, age, or their effects 
 and periods, in reference to public business, 
 they could be better addressed to none, than 
 to you, who have passed the longest life with 
 the most temperance, and the best health and 
 humour of any man I know; and, having run 
 through so much great and public business, 
 have found out the secret so little known, 
 that there is a time to give it over. 
 
 I will pretend but to one piece of merit in 
 this relation, which is to have writ it for you in 
 English, because the language I always observed 
 to have most of your kindness among so many 
 others of your acquaintance. If your partiality 
 to that, and to me, and to your own request, 
 will not excuse all the faults of this paper, 
 I have nothing more to say for it, and so will 
 leave you to judge of it as you please. 
 
 Among all the diseases to which the in- 
 temperance of this age disposes it (at least in 
 these northern climates), I have observed none 
 to increase so much within the compass of my 
 memory and conversation as the gout, nor any 
 I think of worse consequence to mankind; 
 69
 
 AN tSSAY UPON THE 
 
 because it falls generally upon persons engaged 
 in public affairs and great employments, upon 
 whose thoughts and cares (if not their motions 
 and their pains) the common good and service 
 of their country so much depends. The general 
 officers of armies, the Governors of provinces, 
 the public Ministers in councils at home, and 
 embassies abroad (that have fallen in my way) 
 being generally subject to it in one degree or 
 other. I suppose the reason of this may be, 
 that men seldom come into those posts till 
 after forty years old, about which time the 
 natural heat beginning to decay, makes way for 
 those distempers they are most inclined to by 
 their native constitutions, or by their customs 
 and habits of life. Besides, persons in those 
 posts are usually born of families noble and 
 rich, and so derive a weakness of constitution 
 from the ease and luxury of their ancestors, 
 and the delicacy of their own education: or if 
 not, yet the plenty of their fortunes from those 
 very employments, and the general custom of 
 living in them at much expense, engages men 
 in the constant use of great tables, and in 
 frequent excesses of several kinds, which must 
 end in diseases when the vigour of youth is 
 past, and the force of exercise (that served 
 before to spend the humour) is given over 
 for a sedentary and unactive life. 
 
 These I take to be the reasons of such 
 persons being so generally subject to such 
 accidents more than other men; and they are 
 so plain, that they must needs occur to any one 
 that thinks. But the ill consequence of it is 
 70
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 not so obvious, though perhaps as evident to 
 men that observe; and may be equally con- 
 firmed by reasons and examples. It is that the 
 vigour of the mind decays with that of the 
 body, and not only humour and invention, but 
 even judgment and resolution, change and 
 languish, with ill constitution of body, and of 
 health; and by this means public business 
 comes to suffer by private infirmities, and 
 Kingdoms or States fall into weaknesses and 
 distempers or decays of those persons that 
 manage them. 
 
 Within these fifteen years past, I have known 
 a great fleet disabled for two months, and 
 thereby lose great occasions, by an indisposi- 
 tion of the Admiral, while he was neither well 
 enough to exercise, nor ill enough to leave the 
 command. I have known two towns of the 
 greatest consequence lost, contrary to all forms, 
 by the Governor's falling ill in the time of the 
 sieges. 
 
 I have observed the fate of a campania deter- 
 mine contrary to all appearances, by the caution 
 and conduct of a general, which were attributed, 
 by those that knew him, to his age and in- 
 firmities, rather than his own true qualities, 
 acknowledged otherwise to have been as great 
 as most men of the age. I have seen the coun- 
 sels of a noble country grow bold or timorous, 
 according to the fits of his good or ill health 
 that managed them, and the pulse of the 
 government beat high or low with that of 
 the Governor : and this unequal conduct 
 makes way for great accidents in the world : 
 71
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 nay, I have often reflected upon the counsels 
 and fortunes of the greatest Monarchies, rising 
 and decaying sensibly with the ages and healths 
 of the Princes and chief officers that governed 
 them. And I remember one great Minister 
 that confessed to me, when he fell into one of 
 his usual fits of the gout, he was no longer able 
 to bend his mind or thoughts to any public 
 business, nor give audiences beyond two or 
 three of his own domestics, though it were 
 to save a kingdom ; and that this proceeded, 
 not from any violence of pain, but from a 
 general languishing and faintness of spirits, 
 which made him, in those fits, think nothing 
 worth the trouble of one careful or solicitous 
 thought. For the approaches or lurkings of 
 the gout, the spleen, or the scurvy, nay, the 
 very fumes of indigestion, may indispose men 
 to thought and to care, as well as diseases of 
 danger and pain. 
 
 Thus, accidents of health grow to be acci- 
 dents of State, and public constitutions come 
 to depend, in a great measure, upon those of 
 particular men; which makes it perhaps seem 
 necessary, in the choice of persons for great 
 employments (at least such as require constant 
 application and pains), to consider their bodies, 
 as well as their minds; and ages and health, 
 as well as their abilities. 
 
 When I was younger than I am, and thereby 
 a worse judge of age, I have often said that 
 what great thing soever man proposed to do 
 in his life, he should think of achieving it 
 by fifty years old. Now I am approaching 
 72
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 that age, I think it much more than I did 
 before ; and that no man rides to an end of 
 that stage without feeling his journey in all 
 parts, whatever distinctions are made between 
 the mind and the body, or between judgment 
 and memory. And tho' I have known some 
 few, who might perhaps be of use in council, 
 upon great occasions, till after threescore and 
 ten; and have heard that the two late Ministers 
 in Spain, Counts of Castriglio and Pignoranda, 
 were so till fourscore ; yet I will not answer 
 that the very conduct of public affairs, under 
 their Ministry, has not always tasted of the 
 lees of their age. 
 
 I observe in this assembly at Nimeguen, 
 from so many several parts of Christendom, 
 that, of one and twenty Ambassadors, there 
 are but three above fifty years old; which 
 seems an argument of my opinion being in 
 a manner general : nor can I think the period 
 ill calculated, at least for a great General of 
 armies, or Minister of State, in times or scenes 
 of great action, when the care of a State or an 
 army ought to be as constant as the chemics' 
 fire, to make any great production; and, if it 
 goes out for an hour, perhaps the whole opera- 
 tion fails. Now, I doubt whether any man 
 after fifty be capable of such constant applica- 
 tion of thought, any more than of long and 
 violent labour or exercise, which that certainly 
 is, and of the finest parts. Besides, none that 
 feel sensibly the decays of age, and his life 
 wearing off, can figure to himself those ima- 
 ginary charms in riches and praise, that men 
 73
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 are apt to do in the warmth of their blood ; 
 and those are the usual incentives towards 
 the attempt of great dangers, and support of 
 great trouble and pains. 
 
 To confirm this by examples, I have heard 
 that Cardinal Mazarine, about five and fifty, 
 found it was time to give over : that the 
 present Grand Vizier, who passes for one of 
 the greatest men of that empire, or this age, 
 began his Ministry about twenty - eight : and 
 the greatest 1 have observed, which was that 
 of Monsieur De Witt, began at three and 
 thirty, and lasted to forty -eight, and could 
 not, I believe, have gone on many years 
 longer at that height, even without that fatal 
 end. Among other qualities which entered 
 into the composition of this Minister, the 
 great care he had of his health, and the little 
 of his life, were not, I think, the least con- 
 siderable ; since from the first he derived his 
 great temperance, as well as his great bold- 
 ness and constancy from the other. And if 
 intemperance be allowed to be the common 
 mother of gout, or dropsy, and of scurvy, 
 and most other lingering diseases, which are 
 those that infest the State, I think temper- 
 ance deserves the first rank among public 
 virtues, as well as those of private men ; and 
 doubt whether any can pretend to the con- 
 stant steady exercise of prudence, justice, or 
 fortitude, without it. 
 
 Upon these grounds whoever can propose 
 a way of curing, or preventing the gout (which 
 entered chiefly into those examples I have
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 mentioned of public affairs suffering by private 
 indispositions) would perhaps do a service to 
 Princes and States, as well as to particular 
 men; which makes me the more willing to 
 tell my story and talk out of my trade, being 
 strongly possessed with a belief that what 1 
 have tried or thought, or heard upon this 
 subject, may go a great way in preventing the 
 growth of this disease where it is but new, 
 though perhaps longer methods are necessary 
 to deal with it when it is old. 
 
 From my grandfather's death I had reason 
 to apprehend the stone, and from my father's 
 life the gout, who has been for this many 
 years, and still continues, much afflicted with 
 it. The first apprehension has been, I con- 
 fess, with me ever the strongest, and the other 
 hardly in my thoughts, having never de- 
 served it by the usual forms; nor had I ever, 
 I thank God, the least threat from either of 
 them, till the last year at the Hague, being 
 then in the seven and fortieth year of my 
 age; when about the end of February, one 
 night at supper, I felt a sudden pain in my 
 right foot, which, from the first moment it 
 began, increased sensibly, and in an hour's 
 time to that degree, that though I said nothing, 
 yet others took notice of it in my face, and said, 
 they were sure I was not well, and would have 
 had me go to bed. I confessed I was in pain, 
 and thought it was with some sprain at tennis: 
 I pulled off my shoe, and with some ease that 
 gave me stirred not till the company broke up, 
 which was about three hours after my pain 
 75
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 began. I went away to bed, but it raged so 
 much all night, that I could not sleep a wink. 
 I endured it till about eight next morning, in 
 hopes still of stealing some rest; but then 
 making my complaints, and shewing my foot, 
 they found it very red and angry; and, to relieve 
 my extremity of pain, began to apply common 
 poultices to it; and by the frequent change of 
 them I found some ease, and continued this 
 exercise all that day, and a great part of the 
 following night, which I passed with very little 
 rest. The morning after, my foot began to 
 swell, and the violence of my pain to assuage, 
 though it left such a soreness, that I could 
 hardly suffer the clothes of my bed, nor stir 
 my foot but as it was lifted. 
 
 By this time my illness, being enquired after 
 about the town, was concluded to be the gout; 
 and being no longer feverish, or in any extremity 
 of pain, I was content to see company. Every 
 body that came to visit me found something 
 to say upon the occasion ; some made a jest 
 of it, or a little reproach ; others were serious 
 in their mirth, and made me compliments, as 
 upon a happy accident and sign of long life. 
 The Spaniards asked me albricias for telling me 
 the news, that I might be sure it was the gout; 
 and in short, none of the company was in ill 
 humour but I, who had rather by half have had 
 a fever or a worse disease at that time, where 
 the danger might have been greater, but the 
 trouble and the melancholy would, I am sure, 
 have been less. 
 
 Though I had never feared the gout, yet I 
 76
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 had always scorned it as an effect commonly 
 of intemperance; and hated it, as what I 
 thought made men unfit for any thing after 
 they were once deep engaged in it : besides, 
 I was pressed in my journey at that time to 
 Nimeguen by his Majesty's commands, to assist 
 at the treaty there. Most of the Ambassadors 
 from the several parts of Christendom were 
 upon their way : one of my collegues was 
 already upon the place, and I had promised 
 immediately to follow; for by our commission 
 we were to be two to act in that mediation: 
 and, to help at this pinch, I had always heard 
 that a fit of the gout used to have six weeks at 
 the least for its ordinary period. With these 
 comforts about me, and sullenness enough to 
 use no remedy of a hundred that were told me. 
 Monsieur Zulichem came to see me (among 
 the rest of my friends), who, I think, never 
 came into company without saying something 
 that was new, and so he did upon my occasion. 
 For talking of my illness, and approving of my 
 obstinacy against all the common prescriptions; 
 he asked me whether I had never heard the 
 Indian way of curing the gout by Moxa ? I 
 told him no, and asked him what it was ? He 
 said it was a certain kind of moss that grew in 
 the East Indies ; that their way was, whenever 
 any body fell into a fit of the gout, to take a 
 small quantity of it, and form it into a figure 
 broad at bottom as a twopence, and pointed at 
 top ; to set the bottom exactly upon the place 
 where the violence of the pain was fixed ; then 
 with a small round perfumed match (made like- 
 n
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 wise in the Indies) to give fire to the top of 
 the moss ; which burning down by degrees, 
 came at length to the skin, and burnt it till 
 the moss was consumed to ashes: that many 
 times the first burning would remove the pain; 
 if not, it was to be renewed a second, third, 
 and fourth time, till it went away, and till the 
 person found he could set his foot boldly to 
 the ground and walk. 
 
 I desired him to tell me how he had come 
 acquainted with this new operation. He said, 
 by the relation of several who had seen and 
 tried it in the Indies, but particularly by an 
 ingenious little book, written of it by a Dutch 
 Minister at Batavia, who being extremely tor- 
 mented with a fit of the gout, an old Indian 
 woman, coming to see him, undertook to cure 
 him, and did it immediately by this Moxa; 
 and, after many experiments of it there, had 
 written this treatise of it in Dutch for the use 
 of his countrymen, and sent over a quantity of 
 the moss and matches to his son at Utrecht 
 to be sold, if any would be persuaded to use 
 them. That, though he could not say whether 
 experiment had been made of it here, yet the 
 book was worth reading; and, for his part, he 
 thought he should try it, if ever he should fall 
 into that disease. 
 
 I desired the book, which he promised to 
 send me next morning ; and this discourse 
 of Monsieur Zulichem busied my head all 
 night. I hated the very name of the gout, 
 and thought it a reproach ; and for the good 
 sign people called it, I could not find that 
 78
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 mended an ill thing; nor could I like any 
 sign of living long in weakness or in pain. 
 I deplored the loss of my legs, and confine- 
 ment to my chamber at an age that left me 
 little pleasure but of walking and of air ; but 
 the worst circumstance of all was the sentence 
 passed upon it of being without cure. 
 
 I had passed twenty years of my life, and 
 several accidents of danger in my health, with- 
 out any use of physicians; and, from some ex- 
 periments of my own, as well as much reading 
 and thought upon that subject, had reasoned 
 myself into an opinion, that the use of them 
 and their methods (unless in some sudden and 
 acute disease) was itself a very great venture; 
 and that their greatest practisers practised least 
 upon themselves, or their friends. I had ever 
 quarrelled with their studying art more than 
 nature, and applying themselves to methods, 
 rather than to remedies; whereas the know- 
 ledge of the last is all that nine parts in t&n 
 of the world have trusted to in all ages. 
 
 But for the common remedies of the gout, 
 I found exceptions to them all; the time of 
 purging was past with me, which otherwise I 
 should certainly have tried upon the authority 
 of the great Hippocrates, who says it should 
 be done upon the first motion of the humour 
 in the gout. For poultices, I knew they 
 allayed pain; but withal, that they drew down 
 the humours, and supplied the parts, thereby 
 making the passages wider, and apter to re- 
 ceive them in greater quantity; and I had 
 often heard it concluded, that the use of them 
 79
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 ended in losing that of one's limbs, by weaken- 
 ing the joint upon every fit. For plasters that 
 had any effect, I thought it must be by dis- 
 persing or repelling the humours, which could 
 not be done without endangering perhaps some 
 other disease of the bowels, the stomach, or 
 the head. Rest and warmth either of clothes, 
 or bathings, I doubted would in a degree have 
 the effects of poultices; and sweating was 
 proper for prevention, rather than remedy. 
 So that all I could end in, with any satisfac- 
 tion, was patience and abstinence; and though 
 I easily resolved of the last, yet the first was 
 hard to be found in the circumstances of my 
 business as well as of my health. 
 
 All this made me rave upon Monsieur 
 Zulichem's new operation; and for the way 
 of curing by fire I found twenty things to give 
 me an opinion of it. I remembered what I 
 had read of the Egyptians of old, who used it 
 in most diseases; and what I had often heard 
 of that practice still continuing among the 
 Moors of Afric, so that a slave is seldom taken 
 (as both Spaniards and Portugueses affirm) who 
 has not many scars of the hot iron upon his 
 body, which they use upon most distempers, 
 but especially those of the head, and conse- 
 quently in physic as well as in surgery-. In 
 the time of the Incas' reign in Peru (which 
 I take to have been one of the greatest con- 
 stitutions of absolute monarchy that has been 
 in the world), no composition was allowed 
 by the laws to be used in point of medicine, 
 but only simples proper to each disease. 
 80
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 Burning was much in use either by natural 
 or artificial fires; particularly for all illness of 
 teeth, and soreness or swelling of the gums 
 (which they were subject to from their near- 
 ness to the sea), they had an herb which 
 never failed of curing it, and, being laid to the 
 gums, burnt away all the flesh that was swelled 
 or corrupted, and made way for new that came 
 again as sound as that of a child. I remem- 
 bered to have had myself, in my youth, one 
 cruel wound cured by scalding medicament, 
 after it was grown so putrefied as to have (in 
 the surgeon's opinion) endangered the bone; 
 and the violent swelling and bruise of another 
 taken away as soon as I received it, by scalding 
 it with milk. I remembered the cure of chil- 
 blains, when I was a boy (which may be called 
 the children's gout), by burning at the fire, or 
 else by scalding brine, that has (I suppose) 
 the same effect. I had heard of curing the 
 stings of adders and bites of mad dogs, by im- 
 mediately burning the part with a hot iron; 
 and of some strange cures of frenzies, by casual 
 applications of fire to the lower parts; which 
 seems reasonable enough, by the violent re- 
 vulsion it may make of humours from the 
 head, and agrees with the opinions and prac- 
 tice I mentioned before, of Egypt and Africa. 
 Perhaps blistering in the neck, and hot pigeons, 
 may be in use among us upon the same 
 grounds; and in our methods of surgery, 
 nothing is found of such effect in the case of 
 old ulcers as fire,- which is certainly the 
 greatest drawer and drier, and thereby the 
 ( c 217 ) 8i 6
 
 AN ESSAY 'upon THE 
 
 greatest cleanser that can be found. I knew 
 very well that, in diseases of cattle, there is 
 nothing more commonly used, nor with greater 
 success; and concluded it was but a tender- 
 ness to mankind that made it less in use 
 amongst us, and which had introduced corro- 
 sives and caustics to supply the place of it, 
 which are indeed but artificial fires. 
 
 I mention all these reflexions, to shew that 
 the experiment I resolved to make was upon 
 thought, and not rashness or impatience (as 
 those called it that would have dissuaded me 
 from it); but the chief reason was, that I liked 
 no other, because I knew they failed every day, 
 and left men in despair of being ever well 
 cured of the gout. 
 
 Next morning I looked over the book which 
 Monsieur Zulichem had promised me, written 
 by the Minister at Batavia. I pretended not 
 to judge of the Indian philosophy, or reason- 
 ings upon the cause of the gout; but yet 
 thought them as probable as those of physicians 
 here, and liked them so much the better, be- 
 cause it seems their opinion in the point is 
 general among them, as well as their method 
 of curing; whereas the differences among ours 
 are almost as many in both, as there are 
 physicians that reason upon the causes, or 
 practise upon the cure of that disease. They 
 hold that the cause of the gout is a malignant 
 vapour that falls upon the joint between the 
 bone and the skin that covers it, which, being 
 the most sensible of all parts of the body, 
 causes the violence of the pain. That the 
 82
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 swelling is no part of the disease, but only 
 an effect of it, and of a kindness in nature, 
 that, to relieve the part affected, calls down 
 humours to damp the malignity of the vapour, 
 and thereby assuage the sharpness of the pain; 
 which seldom fails, whenever the part grows 
 very much swelled. That consequently the 
 swellings and returns of the gout are chiefly 
 occasioned by the ill methods of curing it at 
 first. That this vapour, falling upon joints 
 which have not motion, and thereby heat 
 enough, to dispel it, cannot be cured other- 
 wise than by burning, by which it immediately 
 evaporates; and that this is evident by the 
 present ceasing of the pain upon the second, 
 third, or fourth application of the Moxa, 
 which are performed in a few minutes' time. 
 And the author affirms it happens often there 
 that upon the last burning, an extreme stench 
 comes out of the skin where the fire had 
 opened it. 
 
 Whatever the reasonings were, which yet 
 seemed ingenious enough ; the experiments 
 alleged with so much confidence, and to be 
 so general in those parts, and told by an 
 author that writ like a plain man, and one 
 whose profession was to tell truth, helped me 
 to resolve upon making the trial. I was 
 confirmed in this resolution by a German 
 physician. Doctor Theodore Coledy, who was 
 then in my family, a sober and intelligent 
 man, whom I dispatched immediately to 
 Utrecht, to bring me some of the Moxa, and 
 learn the exact method of using it, from the 
 83
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 man that sold it, who was son to the Minister 
 of Batavia. He returned with all that be- 
 longed to this cure, having performed the 
 whole operation upon his hand by the man's 
 direction. I immediately made the experi- 
 ment in the manner before related, setting the 
 Moxa just upon the place where the first 
 violence of my pain began, which was the joint 
 of the great toe, and where the greatest anger 
 and soreness still continued, notwithstanding 
 the swelling of my foot, so that I had never 
 yet, in five days, been able to stir it, but as 
 it was lifted. 
 
 Upon the first burning, I found the skin 
 shrink all round the place; and whether the 
 greater pain of the fire had taken away the 
 sense 'of a smaller or no, I could not tell; but 
 I thought it less than it was: I burnt it the 
 second time, and upon it observed the skin 
 about it to shrink, and the swelling to flat yet 
 more than at first. I began to move my toe, 
 which I had not done before ; but I found 
 some remainders of pain. I burnt it the third 
 time, and observed still the same effects with- 
 out, but a much greater within, for I stirred 
 the joint several times at ease; and, growing 
 bolder, I set my foot to the ground without 
 any pain at all. After this, I pursued the 
 method prescribed by the book, and the 
 author's son at Utrecht, and had a bruised 
 clove of garlic laid to the place that was burnt, 
 and covered with a large plaster of diapalma, 
 to keep it fixed there ; and when this was 
 done, feeling no more pain, and treading still 
 84
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 bolder and firmer upon it, I cut a slipper to 
 let in my foot, swelled as it was, and walked 
 half a dozen turns about the room, without 
 any pain or trouble, and much to the surprise 
 of those that were about me, as well as to my 
 own. For, though I had reasoned myself 
 beforehand into an opinion of the thing, yet 
 I could not expect such an effect as I found, 
 which seldom reaches to the degree that is 
 promised by the prescribers of any remedies, 
 whereas this went beyond it, having been 
 applied so late, and the prescription reaching 
 only to the first attack of the pain, and before 
 the part begins to swell. 
 
 For the pain of the burning itself, the first 
 time it is sharp, so that a man may be allowed 
 to complain; I resolved I would not, but that 
 I would count to a certain number, as the best 
 measure how long it lasted. I told sixscore 
 and four, as fast as I could; and when the fire 
 of the Moxa was out, all pain of burning was 
 over. The second time was not near so sharp 
 as the first, and the third a great deal less than 
 the second. The wound was not raw, as I 
 expected, but looked only scorched and black; 
 and I had rather endure the whole trouble of 
 the operation, than half a quarter of an hour's 
 pain in the degree I felt it the first whole 
 night. 
 
 After four and twenty hours, I had it 
 opened, and found a great blister drawn by 
 the garlic, which I used no more, but had the 
 blister cut, which ran a good deal of water, 
 but filled again by the next night; and this 
 85
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 contlnueJ for three days, with only a plaster 
 of diapalma upon it ; after which time the 
 blister dried up, and left a sore about as big 
 as a two-pence, which healed and went away 
 in about a week's time longer; but I continued 
 to walk every day, and without the least return 
 of pain, the swelling still growing less, though 
 it were near six weeks before it was wholly 
 gone. I favoured it all this while more than 
 I needed, upon the common opinion that 
 walking too much might draw down the 
 humour; which I have since had reason to 
 conclude a great mistake, and that, if I had 
 walked as much as I could from the first day 
 the pain left me, the swelling might have left 
 me too in a much less time. 
 
 The talk of this cure ran about the Hague, 
 and made the conversation in other places, as 
 well as in the visits I received while I kept my 
 chamber, which was about a fortnight after the 
 burning. Monsieur Zulichem came to me 
 among the rest of the good company of the 
 town, and much pleased with my success, as 
 well from his own great humanity and par- 
 ticular kindness to me, as from the part he 
 had in being the first prescriber of my cure, 
 and from the opinion it gave him of a common 
 good fortune befallen all that felt or were in 
 danger of the gout. 
 
 Among others he told it to, Monsieur Serin- 
 champs was one, an Envoy of the Duke of 
 Lorrain's, then in town; a person very much 
 and very deservedly esteemed among all the 
 good company in town, and to whom every 
 86
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 body was kind upon the score of his own good 
 humour, or his master's ill fortunes: he had 
 been long subject to the gout, and with con- 
 stant returns of long and violent fits two or 
 three times in a year. He was a man frank 
 and generous, and loved to enjoy health whilst 
 he had it, without making too much reflexion 
 upon what was to follow; and so, when he 
 was well, denied himself nothing of what he 
 had a mind to eat or drink; which gave him a 
 body full of humours, and made his fits of the 
 gout as frequent and violent as most I have 
 known: when they came, he bore them as he 
 could, and forgot them as soon as they were 
 past, till a new remembrance. At this time 
 he lay ill of a cruel fit, which was fallen upon 
 his knee, and with extreme pain: when he 
 heard of my cure, he sent to me first for the 
 relation of it; and upon it, for my Moxa, 
 and for Coleby to apply it. He suffered it; 
 but after his pleasant way roared out, and 
 swore at me all the while it was burning, and 
 asked if I took him for a sorcerer, that I sent 
 to burn him alive? yet, with all this, the pain 
 went away upon it, and returned no more to 
 the same place; but he was something dis- 
 couraged by a new pain falling some days after 
 upon his elbow on the other side, which gave 
 him a new fit, though gentler and shorter than 
 they used to be. 
 
 About the same time one of the maids of 
 
 my house was grown almost desperate with 
 
 the toothache, and want of sleep upon it, and 
 
 was without remedy. The book gives the 
 
 87
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 same cure for certain in that illness, by burn- 
 ing upon the great vein under the ear; and 
 the man who sold it at Utrecht had assured 
 Coleby he had seen many cures by it in that 
 kind. We resolved to try ; which was done, 
 and the pain immediately taken away, and the 
 wench perfectly well, without hearing of it any 
 more, at least while she was in my house. 
 
 Thus passed the first experiment ; upon 
 which Monsieur Zulichem, giving an account 
 of it to some of his friends at Gresham College, 
 came to me before I left the Hague, formally 
 to desire me from them, and from himself, 
 that I would give a relation of it that might 
 be made public, as a thing which might prove 
 in appearance of common utility to so great 
 numbers as were subject to that disease; and 
 told me, that some of Gresham College had 
 already given order for translating into English 
 the little Batavian treatise. I commended the 
 care of publishing it among us, and thereby 
 inviting others to an experiment I had reason 
 to approve ; but excused myself from any 
 relation of my own, as having too much busi- 
 ness at that time, and at all times caring little 
 to appear in public. I had another reason to 
 decline it, that ever used to go far with me 
 upon all new inventions or experiments, which 
 is, that the best trial of them is by time, and 
 observing whether they live or no ; and that 
 one or two trials can pretend to make no rule, 
 no more than one swallow a summer; and so 
 before I told my story to more than my friends, 
 I had a mind to make more trials myself, or 
 88
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 see them made by other people as wise as I 
 had been. 
 
 During the confinement of this fit, I fell 
 into some methods, and into much discourse 
 upon the subject of the gout, that may be 
 perhaps as well worth reflexion by such as 
 feel or apprehend it, as what I have told of 
 this Indian cure. In the first place, from the 
 day I kept my chamber, till I left it, and began 
 to walk abroad, I restrained myself to so 
 regular a diet, as, to eat flesh but once a day, 
 and little at a time, without salt or vinegar; 
 and to one moderate draught, either of water 
 or small ale. I concluded to trust to abstinence 
 and exercise, as I had ever resolved, if I fell 
 into this disease; and if it continued, to con- 
 fine myself wholly to the milk diet, of which 
 I had met with very many and great examples, 
 and had a great opinion even in long and in- 
 veterate gouts. Besides this refuge, I met 
 with, in my visits and conversation arising 
 upon my illness, many notions or medicines 
 very new to me, and reflexions that may be 
 so perhaps to other men. Old Prince Maurice 
 of Nassau told me, he laughed at the gout, and 
 though he had been several times attacked, yet 
 it never gave him care nor trouble. That he 
 used but one remedy, which was, whenever he 
 felt it, to boil a good quantity of horse-dung 
 from a stone-horse of the hermelinne colour, 
 as he called it in French, which is a native 
 white, with a sort of a raw nose, and the same 
 commonly about the eyes: that, when this was 
 well boiled in water, he set his leg in a pail- 
 89
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 ful of It, as hot as he could well endure it, re- 
 newing it as it grew cool for above an hour 
 together: that, after it, he drew his leg im- 
 mediately into a warm bed, to continue the 
 perspiration as long as he could, and never 
 failed of being cured. Whether the remedy 
 be good, or the circumstances of colour signify 
 any thing more, than to make more mystery, 
 I know not; but I observed that he ever had 
 a set of such hermelinne horses in his coach, 
 which he told me was on purpose that he 
 might never want this remedy. 
 
 The Count Kinski, Ambassador from the 
 Emperor to the treaty at Nimeguen, gave me 
 a receipt of the salt of hartshorn, by which 
 a famous Italian physician of the Emperor's 
 had performed mighty cures upon many others 
 as well as himself, and the last year upon the 
 Count Montecuculi: the use of this I am apt 
 to esteem, both from the quality given it of 
 provoking sweat extremely, and of taking away 
 all sharpness from whatever you put it in; 
 which must both be of good effect in the cure 
 of the gout. 
 
 The Rhyngrave, who was killed last summer 
 before Maestricht, told me his father the old 
 Rhyngrave, whom I knew very well, had been 
 long subject to the gout, and never used other 
 method or remedy, than, upon the very first fit 
 he felt, to go out immediately and walk, what- 
 ever the weather was, and as long as he was 
 able to stand, and pressing still most upon the 
 foot that threatened him; when he came home 
 he went to a warm bed, and was rubbed very 
 90
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 well, and chiefly upon the place where the 
 pain began. If it continued, or returned next 
 day, he repeated the same course, and was 
 never laid up with it ; and before his death 
 recommended this course to his son, if he 
 should ever fall into that accident. 
 
 A Dutchman, who had been long in the 
 East Indies, told me, in one part of them, 
 where he had lived some time, the general 
 remedy of all that were subject to the gout 
 was rubbing with hands ; and that whoever 
 had slaves enough to do that constantly every 
 day, and relieve one another by turns, till 
 the motion raised a violent heat about the 
 joints where it was chiefly used, was never 
 troubled much, or laid up by that disease. 
 
 My youngest brother told me he had a 
 keeper very subject to it, but that it never 
 laid him up, but he was still walking after 
 his deer, or his stud, while he had the fits 
 upon him as at other times, and often from 
 morning to night, though in pain all the 
 while. This he gave me as one instance, 
 that poor and toiling men have sometimes 
 the gout, and that many more may have it, 
 who take no more notice of it than his keeper 
 did; who yet he confessed used to bring the 
 fits of gout upon him, by fits of drinking, which 
 no doubt is a receipt that will hardly fail, if 
 men grow old in the custom. 
 
 Monsieur Serinchamps told me, a Lorrain 
 
 surgeon had undertaken to cure it by a more 
 
 extraordinary way than any of these, which 
 
 was by whipping the naked part with a great 
 
 91
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 rod of nettles till it grew all over blistered; 
 and that he had once persuaded him to per- 
 form this penance In a sharp fit he had, and 
 the pain In his knee so violent, as helped him 
 to endure this remedy. He said It v\^as cruel; 
 that all where he was whipped grew so angry, 
 and swelled as well as blistered, that he 
 thought It had given him a fever that night. 
 The next morning the part was all as stiff as 
 a boot, and the skin like parchment; but that, 
 keeping It anointed with a certain oil likewise 
 of nettles, It passed In two days, and the 
 gout too, without feeling any more pain that 
 fit. 
 
 All these things put together, with what 
 a great physician writes of cures by whipping 
 with rods, and another with holly, and by 
 other cruelties of cutting or burning, made 
 me certainly conclude, that the gout was a 
 companion that ought to be treated like an 
 enemy, and by no means like a friend, and 
 that grew troublesome chiefly by good usage ; 
 and this was confirmed to me by considering 
 that it haunted usually the easy and the rich, 
 the nice and the lazy, who grow to endure 
 much, because they can endure little : that 
 make much of it as soon as it comes, and 
 yet leave not making much of themselves too: 
 that take care to carry it presently to bed, and 
 keep it safe and warm, and indeed lay up the 
 gout for two or three months, while they give 
 out that the gout lays up them. On the 
 other side, it hardly approaches the rough 
 and the poor, such as labour for meat, and 
 92
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 eat only for hunger; that drink water, either 
 pure, or but discoloured with malt; that know 
 no use of wine, but for a cordial, as it is, and 
 perhaps was only intended : or if such men 
 happen by their native constitutions to fall 
 into the gout, either they mind it not at all, 
 having no leisure to be sick ; or they use it 
 like a dog, they walk on, or they toil and work 
 as they did before; they keep it wet and cold; 
 or if they are laid up, they are perhaps forced 
 by that to fast more than before, and if it lasts, 
 they grow impatient, and fall to beat it, or 
 whip it, or cut it, or burn it ; and all this 
 while perhaps never know the very name of 
 the gout. 
 
 But to follow my experiment: I passed that 
 summer here at Nimeguen, without the least 
 remembrance of what had happened to me 
 in the spring, till about the end of September, 
 and then began to feel a pain that I knew not 
 what to make of, in the same joint, but of my 
 other foot: I had flattered myself with hopes 
 that the vapour had been exhaled, as my 
 learned authors had taught me, and that there- 
 by the business had been ended ; this made 
 me neglect my Moxa for two days, the pain not 
 being violent, till at last my foot began to 
 swell, and I could set it no longer to the 
 ground. Then I fell to my Moxa again, and 
 burnt it four times before the pain went clear 
 away, as it did upon the last, and I walked at 
 ease, as I had done the first time, and within 
 six days after above a league, without the least 
 return of any pain. 
 
 93
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 I continued well till this spring, when 
 about the end of March, feeling again the same 
 pain, and in the same joint, but of the first 
 foot; and finding it grow violent, I immedi- 
 ately burnt it, and felt no more after the third 
 time; was never ofi^" my legs, nor kept my 
 chamber a day. Upon both these last experi- 
 ments I omitted the application of garlic, 
 and contented myself with a plaster only of 
 diapalma, upon the place that was burnt, 
 which crusted and healed in very few days, 
 and without any trouble. I have since con- 
 tinued perfectly well to this present June; 
 and with so much confidence of the cure, 
 that I have been content to trouble myself 
 some hours with telling the story, which, 
 'tis possible, may at one time or other be 
 thought worth making public, if I am further 
 confirmed by more time and experiments of 
 my own, or of others. And thereby I may 
 not only satisfy Monsieur Zulichem, but my- 
 self too, who should be sorry to omit any good 
 I thought I could do to other men, though 
 never so unknown. 
 
 But this cure, I suppose, cannot pretend to 
 deal with inveterate gouts, grown habitual by 
 long and frequent returns, by dispositions of the 
 stomach to convert even the best nourishment 
 into those humours, and the vessels to receive 
 them. For such constitutions, by all I have 
 discovered or considered upon this subject, 
 the remedies '(if any) are to be proposed either 
 from a constant course of the milken diet, con- 
 tinued at least for a year together; or else from 
 94
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 some of those methods commonly used in the 
 cure of a worse disease (if at least I may be bold 
 with one that is so much in vogue); the usual 
 exceptions to the first are not only so long 
 a constraint but the weakness of spirits whilst 
 it continues, and the danger of fevers whenever 
 it is left off. There may, I believe, be some 
 care necessary in this last point, upon so great 
 a change ; but for the other, I have met with 
 no complaints among those that have used it; 
 and Count Egmont, who has done so, more, 
 I believe, than any other man, has told me 
 he never found himself in so much vigour, 
 as in the midst of that course. I have known 
 so many great examples of this cure, and heard 
 of its being so familiar in Austria, that I 
 wonder it has gained no more ground in other 
 places, and am apt to conclude from it, that 
 the loss of pain is generally thought to be 
 purchased too dear by the loss of pleasure. 
 
 For the other, I met with a physician, whom 
 I esteemed a man of truth, that told me of 
 several great cures of the gout, by a course 
 of guiacum, and of two patients of his own 
 that had gone so far as to be fluxed for it, and 
 with success. And indeed there seems nothing 
 so proper, as what pretends to change the 
 whole mass of the blood, or else a long course 
 of violent perspiration. But the mischief is, 
 that the gout is commonly the disease of aged 
 men, who cannot go through with these strong 
 remedies, which young men play with upon 
 other occasions ; and the reason, I suppose, 
 why these ways are so little practised, is be- 
 95
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 cause it happens so seldom that young men 
 have the gout. 
 
 Let the disease be new or old, and the 
 remedies either of common or foreign growth, 
 there is one ingredient of absolute necessity 
 in all cases: for whoever thinks of curing the 
 gout, without great temperance, had better 
 resolve to endure it with patience : and I 
 know not whether some desperate degrees of 
 abstinence would not have the same effect 
 upon other men, as they had upon Atticus, 
 who, weary of his life as well as his physicians, 
 by long and cruel pains of a dropsical gout, 
 and despairing of any cure, resolved by degrees 
 to starve himself to death; and went so far, 
 that the physicians found he had ended his 
 disease instead of his life; and told him, that 
 to be well, there would need nothing but 
 only resolve to live. His answer was noble; 
 that since dying was a thing to be done, and 
 he was now so far on his way, he did not 
 think it worth the while to return. This was 
 said and done, and could indeed have been so 
 by none but such a man as Atticus, who was 
 singular in his life, as well as his death, and 
 has been ever, I confess, by me as much 
 esteemed in both, as any of those that have 
 made greater figures upon the busy scenes of 
 their own times, and since in records of story 
 and of fame. 
 
 But perhaps some such methods might suc- 
 ceed with others upon the designs to live, as 
 they did with him upon those to die ; and 
 though such degrees may be too desperate, 
 96
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 yet none of temperance can, I think, be too 
 great for those that pretend the cure of in- 
 veterate gouts, or indeed of most other dis- 
 eases to which mankind is exposed, rather by 
 the viciousness, than by the frailty, of their 
 natures. Temperance, that virtue without 
 pride, and fortune without envy, that gives 
 indolence of body, and tranquillity of mind; 
 the best guardian of youth, and support of 
 old age ; the precept of reason, as well as 
 religion ; and physician of the soul, as well 
 as the body ; the tutelar Goddess of health, 
 and universal medicine of life, that clears the 
 head and cleanses the blood, that eases the 
 stomach and purges the bowels, that strengthens 
 the nerves, enlightens the eyes, and comforts 
 the heart: in a word, that secures and perfects 
 the digestion, and thereby avoids the fumes and 
 winds to which we owe the colic and the 
 spleen; those crudities and sharp humours that 
 feed the scurvy and the gout, and those slimy 
 dregs, out of which the gravel and stone are 
 formed within us — diseases by which we 
 often condemn ourselves to greater torments 
 and miseries of life, than have perhaps been 
 yet invented by anger or revenge, or inflicted 
 by the greatest tyrants upon the worst of 
 men. 
 
 I do not allow the pretence of temperance to 
 all such as are seldom or never drunk, or fall 
 into surfeits; for men may lose their health 
 without losing their senses, and be intemperate 
 every day without being drunk perliaps once 
 in their lives: nay, for ought I know, if a man 
 ( c 217 ) 97 7
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 should pass the month in a college-diet, without 
 excess or variety of meats or of drinks, but only 
 the last day give a loose in them both, and so 
 far till it comes to serve him for physic rather 
 than food, and he utter his stomach as well as 
 his heart ; he may perhaps, as to the mere 
 considerations of health, do much better than 
 another that eats every day, but as men do 
 generally in England, who pretend to live well 
 in Court or in town ; that is, in plenty and 
 luxury, with great variety of meats, and a dozen 
 glasses of wine at a meal, still spurring up ap- 
 petite when it would lie down of itself; flushed 
 every day, but never drunk; and, with the help 
 of dozing three hours after dinner, as sober and 
 wise as they were before. 
 
 But that which I call temperance, and reckon 
 so necessary in all attempts and methods of 
 curing the gout, is a regular and simple diet, 
 limited by every man's experience of his own 
 easy digestion, and thereby proportioning, as 
 near as well can be, the daily repairs to the daily 
 decays of our wasting bodies. Nor can this 
 be determined by measures and weights, or any 
 general Lessian rules; but must vary with the 
 vigour or decays of age, or of health, and the use 
 or disuse of air, or of exercise, with the changes 
 of appetite ; and thereby what every man 
 may find or suspect of the present strength or 
 weakness of digestion : and in case of excesses, 
 I take the German proverbial cure, by a hair of 
 the same beast, to be the worst in the world; 
 and the best to be that which is called the 
 monk's diet, to eat till you are sick, and fast till 
 98
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 you are well again. In all courses of the gout, 
 the most effectual point I take to be abstinence 
 from wine, further than as a cordial, where 
 faintness or want of spirits require it: and the 
 use of water where the stomach will bear it, 
 as I believe most men's will, and with great 
 advantage of digestion, unless they are spoiled 
 with long and constant use of wines or other 
 strong drinks. In that case they must be 
 weaned, and the habit changed by degrees, and 
 with time, for fear of falling into consump- 
 tions, instead of recovering dropsies or gouts. 
 But the wines used by those that feel or fear 
 this disease, or pursue the cure, should rather 
 be Spanish or Portugal, than either French 
 or Rhenish ; and of the French, rather the 
 Provence or Languedoc, than the Bourdeaux 
 or Campagne ; and of the Rhenish, the Rhin- 
 gaw and Bleker, of which at least it may be 
 said that they do not so much harm as the 
 others. 
 
 But I have known so great cures, and so 
 many, done by obstinate resolutions of drink- 
 ing no wine at all, that I put more weight 
 upon the part of temperance, than any other. 
 And I doubt very much whether the great 
 increase of that disease in England, within 
 these twenty years, may not have been occa- 
 sioned by the custom of so much wine intro- 
 duced into our constant and common tables: 
 for this use may be more pernicious to health, 
 than that of taverns and debauches, according 
 to the old style, which were but by fits, and 
 upon set or casual encounters. I have some- 
 99
 
 AN ESSAY UPON THE 
 
 times thought that this custom of using wine, 
 of our common drinic, may alter in time the 
 very constitution of our nation, I mean the 
 native tempers of our bodies and minds, 
 and cause a heat and sharpness in our 
 humours, which is not natural to our cli- 
 mate. Our having been denied it by nature, 
 is argument enough that it was never in- 
 tended us for common use ; nor do I believe 
 it was in any other countries, there being 
 so small a part of the world where it grows; 
 and where it does, the use of it pure being 
 so little practised, and in some places defended 
 by customs or laws. So the Turks have not 
 known it, unless of late years; and I have 
 met with many Spaniards, that never tasted it 
 pure in their lives; nor, in the time when I 
 was in France, did I observe any I conversed 
 with to drink it unmixed at meals. The true 
 use of wine is either as I mentioned, for a 
 cordial ; and I believe there is not a better 
 to such as drink it seldom : or else what 
 the mother of Lemuel tells her son, " Give 
 strong drink to him that is ready to perish, 
 and wine to those that are heavy of heart ; 
 let him drink and forget his poverty, and 
 remember his misery no more". At least it 
 ought to be reserved for the times and occa- 
 sions of feast and of joy, and be treated like 
 a mistress rather than a wife, without aban- 
 doning either our wits to our humours, or our 
 healths to our pleasure, or that of one sense 
 to those of all the rest, which I doubt it 
 impairs. This philosophy, I suppose, may 
 
 lOO
 
 CURE OF THE GOUT 
 
 pass with the youngest and most sensual 
 men, while they pretend to be reasonable ; 
 but, whenever they have a mind to be other- 
 wise, the best way they can take is to drink 
 or to sleep, and either of them will serve the 
 turn.
 
 of Health and Long Life 
 
 I can truly say that, of all the paper I have 
 blotted, which has been a great deal in my 
 time, I have never written any thing for the 
 public without the intention of some public 
 good. Whether I have succeeded, or no, is 
 not my part to judge ; and others, in what 
 they tell me, may deceive either me or them- 
 selves. Good intentions are at least the seed 
 of good actions ; and every man ought to sow 
 them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons 
 whether they come up or no, and whether he 
 or any other gather the fruit. 
 
