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PREFACES AND PROLOGUES TO FAMOUS BOOKS
WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS
"DR. ELIOT'S FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS"
P.F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
1909 BY LITTLE BROWN & COMPANY
1910 BY P.F. COLLIER & SON
THE HARVARD CLASSICS EDITED BY CHARLES W. ELIOT LL.D.
CONTENTS
TITLE, PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUES TO THE RECUYELL OF THE
HISTORIES OF TROY WILLIAM CAXTON
EPILOGUE TO DICTES AND SAYINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
WILLIAM CAXTON
PROLOGUE TO GOLDEN LEGEND WILLIAM CAXTON
PROLOGUE TO CATON WILLIAM CAXTON
EPILOGUE TO AESOP WILLIAM CAXTON
PROEM TO CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES WILLIAM CAXTON
PROLOGUE TO MALORY'S KING ARTHUR WILLIAM CAXTON
PROLOGUE TO VIRGIL'S ENEYDOS WILLIAM CAXTON
DEDICATION OF THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
JOHN CALVIN
TRANSLATED BY JOHN ALLEN
DEDICATION OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
JOHN KNOX
PREFATORY LETTER TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH ON THE FAERIE
QUEENE EDMUND SPENSER
PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD SIR WALTER RALEIGH
PROOEMIUM, EPISTLE DEDICATORY, PREFACE, AND PLAN OF THE
INSTAURATIO MAGNA, ETC. FRANCIS BACON
TRANSLATION EDITED BY J. SPEDDING
PREFACE TO THE NOVUM ORGANUM FRANCIS BACON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S
PLAYS HEMINGE AND CONDELL
PREFACE TO THE PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS PRINCIPIA
MATHEMATICA SIR ISAAC NEWTON
TRANSLATED BY ANDREW MOTTE
PREFACE TO FABLES, ANCIENT AND MODERN
JOHN DRYDEN
PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS HENRY FIELDING
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY SAMUEL JOHNSON
PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE SAMUEL JOHNSON
INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPYLAeEN J.W. VON GOETHE
PREFACES TO VARIOUS VOLUMES OF POEMS
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
APPENDIX TO LYRICAL BALLADS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
ESSAY SUPPLEMENTARY TO PREFACE WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
PREFACE TO CROMWELL VICTOR HUGO
PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS WALT WHITMAN
INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
H.A. TAINE
_INTRODUCTORY NOTE_
_No part of a book is so intimate as the Preface. Here, after the long
labor of the work is over, the author descends from his platform, and
speaks with his reader as man to man, disclosing his hopes and fears,
seeking sympathy for his difficulties, offering defence or defiance,
according to his temper, against the criticisms which he anticipates.
It thus happens that a personality which has been veiled by a formal
method throughout many chapters, is suddenly seen face to face in the
Preface; and this alone, if there were no other reason, would justify
a volume of Prefaces.
But there are other reasons why a Preface may be presented apart from
its parent work, and may, indeed, be expected sometimes to survive
it. The Prologues and Epilogues of Caxton were chiefly prefixed to
translations which have long been superseded; but the comments of this
frank and enthusiastic pioneer of the art of printing in England
not only tell us of his personal tastes, but are in a high degree
illuminative of the literary habits and standards of western Europe
in the fifteenth century. Again, modern research has long ago put
Raleigh's "History of the World" out of date; but his eloquent Preface
still gives us a rare picture of the attitude of an intelligent
Elizabethan, of the generation which colonised America, toward the
past, the present, and the future worlds. Bacon's "Great Restoration"
is no longer a guide to scientific method; but his prefatory
statements as to his objects and hopes still offer a lofty
inspiration.
And so with the documents here drawn from the folios of Copernicus and
Calvin, with the criticism of Dryden and Wordsworth and Hugo, with
Dr. Johnson's Preface to his great Dictionary, with the astounding
manifesto of a new poetry from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"--each
of them has a value and significance independent now of the work which
it originally introduced, and each of them presents to us a man._
PREFACES AND EPILOGUES
BY WILLIAM CAXTON[A]
THE RECUYELL OF THE HISTORIES OF TROY
TITLE AND PROLOGUE TO BOOK I
Here beginneth the volume entitled and named the Recuyell of the
Histories of Troy, composed and drawn out of divers books of Latin
into French by the right venerable person and worshipful man, Raoul le
Feure, priest and chaplain unto the right noble, glorious, and mighty
prince in his time, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant, etc. in the
year of the Incarnation of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty
and four, and translated and drawn out of French into English by
William Caxton, mercer, of the city of London, at the commandment of
the right high, mighty, and virtuous Princess, his redoubted Lady,
Margaret, by the grace of God Duchess of Burgundy, of Lotrylk, of
Brabant, etc.; which said translation and work was begun in Bruges
in the County of Flanders, the first day of March, the year of the
Incarnation of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and
eight, and ended and finished in the holy city of Cologne the 19th day
of September, the year of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred
sixty and eleven, etc.
And on that other side of this leaf followeth the prologue.
When I remember that every man is bounden by the commandment and
counsel of the wise man to eschew sloth and idleness, which is
mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to put myself unto virtuous
occupation and business, then I, having no great charge of occupation,
following the said counsel took a French book, and read therein many
strange and marvellous histories, wherein I had great pleasure and
delight, as well for the novelty of the same as for the fair language
of French, which was in prose so well and compendiously set and
written, which methought I understood the sentence and substance of
every matter. And for so much as this book was new and late made and
drawn into French, and never had seen it in our English tongue, I
thought in myself it should be a good business to translate it into
our English, to the end that it might be had as well in the royaume
of England as in other lands, and also for to pass therewith the time,
and thus concluded in myself to begin this said work. And forthwith
took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth as blind Bayard
in this present work, which is named "The Recuyell of the Trojan
Histories." And afterward when I remembered myself of my simpleness
and unperfectness that I had in both languages, that is to wit in
French and in English, for in France was I never, and was born and
learned my English in Kent, in the Weald, where I doubt not is
spoken as broad and rude English as in any place of England; and have
continued by the space of 30 years for the most part in the countries
of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand. And thus when all these
things came before me, after that I had made and written five or six
quires I fell in despair of this work, and purposed no more to have
continued therein, and those quires laid apart, and in two years after
laboured no more in this work, and was fully in will to have left it,
till on a time it fortuned that the right high, excellent, and right
virtuous princess, my right redoubted Lady, my Lady Margaret, by
the grace of God sister unto the King of England and of France,
my sovereign lord, Duchess of Burgundy, of Lotryk, of Brabant, of
Limburg, and of Luxembourg, Countess of Flanders, of Artois, and of
Burgundy, Palatine of Hainault, of Holland, of Zealand and of Namur,
Marquesse of the Holy Empire, Lady of Frisia, of Salins and of
Mechlin, sent for me to speak with her good Grace of divers matters,
among the which I let her Highness have knowledge of the foresaid
beginning of this work, which anon commanded me to show the said five
or six quires to her said Grace; and when she had seen them anon she
found a default in my English, which she commanded me to amend, and
moreover commanded me straitly to continue and make an end of the
residue then not translated; whose dreadful commandment I durst in no
wise disobey, because I am a servant unto her said Grace and receive
of her yearly fee and other many good and great benefits, (and also
hope many more to receive of her Highness), but forthwith went and
laboured in the said translation after my simple and poor cunning,
also nigh as I can following my author, meekly beseeching the
bounteous Highness of my said Lady that of her benevolence list to
accept and take in gree this simple and rude work here following; and
if there be anything written or said to her pleasure, I shall think my
labour well employed, and whereas there is default that she arette it
to the simpleness of my cunning which is full small in this behalf;
and require and pray all them that shall read this said work to
correct it, and to hold me excused of the rude and simple translation.
And thus I end my prologue.
[Footnote A: William Caxton (1422?-1491), merchant and translator,
learned the art of printing on the Continent, probably at Bruges or
Cologne. He translated "The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy" between
1469 and 1471, and, on account of the great demand for copies, was led
to have it printed--the first English book to be reproduced by this
means. The date was about 1474; the place, probably Bruges. In
1476, Caxton came back to England, and set up a press of his own at
Westminster. In 1477, he issued the first book known to have been
printed in England, "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers."
The following Prefaces and Epilogues from Caxton's own pen show his
attitude towards some of the more important of the works that issued
from his press.]
EPILOGUE TO BOOK II
Thus endeth the second book of the Recule of the Histories of Troy.
Which bookes were late translated into French out of Latin by the
labour of the venerable person Raoul le Feure, priest, as afore
is said; and by me indigne and unworthy, translated into this rude
English by the commandment of my said redoubted Lady, Duchess of
Burgundy. And for as much as I suppose the said two books be not had
before this time in our English language, therefore I had the better
will to accomplish this said work; which work was begun in Bruges
and continued in Ghent and finished in Cologne, in the time of the
troublous world, and of the great divisions being and reigning, as
well in the royaumes of England and France as in all other places
universally through the world; that is to wit the year of our Lord a
thousand four hundred seventy one. And as for the third book, which
treateth of the general and last destruction of Troy, it needeth
not to translate it into English, for as much as that worshipful and
religious man, Dan John Lidgate, monk of Bury, did translate it but
late; after whose work I fear to take upon me, that am not worthy to
bear his penner and ink-horn after him, to meddle me in that work.
But yet for as much as I am bound to contemplate my said Lady's good
grace, and also that his work is in rhyme and as far as I know it is
not had in prose in our tongue, and also, peradventure, he translated
after some other author than this is; and yet for as much as divers
men be of divers desires, some to read in rhyme and metre and some
in prose; and also because that I have now good leisure, being in
Cologne, and have none other thing to do at this time; in eschewing
of idleness, mother of all vices, I have delibered in myself for the
contemplation of my said redoubted lady to take this labour in hand,
by the sufferance and help of Almighty God; whom I meekly supplye to
give me grace to accomplish it to the pleasure of her that is causer
thereof, and that she receive it in gree of me, her faithful, true,
and most humble servant etc.
EPILOGUE TO BOOK III
Thus end I this book, which I have translated after mine Author as
nigh as God hath given me cunning, to whom be given the laud and
praising. And for as much as in the writing of the same my pen is
worn, my hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyne dimmed with overmuch
looking on the white paper, and my courage not so prone and ready to
labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me daily and feebleth
all the body, and also because I have promised to divers gentlemen and
to my friends to address to them as hastily as I might this said book,
therefore I have practised and learned at my great charge and dispense
to ordain this said book in print, after the manner and form as ye may
here see, and is not written with pen and ink as other books be, to
the end that every man may have them at once. For all the books of
this story, named "The Recule of the Histories of Troy" thus imprinted
as ye here see, were begun in one day and also finished in one day,
which book I have presented to my said redoubted Lady, as afore
is said. And she hath well accepted it, and largely rewarded me,
wherefore I beseech Almighty God to reward her everlasting bliss after
this life, praying her said Grace and all them that shall read this
book not to disdain the simple and rude work, neither to reply against
the saying of the matters touched in this book, though it accord not
unto the translation of others which have written it. For divers men
have made divers books which in all points accord not, as Dictes,
Dares, and Homer. For Dictes and Homer, as Greeks, say and write
favorably for the Greeks, and give to them more worship than to the
Trojans; and Dares writeth otherwise than they do. And also as for the
proper names, it is no wonder that they accord not, for some one name
in these days have divers equivocations after the countries that they
dwell in; but all accord in conclusion the general destruction of that
noble city of Troy, and the death of so many noble princes, as
kings, dukes, earls, barons, knights, and common people, and the ruin
irreparable of that city that never since was re-edified; which may be
example to all men during the world how dreadful and jeopardous it is
to begin a war and what harms, losses, and death followeth. Therefore
the Apostle saith: "All that is written is written to our doctrine,"
which doctrine for the common weal I beseech God may be taken in such
place and time as shall be most needful in increasing of peace,
love, and charity; which grant us He that suffered for the same to be
crucified on the rood tree. And say we all Amen for charity!
DICTES AND SAYINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
FIRST EDITION (1477). EPILOGUE
Here endeth the book named _The Dictes or Sayings of the
Philosophers_, imprinted by me, William Caxton, at Westminster, the
year of our Lord 1477. Which book is late translated out of French
into English by the noble and puissant Lord Lord Antony, Earl of
Rivers, Lord of Scales and of the Isle of Wight, defender and director
of the siege apostolic for our holy father the Pope in this royaume of
England, and governor of my Lord Prince of Wales. And it is so that at
such time as he had accomplished this said work, it liked him to send
it to me in certain quires to oversee, which forthwith I saw,
and found therein many great, notable, and wise sayings of the
philosophers, according unto the books made in French which I had
often before read; but certainly I had seen none in English until that
time. And so afterward I came unto my said Lord, and told him how I
had read and seen his book, and that he had done a meritorious deed in
the labour of the translation thereof into our English tongue, wherein
he had deserved a singular laud and thanks, &c. Then my said Lord
desired me to oversee it, and where I should find fault to correct it;
whereon I answered unto his Lordship that I could not amend it, but
if I should so presume I might apaire it, for it was right well
and cunningly made and translated into right good and fair English.
Notwithstanding, he willed me to oversee it, and shewed me divers
things, which, as seemed to him, might be left out, as divers letters,
missives sent from Alexander to Darius and Aristotle, and each to
other, which letters were little appertinent unto dictes and sayings
aforesaid, forasmuch as they specify of other matters. And also
desired me, that done, to put the said book in imprint. And thus
obeying his request and commandment, I have put me in devoir to
oversee this his said book, and behold as nigh as I could how it
accordeth with the original, being in French. And I find nothing
discordant therein, save only in the dictes and sayings of Socrates,
wherein I find that my said Lord hath left out certain and divers
conclusions touching women. Whereof I marvel that my Lord hath not
written them, ne what hath moved him so to do, ne what cause he had at
that time; but I suppose that some fair lady hath desired him to leave
it out of his book; or else he was amorous on some noble lady, for
whose love he would not set it in his book; or else for the very
affection, love, and good will that he hath unto all ladies and
gentlewomen, he thought that Socrates spared the sooth and wrote of
women more than truth; which I cannot think that so true a man and so
noble a philosopher as Socrates was should write otherwise than truth.
For if he had made fault in writing of women, he ought not, ne should
not, be believed in his other dictes and sayings. But I perceive that
my said Lord knoweth verily that such defaults be not had ne found in
the women born and dwelling in these parts ne regions of the world.
Socrates was a Greek, born in a far country from hence, which country
is all of other conditions than this is, and men and women of
other nature than they be here in this country. For I wot well, of
whatsoever condition women be in Greece, the women of this country be
right good, wise, pleasant, humble, discreet, sober, chaste, obedient
to their husbands, true, secret, steadfast, ever busy, and never idle,
attemperate in speaking, and virtuous in all their works--or at least
should be so. For which causes so evident my said Lord, as I suppose,
thought it was not of necessity to set in his book the sayings of his
author Socrates touching women. But forasmuch as I had commandment of
my said Lord to correct and amend where I should find fault, and other
find I none save that he hath left out these dictes and sayings of the
women of Greece, therefore in accomplishing his commandment--forasmuch
as I am not certain whether it was in my Lord's copy or not, or else,
peradventure, that the wind had blown over the leaf at the time of
translation of his book--I purpose to write those same sayings of that
Greek Socrates, which wrote of the women of Greece and nothing of them
of this royaume, whom, I suppose, he never knew; for if he had, I dare
plainly say that he would have reserved them specially in his said
dictes. Always not presuming to put and set them in my said Lord's
book but in the end apart in the rehearsal of the works, humbly
requiring all them that shall read this little rehearsal, that if they
find any fault to arette it to Socrates, and not to me, which writeth
as hereafter followeth.
Socrates said that women be the apparels to catch men, but they take
none but them that will be poor or else them that know them not.
And he said that there is none so great empechement unto a man as
ignorance and women. And he saw a woman that bare fire, of whom he
said that the hotter bore the colder. And he saw a woman sick, of whom
he said that the evil resteth and dwelleth with the evil. And he saw
a woman brought to the justice, and many other women followed her
weeping, of whom he said the evil be sorry and angry because the evil
shall perish. And he saw a young maid that learned to write, of whom
he said that men multiplied evil upon evil. And he said that the
ignorance of a man is known in three things, that is to wit, when he
hath no thought to use reason; when he cannot refrain his covetise;
and when he is governed by the counsel of women, in that he knoweth
that they know not. And he said unto his disciples: "Will ye that I
enseign and teach you how ye shall now escape from all evil?" And they
answered, "Yea." And then he said to them, "For whatsoever thing that
it be, keep you and be well ware that ye obey not women." Who answered
to him again, "And what sayest thou by our good mothers, and of our
sisters?" He said to them, "Suffice you with that I have said to you,
for all be semblable in malice." And he said, "Whosoever will acquire
and get science, let him never put him in the governance of a woman."
And he saw a woman that made her fresh and gay, to whom he said, "Thou
resemblest the fire; for the more wood is laid to the fire the more
will it burn, and the greater is the heat." And on a time one asked
him what him semed of women; he answered that the women resemble a
tree called Edelfla, which is the fairest tree to behold and see
that may be, but within it is full of venom. And they said to him and
demanded wherefore he blamed so women? and that he himself had
not come into this world, ne none other men also, without them. He
answered, "The woman is like unto a tree named Chassoygnet, on which
tree there be many things sharp and pricking, which hurt and prick
them that approach unto it; and yet, nevertheless, that same tree
bringeth forth good dates and sweet." And they demanded him why he
fled from the women? And he answered, "Forasmuch as I see them flee
and eschew the good and commonly do evil." And a woman said to him,
"Wilt thou have any other woman than me?" And he answered to her, "Art
not ashamed to offer thyself to him that demandeth nor desireth thee
not?"
So, these be the dictes and sayings of the philosopher Socrates, which
he wrote in his book; and certainly he wrote no worse than afore
is rehearsed. And forasmuch as it is accordant that his dictes and
sayings should be had as well as others', therefore I have set it in
the end of this book. And also some persons, peradventure, that have
read this book in French would have arette a great default in me that
I had not done my devoir in visiting and overseeing of my Lord's
book according to his desire. And some other also, haply, might have
supposed that Socrates had written much more ill of women than here
afore is specified, wherefore in satisfying of all parties, and also
for excuse of the said Socrates, I have set these said dictes and
sayings apart in the end of this book, to the intent that if my said
lord or any other person, whatsoever he or she be that shall read or
hear it, that if they be not well pleased withal, that they with a pen
race it out, or else rend the leaf out of the book. Humbly requiring
and beseeching my said lord to take no displeasure on me so presuming,
but to pardon whereas he shall find fault; and that it please him to
take the labour of the imprinting in gree and thanks, which gladly
have done my diligence in the accomplishing of his desire and
commandment; in which I am bounden so to do for the good reward that
I have received of his said lordship; whom I beseech Almighty God to
increase and to continue in his virtuous disposition in this world,
and after this life to live everlastingly in Heaven. Amen.
GOLDEN LEGEND.
FIRST EDITION (1483). PROLOGUE
The Holy and blessed doctor Saint Jerome saith this authority, "Do
always some good work to the end that the devil find thee not Idle."
And the holy doctor Saint Austin saith in the book of the labour of
monks, that no man strong or mighty to labour ought to be idle; for
which cause when I had performed and accomplished divers works and
histories translated out of French into English at the request of
certain lords, ladies, and gentlemen, as the Recuyel of the History of
Troy, the Book of the Chess, the History of Jason, the history of
the Mirror of the World, the 15 books of Metamorphoses in which be
contained the fables of Ovid, and the History of Godfrey of Boulogne
in the conquest of Jerusalem, with other divers works and books, I
ne wist what work to begin and put forth after the said works to-fore
made. And forasmuch as idleness is so much blamed, as saith Saint
Bernard, the mellifluous doctor, that she is mother of lies and
step-dame of virtues, and it is she that overthroweth strong men into
sin, quencheth virtue, nourisheth pride, and maketh the way ready to
go to hell; and John Cassiodorus saith that the thought of him that is
idle thinketh on none other thing but on licorous meats and viands for
his belly; and the holy Saint Bernard aforesaid saith in an epistle,
when the time shall come that it shall behove us to render and give
accounts of our idle time, what reason may we render or what answer
shall we give when in idleness is none excuse; and Prosper saith that
whosoever liveth in idleness liveth in manner of a dumb beast. And
because I have seen the authorities that blame and despise so much
idleness, and also know well that it is one of the capital and deadly
sins much hateful unto God, therefore I have concluded and firmly
purposed in myself no more to be idle, but will apply myself to labour
and such occupation as I have been accustomed to do. And forasmuch as
Saint Austin aforesaid saith upon a psalm that good work ought not to
be done for fear of pain, but for the love of righteousness, and that
it be of very and sovereign franchise, and because me-seemeth to be
a sovereign weal to incite and exhort men and women to keep them from
sloth and idleness, and to let to be understood to such people as be
not lettered the nativities, the lives, the passions, the miracles,
and the death of the holy saints, and also some other notorious deeds
and acts of times past, I have submised myself to translate into
English the legend of Saints, which is called _Legenda Aurea_ in
Latin, that is to say, the _Golden Legend_; for in like wise as gold
is most noble above all other metals, in like wise is this legend
holden most noble above all other works. Against me here might some
persons say that this legend hath been translated before, and truth it
is; but forasmuch as I had by me a legend in French, another in Latin,
and the third in English, which varied in many and divers places, and
also many histories were comprised in the two other books which were
not in the English books; and therefore I have written one out of the
said three books, which I have ordered otherwise than the said English
legend is, which was so to-fore made, beseeching all them that shall
see or hear it read to pardon me where I have erred or made fault,
which, if any be, is of ignorance and against my will; and submit it
wholly of such as can and may, to correct it, humbly beseeching them
so to do, and in so doing they shall deserve a singular laud and
merit; and I shall pray for them unto Almighty God that He of His
benign grace reward them, etc., and that it profit to all them that
shall read or hear it read, and may increase in them virtue, and
expel vice and sin, that by the example of the holy saints amend their
living here in this short life, that by their merits they and I may
come to everlasting life and bliss in Heaven. Amen.
CATON (1483)
PROLOGUE
Here beginneth the prologue of proem of the book called _Caton_, which
book hath been translated into English by Master Benet Burgh,
late Archdeacon of Cochester, and high canon of St. Stephen's at
Westminster, which ful craftily hath made it in ballad royal for the
erudition of my lord Bousher, son and heir at that time to my lord the
Earl of Essex. And because of late came to my hand a book of the said
Cato in French, which rehearseth many a fair learning and notable
examples, I have translated it out of French into English, as all
along hereafter shall appear, which I present unto the city of London.