 I have chosen those subjects of these essays, 
 wherein I take human life to be most con- 
 cerned, and which are of most common use, 
 or most necessary knowledge ; and wherein, 
 though I may not be able to inform men more 
 than they know, yet I may perhaps give them 
 the occasion to consider more than they do. 
 
 This is a sort of instruction that no man 
 can dislike, since it comes from himself, and is 
 made without envy or fear, constraint or obli- 
 gation, which make us commonly dislike what 
 103
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 is taught us by others. All men would be 
 glad to be their own masters, and should not 
 be sorry to be their own scholars, when they 
 pay no more for their learning than their own 
 thoughts, which they have commonly more 
 store of about them than they know what to 
 do with, and which, if they do not apply to 
 something of good use, nor employ about 
 something of ill, they will trifle away upon 
 something vain or impertinent: their thoughts 
 will be but waking dreams, as their dreams are 
 sleeping thoughts. Yet, of all sorts of instruc- 
 tions, the best is gained from our own thoughts 
 as well as experience : for, though a man may 
 grow learned by other men's thoughts, yet he 
 will grow wise or happy only by his own ; the 
 use of other men's towards these ends is but to 
 serve for one's own reflexions; otherwise they 
 are but like meat swallowed down for pleasure 
 or greediness, which only charges the stomach, 
 or fumes into the brain, if it be not well 
 digested, and thereby turned into the very 
 mass or substance of the body that re- 
 ceives it. 
 
 Some writers, in casting up the goods most 
 desirable in life, have given them this rank: 
 health, beauty, and riches. Of the first I find 
 no dispute, but to the two others much may be 
 said : for beauty is a good that makes others 
 happy rather than one's self; and, how riches 
 should claim so high a rank, I cannot tell, when 
 so great, so wise, and so good a part of man- 
 kind have in all ages preferred poverty before 
 them. The Therapeuts and Ebionites among 
 104
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 the Jews, the primitive monks and modern 
 friars among Christians, so many Dervishes 
 among the Mahometans, the Brachmans among 
 the Indians, and all the ancient philosophers; 
 who, whatever else they differed in, agreed in 
 this of despising riches, and at best esteeming 
 them an unnecessary trouble or incumbrance 
 of life: so that whether they are to be reckoned 
 among goods or evils is yet left in doubt. 
 
 When I was young and in some idle com- 
 pany, it was proposed that every one should 
 tell what their three wishes should be, if they 
 were sure to be granted; some were very plea- 
 sant, and some very extravagant ; mine were 
 health, and peace, and fair weather ; which, 
 though out of the way among young men, yet 
 perhaps might pass well enough among old : 
 they are all of a strain, for health in the body 
 is like peace in the State and serenity in the 
 air: the sun, in our climate at least, has some- 
 thing so reviving, that a fair day is a kind of 
 sensual pleasure, and of all others the most 
 innocent. 
 
 Peace is a public blessing, without which no 
 man is safe in his fortunes, his liberty, or his 
 life: neither innocence nor laws are a guard of 
 defence; no possessions are enjoyed but in 
 danger or fear, which equally lose the pleasure 
 and ease of all that fortune can give us. 
 Health is the soul that animates all enjoyments 
 of life, which fade and are tasteless, if not dead, 
 without it : a man starves at the best and the 
 greatest tables, makes faces at the noblest and 
 most delicate wines, is old and impotent in 
 105
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 seraglios of the most sparkling beauties, poor 
 and wretched in the midst of the greatest 
 treasures and fortunes : with common diseases 
 strength grows decrepit, youth loses all vigour, 
 and beauty all charms; music grows harsh, and 
 conversation disagreeable ; palaces are prisons, 
 or of equal confinement ; riches are useless, 
 honour and attendance are cumbersome, and 
 crowns themselves are a burden : but, if dis- 
 eases are painful and violent, they equal all con- 
 ditions of life, make no difference between a 
 Prince and a beggar ; and a fit of the stone or 
 the colic puts a King to the rack, and makes 
 him as miserable as he can do the meanest, 
 the worst and most criminal of his sub- 
 jects. 
 
 To know that the passions or distempers 
 of the mind make our lives unhappy, in spite 
 of all accidents and favours of fortune, a man 
 perhaps must be a philosopher ; and requires 
 much thought, and study, and deep reflexions. 
 To be a Stoic, and grow insensible of pain, 
 as well as poverty or disgrace, one must be 
 perhaps something more or less than a man, 
 renounce common nature, oppose common 
 truth and constant experience. But there 
 needs little learning or study, more than 
 common thought and observation, to find 
 out that ill health loses not only the enjoy- 
 ments of fortune, but the pleasures of sense, 
 and even of imagination, and hinders the 
 common operations both of body and mind 
 from being easy and free. Let philosophers 
 reason and differ about the chief good or happi- 
 io6
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 ness of man ; let them find it where they can, 
 and place it where they please; but there is no 
 mistake so gross, or opinion so impertinent 
 (how common soever) as to think pleasures 
 arise from what is without us, rather than from 
 what is within ; from the impression given us 
 of objects, rather than from the disposition of 
 the organs that receive them. The various 
 effects of the same objects upon different 
 persons, or upon the same persons at different 
 times, make the contrary most evident. Some 
 distempers make things look yellow, others 
 double what we see; the commonest alter our 
 tastes and our smells, and the very foulness of 
 ears changes sounds. The difference of tem- 
 pers, as well as of age, may have the same 
 effect, by the many degrees of perfection or 
 imperfection in our original tempers, as well as 
 of strength or decay, from the differences of 
 health and of years. From all which 'tis easy, 
 without being a great naturalist, to conclude 
 that our perceptions are formed, and our 
 imaginations raised upon them, in a very 
 great measure, by the dispositions of the 
 organs through which the several objects 
 make their impressions ; and that these vary 
 according to the different frame and temper of 
 the others; as the sound of the same breath 
 passing through an oaten pipe, a flute, or a 
 trumpet. 
 
 But to leave philosophy, and return to health. 
 Whatever is true in point of happiness depend- 
 ing upon the temper of the mind, 'tis certain 
 that pleasures depend upon the temper of the 
 107
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 body; and that, to enjoy them, a man must be 
 well himself, as the vessel must be sound to 
 have your wine sweet; for otherwise, let it be 
 never so pleasant and so generous, it loses the 
 taste; and pour in never so much, it all turns 
 sour, and were better let alone. Whoever will 
 eat well, must have a stomach; who will relish 
 the pleasure of drinks, must have his mouth in 
 taste; who will enjoy a beautiful woman, must 
 be in vigour himself; nay, to find any felicity, 
 or take any pleasure in the greatest advantages 
 of honour and fortune, a man must be in health. 
 Who would not be covetous, and with reason, 
 if this could be purchased with gold ? who 
 not ambitious, if it were at the command of 
 power, or restored by honour? But alas! a 
 white staff will not help gouty feet to walk 
 better than a common cane ; nor a blue rib- 
 band bind up a wound so well as a fillet: the 
 glitter of gold or of diamonds will but hurt 
 sore eyes, instead of curing them ; and an 
 aching head will be no more eased by wear- 
 ing a crown than a common nightcap. 
 
 If health be such a blessing, and the very 
 source of all pleasure, it may be worth the 
 pains to discover the regions where it grows, 
 the springs that feed it, the customs and 
 methods by which it is best cultivated and 
 preserved. Towards this end, it will be neces- 
 sary to consider the examples or instances we 
 meet with of health and long life, which is 
 the consequence of it ; and to observe the 
 places, the customs, and the conditions of 
 those who enjoyed them in any degree ex- 
 io8
 
 OF HEALTH AND LOiNG LIFE 
 
 traordinary; from whence we may best guess 
 at the causes, and make the truest conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 Of what passed before the flood, we know 
 little from Scripture itself, besides the length 
 of their lives; so as I shall only observe upon 
 that period of time, that men are thought 
 neither to have eat flesh nor drunk wine be- 
 fore it ended : for to Noah first seems to have 
 been given the liberty of feeding upon living 
 creatures, and the prerogative of planting the 
 vine. Since that time we meet with little 
 mention of very long lives in any stories either 
 sacred or prophane, besides the Patriarchs of 
 the Hebrews, the Brachmans among the old 
 Indians, and the Brazilians at the time that 
 country was discovered by the Europeans. 
 Many of these were said then to have lived 
 two hundred, some three hundred years. The 
 same terms of life are attributed to the old 
 Brachmans ; and how long those of the 
 Patriarchs were is recorded in Scripture. 
 Upon all these I shall observe, that the 
 Patriarchs' abodes were not in cities, but in 
 open countries and fields : that their lives 
 were pastoral, or employed in some sorts of 
 agriculture : that they were of the same race, 
 to which their marriages were generally con- 
 fined : that their diet was simple, as that of 
 the ancients is generally represented, among 
 whom flesh or wine was seldom used but at 
 sacrifices or solemn feasts. The Brachmans 
 were all of the same races, lived in fields and 
 in woods, after the course of their studies were 
 109
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 ended, and fed only upon rice, milk, or herbs. 
 The Brazilians, when first discovered, lived the 
 most natural original lives of mankind, so fre- 
 quently described in ancient countries, before 
 laws, or property, or arts made entrance among 
 them ; and so their customs may be concluded 
 to have been yet more simple than either of the 
 other two. They lived without business or 
 labour, further than for their necessary food, by 
 gathering fruits, herbs, and plants: they knew 
 no drink but water; were not tempted to eat 
 nor drink beyond common thirst or appetite; 
 were not troubled with either public or do- 
 mestic cares, nor knew any pleasures but the 
 most simple and natural. 
 
 From all these examples and customs it may 
 probably be concluded, that the common ingredi- 
 ents of health and long life (where births are not 
 impaired from the conception by any derived 
 infirmities of the race they come from) are great 
 temperance, open air, easy labour, little care, 
 simplicity of diet, rather fruits and plants than 
 flesh, which easier corrupts ; and water, which 
 preserves the radical moisture, without too much 
 increasing the radical heat : whereas sickness, 
 decay, and death, proceed commonly from the 
 one preying too fast upon the other, and at 
 length wholly extinguishing it. 
 
 I have sometimes wondered, that the re- 
 gions of so much health and so long lives 
 were all under very hot climates; whereas the 
 more temperate are allowed to produce the 
 strongest and most vigorous bodies. But 
 weaker constitutions may last as long as the
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 strong, if better preserved from accidents ; so 
 Venice glass, as long as an earthen pitcher, if 
 carefully kept ; and, for one life that ends by 
 mere decay of nature or age, millions are inter- 
 cepted by accidents from without or diseases 
 within ; by untimely deaths or decays ; from 
 the effects of excess and luxury, immoderate 
 repletion or exercise; the preying of our minds 
 upon our bodies by long passions or consuming 
 cares, as well as those accidents which are 
 called violent. Men are perhaps most betrayed 
 to all these dangers by great strength and vig- 
 our of constitution, by more appetite and larger 
 fare in colder climates: in the warm, excesses 
 are found more pernicious to health, and so 
 more avoided ; and, if experience and reflexion 
 do not cause temperance among them, yet it 
 is forced upon them by the faintness of ap- 
 petite. I can find no better account of a story 
 Sir Francis Bacon tells, of a very old man, 
 whose customs and diet he inquired ; but he 
 said he observed none besides eating before 
 he was hungry and drinking before he was 
 dry ; for by that rule he was sure never to 
 eat nor drink much at a time. Besides, the 
 warmth of air keeps the pores open, and by 
 continual perspiration breathes out those 
 humours, which breed most diseases, if in 
 cooler climates it be not helped by exercise. 
 And this I take to be the reason of our 
 English constitutions finding so much benefit 
 by the air of Montpelier, especially in long 
 colds or consumptions, or rather lingering 
 diseases ; though I have known some who
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 attributed the restoring of their health there 
 as much to the fruits as the air of that place. 
 
 I know not whether there may be any thing 
 in the climate of Brazil more propitious to 
 health than in other countries : for, besides 
 what was observed among the natives upon 
 the first European discoveries, I remember 
 Don Francisco de Melo, a Portugal Ambas- 
 sador in England, told me, it was frequent 
 in his country for men spent with age or 
 other decays, so as they could not hope for 
 above a year or two of life, to ship them- 
 selves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their 
 arrival there to go on a great length, some- 
 times of twenty or thirty years, or more, by 
 the force of that vigour they recovered with 
 that remove. Whether such an effect might 
 grow from the air, or the fruits of that climate, 
 or by approaching nearer the sun, which is 
 the fountain of life and heat, when their 
 natural heat was so far decayed ; or whether 
 the piecing out of an old man's life were 
 worth the pains, I cannot tell : perhaps the 
 play is not worth the candle. 
 
 I do not remember, either in story or modern 
 observation, any examples of long life common 
 to any parts of Europe, which the temper 
 of the climate has probably made the scene 
 of luxury and excesses in diet. Greece and 
 Rome were of old celebrated, or rather de- 
 famed, for those customs, when they were not 
 known in Asia nor Afric; and how guilty our 
 colder climates are in this point, beyond the 
 warmer of Spain and Italy, is but too well 
 
 112
 
 I 
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 known. It is common among Spaniards of the 
 best quality, not to have tasted pure wine at 
 forty years old. 'Tis an honour to their laws, 
 that a man loses his testimony who can be 
 proved once to have been drunk ; and I never 
 was more pleased with any reply, than that of 
 a Spaniard, who, having been asked whether he 
 had a good dinner at a friend's house, said, 
 "Si, Senhor, a via sabrado"; "Yes, Sir, for there 
 was something left". The great trade in Italy, 
 and resort of strangers, especially of Germans, 
 has made the use of wine something more 
 frequent there, though not much among the 
 persons of rank, who are observed to live 
 longer at Rome and Madrid, than in any 
 other towns of Europe, where the qualities 
 of the air force them upon the greatest tem- 
 perance, as well as care and precaution. We 
 read of many Kings very long-lived in Spain; 
 one, I remember, that reigned above seventy 
 years. But Philip de Comines observes that 
 none in France had lived to threescore, from 
 Charlemain's time to that of Lewis XI, 
 whereas in England, from the Conquest to 
 the end of Queen Elizabeth (which is a much 
 shorter period of time) there have reigned five 
 Kings and one Queen, whereof two lived sixty- 
 five years, two sixty-eight, and two reached at 
 least the seventieth year of their age. I 
 wondered upon this subject when Monsieur 
 Pompone, French Ambassador in my time at the 
 Hague, a person of great worth and learning, 
 as well as observation, told me there, that in 
 his life he had never heard of any man in 
 (C217) 113 8
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 France that arrived at a hundred years ; and 
 I could imagine no reason for it, unless it 
 be that the excellence of their climate, sub- 
 ject neither to much cold nor heat, gave them 
 such a liveliness of temper and humour, as 
 disposed them to more pleasures of all kinds 
 than in any other countries. And, I doubt, 
 pleasures too long continued, or rather too 
 frequently repeated, may spend the spirits, 
 and thereby life too fast, to leave it very 
 long ; like blowing a fire too often, which 
 makes it indeed burn the better, but last the 
 less. For as pleasures perish themselves in 
 the using, like flowers that fade with gather- 
 ing, so 'tis neither natural nor safe to continue 
 them long, to renew them without appetite, or 
 ever to provoke them by arts or imagination 
 where nature does not call; who can best tell 
 us when and how much we need, or what is 
 good for us, if we were so wise as to consult 
 her. But a short life and a merry carries it, 
 and is without doubt better than a long with 
 sorrow or pain. 
 
 For the honour of our climate it has been 
 observed by ancient authors, that the Britons 
 were longer -lived than any other nation to 
 them known. And in modern times there 
 have been more and greater examples of this 
 kind than in any other countries of Europe. 
 The story of old Parr is too late to be for- 
 gotten by many now alive, who was brought 
 out of Derbyshire to the court in King 
 Charles I's time, and lived to a hundred 
 and fifty-three years old ; and might have, as 
 H4
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 was thought, gone further, if the change of 
 country air and diet for that of the town had 
 not carried him off, perhaps untimely at that 
 very age. The late Robert, Earl of Leicester, 
 who was a person of great learning and obser- 
 vation, as well as of truth, told me several 
 stories very extraordinary upon this subject; 
 one, of a Countess of Desmond, married out 
 of England in Edward IV's time, and who 
 lived far in King James's reign, and was 
 counted to have died some years above a 
 hundred and forty ; at which age she came 
 from Bristol to London to beg some relief 
 at Court, having long been very poor by the 
 ruin of that Irish family into which she was 
 married. 
 
 Another he told me was of a beggar at a 
 bookseller's shop, where he was some weeks 
 after the death of Prince Henry; and ob- 
 serving those that passed by, he was saying 
 to his company that never such a mourn- 
 ing had been seen in England : this beggar 
 said, no, never since the death of Prince 
 Arthur. My Lord Leicester, surprised, asked 
 what she meant, and whether she remembered 
 it : she said, very well : and upon his more 
 curious inquiry told him that her name was 
 Rainsford, of a good family in Oxfordshire : 
 that, when she was about twenty years old, 
 upon the falseness of a lover, she fell dis- 
 tracted ; how long she had been so, nor what 
 passed in that time, she knew not ; that, when 
 she was thought well enough to go abroad, she 
 was fain to beg for her living : that she was 
 "5
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 some time at this trade before she recovered 
 any memory of what she had been, or where 
 bred : that, when this memory returned, she 
 went down into her country, but hardly found 
 the memory of any of her friends she had left 
 there ; and so returned to a parish in South- 
 wark, where she had some small allowance 
 among other poor, and had been for many 
 years ; and once a week walked into the city, 
 and took what alms were given her. My Lord 
 Leicester told me, he sent to inquire at the 
 parish, and found their account agree with the 
 woman's : upon which he ordered her to call 
 at his house once a week, which she did for 
 some time; after which he heard no more of 
 her. This story raised some discourse upon a 
 remark of some in the company, that mad people 
 are apt to live long. They alleged examples of 
 their own knowledge: but the result was, that, 
 if it were true, it must proceed from the natural 
 vigour of their tempers, which disposed them 
 to passions so violent as ended in frenzies: and 
 from the great abstinence and hardships of diet 
 they are forced upon by the methods of their 
 cure, and severity of those who had them in 
 care ; no other drink but water being allowed 
 them, and very little meat. 
 
 The last story I shall mention from that 
 noble person, upon this subject, was of a 
 morrice-dance in Herefordshire; whereof, he 
 said, he had a pamphlet still in his library, 
 written by a very ingenious gentleman of that 
 county: and which gave an account how, such 
 a year of King James's reign, there went about 
 no
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 the country a set of morrice-dancers, composed 
 of ten men who danced, a maid Marian, and 
 a tabor and pipe: and how these twelve, one 
 with another, made up twelve hundred years. 
 'Tis not so much, that so many, in one small 
 county, should live to that age, as that they 
 should be in vigour and in humour to travel 
 and to dance. 
 
 I have, in my life, met with two of above 
 a hundred and twelve; whereof the woman had 
 passed her life in service ; and the man, in 
 common labour, till he grew old, and fell upon 
 the parish. But I met with one who had gone 
 a much greater length, which made me more 
 curious in my inquiries. 'Twas an old man 
 who begged usually at a lonely inn, upon the 
 road in Staffordshire; who told me, he was a 
 hundred and twenty-four years old: that he 
 had been a soldier in the Cales voyage, under 
 the Earl of Essex, of which he gave me a 
 sensible account. That, after his return, he fell 
 to labour in his own parish, which was about 
 a mile from the place where I met him. That 
 he continued to work till a hundred and twelve, 
 when he broke one of his ribs by a fall from 
 a cart, and, being thereby disabled, he fell to 
 beg. This agreeing with what the master of 
 the house told me, was reported and believed 
 by all his neighbours. I asked him what his 
 usual food was; he said, milk, bread, and 
 cheese, and flesh when it was given him. I 
 asked him what he used to drink; he said, "O 
 Sir, we have the best water in our parish that 
 is in all the neighbourhood " : whether he 
 117
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 never drank any thing else? he said, "Yes, if 
 any body gave it him, but not otherwise " : and 
 the host told me, he had got many a pound in 
 his house, but never spent one penny. I asked 
 if he had any neighbours as old as he; and he 
 told me, but one, v^^ho had been his fellow- 
 soldier at Cales, and was three years older; but 
 he had been most of his time in a good service, 
 and had something to live on now he was 
 old. 
 
 I have heard, and very credibly, of many in 
 my life, above an hundred years old, brought as 
 witnesses upon trials of titles, and bounds of 
 land: but I have observed most of them have 
 been of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, or Yorkshire, 
 and none above the rank of common farmers. 
 The oldest I ever knew any persons of quality, 
 or indeed any gentleman either at home or 
 abroad, was fourscore and twelve. This, added 
 to all the former recites or observations, either 
 of long-lived races or persons in any age or 
 country, makes it easy to conclude, that health 
 and long life are usually blessings of the poor, 
 not of the rich, and the fruits of temperance, 
 rather than of luxury and excess. And, in- 
 deed, if a rich man does not, in many things, 
 live like a poor, he will certainly be the worse 
 for his riches: if he does not use exercise, 
 which is but voluntary labour; if he does not 
 restrain appetite by choice, as the other does 
 by necessity. If he does not practise some- 
 times even abstinence and fasting, which is the 
 last extreme of want and poverty: if his cares 
 and his troubles increase with his riches, or 
 ii8
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 his passions with his pleasures; he will cer- 
 tainly impair in health, whilst he improves 
 his fortunes, and lose more than he gains by 
 the bargain; since health is the best of all 
 human possessions, and without which the 
 rest are not relished or kindly enjoyed. 
 
 It is observable in story, that the ancient 
 philosophers lived generally very long; which 
 may be attributed to their great temperance, 
 and their freedom from common passions, as 
 well as cares, of the world. But the friars, in 
 many orders, seem to equal them in all these, 
 and yet are not observed to live long; so as 
 some other reason may be assigned: I can give 
 none, unless it be the great and constant con- 
 finement of the last, and liberty of the others: 
 I mean not only that of their persons to their 
 cloisters (which is not universal among them), 
 but their condition of life, so tied to rules, 
 and so absolutely subject to their superiors' 
 commands, besides the very confinement of 
 their minds and thoughts to a certain compass 
 of notions, speculations, and opinions. The 
 philosophers took the greatest liberty that 
 could be; and allowed their thoughts, their 
 studies, and inventions, the most unconfined 
 range over the whole universe. They both 
 began and continued their profession and 
 condition of life at their own choice, as well 
 as their abodes: whereas among the friars, 
 though they may be voluntary at first, yet, 
 after their vows made, they grow necessary, 
 and thereby constrained. Now 'tis certain, 
 that as nothing damps or depresses the spirits 
 119
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 like great subjection or slavery, either of body 
 or mind; so nothing nourishes, revives, and 
 fortifies them like great liberty. Which may 
 possibly enter among other reasons, of what 
 has been observed about long life being found 
 more in England, than in others of our 
 neighbour countries. 
 
 Upon the general and particular surveys 
 already made, it may seem that the moun- 
 tainous or barren countries are usually the 
 scenes of health and long life: that they have 
 been found rather in the hills of Palestine and 
 Arcadia, than in the plains of Babylon or of 
 Thessaly: and among us in England, rather 
 upon the peak of Derbyshire, and the heaths 
 of Staffordshire, than the fertile soils of other 
 counties, that abound more in people and in 
 riches. Whether this proceeds from the air 
 being clearer of gross and damp exhalations, or 
 from the meaner condition, and thereby harder 
 fare, and more simple diet; or from the stronger 
 nourishment of those grains and roots which 
 grow in dry soils, I will not determine: but 
 think it is evident, from common experience, 
 that the natives and inhabitants of hilly and 
 barren countries have not only more health in 
 general, but also more vigour, than those of the 
 plains, or fertile soils; and usually exceed them 
 even in size and stature. So the largest bodies 
 of men that are found in these parts of Europe 
 are the Switzers, the Highlanders of Scotland, 
 and the northern Irish. I remember King 
 Charles the Second (a prince of much and 
 various knowledge, and curious observation).
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 upon this subject falling in discourse, asked 
 me, what could be the reason, that in moun- 
 tainous countries the men were commonly 
 larger, and yet the cattle of all sorts smaller, 
 than in others. I could think of none, unless 
 it were that, appetite being more in both, from 
 the air of such places, it happened that, by the 
 care of parents in the education of children, 
 these seldom wanted food of some sort or 
 other, enough to supply nature, and satisfy 
 appetite, during the age of their growth, which 
 must be the greater, by the sharpness of 
 hunger, and strength of digestion in drier airs: 
 for milk, roots, and oats abound in such 
 countries, though there may be scarcity of 
 other food or grain. But the cattle, from the 
 shortness of pasture and of fodder, have hardly 
 enough to feed in summer; and very often 
 want, in winter, even necessary food for 
 sustenance of life; many are starved, and the 
 rest stunted in their growth, which, after a 
 certain age, never advances. Whether this be 
 a good reason, or a better may be found, I 
 believe one part of it will not be contested 
 by any man that tries; which is, that the open 
 dry air of hilly countries gives more stomach 
 than that of plains and vallies, in which cities 
 are commonly built, for the convenience of 
 water, of trade, and the plenty of fruits and 
 grains produced by the earth, with much 
 greater increase and less labour, in softer than 
 in harder grounds. The faintness of appetite 
 in such places, especially in great cities, makes 
 the many endeavours to relieve and provoke it
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 by art, where nature fails: and this is one great 
 ground of luxury, and so many, and various, 
 and extravagant inventions to heighten and 
 improve it: which may serve perhaps for some 
 refinement in pleasure; but not at all for any 
 advantages of health or of life: on the contrary, 
 all the great cities, celebrated most by the con- 
 course of mankind, and by the inventions and 
 customs of the greatest and most delicate 
 luxury, are the scenes of the most frequent 
 and violent plagues, as well as other diseases. 
 Such are, in our age. Grand Cairo, Con- 
 stantinople, Naples, and Rome; though the 
 exact and constant care, in this last, helps 
 them commonly to escape better than others. 
 
 This introduces the use, and indeed the 
 necessity, of physic, in great towns and very 
 populous countries; which remoter and more 
 barren or desolate places are scarce acquainted 
 with. For, in the course of common life, a 
 man must either often exercise, or fast, or take 
 physic, or be sick; and the choice seems left to 
 ever)' one as he likes. The two first are the 
 best methods and means of preserving health: 
 the use of physic is for restoring it, and curing 
 those diseases which are generally caused by 
 the want or neglect of the others; but is 
 neither necessary, nor perhaps useful, for con- 
 firming health, or to the length of life, being 
 generally a force upon nature; though the end 
 of it seems to be rather assisting nature, than 
 opposing it in its course. 
 
 How ancient, how general the study or 
 profession of this science lias been in the world.
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 and how various the practice, may be worth a 
 little inquiry and observation, since it so nearly 
 concerns our healths and lives. Greece must 
 be allowed to have been the mother of this, as 
 much or more than of other sciences, most 
 whereof are transplanted thither from more 
 ancient and more eastern nations. But this 
 seems to have first risen there, and with good 
 reason: for Greece having been the first scene 
 of luxury we meet with in story, and having 
 thereby occasioned more diseases, seemed to 
 owe the world that justice of providing the 
 remedies. Among the more simple and 
 original customs and lives of other nations 
 it entered late, and was introduced by the 
 Grecians. In ancient Babylon, how great and 
 populous soever, no physicians were known, 
 nor other methods for the cure of diseases, 
 besides abstinence, patience, domestic care; 
 or, when these succeeded not, exposing the 
 patient in the market, to receive the instruc- 
 tion of any persons that passed by, and 
 pretended by experience or inquiries to have 
 learned any remedies for such an illness. The 
 Persian Emperors sent into Greece for the 
 physicians they needed, upon some extremity 
 at first, but afterwards kept them residing with 
 them. In old Rome they were long unknown; 
 and, after having entered there, and continued 
 for some time, they were all banished, and 
 returned not in many years, till their fondness 
 of all the Grecian arts and customs restored 
 this, and introduced all the rest, among them; 
 where they continued in use and esteem, 
 123
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 during the greatness of that empire. With 
 the rise and progress of the fierce northern 
 powers and arms, this, as well as all other 
 learning, was in a manner extinguished in 
 Europe. But, when the Saracen empire grew 
 to such a height in the more eastern and 
 southern parts of the world, all arts and 
 sciences, following the traces of greatness 
 and security in States or governments, began 
 to flourish there, and this among the rest. 
 The Arabians seem to have first retrieved 
 and restored it in the Mahometan dominions; 
 and the Jews in Europe, who were long the 
 chief professors of it in the Gothic kingdoms, 
 having been always a nation very mercurial, 
 of great genius and application to all sorts of 
 learning after their dispersion; till they were 
 discouraged by the persecutions of their 
 religion and their persons, among most of 
 the Christian States. In the vast territories 
 of India there are few physicians, or little 
 esteemed, besides some European, or else of 
 the race either of Jews or Arabs. 
 
 Through these hands and places, this 
 science has passed with greatest honour and 
 applause: among others, it has been less used 
 or esteemed. 
 
 For the antiquity of it, and original in 
 Greece, we must have recourse to ^sculapius, 
 who lived in the age before the Trojan war, 
 and whose son Machaon is mentioned to have 
 assisted there; but, whether as a physician, 
 or a surgeon, I do not find: how simple the 
 beginnings of this art were may be observed 
 124
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 by the story, or tradition, of ^sculapius going 
 about the country with a dog and a she-goat 
 always following; both which he used much 
 in his cures; the first for licking all ulcerated 
 wounds, and the goat's milk for diseases of the 
 stomach and the lungs. We find little more 
 recorded of either his methods or medicines; 
 though he was so successful by his skill, or so 
 admired for the novelty of his profession, as to 
 have been honoured with statues, esteemed son 
 of Apollo, and worshipped as a god. 
 
 Whoever was accounted the god of physic, 
 the Prince of this science must be by all, I 
 think, allowed to have been Hippocrates. He 
 flourished in the time of the first renowned 
 philosophers of Greece (the chief of whom 
 was Democritus), and his writings are the 
 most ancient of any that remain to posterity: 
 for those of Democritus and others of that age 
 are all lost, though m.any were preserved till the 
 time of Antoninus Pius, and perhaps something 
 later; and 'tis probable were suppressed by the 
 pious zeal of some Fathers, under the first 
 Christian Emperor. Those of Hippocrates 
 escaped this fate of his age, by being esteemed 
 so useful to human life, as well as the most 
 excellent upon all subjects he treats. For he 
 was a great philosopher and naturalist, before 
 he began the study of physic, to which both 
 these are perhaps necessary. His rules and 
 methods continued in practice as well as 
 esteem, without any dispute, for many ages, 
 till the time of Galen: and I have heard a 
 great physician say, that his aphorisms are 
 1^5
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 still the most certain and uncontrolled of any 
 that science has produced. I will judge but 
 of one, which, in my opinion, has the greatest 
 race and height both of sense and judgment 
 that I have read in so few words, and the 
 best expressed: " Ars longa, vita brevis, ex- 
 perientia fallax, occasio praeceps, judicium dif- 
 ficile ". By which alone, if no more remained 
 of that admirable person, we may easily judge 
 how great a genius he was, and how perfectly 
 he understood both nature and art. 
 
 In the time of Adrian, Galen began to change 
 the practice and methods of physic, derived to 
 that age from Hippocrates; and those of his 
 new institution continue generally observed to 
 our time. Yet Paracelsus, about two hundred 
 years ago, endeavoured to overthrow the whole 
 scheme of Galen, and introduce a new one of 
 his own, as well as the use of chymical medi- 
 cines; and has not wanted his followers and 
 admirers ever since, who have, in some mea- 
 sure, compounded with the Galenists, and 
 brought a mixed use of chymical medicines 
 into the present practice. 
 
 Doctor Harvey gave the first credit, if not 
 rise, to the opinion about the circulation of 
 the blood, which was expected to bring in 
 great and general innovations into the whole 
 practice of physic, but has had no such effect. 
 Whether the opinion has not had the luck to 
 be so well believed as proved, sense and ex- 
 perience having not well agreed with reason 
 and speculation: or, whether the scheme has 
 not been pursued so far, as to draw it into 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 practice: or, whether it be too fine to be 
 capable of it, like some propositions in the 
 mathematics, how true and demonstrative so- 
 ever, I will not pretend to determine. 
 
 These great changes or revolutions in the 
 physical empire have given ground to many 
 attacks that have been made against it, upon 
 the score of its uncertainty, by several wise 
 and learned men, as well as by many ignorant 
 and malicious. Montaigne has written a great 
 deal, and very ingeniously, upon this point; 
 and some sharp Italians; and many physicians 
 are too free upon the subject, in the conver- 
 sation of their friends. But as the noble 
 Athenian inscription told Demetrius that he 
 was in so much a god, as he acknowledged 
 himself to be a man: so we may say of phy- 
 sicians, that they are the greater, in so much 
 as they know and confess the weakness of their 
 art. 'Tis certain, however, that the study of 
 physic is not achieved in any eminent degree, 
 without very great advancements in other 
 sciences: so that whatever the profession is, 
 the professors have been generally very much 
 esteemed upon that account, as well as of 
 their own art, as the most learned men of 
 their ages; and thereby shared with the two 
 other great professions in those advantages 
 most commonly valued, and most eagerly pur- 
 sued; whereof the divines seem to have had 
 the most honour, the lawyers the most money, 
 and the physicians the most learning. I have 
 known, in my time, at least five or six, that, 
 besides their general learning, were the greatest 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 wits in the compass of my conversation. And 
 whatever can be said of the uncertainty of 
 their art, or disagreement of its professors, 
 they may, I believe, confidently undertake 
 that when divines arrive at certainty in their 
 schemes of divinity; or lawyers in those of 
 law; or politicians in those of civil govern- 
 ment: the physicians will do it likewise in 
 the methods and practice of physic; and have 
 the honour of finding out the universal medi- 
 cine, at least as soon as the chymists shall the 
 philosopher's stone. 
 
 The great defects in this excellent science 
 seem to me chiefly to have proceeded from the 
 professors' application (especially since Galen's 
 time) running so much upon method, and so 
 little upon medicine; and in this to have ad- 
 dicted themselves so much to composition, 
 and neglected too much the use of simples, 
 as well as the inquiries and records of specific 
 remedies. 
 
 Upon this occasion, I have sometimes won- 
 dered why a registry has not been kept in the 
 colleges of physicians, of all such as have been 
 invented by any professors of every age, found 
 out by study or by chance, learned by inquiry, 
 and approved by their practice and experience. 
 This would supply the want of skill and study: 
 arts would be improved by the experience of 
 many ages, and derived by the succession of 
 ancestors. As many professions are tied to 
 certain races in several nations, so this of 
 physic has been in some; by which parents 
 were induced to the cares of improving and 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 augmenting their knowledge, as others do 
 their estates; because they were to descend 
 to their posterity, and not die with them- 
 selves, as learning does in vulgar hands. 
 How many methods as well as remedies are 
 lost, for want of this custom in the course of 
 ages! and which perhaps were of greater effect 
 and of more common benefit than those that, 
 succeeding in their places, have worn out the 
 memory of the former, either by chance or 
 negligence, or different humours of persons 
 and times. 
 
 Among the Romans there were four things 
 much in use, whereof some are so far out of 
 practice in ours, and other late ages, as to be 
 hardly known any more than by their names; 
 these were bathing, fumigation, friction, and 
 jactation. The first, though not wholly dis- 
 used among us, yet is turned out of the ser- 
 vice of health, to that of pleasure; but may be 
 of excellent effect in both. It not only opens 
 the pores, provokes sweat, and thereby allays 
 heat; supples the joints and sinews; unwearies 
 and refreshes more than any thing, after too 
 great labour and exercise; but is of great effect 
 in some acute pains, as of the stone and 
 cholic; and disposes to sleep, when many 
 other remedies fail. Nor is it improbable, 
 that all good effects of any natural baths may 
 be imitated by the artificial, if composed with 
 care and skill of able naturalists or physicians. 
 
 Fumigation, or the use of scents, is not, that 
 I know, at all practised in our modern physic, 
 nor the power and virtue of them considered 
 (C217) 129 9
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 among us: yet they may have as much to do 
 good, for aught I know, as to do harm, and 
 contribute to health as well as to diseases ; 
 which is too much felt by experience in all 
 that are infectious, and by the operations of 
 some poisons that are received only by the 
 smell. How reviving as well as pleasing some 
 scents of herbs or flowers are, is obvious to all: 
 how great virtues they may have in diseases, 
 especially of the head, is known to few, but 
 may be easily conjectured by any thinking 
 man. What is recorded of Democritus, is 
 worth remarking upon this subject: that being 
 spent with age, and just at the point of death; 
 and his sister bewailing that he should not live 
 till the feast of Ceres, which was to be kept 
 three or four days after; he called for loaves 
 of new bread to be brought him, and with the 
 steam of them under his nose prolonged his 
 life till the feast was past, and then died. 
 Whether a man may live some time, or how 
 long, by the steam of meat, I cannot tell: but 
 the justice was great, if not the truth, in that 
 story of a cook, who, observing a man to use it 
 often in his shop, and asking money because 
 he confessed to save his dinner by it, was ad- 
 judged to be paid by the chinking of his coin. 
 I remember that walking in a long gallery of 
 the Indian house at Amsterdam, where vast 
 quantities of mace, cloves, and nutmegs were 
 kept in great open chests ranged all along one 
 side of the room, I found something so reviv- 
 ing by the perfumed air, that I took notice of 
 it to the company with me, which was a great 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 deal, and they all were sensible of the same 
 effect. Which is enough to shew the power of 
 smells, and their operations both upon health 
 and humour. 
 
 Friction is of great and excellent use, and 
 of very general practice in the eastern coun- 
 tries, especially after their frequent bathings; 
 it opens the pores, and is the best way of all 
 forced perspiration; is very proper and effectual 
 in all swellings and pains of the joints, or 
 others in the flesh, which are not to be drawn 
 to a head and break. 'Tis a saying among the 
 Indians, that none can be much troubled with 
 the gout who have slaves enough to rub them; 
 and is the best natural account of some stories 
 I have heard of persons who were said to cure 
 several diseases by stroking. 
 
 Jactations were used for some amusement 
 and allay in great and constant pains, and to 
 relieve that intranquillity which attends most 
 diseases, and makes men often impatient of 
 lying still in their beds. Besides, they help 
 or occasion sleep, as we find by the common 
 use and experience of rocking froward children 
 in cradles, or dandling them in their nurses' 
 arms. I remember an old Prince Maurice of 
 Nassau, who had been accustomed to ham- 
 mocks in Brazil, and used them frequently all 
 his life after, upon the pains he suffered by the 
 stone or gout; and thought he found ease, and 
 was allured to sleep by the constant motion or 
 swinging of those airy beds, which was assisted 
 by a servant, if they moved too little by the 
 springs upon which they hung. 
 13^
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 In Egypt of old, and at this time in Bar- 
 bary, the general method of cures in most 
 diseases is by burning with a hot iron; so as 
 the bodies of their slaves are found often to 
 have many scars upon them remaining of those 
 operations. But this and other uses and effects 
 of fire I have taken notice enough of, in an 
 essay upon the Indian cure by moxa in the gout. 
 
 The ancient native Irish, and the Americans 
 at the time of the first European discoveries 
 and conquests there, knew nothing of physic 
 beyond the virtues of herbs and plants. And 
 in this the most polished nation agrees in a 
 great measure with those that were esteemed 
 most barbarous; and where the learning and 
 voluptuousness are as great as were the native 
 simplicity and ignorance of the others. For 
 in China, though their physicians are admir- 
 able in the knowledge of the pulse, and by 
 that, in discovering the causes of all inward 
 diseases; yet their practice extends little further 
 in the cures beyond the methods of diet, and 
 the virtues of herbs and plants either inwardly 
 taken or outwardly applied. 
 
 In the course of my life, I have often pleased 
 or entertained myself with observing the various 
 and fantastical changes of the diseases generally 
 complained of, and of the remedies in common 
 vogue, which were like birds of passage, very 
 much seen or heard of at one season, and dis- 
 appeared at another, and commonly succeeded 
 by some of a very different kind. When I 
 was very young, nothing was so much feared 
 or talked of as rickets among children, and 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 consumptions among young people of both 
 sexes. After these the spleen came in play, 
 and grew a formal disease: then the scurvy, 
 which was the general complaint, and both 
 were thought to appear in many various guises. 
 After these, and for a time, nothing was so 
 much talked of as the ferment of the blood, 
 which passed for the cause of all sorts of 
 ailments, that neither physicians nor patients 
 knew well what to make of And to all these 
 succeeded vapours, which serve the same turn, 
 and furnish occasion of complaint among per- 
 sons whose bodies or minds ail something, but 
 they know not what ; and among the Chineses 
 would pass for mists of the mind or fumes of 
 the brain, rather than indispositions of any other 
 parts. Yet these employ our physicians per- 
 haps more than other diseases, who are fain to 
 humour such patients in their fancies of being 
 ill, and to prescribe some remedies, for fear 
 of losing their practice to others that pretend 
 more skill in finding out the cause of diseases, 
 or care in advising remedies, which neither 
 they nor their patients find any effect of, 
 besides some gains to one, and amusement 
 to the other. This, I suppose, may have 
 contributed much to the mode of going to 
 the waters, either cold or hot, upon so many 
 occasions, or else upon none besides that of 
 entertainment, and which commonly may have 
 no other effect. And 'tis well if this be the 
 worst of the frequent use of those waters, 
 which, though commonly innocent, yet are 
 sometimes dangerous, if the temper of the 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 person or cause of the indisposition be un- 
 happily mistaken, especially in people of age. 
 
 As diseases have changed vogue, so have 
 remedies in my time and observation. I re- 
 member at one time the taking of tobacco, at 
 another the drinking of warm beer, proved for 
 universal remedies; then swallowing of pebble- 
 stones, in imitation of falconers curing hawks. 
 One doctor pretended to help all heats and 
 fevers by drinking as much cold spring water 
 as the patient could bear; at another time, 
 swallowing up a spoonful of powder of sea 
 biscuit after meals was infallible for all in- 
 digestion, and so preventing diseases. Then 
 coffee and tea began their successive reigns. 
 The infusion of powder of steel have had their 
 turns, and certain drops of several names and 
 compositions: but none that I find have estab- 
 lished their authority, either long or generally, 
 by any constant and sensible successes of their 
 reign, but have rather passed like a mode, 
 which every one is apt to follow, and finds the 
 most convenient or graceful while it lasts; and 
 begins to dislike in both those respects when 
 it goes out of fashion. 
 
 Thus men are apt to play with their healths 
 and their lives, as they do with their clothes; 
 which may be the better excused, since both 
 are so transitory, so subject to be spoiled with 
 common use, to be torn by accidents, and at 
 best to be so soon worn out. Yet the usual 
 practice of physic among us runs still the same 
 course, and turns, in a manner, wholly upon 
 evacuation, either by bleeding, vomits, or some 
 134
 
 I 
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 sorts of purgation ; though it be not often 
 agreed among physicians in what cases or what 
 degrees any of these are necessary; nor among 
 other men, whether any of them are necessary 
 or no. Montaigne questions whether purging 
 ever be so, and from many ingenious reasons: 
 the Chineses never let blood ; and, for the 
 other, 'tis very probable that Nature knows her 
 own wants and times so well, and so easily 
 finds her own relief that way, as to need little 
 assistance, and not well to receive the common 
 violences that are offered her, I remember 
 three in my life and observation who were as 
 downright killed with vomits as they could 
 have been with daggers; and I can say for 
 myself, upon an accident very near mortal, 
 when I was young, that, sending for the two 
 best physicians of the town, the first pre- 
 scribed me a vomit, and immediately sent it 
 me: I had the grace or sense to refuse it till 
 the other came, who told me, if I had taken 
 it I could not have lived half an hour. I 
 observed a consult of physicians, in a fever of 
 one of my near friends, perplexed to the last 
 degree whether to let him blood or no, and 
 not able to resolve, till the course of the dis- 
 ease had declared itself, and thereby deter- 
 mined them. Another of my friends was so 
 often let blood, by his first physician, that a 
 second, who was sent for, questioned whether 
 he would recover it: the first persisted the 
 blood must be drawn till some good appeared; 
 the other affirmed that in such diseases, the 
 whole mass was corrupted, but would purify 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 again when the accident was passed, like wine 
 after a fermentation, which makes all in the 
 vessel thick and foul for a season, but, when 
 that is past, grows clear again of itself So 
 much is certain, that it depends a great deal 
 upon the temper of the patient, the nature of 
 the disease in its first causes, upon the skill and 
 care of the physician to decide whether any of 
 these violences upon Nature are necessary or no, 
 and whether they are like to do good or harm. 
 The rest of our common practice consists 
 in various compositions of innocent ingredients, 
 which feed the hopes of the patient, and the 
 apothecary's gains, but leave Nature to her 
 course, who is the sovereign physician in most 
 diseases, and leaves little for others to do, 
 further than to watch accidents; where they 
 know no specific remedies, to prescribe diets; 
 and, above all, to prevent disorders from the 
 stomach, and take care that Nature be not 
 employed in the kitchen, when she should be 
 in the field to resist her enemy; and that she 
 should not be weakened in her spirits and 
 strength, when they are most necessary to 
 support and relieve her. 'Tis true, physicians 
 must be in danger of losing their credit with 
 the vulgar, if they should often tell a patient 
 he has no need of physic, and prescribe only 
 rules of diet or common use; most people 
 would think they had lost their fee: but the 
 excellence of a physician's skill and care is 
 discovered by resolving first whether it be 
 best in the case to administer any physic or 
 none, to trust to Nature or to art; and the 
 136
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 next, to give such prescriptions, as, if they do 
 no good, may be sure to do no harm. 
 
 In the midst of such uncertainties of health 
 and of physic, for my own part, I have, in the 
 general course of my life, and of fnany acute 
 diseases, as well as some habitual, trusted to 
 God Almighty, to Nature, to temperance or 
 abstinence, and the use of common remedies, 
 either vulgarly known, and approved like pro- 
 verbs by long observation and experience, 
 either of my own, or such persons as have 
 fallen in the way of my observation or inquiry. 
 
 Among the plants of our soil and climate, 
 those I esteem of greatest virtue and most 
 friendly to health are sage, rue, saffron, ale- 
 hoof, garlic, and elder. Sage deserves not 
 only the just reputation it has been always in 
 of a very wholesome herb, in common uses, 
 and generally known, but is admirable in con- 
 sumptive coughs, of which I have cured some 
 very desperate, by a draught every morning of 
 spring water, with a handful of sage boiled 
 in it, and continued for a month. I do not 
 question that, if it were used as tea, it would 
 have at least in all kinds as good an effect upon 
 health, if not of so much entertainment to the 
 taste, being perhaps not so agreeable; and I 
 had reason to believe when I was in Holland 
 that vast quantities of sage were carried to the 
 Indies yearly, as well as of tea brought over 
 from those countries into ours. 
 
 Rue is of excellent use for all illnesses of 
 the stomach, that proceed from cold or moist 
 humours ; a great digester and restorer of 
 137
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 appetite; dispels wind, helps perspiration, 
 drives out ill humours, and thereby comes to 
 be so much prescribed, and so commonly used 
 in pestilent airs, and upon apprehensions of 
 any contagion. The only ill of it lies in the 
 too much or too frequent use, which may 
 lessen and impair the natural heat of the 
 stomach, by the greater heat of an herb very 
 hot and dry; and therefore the juice made up 
 with sugar into small pills, and swallowed only 
 two or three at nights or mornings, and only 
 when there is occasion, is the most innocent 
 way of using it. 
 
 Saffron is, of all others, the safest and most 
 sdmple cordial, the greatest reviver of the heart 
 and cheerer of the spirits, and cannot be of 
 too common use in diet, any more than in 
 medicine. The spirit of saffron is, of all 
 others, the noblest and most innocent, and 
 yet of the greatest virtue. I have known it 
 restore a man out of the very agonies of death, 
 when left by all physicians as wholly desperate. 
 But the use of this and all spirits ought to be 
 employed only in cases very urgent, either of 
 decays or pains; for all spirits have the same 
 effect with that mentioned of rue, which is, 
 by frequent use, to destroy, and at last to ex- 
 tinguish the natural heat of the stomach; as 
 the frequent drinking wine at meals does in a 
 degree, and with time, but that of all strong 
 waters more sensibly and more dangerously. 
 Yet a long custom of either cannot be suddenly 
 broken without danger too, and must be 
 changed with time, v/ith lessening the pro- 
 138
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 portions by degrees, with shorter first, and 
 then with longer intermissions. 
 
 Alehoof, or ground ivy, is, in my opinion, 
 of the most excellent and most general use and 
 virtue of any plants we have among us. 'Tis 
 allowed to be most sovereign for the eyes, 
 admirable in frenzies, either taken inwardly 
 or outwardly applied. Besides, if there be 
 a specific remedy or prevention of the stone, 
 I take it to be the constant use of alehoof-ale, 
 whereof I have known several experiences by 
 others, and can, I thank God, allege my own 
 for about ten years past. This is the plant 
 with which all our ancestors made their 
 common drink, when the inhabitants of this 
 island were esteemed the longest livers of any 
 in the known world; and the stone is said to 
 have first come amongst us after hops were 
 introduced here, and the staleness of beer 
 brought into custom by preserving it long. 
 'Tis known enough, how much this plant has 
 been decried, how generally soever it has been 
 received in these maritime northern parts; 
 and the chief reason which I believe gave it 
 vogue at first was the preserving beer upon 
 long sea-voyages: but for common health, I 
 am apt to think the use of heath or broom had 
 been of much more 'advantage, though none 
 yet invented of so great and general as that of 
 alehoof, which is certainly the greatest cleanser 
 of any plant known among us; and which in 
 old English signified that which was necessary 
 to the making of ale, the common or rather 
 universal drink heretofore of our nation. 
 139
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 Garlic has of all our plants the greatest 
 strength, affords most nourishment, and sup- 
 plies most spirits to those who eat little flesh, 
 as the poorer people seldom do in the hotter, 
 and especially the more eastern climates: so 
 that the labour of the world seems to be per- 
 formed by the force and virtue of garlic, leeks, 
 and onions, no other food of herbs or plants 
 yielding strength enough for much labour. 
 Garlic is of great virtue in all colics, a great 
 strengthener of the stomach upon decays of 
 appetite or indigestion, and I believe is (if at 
 least there be any such) a specific remedy of 
 the gout. I have known great testimonies of 
 this kind within my acquaintance, and have 
 never used it myself upon this occasion, with- 
 out an opinion of some success or advantage. 
 But I could never long enough bear the con- 
 straint of a diet I found not very agreeable 
 myself, and at least fancied offensive to the 
 company I conversed with. 
 
 Besides, this disease is to me so hereditary, 
 and come into ray veins from so many an- 
 cestors, that I have reason to despair of any 
 cure but the last, and content myself to fence 
 against it by temperance and patience, without 
 hopes of conquering such an inveterate enemy. 
 Therefore I leave the use of garlic to such as 
 are inveigled into the gout by the pleasure 
 of too much drinking, the ill effects whereof 
 are not more relieved by any other diet than 
 by this plant, which is so great a drier and 
 opener, especially by perspiration. Nor is it 
 less used in many parts abroad as physic than 
 140
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 as food. In several provinces of France 'tis 
 usual to fall into a diet of garlic for a fortnight 
 or three weeks, upon the first fresh butter of 
 the spring; and the common people esteem it 
 a preservative against the diseases of the en- 
 suing year; and a broth of garlic or onions is 
 so generally used the next day after a debauch 
 as to be called " soupe a I'yvroigne ". This is 
 enough to shew the use as well as virtues of 
 this northern spice, which is in mighty request 
 among the Indians themselves, in the midst 
 of so many others that enrich and perfume 
 those noble regions. 
 
 Elder is of great virtue in all indispositions 
 arising from any watery humours: and not 
 only the flowers and berries, but even the 
 green bark, are used with effect, and perhaps 
 equal success in their seasons. I have been 
 told of some great cures of the gout, by the 
 succeeding use of all three throughout the 
 year: but I have been always too libertine for 
 any great and long subjections, to make the 
 trials. The spirit of elder is sovereign in 
 colics ; and the use of it, in general, very 
 beneficial in scurvies and dropsies: though, in 
 the last, I esteem broom yet of more virtue, 
 either brewed in common drink, or the ashes 
 taken in white wine every morning, which may 
 perhaps pass for a specific remedy; whereof 
 we may justly complain that, after so long ex- 
 perience of so learned a profession as physic, 
 we yet know so very few. 
 
 That which has passed of latter years for 
 the most allowed in this kind, has been the 
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 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 quinqulnna, or Jesuits' powder, in fevers, but 
 especially agues. I can say nothing of it upon 
 any experience of my own, nor many within 
 my knowledge. I remember its entrance upon 
 our stage with some disadvantage, and the 
 repute of leaving no cures, without danger of 
 worse returns. But the credit of it seems 
 now to be established by common use and 
 prescription, and to be improved by new and 
 singular preparations; whereof I have very 
 good and particular reasons to affirm, that they 
 are all amusements; and that what virtue there 
 is in this remedy, lies in the naked simple itself, 
 as it comes over from the Indies, and in the 
 choice of that which is least dried, or perished 
 by the voyage. 
 
 The next specific I esteem to be that little 
 insect called millepedes: the powder whereof, 
 made up into little balls with fresh butter, I 
 never knew fail of curing any sore throat: it 
 must lie at the root of the tongue, and melt 
 down at leisure upon going to bed. I have 
 been assured that Doctor Mayerne used it as 
 a certain cure for all cancers in the breast; 
 and should be very tedious if I should tell 
 here, how much the use of it has been extolled 
 by several within my knowledge, upon the 
 admirable effects for the eyes, the scurvy, and 
 the gout; but there needs no more to value 
 it, than what the ancient physicians affirm of 
 it in those three words: 
 
 Digerit, Aperit, Abstergit, 
 
 It digests. It opens. It cleanses. 
 
 142
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 For rheums in the eyes and the head, I take 
 a leaf of tobacco put into the nostrils for an 
 hour each morning to be a specific medicine: 
 or betony, if the other be too strong or offen- 
 sive. The effect of both is to draw rheums 
 off the head, through their proper and natural 
 channel. And old Prince Maurice of Nassau 
 told me, he had by this preserved his eyes to 
 so great an age, after the danger of losing them 
 at thirty years old: and I have ever since used 
 it with the same success, after great reasons 
 near that age to apprehend the loss or decays 
 of mine. 
 
 In times and places of great contagion, the 
 strongest preservative yet known is a piece 
 of myrrh held in the mouth, when or where 
 the danger is most apprehended; which I have 
 both practised and taught many others with 
 success, in several places where cruel plagues 
 have raged : though in such cases, after all, 
 the best and safest is to run away as soon as 
 one can. Yet, upon this occasion, I think 
 myrrh may pass for a specific in prevention, 
 and may, for aught I know, be of use in 
 remedies as the greatest enemy of corruption; 
 which is known by the use of embalmings in 
 the East. 
 
 For all illnesses of stomach, or indigestions, 
 proceeding from hot and sharp humours ; to 
 which my whole family has been much sub- 
 ject, as well as very many of my acquaintance, 
 and for which powder of crabs' eyes and claws 
 and burnt egg-shells are often prescribed as 
 sweeteners of any sharp humours; I have 
 143
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 never found any thing of much or certain effect, 
 besides the eating of strawberries, common 
 cherries, white figs, soft peaches, or grapes, 
 before every meal, during their seasons ; and, 
 when those are past, apples after meals: but all 
 must be very ripe. And this, by my own and 
 all my friends' experience who have tried it, 
 I reckon for a specific medicine in this illness 
 so frequently complained of: at least, for the 
 two first, I never knew them fail ; and the 
 usual quantity is about forty cherries, without 
 swallowing either skin or stone. I observe this 
 the rather, because the recourse commonly 
 made in this case to strong waters I esteem 
 very pernicious, and which inevitably destroys 
 the stomach with frequent use. The best, at 
 least most innocent, of all distilled liquors is 
 milk-water, made with balm, carduus, mint, 
 and wormwood; which has many good effects 
 in illnesses of the stomach, and none ill. The 
 best and safest strong water, if any be so, 
 for common use, I esteem to be that made of 
 juniper berries, especially in accidents of stone 
 and colic. 
 
 Of all cordials, I esteem my Lady Kent's 
 powder the best, the most innocent, and the 
 most universal ; though the common practice 
 of physic abounds in nothing more, and the 
 virtue seems to be little else, besides an allusion 
 of the name to the heart. 
 
 Upon the gout I have writ what I had 
 
 knowm or practised, in an essay of moxa ; 
 
 and upon the spleen, what I had observed, 
 
 in a chapter upon the dispositions of the 
 
 144
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 people in the Netherlands. I shall only add 
 for the help of my fellow-sufferers in the first, 
 that besides what is contained in that former 
 essay, and since those pains have grown more 
 diffused, and less fixed in one point, so as 
 to be burned with moxa, which never failed 
 of giving me present ease, I have found the 
 most benefit from three methods. The first 
 is that of moving the joint where the pain 
 begins, as long as I am able in my bed; which 
 I have often done, and counted five or six 
 hundred times or more, till I found first a 
 great heat, and then perspiration, in the part; 
 the heat spends or disperses the humour 
 within, and the perspiration drives it out;, 
 and I have escaped many threats of ill fits 
 by these motions : if they go on, the only 
 poultice or plaster I have dealt with is wool 
 from the belly of a fat sheep, which has often 
 given me ease in a very little time. If the 
 pains grow sharp, and the swellings so diffused 
 as not to be burned with moxa, the best 
 remedy, I have found, is from a piece of 
 scarlet dipped in scalding brandy, laid upon 
 the afflicted part, and the heat often renewed, 
 by dropping it upon the scarlet as hot as can 
 be endured. And from this I have often found 
 the same success as from moxa, and without 
 breaking the skin, or leaving any sore. 
 
 To what I have said in another place of 
 the spleen, I shall only add here, that what- 
 ever the spleen is, whether a disease of the 
 part so called, or of people that ail some- 
 thing, but they know not what ; it is certainly 
 (C217) 145 10
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 a very ill ingredient into any other disease, 
 and very often dangerous. For, as hope is 
 the sovereign balsam of life, and the best 
 cordial in all distempers both of body or 
 mind ; so fear, and regret, and melancholy 
 apprehensions, which are the usual effects 
 of the spleen, with the distractions, disquiets, 
 or at least intranquillity they occasion, are 
 the worst accidents that can attend any dis- 
 eases ; and make them often mortal, which 
 would otherwise pass, and have had but a 
 common course. I have known the most 
 busy Ministers of State, most fortunate cour- 
 tiers, most vigorous youths, most beautiful 
 virgins, in the strength or flower of their 
 age, sink under common distempers, by the 
 force of such weights, and the cruel damps 
 and disturbances thereby given their spirits 
 and their blood. 'Tis no matter what is 
 made the occasion, if well improved by spleen 
 and melancholy apprehensions: a disappointed 
 hope, a blot of honour, a strain of conscience, 
 an unfortunate love, an aching jealousy, a 
 repining grief, will serve the turn, and all 
 alike. 
 
 I remember an ingenious physician, who 
 told me, in the fanatic times, he found most 
 of his patients so disturbed by troubles of 
 conscience, that he was forced to play the 
 divine with them before he could begin the 
 physician ; whose greatest skill perhaps often 
 lies in the infusing of hopes, and inducing 
 some composure and tranquillity of mind, 
 before they enter upon the other operations 
 146
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 of their art : and this ought to be the 
 first endeavour of the patient too; without 
 which, all other medicines may lose their 
 virtue. 
 
 The two great blessings of life are, in my 
 opinion, health and good humour ; and none 
 contribute more to one another: without health, 
 all will allow life to be but a burden; and the 
 several conditions of fortune to be all weari- 
 some, dull, or disagreeable, without good hu- 
 mour: nor does any seem to contribute towards 
 the true happiness of life, but as it serves to 
 increase that treasure, or to preserve it. What- 
 ever other differences are commonly appre- 
 hended in the several conditions of fortune, 
 none perhaps will be found so true or so 
 great, as what is made by those two circum- 
 stances, so little regarded in the common 
 course or pursuits of mortal men. 
 
 Whether long life be a blessing or no, God 
 Almighty only can determine, who alone knows 
 what length it is like to run, and how 'tis like 
 to be attended. Socrates used to say, that 
 'twas pleasant to grow old with good health 
 and a good friend ; and he might have reason. 
 A man may be content to live while he is 
 no trouble to himself or his friends ; but, 
 after that, 'tis hard if he be not content to 
 die. I knew and esteemed a person abroad, 
 who used to say, a man must be a mean wretch 
 that desired to live after threescore years old. 
 But so much, I doubt, is certain, that, in life 
 as in wine, he that will drink it good must 
 not draw it to dregs. 
 
 147
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 Where this happens, one comfort of age may 
 be that, whereas younger men are usually in 
 pain, when they are not in pleasure, old men 
 find a sort of pleasure whenever they are out 
 of pain. And, as young men often lose or im- 
 pair their present enjoyments, by raving after 
 what is to come, by vain hopes, or fruitless 
 fears ; so old men relieve the wants of their 
 age, by pleasing reflexions upon what is past. 
 Therefore men, in the health and vigour of 
 their age, should endeavour to fill their lives 
 with reading, with travel, with the best con- 
 versation, and the worthiest actions, either 
 in their public or private stations ; that they 
 may have something agreeable left to feed 
 on, when they are old, by pleasing remem- 
 brances. 
 
 But, as they are only the clean beasts which 
 chew the cud, when they have fed enough; so 
 they must be clean and virtuous men that can 
 reflect, with pleasure, upon the past accidents 
 or courses of their lives. Besides, men who 
 grow old with good sense, or good fortunes, 
 and good nature, cannot want the pleasure 
 of pleasing others, by assisting with their 
 gifts, their credit, and their advice, such as 
 deserve it ; as well as their care of chil- 
 dren, kindness to friends, and bounty to ser- 
 vants. 
 
 But there cannot indeed live a more un- 
 happy creature than an ill-natured old man, 
 who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, 
 nor sensible of doing them to others ; and, in 
 such a condition, it is time to leave them. 
 148
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 Thus have I traced, in this essay, what- 
 ever has fallen in my way or thoughts to 
 observe concerning life and health, and which 
 I conceived might be of any public use to be 
 known or considered : the plainness where- 
 with it is written easily shews, there could be 
 no other intention ; and it may at least pass 
 like a Derbyshire charm which is used among 
 sick cattle, with these words: if it does thee no 
 good, it will do thee no harm. 
 
 To sum up all, the first principle of health 
 and long life is derived from the strength of 
 our race or our birth ; which gave occasion 
 to that saying, " Gaudeant bene nati " — Let 
 them rejoice that are happily born. Accidents 
 are not in our power to govern : so that the 
 best cares or provisions for life and health that 
 are left us, consist in the discreet and temperate 
 government of diet and exercise: in both which 
 all excess is to be avoided, especially in the 
 common use of wine ; whereof the first glass 
 may pass for health, the second for good 
 humour, the third for our friends ; but the 
 fourth is for our enemies. 
 
 For temperance in other kinds, or in general, 
 I have given its character and virtues in the 
 essay of moxa, so as to need no more upon 
 that subject here. 
 
 When, in default or despite of all these 
 cares, or by effect of ill airs and seasons, 
 acute or strong diseases may arise, recourse 
 must be had to the best physicians that are 
 in reach, whose success will depend upon 
 thought and care, as much as skill. In all 
 149
 
 OF HEALTH AND LONG LIFE 
 
 diseases of body or mind, it is happy to have 
 an able physician for a friend, or discreet friend 
 for a physician ; which is so great a blessing, 
 that the wise man will have it to proceed only 
 from God, where he says: "A faithful friend 
 is the medicine of life, and he that fears the 
 Lord shall find him". 
 
 ISO
 
 Of Poetry 
 
 The two common shrines to which most 
 men offer up the application of their thoughts 
 and their lives, are profit and pleasure; and, by 
 their devotions to either of these, they are vul- 
 garly distinguished into two sects, and called 
 either busy or idle men. Whether these 
 terms differ in meaning, or only in sound, 
 I know very well may be disputed, and with 
 appearance enough, since the covetous man 
 takes perhaps as much pleasure in his gains 
 as the voluptuous does in his luxury, and 
 would not pursue his business unless he 
 were pleased with it, upon the last account 
 of what he most wishes and desires, nor would 
 care for the increase of his fortunes unless 
 he thereby proposed that of his pleasures too, 
 in one kind or other; so that pleasure may be 
 said to be his end, whether he will allow 
 to find it in his pursuit or no. Much ado 
 there has been, many words spent, or (to 
 speak with more respect to the ancient philo- 
 sophers) many disputes have been raised upon 
 this argument, I think to little purpose, and 
 151
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 that all has been rather an exercise of wit, 
 than an inquiry after truth ; and all contro- 
 versies that can never end had better perhaps 
 never begin. The best is to take words as 
 they are most commonly spoken and meant, 
 like coin as it most currently passes, without 
 raising scruples upon the weight of the alloy, 
 unless the cheat or the defect be gross and 
 evident. Few things in the world, or none, 
 will bear too much refining; a thread too fine 
 spun will easily break, and the point of a 
 needle too finely filed. The usual acceptation 
 takes profit and pleasure for two different 
 things, and not only calls the followers or 
 votaries of them by several names of busy 
 and of idle men, but distinguishes the faculties 
 of the mind that are conversant about them, 
 calling the operations of the first wisdom, and 
 of the other wit, which is a Saxon word that 
 is used to express what the Spaniards and 
 Italians call " Ingenio ", and the French 
 "Esprit", both from the Latin; but I think 
 wit more peculiarly signifies that of poetry, 
 as may occur upon remarks of the Runic 
 language. To the first of these are attri- 
 buted the inventions or productions of things 
 generally esteemed the most necessary, useful, 
 or profitable to human life, either in private 
 possessions or public institutions: to the other, 
 those writings or discourses which are the most 
 pleasing or entertaining to all that read or hear 
 them : yet, according to the opinion of those 
 that link them together, as the inventions of 
 sages and lawgivers themselves do please as 
 152
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 well as profit those who approve and follow 
 them, so those of poets instruct and profit, 
 as well as please, such as are conversant in 
 them, and the happy mixture of both these 
 makes the excellency in both those composi- 
 tions, and has given occasion for esteeming, or 
 at least for calling, heroic virtue and poetry 
 divine. 
 
 The names given to poets, both in Greek 
 and Latin, express the same opinion of them 
 in those nations: the Greek signifying makers 
 or creators, such as raise admirable frames and 
 fabrics out of nothing, which strike with won- 
 der and with pleasure the eyes and imaginations 
 of those who behold them ; the Latin makes 
 the same word common to poets and to pro- 
 phets. Now as creation is the first attribute 
 and highest operation of Divine Power, so is 
 prophecy the greatest emanation of Divine 
 Spirit in the world. As the names in those 
 two learned languages, so the causes of poetry 
 are, by the writers of them, said to be divine, 
 and to proceed from a celestial fire, or divine 
 inspiration ; and, by the vulgar opinions, re- 
 cited or related to in many passages of those 
 authors, the effects of poetry were likewise 
 thought divine and supernatural, and power 
 of charms and enchantments were ascribed 
 to it. 
 
 Carmina vel coelo possunt deducere lunam, 
 Carminibus Circe socios mutavit Ulyssis, 
 Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis. 
 
 But I can easily admire poetry, and yet 
 153
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 without adoring it ; I can allow it to arise 
 from the greatest excellency of natural temper, 
 or the greatest race of native genius, without 
 exceeding the reach of what is human, or 
 giving it any approaches of divinity, which is, 
 I doubt, debased or dishonoured by ascribing 
 to it any thing that is in the compass of our 
 action, or even comprehension, unless it be 
 raised by an immediate influence from itself 
 I cannot allow poetry to be more divine in 
 its effects than in its causes, nor any operation 
 produced by it to be more than purely natural, 
 or to deserve any other sort of wonder than 
 those of music, or of natural magic, however 
 any of them have appeared to minds little 
 versed in the speculations of nature, of occult 
 qualities, and the force of numbers or of 
 sounds. Whoever talks of drawing down the 
 moon from heaven, by force of verses or of 
 charms, either believes not himself, or too 
 easily believes what others told him, or per- 
 haps follows an opinion begun by the practice 
 of some poet upon the facility of some people, 
 who, knowing the time when an eclipse would 
 happen, told them he would by his charms 
 call down the moon at such an hour, and was 
 by them thought to have performed it. 
 
 When I read that charming description in 
 Virgil's eighth Eclogue of all sorts of charms 
 and fascinations by verses, by images, by knots, 
 by numbers, by fire, by herbs, employed upon 
 occasion of a violent passion, from a jealous 
 or disappointed love; I have recourse to the 
 strong impressions of fables and of poetry, to 
 154
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 the easy mistakes of popular opinions, to the 
 force of imagination, to the secret virtues of 
 several herbs, and to the powers of sounds : 
 and I am sorry the natural history, or account 
 of fascination, has not employed the pen of 
 some person of such excellent wit and deep 
 thought and learning as Casaubon, who writ 
 that curious and useful treatise of Enthusiasm, 
 and by it discovered the hidden or mistaken 
 sources of that delusion, so frequent in all 
 regions and religions of the world, and which 
 had so fatally spread over our country in that 
 age in which this treatise was so seasonably 
 published. 'Tis much to be lamented that 
 he lived not to complete that work in the 
 second part he promised; or that his friends 
 neglected the publishing it, if it were left in 
 papers, though loose and unfinished. I think 
 a clear account of enthusiasm and fascination, 
 from their natural causes, would very much 
 deserve from mankind in general, as well as 
 from the commonwealth of learning : might 
 perhaps prevent so many public disorders, 
 and save the lives of many innocent, de- 
 luded, or deluding people, who suffer so fre- 
 quently upon account of witches and wizards. 
 I have seen many miserable examples of this 
 kind in my youth at home ; and, though the 
 humour or fashion be a good deal worn out of 
 the world within thirty or forty years past, 
 yet it still remains in several remote parts of 
 Germany, Sweden, and some other countries. 
 
 But, to return to the charms of poetry, if 
 the forsaken lover, in that Eclogue of Virgil, 
 155
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 had expected only from the force of her verses, 
 or her charms, what is the burden of the song, 
 to bring Daphnis home from the town where 
 he was gone, and engaged in a new amour; 
 if she had pretended only to revive an old 
 fainting flame, or to damp a new one that was 
 kindling in his breast ; she might, for aught 
 I know, have compassed such ends by the 
 power of such charms, and without any other 
 than very natural enchantments. For there 
 is no question but true poetry may have the 
 force to raise passions, and to allay them, to 
 change and to extinguish them, to temper joy 
 and grief, to raise love and fear, nay, to turn 
 fear into boldness, and love into indifference, 
 and into hatred itself: and I easily believe that 
 the disheartened Spartans were new animated, 
 and recovered their lost courage, by the songs 
 of Tyrtaeus ; that the cruelty and revenge of 
 Phalarls were changed by the odes of Stesi- 
 chorus into the greatest kindness and esteem; 
 and that many men were as passionately 
 enamoured by the charms of Sappho's wit 
 and poetry, as by those of beauty in Flora or 
 Thais; for 'tis not only beauty gives love, but 
 love gives beauty to the object that raises it; 
 and, if the possession be strong enough, let 
 it come from what it will, there is always 
 beauty enough in the person that gives it. 
 Nor is it any great wonder that such force 
 should be found in poetry, since in it are 
 assembled all the powers of eloquence, of 
 music, and of picture, which are allowed to 
 make so strong impressions upon human 
 156
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 minds. How far men have been affected 
 with all, or any, of these, needs little proof 
 or testimony : the examples have been known 
 enough in Greece and in Italy, where some 
 have fallen downright in love with the ravishing 
 beauties of a lovely object drawn by the skill 
 of an admirable painter ; nay, painters them- 
 selves have fallen in love with some of their 
 own productions, and doted on them as on 
 a mistress or a fond child; which distinguishes 
 among the Italians the several pieces that are 
 done by the same hand into several degrees 
 of those made, " con studio", " con diligenza", 
 or "con amore", whereof the last are ever the 
 most excelling. But there needs no more 
 instances of this kind than the stories related 
 and believed by the best authors as known 
 and undisputed : of the two Grecians, one 
 whereof ventured his life to be locked up all 
 night in the temple, and satisfy his passion 
 with the embraces and enjoyment of a statue 
 of Venus that was there set up, and designed 
 for another sort of adoration; the other pined 
 away and died for being hindered his per- 
 petually gazing, admiring, and embracing a 
 statue at Athens. 
 
 The powers of music are either felt or 
 known by all men, and are allowed to work 
 strangely upon the mind and the body, the 
 passions and the blood; to raise joy and grief, 
 to give pleasure and pain, to cure diseases, 
 and the mortal sting of the Tarantula; to give 
 motions to the feet as well as the heart; to 
 compose disturbed thoughts, to assist and 
 157
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 heighten devotion itself. We need no recourse 
 to the fables of Orpheus or Amphion, or the 
 force of their music upon fishes and beasts; 'tis 
 enough that we find the charming of serpents, 
 and the cure or allay of an evil spirit or posses- 
 sion, attributed to it in sacred writ. 
 
 For the force of eloquence, that so often 
 raised and appeased the violence of popular 
 commotions, and caused such convulsions in 
 the Athenian state, no man need more to 
 make him acknowledge it than to consider 
 Caesar, one of the greatest and wisest of 
 mortal men, come upon the tribunal full of 
 hatred and revenge, and with a determined 
 resolution to condemn Labienus ; yet, upon 
 the force of Cicero's eloquence (in an oration 
 for his defence) begin to change countenance, 
 turn pale, shake to that degree that the papers 
 he held fell out of his hand, as if he had been 
 frighted with words, that never was so with 
 blows; and at last change all his anger into 
 clemency, and acquit the brave criminal, in- 
 stead of condemning him. 
 
 Now, if the strength of these three mighty 
 powers be united in poetry, we need not 
 wonder that such virtues and such honours 
 have been attributed to it, that it has been 
 thought to be inspired, or has been called 
 divine ; and yet I think it will not be dis- 
 puted, that the force of wit and of reasoning, 
 the height of conceptions and expressions, 
 may be found in poetry as well as in oratory, 
 the life and spirit of representation or pic- 
 ture as much as in painting, and the force of 
 158
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 sounds as well as in music; and how far these 
 three natural powers together may extend, and 
 to what effect (even such as may be mistaken 
 for supernatural or magical) I leave it to such 
 men to consider, whose thoughts turn to 
 such speculations as these, or who, by their 
 native temper and genius, are, in some degree, 
 disposed, or receive the impressions of them. 
 For my part, I do not wonder that the famous 
 Dr. Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, 
 should sometimes throw him down upon the 
 table, and say he had a devil ; nor that the 
 learned Meric Casaubon should find such 
 charming pleasures and emotions as he de- 
 scribes upon the reading some parts of Lucre- 
 tius; that so many should cry, and with down- 
 right tears, at some tragedies of Shakespeare, 
 and so many more should feel such turns or 
 curdling of their blood, upon the reading or 
 hearing of some excellent pieces of poetry ; 
 nor that Octavia fell into a swoon, at the 
 recital made by Virgil of those verses in the 
 sixth of his ^neids. 
 
 This is enough to assert the powers of 
 poetry, and discover the ground of those 
 opinions of old, which derived it from divine 
 inspirations, and gave it so great a share in 
 the supposed effects of sorcery or magic. But, 
 as the old romances seem to lessen the honour 
 of true prowess and valour in their knights, 
 by giving such a part in all their chief adven- 
 tures to enchantment, so the true excellency 
 and just esteem of poetry seems rather debased 
 than exalted by the stories or belief of the 
 159
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 charms performed by it, which, among the 
 northern nations, grew so strong and so 
 general that, about five or six hundred years 
 ago, all the Runic poetry came to be decried, 
 and those ancient characters in which they 
 were written, to be abolished by the zeal of 
 bishops, and even by orders and decrees of 
 state, which has given a great maim, or rather 
 an irrecoverable loss, to the story of those 
 northern kingdoms, the seat of our ancestors 
 in all the western parts of Europe. 
 
 The more true and natural source of poetry 
 may be discovered, by observing to what god 
 this inspiration was ascribed by the ancients, 
 which was Apollo, or the sun, esteemed among 
 them the god of learning in general, but more 
 particularly of music and of poetry. The 
 mystery of this fable means, I suppose, that 
 a certain noble and vital heat of temper, but 
 especially of the brain, is the true spring of 
 these two parts or sciences : this was that 
 celestial fire, which gave such a pleasing motion 
 and agitation to the minds of those men that 
 have been so much admired in the world, that 
 raises such infinite images of things so agree- 
 able and delightful to mankind ; by the in- 
 fluence of this sun are produced those golden 
 and inexhausted mines of invention, which has 
 furnished the world with treasures so highly 
 esteemed, and so universally known and used, 
 in all the regions that have yet been discovered. 
 From this arises that elevation of genius, 
 which can never be produced by any art or 
 study, by pains or by industry, which cannot 
 i6o
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 be taught by precepts or examples; and there- 
 fore is agreed by all, to be the pure and free 
 gift of Heaven or of nature, and to be a fire 
 kindled out of some hidden spark of the very 
 first conception. 
 
 But, though invention be the mother of 
 poetry, yet this child is, like all others, born 
 naked, and must be nourished with care, 
 clothed with exactness and elegance, educated 
 with industry, instructed with art, improved 
 by application, corrected with severity, and 
 accomplished with labour and with time, 
 before it arrives at any great perfection or 
 growth : 'tis certain that no composition re- 
 quires so many several ingredients, or of more 
 different sorts than this, nor that, to excel in 
 any qualities, there are necessary so many gifts 
 of nature, and so many improvements of learn- 
 ing and of art. For there must be an universal 
 genius, of great compass as well as great eleva- 
 tion. There must be a sprightly imagination 
 or fancy, fertile in a thousand productions, 
 ranging over infinite ground, piercing into 
 every corner, and, by the light of that true 
 poetical fire, discovering a thousand little 
 bodies or images in the world, and similitudes 
 among them, unseen to common eyes, and 
 which could not be discovered without the 
 rays of that sun. 
 
 Besides the heat of invention and liveliness 
 of wit, there must be the coldness of good 
 sense and soundness of judgment, to distin- 
 guish between things and conceptions, which, 
 at first sight, or upon short glances, seem 
 ( c 217 ) 161 11
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 alike ; to choose among infinite productions 
 of wit and fancy, which are worth preserving 
 and cultivating, and which are better stifled 
 in the birth, or thrown away when they are 
 born, as not worth bringing up. Without 
 the forces of wit, all poetry is flat and languish- 
 ing ; without the succours of judgment, 'tis 
 wild and extravagant. The true wit of poesy 
 is, that such contraries must meet to compose 
 it, a genius both penetrating and solid ; in 
 expression both delicacy and force ; and the 
 frame or fabric of a true poem must have 
 something both sublime and just, amazing and 
 agreeable. There must be a great agitation 
 of mind to invent, a great calm to judge and 
 correct ; there must be, upon the same tree, 
 and at the same time, both flower and fruit. 
 To work up this metal into exquisite figure, 
 there must be employed the fire, the hammer, 
 the chisel, and the file. There must be a 
 general knowledge both of nature and of arts, 
 and, to go the lowest that can be, there are 
 required genius, judgment, and application ; 
 for, without this last, all the rest will not serve 
 turn, and none ever was a great poet that 
 applied himself much to any thing else. 
 
 When I speak of poetry, I mean not an ode 
 or an elegy, a song or a satire, nor by a poet the 
 composer of any of these, but of a just poem; 
 and, after all I have said, 'tis no wonder there 
 should be so few that appeared in any parts 
 or any ages of the world, or that such as have 
 should be so much admired, and have almost 
 divinity ascribed to them, and to their works.
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 Whatever has been among those who are 
 mentioned with so much praise or admiration 
 by the ancients, but are lost to us, and un- 
 known any further than their names, I think 
 no man has been so bold among those that 
 remain to question the title of Homer and 
 Virgil, not only to the first rank, but to the 
 supreme dominion in this state, and from 
 whom, as the great lawgivers as well as 
 Princes, all the laws and orders of it are, or 
 may be, derived. Homer was, without dis- 
 pute, the most universal genius that has been 
 known in the world, and Virgil the most ac- 
 complished. To the first must be allowed the 
 most fertile invention, the richest vein, the 
 most general knowledge, and the most lively 
 expression: to the last, the noblest ideas, the 
 justest institution, the wisest conduct, and the 
 choicest elocution. To speak in the painter's 
 terms, we find, in the works of Homer, the 
 most spirit, force, and life ; in those of Virgil, 
 the best design, the truest proportions, and the 
 greatest graced the colouring in both seems 
 equal, and indeed is in both admirable. Homer 
 had more fire and rapture, Virgil more light 
 and swiftness; or at least, the poetical fire 
 was more raging in one, but clearer in the 
 other, which makes the first more amazing, 
 and the latter more agreeable. The ore was 
 richer in one, but in the other more refined, 
 and better allayed to make up excellent work. 
 Upon the whole, I think it must be confessed 
 that Homer was of the two, and perhaps o| 
 all others, the vastest, the sublimest, and tl 
 163
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 most wonderful genius; and, that he has been 
 generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater 
 testimony given, than what has been by some 
 observed, that not only the greatest masters 
 have found in his works the best and truest 
 principles of all their sciences or arts, but that 
 the noblest nations have derived from them 
 the original of their several races, though it 
 be hardly yet agreed whether his story be 
 true or a fiction. In short, these two im- 
 mortal poets must be allowed to have so much 
 excelled in their kinds, as to have exceeded 
 all comparison, to have even extinguished 
 emulation, and in a manner confined true 
 poetry, not only to their two languages, but to 
 their very persons. And I am apt to believe 
 so much of the true genius of poetry in 
 general, and of its elevation in these two par- 
 ticulars, that I know not whether of all the 
 numbers of mankind that live within the 
 compass of a thousand years, for one man that 
 is born capable of making such a poet as 
 Homer or Virgil, there may not be a thousand 
 born capable of making as great generals of 
 armies, or Ministers of State, as any the most 
 renowned in story. 
 
 I do not here intend to make a further 
 critique upon poetry, which were too great a 
 labour; nor to give rules for it, which were as 
 great a presumption: besides, there has been 
 so much paper blotted upon these subjects, in 
 this curious and censuring age, that 'tis all 
 grown tedious or repetition. The modern 
 French wits (or pretenders) have been very 
 164
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 severe in their censures, and exact in their 
 rules, I think to very little purpose: for I 
 know not why they might not have contented 
 themselves with those given by Aristotle and 
 Horace, and have translated them rather than 
 commented upon them, for all they have done 
 has been no more; so as they seem, by their 
 writings of this kind, rather to have valued 
 themselves, than improved any body else. The 
 truth is, there is something in the genius of 
 poetry too libertine to be confined to so many 
 rules: and whoever goes about to subject it 
 to such constraints loses both its spirit and 
 grace, which are ever native, and never learned, 
 even of the best masters. 'Tis as if, to make 
 excellent honey, you should cut off the wings 
 of your bees, confine them to their hive or 
 their stands, and lay flowers before them, such 
 as you think the sweetest, and like to yield 
 the finest extraction; you had as good pull out 
 their stings, and make arrant drones of them. 
 They must range through fields, as well as 
 gardens, choose such flowers as they please, 
 and by proprieties and scents they only know 
 and distinguish: they must work up their cells 
 with admirable art, extract their honey with 
 infinite labour, and sever it from the wax, with 
 such distinction and choice, as belongs to 
 none but themselves to perform or to judge. 
 It would be too much mortification to these 
 great arbitrary rulers among the French writers, 
 or our own, to observe the worthy productions 
 that have been formed by their rules, the. 
 honour they have received in the world, 
 i6s
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 the pleasure they have given mankind; but, 
 to comfort them, I do not know there was any 
 great poet in Greece, after the rules of that 
 art laid down by Aristotle; nor in Rome, after 
 those by Horace, which yet none of our 
 moderns pretend to have outdone. Perhaps 
 Theocritus and Lucan may be alleged against 
 this assertion: but the first offered no further 
 than at idyls or eclogues ; and the last, though 
 he must be avowed for a true and happy 
 genius, and to have made some very high 
 flights, yet he is so unequal to himself, and 
 his muse is so young, that his faults are too 
 noted, to allow his pretences. " Feliciter 
 audet" is the true character of Lucan, as of 
 Ovid, "Lusit amabiliter". After all, the 
 utmost that can be achieved, or I think pre- 
 tended, by any rules in this art, is but to 
 hinder some men from being very 111 poets, 
 but not to make any man a very good one. 
 To judge who is so, we need go no further 
 for instruction than three lines of Horace. 
 
 . . . Ille meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 
 Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 
 Ut magus, et modo me Thebis, mode ponit 
 Athenis. 
 
 He is a poet. 
 
 Who vainly anguishes my breast, 
 Provokes, allays, and with false terror fills, 
 Like a magician, and now sets me down 
 In Thebes, and now in Athens, 
 
 Whoever does not affect and move the same 
 i66
 
 OF_ POETRY 
 
 present passions In you that he represents in 
 others, and, at other times, raise images about 
 you, as a conjurer is said to do spirits, trans- 
 ports you to the places and to the persons 
 he describes, cannot be judged to be a poet, 
 though his measures are never so just, his 
 feet never so smooth, or his sounds never so 
 sw^eet. But instead of critique, or rules con- 
 cerning poetry, I shall rather turn my thoughts 
 to the history of it, and observe the antiquity, 
 the uses, the changes, the decays, that have 
 attended this great empire of wit. 
 
 It is, I think, generally agreed to have been 
 the first sort of writing that has been used in 
 the world; and in several nations to have pre- 
 ceded the very invention or usage of letters. 
 This last is certain in America, where the 
 first Spaniards met with many strains of 
 poetry, and left several of them translated 
 into their language, which seems to have 
 flowed from a true poetic vein, before any 
 letters were known in those regions. The 
 same is probable of the Scythians, the Grecians, 
 and the Germans. Aristotle says, the Aga- 
 thyrsi had their laws all in verse; and Tacitus, 
 that the Germans had no annals nor records 
 but what were so; and, for the Grecian oracles 
 delivered In them, we have no certain account 
 when they began, but rather reason to believe 
 it was before the introduction of letters from 
 Phoenicia among them. Pliny tells it, as a 
 thing known, that Pherecydes was the first 
 who writ prose in the Greek tongue, and that 
 he lived about the time of Cyrus, whereas 
 167
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 Homer and Hesiod lived some hundreds of 
 years before that age; and Orpheus, Linus, 
 Musasus, some hundreds before them : and 
 of the Sibyls, several were before any of those, 
 and in times as well as places, whereof we 
 have no clear records now remaining. What 
 Solon and Pythagoras writ is said to have been 
 in verse, who were something older than 
 Cyrus; and before them were Archilochus, 
 Simonides, Tyrtasus, Sappho, Stesichorus, 
 and several other poets famous in their times. 
 The same thing is reported of Chald^ea, Syria, 
 and China; among the ancient western Goths 
 (our ancestors) the Runic poetry seems to have 
 been as old as their letters; and their laws, 
 their precepts of wisdom, as well as their 
 records, their religious rites, as well as their 
 charms and incantations, to have been all in 
 verse. 
 