Unto the noble, ancient, and renowned city, the city of London, in
England, I, William Caxton, citizen and conjury of the same, and of
the fraternity and fellowship of the mercery, owe of right my service
and good will, and of very duty am bounden naturally to assist, aid,
and counsel, as far forth as I can to my power, as to my mother of
whom I have received my nurture and living, and shall pray for the
good prosperity and policy of the same during my life. For, as me
seemeth, it is of great need, because I have known it in my young age
much more wealthy, prosperous, and richer, than it is at this day. And
the cause is that there is almost none that intendeth to the common
weal, but only every man for his singular profit Oh! when I remember
the noble Romans, that for the common weal of the city of Rome they
spent not only their moveable goods but they put their bodies and
lives in jeopardy and to the death, as by many a noble example we may
see in the acts of Romans, as of the two noble Scipios, African and
Asian, Actilius, and many others. And among all others the noble Cato,
author and maker of this book, which he hath left for to remain ever
to all the people for to learn in it and to know how every man ought
to rule and govern him in this life, as well for the life temporal as
for the life spiritual. And as in my judgement it is the best book for
to be taught to young children in school, and also to people of every
age, it is full convenient if it be well understood And because I
see that the children that be born within the said city increase, and
profit not like their fathers and elders, but for the most part after
that they be come to their perfect years of discretion and ripeness of
age, how well that their fathers have left to them great quantity of
goods yet scarcely among ten two thrive, [whereas] I have seen and
know in other lands in divers cities that of one name and lineage
successively have endured prosperously many heirs, yea, a five or six
hundred years, and some a thousand; and in this noble city of
London it can unneth continue unto the third heir or scarcely to the
second,--O blessed Lord, when I remember this I am all abashed; I
cannot judge the cause, but fairer ne wiser ne better spoken children
in their youth be nowhere than there be in London, but at their full
ripening there is no kernel ne good corn found, but chaff for the most
part. I wot well there be many noble and wise, and prove well and be
better and richer than ever were their fathers. And to the end that
many might come to honour and worship, I intend to translate this
said book of Cato, in which I doubt not, and if they will read it and
understand they shall much the better con rule themselves thereby; for
among all other books this is a singular book, and may well be called
the regiment or governance of the body and soul.
There was a noble clerk named Pogius of Florence, and was secretary
to Pope Eugene and also to Pope Nicholas, which had in the city of
Florence a noble and well-stuffed library which all noble strangers
coming to Florence desired to see; and therein they found many noble
and rare books. And when they had asked of him which was the best book
of them all, and that he reputed for best, he said that he held Cato
glosed for the best book of his library. Then since that he that was
so noble a clerk held this book for the best, doubtless it must follow
that this is a noble book and a virtuous, and such one that a man may
eschew all vices and ensue virtue. Then to the end that this said book
may profit unto the hearers of it, I beseech Almighty God that I
may achieve and accomplish it unto his laud and glory, and to the
erudition and learning of them that be ignorant, that they may thereby
profit and be the better. And I require and beseech all such that find
fault or error, that of their charity they correct and amend it, and I
shall heartily pray for them to Almighty God, that he reward them.
AESOP. (1483)
EPILOGUE
Now then I will finish all these fables with this tale that followeth,
which a worshipful priest and a parson told me lately. He said that
there were dwelling in Oxford two priests, both masters of art, of
whom that one was quick and could put himself forth, and that other
was a good simple priest. And so it happened that the master that was
pert and quick, was anon promoted to a benefice or twain, and after
to prebends and for to be a dean of a great prince's chapel, supposing
and weening that his fellow the simple priest should never have been
promoted, but be alway an Annual, or at the most a parish priest. So
after long time that this worshipful man, this dean, came riding into
a good parish with a ten or twelve horses, like a prelate, and came
into the church of the said parish, and found there this good simple
man sometime his fellow, which came and welcomed him lowly; and that
other bade him "good morrow, master John," and took him slightly by
the hand, and asked him where he dwelt. And the good man said, "In
this parish." "How," said he, "are ye here a soul priest or a parish
priest?" "Nay, sir," said he, "for lack of a better, though I be not
able ne worthy, I am parson and curate of this parish." And then that
other availed his bonnet and said, "Master parson, I pray you to be
not displeased; I had supposed ye had not been beneficed; but master,"
said he, "I pray you what is this benefice worth to you a year?"
"Forsooth," said the good simple man, "I wot never, for I make never
accounts thereof how well I have had it four or five years." "And know
ye not," said he, "what it is worth? it should seem a good benefice."
"No, forsooth," said he, "but I wot well what it shall be worth to
me." "Why," said he, "what shall it be worth?" "Forsooth," said he,
"if I do my true diligence in the cure of my parishioners in preaching
and teaching, and do my part longing to my cure, I shall have heaven
therefore; and if their souls be lost, or any of them by my default, I
shall be punished therefore, and hereof am I sure." And with that word
the rich dean was abashed, and thought he should do the better and
take more heed to his cures and benefices than he had done. This was
a good answer of a good priest and an honest. And herewith I
finished this book, translated and printed by me, William Caxton, at
Westminster in the Abbey, and finished the 26th day of March, the year
of our Lord 1484, and the first year of the reign of King Richard the
Third.
CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES
Second Edition. (1484)
PROEM
Great thanks, laud, and honour ought to be given unto the clerks,
poets, and historiographs that have written many noble books of
wisedom of the lives, passions, and miracles of holy saints, of
histories of noble and famous acts and faites, and of the chronicles
since the beginning of the creation of the world unto this present
time, by which we be daily informed and have knowledge of many things
of whom we should not have known if they had not left to us their
monuments written. Among whom and in especial before all others, we
ought to give a singular laud unto that noble and great philosopher
Geoffrey Chaucer, the which for his ornate writing in our tongue may
well have the name of a laureate poet. For to-fore that he by labour
embellished, ornated, and made fair our English, in this realm was had
rude speech and incongruous, as yet it appeareth by old books, which
at this day ought not to have place ne be compared among, ne to, his
beauteous volumes and ornate writings, of whom he made many books and
treatises of many a noble history, as well in metre as in rhyme and
prose; and them so craftily made that he comprehended his matters in
short, quick, and high sentences, eschewing prolixity, casting away
the chaff of superfluity, and shewing the picked grain of sentence
uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence; of whom among all others of
his books I purpose to print, by the grace of God, the book of the
tales of Canterbury, in which I find many a noble history of every
state and degree; first rehearsing the conditions and the array of
each of them as properly as possible is to be said. And after their
tales which be of nobleness, wisdom, gentleness, mirth and also of
very holiness and virtue, wherein he finisheth this said book, which
book I have diligently overseen and duly examined, to that end it be
made according unto his own making. For I find many of the said books
which writers have abridged it, and many things left out; and in some
place have set certain verses that he never made ne set in his book;
of which books so incorrect was one brought to me, 6 years past, which
I supposed had been very true and correct; and according to the same I
did so imprint a certain number of them, which anon were sold to many
and divers gentlemen, of whom one gentleman came to me and said that
this book was not according in many place unto the book that Geoffrey
Chaucer had made. To whom I answered that I had made it according to
my copy, and by me was nothing added ne minished. Then he said he knew
a book which his father had and much loved, that was very true and
according unto his own first book by him made; and said more, if
I would imprint it again he would get me the same book for a copy,
howbeit he wist well that his father would not gladly depart from it.
To whom I said, in case that he could get me such a book, true and
correct, yet I would once endeavour me to imprint it again for to
satisfy the author, whereas before by ignorance I erred in hurting and
defaming his book in divers places, in setting in some things that he
never said ne made, and leaving out many things that he made which
be requisite to be set in it. And thus we fell at accord, and he full
gently got of his father the said book and delivered it to me, by
which I have corrected my book, as hereafter, all along by the aid of
Almighty God, shall follow; whom I humbly beseech to give me grace and
aid to achieve and accomplish to his laud, honour, and glory; and
that all ye that shall in this book read or hear, will of your charity
among your deeds of mercy remember the soul of the said Geoffrey
Chaucer, first author and maker of this book. And also that all we
that shall see and read therein may so take and understand the good
and virtuous tales, that it may so profit unto the health of our souls
that after this short and transitory life we may come to everlasting
life in Heaven. Amen.
BY WILLIAM CAXTON
MALORY'S KING ARTHUR. (1485)
PROLOGUE
After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well
of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great
conquerors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and
doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England
came and demanded me many and oft times wherefore that I have not done
made and printed the noble history of the Saint Graal, and of the most
renowned Christian King, first and chief of the three best Christian
and worthy, Arthur, which ought most to be remembered among us
Englishmen before all other Christian Kings. For it is notoyrly known
through the universal world that there be nine worthy and the best
that ever were; that is to wit three Paynims, three Jews, and three
Christian men. As for the Paynims, they were to-fore the Incarnation
of Christ, which were named--the first, Hector of Troy, of whom the
history is come both in ballad and in prose--the second, Alexander
the Great; and the third, Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, of whom the
histories be well known and had. And as for the three Jews, which also
were before the Incarnation of our Lord of whom the first was Duke
Joshua, which brought the children of Israel into the land of behest;
the second, David, King of Jerusalem; and the third Judas Maccabaeus;
of these three the Bible rehearseth all their noble histories and
acts. And since the said Incarnation have been three noble Christian
men, installed and admitted through the universal world into the
number of the nine best and worthy, of whom was first the noble
Arthur, whose noble acts I purpose to write in this present book here
following. The second was Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, of whom
the history is had in many places both in French and English; and the
third and last was Godfrey of Boulogne, of whose acts and life I made
a book unto the excellent prince and king of noble memory, King Edward
the Fourth. The said noble gentlemen instantly required me to print
the history of the said noble king and conqueror, King Arthur, and of
his knights, with the history of the Saint Graal, and of the death and
ending of the said Arthur, affirming that I ought rather to print his
acts and noble feats than of Godfrey of Boulogne or any of the other
eight, considering that he was a man born within this realm, and king
and emperor of the same; and that there be in French divers and many
noble volumes of his acts, and also of his knights. To whom I answered
that divers men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur, and that
all such books as be made of him be but feigned and fables, because
that some chronicles make of him no mention, ne remember him nothing
ne of his knights; whereto they answered, and one in special said,
that in him that should say or think that there was never such a king
called Arthur, might well be aretted great folly and blindness; for he
said that there were many evidences of the contrary. First ye may
see his sepulchre in the monastery of Glastonbury; and also in
'Polychronicon,' in the fifth book, the sixth chapter, and in the
seventh book, the twenty-third chapter, where his body was buried, and
after found and translated into the said monastery. Ye shall see also
in the history of Boccaccio, in his book 'De casu principum,' part
of his noble acts and also of his fall. Also Galfridus in his British
book recounteth his life, and in divers places of England many
remembrances be yet of him, and shall remain perpetually, and also
of his knights. First in the Abbey of Westminster at Saint Edward's
shrine remaineth the print of his seal in red wax closed in beryl,
in which is written 'Patricius Arthurus, Britanniae Galliae Germaniae
Daciae Imperator.' Item, in the castle of Dover ye may see Gawain's
skull and Caradoc's mantle; at Winchester the round table; in other
places Lancelot's sword, and many other things. Then all these things
considered, there can no man reasonably gainsay but here was a king of
this land named Arthur; for in all places, Christian and heathen, he
is reputed and taken for one of the nine worthy, and the first of the
three Christian men. And also he is more spoken of beyond the sea;
more books made of his noble acts than there be in England, as well
in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Greek as in French; and yet of record
remain in witness of him in Wales in the town of Camelot the great
stones and marvellous works of iron lying under the ground, and royal
vaults, which divers now living hath seen. Wherefore it is a marvel
why he is no more renowned in his own country, save only it accordeth
to the word of God, which saith that no man is accepted for a prophet
in his own country. Then all these things aforesaid alleged, I could
not well deny but that there was such a noble king named Arthur, and
reputed one of the nine worthy, and first and chief of the Christian
men; and many noble volumes be made of him and of his noble knights in
French, which I have seen and read beyond the sea, which be not had
in our maternal tongue, but in Welsh be many, and also in French, and
some in English, but nowhere nigh all. Wherefore such as have lately
been drawn out briefly into English, I have, after the simple cunning
that God hath sent to me, under the favour and correction of all noble
lords and gentlemen, emprised to imprint a book of the noble histories
of the said King Arthur and of certain of his knights, after a copy
unto me delivered, which copy Sir Thomas Mallory did take out of
certain books of French and reduced it into English. And I according
to my copy have down set it in print, to the intent that noble men
may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous
deeds that some knights used in those days, by which they came to
honour, and how they that were vicious were punished and oft put to
shame and rebuke; humbly beseeching all noble lords and ladies and all
other estates, of what estate or degree they be of, that shall see and
read in this said book and work, that they take the good and honest
acts in their remembrance and to follow the same, wherein they shall
find many joyous and pleasant histories and noble and renowned acts
of humanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For herein may be seen
noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardyhood, love,
friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good
and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renown.