 Among the Hebrews, and even in sacred 
 writ, the most ancient is by some learned men 
 esteemed to be the book of Job; and that it 
 was written before the time of Moses, and 
 that it was a translation into Hebrew out of 
 the old Chaldaean or Arabian language. It 
 may probably be conjectured, that he was not 
 a Jew, from the place of his abode, which 
 appears to have been seated between the 
 Chaldeans of one side, and the Sabaeans (who 
 were of Arabia) on the other; and, by many 
 passages of that admirable and truly inspired 
 poem, the author seems to have lived in some 
 parts near the mouth of Euphrates, or the 
 Persian Gulf, where he contemplated the 
 
 i68
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 wonders of the deep, as well as the other 
 works of nature common to those regions. 
 Nor is it easy to find any traces of the 
 Mosaical rites or institutions, either in the 
 divine worship, or the morals related to, in 
 those writings: for, not only sacrifices and 
 praises were much more ancient in religious ser- 
 vice than the age of Moses ; but the opinion 
 of one deity, and adored without any idol 
 or representation, was professed and received 
 among the ancient Persians and Hetruscans 
 and Chaldaeans. So that, if Job was an 
 Hebrew, it is probable he may have been of 
 the race of Heber, who lived in Chaldaea, or 
 of Abraham, who is supposed to have left that 
 country for the profession or worship of one 
 God, rather than from the branch of Isaac 
 and Israel, who lived in the land of Canaan. 
 Now I think it is out of controversy, that th-i 
 book of Job was written originally in verse, 
 and was a poem upon the subject of the 
 justice and power of God, and in vindication 
 of His providence, against the common argu- 
 ments of atheistical men, who took occasion 
 to dispute it, from the usual events of human 
 things, by which so many ill and impious men 
 seem happy and prosperous in the course of 
 their lives, and so many pious and just men 
 seem miserable or afilicted. The Spanish 
 translation of the Jews in Ferrara, which pre- 
 tends to render the Hebrew (as near as could 
 be) word for word, and for which all trans- 
 lators of the Bible since have had great regard, 
 gives us the two first chapters and the last 
 169
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 from the seventh verse In prose, as an his- 
 torical introduction and conclusion of the 
 work, and all the rest in verse, except the 
 transitions from one part or person of this 
 sacred dialogue to another. 
 
 But, if we take the books of Moses to be 
 the most ancient in the Hebrew tongue, yet 
 the song of Moses may probably have been 
 written before the rest ; as that of Deborah 
 before the book of Judges, being praises sung 
 to God upon the victories or successes of the 
 Israelites, related in both. And I never read 
 the last, without observing in it as true and 
 noble strains of poetry and picture, as in any 
 other language whatsoever, in spite of all dis- 
 advantages from translations into so different 
 tongues and common prose. If an opinion of 
 some learned men, both modern and ancient, 
 could be allowed, that Esdras was the writer 
 or compiler of the first historical part of the 
 Old Testament, though from the same divine 
 inspiration as that of Moses and the other 
 prophets, then the Psalms of David would be 
 the first writings we find in Hebrew, and next 
 to them the Song of Solomon, which was 
 written when he was young, and Ecclesiastes 
 when he was old: so that from all sides, both 
 sacred and profane, it appears that poetry was 
 the first sort of writing known and used in 
 the several nations of the world. 
 
 It may seem strange, I confess, upon the 
 first thought, that a sort of style, so regular 
 and so difficult, should have grown in use 
 before the other, so easy and so loose: but,
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 if we consider what the first end of writing 
 was, it will appear probable from reason as 
 well as experience; for the true and general 
 end was but the help of memory, in preserv- 
 ing that of words and of actions which would 
 otherwise have been lost, and soon vanish 
 away with the transitory passage of human 
 breath and life. Before the discourses and 
 disputes of philosophers began to busy or 
 amuse the Grecian wits, there was nothing 
 written in prose, but either laws, some short 
 sayings of wise men, or some riddles, parables, 
 or fables, wherein were couched by the ancients 
 many strains of natural and moral wisdom and 
 knowledge, and, besides these, some short 
 memorials of persons, actions, and of times. 
 
 Now 'tis obvious enough to conceive, how 
 much easier all such writings should be learned 
 and remembered in verse, than in prose, not 
 only by the pleasure of measures and of 
 sounds, which gives a great impression to 
 memory, but by the order of feet, which maices 
 a great facility of tracing one word after an- 
 other, by knowing what sort of foot or quan- 
 tity must necessarily have preceded or followed 
 the words we retain and desire to make up. 
 
 This made poetry so necessary before letters 
 were invented, and so convenient afterwards: 
 and shews that the great honour and general 
 request wherein it has always been, has not 
 proceeded only from the pleasure and delight, 
 but likewise from the usefulness and profit, 
 of poetical writings. 
 
 This leads me naturally to the subjects of 
 17 i
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 poetry, which have been generally praise, 
 instruction, story, love, grief, and reproach. 
 Praise was the subject of all the songs and 
 psalms mentioned in holy writ; of the hymns 
 of Orpheus, of Homer, and many others; of 
 the " Carmina Secularia " in Rome, composed 
 all and designed for the honour of their gods; 
 of Pindar, Stesichorus, and Tyrtasus in the 
 praises of virtue, or virtuous men. The 
 subject of Job is instruction concerning the 
 attributes of God, and the works of nature. 
 Those of Simonides, Phocillides, Theognis, 
 and several other of the smaller Greek poets, 
 with what passes for Pythagoras's, are instruc- 
 tions in morality; the first book of Hesiod and 
 Virgil's Georgics, in agriculture; and Lucretius 
 in the deepest natural philosophy. Story is 
 the proper subject of heroic poems, as Homer 
 and Virgil in their inimitable Iliads and 
 ^neids; and Fable, which is a sort of story, 
 in the Metamorphosis of Ovid. The Lyric 
 poetry has been chiefly conversant about love, 
 though turned often upon praise too; and the 
 vein of pastorals and eclogues has run the 
 same course, as may be observed in Theocritus, 
 Virgil, and Horace, who was, I think, the first 
 and last of true Lyric poets among the Latins: 
 grief has been always the subject of Elegy, and 
 reproach that of Satire. The Dramatic poesy 
 has been composed of all these; but the chief 
 end seems to have been instruction, and under 
 the disguise of fables, or the pleasure of story, 
 to shew the beauties and the rewards of virtue, 
 the deformities and misfortunes or punishment 
 172
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 of vice; by examples of both to encourage one, 
 and deter men from the other; to reform ill 
 customs, correct ill manners, and moderate all 
 violent passions. These are the general sub- 
 jects of both parts, though comedy give us but 
 the images of common life, and tragedy those 
 of the greater and more extraordinary passions 
 and actions among men. To go further upon 
 this subject w^ould be to tread so beaten paths, 
 that, to travel in them, only raises dust, and is 
 neither of pleasure nor of use. 
 
 For the changes that have happened in 
 poetry, I shall observe one ancient, and the 
 others that are modern will be too remarkable, 
 in the declines or decays of this great empire of 
 wit. The first change of poetry was made by 
 translating it into prose, or clothing it in those 
 loose robes or common veils that disguised or 
 covered the true beauty of its features, and 
 exactness of its shape. This was done first by 
 -^sop in Greek: but the vein was much more 
 ancient in the eastern regions, and m.uch in 
 vogue, as we may observe in the many parables 
 used in the Old Testament, as weTl as in the 
 New. And there is a book of fables of the 
 sort of ^sop's, translated out of Persian, and 
 pretended to have been so into that language 
 out of the ancient Indian; but, though it seems 
 genuine of the eastern countries, yet I do not 
 take it to be so old, nor to have so much spirit, 
 as the Greek. The next succession of poetry 
 in prose seems to have been in the Miletian 
 tales, which were a sort of little pastoral 
 romances; and, though much in request in old 
 173
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 Greece and Rome, yet we have no examples, 
 that I know, of them, unless it be the " Longi 
 Pastoralia ", which gives a taste of the great 
 delicacy and pleasure that was found so 
 generally in those sort of tales. The last kind 
 of poetry in prose, is that which in later ages 
 has over-run the world under the name of 
 Romances, which though it seems modern, and 
 a production of the Gothic genius, yet the 
 writing is ancient. The remainders of Petro- 
 nius Arbiter seem to be of this kind, and that 
 which Lucian calls his "True History": but 
 the most ancient that passes by the name is 
 Heliodorus, famous for the author's choosing 
 to lose his bishopric, rather than disown that 
 child of his wit. The true spirit or vein of 
 ancient poetry in this kind seems to shine most 
 in Sir Philip Sidney, whom I esteem both the 
 greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that 
 have left writings behind them, and published 
 in ours or any other modern language; a person 
 born capable not only of forming the greatest 
 ideas, but of leaving the noblest examples, if 
 the length of his life had been equal to the 
 excellence of his wit and virtues. 
 
 With him I leave the discourse of ancient 
 poetry; and, to discover the decays of this 
 empire, must turn to that of the modern, 
 which was introduced after the decays, or 
 rather extinction, of the old: as if, true poetry 
 being dead, an apparition of it walked about. 
 This mighty change arrived by no smaller 
 occasions, nor more ignoble revolutions, than 
 those which destroyed the ancient empire and 
 174
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 government of Rome, and erected so many new 
 ones upon their ruins, by the invasions and 
 conquests, or the general inundations of the 
 Goths, Vandals, and other barbarous or 
 northern nations, upon those parts of Europe 
 that had been subject to the Romans. After 
 the conquests made by Caesar upon Gaul, and 
 the nearer parts of Germany, which were con- 
 tinued and enlarged in the times of Augustus 
 and Tiberius by their lieutenants or generals, 
 great numbers of Germans and Gauls resorted 
 to the Roman armies, and to the city itself, 
 and habituated themselves there, as many 
 Spaniards, Syrians, Grecians, had done before, 
 upon the conquest of those countries. This 
 mixture soon corrupted the purity of the Latin 
 tongue, so that in Lucan, but more in Seneca, 
 we find a great and harsh alloy entered into 
 the style of the Augustan age. After Trajan 
 and Adrian had subdued many German and 
 Scythian nations on both sides of the Danube, 
 the commerce of those barbarous people grew 
 very frequent with the Romans; and I am apt 
 to think that the little verses ascribed to 
 Adrian, were in imitation of the Runic poetry. 
 The ^^ Scythicas pati pruinas''^ of Florus shews 
 their race or climate; and the first rhyme that 
 ever I read in Latin, with little allusions of 
 letters or syllables, is in that of Adrian at 
 his death: 
 
 O animula, vagula, blandula, 
 Quae nunc abibis in loca, 
 PaUidula, lurida, timidula, 
 Nee ut soles dabis joca. 
 175
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 *Tis probable, the old spirit of poetry being 
 lost or frighted away by those long and bloody 
 wars with such barbarous enemies, this new 
 ghost began to appear in its room even about 
 that age; or else that Adrian, who affected 
 that piece of learning as well as others, and 
 was not able to reach the old vein, turned 
 to a new one, which his expeditions into 
 those countries made more allowable in an 
 Emperor, and his example recommended to 
 others. In the time of Boetius, who lived 
 under Theodoric in Rome, we find the Latin 
 poetry smell rank of this Gothic imitation, 
 and the vein quite seared up. 
 
 After that age, learning grew every day more 
 and more obscured by that cloud of ignorance, 
 which, coming from the North, and increasing 
 with the numbers and successes of those 
 barbarous people, at length overshadowed all 
 Europe, for so long together. The Roman 
 tongue began itself to fail or be disused, and 
 by its corruption made way for the generation 
 of three new languages in Spain, Italy, and 
 France. The Courts of the Princes and 
 Nobles, who were of the conquering nations, 
 for several ages used their Gothic, or Frank, or 
 Saxon tongues, which were mingled with those 
 of Germany, where some of the Goths had 
 sojourned long before they proceeded to their 
 conquests of the more southern or western 
 parts. Wherever the Roman colonies had 
 long remained, and their language had been 
 generally spoken, the common people used that 
 still, but vitiated with the base alloy of their 
 176
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 provincial speech. This in Charlemain's time 
 was caHed in France, " Rustica Romana ", and 
 in Spain, during the Gothic reigns there, 
 Romance; but in England, from whence all 
 the Roman soldiers, and great numbers of the 
 Britons most accustomed to their commerce 
 and language, had been drained for the defence 
 of Gaul against the barbarous nations that 
 invaded it about the time of Valentinian, that 
 tongue being wholly extinguished (as well as 
 their own) made way for the entire use of the 
 Saxon language. With these changes the 
 ancient poetry was wholly lost in all these 
 countries, and a new sort grew up by degrees, 
 which was called by a new name of Rhymes, 
 with an easy change of the Gothic word 
 Runes, and not from the Greek, Rhythms, as 
 is vulgarly supposed. 
 
 Runes was properly the name of the ancient 
 Gothic letters or characters, which were in- 
 vented first or introduced by Odin, in the 
 colony or kingdom of the Getes or Goths 
 which he planted in the north-west parts, and 
 round the Baltic Sea, as has been before related. 
 But, because all the writings they had among 
 them for many ages were in verse, it came 
 to be the common name of all sorts of poetry 
 among the Goths, and the writers or com- 
 posers of them were called Runers or 
 Rhymers. They had likewise another name 
 for them, or for some sorts of them, which 
 was Viises or Wises; and because the sages 
 of that nation expressed the best of their 
 thoughts, and what learning and prudence 
 { c 217 ) 177 12
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 they had, in these kind of writings, they that 
 succeeded best and with most applause were 
 termed wise men; the good sense, or learn- 
 ing, or useful knowledge contained in them 
 was called wisdom; and the pleasant or 
 facetious vein among them was called wit, 
 which was applied to all spirit or race of 
 poetry, where it was found in any man, and 
 was generally pleasing to those that heard or 
 read them. 
 
 Of these Runes there were in use among the 
 Goths above a hundred several sorts, some 
 composed in longer, some in shorter lines, 
 some equal, and others unequal, with many 
 different cadencies, quantities, or feet, which in 
 the pronouncing made many different sorts of 
 original or natural tunes. Some were framed 
 with allusions of words, or consonance oi 
 syllables, or of letters, either in the same line, 
 or in the distich, or by alternate succession 
 and resemblance, which made a sort of gingle 
 that pleased the ruder ears of that people. 
 And because their language was composed 
 most of monosyllables, and of so great num- 
 bers, many must end in the same sound. 
 Another sort of Runes were made, with the 
 care and study of ending two lines, or each 
 other of four lines, with words of the same 
 sound; which being the easiest, requiring less 
 art, and needing less spirit (because a certain 
 chime in the sounds supplied that want, and 
 pleased common ears) this in time grew the 
 most general among all the Gothic colonies in 
 Europe, and made rhymes or Runes pass 
 178
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 for the modern poetry in these parts of the 
 world. 
 
 This was not used only in their modern 
 languages, but, during those ignorant ages, even 
 in that barbarous Latin which remained and 
 was preserved among the monks and priests, 
 to distinguish them by some shew of learning 
 from the laity, who might well admire it, in 
 what degree soever, and reverence the pro- 
 fessors, when they themselves could neither 
 write nor read, even in their own language; 
 I mean not only the vulgar laymen, but even 
 the generality of Nobles, Barons, and Princes 
 among them; and this lasted till the ancient 
 learning and languages began to be restored in 
 Europe about two hundred years ago. 
 
 The common vein of the Gothic Runes was 
 what is termed dithyrambic, and was of a 
 raving or rambling sort of wit or invention, 
 loose and flowing, with little art or confine- 
 ment to any certain measures or rules; yet 
 some of it wanted not the true spirit of poetry 
 in some degree, or that natural inspiration 
 which has been said to arise from some spark 
 of poetical fire wherewith particular men are 
 born; and, such as it was, it served the turn, 
 not only to please, but even to charm, the 
 ignorant and barbarous vulgar, where it was in 
 use. This made the Runers among the Goths 
 as much in request and admired, as any of the 
 ancient and most celebrated poets were among 
 the learned nations; for, among the blind, he 
 that has one eye is a prince. They were, as 
 well as the others, thought inspired, and the 
 179
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 charms of their Runic conceptions were gener- 
 ally esteemed divine, or magical at least. 
 
 The subjects of them were various, but 
 commonly the same with those already observed 
 in the true ancient poetry. Yet this vein was 
 chiefly employed upon the records of bold and 
 martial actions, and the praises of valiant men 
 that had fought successfully or died bravely; 
 and these songs or ballads were usually sung at 
 feasts, or in circles of young or idle persons, 
 and served to inflame the humour of war, of 
 slaughter, and of spoils among them. More 
 refined honour or love had little part in the 
 writings, because it had little in the lives or 
 actions, of those fierce people and bloody 
 times. Honour among them consisted in 
 victory, and love in rapes and in lust. 
 
 But, as the true flame of poetry was rare 
 among them, and the rest was but wild-fire 
 that sparkled or rather crackled a while, and 
 soon went out with little pleasure or gazing 
 of the beholders ; those Runers, who could 
 not raise admiration by the spirit of their 
 poetry, endeavoured to do it by another, which 
 was that of enchantments : this came in to 
 supply the defect of that sublime and mar- 
 vellous, which has been found both in poetry 
 and prose among the learned ancients. The 
 Gothic Runers, to gain and establish the credit 
 and admiration of their rhymes, turned the 
 use of them very much to incantations and 
 charms, pretending by them to raise storms, 
 to calm the seas, to cause terror in their 
 enemies, to transport themselves in the air, 
 1 80
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 to conjure spirits, to cure diseases, and stanch 
 bleeding wounds, to make women kind or 
 easy, and men hard or invulnerable; as one 
 of their most ancient Runers affirms of himself 
 and his own achievements, by force of these 
 magical arms : the men or women, who were 
 thought to perform such wonders or enchant- 
 ments, were from Vuses or Wises, the name 
 of those verses wherein their charms were 
 conceived, called Wizards or Witches. 
 
 Out of this quarry seem to have been raised 
 all those trophies of enchantment, that ap- 
 pear in the whole fabric of the old Spanish 
 romances, which were the productions of the 
 Gothic wit among them, during their reign; 
 and, after the conquests of Spain by the 
 Saracens, they were applied to the long wars 
 between them and the Christians. From the 
 same, perhaps, may be derived all the visionary 
 tribes of fairies, elves, and goblins, of sprites, 
 and of bulbeggars, that serve not only to fright 
 children into whatever their nurses please, but 
 sometimes, by lasting impressions, to disquiet 
 the sleeps and the very lives of men and 
 women, till they grow to years of discretion ; 
 and that, God knows, is a period of time 
 which some people arrive to but very late, 
 and perhaps others never. At least, this belief 
 prevailed so far among the Goths and their 
 races, that all sorts of charms were not only 
 attributed to their runes or verses, but to their 
 very characters ; so that, about the eleventh 
 century, they were forbidden and abolished in 
 Sweden, as they had been before in Spain, by 
 i8i
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 civil and ecclesiastical commands or constitu- 
 tions ; and what has been since recovered of 
 that learning or language has been fetched as 
 far as Iceland itself. 
 
 How much of this kind, and of this cre- 
 dulity, remained even to our own age, may be 
 observed by any man that reflects so far as 
 thirty or forty years ; how often avouched, 
 and how generally credited, were the stories 
 of fairies, sprites, witchcrafts, and enchant- 
 ments? In some parts of France, and not 
 longer ago, the common people believed cer- 
 tainly there were Lougaroos, or men turned 
 into wolves; and I remember several Irish of 
 the same mind. The remainders are woven 
 into our very language ; Mara, in old Runic, 
 was a goblin that seized upon men asleep in 
 their beds, and toolc from them all speech and 
 motion. Old Nicka was a sprite that came to 
 strangle people who fell into the water : Bo 
 was a fierce Gothic captain, son of Odin, 
 whose name was used by his soldiers when 
 they would fright or surprise their enemies ; 
 and the proverb of rhyming rats to death 
 came I suppose from the same root. 
 
 There were, not longer since than the time 
 I have mentioned, some remainders of the 
 Runic poetry among the Irish. The great men 
 of their Septs, among the many officers of their 
 family, which continued always in the same 
 races, had not only a physician, a huntsman, 
 a smith, and such like, but a poet and a tale- 
 teller ; the first recorded and -sung the actions 
 of their ancestors, and entertained the com- 
 182
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 pany at feasts ; the latter amused them with 
 tales when they were melancholy and could 
 not sleep : and a very gallant gentleman of the 
 North of Ireland has told me, of his own ex- 
 perience, that in his wolf-huntings there, when 
 he used to be abroad in the mountains three or 
 four days together, and lay very ill a-nights, so 
 as he could not well sleep, they would bring 
 him one of these tale-tellers, that, when he lay 
 down, would begin a story of a king, or a giant, 
 a dwarf and a damsel, and such rambling stuff, 
 and continue it all night long in such an even 
 tone that you heard it going on, whenever you 
 awaked; and he believed nothing any physicians 
 give could have so good and so innocent effect, 
 to make men sleep in any pains or distempers 
 of body or mind. I remember, in my youth, 
 some persons of our country to have said grace 
 in rhymes, and others their constant prayers; 
 and 'tis vulgar enough, that some deeds or con- 
 veyances of land have been so, since the Con- 
 quest. 
 
 In such poor wretched weeds as these was 
 poetry clothed, during those shades of igno- 
 rance that overspread all Europe for so many 
 ages after the sun-set of the Roman learning 
 and empire together, which were succeeded by 
 so many new dominions, or plantations of the 
 Gothic swarms, and by a new race of customs, 
 habit, language, and almost of nature ; but, 
 upon the dawn of a new day, and the resurrec- 
 tion of other sciences, with the two learned 
 languages, among us, this of poetry began to 
 appear very early, though very unlike itself, 
 183
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 and in shapes as well as clothes, in humour 
 and in spirit, very different from the ancient. 
 It was now all in rhyme, after the Gothic 
 fashion; for indeed none of the several dialects 
 of that language or alloy would bear the com- 
 posure of such feet and measures, as were in 
 use among the Greeks and Latins; and some 
 that attempted it, soon left it off, despairing 
 of success. Yet, in this new dress, poetry was 
 not without some charms, especially those of 
 grace and sweetness, and the ore began to 
 shine in the hands and works of the first 
 refiners. Petrarch, Ronsard, Spenser, met with 
 much applause upon the subjects of love, praise, 
 grief, reproach. Ariosto and Tasso entered 
 boldly upon the scene of heroic poems ; but, 
 having not wings for so high flights, began 
 to learn of the old ones, fell upon their imi- 
 tations, and chiefly of Virgil, as far as the 
 force of their genius, or disadvantages of new 
 languages and customs, would allow. The re- 
 ligion of the Gentiles had been woven into 
 the contexture of all the ancient poetry, with 
 a very agreeable mixture, which made the 
 moderns affect to give that of Christianity a 
 place also in their poems. But the true reli- 
 gion was not found to become fiction so well 
 as a false had done, and all their attempts of 
 this kind seemed rather to debase religion, 
 than to heighten poetry. Spenser endeavoured 
 to supply this with morality, and to make in- 
 struction, instead of story, the subject of an 
 Epic poem. His execution was excellent, and 
 his flights of fancy very noble and high, but 
 184
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 his design was poor, and his moral lay so bare, 
 that it lost the effect; 'tis true, the pill was 
 gilded, but so thin that the colour and the 
 taste were too easily discovered. 
 
 After these three, I know none of the 
 moderns that have made any achievements 
 in heroic poetry worth recording. The wits 
 of the age soon left off such bold adventures, 
 and turned to other veins; as if, not worthy to 
 sit down at the feast, they contented themselves 
 with the scraps, with songs and sonnets, with 
 odes and elegies, with satires and panegyrics, 
 and what we call copies of verses upon any 
 subjects or occasions ; wanting either genius 
 or application for nobler or more laborious 
 productions ; as painters, that cannot succeed 
 in great pieces, turn to miniature. 
 
 But the modern poets, to value this small 
 coin, and make it pass, though of so much a 
 baser metal than the old, gave it a new mix- 
 ture from two veins which were little known 
 or little esteemed among the ancients. There 
 were indeed certain fairies, in the old regions 
 of poetry, called Epigrams, which seldom 
 reached above the stature of two, or four, or 
 six lines, and which, being so short, were all 
 turned upon conceit, or some sharp hits of 
 fancy or wit. The only ancient of this kind 
 among the Latins were the " Priapeia ", which 
 were little voluntaries or extemporaries, written 
 upon the ridiculous wooden statues of Priapus, 
 among the gardens of Rome. In the decays 
 of the Roman learning and wit, as well as 
 language, Martial, Ausonius, and others fell 
 185
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 into this vein, and applied it indifferently to 
 all subjects, which was before restrained to 
 one, and dressed it something more cleanly 
 than it was born. This vein of conceit seemed 
 proper for such scraps or splinters into which 
 poetry was broken, and was so eagerly followed, 
 as almost to over -run all that was composed 
 in our several modern languages ; the Italian, 
 the French, the Spanish, as well as English, 
 were for a great while, full of nothing else but 
 conceit: it was an ingredient that gave taste to 
 compositions which had little of themselves ; 
 'twas a sauce that gave point to meat that was 
 flat, and some life to colours that were fading; 
 and, in short, those who could not furnish 
 spirit, supplied it with this salt, which may 
 preserve things or bodies that are dead; but is, 
 for aught I know, of little use to the living, or 
 necessary to meats that have much or pleasing 
 tastes of their own. However it were, this 
 vein first overflowed our modern poetry, and 
 with so little distinction, or judgment, that we 
 would have conceit as well as rhyme in every 
 two lines, and run through all our long scribbles 
 as well as the short, and the whole body of the 
 poem, whatever it is : this was just as if a 
 building should be nothing but ornament, or 
 clothes nothing but trimming ; as if a face 
 should be covered over with black patches, or 
 a gown with spangles; which is all I shall say 
 of it. 
 
 Another vein which has entered, and helped 
 to corrupt our modern poesy, is that of ridicule; 
 as if nothing pleased but what made one laugh, 
 i86
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 which yet come from two very different affec- 
 tions of the mind; for, as men have no dispo- 
 sition to laugh at things they are most pleased 
 with, so they are very little pleased with many 
 things they laugh at. 
 
 But this mistake is very general, and such 
 modern poets as found no better way of 
 pleasing, thought they could not fail of it by 
 ridiculing. This was encouraged by finding 
 conversation run so much into the same vein, 
 and the wits in vogue to take up with that part 
 of it which was formerly left to those that were 
 called fools, and were used in great families 
 only to make the company laugh. What 
 opinion the Romans had of this character, 
 appears in those lines of Horace : 
 
 . . . Absentem qui rodit amicum, 
 
 Qui non defendit, alio culpante, solutos 
 
 Qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis, 
 
 Fingere qui non visa potest, commissa tacere 
 
 Qui nequit, hie niger est, hunc tu Romane caveto. 
 
 And 'tis pity the character of a wit, in one age, 
 should be so like that of a black in another. 
 
 Rabelais seems to have been father of the 
 ridicule ; a man of excellent and universal 
 learning, as well as wit : and, though he had 
 too much game given him for satire in that 
 age, by the customs of courts and of convents, of 
 processes and of wars, of schools and of camps, 
 of romances and legends; yet he must be con- 
 fessed to have kept up his vein of ridicule, by 
 saying many things so malicious, so smutty, 
 and so profane, that either a prudent, a modest, 
 187
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 or a pious man, could not have afforded, though 
 he had never so much of that coin about him: 
 and it were to be wished, that the wits who 
 have followed his vein had not put too much 
 value upon a dress, that better understandings 
 would not wear (at least in public), and upon a 
 compass they gave themselves, which other men 
 would not take. The matchless writer of Don 
 Quixote is much more to be admired, for 
 having made up so excellent a composition of 
 satire or ridicule, without those ingredients, 
 and seems to be the best and highest strain 
 that ever was, or will be, reached by that 
 vein. 
 
 It began first in verse, with an Italian poem 
 called "La Secchia Rapita"; was pursued by 
 Scarron in French, with his Virgil travesty; and 
 in English by Sir John Mince, Hudibras, and 
 Cotton, and with greater height of burlesque in 
 the English than, I think, in any other lan- 
 guage. But, let the execution be what it will, 
 the design, the custom, and example are very 
 pernicious to poetry, and indeed to all virtue and 
 good qualities among men, which must be dis- 
 heartened by finding how unjustly and undis- 
 tinguished they fall under the lash of raillery, 
 and this vein of ridiculing the good as well as 
 the ill, the guilty and the innocent together. 
 'Tis a very poor, though common, pretence to 
 merit, to make it appear by the faults of other 
 men. A mean wit or beauty may pass in a 
 room, where the rest of the company are 
 allowed to have none; 'tis something to sparkle 
 among diamonds, but to shine among pebbles 
 i88
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 is neither credit nor value worth the pre- 
 tending. 
 
 Besides these two veins brought in to supply 
 the defects of the modern poetry, much appli- 
 cation has been made to the smoothness of 
 language or style, which has at the best but 
 the beauty of colouring in a picture, and can 
 never make a good one, without spirit and 
 strength. The academy set up by Cardinal 
 Richelieu, to amuse the wits of that age and 
 country, and divert them from raking into his 
 politics and ministry, brought this in vogue; 
 and the French wits have for this last age 
 been in a manner wholly turned to the refine- 
 ment of their language, and indeed with such 
 success, that it can hardly be excelled, and 
 runs equally through their verse and their 
 prose. The same vein has been likewise 
 much cultivated in our modern English poetry; 
 and by such poor recruits have the broken 
 forces of this empire been of late made up; 
 with what success, I leave to be judged by 
 such as consider it in the former heights, and 
 the present declines, both of power and of 
 honour; but this will not discourage, however 
 it may affect, the true lovers of this mistress, 
 who must ever think her a beauty in rags as 
 well as in robes. 
 
 Among these many decays, there is yet one 
 sort of poetry that seems to have succeeded 
 much better with our moderns than any of 
 the rest, which is dramatic, or that of the 
 stage: in this the Italian, the Spanish, and 
 the French have all had their different merit, 
 189
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 and received their just applauses. Yet I am 
 deceived, if our English has not in some kind 
 excelled both the modern and the ancient, 
 which has been by force of a vein natural 
 perhaps to our country, and which with us 
 is called humour, a word peculiar to our 
 language too, and hard to be expressed in any 
 other ; nor is it (that I know of) found in 
 any foreign writers, unless it be Moliere, and 
 yet his itself has too much of the farce, to 
 pass for the same with ours. Shakespeare 
 was the first that opened this vein upon our 
 stage, which has run so freely and so pleasantly 
 ever since, that I have often wondered to find 
 it appear so little upon any others, being a 
 subject so proper for them ; since humour is 
 but a picture of particular life, as comedy is of 
 general; and though it represents dispositions 
 and customs less common, yet they are not 
 less natural than those that are more frequent 
 among men ; for, if humour itself be forced, 
 it loses all the grace; which has been indeed 
 the fault of some of our poets most celebrated 
 in this kind. 
 
 It may seem a defect in the ancient stage, 
 that the characters introduced were so few, 
 and those so common; as, a covetous old man, 
 an amorous young, a witty wench, a crafty 
 slave, a bragging soldier : the spectators met 
 nothing upon the stage, but what they met in 
 the streets, and at every turn. All the variety 
 is drawn only from different and uncommon 
 events ; whereas, if the characters are so too, 
 the diversity and the pleasure must needs be 
 190
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 the more. But as of most general customs in 
 a country there is usually some ground from 
 the nature of the people or the climate, so 
 there may be amongst us, for this vein of our 
 stage, and a greater variety of humour in the 
 picture, because there is a greater variety in 
 the life. This may proceed from the native 
 plenty of our soil, the unequalness of our 
 climate, as well as the ease of our government, 
 and the liberty of professing opinions and 
 factions, which perhaps our neighbours may 
 have about them, but are forced to disguise, 
 and thereby they may come in time to be 
 extinguished. Plenty begets wantonness and 
 pride; wantonness is apt to invent, and pride 
 scorns to imitate ; liberty begets stomach or 
 heart, and stomach will not be constrained. 
 Thus we come to have more originals, and 
 more that appear what they are ; we have 
 more humour, because every man follows his 
 own, and takes a pleasure, perhaps a pride, 
 to shew it. 
 
 On the contrary, where the people are 
 generally poor, and forced to hard labour, 
 their actions and lives are all of a piece ; 
 where they serve hard masters, they must 
 follow his examples as well as commands, and 
 are forced upon imitation in small matters, 
 as well as obedience in great : so that some 
 nations look as if they were cast all by one 
 mould, or cut out all by one pattern (at least 
 the common people in one, and the gentlemen 
 in another): they seem all of a sort in their 
 habits, their customs, and even their talk and 
 191
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 conversation, as well as in the application and 
 pursuit of their actions and their lives. 
 
 Besides all this, there is another sort of 
 variety amongst us, which arises from our 
 climate, and the dispositions it naturally pro- 
 duces. We are not only more unlike one 
 another than any nation I know, but we are 
 more unlike ourselves too at several times, 
 and owe to our very air some ill qualities as 
 well as many good. We may allow some 
 distempers incident to our climate, since so 
 much health, vigour, and length of life have 
 been generally ascribed to it ; for, among the 
 Greek and Roman authors themselves we shall 
 find the Britons observed to live the longest, 
 and the Egyptians the shortest, of any nations 
 that were known in those ages. Besides, I 
 think none will dispute the native courage of 
 our men, and beauty of our women, which 
 may be elsewhere as great in particulars, but 
 nowhere so in general; they may be (what is 
 said of diseases) as acute in other places, but 
 with us they are epidemical. For my own 
 part, who have conversed much with men of 
 other nations, and such as have been both in 
 great employments and esteem, I can say very 
 impartially, that I have not observed, among 
 any, so much true genius as among the English; 
 nowhere more sharpness of wit, more pleasant- 
 ness of humour, more range of fancy, more 
 penetration of thought, or depth of reflection 
 among the better sort; nowhere more goodness 
 of nature and of meaning, nor more plainness 
 of sense and of life, than among the common 
 192
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 sort of country people; nor more blunt cour- 
 age and honesty than among our seamen. 
 
 But, with all this, our country must be con- 
 fessed to be what a great foreign physician 
 called it, the region of spleen ; which may 
 arise a good deal from the great uncertainty 
 and many sudden changes of our weather in 
 all seasons of the year. And how much these 
 affect the heads and hearts, especially of the 
 finest tempers, is hard to be believed by men 
 whose thoughts are not turned to such specula- 
 tions. This makes us unequal in our humours, 
 inconstant in our passions, uncertain in our 
 ends, and even in our desires. Besides, our 
 different opinions in religion, and the factions 
 they have raised or animated for fifty years 
 past, have had an ill effect upon our manners 
 and customs, inducing more avarice, ambition, 
 disguise (with the usual consequences of them), 
 than were before in our constitution. From 
 all this it may happen, that there is nowhere 
 more true zeal in the many different forms of 
 devotion, and yet nowhere more knavery under 
 the shews and pretences. There are nowhere 
 so many disputers upon religion, so many 
 reasoners upon government, so many refiners 
 in politics, so many curious inquisitives, so 
 many pretenders to business and state-employ- 
 ments, greater porers upon books, nor plodders 
 after wealth; and yet nowhere more abandoned 
 libertines, more refined luxurists, extravagant 
 debauchees, conceited gallants, more dabblers 
 in poetry as well as politics, in philosophy, 
 and in chemistry. I have had several servants 
 ( c 217 ) 193 13
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 far gone in divinity, others in poetry ; have 
 known, in the families of some friends, a 
 keeper deep in the Rosicrucian principles, 
 and a laundress firm in those of Epicurus. 
 What effect soever such a composition or 
 medley of humours among us may have upon 
 our lives or our government, it must needs 
 have a good one upon our stage, and has given 
 admirable play to our comical wits; so that, 
 in my opinion, there is no vein of that sort, 
 either ancient or modern, which excels or 
 equals the humour of our plays. And, for 
 the rest, I cannot but observe, to the honour 
 of our country, that the good qualities amongst 
 us seem to be natural, and the ill ones more 
 accidental, and such as would be easily changed 
 by the examples of Princes, and by the precepts 
 of laws; such I mean, as should be designed 
 to form manners, to restrain excesses, to en- 
 courage industry, to prevent men's expenses 
 beyond their fortunes, to countenance virtue, 
 and raise that true esteem due to plain sense 
 and common honesty. 
 
 But to spin off this thread, which is already 
 grown too long: what honour and request the 
 ancient poetry has lived in, may not only be 
 observed from the universal reception and 
 use in all nations from China to Peru, from 
 Scythia to Arabia, but from the esteem of the 
 best and the greatest men, as well as the vulgar. 
 Among the Hebrews, David and Solomon, the 
 wisest Kings, job and Jeremiah, the holiest 
 men, were the best poets of their nation and 
 language. Among the Greeks, the two most 
 194
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 renowned sages and lawgivers were Lycurgus 
 and Solon, whereof the last is known to have 
 excelled in poetry, and the first was so great a 
 lover of it, that to his care and industry we 
 are said (by some authors) to owe the collec- 
 tion and preservation of the loose and scattered 
 pieces of Homer in the order wherein they 
 have since appeared. Alexander is reported 
 neither to have travelled nor slept without 
 those admirable poems always in his company. 
 Phalaris, that was inexorable to all other 
 enemies, relented at the charms of Stesichorus 
 his muse. Among the Romans, the last and 
 great Scipio passed the soft hours of his life 
 in the conversation of Terence, and was 
 thought to have a part in the composition of 
 his comedies. Caesar was an excellent poet 
 as well as orator, and composed a poem in 
 his voyage from Rome to Spain, relieving 
 the tedious difficulties of his march with the 
 entertainments of his muse. Augustus was 
 not only a patron, but a friend and companion 
 of Virgil and Horace, and was himself both 
 an admirer of poetry, and a pretender too, 
 as far as his genius would reach, or his 
 busy scene allow. 'Tis true, since his age 
 we have few such examples of great Princes 
 favouring or affecting poetry, and as few per- 
 haps of great poets deserving it. Whether it 
 be that the fierceness of the Gothic humours, 
 or noise of their perpetual wars, frighted it 
 away, or that the unequal mixture of the 
 modern languages would not bear it; certain 
 it is, that the great heights and excellency 
 195
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 both of poetry and music fell with the Roman 
 learning and empire, and have never since 
 recovered the admiration and applauses that 
 before attended them. Yet, such as they are 
 among us, they must be confessed to be the 
 softest and sweetest, the most general and 
 most innocent amusements of common time 
 and life. They still find room in the Courts 
 of Princes, and the cottages of shepherds. 
 They serve to revive and animate the dead 
 calm of poor or idle lives, and to allay or 
 divert the violent passions and perturbations 
 of the greatest and the busiest men. And 
 both these effects are of equal use to human 
 life ; for the mind of man is like the sea, 
 which is neither agreeable to the beholder 
 nor the voyager in a calm or in a storm, but 
 is so to both when a little agitated by gentle 
 gales ; and so the mind, when moved by soft 
 and easy passions and affections. I know very 
 well, that many who pretend to be wise by 
 the forms of being grave, are apt to despise 
 both poetry and music as toys and trifles too 
 light for the use or entertainment of serious 
 men. But whoever find themselves wholly 
 insensible to these charms, would, I think, do 
 well to keep their own counsel, for fear of 
 reproaching their own temper, and bringing 
 the goodness of their natures, if not of their 
 understandings, into question : it may be 
 thought at least an ill sign, if not an ill con- 
 stitution, since some of the fathers went so 
 far, as to esteem the love of music a sign of 
 predestination, as a thing divine, and reserved 
 196
 
 OF POETRY 
 
 for the felicities of heaven itself. While this 
 world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and 
 requests of these two entertainments will do 
 so too: and happy those that content them- 
 selves with these, or any other so easy and 
 so innocent ; and do not trouble the world, 
 or other men, because they cannot be quiet 
 themselves, though nobody hurts them! 
 
 When all is done, human life is, at the 
 greatest and the best, but like a froward child, 
 that must be played with and humoured a 
 little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and 
 then the care is over. 
 
 197
 
 An Essay upon the Ancient 
 and Modern Learning 
 
 Ju-vat antiquos accedere fontes 
 
 Whoever converses much among the old 
 books will be something hard to please among 
 the new; yet these must have their part too in 
 the leisure of an idle man, and have many of 
 them their beauties as well as their defaults. 
 Those of story, or relations of matter of fact, 
 have a value from their substance as much as 
 from their form; and the variety of events is 
 seldom without entertainment or instruction, 
 how indifferently soever the tale is told. Other 
 sorts of writings have little of esteem, but what 
 they receive from the wit, learning, or genius, 
 of the authors, and are seldom met with of any 
 excellency, because they do but trace over the 
 paths that have been beaten by the ancients, or 
 comment, critique, and flourish upon them; 
 and are at best but copies after those originals, 
 unless upon subjects never touched by them; 
 such as are all that relate to the different con- 
 stitutions of religious laws, or governments in 
 199
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 several countries, with all matters of contro- 
 versy that arise upon them. 
 
 Two pieces that have lately pleased me (ab- 
 stracted from any of these subjects) are, one 
 in English upon the Antediluvian World; and 
 another in French upon the Plurality of Worlds; 
 one writ by a divine, and the other by a 
 gentleman, but both very finely in their several 
 kinds, and upon their several subjects, which 
 would have made very poor work in common 
 hands: I was so pleased with the last (I mean 
 the fashion of it, rather than the matter, which 
 is old and beaten) that I enquired for what else 
 I could of the same hand, till I met with a 
 small piece concerning poesy, which gave me 
 the same exception to both these authors, whom 
 I should otherwise have been very partial to. 
 For the first could not end his learned treatise 
 without a panegyric of modern learning and 
 knowledge in comparison of the ancient: and 
 the other falls so grossly into the censure of 
 the old poetry, and preference of the new, that 
 I could not read either of these strains with- 
 out some indignation, which no quality among 
 men is so apt to raise in me as sufficiency, the 
 worst composition out of the pride and igno- 
 rance of mankind. But, these two being not 
 the only persons of the age that defend these 
 opinions, it may be worth examining how far 
 either reason or experience can be allowed to 
 plead or determine in their favour. 
 
 The force of all that I have met with upon 
 this subject, either in talk or writing is, first, 
 as to knowledge; that we must have more than 
 
 2CX)
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 the ancients, because we have the advantage 
 both of theirs and our own, which is commonly 
 illustrated by the similitude of a dwarf's stand- 
 ing upon a giant's shoulders, and seeing more 
 or farther than he. Next as to wit or genius, 
 that, nature being still the same, these must be 
 much at a rate in all ages, at least in the same 
 climates, as the growth and size of plants and 
 animals commonly are; and if both these are 
 allowed, they think the cause is gained. But 
 I cannot tell why we should conclude, that the 
 ancient writers had not as much advantage 
 from the knowledge of others, that were ancient 
 to them, as we have from those that are ancient 
 to us. The invention of printing has not per- 
 haps multiplied books, but only the copies of 
 them; and if we believe there were six hundred 
 thousand in the library of Ptolemy, we shall 
 hardly pretend to equal it by any of ours, not 
 perhaps by all put together: I mean so many 
 originals, that have lived any time, and thereby 
 given testimony of their having been thought 
 worth preserving. For the scribblers are in- 
 finite, that, like mushrooms or flies, are born 
 and die in small circles of time, whereas books, 
 like proverbs, receive their chief value from the 
 stamp and esteem of ages through which they 
 have passed. Besides the account of this lib- 
 rary at Alexandria, and others very volumin- 
 ous in the Lesser Asia and Rome, we have 
 frequent mention of ancient writers in many of 
 those books which we now call ancient, both 
 philosophers and historians. 'Tis true, that, 
 besides what we have in Scripture concerning 
 
 20X
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 the original and progress of the Jewish nation, 
 all that passed in the rest of our world before 
 the Trojan war is either sunk in the depths of 
 time, wrapped up in the mysteries of fables, or 
 so maimed by the want of testimonies, and loss 
 of authors, that it appears to us in too obscure 
 a shade, to make any judgment upon it. For 
 the fragments of Manethon about the anti- 
 quities of Egypt, the relations in Justin con- 
 cerning the Scythian empire, and many others 
 in Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as well as 
 the records of China, make such excursions 
 beyond the periods of time given us by the 
 holy Scriptures, that we are not allowed to 
 reason upon them. And this disagreement 
 itself, after so great a part of the world became 
 Christian, may have contributed to the loss of 
 many ancient authors. For Solomon tells us 
 even in his time, of writing many books there 
 was no end; and whoever considers the subject 
 and the style of Job, which by many is thought 
 more ancient than Moses, will hardly think it 
 was written in an r.ge or country that wanted 
 either books or learning; and yet he speaks of 
 the ancients then, and their wisdom, as we 
 do now. 
 
 But if any should so very rashly and pre- 
 sumptuously conclude, that there were few 
 books before those we have either extant or 
 upon record; yet that cannot argue there was 
 no knowledge or learning before those periods 
 of time whereof they give us the short account. 
 Books may be helps to learning and knowledge, 
 and make it more common and diffused; but
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 I doubt whether they are necessary ones or no, 
 or much advance any other science, beyond the 
 particular records of actions or registers of time; 
 and these perhaps might be as long preserved 
 without them, by the care and exactness of 
 tradition in the long successions of certain 
 races of men, with whom they were intrusted. 
 So in Mexico and Peru, before the least use or 
 mention of letters, there was remaining among 
 them the knowledge of what had passed in 
 those mighty nations and governments for 
 many ages. Whereas in Ireland, that is said 
 to have flourished in books and learning be- 
 fore they had much progress in Gaul or 
 Brittany, there are now hardly any traces left 
 of what passed there before the conquest made 
 of that country by the English in Henry II's 
 time. A strange but plain demonstration, 
 how knowledge and ignorance, as well as civility 
 and barbarism, may succeed each other in the 
 several countries of the world; how much better 
 the records of time may be kept by tradition in 
 one country than by writing in another; and 
 how much we owe to those learned languages 
 of Greek and Latin, without which, for aught 
 I know, the world in all these Western parts 
 would hardly be known to have been above 
 five or six hundred years old, nor any certainty 
 remain of what passed in it before that time. 
 'Tis true, in the Eastern regions, there seems 
 to have been a general custom of the priests, in 
 each country, having been, either by their own 
 choice, or by design of their governments, the 
 perpetual conservers of knowledge and story. 
 203
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 Only In China, this last was committed par- 
 ticularly to certain officers of State, who were 
 appointed or continued, upon every accession 
 to that Crown, to register distinctly the times 
 and memorable events of each reign. In Ethi- 
 opia, Egypt, Chaldsa, Persia, Syria, Judea, 
 these cares were committed wholly to the 
 priests, who were not less diligent in the 
 registers of times and actions, than in the study 
 and successive propagation thereby of all natural 
 science and philosophy. Whether this was 
 managed by letters, or tradition, or by both, 
 'tis certain the ancient colleges, or societies of 
 priests, were mighty reservoirs or lal^es of know- 
 ledge, into which some streams entered perhaps 
 every age, from the observations or inventions 
 of any great spirits, or transcendent geniuses, 
 that happened to rise among them; and nothing 
 was lost out of these stores, since the part of 
 conserving what others have gained, either in 
 knowledge or empire, is as common and easy, 
 as the other is hard and rare among men. 
 
 In these soils were planted and cultivated 
 those mighty growths of Astronomy, Astrology, 
 Magic, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, and 
 ancient story. From these sources Orpheus, 
 Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Plato, and others 
 of the ancients, are acknowledged to have drawn 
 all those depths of knowledge or learning, which 
 have made them so renowned in all succeeding 
 ages. I make a distinction between these two, 
 taking knowledge to be properly meant of things 
 that are generally agreed to be true by consent 
 of those that first found them out, or have been 
 204
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 since instructed in them; but learning is the 
 knowledge of the different and contested 
 opinions of men in former ages, and about 
 which they have perhaps never agreed in any; 
 and this makes so much of one, and so little of 
 the other, in the world. 
 
 Now to judge whether the ancients or 
 moderns can be probably thought to have 
 made the greatest progress in the search and 
 discoveries of the vast region of truth and 
 nature, it will be worth enquiring, what 
 guides have been used, and what labours 
 employed, by the one and the other, in these 
 noble travels and pursuits. 
 
 The modern scholars have their usual re- 
 course to the universities of their countries; 
 some few it may be to those of their neigh- 
 bours; and this, in quest of books, rather than 
 men, for their guides, though these are living, 
 and those, in comparison, but dead instructors; 
 which like a hand with an inscription can 
 point out the straight way upon the road, but 
 can neither tell you the next turnings, resolve 
 your doubts, or answer your questions, like a 
 guide that has traced it over, and perhaps 
 knows it as well as his chamber. And who 
 are these dead guides we seek in our journey? 
 They are at best but some few authors that 
 remain among us, of a great many that wrote 
 in Greek or Latin, from the age of Hippo- 
 crates, to that of Marcus Antoninus, which 
 reaches not much above six hundred years. 
 Before that time I know none, besides some 
 poets, some fables, and some few epistles; 
 205
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 and since that time, I know very few that 
 can pretend to be authors, rather than tran- 
 scribers or commentators of the ancient 
 learning. Now to consider at what sources 
 our ancients drew their water, and with what 
 unwearied pains: 'tis evident, Thales and 
 Pythagoras were the two founders of the 
 Grecian philosophy; the first gave beginning 
 to the Ionic sect, and the other to the Italic; 
 out of which, all the others celebrated in 
 Greece or Rome were derived or composed. 
 Thales was the first of the Sophi, or wise 
 men famous in Greece, and is said to have 
 learned his Astronomy, Geometry, Astrology, 
 Theology, in his travels from his country 
 Miletus to Egypt, Phoenicia, Crete, and 
 Delphos. Pythagoras was the father of philo- 
 sophers, and of the virtues; having in modesty 
 chosen the name of a lover of wisdom, rather 
 than of wise; and having first introduced the 
 names of the four cardinal virtues, and given 
 them the place and rank they have held ever 
 since in the world. Of these two mighty 
 men remain no writings at all, for those 
 golden verses that go under the name of 
 Pythagoras are generally rejected as spurious, 
 like many other fragments of Sybils, or old 
 poets, and some entire poems that run with 
 ancient names: nor is it agreed, whether he 
 ever left any thing written to his scholars or 
 contemporaries ; or whether all, that learned 
 of him, did it not by the ear and memory; 
 and all that remained of him, for some 
 succeeding ages, were not by tradition. But,
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 whether these ever writ or no, they were the 
 fountains out of which the following Greek 
 philosophers drew all those streams that have 
 since watered the studies of the learned world, 
 and furnished the voluminous writings of so 
 many sects, as passed afterwards under the 
 common name of philosophers. 
 
 As there were guides to those that we call 
 ancients, so there were others that were guides 
 to them, in whose search they travelled far 
 and laboured long. 
 
 There is nothing more agreed, than that all 
 the learning of the Greeks was deduced origi- 
 nally from Egypt or Phoenicia; but, whether 
 theirs might not have flourished to that degree 
 it did, by the commerce of the Ethiopians, 
 Chaldaeans, Arabians, and Indians, is not so 
 evident (though I am very apt to believe it), 
 and to most of these regions some of the 
 Grecians travelled in search of those golden 
 mines of learning and knowledge. Not to 
 mention the voyages of Orpheus, Mufaeus, 
 Lycurgus, Thales, Solon, Democritus, Hero- 
 dotus, Plato (and that vain Sophist, Apollonius, 
 who was but an ape of the ancient philo- 
 sophers), I shall only trace those of Pythago- 
 ras, who seems, of all others, to have gone the 
 farthest upon this design, and to have brought 
 home the greatest treasures. He went first to 
 Egypt, where he spent two and twenty years 
 in study and conversation among the several 
 colleges of priests, in Memphis, Thebes, and 
 Heliopolis, was initiated in all their several 
 mysteries, in order to gain admittance and 
 207
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 instruction in the learning and sciences that 
 were there in their highest ascendant. Twelve 
 years he spent in Babylon, and in the studies 
 and learning of the priests or Magi of the 
 Chaldasans. Besides these long abodes in those 
 two regions celebrated for ancient learning, and 
 where one author, according to their calcula- 
 tions, says he gained the observations of in- 
 numerable ages, he travelled likewise upon the 
 same scent into Ethiopia, Arabia, India, to 
 Crete, to Delphos, and to all the oracles that 
 were renowned in any of these regions. 
 
 What sort of mortals some of those may 
 have been, that he went so far to seek, I shall 
 only endeavour to trace out, by the most 
 ancient accounts that are given of the Indian 
 Brachmans, since those of the learned or sages 
 in the other countries occur more frequent in 
 story. These were all of one race or tribe, 
 that was kept chaste from any other mixture, 
 and were dedicated wholly to the service of the 
 gods, to the studies of wisdom and nature, and 
 to the counsel of their Princes. There was 
 not only particular care taken of their birth 
 and nurture, but even from their conception. 
 For when a woman among them was known to 
 have conceived, much thought and diligence 
 was employed about her diet and entertain- 
 ments, so far as to furnish her with pleasant 
 imaginations, to compose her mind and her 
 sleeps, with the best temper, during the time 
 she carried her burden. This I take to be 
 a strain beyond all the Grecian wit, or the 
 constitutions even of their imaginary lawgivers,
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 who began their cares of mankind only after 
 their birth, and none before. Those of the 
 Brachmans continued in the same degree for 
 their education and instruction, in which, and 
 their studies, and discipline of their colleges, 
 or separate abodes in woods and fields, they 
 spent thirty-seven years. Their learning and 
 institutions were unwritten, and only tradi- 
 tional among themselves by a perpetual succes- 
 sion. Their opinions in natural philosophy 
 were, that the world was round, that it had a 
 beginning, and would have an end, but reckoned 
 both by immense periods of time; that the 
 author of it was a Spirit, or a Mind, that per- 
 vaded the whole universe, and was diffused 
 through all the parts of it. They held the 
 transmigration of souls, and some used dis- 
 courses of infernal mansions, in many things 
 like those of Plato. Their moral philosophy 
 consisted chiefly in preventing all diseases or 
 distempers of the body, from which they 
 esteemed the perturbation of mind, in a great 
 measure, to arise; then, in composing the mind, 
 and exempting it from all anxious cares, esteem- 
 ing the troublesome and solicitous thoughts, 
 about past and future, to be like so many 
 dreams, and no more to be regarded. They 
 despised both life and death, pleasure and pain, 
 or at least thought them perfectly indifferent. 
 Their justice was exact and examplary; their 
 temperance so great, that they lived upon rice 
 or herbs, and upon nothing that had sensitive 
 life. If they fell sick, they counted it such 
 a mark of intemperance, that they would 
 ( c 217 ) 209 14
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 frequently die out of shame and sullenness; 
 but many lived a hundred and fifty, and some 
 two hundred years. 
 
 Their wisdom was so highly esteemed, that 
 some of them were always employed to follow 
 the courts of their Kings, to advise them upon 
 all occasions, and instruct them in justice and 
 piety; and upon this regard, Calanus, and some 
 others, are said to have followed the camp of 
 Alexander, after his conquest of one of their 
 Kings. The magical operations reported of 
 them are so wonderful, that they must either 
 be wholly disbelieved, or will make easy way 
 for the credit of all those that we so often 
 meet with in the latter relations of the Indies. 
 Above all the rest, their fortitude was most 
 admirable in their patience and endurance of 
 all evils, of pain, and of death; some standing, 
 sitting, lying, without any motion whole days 
 together in the scorching sun; others standing 
 whole nights upon one leg, and holding up a 
 heavy piece of wood or stone in both hands: 
 without ever moving (which might be done, 
 upon some sort of penances usual among them). 
 They frequently ended their lives by their own 
 choice, and not necessity, and most usually by 
 fire; some upon sickness; others upon mis- 
 fortunes; some upon mere satiety of life: so 
 Calanus, in Alexander's time, burnt himself 
 publicly, upon growing old and infirm; Zor- 
 manochages, in the time of Augustus, upon his 
 constant health and felicity, and to prevent 
 his living so long as to fall into diseases or 
 misfortunes. These were the Brachmans of
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 India, by the most ancient relations remaining 
 of them, and which, compared with our modern 
 (since navigation and trade have discovered so 
 much of those vast countries) make it easy 
 to conjecture that the present Baniams have 
 derived from them many of their customs and 
 opinions, which are still very like them, after 
 the course of two thousand years. For how 
 long nations, without the changes introduced 
 by conquest, may continue in the same customs, 
 institutions, and opinions, will be easily ob- 
 served, in the stories of the Peruvians and 
 Mexicans, of the Chineses and Scythians: these 
 last being described by Herodotus, to lodge 
 always in carts, and to feed commonly upon 
 the milk of mares, as the Tartars are reported 
 to do at this time, in many parts of those vast 
 northern regions. 
 
 From these famous Indians, it seems to be 
 most probable that Pythagoras learned, and 
 transported into Greece and Italy, the greatest 
 part of his natural and moral philosophy, rather 
 than from the Egyptians, as is commonly sup- 
 posed ; for I have not observed any mention 
 of the transmigration of souls, held among 
 the Egyptians, more ancient than the time of 
 Pythagoras : on the contrary, Orpheus is said 
 to have brought out of Egypt all his mystical 
 theology, with the stories of the Stygian lake, 
 Charon, the infernal judges, which were wrought 
 up by the succeeding poets (with a mixture of 
 the Cretan tales, or traditions) into that part 
 of the Pagan religion, so long observed by the 
 Greeks and Romans. Now 'tis obvious, that
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 this was in all parts very different from the 
 Pythagorean opinion of transmigration, which, 
 though it was preserved long among some of 
 the succeeding philosophers, yet never entered 
 into the vulgar belief of Greece or Italy. 
 
 Nor does it seem unlikely that the Egyp- 
 tians themselves might have drawn much of 
 their learning from the Indians; for they are 
 observed, in some authors, to have done it from 
 the Ethiopians ; and chronologers, I think, 
 agree, that these were a colony that came 
 anciently from the river Indus, and planted 
 themselves upon that part of Africa, which 
 from the name was afterwards called Ethiopia, 
 and in all probability brought their learning and 
 their customs with them. The Phoenicians are 
 likewise said to have been anciently a colony 
 that came from the Red Sea, and planted 
 themselves upon the Mediterranean; and from 
 thence spread so far the fame of their learning, 
 and their navigations. 
 
 To strengthen this conjecture, of much 
 learning being derived from such remote and 
 ancient fountains as the Indies, and perhaps 
 China, it may be asserted with great evidence, 
 that though we know little of the antiquities 
 of India, beyond Alexander's time, yet those 
 of China are the oldest that anywhere pretend 
 to any fair records; for these are agreed, by the 
 missionary Jesuits, to extend so far above four 
 thousand years, and with such appearance of 
 clear and undeniable testimonies, that those 
 religious men themselves, rather than question 
 their truth, by finding them contrary to the 
 
 2X2
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 vulgar chronology of the Scripture, are content 
 to have recourse to that of the Septuagint, and 
 thereby to salve the appearances in those re- 
 cords of the Chineses. Now though we have 
 been deprived of the knowledge of what course 
 learning may have held, and to what heights 
 it may have soared, in that vast region, and 
 during so great antiquity of time, by reason 
 of the savage ambition of one of their Kings, 
 who, desirous to begin the period of history 
 from his own reign, ordered all books to be 
 burnt, except those of physic and agriculture; 
 so that what we have remaining besides, of 
 that wise and ancient nation, is but what was 
 either by chance, or by private industry, rescued 
 out of that public calamity (among which were 
 a copy of the records and successions of the 
 crown); yet it is observable and agreed, that 
 as the opinions of the learned among them 
 are at present, so they were anciently, divided 
 into two sects, whereof one held the trans- 
 migration of souls, and the other the eternity 
 of matter, comparing the world to a great mass 
 of metal, out of which some parts are continu- 
 ally made up into a thousand various figures, 
 and after certain periods melted down again 
 into the same mass. That there were many 
 volumes written of old in natural philosophy 
 among them ; that, near the age of Socrates, 
 lived their great and renowned Confucius, who 
 began the same design of reclaiming men from 
 the useless and endless speculations of nature, 
 to those of morality; but with this difference, 
 that the bent of the Grecian seems to be chiefly 
 213
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 upon the happiness of private men or families, 
 but that of the Chinese, upon the good tem- 
 perament and felicity of such kingdoms or 
 governments as that was, and is known to 
 have continued for several thousands of years; 
 and may be properly called a government of 
 learned men, since no other are admitted into 
 charges of the State. 
 
 For my own part, I am much inclined to 
 believe that, in these remote regions, not only 
 Pythagoras learned the first principles, both of 
 his natural and moral philosophy ; but that 
 those of Democritus (who travelled into Egypt, 
 Chaldaea, and India, and whose doctrines were 
 after improved by Epicurus) might have been 
 derived from the same fountains ; and that, 
 long before them both, Lycurgus, who like- 
 wise travelled into India, brought from thence 
 also the chief principles of his laws and poli- 
 tics, so much renowned in the world. 
 
 For whoever observes the account already 
 given of the ancient Indian and Chinese learn- 
 ing and opinions, will easily find among them 
 the seeds of all these Grecian productions and 
 institutions : as the transmigration of souls, 
 and the four cardinal virtues: the long silence 
 enjoined his scholars, and propagation of their 
 doctrines by tradition rather than letters, and 
 abstinence from all meats that had animal life, 
 introduced by Pythagoras: the eternity of mat- 
 ter, with perpetual changes of form, the indo- 
 lence of body, and tranquillity of mind, by 
 Epicurus : and among those of Lycurgus, the 
 care of education from the birth of children, 
 214
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 the austere temperance of diet, the patient 
 endurance of toil and pain, the neglect or con- 
 tempt of life, the use of gold and silver only 
 in their temples, the defence of commerce with 
 strangers, and several others, by him established 
 among the Spartans, seem all to be wholly In- 
 dian, and different from any race or vein of 
 thought or imagination, that have ever appeared 
 in Greece, either in that age, or any since. 
 
 It may look like a paradox, to deduce learn- 
 ing from regions accounted commonly so bar- 
 barous and rude. And it is true the generality 
 of people were always so, in those eastern 
 countries, and their lives wholly turned to 
 agriculture, to mechanics, or to trades : but 
 this does not hinder particular races or suc- 
 cessions of men (the design of whose thought 
 and time was turned wholly to learning and 
 knowledge) from having been what they are 
 represented, and what they deserve to be 
 esteemed; since among the Gauls, the Goths, 
 and the Peruvians themselves, there have been 
 such races of men under the names of Druids, 
 Bards, Amautas, Runers, and other barbarous 
 appellations. 
 
 Besides, I know no circumstances like to 
 contribute more to the advancement of know- 
 ledge and learning among men, than exact 
 temperance in their races, great pureness of 
 air and equality of climate, long tranquillity 
 of empire or government : and all these we 
 may justly allow to those eastern regions, more 
 than any others we are acquainted with, at 
 least till the conquest made by the Tartars 
 215
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 upon both India and China, in the latter cen- 
 turies. However, it may be as pardonable to 
 derive some parts of learning from thence, as 
 to go so far for the game of chess, which some 
 curious and learned men have deduced from 
 India into Europe, by two several roads, that 
 is, by Persia into Greece, and by Arabia into 
 Afric and Spain. 
 
 Thus much I thought might be allowed me 
 to say, for the giving some idea of what those 
 sages or learned men were, or may have been, 
 who were ancients to those that are ancients 
 to us. Now to observe what these have been, 
 is more easy and obvious. The most ancient 
 Grecians that we are at all acquainted with, 
 after Lycurgus, who was certainly a great philo- 
 sopher as well as lawgiver, were the seven sages: 
 though the Court of Croesus is said to have 
 been much resorted to by the sophists of 
 Greece, in the happy beginnings of his reign. 
 And some of these seven seem to have brought 
 most of the sciences out of Egypt and Phoenicia, 
 into Greece; particularly those of Astronomy, 
 Astrology, Geometry, and Arithmetic. These 
 were soon followed by Pythagoras (who seems 
 to have introduced natural and moral philo- 
 sophy), and by several of his followers, both 
 in Greece and Italy. But of all these there 
 remains nothing in writing now among us ; 
 so that Hippocrates, Plato, and Xenophon are 
 the first philosophers whose works have escaped 
 the injuries of time. But that we may not 
 conclude, the first writers we have of the 
 Grecians, were the first learned or wise among 
 
 2X6
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 them ; we shall find upon enquiry, that the 
 more ancient sages of Greece appear, by the 
 characters remaining of them, to have been 
 much the greater men. They were generally 
 Princes or lawgivers of their countries, or at 
 least offered and invited to be so, either of 
 their own or of others, that desired them to 
 frame or reform their several institutions of 
 civil government. They were commonly ex- 
 cellent poets, and great physicians : they were 
 so learned in natural philosophy, that they 
 foretold not only eclipses in the heavens, but 
 earthquakes at land, and storms at sea, great 
 droughts, and great plagues, much plenty, or 
 much scarcity of certain sorts of fruits or grain; 
 not to mention the magical powers attributed 
 to several of them, to allay storms, to raise 
 gales, to appease commotions of people, to 
 make plagues cease; which qualities, whether 
 upon any ground of truth or no, yet, if well 
 believed, must have raised them to that strange 
 height they were at, of common esteem and 
 honour, in their own and succeeding ages. 
 
 By all this may be determined, whether our 
 moderns or our ancients may have had the 
 greater and the better guides, and which of 
 them have taken the greater pains, and with 
 the more application in the pursuit of know- 
 ledge. And, I think, it is enough to shew 
 that the advantages we have from those we call 
 the ancients, may not be greater than what 
 they had from those that were so to them. 
 
 But after all, I do not know whether the 
 high flights of wit and knowledge, like those 
 217
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 of power and of empire in the world, may not 
 have been made by the pure native force of 
 spirit or genius, in some single men, rather 
 than by any derived strength among them, 
 however increased by succession; and whether 
 they may not have been the achievements of 
 nature, rather than the improvements of art. 
 Thus the conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, 
 of Alexander and Tamerlane, which I take to 
 have been the greatest recorded in story, were 
 at their height in those persons that began 
 them ; and so far from being increased by 
 their successors, that they were not preserved 
 in their extent and vigour by any of them, 
 grew weaker in every hand they passed through, 
 or were divided into many, that set up for great 
 Princes, out of several small ruins of the first 
 empires, till they withered away in time, or 
 were lost by the change of names, and forms 
 of families, or governments. 
 
 Just the same fate seems to have attended 
 the highest flights of learning and of know- 
 ledge, that are upon our registers. Thales, 
 Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, 
 Aristotle, Epicurus, were the first mighty con- 
 querors of ignorance in our world, and made 
 greater progresses in the several empires of 
 science, than any of their successors have been 
 since able to reach. These have hardly ever 
 pretended more than to learn what the others 
 taught, to remember what they invented, and, 
 not able to compass that itself, they have set 
 up for authors upon some parcels of those 
 great stocks, or else have contented themselves 
 218
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 only to comment upon those texts, and make 
 the best copies they could, after those originals. 
 I have long thought, that the different abili- 
 ties of men, which we call wisdom or prudence 
 for the conduct of public affairs or private life, 
 grow directly out of that little grain of intellect 
 or good sense which they bring with them into 
 the world ; and that the defect of it in men 
 comes from some want in their conception or 
 birth. 
 
 Dixitque semel nascentibus auctor, 
 Quicquid scire licet. 
 
 And though this may be improved or impaired 
 in some degree, by accidents of education, of 
 study, and of conversation and business, yet it 
 cannot go beyond the reach of its native force, 
 no more than life can beyond the period to 
 which it was destined, by the strength or 
 weaicness of the seminal virtue. 
 
 If these speculations should be true, then I 
 know not what advantages we can pretend to 
 modern knowledge, by any we receive from the 
 ancients: nay, 'tis possible men may lose rather 
 than gain by them; may lessen the force and 
 growth of their own genius, by constraining 
 and forming it upon that of others; may have 
 less knowledge of their own, for contenting 
 themselves with that of those before them. 
 So a man that only translates, shall never be 
 a poet, nor a painter that only copies, nor a 
 swimmer that swims always with bladders. 
 So people that trust wholly to other's charity, 
 and without industry of their own, will be 
 
 21Q
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 always poor. Besides, who can tell, whether 
 learning may not even weaken invention, in a 
 man that has great advantages from nature and 
 birth; whether the weight and number of so 
 many other men's thoughts and notions may 
 not suppress his own, or hinder the motion 
 and agitation of them, from which all invention 
 arises; as heaping on wood, or too many sticks, 
 or too close together, suppresses, and some- 
 times quite extinguishes, a little spark that 
 would otherwise have grown up to a noble 
 flame ? The strength of mind, as well as of 
 body, grows more from the warmth of exer- 
 cise, than of clothes; nay, too much of this 
 foreign heat rather makes men faint, and their 
 constitutions tender or weaker than they would 
 be without them. Let it come about how it 
 will, if we are dwarfs, we are still so though 
 we stand upon a giant's shoulders ; and even 
 so placed, yet we see less than he, if we are 
 naturally shorter sighted, or if we do not look 
 as much about us, or if we are dazzled with 
 the height, which often happens from weakness 
 either of heart or brain. 
 
 In the growth and stature of souls, as well 
 as bodies, the common productions are of in- 
 different sizes, that occasion no gazing, nor no 
 wonder : but, though there are or have been 
 sometimes dwarfs and sometimes giants in the 
 world, yet it does not follow, that there must 
 be such in every age nor in every country : 
 this we can no more conclude, than that there 
 never have been any, because there are none 
 now, at least in the compass of our present
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 knowledge or inquiry. As I believe, there 
 may have been giants at some time, and some 
 place or other in the world, of such a stature, 
 as may not have been equalled perhaps again, 
 in several thousands of years, or in any other 
 parts; so there may be giants in wit and know- 
 ledge, of so over-grown a size, as not to be 
 equalled again in many successions of ages, or 
 any compass of place or country. Such, I am 
 sure, Lucretius esteems and describes Epicurus 
 to have been, and to have risen, like a prodigy 
 of invention and knowledge, such as had not 
 been before, nor was like to be again ; and 
 I know not why others of the ancients may 
 not be allowed to have been as great in their 
 kinds, and to have built as high, though upon 
 different schemes or foundations. Because 
 there is a stag's head at Amboyse of a most 
 prodigious size, and a large table at Memorancy 
 cut out of the thickness of a vine-stock, is it 
 necessary that there must be, every age, such 
 a stag in every great forest, or such a vine in 
 every large vineyard ; or that the productions 
 of nature, in any kind, must be still alike, or 
 something near it, because nature is still the 
 same? May there not many circumstances 
 concur to one production that do not to any 
 other, in one or many ages ? In the growth of 
 a tree, there is the native strength of the seed, 
 both from the kind, and from the perfections 
 of its ripening, and from the health and vigour 
 of the plant that bore it: there is the degree of 
 strength and excellence, in that vein of earth 
 where it first took root: there is a propriety of 
 
 221
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 soil, suited to the kind of tree that grows in 
 it : there is a. great favour or disfavour to its 
 growth, from accidents of water and of shelter, 
 from the kindness or unkindness of seasons, 
 till it be past the need or the danger of them. 
 All these, and perhaps many others, joined 
 with the propitiousness of climate to that sort 
 of tree, and the length of age it shall stand and 
 grow, may produce an oak, a fig, or a plane 
 tree, that shall deserve to be renowned in story, 
 and shall not perhaps be paralleled in other 
 countries or times. 
 
 May not the same have happened in the 
 production, growth, and size of wit and genius 
 in the world, or in some parts or ages of it, 
 and from many more circumstances that con- 
 tributed towards it, than what may concur to 
 the stupendous growth of a tree or animal.^ 
 May there not have been, in Greece or Italy 
 of old, such prodigies of invention and learn- 
 ing in philosophy, mathematics, physic, oratory, 
 poetry, that none has ever since approached 
 them, as well as there were in painting, statu- 
 ary, architecture ? And yet their unparalleled 
 and inimitable excellencies in these are undis- 
 puted. 
 
 Science and arts have run their circles, and 
 had their periods in the several parts of the 
 world: they are generally agreed to have held 
 their course from East to West, to have begun 
 in Chaldsea and Egypt, to have been trans- 
 planted from thence to Greece, from Greece 
 to Rome; to have sunk there, and, after many 
 ages, to have revived from those ashes, and to
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 have sprung up again both in Italy and other 
 more western Provinces of Europe. When 
 Chaldsa and Egypt were learned and civil, 
 Greece and Rome were as rude and barbarous 
 as all Egypt and Syria now are, and have been 
 long. When Greece and Rome were at their 
 heights in arts and sciences, Gaul, Germany, 
 Britain, were as ignorant and barbarous as any 
 parts of Greece or Turkey can be now. 
 
 These, and greater changes, are made in the 
 several countries of the world, and courses of 
 time, by the revolutions of empire, the devas- 
 tations of armies, the cruelties of conquering, 
 and the calamities of enslaved nations; by the 
 violent inundations of water in some countries, 
 and the cruel ravages of plagues in others. 
 These sorts of accidents sometimes lay them 
 so waste, that, when they rise again, 'tis from 
 such low beginnings, that they look like new- 
 created regions, or growing out of the original 
 state of mankind, and without any records or 
 remembrances, beyond certain short periods of 
 time. Thus that vast continent of Norway 
 is said to have been so wholly desolated by a 
 plague, about eight or nine hundred years ago, 
 that it was for some ages following a very desert, 
 and since all overgrown with wood; and Ireland 
 was so spoiled and wasted by the conquest of 
 the Scutes and Danes, that there hardly remains 
 any story or tradition what that island was, 
 how planted or governed, above five hundred 
 years ago. What changes have been made by 
 violent storms, and inundations of the sea in 
 the maritime Provinces of the Low Countries, 
 223
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 is hard to know, or to believe what is told, 
 nor how ignorant they have left us of all that 
 passed there before a certain and short period 
 of time. 
 
 The accounts of many other countries would 
 perhaps as hardly, and as late, have waded out 
 of the depths of time, and gulfs of ignorance, 
 had it not been for the assistances of those 
 two languages, to which we owe all we have 
 of learning or ancient records in the world. 
 For whether we have any thing of the old 
 Chaldsian, Hebrew, Arabian, that is truely 
 genuine or more ancient than the Augustan 
 age, I am much in doubt ; yet it is probable 
 the vast Alexandrian library must have chiefly 
 consisted of books composed in those languages, 
 with the Egyptian, Syrian, and Ethiopic, or 
 at least translated out of them by the care of 
 the Egyptian Kings or Priests, as the Old 
 Testament was, wherein the Septuagints em- 
 ployed left their name to that famous trans- 
 lation. 
 
 'Tis very true and just, all that is said of 
 the mighty progress that learning and know- 
 ledge have made in these western parts of 
 Europe, within these hundred and fifty years; 
 but that does not conclude, it must be at a 
 greater height than it had been in other coun- 
 tries, where it was growing much longer periods 
 of time ; it argues more how low it was then 
 amongst us, rather than how high it is now. 
 
 Upon the fall of the Roman empire, almost 
 all learning was buried in its ruins: the northern 
 nations, that conquered or rather overwhelmed 
 224
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 it by their numbers, were too barbarous to 
 preserve the remains of learning or civility 
 more carefully than they did those of statuary 
 or architecture, which fell before their brutish 
 rage. The Saracens indeed from their con- 
 quests of Egypt, Syria, and Greece, carried 
 home great spoils of learning, as well as other 
 riches, and gave the original of all that know- 
 ledge which flourished for some time among 
 the Arabians, and has since been copied out 
 of many authors among them, as theirs have 
 been out of those of the countries they had 
 subdued; nor indeed do learning, civility, mo- 
 rality, seem any where to have made a greater 
 growth, in so short a time, than in that empire, 
 nor to have flourished more than in the reign 
 of their great Almanzor, under whose victorious 
 ensigns Spain was conquered by the Moors; 
 but the Goths, and all the rest of those Scythian 
 swarms that from beyond the Danube and the 
 Elbe, under so many several names, overran 
 all Europe, took very hardly and very late any 
 tincture of the learning and humanity that had 
 flourished in the several regions of it, under 
 the protection, and by the example and in- 
 structions, of the Romans, that had so long 
 possessed them : those northern nations were 
 indeed easier induced to embrace the religion 
 of those they had subdued, and by their devo- 
 tion gave great authority and revenues, and 
 thereby ease, to the Clergy, both secular and 
 regular, through all their conquests. Great 
 numbers of the better sort among the oppressed 
 natives, finding this vein among them, and no 
 { c 217 ) 225 15
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 other way to be safe and quiet under such 
 rough masters, betook themselves to the pro- 
 fession and assemblies of religious orders and 
 fraternities, and among those only were pre- 
 served all the poor remainders of learning, in 
 these several countries. 
 
 But these good men either contented them- 
 selves with their devotion, or with the ease of 
 quiet lives, or else employed their thoughts 
 and studies to raise and maintain the esteem 
 and authority of that sacred order, to which 
 they owed the safety and repose, the wealth 
 and honour they enjoyed. And in this they 
 so well succeeded, that the conquerors were 
 governed by those they had subdued, the great- 
 est Princes by the meanest Priests, and the 
 victorious Franks and Lombard Kings fell at 
 the feet of the Roman Prelates. 
 
 Whilst the clergy were busied in these 
 thoughts or studies, the better sort among 
 the laity were wholly turned to arms and to 
 honour, the meaner sort to labour or to spoil; 
 Princes taken up with wars among themselves, 
 or in those of the holy land, or between the 
 Popes and Emperors upon disputes of the 
 ecclesiastical and secular powers ; learning so 
 little in use among them, that few could write 
 or read, besides those of the long robes. During 
 this course of time, which lasted many ages in 
 the Western parts of Europe, the Greek tongue 
 was wholly lost, and the purity of the Roman to 
 that degree, that what remained of it was only 
 a certain jargon rather than Latin, that passed 
 among the Monks and Friars who were at all 
 226
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 learned; and among the students of the several 
 universities, which served to carry them to 
 Rome in pursuit of preferments or causes de- 
 pending there, and little else. 
 
 When the Turks took Constantinople, about 
 two hundred years ago, and soon after possessed 
 themselves of all Greece, the poor natives, fear- 
 ing the tyranny of those cruel masters, made 
 their escapes in great numbers to the neigh- 
 bouring parts of Christendom, some by the 
 Austrian territories into Germany, others by 
 the Venetian into Italy and France ; several 
 that were learned among these Grecians (and 
 brought many ancient books with them in that 
 language) began to teach it in these countries; 
 first to gain subsistence, and afterwards favour 
 in some Princes' or great men's courts, who 
 began to take a pleasure or pride in coun- 
 tenancing learned men. Thus began the res- 
 toration of learning in these parts, with that 
 of the Greek tongue; and soon after, Reuchlin 
 and Erasmus began that of the purer and 
 ancient Latin. After them, Buchanan carried 
 it, I think, to the greatest height of any of the 
 moderns before or since. The Monkish Latin 
 upon this return was laughed out of doors, and 
 remains only in the inns of Germany or 
 Poland; and with the restitution of these two 
 noble languages, and the books remaining of 
 them (which many Princes and Prelates were 
 curious to recover and collect) learning of all 
 sorts began to thrive in these Western regions: 
 and since that time, and in the first succeeding 
 century, made perhaps a greater growth than in 
 227
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 any other that we know of in such a compass 
 of time, considering into what depths of igno- 
 rance it was sunk before. 
 
 But why from thence should be concluded, 
 that it has outgrown all that was ancient, I 
 see no reason. If a strong and vigorous man 
 at thirty years old should fall into a consump- 
 tion, and so draw on till fifty in the extremest 
 weakness and infirmity; after that, should be- 
 gin to recover health till sixty, so as to be 
 again as strong as men usually are at that age: 
 it might perhaps truly be said in that case, that 
 he had grown more in strength that last ten 
 years than any others of his life; but not that 
 he was grown to more strength and vigour than 
 he had at thirty years old. 
 
 But what are the sciences wherein we pre- 
 tend to excel ? I know of no new philosophers, 
 that have made entries upon that noble stage 
 for fifteen hundred years past, unless Des 
 Cartes and Hobbs should pretend to it ; of 
 whom I shall make no critique here, but only 
 say that, by what appears of learned men's 
 opinions in this age, they have by no means 
 eclipsed the lustre of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, 
 or others of the ancients. For grammar or 
 rhetoric, no man ever disputed it with them; 
 nor for poetry, that ever I heard of, besides 
 the new French author I have mentioned; and 
 against whose opinion there could, I think, 
 never have been given stronger evidence, than 
 by his own poems, printed together with that 
 treatise. 
 
 There is nothing new in Astronomy, to vie 
 228
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 with the ancients, unless it be the Copernican 
 system; nor in Physic, unless Harvey's circu- 
 lation of the blood. But whether either of 
 these be modern discoveries, or derived from 
 old fountains, is disputed: nay, it is so too 
 whether they are true or no; for though reason 
 may seem to favour them more than the con- 
 trary opinions, yet sense can very hardly allow 
 them; and, to satisfy mankind, both these 
 must concur. But if they are true, yet these 
 two great discoveries have made no change in 
 the conclusions of Astronomy, nor in the prac- 
 tice of Physic, and so have been of little use 
 to the world, though perhaps of much honour 
 to the authors. 
 
 What are become of the charms of Music, by 
 which men and beasts, fishes, fowls, and ser- 
 pents, were so frequently enchanted, and their 
 very natures changed ; by which the passions 
 of men were raised to the greatest height and 
 violence, and then as suddenly appeased, so 
 as they might be justly said to be turned into 
 lions or lambs, into wolves or into harts, by 
 the powers and charms of this admirable art ? 
 'Tis agreed by the learned, that the science of 
 music, so admired of the ancients, is wholly 
 lost in the world, and that what we have now 
 is made up out of certain notes that fell into the 
 fancy or observation of a poor friar, in chant- 
 ing his matins. So as those two divine excel- 
 lencies of music and poetry are grown, in a 
 manner, to be little more, but the one fiddling, 
 and the other rhyming ; and are indeed very 
 worthy the ignorance of the friar, and tlie 
 229
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 barbarousness of the Goths that introduced 
 them among us. 
 
 What have we remaining of Magic, by which 
 the Indians, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians were ^ 
 so renowned, and by which effects so wonder- 
 ful, and to common men so astonishing, were 
 produced, as made them have recourse to 
 spirits, or supernatural powers, for some ac- 
 count of their strange operations ? By Magic, 
 I mean some excelling knowledge of nature, 
 and the various powers and qualities in its 
 several productions, and the application of cer- 
 tain agents to certain patients, which, by force 
 of some peculiar qualities, produce effects very 
 different from what fall under vulgar observa- 
 tion or comprehension. These are by ignorant 
 people called Magic or conjuring, and such-like 
 terms, and an account of them, much about as 
 wise, is given by the common learned, from 
 sympathies, antipathies, idiosyncrasies, talis- 
 mans, and some scraps or terms left us by the 
 Egyptians or Grecians of the ancient Magic; 
 but the science seems, with several others, to 
 be wholly lost. 
 
 What traces have we left of that admirable 
 science or skill in architecture, by which such 
 stupendous fabrics have been raised of old, and 
 so many of the wonders of the world been 
 produced, and which are so little approached 
 by our modern achievements of this sort, that 
 they hardly fall within our imagination ? not 
 to mention the walls and palace of Babylon, 
 the pyramids of Egypt, the tomb of Mausolus, 
 or colosse of Rhodes, the temples and palaces 
 230
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 of Greece and Rome: what can be more ad- 
 mirable in this kind than the Roman theatres, 
 their aqueducts, and their bridges, among 
 which that of Trajan over the Danube seems 
 to have been the last flight of the ancient 
 architecture ? The stupendous effects of this 
 science sufficiently evince at what heights the 
 mathematics were among the ancients; but if 
 this be not enough, whoever would be satisfied 
 need go no further than the siege of Syracuse, 
 and that mighty defence made against the Ro- 
 man power, more by the wonderful science and 
 arts of Archimedes, and almost magical force of 
 his engines, than by all the strength of the city, 
 or number and bravery of the inhabitants. 
 
 The greatest invention that I know of, in 
 latter ages, has been that of the loadstone, and 
 consequently the greatest improvement has been 
 made in the art of navigation; yet there must 
 be allowed to have been something stupendous 
 in the numbers and in the build of their ships 
 and galleys of old; and the skill of pilots, from 
 the observation of the stars in the more serene 
 climates, may be judged, by the navigations so 
 celebrated in story, of the Tyrians and Cartha- 
 ginians, not to mention other nations. How- 
 ever, it is to this we owe the discovery and 
 commerce of so many vast countries, which 
 were very little, if at all, known to the an- 
 cients, and the experimental proof of this ter- 
 restrial globe, which was before only speculation, 
 but has since been surrounded by the fortune 
 and boldness of several navigators. From this 
 great, tho' fortuitous invention, and the conse- 
 231
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 quence thereof, it must be allowed, that geo- 
 graphy is mightily advanced in these latter 
 ages. The vast continents of China, the East 
 and West Indies, the long extent and coasts of 
 Africa, with the numberless islands belonging 
 to them, have been hereby introduced into our 
 acquaintance, and our maps; and great increases 
 of wealth and luxury, but none of knowledge, 
 brought among us, further than the extent and 
 situation of country, the customs and manners 
 of so many original nations which we call bar- 
 barous, and I am sure have treated them as if 
 we hardly esteemed them to be a part of man- 
 kind. I do not doubt, but many great and 
 more noble uses would have been made of such 
 conquests or discoveries, if they had fallen to 
 the share of the Greeks and Romans in those 
 ages when knowledge and fame were in as 
 great request, as endless gains and wealth are 
 among us now ; and how much greater dis- 
 coveries might have been made, by such spirits 
 as theirs, is hard to guess. I am sure ours, 
 though great, yet look very imperfect, as to 
 what the face of this terrestrial globe would 
 probably appear, if they had been pursued as 
 tar as we might justly have expected from the 
 progresses of navigation since the use of the 
 compass, which seems to have been long at a 
 stand: how little has been performed of what 
 has been so often and so confidently promised, of 
 a north-west passage to the East of Tartary, and 
 North of China r How little do we know of the 
 lands on that side of the Magellan Straits that 
 lie towards the South pole, which may be vast 
 232
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 islands or continents, for aught any can yet 
 aver, though that passage was so long since 
 found out ? Whether Japan be island or con- 
 tinent, with some parts of Tartary on the 
 North side, is not certainly agreed. The lands 
 of Yedso upon the North-East continent have 
 been no more than coasted, and whether they 
 may not join to the Northern continent of 
 America, is by some doubted. 
 
 But the defect or negligence seems yet to 
 have been greater towards the South, where 
 we know little beyond thirty-five degrees, and 
 that only by the necessity of doubling the Cape 
 of Good Hope in our East India voyages: yet a 
 continent has been long since found out within 
 fifteen degrees to South, and about the length 
 of Java, which is marked by the name of New 
 Holland in the maps, and to what extent none 
 knows, either to the South, the East, or the 
 West ; yet the learned have been of opinion, 
 that there must be a balance of earth on that 
 side of the line in some proportion to what 
 there is on the other; and that it cannot be all 
 sea from thirty degrees to the South pole, since 
 we have found land to above sixty-five degrees 
 towards the North. But our navigators that 
 way have been confined to the roads of trade; 
 and our discoveries bounded by what we can 
 manage to a certain degree of gain. And I 
 have heard it said among the Dutch, that their 
 East India Company have long since forbidden, 
 and under the greatest penalties, any further 
 attempts of discovering that continent, having 
 already more trade in those parts than they 
 233
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 can turn to account, and fearing some more 
 populous nation of Europe might make great 
 establishments of trade in some of those un- 
 known regions, which might ruin or impair 
 what they have already in the Indies. 
 