And for to pass the time this book shall be pleasant to read in;
but for to give faith and believe that all is true that is contained
herein, ye be at your liberty. But all is written for our doctrine,
and for to beware that we fall not to vice ne sin, but to exercise and
follow virtue, by which we may come and attain to good fame and renown
in this life, and after this short and transitory life to come unto
everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant us that reigneth in
Heaven, the Blessed Trinity. Amen.
Then to proceed forth in this said book which I direct unto all noble
princes, lords and ladies, gentlemen or gentlewomen, that desire
to read or hear read of the noble and joyous history of the great
conqueror and excellent king, King Arthur, sometime King of this noble
realm then called Britain, I, William Caxton, simple person, present
this book following which I have emprised to imprint. And treateth
of the noble acts, feats of arms, of chivalry, prowess, hardihood,
humanity, love, courtesy, and very gentleness, with many wonderful
histories and adventures. And for to understand briefly the contents
of this volume, I have divided it into 21 books, and every book
chaptered, as hereafter shall by God's grace follow. The first book
shall treat how Uther Pendragon begat the noble conqueror, King
Arthur, and containeth 28 chapters. The second book treateth of Balyn
the noble knight, and containeth 19 chapters. The third book treateth
of the marriage of King Arthur to Queen Guinevere, with other matters,
and containeth 15 chapters. The fourth book how Merlin was assotted,
and of war made to King Arthur, and containeth 29 chapters. The fifth
book treateth of the conquest of Lucius the emperor, and containeth 12
chapters. The sixth book treateth of Sir Lancelot and Sir Lionel, and
marvellous adventures, and containeth 18 chapters. The seventh book
treateth of a noble knight called Sir Gareth, and named by Sir Kay
'Beaumains,' and containeth 36 chapters. The eighth book treateth
of the birth of Sir Tristram the noble knight, and of his acts, and
containeth 41 chapters. The ninth book treateth of a knight named
by Sir Kay, 'Le cote mal tailie,' and also of Sir Tristram, and
containeth 44 chapters. The tenth book treateth of Sir Tristram, and
other marvellous adventures, and containeth 83 chapters. The eleventh
book treateth of Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad, and containeth 14
chapters. The twelfth book treateth of Sir Lancelot and his madness,
and containeth 14 chapters. The thirteenth book treateth how Galahad
came first to King Arthur's court, and the quest how the Sangreal was
begun, and containeth 20 chapters. The fourteenth book treateth of the
quest of the Sangreal, and containeth 10 chapters. The fifteenth book
treateth of Sir Lancelot, and containeth 6 chapters. The sixteenth
book treateth of Sir Boris and Sir Lionel his brother, and containeth
17 chapters. The seventeenth book treateth of the Sangreal, and
containeth 23 chapters. The eighteenth book treateth of Sir Lancelot
and the Queen, and containeth 25 chapters. The nineteenth book
treateth of Queen Guinevere, and Lancelot, and containeth 13 chapters.
The twentieth book treateth of the piteous death of Arthur, and
containeth 22 chapters. The twenty-first book treateth of his last
departing, and how Sir Lancelot came to revenge his death, and
containeth 13 chapters. The sum is 21 books, which contain the sum
of five hundred and seven chapters, as more plainly shall follow
hereafter.
ENEYDOS (1490)
PROLOGUE
After divers work made, translated, and achieved, having no work in
hand, I sitting in my study whereas lay many divers pamphlets and
books, happened that to my hand came a little book in French, which
lately was translated out of Latin by some noble clerk of France,
which book is named _Aeneidos_, made in Latin by that noble poet and
great clerk, Virgil Which book I saw over, and read therein how, after
the general destruction of the great Troy, Aeneas departed, bearing
his old father Anchises upon his shoulders, his little son Iulus
on his hand, his wife with much other people following, and how he
shipped and departed, with all the history of his adventures that he
had ere he came to the achievement of his conquest of Italy, as all
along shall be shewed in his present book. In which book I had great
pleasure because of the fair and honest terms and words in French;
which I never saw before like, ne none so pleasant ne so well ordered;
which book as seemed to me should be much requisite to noble men to
see, as well for the eloquence as the histories. How well that many
hundred years past was the said book of _Aeneidos_, with other works,
made and learned daily in schools, especially in Italy and other
places; which history the said Virgil made in metre. And when I had
advised me in this said book, I delibered and concluded to translate
it into English; and forthwith took a pen and ink and wrote a leaf or
twain, which I oversaw again to correct it. And when I saw the fair
and strange terms therein, I doubted that it should not please some
gentlemen which late blamed me, saying that in my translations I had
over curious terms, which could not be understood of common people,
and desired me to use old and homely terms in my translations. And
fain would I satisfy every man, and so to do took an old book and read
therein, and certainly the English was so rude and broad that I could
not well understood it. And also my Lord Abbot of Westminster did do
show to me lately certain evidences written in old English, for to
reduce it into our English now used. And certainly it was written in
such wise that it was more like to Dutch than English, I could not
reduce ne bring it to be understood. And certainly our language now
used varieth far from that which was used and spoken when I was born.
For we Englishmen be born under the domination of the moon, which is
never steadfast but ever wavering, waxing one season and waneth and
decreaseth another season. And that common English that is spoken in
one shire varieth from another, insomuch that in my days happened that
certain merchants were in a ship in Thames for to have sailed over the
sea into Zealand, and for lack of wind they tarried at Foreland, and
went to land for to refresh them. And one of them named Sheffield, a
mercer, came into a house and asked for meat, and especially he asked
after eggs; and the good wife answered that she could speak no French,
and the merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but
would have had eggs, and she understood him not. And then at last
another said, that he would have "eyren"; then the goodwife said
that she understood him well. Lo, what should a man in these days now
write, eggs or eyren? Certainly it is hard to please every man because
of diversity and change of language. For in these days every man that
is in any reputation in his country will utter his communication and
matters in such manners and terms that few men shall understand them.
And some honest and great clerks have been with me and desired me
to write the most curious terms that I could find; and thus between
plain, rude and curious I stand abashed. But in my judgment the common
terms that be daily used be lighter to be understood than the old and
ancient English. And forasmuch as this present book is not for a rude
uplandish man to labour therein ne read it, but only for a clerk and
a noble gentleman that feeleth and understandeth in feats of arms, in
love and in noble chivalry. Therefore in a mean between both I have
reduced and translated this said book into our English, not over-rude
ne curious; but in such terms as shall be understood, by God's grace,
according to my copy. And if any man will intermit in reading of it,
and findeth such terms that he cannot understand, let him go read
and learn Virgil of the pistles of Ovid, and there he shall see and
understand lightly all, if he have a good reader and informer. For
this book is not for every rude and uncunning man to see, but to
clerks and very gentlemen that understand gentleness and science. Then
I pray all them that shall read in this little treatise to hold me for
excused for the translating of it, for I acknowledge myself ignorant
of cunning to emprise on me so high and noble a work. But I pray
Master John Skelton, late created poet laureate in the University of
Oxenford, to oversee and correct this said book, and to address and
expound, wherever shall be found fault, to them that shall require it.
For him I know for sufficient to expound and English every difficulty
that is therein; for he hath lately translated the Epistles of Tully,
and the book of Diodorus Siculus, and divers other works out of Latin
into English, not in rude and old language, but in polished and ornate
terms craftily, as he that hath read Virgil, Ovid, Tully, and all the
other noble poets and orators to me unknown. And also he hath read
the nine Muses, and understands their musical sciences, and to whom
of them each, science is appropred. I suppose he hath drunken of
Helicon's well. Then I pray him and such others to correct, add, or
minish whereas he or they shall find fault; for I have but followed my
copy in French as nigh as to me is possible. And if any word be said
therein well, I am glad; and if otherwise, I submit my said book
to their correction. Which book I present unto the high born, my
to-coming natural and sovereign lord Arthur, by the grace of God
Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, first-begotten
son and heir unto our most dread natural and sovereign lord and most
Christian King, Henry the VII., by the grace of God King of England
and of France, and lord of Ireland; beseeching his noble Grace to
receive it in thank of me his most humble subject and servant. And I
shall pray unto Almighty God for his prosperous increasing in virtue,
wisedom, and humanity, that he may be equal with the most renowned of
all his noble progenitors; and so to live in this present life that
after this transitory life he and we all may come to everlasting life
in Heaven. Amen.
DEDICATION OF THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
BY JOHN CALVIN (1536)[A]
To His Most Christian Majesty, FRANCIS, King of the French, and his
Sovereign, John Calvin wisheth peace and salvation in Christ.
When I began this work, Sire, nothing was further from my thoughts
than writing a book which would afterwards be presented to your
Majesty. My intention was only to lay down some elementary principles,
by which inquirers on the subject of religion might be instructed in
the nature of true piety. And this labour I undertook chiefly for
my countrymen, the French, of whom I apprehended multitudes to be
hungering and thirsting after Christ, but saw very few possessing any
real knowledge of him. That this was my design, the book itself proves
by its simple method and unadorned composition. But when I perceived
that the fury of certain wicked men in your kingdom had grown to
such a height, as to leave no room in the land for sound doctrine, I
thought I should be usefully employed, if in the same work I delivered
my instructions to them, and exhibited my confession to you, that
you may know the nature of that doctrine, which is the object of such
unbounded rage to those madmen who are now disturbing the country with
fire and sword. For I shall not be afraid to acknowledge, that this
treatise contains a summary of that very doctrine, which, according to
their clamours, deserves to be punished with imprisonment, banishment,
proscription, and flames, and to be exterminated from the face of the
earth. I well know with what atrocious insinuations your ears have
been filled by them, in order to render our cause most odious in
your esteem; but your clemency should lead you to consider that, if
accusation be accounted a sufficient evidence of guilt, there will be
an end of all innocence in words and actions. If any one, indeed, with
a view to bring odium upon the doctrine which I am endeavouring to
defend, should allege that it has long ago been condemned by the
general consent, and suppressed by many judicial decisions, this will
be only equivalent to saying, that it has been sometimes violently
rejected through the influence and power of its adversaries, and
sometimes insidiously and fraudulently oppressed by falsehoods,
artifices, and calumnies. Violence is displayed, when sanguinary
sentences are passed against it without the cause being heard; and
fraud, when it is unjustly accused of sedition and mischief. Lest
any one should suppose that these our complaints are unfounded, you
yourself, Sire, can bear witness of the false calumnies with which
you hear it daily traduced; that its only tendency is to wrest the
sceptres of kings out of their hands, to overturn all the tribunals
and judicial proceedings, to subvert all order and governments, to
disturb the peace and tranquillity of the people, to abrogate all
laws, to scatter all properties and possessions, and, in a word, to
involve every thing in total confusion. And yet you hear the smallest
portion of what is alleged against it; for such horrible things are
circulated amongst the vulgar, that, if they were true, the whole
world would justly pronounce it and its abettors worthy of a thousand
fires and gibbets. Who, then, will wonder at its becoming the object
of public odium, where credit is given to such most iniquitous
accusations? This is the cause of the general consent and conspiracy
to condemn us and our doctrine. Hurried away with this impulse,
those who sit in judgment pronounce for sentences the prejudices they
brought from home with them; and think their duty fully discharged if
they condemn none to be punished but such as are convicted by their
own confession, or by sufficient proofs. Convicted of what crime?