 Thus we are lame still in geography itself, 
 which we might have expected to run up to so 
 much greater perfection by the use of the com- 
 pass; and it seems to have been little advanced 
 these last hundred years. So far have we been 
 from improving upon those advantages we have 
 received from the knowledge of the ancients, 
 that, since the late restoration of learning and 
 arts among us, our first flights seem to have 
 been the highest, and a sudden damp to have 
 fallen upon our wings, which has hindered us 
 from rising above certain heights. The arts 
 of painting and statuary began to revive with 
 learning in Europe, and made a great but short 
 flight ; so as, for these last hundred years, we 
 have not had one master in either of them, who 
 deserved a rank with those that flourished in 
 that short period after they began among us. 
 
 It were too great a mortification to think 
 that the same fate has happened to us, even 
 in our modern learning, as if the growth of 
 that, as well as of natural bodies, had some 
 short periods, beyond which it could not reach, 
 and after which it must begin to decay. It 
 falls in one country or one age, and rises again 
 in others, but never beyond a certain pitch. 
 One man, or one country, at a certain time 
 runs a great length in some certain kinds of 
 knowledge, but loses as much ground in others, 
 234
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 • 
 
 that were perhaps as useful and as valuable. 
 There is a certain degree of capacity in the 
 greatest vessel, and, when it is full, if you 
 pour in still, it must run out some way or 
 other, and the more it runs out on one side, 
 the less runs out at the other. So the greatest 
 memory, after a certain degree, as it learns or 
 retains more of some things or words, loses 
 and forgets as much of others. The largest 
 and deepest reach of thought, the more it pur- 
 sues some certain subjects, the more it neglects 
 others. 
 
 Besides, few men or none excel in all facul- 
 ties of mind. A great memory may fail of 
 invention ; both may want judgment to digest 
 or apply what they remember or invent. Great 
 courage may want caution; great prudence may 
 want vigour ; yet all are necessary to make a 
 great commander. But how can a man hope 
 to excel in all qualities, when some are pro- 
 duced by the heat, others by the coldness of 
 brain and temper ? The abilities of man must 
 fall short on one side or other, like too scanty 
 a blanket when you are a-bed, if you pull it 
 upon your shoulders you leave your feet bare; 
 if you thrust it down upon your feet, your 
 shoulders are uncovered. 
 
 But what would we have, unless it be other 
 natures and beings than God Almighty has 
 given us? The height of our statures may 
 be six or seven feet, and we would have it 
 sixteen ; the length of our age may reach to a 
 hundred years, and we would have it a thou- 
 sand. We are born to grovel upon the earth, 
 235
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 and we would fain soar up to the skies. We 
 cannot comprehend the growth of a kernel or 
 seed, the frame of ant or bee ; we are amazed 
 at the wisdom of the one, and industry of the 
 other ; and yet we will know the substance, 
 the figure, the courses, the influences of all 
 those glorious celestial bodies, and the end for 
 which they were made: w^e pretend to give a 
 clear account how thunder and lightning (that 
 great artillery of God Almighty) is produced; 
 and we cannot comprehend how the voice of a 
 man is framed, that poor little noise we make 
 every time we speak. The motion of the sun 
 is plain and evident to some astronomers, and 
 of the earth to others; yet we none of us know 
 which of them moves, and meet with many 
 seeming impossibilities in both, and beyond 
 the fathom of human reason or comprehension. 
 Nay, we do not so much as know what motion 
 is, nor how a stone moves from our hand, when 
 we throw it cross the street. Of all these that 
 most ancient and divine writer gives the best 
 account in that short satire, "Vain man would 
 fain be wise, when he is born like a wild ass's 
 colt ". 
 
 But, God be thanked, his pride is greater 
 than his ignorance, and what he wants in 
 knowledge, he supplies by sufficiency. When 
 he has looked about him as far as he can, he 
 concludes there is no more to be seen ; when 
 he is at the end of his line, he is at the bottom 
 of the ocean ; when he has shot his best, he 
 is sure none ever did nor ever can shoot better 
 or beyond it. His own reason is the certain 
 236
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 measure of truth, his own knowledge, of what 
 is possible in nature; though his mind and his 
 thoughts change every seven years, as well as 
 his strength and his features; nay, though his 
 opinions change every week or every day, yet 
 he is sure, or at least confident, that his present 
 thoughts and conclusions are just and true, 
 and cannot be deceived : and, among all the 
 miseries to which mankind is born and sub- 
 jected in the whole course of his life, he has 
 this one felicity to comfort and support him, 
 that, in all ages, in all things, every man is 
 always in the right. A boy of fifteen Is wiser 
 than his father at forty, the meanest subject 
 than his Prince or Governors; and the modern 
 scholars, because they have, for a hundred years 
 past, learned their lesson pretty well, are much 
 more knowing than the ancients their masters. 
 But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, 
 is it so by experience too ? Have the studies, 
 the writings, the productions of Gresham col- 
 lege, or the late academies of Paris, outshined 
 or eclipsed the Lyceum of Plato, the academy 
 of Aristotle, the Stoa of Zeno, the garden of 
 Epicurus? Has Harvey outdone Hippocrates; 
 or Wilkins, Archimedes? Are D'Avila's and 
 Strada's histories beyond those of Herodotus 
 and Livy? Are Sleyden's commentaries be- 
 yond those of Caesar? the flights of Boileau 
 above those of Virgil ? If all this must be 
 allowed, I will then yield Gondibert to have 
 excelled Homer, as is pretended; and the mod- 
 ern French poetry, all that of the ancients. 
 And yet, I think, it may be as reasonably said, 
 237
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 that the plays in Moorfields are beyond the 
 Olympic games; a Welsh or Irish harp, excels 
 those of Orpheus and Arion ; the pyramid in 
 London, those of Memphis ; and the French 
 conquests in Flanders are greater than those 
 of Alexander and Cassar, as their operas and 
 panegyrics would make us believe. 
 
 But the consideration of poetry ought to be 
 a subject by itself For the books we have in 
 prose, do any of the modern we converse with 
 appear of such a spirit and force, as if they 
 would live longer than the ancient have done ? 
 If our wit and eloquence, our knowledge or 
 inventions, would deserve it; yet our languages 
 would not : there is no hope of their lasting 
 long, nor of any thing in them ; they change 
 every hundred years so as to be hardly known 
 for the same, or any thing of the former styles 
 to be endured by the latter; so as they can no 
 more last like the ancients than excellent carv- 
 ings in wood, like those in marble or brass. 
 
 The three modern tongues most esteemed, 
 are Italian, Spanish, and French; all imperfect 
 dialects of the noble Roman; first mingled and 
 corrupted with the harsh words and termina- 
 tions of those many different and barbarous 
 nations, by whose invasions and excursions the 
 Roman empire was long infested : they were 
 afterwards made up into these several languages, 
 by long and popular use, out of those ruins and 
 corruptions of Latin, and the prevailing lan- 
 guages of those nations to which these several 
 Provinces came in time to be most and longest 
 subjected (as the Goths and Moors in Spain, 
 238
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 the Goths and Lombards in Italy, the Franks 
 in Gaul) besides a mingle of those tongues 
 which were original to Gaul and to Spain, 
 before the Roman conquests and establishments 
 there. Of these, there may be some remainders 
 in Biscay or the Asturias; but I doubt, whether 
 there be any of the old Gallic in France, the 
 subjection there having been more universal, 
 both to the Romans and Franlcs. But I do 
 not find the mountainous parts on the North 
 of Spain were ever wholly subdued, or formerly 
 governed, either by the Romans, Goths, or 
 Saracens, no more than Wales by Romans, 
 Saxons, or Normans, after their conquests in 
 our island, which has preserved the ancient 
 Biscayan and British more entire, than any 
 native tongue of other Provinces, where the 
 Roman and Gothic or Northern conquests 
 reached, and were for any time established. 
 
 'Tis easy to imagine, how imperfect copies 
 these modern languages, thus composed, must 
 needs be of so excellent an original, being 
 patched up out of the conceptions, as well as 
 scKinds, of such barbarous or enslaved people; 
 whereas the Latin was framed or cultivated by 
 the thoughts and uses of the noblest nation 
 that appears upon any record of story, and 
 enriched only by the spoils of Greece, which 
 alone could pretend to contest it with them. 
 'Tis obvious enough, what rapport there is, 
 and must ever be, between the thoughts and 
 words, the conceptions and languages of every 
 country, and how great a difference this must 
 make in the comparison and excellence of books; 
 239
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 and how easy and just a preference it must 
 decree to those of the Greek and Latin, before 
 any of the modern languages. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be further affirmed in favour 
 of the ancients, that the oldest books we have 
 are still in their kind the best. The two most 
 ancient that I know of in prose, among those 
 we call profane authors, are ^sop's Fables and 
 Phalaris's Epistles^ both living near the same time, 
 which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As 
 the first has been agreed by all ages since, for the 
 greatest master in his kind, and all others of that 
 sort have been but imitations of his original; 
 so I think the Epistles of Phalaris to have more 
 race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius, 
 than any others I have ever seen, either ancient 
 or modern. I know several learned men (or 
 that usually pass for such, under the name of 
 critics) have not esteemed them genuine, and 
 Politian with some others have attributed them 
 to Lucian: but I think he must have little skill 
 in painting, that cannot find out this to be an 
 original; such diversity of passions, upon such 
 variety of actions and passages of life and gov- 
 ernment, such freedom of thought, such bold- 
 ness of expression, such bounty to his friends, 
 such scorn of his enemies, such honour of 
 learned men, such esteem of good, such know- 
 ledge of life, such contempt of death, with such 
 fierceness of nature and cruelty of revenge, could 
 never be represented but by him that possessed 
 them; and I esteem Lucian to have been no 
 more capable of writing, than of acting what 
 Phalaris did. In all one writ, you find the 
 240
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 scholar or the sophist ; and in all the other, 
 the tyrant and the commander. 
 
 The next to these, in time, are Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, Hippocrates, Plato, Xenophon, and 
 Aristotle; of whom I shall say no more, than, 
 what I think is allowed by all, that they are in 
 their several kinds inimitable. So are Cassar, 
 Sallust, and Cicero, in theirs, who are the 
 ancientest of the Latin (I speak still of prose) 
 unless it be some little of old Cato up'bn rustic 
 affairs. 
 
 The height and purity of the Roman style, 
 as it began towards the time of Lucretius, 
 which was about that of the Jugurthine war; 
 so it ended about that of Tiberius; and the 
 last strain of it seems to have been Velleius 
 Paterculus. The purity of the Greek lasted a 
 great deal longer, and must be allowed till 
 Trajan's time, when Plutarch wrote, whose 
 Greek is much more estimable than the Latin 
 of Tacitus his contemporary. After this last, 
 I know none that deserves the name of Latin, 
 in comparison of what went before them, espe- 
 cially in the Augustan age; if any, 'tis the little 
 treatise of Minutius Felix. All Latin books 
 that we have till the end of Trajan, and all 
 Greek till the end of Marcus Antoninus, have 
 a true and very estimable value. All written 
 since that time seem to me to have little more 
 than what comes from the relation of events 
 we are glad to know, or the controversy of 
 opinions in religion or laws, wherein the busy 
 world has been so much employed. 
 
 The great wits among the moderns have 
 (C217) 241 16
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 been, in my opinion, and in their several 
 kinds, of the Italian, Boccace, Machiavel, and 
 Padre Paolo; among the Spaniards, Cervantes 
 (who writ Don Quixote) and Guevara; among 
 the French, Rabelais and Montaigne; among 
 the English, Sir Philip Sidney, Bacon, and 
 Selden : I mention nothing of what is writ- 
 ten upon the subject of divinity, wherein the 
 Spanish and English pens have been most 
 conversaift, and most excelled. The modern 
 French are Voiture, Rochefaucault's Memoirs, 
 Pussy's Amours de Gaul, with several other 
 little relations or memoirs that have run this 
 age, which are very pleasant and entertaining, 
 and seem to have refined the French language 
 to a degree that cannot be well exceeded. I 
 doubt it may have happened there, as it does 
 in all works, that, the more they are filed and 
 polished, the less they have of weight and of 
 strength; and, as that language has much more 
 fineness and smoothness at this time, so I take 
 it to have had much more force, spirit, and 
 compass, in Montaigne's age. 
 
 Since those accidents which contributed to 
 the restoration of learning, almost extinguished 
 in the western parts of Europe, have been ob- 
 served, it will be just to mention some that 
 may have hindered the advancement of it, in 
 proportion to what might have been expected 
 from the mighty growth and progress made 
 in the first age after its recovery. One great 
 reason may have been, that, very soon after the 
 entry of learning upon the scene of Christen- 
 dom, another was m.ade, by many of the 
 242
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 new-learned men, into the inquiries and con- 
 tests about matters of religion; the manners, 
 and maxims, and institutions introduced by 
 the clergy for seven or eight centuries past; 
 the authority of Scripture and tradition ; of 
 Popes and of Councils; of the ancient fathers, 
 and of the latter schoolmen and Casuists; of 
 ecclesiastical and civil power. The humour 
 of ravelling into all these mystical or entangled 
 matters, mingling with the interests and pas- 
 sions of Princes and of parties, and thereby 
 heightened or inflamed, produced infinite dis- 
 putes, raised violent heats throughout all parts 
 of Christendom, and soon ended in many 
 defections or reformations from the Roman 
 Church, and in several new institutions, both 
 ecclesiastical and civil, in divers countries ; 
 which have been since rooted and established 
 in almost all the North-West parts. The end- 
 less disputes and litigious quarrels upon all 
 these subjects, favoured and encouraged by 
 the interests of the several Princes engaged 
 in them, either took up wholly, or generally 
 employed, the thoughts, the studies, the ap- 
 plications, the endeavours of all or most of the 
 finest wits, the deepest scholars, and the most 
 learned writers that the age produced. Many 
 excellent spirits, and the most penetrating 
 geniuses, that might have made admirable pro- 
 gresses and advances in many other sciences, 
 were sunk and overwhelmed in the abyss of 
 disputes about matters of religion, without ever 
 turning their looks or thoughts any other way. 
 To these disputes of the pen succeeded those 
 243
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 of the sword ; and the ambition of great 
 Princes and Ministers, mingled with the zeal, 
 or covered with the pretences of religion, has 
 for a hundred years past infested Christendom 
 with almost a perpetual course, or succession, 
 either of civil or of foreign wars: the noise 
 and disorders whereof have been ever the most 
 capital enemies of the Muses, who are seated, 
 by the ancient fables, upon the top of Par- 
 nassus, that is, in a place of safety and of quiet 
 from the reach of all noises and disturbances of 
 the regions below. 
 
 Another circumstance that may have hin- 
 dered the advancement of learning, has been 
 a want or decay of favour in great Kings and 
 Princes, to encourage or applaud it. Upon the 
 first return or recovery of this fair stranger 
 among us, all were fond of seeing her, apt to 
 applaud her: she was lodged in palaces instead 
 of cells; and the greatest Kings and Princes of 
 the age took either a pleasure in courting her, 
 or a vanity in admiring her, and in favouring 
 all her train. The Courts of Italy and Ger- 
 many, of England, of France, of Popes, and of 
 Emperors, thought themselves honoured and 
 adorned by the number and qualities of 
 learned men, and by all the improvements 
 of sciences and arts wherein they excelled. 
 They were invited from all parts, for the use 
 and entertainment of Kings, for the education 
 and instruction of young Princes, for advice 
 and assistance to the greatest Ministers; and, 
 in short, the favour of learning was the humour 
 and mode of the age. Francis I, Charles V, 
 
 2^4
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 and Henry VIII (those three great rivals), 
 agreed in this, though in nothing else. Many 
 Nobles pursued this vein v^^ith great applica- 
 tion and success; among whom, Picus de Mir- 
 andula, a Sovereign Prince in Italy, might 
 have proved a prodigy of learning, if his 
 studies and life had lasted as long as those 
 of the ancients : for I think all of them that 
 writ much of v^hat v^^e have now remaining, 
 lived old, whereas he died about three and 
 thirty, and left the world in admiration of so 
 much knowledge in so much youth. Since 
 those reigns I have not observed, in our mod- 
 ern story, any great Princes much celebrated 
 for their favour of learning, further than to 
 serve their turns, to justify their pretensions 
 and quarrels, or flatter their successes. The 
 honour of Princes has, of late, struck sail to 
 their interests; whereas of old their interests, 
 greatness, and conquests were all dedicated to 
 their glory, and fame. 
 
 How much the studies and labours of learned 
 men must have been damped, for want of this 
 influence and kind aspect of Princes, may be 
 best conjectured from what happened on the 
 contrary, about the Augustan age, when the 
 learning of Rome was at its height, and per- 
 haps owed it in some degree to the bounty 
 and patronage of that Emperor, and Maecenas 
 his favourite, as well as to the felicity of the 
 empire, and tranquillity of the age. 
 
 The humour of avarice, and greediness of 
 wealth, have been ever, and in all countries 
 where silver and gold have been in price and 
 245
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 of current use: but if It be true In particular 
 men, that, as riches increase, the desires of 
 them do so too, may it not be true of the 
 general vein and humour of ages ? May they 
 not have turned more to this pursuit of in- 
 satiable gainSj since the discoveries and plan- 
 tations of the West Indies, and those vast 
 treasures that have flowed into these Western 
 parts of Europe almost every year, and with 
 such mighty tides for so long a course of time? 
 Where few are rich, few care for it; where 
 many are so, many desire it ; and most in 
 time begin to think it necessary. Where this 
 opinion grows generally in a country, the 
 temples of honour are soon pulled down, and 
 all men's sacrifices are made to those of for- 
 tune, the soldier as well as the merchant, the 
 scholar as well as the ploughman, the Divine 
 and the Statesman as well as the lawyer and 
 physician. 
 
 Now I think that nothing is more evident in 
 the world than that honour is a much stronger 
 principle, both of action and Invention, than 
 gain can ever be: That all the great and noble 
 productions of wit and of courage have been 
 inspired and exalted by that alone : That the 
 charming flights and labours of poets, the deep 
 speculations and studies of philosophers, the 
 conquests of Emperors and achievements of 
 heroes, have all flowed from this one source 
 of honour and fame. The last farewell that 
 Horace takes of his lyric poems, Epicurus of 
 his Inventions In philosophy, Augustus of his 
 empire and government, are all of the same 
 246
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 strain; and as their lives were entertained, so 
 their age was relieved, and their deaths softened, 
 by the prospect of lying down upon the bed of 
 fame. 
 
 Avarice is, on the other side, of all passions 
 the most sordid, the most clogged and covered 
 with dirt and with dross, so that it cannot 
 raise its wings beyond the smell of the earth: 
 'tis the pay of common soldiers, as honour is of 
 commanders; and yet, among those themselves, 
 none ever went so far upon the hopes of prey 
 or of spoils, as those that have been spirited 
 by honour or religion. 'Tis no wonder then, 
 that learning has been so little advanced since 
 it grew to be mercenary, and the progress of it 
 has been fettered by the cares of the world, and 
 disturbed by the desires of being rich, or the 
 fears of being poor; from all which, the ancient 
 Philosophers, the Brachmans of India, the Chal- 
 daean Magi, and Egyptian Priests were disin- 
 tangled and free. 
 
 But the last maim given to learning has been 
 by the scorn of pedantry, which the shallow, 
 the superficial, and the sufficient among scholars 
 first drew upon themselves, and very justly, by 
 pretending to more than they had, or to more 
 esteem than what they could deserve, by broach- 
 ing it in all places, at all times, upon all occasions, 
 and by living so much among themselves, or 
 in their closets and cells, as to make them unfit 
 for all other business, and ridiculous in all other 
 conversations. As an infection that rises in a 
 town, first falls upon children or weak consti- 
 tutions, or those that are subject to other 
 247
 
 AN ESSAY UPON ANCIENT 
 
 diseases, but, spreading further by degrees, 
 seizes upon the most healthy, vigorous, and 
 strong ; and when the contagion grows very 
 general, all the neighbours avoid coming into 
 the town, or are afraid of those that are well 
 among them, as much as of those that are 
 sick; just so it fared in the commonwealth of 
 learning : some poor weak constitutions were 
 first infected with pedantry ; the contagion 
 spread, in time, upon some that were stronger; 
 foreigners, that heard there was a plague in the 
 country, grew afraid to come there, and avoided 
 the commerce of the sound, as well as of the 
 diseased. This dislike or apprehension turned, 
 like all fear, to hatred, and hatred to scorn. 
 The rest of the neighbours began first to rail 
 at pedants, then to ridicule them; the learned 
 began to fear the same fate, and that the 
 pigeons should be taken for daws, because 
 they were all in a flock ; and, because the 
 poorest and meanest of their company were 
 proud, the best and the richest began to be 
 ashamed. 
 
 An ingenious Spaniard at Brussels would 
 needs have it, that the history of Don Quixote 
 had ruined the Spanish monarchy; for, before 
 that time, love and valour were all romance 
 among them ; every young cavalier, that en- 
 tered the scene, dedicated the services of his 
 life to his honour first, and then to his Mistress. 
 They lived and died in this romantic vein ; 
 and the old Duke of Alva, in his last Portugal 
 expedition, had a young Mistress, to whom 
 the glory of that achievement was devoted, by 
 248
 
 AND MODERN LEARNING 
 
 wKich he hoped to value himself, instead of 
 those qualities he had lost with his youth. 
 After Don Quixote appeared, and with that 
 inimitable wit and humour turned all this 
 romantic honour and love into ridicule ; the 
 Spaniards, he said, began to grow ashamed of 
 both, and to laugh at fighting and loving, or 
 at least otherwise than to pursue their fortune, 
 or satisfy their lust ; and the consequences of 
 this, both upon their bodies and their minds, 
 this Spaniard would needs have pass for a great 
 cause of the ruin of Spain, or of its greatness 
 and power. 
 
 Whatever effect the ridicule of Knight- 
 errantry might have had upon that monarchy, 
 I believe that of pedantry has had a very ill 
 one upon the commonwealth of learning ; and 
 I wish the vein of ridiculing all that is serious 
 and good, all honour and virtue, as well as 
 learning and piety, may have no worse effects 
 on any other state : 'tis the itch of our age 
 and climate, and has overrun both the Court 
 and the stage ; enters a house of Lords and 
 Commons, as boldly as a coffee-house, debates 
 of Council as well as private conversation; and 
 I have known in my life more than one or two 
 Ministers of State, that would rather have said 
 a witty thing, than done a wise one; and made 
 the company laugh, rather than the kingdom 
 rejoice. But this is enough to excuse the im- 
 perfections of learning in our age, and to cen- 
 sure the sufficiency of some of the learned; 
 and this small piece of justice I have done 
 the ancients will not, I hope, be taken, any 
 249
 
 AN ESSAY UPON LEARNING 
 
 more than it is meant, for any injury to the 
 moderns. 
 
 I shall conclude with a saying of Alphonsus 
 (surnamed the Wise) King of Arragon: 
 
 " That among so many things as are by men 
 possessed or pursued, in the course of their 
 lives, all the rest are baubles, besides old wood 
 to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to con- 
 verse with, and old books to read ", 
 
 I 
 
 250
 
 Memoirs 
 
 [Written for the satisfaction of my friends here- 
 after, upon the grounds of my retirement, and re- 
 solution never to meddle again with any public 
 affairs from this present February, 1 680-1.] 
 
 Upon my return from Nimeguen to the 
 Hague, after the Emperor's ambassadors hav- 
 ing signed the peace, the king signified his 
 pleasure to me, by a letter from my lord 
 treasurer, that he would have me come over 
 to enter into the secretary's office in Mr. 
 Coventry's room, according to the resolution 
 he had taken the year before, when he sent for 
 me over into England from Nimeguen to that 
 purpose. 
 
 I sent my humble acknowledgments to the 
 king, in my answer to the lord treasurer's 
 letter; but withal my humble excuses for not 
 putting his majesty upon the use of an old 
 beaten horse, in such hard service as I took 
 that station then to be; and proposed my col- 
 league, Sir Lionel Jenkins, for that purpose. 
 And having long promised the great duke, that 
 I would make him a visit at Florence, if I 
 lived, I turned my thoughts wholly to get 
 251
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 leave for that journey, as soon as the congress 
 at Nimeguen should wholly break up, as it was 
 like to do some time that spring, 1678-9. 
 
 This gave some respite at Court to the reso- 
 lutions of my return, and an overture for Sir 
 Lionel Jenkin-s's coming over in my room; so 
 that I prepared for a short return to Nimeguen; 
 when most unexpectedly came a yacht to Rot- 
 terdam, with letters from my lord treasurer, 
 and from the earl of Sunderland, who had 
 newly succeeded Sir Joseph Williamson. And 
 in both those' dispatches, there was a positive 
 command from the king for my immediate re- 
 pair into England, in order to my entering 
 upon the secretary's office. 
 
 The king writ the same thing at the same 
 time to the prince, and gave him leave to 
 acquaint the States with it, which he did, 
 as a thing he thought they would be pleased 
 with (as he was himself, and indeed all my 
 friends) ; though while I was forced to stay 
 at the Hague, about a fortnight before my em- 
 barking, they all found me in very different 
 thoughts, both upon my discourses and my 
 letters: insomuch that the prince told me, he 
 looked upon it as a piece of predestination, that 
 I should be secretary of state at last, in spite 
 of all I had done so long to avoid it. 
 
 Upon my arrival in England, I met with the 
 most surprising scene that ever was: the Long 
 Parliament dissolved, and the resolution taken 
 for the duke's going into Holland, and that he 
 was to part next day: so that I had only one 
 occasion of speaking to him; when he told me
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 with great freedom the paces that had been 
 made towards that resolution, much against his 
 own opinion, and bid me remember what he 
 foretold me, that however this was thought 
 likely to stop the violent humour then raised 
 by the plot, yet I should see it would go on 
 next to my lord treasurer's ruin, though he did 
 not expect it. 
 
 When the duke was gone, and the king had 
 told me, with the greatest kindness that could 
 be, of his resolution to have me secretary; and 
 that I had no reason to take it well, because he 
 knew not one man besides in England that was 
 fit for it upon Mr. Coventry's removal: and on 
 the other side, my friends had told me, they 
 had the money ready for me to lay down, which 
 was five thousand pounds; I began to consider 
 the ground, and the journey, and my own 
 strength to go through with it. I found no- 
 thing so necessary for his majesty's affairs 
 abroad, and those of Christendom, as great 
 union at home ; which might enable him to 
 make such a figure as the preservation of his 
 allies required; and indeed the general interest 
 of Christendom; which seemed to depend wholly 
 upon his majesty's measures. On the other 
 side, I never saw greater disturbance in men's 
 minds at home, than had been raised by the 
 plot, and the pursuit of it in the parliament; 
 and observed, that though it was generally be- 
 lieved by both houses, by city and country, by 
 clergy and laity, yet when I talked with some 
 of my friends in private, who ought best to 
 know the bottom of it, they only concluded 
 253
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 that it was yet mysterious ; that they could 
 not say the king believed it; but, however, that 
 the parliament and nation were so generally 
 and strongly possessed with it, that it must of 
 necessity be pursued as if it were true, whether 
 it was so or no: and that, without the king's 
 uniting with his people upon this point, he 
 would never grow either into ease at home, or 
 consideration abroad. 
 
 Upon three days' thought of this whole 
 affair, I concluded it a scene unfit for such 
 actors as I knew myself to be ; and resolved 
 to avoid the secretary's place, or any other 
 public employment at home, my character 
 abroad still continuing. This I acquainted 
 my nearest friends with ; ordered the money 
 to be returned, which had been provided by 
 them ; and fell into the consultations how I 
 might get off this point, without any thing that 
 might appear undutiful or ungrateful to his 
 majesty. 
 
 The elections were canvassing for a new 
 parliament, and I ordered my pretensions so as 
 they came to fail. In the meantime I deferred 
 my entering into the secretary's place, till I 
 might likewise enter into the house of com- 
 mons, which both his majesty and lord treasurer 
 were satisfied with, though not lord Sunderland. 
 But when that parliament was chosen, and I 
 not of the house, I represented to his majesty 
 how unfit it was to have a parliament meet 
 without his having one secretary of the house 
 of commons, and how useful Mr. Coventry 
 would be to him there ; and so obtained a 
 254
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 respite till I could be chosen of the house ; 
 which was endeavoured upon each doubtful 
 election, especially that at Windsor, but how- 
 ever could not be carried. 
 
 The Short Parliament met, with the dis- 
 putes between the Court and the commons 
 about the speaker, begun indeed upon a pique 
 between the treasurer and Mr. Seymour (after- 
 wards Sir Edward Seymour), or rather between 
 my lady Danby and him. However it was, 
 this soon ran the house into such violences 
 against my lord treasurer, as ended in his ruin; 
 first by the king's sudden resolution to remove 
 him, then by the commons continuing their 
 pursuits and impeachments, and last, by his 
 lordship's first concealing, and then producing 
 himself in the face of this storm, which ended 
 in the Tower. 
 
 After these heats of the commons, which in- 
 creased into new measures and motions among 
 them, as they were swayed by popular humours 
 upon the plot, and many new plots laid by the 
 ambitions of private persons, carried on under 
 covert of the other ; I never saw any man 
 more sensible of the miserable condition of 
 his affairs, than I found his majesty upon 
 many discourses with him, which my foreign 
 employments and correspondences made way 
 for. But nothing he said to me moved me 
 more, than when, upon the sad prospect of 
 them all, he told me he had none left, with 
 whom he could so much as speak of them in 
 confidence, since my lord treasurer's being 
 gone. And this gave, I suppose, his majesty 
 255
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the occasion of entering into more confidence 
 with me, than I could deserve or expect. 
 
 On the other side I found, that the counsel 
 of my lord treasurer's removal had been carried 
 on by the duke of Monmouth, in conjunction 
 with the duchess of Portsmouth, and lord 
 Essex, who was then in the greatest confi- 
 dence with the duke of Monmouth, and by 
 him and lord Sunderland newly brought into 
 the treasury. I found my lord Sunderland at 
 least in compliance with this knot, and that 
 all 'were resolved to bring my lord Shaftes- 
 bury again into Court, who was in confidence 
 with the duke of Monmouth and lord Essex, 
 and had a near relation to lord Sunderland. 
 I observed the great affection his majesty had 
 to the duke of Monmouth, and saw plainly the 
 use his grace intended to make of it, in case 
 he could introduce a ministry at his own de- 
 votion, or in his interests : and this being a 
 matter that might concern the very succession 
 of the crown, and not only an injury to the 
 duke, but through him to his children, and the 
 Prince of Orange ; I resolved first, if it were 
 possible, to break the growth of that ministry, 
 though I saw no men whom I could design to 
 fix in it, with any satisfaction or advantage to 
 the king or his service. 
 
 On the other side, I observed the parlia- 
 ment to grow every day more violent, upon 
 the support they received from the humours 
 raised by the plot, and the incentives given 
 them by the ambitions of persons playing that 
 game. I saw a probability of matters growing 
 256
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 to such a pass, that his majesty might be 
 forced to part with them ; and yet I saw not 
 authority enough left in the crown, either to 
 do that without the venture of great mischiefs, 
 or to live without another parliament till the 
 present humours might cool. And both these 
 considerations, meeting together, cast me upon 
 the thoughts of the king's establishing a new 
 council, of such a constitution as might either 
 gain credit enough with the present parlia- 
 ment, by taking in so many persons of those 
 who had most among them, and thereby give 
 ease and quiet both to the king and his people; 
 or if, on the other side, the humours should 
 grow outrageous and beyond opposing, the 
 king might yet, at the head of such a council, 
 with more authority and less hazard of ill 
 consequences, either prorogue or dissolve them, 
 as any necessities of his own, or extravagancies 
 of theirs should require. 
 
 For these ends it seemed necessary to take 
 into the council some lords and commoners 
 who were of most appearing credit and sway 
 in both houses, without being thought either 
 principled or interested against the govern- 
 ment ; and mix them with others of his 
 majesty's more general choice, for making up 
 one half of the council, whilst the other half, 
 being fifteen, were ever to be the present chief 
 officers of his crown and household, who, being 
 all of his majesty's known trust, as well as 
 choice, would be sure to keep the council 
 steady to the true interest of his majesty and 
 the crown. 
 
 ( c 217 ) 257 17
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 But one chief regard, necessary to this con- 
 stitution, was that of the personal riches of 
 this new council; which, in revenues of land 
 or offices, was found to amount to about three 
 hundred thousand pounds a year; whereas 
 those of a house of commons are seldom found 
 to have exceeded four hundred thousand 
 pounds. And authority is observed much to 
 follow land: and at the worst, such a council 
 might, out of their own stock, and upon a 
 pinch, furnish the king so far as to relieve 
 some great necessity of the crown. 
 
 This whole matter was consulted and de- 
 duced upon paper, only between the king and 
 me, and lasted in the debate and digestion 
 about a month: but when the forms and 
 persons were agreed, and his majesty seemed 
 much satisfied with the thing, and resolved to 
 go on with it, I humbly desired him not to 
 take a resolution of that importance, without 
 first communicating it to three or four persons 
 of those his majesty could most rely upon in 
 point of judgment, secrecy, and affection to his 
 service. The king resolved I should go and 
 communicate the whole scheme, with all the 
 particulars of it, to my lord Chancellor, lord 
 Sunderland, and lord Essex ; but one after 
 another; and with charge from him of the last 
 secrecy ; and should bring him word of their 
 opinions upon it: and, if they concurred with 
 his, should appoint them to attend his majesty 
 next morning; the Chancellor only entering 
 into his lodgings by the common way, but 
 the other two and I by the private one below. 
 258
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 When I acquainted them with it, they all 
 received it with equal amazement and pleasure. 
 My lord Chancellor said it looked like a thing 
 from heaven, fallen into his majesty's breast: 
 lord Essex, that it would leave the parliament 
 and nation in the same dispositions to the 
 king which he found at his coming in: and 
 lord Sunderland approved it as much as any. 
 
 Next day we attended his majesty, and had 
 a very long audience; upon which no difficulty 
 arose but two, that were wholly personal. I 
 had proposed lord Halifax as one of the lords, 
 whom the king had indeed kicked at, in our 
 first consultations, more than any of the rest: 
 but upon several representations of his family, 
 his abilities, his estate and credit, as well as 
 talent to ridicule and unravel whatever he was 
 spited at, I thought his majesty had been con- 
 tented with it: but, at this meeting, he raised 
 new difiiculties upon it, and appeared a great 
 while invincible in them, though we all joined 
 in the defence of it: and at last, I told the 
 king we would fall upon our knees to gain a 
 point that we all thought necessary for his 
 service : and then his majesty consented. 
 
 The other was concerning lord Shaftesbury, 
 who had never been mentioned in our first 
 debates; and the king either had not thought 
 of him before upon this affair, or had not 
 mentioned him to me, as knowing, upon all 
 occasions of private discourse with his majesty, 
 what opinion I had of that lord. But after 
 my lord Halifax had passed, the king said 
 there was another, who, if he were left out, 
 259
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 might do as much mischief as any, and named 
 lord Shaftesbury; to which the other three 
 agreed: and concluded further, that he would 
 never be content with a counsellor's place 
 among thirty ; and therefore it was proposed 
 to add one to the number, by making a pre- 
 sident, which should be he. I disputed this 
 point, from the first mention to the last con- 
 clusion of it, foretelling he would destroy all 
 the good that we expected from the whole 
 constitution: and said all that I could with so 
 much earnestness, that when, by his majesty's 
 agreeing with the other three, I saw it would 
 be concluded, I walked away to the other end of 
 the room, not knowing well whether I should 
 have gone out or not, if the door had been 
 open; but turning again, I desired his majesty 
 to remember, that I had no part in lord 
 Shaftesbury's coming into his council or his 
 affairs; that his majesty and the other three 
 lords had resolved it without me; and that I 
 was still absolutely against it. The king 
 laughed, and turned my anger into a jest; and 
 so went on with the rest of the constitution 
 intended, till the whole was resolved and exe- 
 cuted publicly in Easter 1679. 
 
 The night before the thing was to be done, 
 his majesty thought fit to tell it the Duke of 
 Monmouth ; having kept it secret till then, 
 further than to the four already named. Bat 
 as soon as the duke of Monmouth knew, 
 though only in general, that the council should 
 be changed, he told it so many, that it was 
 common talk next morning; which we inter- 
 260
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 preted either lightness or vanity, to have it 
 thought, that he had part in an aftair likely 
 to pass so well. And indeed, when the thing 
 was done in the forms that are known, it was 
 received with general applause in the country, 
 with bonfires in the city, and the same in 
 Ireland: in Holland, the actions of the East- 
 India Company rose upon it immediately, and 
 very much; and the States designed one of 
 their best and most considerable men. Mon- 
 sieur Van Lewen, to come over Minister into 
 England upon this occasion. France alone 
 was unsatisfied with it, and Monsieur Barillon 
 said it was making des Etats (States) and not 
 des conseils (councils) ; but the reasons were 
 easy to see, and so not much considered. 
 
 The house of commons received it with 
 most coldness, where the contrary was most 
 expected: and the pretending knowers among 
 them, who were not of the council, pretended 
 now to know nothing of it, to expect new re- 
 velations, to doubt it might be a new Court- 
 juggle, and to refer it to time to tell what it 
 was in truth; in the meanwhile to suspend their 
 judgments. 
 
 This was the first effect of my lord Shaftes- 
 bury's good meaning to the king and his affairs, 
 into which he was entered, but not with the 
 personal or transcendent credit he aimed at 
 with his majesty, and which he thought those 
 who had been authors of this new constitution 
 had the greatest share in. This made him fall 
 in more absolutely with the duke of Monmouth, 
 and use all their endeavours to raise such discon- 
 261
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 tents and heats in the houses, upon the appre- 
 hensions of popery, and propositions to prevent 
 it, that the king found himself soon upon as 
 uneasy terms with this session of parliament, 
 as he had been with the last; the humours 
 being engaged by my lord Shaftesbury's pre- 
 tending among his patriots that the duke of 
 Monmouth had so much credit with the king, 
 that his majesty desired but a good occasion of 
 consenting to all the parliament should insist 
 on, which would be given him by their heat 
 and obstinacy, in so popular a point as that 
 against popery : and if that were once gained, 
 the duke of Monmouth and he should be able 
 to steer all the rest, to the satisfaction of those 
 who called themselves the good or the honest 
 party. 
 
 Such a mischief could never have grown, if 
 lord Shaftesbury had not worked himself up 
 into credit, both in parliament and city, by 
 the appearance of having it with the king, and 
 in the council where he was president; and by 
 the infusions given of his having or growing 
 yet into greater by a more secret spring, which 
 was the interest of the duke of Monmouth, 
 and the kindness of his majesty increasing, as 
 appeared since the duke's absence. I cannot 
 believe but all this would have been avoided, 
 if, upon the new constitution, lord Shaftes- 
 bury had been left out, as a person marked by 
 his majesty, and never to enter more into his 
 affairs or confidence ; which the whole course 
 of his life, from his very first entrance upon 
 public stages, if examined never so strictly, 
 262
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 would have given good ground for. But this 
 fate, as I could not prevent by all my endea- 
 vours, so I had foretold it his majesty the year 
 before: when, upon my coming over, the king 
 had fallen into all the violent expressions that 
 could be against him; I told his majesty that, 
 with his good leave, I would hold any wager, I 
 should yet see that lord again in his business; 
 and when the king asked me what made me 
 think so, I said, because I knew he was restless 
 while he was out, and would try every door to 
 get in; had wit and industry to find out the 
 ways; and, when money would work, had as 
 much as any body to bestow, and skill enough 
 to know where to place it. 
 
 This turn in the king's affairs, upon this 
 new constitution, gave me so great a vexation, 
 and so ill a prospect, that, having delayed the 
 time prescribed for every man's receivmg the 
 sacrament according to law, after his entrance 
 into public employment, till it was very near 
 expired; I once resolved, by that omission, to 
 make myself absolutely incapable of bearing 
 any for the future; and was not persuaded to 
 lay aside that thought till after long debates 
 upon it with my wife and sister here at Sheen: 
 but that matter passed in form, and I con- 
 tinued barely of the council, with a resolution 
 of not entering upon the secretary's office, 
 though often and earnestly urged to it by lord 
 Sunderland, with others of my friends. 
 
 Upon the new constitution of the council, 
 my lord Sunderland had, by Mr. Sidney, de- 
 sired that we two might join together in per- 
 263
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 feet confidence, and distinct from any others in 
 the course of the king's aifairs, whether I would 
 enter into the other secretary's office, or no; 
 which I said I was very willing to embrace, 
 though I knew no need of it, considering how 
 much the general affairs were devolved upon 
 the council, or the particular committees, and 
 how much I thought It was fit that they should 
 continue so, without running into any private 
 channels. This confidence had not run on 
 above a fortnight, when my lord Sunderland 
 asked me if I were willing my lord Essex 
 should be received into it; which I consented 
 to, though with intimation to lord Sunderland 
 of the opinion I had (for some time of late) 
 of lord Essex, whom I thought I knew better 
 than he did. So we met, for a while, once 
 a day by turns, at each of our houses, and con- 
 sulted upon the chief affairs that were then on 
 the anvil, and how they might be best pre- 
 pared for the parliament or the council: but 
 matters growing very untoward, by the prac- 
 tices of lord Shaftesbury, with the duke of 
 Monmouth's cover at least, and upon the ill 
 humour of the house of commons about the 
 business of religion; and my lord Halifax ap- 
 pearing unsatisfied, by observing where the 
 king's confidence was: I proposed to my lords 
 Sunderland and Essex, to receive him into all 
 our consultations; which I thought would both 
 enter him into credit with the king, and give 
 us more ease In the course of his affairs. Lord 
 Essex received this overture with his usual dry- 
 ness; lord Sunderland opposed it a good deal, 
 264
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 and told me, I should not find Lord Halifax 
 the person I took him for, but one that could 
 draw with no body, and still climbing up to 
 the top himself. However, I continued reso- 
 lute in pressing it, and so at length the thing 
 was concluded, and we fell all four together 
 into the usual meetings and consultations. 
 
 The chief matters that lay before the king at 
 that time were, first, the satisfaction of his 
 people by falling into some measures with the 
 parliament that might enable him to look 
 abroad in such a figure as became the crown 
 of England, and was necessary for preventing 
 the common fears of a new invasion of France 
 upon Flanders or Holland, which looked very 
 desperate without some strong and resolute 
 protection from England. 
 
 The second was a resolution to be taken in 
 answer to the instances made by Monsieur 
 Van Lewen from the States, about a new 
 guaranty to be given upon the late general 
 peace by his majesty, particularly to Spain in 
 the business of Flanders. 
 
 The third was the giving some ease to 
 Scotland, where the humours began to swell 
 about this time ; and which we conceived 
 could be no way done so easily, as by re- 
 moval of the duke of Lauderdale ; a man too 
 much hated both here and there, to be fit for 
 the temper his majesty seemed resolved to use 
 in his affairs. 
 
 For this last, we could not upon any terms 
 obtain it of the king, by all the arguments 
 used (both jointly and severally) by us all four; 
 265
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the king's defence being a very true one, that 
 we none of us knew Scotland so well as his 
 majesty himself. 
 
 For the second, we easily agreed upon the 
 measures that seemed necessary for the satis- 
 faction of the States, and the safety of Flanders; 
 being all four of the committee, where all the 
 foreign affairs were consulted; and taking the 
 duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury into 
 the first digestion of this treaty with Holland, 
 at a meeting for that purpose, at my lord 
 Halifax's house ; which was the only time I 
 ever had any thing to do, or so much as talk, 
 with my lord Shaftesbury, further than the 
 council chamber. 
 
 For the first thing, which was the most im- 
 portant, we found it more perplexed than we 
 could imagine. Both houses of parliament 
 seemed to have no eyes, but for the dangers 
 of popery upon the duke's succession to the 
 crown ; which humour was blown up by all 
 the arts and intrigues of the duke of Mon- 
 mouth and lord Shaftesbury. The king seemed 
 willing to secure them all that could be against 
 those fears, without changing the laws in point 
 of succession. The house of commons were 
 busy in finding out expedients to secure this 
 point, but could agree on none ; being still 
 diverted from fixing on any by lord Shaftes- 
 bury's practices. The council fell upon the 
 same scent with great earnestness and endea- 
 vour ; and, after much hammering, agreed 
 upon many heads to be offered the parliament, 
 which are commonly enough known. 
 266
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 These expedients were agreed to by all the 
 council, except my lord Shaftesbury and me; 
 who were against them, upon very different 
 grounds. Mine were two : first, because I 
 believed that nothing that came first from the 
 king upon these points would be accepted by 
 the commons; who, if they would be satisfied 
 at all, I thought should first agree upon what, 
 and leave it to the king to take or refuse. The 
 second was, that as I did not see any certain ease 
 these expedients would give the king, though 
 agreed to by the houses ; so it was evident to 
 all men, that they would leave the crown after 
 him In shackles, which, put on upon the duke's 
 occasion, and in his time, would not be easily 
 knocked ofFby any successor. My lord Shaftes- 
 bury's ground was plain, and so expressed by 
 him upon all occasions; which was, that there 
 could be no security against the duke, if once 
 in possession of the crown: and this being well 
 infused by his and the duke of Monmouth's 
 friends into the house of commons, occasioned 
 their sullen rejecting all the expedients offered 
 them by the king, and laid the foundation for 
 the proceedings of the late house of commons, 
 and the strange disorders wherein they have 
 left affairs at home, and thereby the desperate 
 condition of affairs abroad. 
 
 During all these transactions the three lords 
 and I continued our constant meetings and 
 consultations ; and with so much union, and 
 so disinterested endeavours for the general 
 good of his majesty's service and the king- 
 dom's, that I could not but say to them, at 
 267
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the end of one of our meetings, that we four 
 were either the four honestest men in Eng- 
 land, or the greatest knaves; for we made one 
 another at least believe, that we were the 
 honestest men in the world. 
 
 But this conjunction held not long: for, 
 after the houses rejecting the expedients offered 
 by the king and council, my lord Shaftesbury, 
 finding himself neither in confidence with the 
 king nor credit in the council, turned all his 
 practices and hopes to the house of commons, 
 and inflamed them to that degree, as made the 
 three lords of my commerce begin to grow un- 
 easy, and to cast about which way they might 
 lay this storm. At length my lord Sunderland 
 told me that lord Essex and lord Halifax were 
 of opinion, that it was necessary to take in the 
 duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury into 
 the first digestion of affairs, considering the in- 
 fluence they had upon the house; and for this 
 end to agree with them in the banishment of 
 the duke, either for a certain term, or during 
 the king's life: and desired to know whether I 
 would fall into it with them, and join in bring- 
 ing it about with the king. I told my lord 
 Sunderland positively I would not: for, first, 
 I would never have any thing to do with 
 the duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury; 
 and next, I would never enter into matters of 
 difference between the king and his brother; 
 having upon several occasions told them both, 
 that I would ever do all I could towards the 
 union of the whole royal family, but never 
 would have any thing to do in the divisions of 
 268
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 It; and no man should ever reproach me with 
 breaking my word, and much less the king or 
 the duke. 
 
 This was peremptory, and so it ended; and 
 thereupon the three lords fell into meetings 
 and consultations with the duke of Monmouth 
 and lord Shaftesbury, which I knew nothing 
 of, and began to come less to council, and to 
 meet no more with my usual company, but 
 upon occasion, and without the first confi- 
 dence ; but we still continued our kindness 
 where-ever we met, without my inquiring, or 
 they communicating, what passed in their new 
 consultations. 
 
 But this lasted not long neither: for, within 
 a fortnight or little more, they began to find 
 the duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury 
 unreasonable, and like to prevail upon the 
 house of commons to endeavour bringing the 
 king into necessities of yielding all points to 
 them, and thereby leaving the duke of Mon- 
 mouth and lord Shaftesbury absolutely at the 
 head of all affairs; so that the three lords began 
 to make their complaints of it, and to fall upon 
 the thoughts of proroguing the parliament, as 
 the only remedy left in the present distemper. 
 I agreed with them in this overture, and the 
 rather, because I foresaw it would absolutely 
 break the three lords from all commerce with 
 the duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury: 
 and so we agreed to propose it to his majesty, 
 and that it should be debated and resolved at 
 council; where, the chief officers depending 
 upon the king being one half of the council, and 
 269
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 joining with others of us that were of his more 
 indifferent choice, we concluded the resolution 
 could not fail to be taken by the majority of 
 the council, if the reasons and necessity of it 
 should not prevail with some of those who 
 seemed most in my lord Shaftesbury's confi- 
 dence, to leave him upon this occasion. And 
 in this resolution we parted, and appointed to 
 meet again two days after for the fixing it with 
 his majesty, upon my engaging to go for so 
 long down into the country, where I staid 
 my two days, and came up the third morning 
 early. 
 
 Upon my arrival, I found my lord Sunder- 
 land had called or sent several times to my 
 house the night before, and left word that he 
 must needs speak with me so soon as I came 
 to town. I sent immediately to Whitehall, 
 but found his lordship was gone already with 
 the king to the house of lords; whereupon I 
 went to lord Essex, who was nearest me, and 
 asked whether any thing new had happened. 
 He told me that the king had found out there 
 were remonstrances ready prepared in the house 
 of commons, to inflame the city and nation upon 
 the points of plot and popery; and that their 
 three lordships having upon it consulted with 
 his majesty, he had resolved the parliament 
 should be prorogued that morning, upon the 
 king's coming to the house, and that it could 
 not be allowed time or vent by a debate of 
 council ; which, for my part, I thought an ill 
 omission, and that it ought to have the autho- 
 rity of the king, with advice of his council, 
 270
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 according to the usual forms : but it passed 
 otherwise, and with very great resentment of 
 both houses; and such rage of my lord Shaftes- 
 bury, that he said upon it aloud In the house, 
 that he would have the heads of those who 
 were the advisers of this prorogation. 
 
 During this session of parliament, I had 
 several notices given me of a practice set on 
 foot in the house of commons for impeaching 
 me as one that had been an instrument of 
 making the general peace; and this was urged 
 by stories, of being a man of arbitrary prin- 
 ciples, and one that had written several things, 
 though without name, against the constitution 
 of parliaments, and in favour of popery : and 
 this went so far, that Mr. Montague went 
 a great way from man to man in the house, 
 to know whether, if such an accusation were 
 brought in, they would be against me. Several 
 went into it upon hatred to the late treasurer, 
 whose friend they took me to be, and upon 
 envy at my being designed for secretary of 
 state; but yet in no such numbers that Mr. 
 Montague could hope to make any thing of it: 
 and when some of my friends acquainted me 
 with it, I only desired them to obtain leave of 
 the house, that I might hear my accusation at 
 the bar of the house, and assured them that I 
 should be glad to have that occasion of telling 
 there both Mr. Montague's story and my own. 
 This fell ; but upon the knowledge of these 
 practices, my lord Sunderland and Mr. Sidney, 
 who thought that a man who had such a part 
 in the king's affairs ought to stand as well as 
 271
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 he could with the house of commons, pressed 
 me to suffer several small things I had formerly 
 written, and of which copies had run, to be 
 then printed, as they were, under the title of 
 Miscellanea. They thought by that publica- 
 tion men would see I was not a man of the 
 dangerous principles pretended; and I might 
 assure the world of being author of no books 
 that had not my name. The thing seemed to 
 pass well enough; only lord Halifax, commend- 
 ing them to me in general, told me as a friend, 
 that I should take heed of carrying too far that 
 principle of paternal dominion (which was de- 
 duced in the essay Of Government) for fear of 
 destroying the rights of the people. So tender 
 was every body of those points at that time. 
 
 The three lords and I went on unanimous 
 in our consultations; considering how to make 
 way for a calmer and better-tempered session 
 of parliament, after the short prorogation which 
 had been made. To which purpose, we again 
 endeavoured the removal of the duke of Lauder- 
 dale, or at least the admission of other nobles 
 of Scotland into those affairs. We concluded 
 the measures with Holland in all points, to the 
 satisfaction of their ambassador ; and thought 
 of such acts of council, as might express his 
 majesty's care for suppressing popery even in 
 the intervals of parliament. We only disagreed 
 in one point, which was the leaving some priests 
 to the law upon the accusation of being priests 
 only, as the house of commons had desired; 
 which I thought wholly unjust, without giving 
 them public warning by proclamation to be 
 272
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 gone, or expect the penalties of law within such 
 a time, since the connivances had lasted now 
 through three Kings' reigns: upon this point, 
 lord Halifax and I had so sharp a debate at 
 lord Sunderland's lodgings, that he told me, if 
 I would not concur in points which were so 
 necessary for the people's satisfaction, he would 
 tell every body I was a papist : and upon his 
 affirming, that the plot must be handled as if it 
 were true, whether it were so or no, in those 
 points that were so generally believed by city 
 or country as well as both houses ; I replied, 
 with some heat. That the plot was a matter 
 long on foot before I came over into England; 
 that to understand it, one must have been here 
 to observe all the motions of it; which not 
 having done, I would have nothing to do with 
 it: in other things I was content to join with 
 them, where they thought I could be of use 
 to the king's service; and where they thought 
 there was none, I was very willing to be ex- 
 cused, and very glad to leave his majesty's 
 affairs in so good hands as theirs. 
 
 Notwithstanding some such differences be- 
 tween me and the three lords, yet we con- 
 tinued our consultations and confidence; and 
 two of them, lords Sunderland and Halifax, 
 pressed me extremely about this time to come 
 into the secretary's place : lord Halifax par- 
 ticularly offering to bring it to a point with 
 his uncle Coventry upon the money that was 
 to be paid; pretending to be very desirous to 
 see me posted there; and professing to grow 
 weary of the business, since he could find no 
 ( c 217 ) 273 18
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 temper like to grow in the next session of par- 
 liament between the king and them. For since 
 the last prorogation, lord Shaftesbury had been 
 busy in preparing fuel for next session, not 
 without perpetual appearance of ill humour at 
 council, which broke into spiteful repartees 
 often betwixt him and lord Halifax. And on 
 t'other side, the duke of Monmouth had broken 
 all measures with lord Essex, with whom he 
 had been long in the last confidence : so as 
 this grew to a spited quarrel between these 
 four; and though commonly smothered when 
 they met, yet not without smoke appearing 
 when they were observed. 
 
 In this condition of affairs the rebellion in 
 Scotland broke out; upon which it was plea- 
 sant to observe the counterpaces that were 
 made. The king was for suppressing it im- 
 mediately, by forces from hence to be dis- 
 patched and joined with those in Scotland, and 
 the duke of Monmouth to go and command 
 them all. Lord Shaftesbury shewed plainly at 
 council, and in other places, that he was un- 
 willing this rising should be wholly or too soon 
 suppressed, or otherwise than by his friends 
 in Scotland, who might be thereby introduced 
 into the direction of affairs there, with the re- 
 moval of the duke of Lauderdale: yet, on the 
 other side, he was willing to see the duke of 
 Monmouth grow great by such a command of 
 the king's forces, both English and Scots; and 
 agreed with that duke, to put the king upon 
 another project at the same time, and to the 
 same end, which was (upon the duke of Mon- 
 274
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 mouth's carrying so many of the forces here 
 into Scotland) to raise a troop of two hundred 
 gentlemen for the guard and safety of the 
 king's person, whereof the duke of Monmouth 
 to be captain; and which was to be composed 
 chiefly of officers who were out of employment, 
 and whose merits were best known to the duke 
 of Monmouth. 
 
 On t'other side, lord Essex, though he 
 agreed with the king's opinion to have the 
 Scots' insurrection suppressed ; yet he had a 
 mind it should be done by the Scots, to pre- 
 vent the duke of Monmouth's growing greater 
 than he yet was by that command; especially 
 if it should be followed with success. And tho' 
 he would not oppose his majesty in his reso- 
 lution of sending the duke of Monmouth upon 
 this expedition ; yet he did very openly the 
 other design, which the king himself seemed 
 much bent upon, as well as the duke of Mon- 
 mouth, to raise the troop of two hundred 
 gentlemen. The other two lords and I fell 
 in with him in this last; though lord Essex 
 was most instrumental in breaking it, by rais- 
 ing invincible difficulties in the treasury, where 
 he was at the head: so as, upon composition, 
 money was found for the duke of Monmouth's 
 marching into Scotland, and with great ease to 
 him in his personal pretensions; and the new 
 troop was let fall upon want of money. 
 
 The duke of Monmouth went into Scotland; 
 succeeded; took the body of rebels; suppressed 
 absolutely the rebellion ; ordered the punish- 
 ment of some ; gave pardon to the rest ; re- 
 275
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 turned in triumph ; was received with great 
 applauses and court from all ; with great ap- 
 pearance of kindness and credit by the king, 
 who was now removed to Windsor, and the 
 council to Hampton Court, where the duke of 
 Monmouth was received. 
 
 The term of the prorogation of parliament 
 drew near expiring, and all agreed that a session 
 could not conveniently begin before October: 
 and a day was appointed for considering that 
 matter at council. The duke of Monmouth was 
 greater than ever : lord Shaftesbury reckoned 
 upon being so too, upon the next meeting of 
 parliament, and at the cost of those whom he 
 took to be the authors of the last prorogation; 
 lords Essex and Halifax looked upon them- 
 selves as most in his danger, and aimed at by 
 lord Shaftesbury's threats, and out of all mea- 
 sures with the duke of Monmouth. This in- 
 duced a consultation among us, whether, con- 
 sidering the distempers of the present parlia- 
 ment, the best course were not to dissolve it, 
 and have another called in October: wherein 
 the three lords and I agreed; and the king was 
 perfectly of the same mind, considering with 
 what distempers that parliament both began 
 and continued. So it was resolved that the 
 king should propose, at next council, whether 
 it were best to prorogue that parliament, or 
 dissolve it, and at the same time call another; 
 and that, in the meantime, the lord chancellor, 
 and the other chief officers depending upon the 
 king, should be acquainted with his mind, either 
 by his majesty or the three lords. For, since 
 276
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the king's going to Windsor, I continued at 
 Sheen, and only went to Hampton Court on 
 council days; though the three lords came 
 often to me, and pressed me as often to come 
 as they did to Court, and lord Halifax pro- 
 tested he would burn my house, and that, if 
 I would not enter upon the secretary's office, 
 his uncle Coventry would look out for some 
 other chapman; for as soon as he had found 
 one, he was resolved to part with it. I told 
 him I was very willing, and would speak to the 
 king, that his market should not be spoiled 
 upon any occasion. Whether his lordship be- 
 lieved me or no, I did so, and desired his 
 majesty to think of some other for that place; 
 for my ill health, increasing with my age, made 
 me find myself unable to go through with the 
 toils of that office, if executed in the forms and 
 with the attendance it required. The king told 
 me, he could not consent to it ; that if he 
 should, he knew not a man in England fit for 
 it besides me, so that I had no reason to take 
 it kindly of him. I desired his majesty to give 
 me leave and I would propose three persons, 
 of which I would undertake every one should 
 be fitter than I. The king would not so much 
 as hear me name them; but told me, it was a 
 point he had been so long fixed in, that he 
 could not change his resolution. 
 
 In our last meeting we had calculated how 
 many at council could, in any probability, 
 oppose the dissolving of the present parlia- 
 ment, and calling another ; and we had con- 
 cluded, there could not be above six in the 
 277
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 whole council that could be against it at the 
 most ; which we thought would be a great 
 support to the king's resolution, against all the 
 exclamations we expected from lord Shaftes- 
 bury and his friends ; and at least, that it 
 would be safe against the consequences which 
 were usually deduced from the forms of call- 
 ing parliaments always by advice of the council, 
 that the dissolving of them ought to be so 
 too, at least when it was not at their own 
 desire. 
 
 The council day came ; and when I came 
 thither, and found the king and three lords, 
 with some others already there, I asked lords 
 Sunderland and Halifax whether all was pre- 
 pared, and lord chancellor and other chief 
 officers had been spoke to? They said, no, 
 it had been forgotten or neglected ; but the 
 king would do it to each of them apart as 
 they came that morning, and before the council 
 began. I thought it hard, a point of that im- 
 portance should be neglected so long ; but was 
 fain to content myself with what they told me 
 would be done. The outward room, where 
 the king was, filled apace ; every one made his 
 leg to his majesty, and filled the circle about 
 him as they came in : I was talking apart, in 
 a corner of the room, till it grew late, and lord 
 chancellor told the king that it was so, and 
 I saw the king turn from the chancellor, and 
 go into the council chamber : all followed ; the 
 council sat ; the king proposed his thoughts, 
 whether it were best for his affairs to prorogue 
 this parliament till October, or to dissolve it, 
 278
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 and call another at that time ; and desired 
 their lordships' opinions upon it. 
 
 I observed a general surprise at the board ; 
 which made me begin to doubt, the king had spoke 
 of it to few or none but the chancellor before 
 he came in : but it soon appeared he had not 
 so much as done that neither : for, after a long 
 pause, he was the first that rose up, and spoke 
 long and violently against the dissolution ; and 
 was followed by lord Shaftesbury in the amplest 
 manner, and most tragical terms ; lord Angle- 
 sey followed them, by urging all the fatal con- 
 sequences that could be ; the same style was 
 pursued by lord chamberlain, and agreed to 
 by the marquis of Worcester ; and pursued 
 from the top to the very bottom of the table 
 by every man there, and at a very full council, 
 except the three lords who spoke for the dis- 
 solution, but neither with half the length or 
 force of argument they intended to have done ; 
 leaving that part, as I supposed, to me, who 
 was, 1 confess, well enough instructed in the 
 case to have said more upon that argument : 
 but I was spited from the first that I heard of 
 my lord chancellor's speech, and still more 
 and more as every man spoke, at the con- 
 sequences happened by such a negligence of 
 my friends, who had been perpetually about 
 the king, and might so easily have effected 
 what was agreed on, and thought so necessary. 
 I was the last but one to speak, and saw argu- 
 ment would signify nothing, after such in- 
 equality was declared in number ; and so con- 
 tented myself to say in short. That I thought 
 279
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 it was every man's opinion that a happy 
 agreement between his majesty and parliament 
 was of necessity to his affairs both at home 
 and abroad : that all the difference, in a con- 
 tinuance of this, or assembling of another 
 parliament, would depend only upon the likeli- 
 hood of agreeing better and easier with one 
 than with t'other: that his majesty had spoken 
 so much of his despairing about any agreement 
 with this present parliament, and the hopes 
 he had of doing it with another, that, for my 
 part, I thought that ought to decide it ; be- 
 cause I thought his majesty could better judge 
 of that point than any body else. So his majesty 
 ordered the chancellor to draw up a proclama- 
 tion for dissolving that parliament, and calling 
 another to assemble in October following: and 
 thereupon the council broke up, with the 
 greatest rage in the world of the lord Shaftes- 
 bury, lord Russell, and two or three more, and 
 the general dissatisfaction of the whole board. 
 
 After the council ended, every man's head 
 began to fill with the thoughts of the new 
 elections, and several spoke to the king upon 
 that subject. I had resolved to stand for the 
 university of Cambridge ; and, the duke of 
 Monmouth being chancellor, I desired the 
 king to speak to him, to write to some of his 
 friends In my favour: he excused himself, first, 
 upon engagements ; but the king pressed him 
 upon mine, as a thing of importance; and that 
 he could not be otherwise engaged before he 
 knew of the parliament's being dissolved. I 
 said a "good deal too upon it : but do what
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the king could, by all he was pleased to say 
 the duke of Monmouth would not be brought 
 further, than to say he would not meddle in 
 it one way or t'other ; which gave me the first 
 plain and open testimony of his dispositions 
 towards me, having ever received before all 
 outward civilities, though without my visits or 
 attendances. Yet, I think, his grace kept his 
 word with me in this point better than I ex- 
 pected : for my election in the university pro- 
 ceeded with the most general concurrence that 
 could be there, and without any difficulties I 
 could observe from that side ; those which 
 were raised coming from the bishop of Ely ; 
 who owned the opposing me from the chapter 
 Of Religion in my Observations on the Netherlands, 
 which gave him an opinion that mine was for 
 such a toleration of religion, as is there de- 
 scribed to be in Holland. 
 
 The council, after this day, was put off till 
 the king's return to London, according to the 
 use of that season; and everyone began to can- 
 vass for elections in the ensuing parliament, 
 upon which all his majesty's affairs seemed to 
 depend. The king, in the meantime, resolved 
 to do all that could help to make fair weather 
 there. I told my friends I would take care of 
 my election, and go down about it ; but, for 
 the rest, would pass my time at home the re- 
 mainder of the summer, and recommended the 
 common cares to the three lords ; whose at- 
 tendance, I knew, would not fail at Court, 
 two of them from their offices, and the third 
 from his humour; which he owned always 
 281
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 must have business to employ it, or would 
 else be uneasy. 
 
 The summer was declining, but the duke of 
 Monmouth in his greatest height, when the 
 king fell sick at Windsor, and with three such 
 fits of a fever as gave much apprehension, and 
 that a general amazement; people looking upon 
 any thing, at this time, that should happen ill 
 to the king as an end of the world. I went to 
 Windsor, after the second fit; and, having seen 
 his majesty, observed more strength and fewer 
 ill symptoms than had been reported; nor could 
 I think him in danger, without accidents, which 
 was to be the care of his physicians, who were 
 some of them wholly of my mind. I found 
 and left the three lords very diligent at Court, 
 in attending both his person and affairs, which 
 I was very glad of; and so came home without 
 entering further into any discourses with them, 
 than of his majesty's sickness, which was then 
 the general discourse and care. 
 
 About three or four days, having received as- 
 surance of the king's certain recovery, by being 
 free of any return of his fever fits, I went 
 up to London to solicit a great arrear of my 
 embassies due from the treasury. The com- 
 missioners were met that morning at my lord 
 Essex's house, whither I went straight ; but, 
 by the way, heard that the duke was that night 
 passed through London, and rode post to 
 Windsor ; which I doubted not his highness 
 had been induced to by the reports of the 
 king's danger, upon the news of his sickness ; 
 and made no further reflection upon it, than 
 282
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 that of the great surprise, and martel en tete 
 (uneasiness) that would be given lords Essex 
 and Halifax by this sudden arrival of the duke, 
 to whose interests they had run so counter, 
 and with such heights, for several years. But, 
 upon their late separating all measures from 
 the duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury, 
 I thought I had field enough left for doing 
 them good offices to the duke, when I should 
 see him, which I resolved the next day. 
 
 When I came to lord Essex's house, and 
 asked for the commissioners, I found they 
 were sat some time, but that lord Essex had 
 newly left them together, and was gone up 
 into his chamber, whither I was immediately 
 sent for ; his servants went out and left him 
 booted, and ready to get up on horseback. As 
 soon as we were alone, he asked me, whether 
 I had not met with strange news, and what I 
 thought of it ? I said, it did not seem very 
 strange that the duke should come, if he 
 thought the king in danger. Lord Essex re- 
 plied, yet 'twas strange he should come with- 
 out leave from the king; and that, now his 
 majesty was well, sure he would not think of 
 staying three days : that he was going as fast 
 as he could to Windsor, to see what all this 
 business was ; and asked me if I would not 
 go, which I excused for that day, but pro- 
 mised the next. In this little discourse, I 
 observed all along a sneering smile, which I 
 knew not what to make of; I thought, if it 
 were a countenance, it was better put on than 
 was usual with his lordship ; and that he 
 283
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 should be pleased with it at heart, I could 
 not well imagine, knowing how things had 
 passed between the duke and him. 
 
 Next day I went to Windsor ; and the first 
 man I met was lord Halifax, coming down trom 
 Court on foot, and with a face of trouble ; and 
 as soon as he saw me, with hands lift up two 
 or three times; upon which I stopt, and alight- 
 ing, asked what was the matter : he told me, 
 I knew all as well as he ; that the duke was 
 come ; that every body was amazed ; but where 
 we were, or what would be next, nobody knew. 
 He bid me go on to Court before the king 
 went out ; said he was going to his lodging, 
 to sit and think over this new world: but de- 
 sired we might meet, and my lord Sunderland, 
 after dinner. 
 
 I went to the king ; and after him to the 
 duke, who received me with great kindness, 
 and presently carried me into a little inner 
 room, and asked me smiling and very fa- 
 miliarly whether I did not wonder to see him 
 here : I told him, not at all, if he had thought 
 the king in danger, for in that case his high- 
 ness had nothing else to do : and that I be- 
 lieved, upon the first news of his majesty's 
 illness, he would come as near as he could, 
 either to Newport or Calais, and there expect 
 the next news ; but that, his majesty's sickness 
 having passed so soon, I confessed I had not 
 thought of his coming over. We talked of the 
 king's recovery, what stay his highness would 
 make, which he said should be as the king 
 pleased, for he would obey him in every thing. 
 284
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 I gave the duke a short account of affairs 
 here, as they had passed since the constitu- 
 tion of the council ; of the mischiefs had been 
 occasioned by the lord Shaftesbury's having 
 been brought in so much against my u^ill ; of 
 his measures with the duke of Monmouth ; of 
 the three lords having absolutely broken from 
 him; of the credit they were grown into with 
 the king; and of my confidence, they would 
 never fall into any measures against his high- 
 ness: upon which chapter I said a great deal 
 that I thought necessary to make lords Essex 
 and Halifax's court, which I was very glad 
 to see so well received by the duke ; for, as 
 to lord Sunderland, I had little reason to be- 
 lieve he needed it, having ever been in with 
 the Court in the whole course of his life. For 
 myself, I only said at last that, because I did 
 not know what our present distempers might 
 end in if the next parliament should prove of 
 the same humour with the two last, nor what 
 measures his highness would fall into about 
 staying or going away again ; I would only say 
 that, let whatever would befall the king's af- 
 fairs or his highness's, he might always reckon 
 upon me as a legal man, and one that would 
 always follow the crown as became me; nor 
 could any thing make the least scruple in this 
 resolution, unless things should ever grow so 
 desperate, as to bring in foreigners, which (if 
 ever it should be) would be a new case, and 
 that I knew not what to think of. Upon this 
 the duke laid his hand upon mine, and bid me 
 keep there, and said that he would ask no 
 285
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 more of me or any man : and so I parted after 
 a long and very gracious audience, and came 
 home that night, having missed my lords 
 Halifax and Essex in the afternoon at lord 
 Sunderland's, where we had appointed to meet, 
 and I came, but they failed ; and lord Sun- 
 derland and I talked deep into nothing, re- 
 serving ourselves, as I thought, till the others 
 came. 
 
 1 staid at home, making the reflections I 
 could not avoid upon the carriage of my 
 friends ; till within a kw days I heard the 
 news of the duke of Monmouth's disgrace ; 
 which though it came by some degrees, yet 
 they were so sudden one after another as to 
 make it appear a lost game in the king's favour 
 and resolutions. Though nothing could seem 
 more reasonable than that which it ended in, 
 that, while the duke was abroad, the duke of 
 Monmouth should be so too, having made 
 his pretensions so evident, and pursued them 
 so much to the prejudice of the king's affairs; 
 however, I could not but wonder, how the 
 duke had been able in so few days, or rather 
 hours, to get so great a victory. I went within 
 a day or two to London, found my lord Halifax 
 in physic, but saw plainly his distemper was 
 not what he called it; his head looked very 
 full, but very unquiet ; and when we were 
 left alone, all our talk was by snatches; sick- 
 ness, ill humour, hate of town and business, 
 ridiculousness of human life; and whenever 
 I turned any thing to the present affairs after 
 our usual manner, nothing but action of hands 
 286
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 or eyes, wonder, and signs of trouble, and 
 then silence. 
 
 I came home, and satisfied enough upon 
 what terms I was with my friends, though I 
 knew not whence it came, or whither it went. 
 But I soon found out the whole secret ; which 
 was, that, upon the king's first illness, the lords 
 Essex and Halifax, being about him, thought 
 his danger great, and their own so too; and 
 that, if any thing happened to the king's life, 
 the duke of Monmouth would be at the head 
 of the nation, in opposition to the duke upon 
 pretence of popery, and in conjunction with 
 lord Shaftesbury, who had threatened to have 
 their heads upon prorogation of the last parlia- 
 ment; which threat was applied by lords Essex 
 and Halifax to themselves, reckoning lord Sun- 
 derland out of danger by his relation to lord 
 Shaftesbury, and the fair terms that had always 
 made between them. This fright had so af- 
 fected these lords, that, not staying to see what 
 the king's second fit would be, they proposed 
 to the king the sending immediately for the 
 duke ; which being resolved, and the dispatch 
 made with all the secrecy and speed imaginable, 
 the duke came over; but finding the king re- 
 covered, it was agreed to pass for a journey 
 wholly of his own, and that it should be re- 
 ceived by his majesty and the three lords with 
 all signs of surprise. When this was done, 
 they found the duke of Monmouth so enraged 
 at this counsel, as well as lord Shaftesbury, that 
 they saw no way but to ruin them both, and 
 throw them quite out of the king's affairs, and 
 287
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 joining themselves wholly with the dul?;e's in- 
 terest; which they did for that time, till they 
 had brought about all his highness desired 
 for his security against the duke of Monmouth 
 and lord Shaftesbury ; the first going over 
 into Holland, and the other being turned out 
 of the council. 
 
 For my own part, though I was glad of any 
 mortification that happened to the duke of 
 Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury, whose de- 
 signs had run the kingdom into such incurable 
 divisions and distractions, at a time that our 
 union was so necessary to the affairs of Chris- 
 tendom abroad ; yet I was spited to the heart 
 at the carriage of my friends towards me in 
 this affair; and not so much for their taking 
 such a resolution without my knowledge and 
 concert (which they never had done since our 
 first commerce) as for keeping me ignorant 
 after the duke's coming over; and so far, as 
 to let me make such a figure as I did, in doing 
 all the good offices, and making all the court 
 I could to the duke for lords Essex and Hali- 
 fax, as I told them I would do ; while they 
 were both in the depth and secret of his in- 
 terests and counsels, and I, who had reason to 
 think myself well with his highness, was left 
 wholly out of all confidence both with him 
 and with them. But I had reason to resent 
 it yet further, when I found that some of 
 them, perceiving the duke much unsatisfied 
 with the constitution of the new council, had, 
 to make their own court, laid the whole load 
 of it upon me; whereas, if my lord chancellor,
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 lord Sunderland, and lord Essex had not fallen 
 into it with the greatest applauses and en- 
 deavours in the world to finish the draught 
 of it, the thing had certainly died ; and for 
 my own part, after I could not hinder my 
 lord Shaftesbury's being brought in, I would 
 have been very well content it should. 
 
 I could not but tell my lord Sunderland of 
 these resentments; and that I found myself so 
 unfit for Courts, that I was resolved to pass the 
 rest of my life in my own domestique, without 
 troubling myself further about any public af- 
 fairs, than not to appear sullen in not coming 
 sometimes to general councils: and that lords 
 Essex and Halifax's carriage to me had been 
 such, after having been the two men of Eng- 
 land I had it in my power and my fortunes 
 most to oblige, that I would never have any 
 thing more to do with them. This I said only 
 to one person more, and how it came to be 
 known by their two lordships, I cannot tell ; 
 but there all commerce between us ended, 
 further than what was common when we met 
 at council, or in third places ; though lord 
 Halifax came to an eclaircissement with me 
 the spring after, which ended very well, and 
 I did him the service I could upon occasion 
 in the late house, as well as in council, upon 
 their heats against him. 
 
 I passed the rest of the summer at home, 
 and left the three lords in the chief ministry 
 and sole confidence, as outwardly appeared, 
 both with the king and duke; and lord Essex 
 told my brother. Sir John Temple, who was 
 ( c 217 ) 289 19
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 then here, that he had more credit with the 
 king than all the rest of the ministers, or any 
 man in England : but the refined courtiers, 
 who observe countenances and motions, had 
 no opinion of it; and, soon after, lords Essex 
 and Halifax, upon the private examination of 
 an intrigue I could never make any thing of, 
 nor thought worth my enquiry, which was 
 commonly called the meal-tub plot, took such 
 a distaste at finding themselves mentioned in 
 it, and yet left out of the secret examinations 
 about it, that the duke was no sooner gone, 
 but their discontents grew open against the 
 Court; my lord Essex left the treasury; lord 
 Halifax, in discourse to me, commended him 
 for it, and told me his resolution to go down 
 into the country, and though he could not 
 plant melons as I did, being in the North, yet 
 he would plant carrots and cucumbers, rather 
 than trouble himself any more about public 
 affairs; and accordingly he went down to Ruf- 
 ford. To their nearer friends I heard they 
 complained, that they found they had no sound 
 part in the king's confidence or the duke's, 
 that they were but other men's dupes, and 
 did other men's work; and that, finding no 
 measures would be taken for satisfying and 
 uniting the kingdom, they would have no 
 more part in public affairs. 
 
 Upon lord Essex's leaving the treasury, Mr. 
 Hyde came of course to be first commissioner; 
 and he and Mr. Godolphin were brought into 
 the council ; where I met them the next time 
 1 came, and welcomed them, as two persons 
 290
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 that had always been my friends, and agreed 
 with me in all my opinions and measures 
 about affairs abroad, wherein only we had 
 been conversant in our commerce, either at 
 Nimeguen, the Hague, or at home. These 
 two joined in confidence with lord Sunder- 
 land ; and the other two lords being in dis- 
 content or absent, and I keeping at home 
 both upon my resolution and inclination, 
 these three were esteemed to be alone in 
 the secret and management of the king's af- 
 fairs, and looked upon as the ministry. 
 
 October came on, wherein the parliament 
 was to meet. The duke was in Flanders : 
 the duke of Monmouth in Holland : lord 
 Shaftesbury endeavoured to inflame the reckon- 
 ing of the late conduct and counsels against 
 the sitting of the parliament, and to set afoot 
 petitions in case they did not sit : the minis- 
 ters were not able to stand the opening of 
 the parliament, and so a short prorogation 
 was expected some days before that appointed 
 for their assembly. I had not been at Court 
 or council in a month or six weeks ; when, 
 being recovered of a fit of the gout, I came 
 to town, and went to lord Sunderland, talked 
 to him of my several arrears in the treasury, 
 desired his help, which he promised with great 
 kindness, and went with me to the king, where 
 we proposed and agreed the way of my satis- 
 faction. The king seemed very kind to me, 
 but neither one nor t'other of them said a 
 word to me of any public business. From 
 the king's chamber we went to the council, 
 291
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 where I expected nothing but such common 
 things as I knew had passed, for a good while 
 before ; and so all passed, till I thought the 
 council was ending, when the king after a 
 little pause told us that upon many considera- 
 tions, which he could not at present acquaint 
 us with, he found it necessary to make a 
 longer prorogation than he had intended of 
 the parliament : that he had considered all the 
 consequences, so far as to be absolutely re- 
 solved, and not to hear any thing that should 
 be said against it: that he would have it pro- 
 rogued till that time twelvemonth, and charged 
 my lord chancellor to proceed accordingly. 
 
 All at council were stunned at this sur- 
 prising resolution, and the way of proposing 
 it, except those few that were in the secret, 
 and they thought fit to be silent, and leave 
 the thing wholly upon his majesty : several 
 others rose up, and would have entered into 
 the reasonings and consequences of it, but the 
 king would not hear them, and so all debate 
 ended. After which I rose and told the king. 
 That as to the resolution he had taken, I 
 would say nothing, because he was resolved to 
 hear no reasoning upon it; therefore I would 
 only presume to offer him my humble advice as 
 to the course of his future proceedings, which 
 was, that his majesty in his affairs would 
 please to make use of some council or other, 
 and allow freedom to their debates and ad- 
 vices; after hearing which, his majesty might 
 yet resolve as he pleased: that if he did not 
 think the persons or number of this present 
 292
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 council suited with his affairs, it was in his 
 power to dissolve them, and constitute another 
 of twenty, of ten, or of five, or any number 
 he pleased, and to alter them again when he 
 would; but to make counsellors that should 
 not counsel, I doubted whether it were in his 
 majesty's power or no, because it implied a 
 contradiction; and, so far as I had observed 
 either of former ages or the present, I ques- 
 tioned whether it was a thing had been prac- 
 tised in England by his majesty's predecessors, 
 or were so now by any of the present princes 
 of Christendom : and therefore I humbly ad- 
 vised him to constitute some such council, as 
 he would think fit to make use of in the 
 digestion of his great and public affairs. 
 
 His majesty heard me very graciously, and 
 seemed not at all displeased with any thing I 
 had said; nor any other person of the lords 
 of the council, but most very much to approve 
 it: yet, after the council was up, my lord 
 Sunderland came to me, told me he was never 
 so surprised as at what I had said, and ex- 
 pected it sooner from any man in England 
 than me; that whatever resolutions had been 
 taken about my business in the treasury, he 
 was sure nothing should be done. I replied, 
 that if he liked not what I said, he should 
 have prevented it, by telling me, before I came 
 to council, what was intended to be done; 
 which if I had known, I would not have been 
 there, no more than I had been so long before: 
 and that, if my debt would not be paid, I must 
 live the best I could without it. 
 293
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 Not long before, the Prince of Orange 
 writ me word, how much he found the duke 
 unsatisfied with me, upon the belief that it 
 was I had given the Prince those impressions 
 and sentiments which he had upon the com- 
 mon affairs of Christendom; whereas he could 
 say on the contrary that it was he had given 
 me mine, and should never change his own 
 till he were convinced d^avotr tort (of being 
 in the wrong) : however, that he thought fit 
 out of friendship to me, to give me this 
 advice. 
 
 I was now in a posture to be admirably 
 pleased with having no part in public affairs: 
 the duke unsatisfied with me of late ; the 
 duke of Monmouth and lord Shaftesbury from 
 the very first; lords Essex and Halifax out of 
 all commerce with me upon what had passed; 
 great civility from the other ministers, but no 
 communication; and the king himself, though 
 very gracious, yet very reserved. Upon all 
 this, and the melancholy prospect of our dis- 
 tractions at home, and thereupon the disasters 
 threatening abroad: but chiefly upon my own 
 native humour, born for a private life, and 
 particular conversation or general leisure ; I 
 resolved to give over all part in public affairs, 
 and came no more either to Court or council 
 in a month's time, which I spent chiefly in 
 the country. 
 
 In this time the lord Russell, lord Cavendish, 
 
 Sir H. Capel, and Mr. Powle, distasted at the 
 
 late prorogation, as well as at the manner of 
 
 it, and pretending to despair of being able to 
 
 294
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 serve the king any longer, in a conduct of 
 affairs so disagreeable to the general humour 
 of the people, went to the king together, and 
 desired his majesty to excuse their attendance 
 any more upon him at council, which the king 
 very easily consented to. Lord Salisbury, 
 lord Essex, and lord Halifax seemed to have 
 taken the same resolution, though not in so 
 much form. Upon which I thought it might 
 be a great prejudice to his majesty's affairs, 
 to be left by so many at once: and that, if I 
 wholly gave over at the same time, it would 
 look like entering into a faction with persons 
 who were only displeased with the present scene 
 upon hopes of entering soon upon another, 
 which was no part of my thoughts or designs. 
 Therefore I resolved to go again to council, 
 to shew I had not herded with those that had 
 left it; and that my leaving it too might not 
 occasion some men's greater distastes at the 
 government. 
 
 In the intermission I had made, my wife, 
 continuing her commerce with my lady Sunder- 
 land, had met my lord there; who, taking no 
 notice of what had passed between us, asked 
 her how I had proceeded in my business of 
 the treasury, and whether I needed his help, 
 which he offered with great friendliness if I 
 had occasion. When I came up to town, and 
 went the first time to council, after it was 
 done I went to lord Sunderland, told him 
 what regards towards his majesty had made 
 me come up, and gave him thanks for his 
 offers to my wife: I found him returned to his 
 295
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 first temper towards me; entered Into common 
 affairs, but always with professions of my re- 
 solutions to retire, and my thoughts of a 
 journey into Italy, which I had long promised 
 the great duke. I lived on with my lord 
 Sunderland in all kindness, though not con- 
 fidence, which was now wholly between him 
 and Mr. Hyde and Mr. Godolphin. I made 
 use of his offers, and by his help came to an 
 issue in the most difficult point of my business 
 in the treasury. 
 
 The second time I was at council, after my 
 return from Sheen, my lord Sunderland told 
 me he was to say something to me from the 
 king, and desired we might meet after council 
 was up. I went to his lodging, where he 
 told me that Mr. Secretary Coventry being 
 absolutely resolved to part with his place, and 
 the king having found I had long declined it, 
 had now thoughts of consenting to Sir Lionel 
 Jenkins's coming into it upon a bargain with 
 the secretary; but that the king would do 
 nothing in it without first letting me know 
 his thoughts ; and asked whether I had any 
 thing to say upon it. I made no stop in the 
 world, but told his lordship that the king 
 could do nothing for me that I would take 
 kinder than this; that I had several times 
 pressed his majesty to a new choice, and once 
 offered to name some to him that I knew were 
 fit for it ; that I had resolved against it so 
 long, that his majesty had no reason to re- 
 member any of his engagements to me, how 
 voluntary soever; but, that he was pleased to 
 296
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 do it, was the most obliging in the world: and 
 I was resolved immediately to go and make 
 him my acknowledgments. I did so; they 
 were extremely well taken; the king used me 
 with great kindness; and Sir Lionel Jenkins 
 came into the ofRce. 
 
 I passed the winter in town, though with 
 much indisposition ; going sometimes to the 
 council, and sometimes to the foreign com- 
 mittee, but not frequently to either, and 
 meddling very little with any thing that passed 
 there, unless it was what concerned the affairs 
 of Ireland, which happened to be then hot 
 upon the anvil ; the duke of Ormond and 
 council of that kingdom having transmitted 
 several acts over to the council here, both of 
 grace and supplies, in order to a parliament 
 to be held in Ireland. This brought lord 
 Essex again into play, after so much discontent 
 and so little attendance for several months at 
 council: but his eye and heart had ever been 
 bent upon his return to the government of 
 Ireland ; which made him steer all by that 
 compass, and pursue court or popular humour, 
 as he thought either likeliest to further that 
 end. Whenever the Irish acts came into 
 council, he was sure to be there; first raising 
 twenty difficulties in the particular acts, and 
 arraigning not only the prudence, but common 
 sense, of the lord-lieutenant and council there: 
 then arguing against the assembling a parlia- 
 ment in that kingdom: and at last introducing 
 Sir James Sheen to make proposals of in- 
 creasing the king's revenue there near eighty 
 297
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 thousand pounds a year upon a new farm to 
 himself and the company he offered to be 
 joined with him; a farm indeed, as it was 
 drawn up, not of the revenue, but of the 
 crown of Ireland. 
 
 This scheme was ever supported by lord 
 Essex ; and ever opposed by me with more 
 sharpness than was usual to me upon any de- 
 bates, because I had found out the cheat of the 
 whole thing, which lord Essex had set on foot 
 as a great masterpiece of that cunning, which 
 his friends used to say was his talent, and was 
 one for which of all other talents I had ever 
 the greatest aversion. The short of this story 
 was, lord Essex had a mind to be lieutenant 
 of Ireland, and to hinder any parliament being 
 called till he came to the government. He 
 saw himself out at Court ; and the hopes of 
 getting in by his interest in parliament, now 
 delayed by the prorogation longer than he 
 could stay : he projects this farm with Sir 
 James Sheen, and by him offers it to Mr. 
 Hyde, with the advantages mentioned to the 
 king's revenue ; but agrees with Sir James 
 that if the bait were swallowed, he should, 
 upon the conclusion of all, declare that he 
 and his company were ready to perform all 
 the conditions agreed on, but could not do it 
 unless my lord Essex might be sent over 
 lieutenant of Ireland ; without which the 
 condition of that kingdom could never be 
 settled enough for such advantages to the 
 king's service and revenue. 
 
 This I knew under secrecy from a confidant 
 29S
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 of Sir James Sheen, who had told himself this 
 whole project, and the paces intended. 
 
 Mr. Hyde, who was at the head of all 
 matters concerning the king's revenue, had 
 received this new proposal, and embraced it 
 very warmly; whether prevailed upon by the 
 specious show of so great Increases in the 
 revenue, or by some new measures growing 
 between him and lord Essex In other affairs, 
 I never could determine: but such a patronage 
 at council gave strength to the debates, being 
 little opposed but by Sir Lionel Jenkins and 
 me, who laid the matter so bare, that it drew 
 out Into length that whole spring ; and the 
 king joined wholly with me in the opinion of 
 the thing, and so far, that when it was come 
 to council or committee, his majesty sent 
 particularly to me to be there. 
 