Of this condemned doctrine, they say. But with what justice is it
condemned? Now, the ground of defence was not to abjure the doctrine
itself, but to maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a
word is allowed to be uttered.
Wherefore I beseech you, Sire,--and surely it is not an unreasonable
request,--to take upon yourself the entire cognizance of this cause,
which has hitherto been confusedly and carelessly agitated, without
any order of law, and with outrageous passion rather than judicial
gravity. Think not that I am now meditating my own individual defence,
in order to effect a safe return to my native country; for, though I
feel the affection which every man ought to feel for it, yet, under
the existing circumstances, I regret not my removal from it. But I
plead the cause of all the godly, and consequently of Christ himself,
which, having been in these times persecuted and trampled on in all
ways in your kingdom, now lies in a most deplorable state; and this
indeed rather through the tyranny of certain Pharisees, than with your
knowledge. How this comes to pass is foreign to my present purpose to
say; but it certainly lies in a most afflicted state. For the
ungodly have gone to such lengths, that the truth of Christ, if not
vanquished, dissipated, and entirely destroyed, is buried, as it
were, in ignoble obscurity, while the poor, despised church is either
destroyed by cruel massacres, or driven away into banishment, or
menaced and terrified into total silence. And still they continue
their wonted madness and ferocity, pushing violently against the wall
already bent, and finishing the ruin they have begun. In the meantime,
no one comes forward to plead the cause against such furies. If there
be any persons desirous of appearing most favourable to the truth,
they only venture an opinion, that forgiveness should be extended to
the error and imprudence of ignorant people. For this is the language
of these moderate men, calling that error and imprudence which they
know to be the certain truth of God, and those ignorant people, whose
understanding they perceive not to have been so despicable to Christ,
but that he has favoured them with the mysteries of his heavenly
wisdom. Thus all are ashamed of the Gospel. But it shall be yours,
Sire, not to turn away your ears or thoughts from so just a defence,
especially in a cause of such importance as the maintenance of God's
glory unimpaired in the world, the preservation of the honor of divine
truth, and the continuance of the kingdom of Christ uninjured
among us. This is a cause worthy of your attention, worthy of your
cognizance, worthy of your throne. This consideration constitutes true
royalty, to acknowledge yourself in the government of your kingdom to
be the minister of God. For where the glory of God is not made the
end of the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a
usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that
kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy
word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where
there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced
from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness. We are fully
conscious to ourselves how very mean and abject we are, being
miserable sinners before God, and accounted most despicable by men;
being, (if you please) the refuse of the world, deserving of the
vilest appellations that can be found; so that nothing remains for
us to glory in before God, but his mercy alone, by which, without any
merit of ours, we have been admitted to the hope of eternal salvation,
and before men nothing but our weakness, the slightest confession of
which is esteemed by them as the greatest disgrace. But our doctrine
must stand, exalted above all the glory, and invincible by all the
power of the world; because it is not ours, but the doctrine of the
living God, and of his Christ, whom the Father hath constituted King,
that he may have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river even to
the ends of the earth, and that he may rule in such a manner, that the
whole earth, with its strength of iron and with its splendour of gold
and silver, smitten by the rod of his mouth, may be broken to pieces
like a potter's vessel;[2] for thus do the prophets foretell the
magnificence of his kingdom.
Our adversaries reply, that our pleading the word of God is a false
pretence, and that we are nefarious corrupters of it. But that this is
not only a malicious calumny, but egregious impudence, by reading our
confession, you will, in your wisdom, be able to judge. Yet something
further is necessary to be said, to excite your attention, or at least
to prepare your mind for this perusal. Paul's direction, that every
prophecy be framed "according to the analogy of faith,"[3] has fixed
an invariable standard by which all interpretation of Scripture ought
to be tried. If our principles be examined by this rule of faith,
the victory is ours. For what is more consistent with faith than to
acknowledge ourselves naked of all virtue, that we may be clothed by
God; empty of all good, that we may be filled by him; slaves to sin,
that we may be liberated by him; blind, that we may be enlightened by
him; lame, that we may be guided; weak, that we may be supported by
him; to divest ourselves of all ground of glorying, that he alone may
be eminently glorious, and that we may glory in him? When we advance
these and similar sentiments, they interrupt us with complaints that
this is the way to overturn, I know not what blind light of nature,
pretended preparations, free will, and works meritorious of eternal
salvation, together with all their supererogations; because they
cannot bear that the praise and glory of all goodness, strength,
righteousness, and wisdom, should remain entirely with God. But we
read of none being reproved for having drawn too freely from the
fountain of living waters; on the contrary, they are severely
upbraided who have "hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can
hold no water."[4] Again, what is more consistent with faith, than
to assure ourselves of God being a propitious Father, where Christ is
acknowledged as a brother and Mediator? than securely to expect all
prosperity and happiness from Him, whose unspeakable love towards us
went so far, that "he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up
for us?"[5] than to rest in the certain expectation of salvation and
eternal life, when we reflect upon the Father's gift of Christ, in
whom such treasures are hidden? Here they oppose us, and complain
that this certainty of confidence is chargeable with arrogance and
presumption. But as we ought to presume nothing of ourselves, so we
should presume every thing of God; nor are we divested of vain glory
for any other reason than that we may learn to glory in the Lord.
What shall I say more? Review, Sire, all the parts of our cause,
and consider us worse than the most abandoned of mankind, unless you
clearly discover that we thus "both labor and suffer reproach, because
we trust in the living God,"[6] because we believe that "this is life
eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath
sent."[7] For this hope some of us are bound in chains, others are
lashed with scourges, others are carried about as laughing-stocks,
others are outlawed, others are cruelly tortured, others escape by
flight; but we are all reduced to extreme perplexities, execrated
with dreadful curses, cruelly slandered and treated with the greatest
indignities. Now, look at our adversaries, (I speak of the order
of priests, at whose will and directions others carry on these
hostilities against us,) and consider a little with me by what
principles they are actuated. The true religion, which is taught in
the Scriptures, and ought to be universally maintained, they readily
permit both themselves and others to be ignorant of, and to treat with
neglect and contempt. They think it unimportant what any one holds or
denies concerning God and Christ, provided he submits his mind with
an implicit faith (as they call it) to the judgment of the Church.
Nor are they much affected, if the glory of God happens to be violated
with open blasphemies, provided no one lift a finger against the
primacy of the Apostolic See, and the authority of their holy Mother
Church. Why, therefore, do they contend with such extreme bitterness
and cruelty for the mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and similar trifles,
and deny that any piety can be maintained without a most explicit
faith, so to speak, in these things; whereas they prove none of them
from the word of God? Why, but because their belly is their God, their
kitchen is their religion; deprived of which they consider themselves
no longer as Christians, or even as men. For though some feast
themselves in splendour, and others subsist on slender fare, yet all
live on the same pot, which, without this fuel, would not only cool,
but completely freeze. Every one of them, therefore, who is most
solicitous for his belly, is found to be a most strenuous champion
for their faith. Indeed, they universally exert themselves for the
preservation of their kingdom, and the repletion of their bellies; but
not one of them discovers the least indication of sincere zeal.
Nor do their attacks on our doctrine cease here; they urge every topic
of accusation and abuse to render it an object of hatred or suspicion.
They call it novel, and of recent origin,--they cavil at it as
doubtful and uncertain,--they inquire by what miracles it is
confirmed,--they ask whether it is right for it to be received
contrary to the consent of so many holy fathers, and the custom of the
highest antiquity,--they urge us to confess that it is schismatical
in stirring up opposition against the Church, or that the Church
was wholly extinct for many ages, during which no such thing was
known.--Lastly, they say all arguments are unnecessary; for that its
nature may be determined by its fruits, since it has produced such
a multitude of sects, so many factious tumults, and such great
licentiousness of vices. It is indeed very easy for them to insult a
deserted cause with the credulous and ignorant multitude; but, if we
had also the liberty of speaking in our turn, this acrimony,
which they now discover in violently foaming against us with equal
licentiousness and impunity, would presently cool.
In the first place, their calling it novel is highly injurious to God,
whose holy word deserves not to be accused of novelty. I have no doubt
of its being new to them, to whom Jesus Christ and the Gospel are
equally new. But those who know the antiquity of this preaching of
Paul, "that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and rose again for our
justification,"[8] will find no novelty among us. That it has long
been concealed, buried, and unknown, is the crime of human impiety.
Now that the goodness of God has restored it to us, it ought at least
to be allowed its just claim of antiquity.
From the same source of ignorance springs the notion of its being
doubtful and uncertain. This is the very thing which the Lord
complains of by his prophet; that "the ox knoweth his owner, and
the ass his master's crib,"[9] but that his people know not him. But
however they may laugh at its uncertainty, if they were called to seal
their own doctrine with their blood and lives, it would appear how
much they value it. Very different is our confidence, which dreads
neither the terrors of death, nor even the tribunal of God.
Their requiring miracles of us is altogether unreasonable; for
we forge no new Gospel, but retain the very same whose truth was
confirmed by all the miracles ever wrought by Christ and the apostles.
But they have this peculiar advantage above us, that they can confirm
their faith by continual miracles even to this day. But the truth is,
they allege miracles which are calculated to unsettle a mind otherwise
well established, they are so frivolous and ridiculous, or vain and
false. Nor, if they were ever so preternatural, ought they to have any
weight in opposition to the truth of God, since the name of God ought
to be sanctified in all places and at all times, whether by miraculous
events, or by the common order of nature. This fallacy might
perhaps be more specious, if the Scripture did not apprize us of the
legitimate end and use of miracles. For Mark informs us, that the
miracles which followed the preaching of the apostles were wrought
in confirmation[10] of it, and Luke tells us, that[11] "the Lord gave
testimony to the word of his grace," when "signs and wonders" were
"done by the hands" of the apostles. Very similar to which is the
assertion of the apostle, that "salvation was confirmed" by the
preaching of the Gospel, "God also bearing witness with signs, and
wonders, and divers miracles."[12] But those things which we are told
were seals of the Gospel, shall we pervert to undermine the faith of
the Gospel? Those things which were designed to be testimonials of the
truth, shall we accommodate to the confirmation of falsehood? It
is right, therefore, that the doctrine, which, according to the
evangelist, claims the first attention, be examined and tried in
the first place; and if it be approved, then it ought to derive
confirmation from miracles. But it is the characteristic of sound
doctrine, given by Christ, that it tends to promote, not the glory of
men, but the glory of God.[13] Christ having laid down this proof of
a doctrine, it is wrong to esteem those as miracles which are directed
to any other end than the glorification of the name of God alone. And
we should remember that Satan has his wonders, which, though they
are juggling tricks rather than real miracles, are such as delude the
ignorant and inexperienced. Magicians and enchanters have always
been famous for miracles; idolatry has been supported by astonishing
miracles; and yet we admit them not as proofs of the superstition of
magicians or idolaters. With this engine also the simplicity of
the vulgar was anciently assailed by the Donatists, who abounded in
miracles. We therefore give the same answer now to our adversaries as
Augustine[14] gave to the Donatists, that our Lord hath cautioned us
against these miracle-mongers by his prediction, that there should
arise false prophets, who, by various signs and lying wonders, "should
deceive (if possible) the very elect."[15] And Paul has told us, that
the kingdom of Antichrist would be "with all power, and signs, and
lying wonders."[16] But these miracles (they say) are wrought, not by
idols, or sorcerers, or false prophets, but by saints; as if we were
ignorant, that it is a stratagem of Satan to "transform" himself "into
an angel of light."[17] At the tomb of Jeremiah,[18] who was buried
in Egypt, the Egyptians formerly offered sacrifices and other divine
honours. Was not this abusing God's holy prophet to the purposes of
idolatry? Yet they supposed this veneration of his sepulchre to be
rewarded with a cure for the bite of serpents. What shall we say, but
that it has been, and ever will be, the most righteous vengeance
of God to "send those who receive not the love of the truth strong
delusions, that they should believe a lie?"[19] We are by no means
without miracles, and such as are certain, and not liable to cavils.
But those under which they shelter themselves are mere illusions of
Satan, seducing the people from the true worship of God to vanity.
Another calumny is their charging us with opposition to the
fathers,--I mean the writers of the earlier and purer ages,--as if
those writers were abettors of their impiety; whereas, if the contest
were to be terminated by this authority, the victory in most parts of
the controversy--to speak in the most modest terms--would be on our
side. But though the writings of those fathers contain many wise and
excellent things, yet in some respects they have suffered the common
fate of mankind; these very dutiful children reverence only their
errors and mistakes, but their excellences they either overlook, or
conceal, or corrupt; so that it may truly be said to be their only
study to collect dross from the midst of gold. Then they overwhelm us
with senseless clamours, as despisers and enemies of the fathers. But
we do not hold them in such contempt, but that, if it were consistent
with my present design, I could easily support by their suffrages most
of the sentiments that we now maintain. But while we make use of their
writings, we always remember that "all things are ours," to serve us,
not to have dominion over us, and that "we are Christ's"[20] alone,
and owe him universal obedience. He who neglects this distinction will
have nothing decided in religion; since those holy men were ignorant
of many things, frequently at variance with each other, and sometimes
even inconsistent with themselves. There is great reason, they say,
for the admonition of Solomon, "not to transgress or remove the
ancient landmarks, which our fathers have set."[21] But the same rule
is not applicable to the bounding of fields, and to the obedience
of faith, which ought to be ready to "forget her own people and her
father's house."[22] But if they are so fond of allegorizing, why do
they not explain the apostles, rather than any others, to be those
fathers, whose appointed landmarks it is so unlawful to remove? For
this is the interpretation of Jerome, whose works they have received
into their canons. But if they insist on preserving the landmarks of
those whom they understand to be intended, why do they at pleasure so
freely transgress them themselves? There were two fathers,[23] of whom
one said, that our God neither eats nor drinks, and therefore needs
neither cups nor dishes; the other, that sacred things require
no gold, and that gold is no recommendation of that which Is not
purchased with gold. This landmark therefore is transgressed by those
who in sacred things are so much delighted with gold, silver, ivory,
marble, jewels, and silks, and suppose that God is not rightly
worshipped, unless all things abound in exquisite splendour, or rather
extravagant profusion. There was a father[24] who said he freely
partook of flesh on a day when others abstained from it, because he
was a Christian. They transgress the landmarks therefore when they
curse the soul that tastes flesh in Lent. There were two fathers,[25]
of whom one said, that a monk who labors not with his hands is on a
level with a cheat or a robber; and the other, that it is unlawful
for monks to live on what is not their own, notwithstanding their
assiduity in contemplations, studies, and prayers; and they have
transgressed this landmark by placing the idle and distended carcasses
of monks in cells and brothels, to be pampered on the substance of
others. There was a father[26] who said, that to see a painted image
of Christ, or of any other saint, in the temples of Christians, is
a dreadful abomination. Nor was this merely the sentence of an
individual; it was also decreed by an ecclesiastical council, that
the object of worship should not be painted on the walls. They are far
from confining themselves within these landmarks, for every corner is
filled with images. Another father[27] has advised that, after having
discharged the office of humanity towards the dead by the rites of
sepulture, we should leave them to their repose. They break through
these landmarks by inculcating a constant solicitude for the dead.
There was one of the fathers[28] who asserted that the substance of
bread and wine in the eucharist ceases not, but remains, just as the
substance of the human nature remains in the Lord Christ united with
the divine. They transgress this landmark therefore by pretending
that, on the words of the Lord being recited, the substance of bread
and wine ceases, and is transubstantiated into his body and blood.
There were fathers[29] who, while they exhibited to the universal
Church only one eucharist, and forbade all scandalous and immoral
persons to approach it, at the same time severely censured all who,
when present, did not partake of it. How far have they removed these
landmarks, when they fill not only the churches, but even private
houses, with their masses, admit all who choose to be spectators of
them, and every one the more readily in proportion to the magnitude
of his contribution, however chargeable with impurity and wickedness!
They invite none to faith in Christ and a faithful participation of
the sacraments; but rather for purposes of gain bring forward their
own work instead of the grace and merit of Christ. There were two
fathers,[30] of whom one contended that the use of Christ's sacred
supper should be wholly forbidden to those who, content with
partaking of one kind, abstained from the other; the other strenuously
maintained that Christian people ought not to be refused the blood of
their Lord, for the confession of whom they are required to shed their
own. These landmarks also they have removed, in appointing, by
an inviolable law, that very thing which the former punished
with excommunication, and the latter gave a powerful reason for
disapproving. There was a father[31] who asserted the temerity of
deciding on either side of an obscure subject, without clear and
evident testimonies of Scripture. This landmark they forgot when
they made so many constitutions, canons, and judicial determinations,
without any authority from the word of God. There was a father[32] who
upbraided Montanus with having, among other heresies, been the first
imposer of laws for the observance of fasts. They have gone far beyond
this landmark also, in establishing fasts by the strictest laws. There
was a father[33] who denied that marriage ought to be forbidden to the
ministers of the Church, and pronounced cohabitation with a wife to
be real chastity; and there were fathers who assented to his judgment.
They have transgressed these landmarks by enjoining on their priests
the strictest celibacy. There was a father who thought that attention
should be paid to Christ only, of whom it is said, "Hear ye him," and
that no regard should be had to what others before us have either said
or done, only to what has been commanded by Christ, who is preeminent
over all. This landmark they neither prescribe to themselves, nor
permit to be observed by others, when they set up over themselves
and others any masters rather than Christ. There was a father[34]
who contended that the Church ought not to take precedence of Christ,
because his judgment is always according to truth; but ecclesiastical
judges, like other men, may generally be deceived. Breaking down this
landmark also, they scruple not to assert, that all the authority of
the Scripture depends on the decision of the Church. All the fathers,
with one heart and voice, have declared it execrable and detestable
for the holy word of God to be contaminated with the subtleties of
sophists, and perplexed by the wrangles of logicians. Do they confine
themselves within these landmarks, when the whole business of their
lives is to involve the simplicity of the Scripture in endless
controversies, and worse than sophistical wrangles? so that if the
fathers were now restored to life, and heard this art of wrangling,
which they call speculative divinity, they would not suspect the
dispute to have the least reference to God. But if I would enumerate
all the instances in which the authority of the fathers is insolently
rejected by those who would be thought their dutiful children, my
address would exceed all reasonable bounds. Months and years would be
insufficient for me. And yet such is their consummate and incorrigible
impudence, they dare to censure us for presuming to transgress the
ancient landmarks.
Nor can they gain any advantage against us by their argument from
custom; for, if we were compelled to submit to custom, we should have
to complain of the greatest injustice. Indeed, if the judgments of men
were correct, custom should be sought among the good. But the fact
is often very different. What appears to be practiced by many soon
obtains the force of a custom. And human affairs have scarcely ever
been in so good a state as for the majority to be pleased with things
of real excellence. From the private vices of multitudes, therefore,
has arisen public error, or rather a common agreement of vices, which
these good men would now have to be received as law. It is evident to
all who can see, that the world is inundated with more than an ocean
of evils, that it is overrun with numerous destructive pests, that
every thing is fast verging to ruin, so that we must altogether
despair of human affairs, or vigorously and even violently oppose such
immense evils. And the remedy is rejected for no other reason, but
because we have been accustomed to the evils so long. But let public
error be tolerated in human society; in the kingdom of God nothing but
his eternal truth should he heard and regarded, which no succession of
years, no custom, no confederacy, can circumscribe. Thus Isaiah once
taught the chosen people of God: "Say ye not, A confederacy, to all to
whom this people shall say, A confederacy:" that is, that they should
not unite in the wicked consent of the people; "nor fear their fear,
nor be afraid," but rather "sanctify the Lord of hosts," that he might
"be their fear and their dread."[35] Now, therefore, let them, if
they please, object against us past ages and present examples; if
we "sanctify the Lord of hosts," we shall not be much afraid. For,
whether many ages agree in similar impiety, he is mighty to take
vengeance on the third and fourth generation; or whether the whole
world combine in the same iniquity, he has given an example of the
fatal end of those who sin with a multitude, by destroying all men
with a deluge, and preserving Noah and his small family, in order that
his individual faith might condemn the whole world. Lastly, a corrupt
custom is nothing but an epidemical pestilence, which is equally fatal
to its objects, though they fall with a multitude. Besides, they ought
to consider a remark, somewhere made by Cyprian,[36] that persons who
sin through ignorance, though they cannot be wholly exculpated, may
yet be considered in some degree excusable; but those who obstinately
reject the truth offered by the Divine goodness, are without any
excuse at all.
Nor are we so embarrassed by their dilemma as to be obliged to
confess, either that the Church was for some time extinct, or that
we have now a controversy with the Church. The Church of Christ has
lived, and will continue to live, as long as Christ shall reign at
the right hand of the Father, by whose hand she is sustained, by whose
protection she is defended, by whose power she is preserved in safety.
For he will undoubtedly perform what he once promised, to be with his
people "even to the end of the world."[37] We have no quarrel against
the Church, for with one consent we unite with all the company of the
faithful in worshipping and adoring the one God and Christ the Lord,
as he has been adored by all the pious in all ages. But our opponents
deviate widely from the truth when they acknowledge no Church but what
is visible to the corporeal eye, and endeavour to circumscribe it
by those limits within which it is far from being included. Our
controversy turns on the two following points:--first, they contend
that the form of the Church is always apparent and visible; secondly,
they place that form in the see of the Roman Church and her order of
prelates. We assert, on the contrary, first, that the Church may exist
without any visible form; secondly, that its form is not contained
in that external splendour which they foolishly admire, but is
distinguished by a very different criterion, _viz_, the pure preaching
of God's word, and the legitimate administration of the sacraments.