 In the midst of these agitations, the duke 
 came over out of Flanders, and resolution was 
 taken for his going Into Scotland. I was ex- 
 tremely concerned for the duke of Ormond, 
 who had fallen into danger of the consequences 
 threatened by these Intrigues and pursuits, 
 after the most sensible blow that could be 
 given him, by the death of his son; and was 
 both of an age and merits to expect no more 
 reverses of fortune, after so many as he had 
 run through In the course of his loyalty. I 
 saw Mr. Hyde violently bent upon Sir James 
 Sheen's Imaginary project, and, I doubted, 
 with some pique to the duke of Ormond, and 
 partiality to lord Essex. The king seemed to 
 grow weary of so much pursuit; and lord 
 299
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 Sunderland was indifferent in the thing : so 
 that I resolved to try if I could not engage 
 the duke to support the duke of Ormond; and 
 the second time I was with his highness, after 
 his coming to Court, I fell into this whole 
 business and the consequences of it, and laid 
 open the secret of the thing. The duke 
 seemed very favourable to lord Essex, and 
 more indifferent to the duke of Ormond, than 
 I expected ; which made me fall very freely 
 into the character of them both, which the 
 duke seemed at last to allow with the distinc- 
 tion they deserved, and professed to desire 
 the duke of Ormond should be continued; 
 tho', if he were removed at any time, he still 
 seemed to think lord Essex the fittest to 
 succeed him. But I found, some days after, 
 by Sir Lionel Jenkins, that his highness had 
 been very glad to find me so fixed in that 
 business to the duke of Ormond, and that he 
 would give him what support he could. 
 
 Upon the motions of this affair, I grew into 
 more attendance upon his majesty, and more 
 commerce both with lord Sunderland and Mr. 
 Hyde ; with whom I always lived very well, 
 though we differed so much in opinion upon 
 this Irish business. But continuing still my 
 resolutions of winding myself out of all public 
 business; and to that end talking often to them 
 of my design to make a journey to Florence, 
 both upon occasion of my health and promise; 
 they both proposed to me, if I had a mind 
 to go into a hot country, to go into Spain, and 
 do it with a character from the king, who was 
 300
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 likely to have affairs there ; rather than make a 
 journey like young gentlemen, only to see the 
 country. I told them how unwilling I was to 
 charge myself again with the ceremonies and 
 fatigue of an embassy ; or to run again the 
 hazard I had done so often already, of being 
 undone by those employments: that, if I could 
 resolve on it, I did not see what affairs the 
 king could have in Spain, whilst he had such 
 as he seemed to have at present in England ; 
 nor could I see what use any leagues or mea- 
 sures abroad could be to him, unless some 
 union at home would enable him to support 
 them. This conversation, however, was often 
 renewed between us; and at last I found out, 
 that to prepare for a good session of parliament 
 next winter, the ministers were resolved upon all 
 measures that might conduce towards it during 
 the summer ; and, as one of the chief, were 
 resolved to send ministers to Spain, Denmark, 
 and other of the confederates, and enter with 
 them into the strictest measures for the com- 
 mon defence against the power of France. 
 
 I found the ministers were mighty earnest 
 to engage me in this embassy, as believing my 
 charging myself with it would give a general 
 opinion, both at home and abroad, of our sin- 
 cerity in the thing. The king spoke to me, 
 and seemed very desirous of my undertaking 
 it. I defended myself a good while, having 
 indeed no opinion the thing had a good root, 
 or that the appearance of it would have the 
 effect hoped for, upon the next meeting of 
 parliament : but at last I brought it to this
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 point, that I would not charge myself with 
 going to make the intended alliance in Spain; 
 but, if the king should think fit to conclude it 
 here with the Spanish ambassador, upon terms 
 of mutual satisfaction, I would be content to 
 go and cultivate it in Spain. This was done by 
 the ministers ; the king declared me his am- 
 bassador extraordinary at Madrid; I passed my 
 privy seal, received my equipage, and spent the 
 latter end of the summer in the preparations for 
 my journey, which were in a manner finished 
 about the middle of September; when the king 
 told me that since the parliament drew so 
 near, and so much depended upon it of all 
 that concerned him either abroad or at home, 
 he was resolved to have me stay at least the 
 opening of it, by which we should judge of 
 the further progress. 
 
 From what seeds the discontents and violent 
 proceedings of this last session grew, I have 
 told already; but by what motions and degrees 
 they came to such a height is another story, 
 and may have had some roots which I did not 
 discover; but what I observed was this. After 
 the duke's return into Flanders, he had the 
 king's leave to come over again in some months. 
 The duke of Monmouth came back out of Hol- 
 land without leave, and so came not to Court; 
 and thereby seemed to make himself the head 
 of those that were discontented, either with 
 the duke's return, or the intermission of par- 
 liament. In acting this part he was guided 
 by lord Shaftesbury, who resolved to blow up 
 the fire as high as he could this summer, so as 
 302
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 to make the necessity the greater of the parlia- 
 ment sitting at the time appointed. And, be- 
 cause boldness looks like strength, to encourage 
 his party with an opinion of both he engaged 
 several lords, and among them lord Russell, to 
 go with him to Westminster Hall publicly, 
 and there, at the king's bench, to present the 
 duke as a recusant. Though the matter had 
 no consequences in the forms of the Court, 
 yet it had a general one upon the minds ot 
 the people, and a strong one upon the passions 
 of all those persons that were so publicly en- 
 gaged in this bold pace against the duke, which 
 was breaking all measures with him, and enter- 
 ing into the desperate resolution of either ruin- 
 ing his highness or themselves: and I found it 
 had a great effect upon the small circle of my 
 acquaintance or observation. 
 
 Lord Essex, who had pursued his return to 
 the government of Ireland by engines at Court 
 for six months past, began to let all that busi- 
 ness of Sir James Sheen cool, and to reckon 
 upon laying a surer foundation for that design, 
 from the credit he intended to gain in the ap- 
 proaching parliament. Upon this he began to 
 fall into new commerce with lord Shaftesbury, 
 who told him in these shameless words, " My 
 lord, if you will come in to us, never trouble 
 yourself, we'll make you lieutenant of Ireland". 
 The way to this return was to oppose the 
 duke's stay here upon the several passages he 
 made, but chiefly upon that before the session 
 of parliament. Lord Halifax, though he fell 
 not in with lord Shaftesbury, yet was glad to 
 303
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 make fair weather against the parliament met, 
 by his oppositions to the duke. Lord Sunder- 
 land was struck with the boldness of the lords' 
 presentment in Westminster Hall, and the con- 
 sequence of such men being so desperately en- 
 gaged in an attempt wherein they were like to 
 be seconded by the humour of the nation, upon 
 the alarms of popery; which made him conclude 
 the king would not be able to support the duke 
 any longer, but would be forced to separate his 
 interests from him at last : and he believed 
 the king himself was of the same mind. Mr. 
 Godolphin fell into the same thoughts with 
 lord Sunderland, both of the thing itself, and 
 of the king's mind in it: so as upon the de- 
 bate in council concerning the duke's stay or 
 going back into Scotland before the parliament 
 met, these four joined absolutely in the reasons 
 and advices for his going away; and though the 
 rest of the council were generally of the contrary 
 opinion, yet the king fell in with these four, 
 and concluded the thing, against the duke's will 
 and his friends, as I have been told; for during 
 all these transactions I was in the country, with 
 my thoughts and preparations wholly turned 
 upon my Spanish embassy ; and I was the 
 willinger to be there, upon the resolution I 
 had long been fixed in, never to enter into 
 any differences or personal matters between 
 the king and his brother. 
 
 The duke went away, and the parliament 
 
 began, with the general knowledge of so many 
 
 great persons having appeared so publicly 
 
 against his highness in Westminster Hall, and 
 
 304
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 so considerable ones in the Court itself and at 
 the council table : those of the first gang fell 
 immediately into the cabals of lords and com- 
 mons who framed the bill of exclusion; wherein 
 they were desperately engaged, not only, as they 
 professed, upon opinion of national ends, but 
 likewise upon that of self-preservation, having 
 broken irreparably all measures already with 
 the duke: the generality of the house of com- 
 mons were carried, partly with the plausible- 
 ness of the thing, calculated in appearance only 
 against popery, without any private ends as was 
 pretended, and partly with the opinion of the 
 king's resolution to fall into it, upon the obser- 
 vation of such lords of the Court having engaged 
 so far in sending away the duke. All the duke 
 of Monmouth's friends drove it on violently; 
 not doubting he would lie in the duke's place, 
 though no provision seemed to be made for 
 that in the forms of the draught : and all these 
 circumstances concurring, made so violent a tor- 
 rent for carrying on this bill, as nothing could 
 resist, or any ways divert ; and as it happens upon 
 all occasions, the small opposition made by two 
 or three men made the violence the greater. 
 
 Besides these general circumstances, there were 
 two more particular and personal, that seemed 
 to me to have great influence upon the house: 
 one was lord Russell setting himself, almost with 
 affectation, at the head of this affair; who was 
 a person in general repute of an honest worthy 
 gentleman, without tricks or private ambition, 
 and who was known to venture as great a 
 stake perhaps as any subject of England. The 
 ( c 217 ) 305 20
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 other was Sir William Jones entering upon it 
 so abruptly and so desperately as he did, if 
 I mistake not, the first day he came into the 
 house (at least I have been told so, for I was 
 not there), which was some time after the 
 session began, having been engaged in a dis- 
 puted election. And this person having the 
 name of the greatest lawyer of England, and 
 commonly of a very wise man; besides this, of 
 a very rich, and of a wary or rather timorous 
 nature, made people generally conclude that 
 the thing was certain and safe, and would at 
 last be agreed on all parts, whatever coun- 
 tenance were made at Court. 
 
 The bill passed the house of commons, and 
 was carried up by lord Russell to the house of 
 lords ; as I think, for I was not there at the 
 house. But, in the house of lords, it met 
 with another kind of reception. The king was 
 resolved, and declared against the bill : and 
 though lord Shaftesbury, lord Essex, and, as 
 I remember, about fifteen more, were violently 
 for it, yet the rest of the house were firm and 
 positive against it; among whom lord Halifax 
 appeared most in the head of all debates; and 
 so it was, after long contest, absolutely thrown 
 out. This enraged the house of commons : 
 and having failed of the only thing they 
 seemed to have at heart made them fall upon 
 persons ; engage first in the pursuit of lord 
 Strafford to the block, upon the score of the 
 plot; and then in addresses, either upon general 
 discontents in the public affairs, or upon com- 
 mon fame against particular men. 
 306
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 During the whole proceedings of this session 
 of parliament, I played a part very impertinent 
 for a man that had any designs or ambitions 
 about him ; but for me who had none (and 
 whose head was fixed either upon my embassy 
 into Spain, or upon my absolute retirement), the 
 only one wherein I could have satisfied myself. 
 As I never entered into public business by my 
 own choice or pursuit, but always called into 
 it by the king, or his ministers ; so I never 
 made the common use of it, by ever asking 
 either money, lands, or honour of his majesty; 
 though I have been often enough urged to it 
 by my friends, and invited by so great degrees 
 of confidence and favour, as I have stood in 
 with his majesty both often and long. I never 
 had my heart set upon any thing in public affairs, 
 but the happiness of my country, and greatness 
 of the crown: and, in order to that, the union of 
 both, by which alone I thought both could be 
 achieved. When I fell first into despair of this, 
 I fell first into a distaste of all public affairs; 
 which has been nourished by a course of such 
 accidents and turns of court, and personal in- 
 constancies or infidelities, as I have related. 
 By what means I came to be so long engaged, 
 as to see this session of parliament, I have 
 told; but it is not to be told, the vexation and 
 trouble which the course of It gave mc. I 
 knew very well that all the safety of Flanders 
 and Holland depended upon the union of his 
 majesty with his parliament, which might en- 
 able him to make such a figure In Christendom, 
 as the crown of England has done, and ought 
 307
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 always to do. The Dutch had sent over Mon- 
 sieur Van Lewen to make both Court and 
 country sensible of this necessity that Chris- 
 tendom was in ; and how much all would lie 
 at the mercy of France, from the day they saw 
 the hopes of it fail. The house of commons 
 met, with such a bent upon what they thought 
 the chief of their home concerns, that the 
 name of any thing foreign would not be allowed 
 among them ; nay, the mention of Spanish 
 leagues, alliances with Holland, and measures 
 intended by the king with other confederates, 
 were laughed at as Court tricks, and too stale 
 to pass any more. They fell downright upon 
 a point invincible, which was the bill of ex- 
 clusion ; and in default of that, upon heats 
 against the government and the ministers, not 
 without some glancing at the king. This was 
 returned with heats at Court by those ministers 
 that were chiefly touched ; which were lord 
 Halifax, who, by a sudden turn, whereof I 
 know no account, had at the beginning of the 
 session fallen into the open defence of the 
 duke's interests; and Mr. Hyde, who, by his 
 relation to the duke, and by his education 
 wholly at Court, was ever reckoned upon, as 
 well as found to be, first in that point. 
 Though I did not find by them, that they 
 thought it would be to much purpose ; only 
 they promised to agree with the king upon the 
 draught of some expedients in the case, which 
 lord Halifax had charged himself with, and 
 should be charged with to the house of lords, 
 during the heats of the commons.
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 For my own part, so soon as I saw the bent 
 of the house of commons, the violence with 
 which it was carried, and the distractions it 
 was like to engage the kingdom in, at a time 
 they were so little in season; I gave over first all 
 hopes, and then all thoughts upon so unplea- 
 sant a theme. In the business of the bill I 
 never meddled, nor so much as reasoned either 
 in or out of the house, having declared my 
 opinion to the king and his ministers, that it 
 was to no purpose to oppose it there; nor for 
 the king to take notice of the commons' ad- 
 dress upon it, further than to let them know 
 that whenever any bills, or any addresses upon 
 things of that nature, were brought to him 
 from both houses, he would answer them. By 
 this means I thought the king was sure of his 
 end, for the bill would certainly fall as often 
 as it came into the house of lords; and, if he 
 should be forced to break the parliament, it 
 would be better done upon invincible differ- 
 ence between the two houses, than upon any 
 between his majesty and the house of com- 
 mons. But this opinion was not agreed to by 
 the chief ministers. After that, I pressed both 
 the king and them to bring such expedients 
 as they told me were resolved on; that so 
 we might make all the strength we could to 
 support them in the house of commons, and 
 thereby reduce things to some temper : but 
 these, though daily talked of, never appeared. I 
 went not often, either to the house or council; 
 but when I did, and thought it to any purpose, 
 I endeavoured to alLiy the heats on either side; 
 309
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 and told the king I expected to be turned out 
 of the house in the morning, and out of the 
 council in the afternoon. Mr. Hyde asked me 
 one day in the council chamber why I came so 
 seldom to the house or council; I told him, 
 'twas upon Solomon's advice, neither to oppose 
 the mighty, nor go about to stop the current of 
 a river: upon which he said, I was a wise and 
 a quiet man; and, if it were not for some cir- 
 cumstances he could not help, he would do 
 so too. 
 
 I do not remember to have spoken in the 
 house, but upon the motion of supplies for 
 Tangier ; upon the digestion of the first ad- 
 dress about general grievances ; and in the 
 cases of my lord chief justice North, and my 
 lord Halifax being impeached upon common 
 fame: nor at any general councils, unless it 
 were upon the house of commons' address 
 against lord Halifax, and upon a debate about 
 dissolving the parliament; wherein I desired 
 the king and council never to lay aside the 
 thoughts and endeavours of agreeing either 
 with this or some other parliament, as a 
 matter of so great necessity to the state of 
 his majesty's affairs both abroad and at home. 
 Lord Halifax answered me in few words, that 
 everybody was sensible of the necessity of the 
 king's agreeing with his parliaments, though 
 not with this: and Mr. Seymour told me, he 
 perfectly agreed with me in what I had said. 
 The last thing I did, in house or council, was 
 to carry the king's last answer to the commons, 
 containing his resolutions never to consent to 
 310
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the exclusion of the duke ; which secretary 
 Jenkins had been charged with the night before 
 at council: but he was thought too unaccept- 
 able to the house, it seems, for a message that 
 was like to prove so; and next morning the 
 king would have had Sir Robert Carr, or Mr. 
 Godolphin have carried it, but they both ex- 
 cused themselves; upon which the king sent 
 for me. 
 
 I told his majesty I did not very well under- 
 stand why a thing, agreed upon last night at 
 council table, should be altered in his chamber; 
 but that I was very willing, however, to obey 
 him, and the rather upon others having ex- 
 cused themselves, and to shew his majesty that 
 I intended to play no popular games : upon 
 which I took the paper, and told the king that 
 I was very sensible how much of his confidence 
 I formerly had, and how much I had lost, with- 
 out knowing the occasion; or else I might have 
 had part in the consulting this change of what 
 was last night resolved, as well as in executing 
 it; and I would confess to his majesty, that I 
 had not so good a stomach in business, as to 
 be content only with swallowing what other 
 people had chewed. Upon which I went away, 
 and carried my message to the house, which 
 was received just as was expected. I tell this 
 passage freely, as I do all the rest, as the only 
 thing I could imagine the king could ever take 
 ill of me; and yet I know not how it could be 
 a fault, more than in a point of manners neither, 
 or the homeliness of expression. 
 
 That which completed my resolution of re- 
 3^1
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 cess from all public business was to find, as 
 I thought, very plainly, that both parties, who 
 could agree in nothing else, yet did it in this 
 one point, of bringing things to the last extre- 
 mity. Lord Shaftesbury and his party thought 
 the points of popular discontents and petitions, 
 or at least that of the king's wants, would at 
 last bring the Court to their mercy in one par- 
 liament or other. Those ministers who were 
 past all measures with the house of commons 
 thought there was no way, but by their heats, 
 to bring the king to a dislike, and thereby to a 
 disuse of parliaments. And by this likewise 
 the duke's interest seemed at present only to 
 be secured. So that, where both parties con- 
 sented in dividing to extremity on each side, 
 no man could think any longer of uniting; nor 
 consequently to see the crown in such a pos- 
 ture as I had ever wished it, and for our 
 neighbours' sakes as well as our own. 
 
 I found this yet more evident at the last 
 debates, during my assistance at the foreign 
 committee, concerning the answer his majesty 
 should return to the repeated addresses of the 
 house of commons, relating to the bill of ex- 
 clusion. I was of opinion it should be, that, 
 when both houses agreed upon an address to 
 this purpose, he would give them an answer; 
 but till then would suspend it, and not send a 
 positive answer to one house upon so weighty 
 an occasion, which for aught he knew might be 
 contrary to the sense of the other. By this 
 means he would be secure from the necessity 
 of any direct breach with the commons; since 
 312
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 he knew well enough, the lords would not con- 
 sent to the address. And, if the parliament 
 came to be dissolved, it were better for the 
 king it should break upon differences between 
 the two houses, than between his majesty and 
 them; for this would give the nation an 
 opinion, that he was resolved to live without 
 parliaments hereafter; which might endanger 
 perhaps our peace at home, but would however 
 ruin the hopes of our neighbours abroad, who 
 had no other of defending themselves against 
 France, but by the power of England: that, if 
 this parliament broke upon disputes or differ- 
 ences between the two houses, it might yet be 
 expected he would call another, and perhaps a 
 third, and agree with some of them, by which 
 alone he could be great and safe both at home 
 and abroad. For it was between the king and 
 his parliament, as between the mountain and 
 Mahomet, who told the people what miracles 
 he would do when he was at the top of the 
 mountain; and to that purpose he would on 
 such a day call it to him: he did so, but the 
 mountain would not come; whereupon he said, 
 that, if the mountain would not come to Ma- 
 homet, he would go to the mountain; for unless 
 they both met, no wonders could be done. The 
 king seemed pleased with all I said, and with 
 the comparison; but those of the committee, 
 that were chief in the private measures taken 
 at this time, were for a positive answer to be 
 given the house of commons, let them take it 
 how they pleased; and accordingly this was 
 resolved. 
 
 313
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 However, all these considerations or interests 
 could not move the king to dissolve this parlia- 
 ment, without calling another at the same time 
 to meet at Oxford in the spring. Whereupon, 
 the heads of the university at Cambridge sent 
 to me, to know whether I intended to stand 
 again for that election: I went to the king to 
 acquaint him with it, and know his pleasure 
 what answer I should return them: he seemed 
 at first indifferent, and bid me do what I would: 
 but when I said I was very indifferent too, and 
 would do in it what his majesty liked best, 
 he said, in a manner kind and familiar, that, 
 considering how things stood at this time, he 
 doubted my coming into the house would not 
 be able to do much good ; and therefore he 
 thought it as well for me to let it alone; which 
 I said I would do. 
 
 When I left the king I went to my lord 
 Sunderland, and told him what had passed; 
 who took this as the first certain sign of his 
 majesty's having fixed his resolution, and left 
 off all thoughts of agreeing with his parlia- 
 ments, and of his having taken his measures 
 another way, for the supply of his treasures in 
 the ill condition they were in. He knew very 
 well that, during the last session, the king 
 had always told me, that he was resolved to 
 propose some expedients to the houses upon 
 which he had hopes they might agree : that 
 he had ordered lord Halifax to draw them up, 
 and had bid me reserve my credit in the house 
 for that occasion : and that, if there were any 
 thoughts of agreeing with the next parliament, 
 314
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 the king, he was sure, would have been glad to 
 have had me in the house. He said upon it, 
 in some passion, that he now gave all for gone, 
 and that he must confess I knew the king better 
 than he had done; and so we parted. 
 
 Within few days, employed wholly in my 
 domestic concerns, and in order to the remove 
 I intended, I left the town and went to Sheen: 
 from whence I sent the king word by my son, 
 that I would pass the rest of my life like as 
 good a subject as any he had; but that I would 
 never meddle any more with any public affairs; 
 and desired his majesty would not be displeased 
 with this resolution. The king very graciously 
 bid him tell me that he was not angry with me, 
 no,, not at all. 
 
 I had not been above a week at Sheen, when 
 my lady Northumberland (who lived then at 
 Sion) came to my closet one morning, and told 
 me that, the day before, my lord Sunderland, 
 my lord Essex's names, and mine, were struck 
 out of the council; which was the first word 
 I heard of any such thing, and upon which I 
 neither made any reflections nor enquiries; 
 though many others seemed much to wonder, 
 and enquired of me what could be the reason 
 of my being joined with the other two lords 
 whose proceedings had been very different. 
 
 My lord Sunderland was, during the late 
 session of parliament, fallen under a great 
 displeasure of his majesty; and into an out- 
 rageous quarrel with lord Halifax. The last 
 happened, not only upon their dividing in the 
 businesses of the parliament and council, but 
 315
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 likewise upon lord Sunderland's entering into 
 new commerce and measures with lord Shaftes- 
 bury; as my lord Halifax told me, and which 
 I should not have otherwise known ; for, if 
 there were any such commerce, lord Sunder- 
 land had made it a secret to me, as knowing 
 too well the aversion I always had for that 
 lord, and the whole course of his proceedings 
 in all public affairs. But lord Sunderland 
 told me another reason of the quarrel between 
 him and lord Halifax; which, he said, broke 
 out the same night a debate arose at council 
 concerning an address of the house of commons 
 against lord Halifax, wherein lord Sunderland 
 had been of opinion, the king should not yield 
 to it. But, after council, lord Halifax went 
 to lord Sunderland's lodging, where they fell 
 into discourse of what had passed; and lord 
 Sunderland told him, that though he had given 
 his opinion at council as he thought became 
 him; yet, if such an address should ever be 
 made against himself, he would certainly de- 
 sire leave of the king to retire, as a thing that 
 would be for his service. Upon this lord 
 Halifax fell into such a passion, that he went 
 out of the room, and from that time they 
 hardly lived in any common civility where 
 they met. 
 
 The refiners thought lord Halifax, who saw 
 himself topped by lord Sunderland's credit 
 and station at Court, resolved to make this 
 sudden turn of falling in with the king, upon 
 the point then in debate about the bill of 
 exclusion, wherein he found the king steady, 
 316
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 and that my lord Sunderland would lose him- 
 self; so that, falling into confidence with the 
 king upon such a turn, he should be alone 
 chief in the ministry, without competitor. 
 At least the reasoners on this matter could 
 find no other ground for such a change in 
 lord Halifax's course,, after what he had so 
 long steered, and so lately in having been the 
 chief promoter of the duke's being sent away 
 to Scotland just before the meeting of the 
 parliament. 
 
 The king's quarrels to my lord Sunderland, 
 as far as I could observe, were chiefly two: 
 first, his voting in the lords' house for the 
 bill of exclusion, not only against the king's 
 mind, but against his express command; 
 which, for a person actually in his service, and 
 in such a post as secretary of state, seemed 
 something extraordinary. And I remember, 
 when I spoke to him of it as what the king 
 must resent, and what I was confident he 
 would be steady in, he told me 'twas too late, 
 for his honour was engaged, and he could not 
 break it. The other was a memorial, sent 
 over by Mr. Sidney, the king's envoy at the 
 Hague, and given him by the pensioner Fagel, 
 representing the sad consequences abroad of 
 his majesty's not agreeing with his parlia- 
 ments ; the danger of his allies, and of the 
 Protestant religion ; and thereupon, though 
 not directly, yet seeming to wish that the king 
 would not break with them, though it were 
 even upon the point of the bill of exclusion. 
 This was, as I remember, the substance; for 
 317
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 I never heard a word of it, either before or 
 after its being received at the foreign com- 
 mittee; where I was as much surprised at it 
 as any one there, but had not the same thoughts 
 of its original, as I find some other of the 
 lords had. For they believed it a thing 
 directed and advised from hence; and, in a 
 word, by lord Sunderland to Mr. Sidney his 
 uncle, as a matter that would be of weight to 
 induce the king to pass the bill. But besides 
 that, lord Sunderland protested to me, after 
 council, that he knew nothing of it till he 
 received a copy from Mr. Sidney, who sent 
 the original to the other secretary. I thought 
 he could not understand the king so ill, as to 
 believe, that would be a motive to him to pass 
 the bill, or that it could have any other effect 
 than to anger him at the Dutch, for meddling 
 in a matter that was domestic, not only to 
 the nation, but to the crown. Besides, I 
 observed the style to be of one that under- 
 stood little of our constitution, by several ex- 
 pressions in the paper; whereof one was, why 
 the king should not prevent such consequences, 
 when he might do it par un trait de plume (by a 
 stroke with a pen); which shewed, the author 
 thought our acts of parliament had been passed 
 by the king's signing them. 
 
 This, and the whole cast of it, made me 
 believe it certainly came from the pensioner 
 Fagel; a man of great piety and zeal in his 
 religion, mightily concerned for all he thought 
 would endanger it ; and besides, of great 
 warmth and suddenness in pursuing any 
 318
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 thought that possessed him. However, the 
 king, as well as some of the committee, 
 believed this was of my lord Sunderland's 
 forge; and that many of the heats in the house 
 of commons had been encouraged and raised 
 to such height by his seeming to favour them; 
 which, they might think, he would not do 
 unless he believed the king would at length 
 comply with them. 
 
 These, I suppose, were the reasons of the 
 resolution taken at Court to remove lord Sun- 
 derland, both from the secretary's office and 
 the council. What made my lord Essex be 
 joined with him is a great deal more obvious; 
 having ever since meeting of the parliament 
 run up in the greatest heights and nearest 
 measures with the duke of Monmouth and 
 lord Shaftesbury, both in the bill of exclusion, 
 and all other matters where he intervened, 
 either in debates of parliament or of council; 
 either concerning the bill, or several addresses 
 against ministers. How I came to be joined 
 with these two lords, by the king ordering our 
 names to be struck out of the council book at 
 the same time, I neither know, nor could ever 
 give any reason, unless it were, what was com- 
 monly guessed, of my being a friend of the 
 Prince of Orange, or of my lord Sunderland, 
 with whom I had a very long acquaintance, 
 and of our families, as well as personal. For 
 the first, I could think it no crime, consider- 
 ing how little that Prince had ever meddled, 
 at least to my knowledge, in any domestic 
 concerns of his majesty, during all that passed 
 319
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 since the first heats in parliament here, though 
 he had been extreme sensible of the conse- 
 quences they were like to have upon all his 
 interests, and nearest concerns at home; which 
 were, the preservation of Flanders from the 
 French conquest, and thereby of Holland from 
 falling by sudden treaties into an absolute de- 
 pendence upon that crown. 
 
 I can give no other reason, unless it were, 
 that as my lord Salisbury had been struck out 
 some days before, upon his having declared at 
 council, that he would come there no more; 
 so his majesty and his ministers might think, 
 that upon my having taken the same resolu- 
 tion as to that, and all public affairs, though 
 signified only in private to his majesty, and 
 with all the good manners that could be; yet 
 it would be better for the king's affairs that I 
 should be known to be put out of the council 
 than to have quitted it of myself 
 
 Nor was this resolution of mine taken in 
 any heat, or rashly, but upon the best con- 
 siderations and knowledge I had gained, both 
 of the world, and of myself: by which I found, 
 as Sancho did by governing his island, that he 
 was not fit to govern any thing but his sheep; 
 so, by serving long in Courts, or public affairs, 
 I discovered plainly, that I was, at my age, 
 and in the present conjunctures, fit for neither 
 one nor t'other. 
 
 I considered the world in the present pos- 
 ture of affairs both abroad and at home : I 
 knew very well the great designs of France, 
 whereof the plan was drawn by Cardinal 
 320
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 Richelieu, for the conquest of Flanders, and 
 that part of Germany which lies on this side 
 of the Rhine: how, upon this view, he had 
 seized Lorrain, and engaged in a war with 
 Spain: how he practised the Dutch into a 
 treaty for the division of Flanders between 
 them, till the States soon found the false pace 
 they had made by an agreement to share with 
 the lion, who thereupon would be soon master, 
 both of the prey and of them. Hereupon they 
 broke off this confederacy on the sudden, 
 quitted the French in the midst of so great 
 success, and had thereby almost occasioned 
 the ruin of the French army at Tirlemont. I 
 knew by tradition from a noble family, how 
 that Cardinal had sent a private emissary, to 
 endeavour the same measures with King 
 Charles the First, or at least for his being 
 passive in their conquest of Flanders. How 
 that King had refused the first ; and, being 
 pressed upon the other, had answered re- 
 solutely, and bid him tell the Cardinal, that 
 he would never suffer the conquest of Flan- 
 ders ; and if the French attempted it, he 
 would march himself in person to defend it. 
 Upon this answer, the Cardinal replied to the 
 gentleman that brought it, Va-t-il dit? par 
 Dieu tl me le patera bien (Did he say so ? by 
 G — d I'll make him pay dear for it); and 
 therefore entered immediately into practices 
 with some discontented nobles of Scotland 
 then at Paris ; sent over two hundred thou- 
 sand pistoles to others in that kingdom, and 
 gave thereby a beginning to the first troubles 
 ( c 217 ) 321 21
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 that were raised there. From which time, 
 the business of France has ever been to foment 
 all divisions of England, whose interest they 
 saw would be ever to cross their great design. 
 However, Cardinal Mazarin, after having sur- 
 mounted his own dangers in France, and the 
 difficulties incident to a minority, pursued 
 the plan left him by his predecessor: and by 
 his measures taken with Cromwell, and the 
 assistance of an immortal body of six thousand 
 brave English, which were by agreement to be 
 continually recruited, he made such a progress 
 in Flanders, that Cromwell soon found the 
 balance turned, and grown too heavy on the 
 French side : whereupon he dispatched a 
 gentleman privately to Madrid, to propose 
 there a change of his treaty with France into 
 one with Spain, by which he would draw his 
 forces over into their service, and make them 
 ten thousand, to be continually recruited, upon 
 condition their first action should be to be- 
 siege Calais, and, when taken, to put it into 
 his hands. The gentleman sent upon this 
 errand was past the Pyrenees when he was 
 overtaken by the news of Cromwell's death; 
 whereupon Mazarin, having not only lost his 
 strongest support in Flanders, but observed 
 how that design would never be served by any 
 measures he could take in England, however 
 it should be governed, by the most legal or 
 most usurped powers, he resolved upon a 
 peace with Spain; and made it at the Pyrenees, 
 against the general sense, both of the chief 
 persons in the Court and the army, but par- 
 322
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 ticularly against the instances of Monsieur De 
 Turenne, who engaged himself to conquer all 
 that was left of Flanders in two campaigns 
 more : but some domestic reasons prevailed 
 with the Cardinal, besides his age and great 
 infirmities, which ended his life not long after 
 the peace was made. 
 
 The present king, left in full peace with all 
 his neighbours, in the flower of his youth, 
 and instructed in the school of so able a 
 minister, began to pursue the great design, 
 by the three paces most necessary to advance 
 it; which were, the wise management of his 
 revenue, and heaping up a mass of treasure: 
 the increase of his naval force, by building 
 many great ships, and buying others from the 
 Dutch: and by the purchase of Dunkirk in 
 the year 1662, without which he could not 
 have aspired to the conquest of Flanders, or 
 to his greatness at sea; having no other haven 
 upon the channel: after this, by fomenting on 
 both sides the seeds of dissension between us 
 and the Dutch, which were sprung from other 
 covered roots. He saw us engaged in a war 
 with Holland in 1665, and with such honour 
 and successes, that the Dutch would soon have 
 been forced to a peace, had not France first 
 assisted them at land, against the Bishop of 
 Munster; and then declared war against us, 
 and set out his fleet for assisting the Dutch. 
 This made the war more equally balanced, 
 and thereby last till France, taking advantage 
 at our division, invaded Flanders; and, by a 
 surprise of the unprepared Spandiards, and 
 {C217) 323 ^1*
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 two campaigns, carried the most considerable 
 frontier places on both sides; as Douay, Lisle, 
 Tournay, on the one side, Charleroy and Aeth 
 on the other; by which they left the rest of 
 Flanders at the mercy of another campaign. 
 The Dutch were alarmed at these successes 
 of so mighty a neighbour so near their own 
 doors ; and we were spited at the French 
 having declared war against us in favour of 
 Holland, contrary to our expectations; and 
 both together contributed to the peace at 
 Breda in the end of the year 1667, and to our 
 leagues with Holland with the triple alliance 
 in 1668, for defence of the Spanish Nether- 
 lands. Upon our peace with Holland, France 
 stopped their career in Flanders, and made 
 overtures of peace with Spain; by the offer of 
 an alternative, either to retain their conquests 
 in Flanders, or else the whole county of Bur- 
 gundy. We and Holland forced in Spain to 
 accept one of them; and the Spaniards, spited 
 at this hardship upon them from neighbours 
 who, they thought, had as much interest as 
 they to preserve Flanders, chose the worst, 
 which was to leave the frontiers of Flanders in 
 the French hands, on purpose to give us and 
 Holland the greater jealousy of France, and 
 in hopes thereby to engage us all in a war 
 with that crown. And upon these terms the 
 peace was made at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668. 
 
 After this, France turned all their counsels 
 
 to break the measures between us and Holland 
 
 which gave a stop to their great design. The 
 
 Dutch were stanch ; but we gave way by the 
 
 324
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 corruption of our ministers, and the French 
 practices upon the dispositions of our Court ; 
 which at length engaged us in a joint war of 
 both crowns upon Holland in 1672, to the 
 amazement of all men both abroad and at 
 home, and almost to the utter ruin of that 
 State ; till the Empire and Spain, roused by 
 the danger of Holland, which must have ended 
 in that of Flanders, and all the German pro- 
 vinces on this side the Rhine, entered boldly 
 into the war, for the assistance of the Dutch ; 
 which gave them some breath, and carried the 
 scene of the war into Flanders and Germany. 
 At the same time, the discontents of the people 
 and parliament at the war, and the necessity 
 of declaring it against Spain as well as Holland, 
 if we continued longer in it, prevailed with the 
 king to make a separate peace with Holland 
 in 1673, and to offer his mediation to all the 
 parties engaged in the war ; which ended in 
 the treaty of Nimeguen, and at last in a peace 
 there, concluded in 1678 : whereby a frontier 
 was left to the Spanish Netherl-mds on the 
 Brabant side, by restitution of Aeth and Charle- 
 roy, to satisfy the Dutch; but all that remained 
 on the side of Flanders, after the peace of Aix, 
 as Cambray, Air, St. Omer, with many others 
 taken by France in the last war, were by this 
 treaty left in their possession ; besides great 
 pretences by dependencies, both in Flanders 
 and Alsace ; so as Flanders was left at their 
 mercy, whenever we or Holland should aban- 
 don its defence. And, finding both nations in 
 general but too sensible of our interest on that 
 3-3
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 side, the councils of France began new prac- 
 tices upon our Court, wherein they were en- 
 couraged by our factions, and the necessities 
 of money into which they had drawn the 
 king. 
 
 These were the progresses which France had 
 made in their great design, by two wars, and 
 two general treaties of peace ; whereof that at 
 Nimeguen seemed more victorious than their 
 arms had been. But they had made another, 
 yet more important than either, by their prac- 
 tices upon the Elector and Chapter of Cologne, 
 having gained the majority of voices there for 
 the succession of Prince William of Furstem- 
 burg to that principality, whenever the present 
 Elector should fail, who is old and infirm, and 
 has, for some years past, deceived the world by 
 living so long. Prince William, though a Ger- 
 man, yet having long devoted himself to the 
 French interests, and been refuged and sup- 
 ported by that crown against the indignation 
 and revenge of the Emperor, is as much a 
 Frenchman as any bishop of that kingdom; so 
 as, whenever he comes to the electorate, France 
 will be absolute master of that principality ; 
 and thereby cast shackles, not only upon 
 the other Princes of the Rhine, but upon 
 Holland too, both by cutting off their trade 
 upon the Rhine, and by bordering upon their 
 inland provinces, which are most exposed and 
 hard to be defended : 'tis said he is likewise 
 assured of the Chapter of Liege, in favour of 
 the same Prince ; which if true, and this prin- 
 cipality fall likewise under the same dominion, 
 326
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 upon the death of the present Elector, France 
 will then surround the frontiers of Brabant, 
 and cut off all commerce, or means of defence 
 between them and Luxemburg ; that they will 
 not have above the work of one campaign to 
 draw the net over the rest of Flanders, and re- 
 duce all the great cities there; after which, 
 the rest must follow, and thereby Holland be 
 left to take what measures they can with 
 France, and become at best a maritime pro- 
 vince to that crown ; though, perhaps, under 
 the name of a free State (for fear of dispeopl- 
 ing their country) but with such dependence 
 as will leave France the use both of their ships 
 and money, upon occasion, in other parts. 
 Whenever this happens, what condition Eng- 
 land will be left in, upon such an increase of 
 the French territory and land, as well as naval 
 power, is easy to conjecture, but hard, how it 
 can be prevented, otherwise than by our vigor- 
 ous conjunction of counsels, as well as interests, 
 with all the late confederates ; and by a firm 
 union between the Court and the nation upon 
 one common bottom, both at home and abroad, 
 and chiefly for the preservation of Flanders 
 against the French designs. 
 
 I easily discovered how fit a posture we 
 were in to engage in such resolutions. The 
 nation divided into two strong factions with 
 the greatest heats and animosities, and ready 
 to break out into violence upon the first occa- 
 sion. The heads on both sides desiring it, 
 as grown past all temper or composure. The 
 king involved in such necessities and disorders 
 327
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 of his revenue, as, if he could not hope supplies 
 from parliaments, would throw him upon seek- 
 ing them from France ; which would end in 
 such measures with that crown, as would leave 
 them at liberty to pursue their great design 
 by new attempts upon their neighbours ; who, 
 without the support of England, must give way 
 either by weak defences or submissive treaties. 
 Upon the survey of all these circumstances, 
 conjunctures, and dispositions, both at home 
 and abroad, I concluded in cold blood that 
 I could be of no further use or service to the 
 king my master, and my country, whose true 
 interests I always thought were the same, and 
 would be both in danger when they came to 
 be divided, and for that reason had ever en- 
 deavoured the uniting them ; and had com- 
 passed it, if the passions of some few men had 
 not lain fatally in the way, so as to raise diffi- 
 culties that I saw plainly were never to be sur- 
 mounted. Therefore, upon the whole, I took 
 that firm resolution, in the end of the year 
 1680, and the interval between the West- 
 minster and Oxford parliaments, never to 
 charge myself more with any public employ- 
 ments ; but retiring wholly to a private life, 
 in that posture take my fortune with my 
 country, whatever it should prove : which as 
 no man can judge, in the variety of accidents 
 that attend human affairs, and the chances of 
 every day, to which the greatest lives, as well 
 as actions, are subject ; so I shall not trouble 
 myself so much as to conjecture : fata viam 
 inveniant.
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 Besides all these public circumstances, I 
 considered myself in my own humour, temper, 
 and dispositions, which a man may disguise to 
 others, though very hardly, but cannot to him- 
 self. I had learned by living long in Courts 
 and public affairs, that I was fit to live no 
 longer in either. I found the arts of a Court 
 were contrary to the frankness and openness 
 of my nature ; and the constraints of public 
 business too great for the liberty of my humour 
 and my life. The common and proper ends 
 of both are the advancement of men's fortunes; 
 and that I never minded, having as much as 
 I needed, and, which is more, as I desired. 
 The talent of gaining riches I ever despised, as 
 observing it to belong to the most despisable 
 men in other kinds : and I had the occasions 
 of it so often in my way, if I would have made 
 use of them, that I grew to disdain them, 
 as a man does meat that he has always before 
 him. Therefore, I never could go to service 
 for nothing but wages, nor endure to be fettered 
 in business when I thought it was to no pur- 
 pose. I knew very well the arts of a Court 
 are, to talk the present language, to serve the 
 present turn, and to follow the present humour 
 of the prince, whatever it is : of all these I 
 found myself so incapable, that I could not 
 talk a language I did not mean, nor serve a 
 turn I did not like, nor follow any man's 
 humour wholly against my own. Besides, I 
 have had, in twenty years' experience, enough 
 of the uncertainty of princes, the caprices of 
 fortune, the corruption of ministers, the vio- 
 329
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 lence of factions, the unsteadiness of counsels, 
 and the infidelity of friends ; nor do I think 
 the rest of my life enough to make any new 
 experiments. 
 
 For the ease of my own life, if I know my- 
 self, it will be infinitely more in the retired 
 than it has been in the busy scene ; for no 
 good man can, with any satisfaction, take part 
 in the divisions of his country, that knows and 
 considers, as I do, what they have cost Athens, 
 Rome, Constantinople, Florence, Germany, 
 France, and England : nor can the wisest man 
 foresee how ours will end, or what they are 
 like to cost the rest of Christendom as well as 
 ourselves. I never had but two aims in public 
 affairs ; one, to see the king great as he may 
 be by the hearts of his people, without which 
 I know not how he can be great by the con- 
 stitutions of this kingdom : the other, in case 
 our factions must last, yet to see a revenue 
 established for the constant maintaining a fleet 
 of fifty men of war, at sea or in harbour, and 
 the seamen in constant pay ; which would be 
 at least our safety from abroad, and make the 
 crown still considered in any foreign alliances, 
 whether the king and his parliaments should 
 agree or not in undertaking any great or 
 national war. And such an establishment I 
 was in hopes the last parliament at West- 
 minster might have agreed in with the king, 
 by adding so much of a new fund to three 
 hundred thousand pounds a year out of the 
 present customs. But these have both failed, 
 and I am content to have failed with them. 
 330
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 And so I take leave of all those airy visions 
 w^hich have so long busied my head about 
 mending the world ; and at the same time, of 
 all those shining toys or follies that employ 
 the thoughts of busy men : and shall turn 
 mine w^holly to mend myself; and, as far as 
 consists with a private condition, still pursuing 
 that old and excellent counsel of Pythagoras, 
 that we are, with all the cares and endeavours 
 of our lives, to avoid diseases in the body, 
 perturbations in the mind, luxury in diet, 
 factions in the house, and seditions in the 
 state. 
 
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