They are not satisfied unless the Church can always be pointed out
with the finger. But how often among the Jewish people was it so
disorganized, as to have no visible form left? What splendid form
do we suppose could be seen, when Elias deplored his being left
alone?[38] How long, after the coming of Christ, did it remain without
any external form? How often, since that time, have wars, seditions,
and heresies, oppressed and totally obscured it? If they had lived
at that period, would they have believed that any Church existed? Yet
Elias was informed that there were "left seven thousand" who had "not
bowed the knee to Baal." Nor should we entertain any doubt of Christ's
having always reigned on earth ever since his ascension to heaven. But
if the pious at such periods had sought for any form evident to their
senses, must not their hearts have been quite discouraged? Indeed it
was already considered by Hilary in his day as a grievous error, that
people were absorbed in foolish admiration of the episcopal dignity,
and did not perceive the dreadful mischiefs concealed under
that disguise. For this is his language:[39] "One thing I advise
you--beware of Antichrist, for you have an improper attachment to
walls; your veneration for the Church of God is misplaced on houses
and buildings; you wrongly introduce under them the name of peace.
Is there any doubt that they will be seats of Antichrist? I think
mountains, woods, and lakes, prisons and whirlpools, less dangerous;
for these were the scenes of retirement or banishment in which the
prophets prophesied." But what excites the veneration of the multitude
in the present day for their horned bishops, but the supposition that
those are the holy prelates of religion whom they see presiding over
great cities? Away, then, with such stupid admiration. Let us rather
leave it to the Lord, since he alone "knoweth them that are his,"[40]
sometimes to remove from human observation all external knowledge
of his Church. I admit this to be a dreadful judgment of God on the
earth; but if it be deserved by the impiety of men, why do we attempt
to resist the righteous vengeance of God? Thus the Lord punished
the ingratitude of men in former ages; for, in consequence of their
resistance to his truth, and extinction of the light he had given
them, he permitted them to be blinded by sense, deluded by absurd
falsehoods, and immerged in profound darkness, so that there was no
appearance of the true Church left; yet, at the same time, in the
midst of darkness and errors, he preserved his scattered and concealed
people from total destruction. Nor is this to be wondered at; for he
knew how to save in all the confusion of Babylon, and the flame of
the fiery furnace. But how dangerous it is to estimate the form of the
Church by I know not what vain pomp, which they contend for; I shall
rather briefly suggest than state at large, lest I should protract
this discourse to an excessive length. The Pope, they say, who holds
the Apostolic see, and the bishops anointed and consecrated by him,
provided they are equipped with mitres and crosiers, represent the
Church, and ought to be considered as the Church. Therefore they
cannot err. How is this?--Because they are pastors of the Church, and
consecrated to the Lord. And did not the pastoral character belong to
Aaron, and the other rulers of Israel? Yet Aaron and his sons, after
their designation to the priesthood, fell into error when they made
the golden calf.[41] According to this mode of reasoning, why should
not the four hundred prophets, who lied to Ahab, have represented the
Church?[42] But the Church remained on the side of Micaiah, solitary
and despised as he was, and out of his mouth proceeded the truth. Did
not those prophets exhibit both the name and appearance of the Church,
who with united violence rose up against Jeremiah, and threatened and
boasted, "the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from
the wise, nor the word from the prophet?"[48] Jeremiah is sent singly
against the whole multitude of prophets, with a denunciation from the
Lord, that the "law shall perish from the priest, counsel from the
wise, and the word from the prophet."[44] And was there not the like
external respectability in the council convened by the chief priests,
scribes, and Pharisees, to consult about putting Christ to death?[45]
Now, let them go and adhere to the external appearance, and thereby
make Christ and all the prophets schismatics, and, on the other hand,
make the ministers of Satan instruments of the Holy Spirit. But if
they speak their real sentiments, let them answer me sincerely, what
nation or place they consider as the seat of the Church, from the time
when, by a decree of the council of Basil, Eugenius was deposed and
degraded from the pontificate, and Amadeus substituted in his place.
They cannot deny that the council, as far as relates to external
forms, was a lawful one, and summoned not only by one pope, but by
two. There Eugenius was pronounced guilty of schism, rebellion, and
obstinacy, together with all the host of cardinals and bishops who had
joined him in attempting a dissolution of the council. Yet afterwards,
assisted by the favour of princes, he regained the quiet possession of
his former dignity. That election of Amadeus, though formally made by
the authority of a general and holy synod, vanished into smoke; and he
was appeased with a cardinal's hat, like a barking dog with a morsel.
From the bosom of those heretics and rebels have proceeded all the
popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, and priests ever since. Here they
must stop. For to which party will they give the title of the Church?
Will they deny that this was a general council, which wanted nothing
to complete its external majesty, being solemnly convened by two papal
bulls, consecrated by a presiding legate of the Roman see, and well
regulated in every point of order, and invariably preserving the
same dignity to the last? Will they acknowledge Eugenius to be
a schismatic, with all his adherents, by whom they have all been
consecrated? Either, therefore, let them give a different definition
of the form of the Church, or, whatever be their number, we shall
account them all schismatics, as having been knowingly and voluntarily
ordained by heretics. But if it had never been ascertained before,
that the Church is not confined to external pomps they would
themselves afford us abundant proof of it, who have so long
superciliously exhibited themselves to the world under the title of
the Church, though they were at the same time the deadly plagues of
it. I speak not of their morals, and those tragical exploits with
which all their lives abound, since they profess themselves to be
Pharisees, who are to be heard and not imitated. I refer to the very
doctrine itself, on which they found their claim to be considered
as the Church. If you devote a portion of your leisure, Sire, to the
perusal of our writings, you will clearly discover that doctrine to be
a fatal pestilence of souls, the firebrand, ruin, and destruction of
the Church.
Finally, they betray great want of candour, by invidiously repeating
what great commotions, tumults, and contentions, have attended the
preaching of our doctrine, and what effects it produces in many
persons. For it is unfair to charge it with those evils which ought to
be attributed to the malice of Satan. It is the native property of the
Divine word, never to make its appearance without disturbing Satan,
and rousing his opposition. This is a most certain and unequivocal
criterion by which it is distinguished from false doctrines, which
are easily broached when they are heard with general attention, and
received with applauses by the world. Thus, in some ages, when all
things were immerged in profound darkness, the prince of this world
amused and diverted himself with the generality of mankind, and, like
another Sardanapalus, gave himself up to his ease and pleasures in
perfect peace; for what would he do but amuse and divert himself,
in the quiet and undisturbed possession of his kingdom? But when the
light shining from above dissipated a portion of his darkness--when
that Mighty One alarmed and assaulted his kingdom--then he began
to shake off his wonted torpor, and to hurry on his armour. First,
indeed, he stirred up the power of men to suppress the truth by
violence at its first appearance; and when this proved ineffectual, he
had recourse to subtlety. He made the Catabaptists, and other infamous
characters, the instruments of exciting dissensions and doctrinal
controversies, with a view to obscure and finally to extinguish it.
And now he continues to attack it both ways; for he endeavours to root
up this genuine seed by means of human force, and at the same time
tries every effort to choke it with his tares, that it may not grow
and produce fruit. But all his attempts will be vain, if we attend to
the admonitions of the Lord, who hath long ago made us acquainted
with his devices, that we might not be caught by him unawares, and has
armed us with sufficient means of defence against all his assaults.
But to charge the word of God with the odium of seditions, excited
against it by wicked and rebellious men, or of sects raised by
imposters,--is not this extreme malignity? Yet it is not without
example in former times. Elias was asked whether it was not he "that
troubled Israel."[46] Christ was represented by the Jews as guilty
of sedition.[47] The apostles were accused of stirring up popular
commotions.[48] Wherein does this differ from the conduct of those
who, at the present day, impute to us all the disturbances, tumults,
and contentions, that break out against us? But the proper answer to
such accusations has been taught us by Elias, that the dissemination
of errors and the raising of tumults is not chargeable on us, but on
those who are resisting the power of God. But as this one reply is
sufficient to repress their temerity, so, on the other hand, we must
meet the weakness of some persons, who are frequently disturbed with
such offences, and become unsettled and wavering in their minds.
Now, that they may not stumble and fall amidst this agitation and
perplexity, let them know that the apostles in their day experienced
the same things that now befall us. There were "unlearned and
unstable" men, Peter says, who "wrested" the inspired writings of Paul
"to their own destruction."[49] There were despisers of God, who,
when they heard that "where sin abounded grace did much more abound,"
immediately concluded, Let us "continue in sin, that grace may
abound." When they heard that the faithful were "not under the law,"
they immediately croaked, "We will sin, because we are not under
the law, but under grace."[50] There were some who accused him as
an encourager of sin. Many false apostles crept in, to destroy the
churches he had raised. "Some preached" the gospel "of envy and
strife, not in sincerity," maliciously "supposing to add affliction
to his bonds."[51] In some places the Gospel was attended with
little benefit. "All were seeking their own, not the things of Jesus
Christ."[52] Others returned "like dogs to their vomit, and like swine
to their wallowing in the mire."[53] Many perverted the liberty of
the spirit into the licentiousness of the flesh. Many insinuated
themselves as brethren, who afterwards brought the pious into dangers.
Various contentions were excited among the brethren themselves. What
was to be done by the apostles in such circumstances? Should they not
have dissembled for a time, or rather have rejected and deserted that
Gospel which appeared to be the nursery of so many disputes, the cause
of so many dangers, the occasion of so many offences? But in such
difficulties as these, their minds were relieved by this reflection
that Christ is the "stone of stumbling and rock of offence,"[54] "set
for the fall and rising again of many, and for a sign which shall be
spoken against;"[55] and armed with this confidence, they proceeded
boldly through all the dangers of tumults and offences. The same
consideration should support us, since Paul declares it to be the
perpetual character of the Gospel, that it is a "savour of death unto
death in them that perish,"[56] although it was rather given us to
be the "savour of life unto life," and "the power of God to" the
"salvation" of the faithful;[57] which we also should certainly
experience it to be, if we did not corrupt this eminent gift of God
by our ingratitude, and prevert to our destruction what ought to be a
principal instrument of our salvation.
But I return to you, Sire. Let not your Majesty be at all moved by
those groundless accusations with which our adversaries endeavour
to terrify you; as that the sole tendency and design of this new
Gospel--for so they call it--is to furnish a pretext for seditions,
and to gain impunity for all crimes. "For God is not the author of
confusion, but of peace;"[58] nor is "the Son of God," who came to
"destroy the works of the devil, the minister of sin."[59] And it is
unjust to charge us with such motives and designs, of which we have
never given cause for the least suspicion. Is it probable that we are
meditating the subversion of kingdoms?--we, who were never heard to
utter a factious word, whose lives were ever known to be peaceable and
honest while We lived under your government, and who, even now in our
exile, cease not to pray for all prosperity to attend yourself and
your kingdom! Is it probable that we are seeking an unlimited license
to commit crimes with impunity? in whose conduct, though many things
may be blamed, yet there is nothing worthy of such severe reproach!
Nor have we, by Divine Grace, profited so little in the Gospel,
but that our life may be an example to our detractors of chastity,
liberality, mercy, temperance, patience, modesty, and every other
virtue. It is an undeniable fact, that we sincerely fear and worship
God, whose name we desire to be sanctified both by our life and by
our death; and envy itself is constrained to bear testimony to the
innocence and civil integrity of some of us, who have suffered the
punishment of death for that very thing which ought to be accounted
their highest praise. But if the Gospel be made a pretext for tumults,
which has not yet happened in your kingdom; if any persons make the
liberty of divine grace an excuse for the licentiousness of their
vices, of whom I have known many,--there are laws and legal penalties,
by which they may be punished according to their deserts; only let not
the Gospel of God be reproached for the crimes of wicked men. You have
now, Sire, the virulent iniquity of our calumniators laid before you
in a sufficient number of instances, that you may not receive their
accusations with too credulous an ear.--I fear I have gone too much
into the detail, as this preface already approaches the size of a full
apology; whereas I intended it not to contain our defence, but only to
prepare your mind to attend to the pleading of our cause; for, though
you are now averse and alienated from us, and even inflamed against
us, we despair not of regaining your favour, if you will only once
read with calmness and composure this our confession, which we intend
as our defence before your Majesty. But, on the contrary, if your ears
are so preoccupied with the whispers of the malevolent, as to leave
no opportunity for the accused to speak for themselves, and if those
outrageous furies, with your connivance, continue to persecute with
imprisonments, scourges, tortures, confiscations, and flames, we
shall indeed, like sheep destined to the slaughter, be reduced to the
greatest extremities. Yet shall we in patience possess our souls, and
wait for the mighty hand of the Lord, which undoubtedly will in time
appear, and show itself armed for the deliverance of the poor from
their affliction, and for the punishment of their despisers, who
now exult in such perfect security. May the Lord, the King of kings,
establish your throne with righteousness, and your kingdom with
equity. _Basil, 1st August, 1536._
[Footnote A: John Calvin was born at Noyon, Picardy, France, in 1509,
and died at Geneva in 1564. He joined the Reformation about 1528,
and, having been banished from Paris, took refuge in Switzerland.
The "Institutes," published at Basle in 1536, contain a comprehensive
statement of the beliefs of that school of Protestant theology which
bears Calvin's name; and in this "Dedication" we have Calvin's own
summing up of the essentials of his creed.]
[Footnote 1: Prov. xxix. 18.]
[Footnote 2: Daniel ii. 34. Isaiah xi. 4. Psalm ii. 9.]
[Footnote 3 Rom. xii. 6.]
[Footnote 4: Jer. ii. 13.]
[Footnote 5: Rom. viii. 32.]
[Footnote 6: I Tim. iv. 10.]
[Footnote 7: John xvii, 3.]
[Footnote 8: Rom, iv. 25. I Cor. xv. 3, 17.]
[Footnote 9: Isaiah i. 3.]
[Footnote 10: Mark xvi. 20.]
[Footnote 11: Acts xiv. 3.]
[Footnote 12: Heb. ii. 3-4.]
[Footnote 13: John vii. 18, viii. 50.]
[Footnote 14: In Joan, tract. 13.]
[Footnote 15: Matt. xxiv. 24.]
[Footnote 16: 2 Thess. ii. 9.]
[Footnote 17: 2 Cor. xi. 14.]
[Footnote 18: Hierom. in praef. Jerem.]
[Footnote 19: 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11.]
[Footnote 20: i Cor. iii. 21, 23]
[Footnote 21: Prov xxii. 28.]
[Footnote 22: Psalm xlv. 10.]
[Footnote 23: Acat. in lib. II, cap. 16. Trip. Hist. Amb. lib. 2, de
Off. c. 28.]
[Footnote 24: Spiridion. Trip. Hist. lib. 1, c. 10.]
[Footnote 25: Trip. Hist. lib. 8, c. 1. August. de Opere Mon. c. 17.]
[Footnote 26: Epiph. Epist. ab Hier. vers. Con. Eliber. c. 36.]
[Footnote 27: Amb de Abra. lib 1, c. 7.]
[Footnote 28: Gelas. Pap in Conc. Rom.]
[Footnote 29: Chrys. in 1 Cap. Ephes. Calix. Papa de Cons. dist. 2.]
[Footnote 30: Gelas. can. Comperimus de Cons. dist. 2. Cypr. Epist. 2,
lib. 1, de Laps.]
[Footnote 31: August. lib. 2, de Pec. Mer. cap. ult.]
[Footnote 32: Apollon de quo Eccl. Hist. lib. 5, cap. 11, 12.]
[Footnote 33: Paphnut. Trip. Hist. lib. 2, c. 14. Cypr. Epist. 2, lib.
2.]
[Footnote 34: Aug. cap. 2, contr. Cresc. Grammatic.]
[Footnote 35: Isaiah viii. 12, 13.]
[Footnote 36: Epist. 3, lib. 2, et in Epist. ad. Julian, de Haeret.
baptiz.]
[Footnote 37: Matt, xxvlii. 20.]
[Footnote 38: i Kings xix. 14, 18.]
[Footnote 39: Contr. Auxent.]
[Footnote 40: 2 Tim. ii. 19.]
[Footnote 41: Exod. xxxii. 4.]
[Footnote 42: i Kings xxii. 6, 11-23.]
[Footnote 43: Jer. xviii. 18.]
[Footnote 44: Jer. iv. 9.]
[Footnote 45: Matt. xxvi. 3, 4.]
[Footnote 46: 1 Kings xviii. 17.]
[Footnote 47: Luke xxiii. 2, 5.]
[Footnote 48: Acts xvii. 6, xxiv. 5.]
[Footnote 49: 2 Pet. iii. 16.]
[Footnote 50: Rom. v. 20, vi. 1, 14, 15.]
[Footnote 51: Phil. i. 15, 16.]
[Footnote 52: Phil. ii. 21.]
[Footnote 53: 2 Pet. ii. 22.]
[Footnote 54: 1 Pet. ii. 8.]
[Footnote 55: Luke ii. 34.]
[Footnote 56: 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.]
[Footnote 57: Rom. i. 16.]
[Footnote 58: 1 Cor. xiv. 33.]
[Footnote 59: 1 John iii. 8. Gal. ii. 17.]
GENERAL SYLLABUS
The design of the Author in these Christian Institutes is twofold,
relating, First to the knowledge of God, as the way to attain a
blessed immortality; and, in connection with and subservience to this,
Secondly, to the knowledge of ourselves.
In the prosecution of this design, he strictly follows the method of
the Apostles' Creed, as being most familiar to all Christians. For
as the Creed consists of four parts, the first relating to God the
Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit, the
fourth to the Church; so the Author distributes the whole of this work
into Four Books, corresponding respectively to the four parts of the
Creed; as will clearly appear from the following detail:--
I. The first article of the Creed relates to God the Father, and to
the creation, conservation, and government of all things, which are
included in his omnipotence.
So the first book is on the knowledge of God, considered as the
Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the universe at large, and every
thing contained in it. It shows both the nature and tendency of
the true knowledge of the Creator--that this is not learned in the
schools, but that every man from his birth is self-taught it--Yet that
the depravity of men is so great as to corrupt and extinguish this
knowledge, partly by ignorance, partly by wickedness; so that it
neither leads him to glorify God as he ought, nor conducts him to
the attainment of happiness--And though this internal knowledge is
assisted by all the creatures around, which serve as a mirror to
display the Divine perfections, yet that man does not profit by
it--Therefore, that to those, whom it is God's will to bring to an
intimate and saving knowledge of himself, he gives his written word;
which introduces observations on the sacred Scripture--That he has
therein revealed himself; that not the Father only, but the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, united, is the Creator of heaven and earth; whom
neither the knowledge innate by nature, nor the very beautiful mirror
displayed to us in the world, can, in consequence of our depravity,
teach us to know so as to glorify him. This gives occasion for
treating of the revelation of God in the Scripture, of the unity of
the Divine Essence, and the trinity of Persons.--To prevent man from
attributing to God the blame of his own voluntary blindness, the
Author shows the state of man at his creation, and treats of the
image of God, freewill, and the primative integrity of nature.--Having
finished the subject of creation, he proceeds to the conservation
and government of all things, concluding the first book with a full
discussion of the doctrine of divine providence.
II. But since man is fallen by sin from the state in which he was
created, it is necessary to come to Christ. Therefore it follows in
the Creed, "And in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord," &c.
So in the second book of the Institutes our Author treats of the
knowledge of God as the Redeemer in Christ; and having shown the fall
of man, leads him to Christ the Mediator. Here he states the doctrine
of original sin--that man possesses no inherent strength to enable him
to deliver himself from sin and the impending curse, but that, on the
contrary, nothing can proceed from him, antecedently to reconciliation
and renovation, but what is deserving of condemnation--Therefore,
that, man being utterly lost in himself, and incapable of conceiving
even a good thought by which he may restore himself, or perform
actions acceptable to God, he must seek redemption out of himself, in
Christ--That the Law was given for this purpose, not to confine
its observers to itself, but to conduct them to Christ; which gives
occasion to introduce an exposition of the Moral Law--That he was
known, as the Author of salvation, to the Jews under the Law, but more
fully under the Gospel, in which he is manifested to the world.--Hence
follows the doctrine of the similarity and difference of the Old and
New Testament, of the Law and Gospel.--It is next stated, that, in
order to the complete accomplishment of salvation, it was necessary
for the eternal Son of God to become man, and that he actually
assumed a real human nature:--it is also shown how these two natures
constitute one person--That the office of Christ, appointed for the
acquisition and application of complete salvation by his merit and
efficacy, is sacerdotal, regal, and prophetical--Next follows the
manner in which Christ executed his office, or actually performed the
part of a Mediator, being an exposition of the Articles respecting
his death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.--Lastly, the Author
shows the truth and propriety of affirming that Christ merited the
grace of God and salvation for us.
III. As long as Christ is separate from us, he profits us nothing.
Hence the necessity of our being ingrafted into him, as branches into
a vine. Therefore the doctrine concerning Christ is followed, in
the third part of the Creed, by this clause, "I believe in the Holy
Spirit," as being the bond of union between us and Christ.
So in the third book our Author treats of the Holy Spirit, who unites
us to Christ--and consequently of faith, by which we embrace Christ,
with his twofold benefit, free righteousness, which he imputes to
us, and regeneration, which he commences within us, by bestowing
repentance upon us.--And to show that we have not the least room to
glory in such faith as is unconnected with the pursuit of repentance,
before proceeding to the full discussion of justification, he treats
at large of repentance and the continual exercise of it, which Christ,
apprehended by faith, produces in us by his Spirit--He next fully
discusses the first and chief benefit of Christ when united to us by
the Holy Spirit that is, justification--and then treats of prayer,
which resembles the hand that actually receives those blessings to be
enjoyed, which faith knows, from the word of promise, to be laid up
with God for our use.--But as all men are not united to Christ,
the sole Author of salvation, by the Holy Spirit, who creates and
preserves faith in us, he treats of God's eternal election; which is
the cause that we, in whom he foresaw no good but what he intended
freely to bestow, have been favored with the gift of Christ, and
united to God by the effectual call of the Gospel.--Lastly, he treats
of complete regeneration, and the fruition of happiness; that is, the
final resurrection, towards which our eyes must be directed, since in
this world the felicity of the pious, in respect of enjoyment, is only
begun.
IV. But as the Holy Spirit does not unite all men to Christ, or make
them partakers of faith, and on those to whom he imparts it he does
not ordinarily bestow it without means, but employs for this purpose
the preaching of the Gospel and the use of the sacraments, with the
administration of all discipline, therefore it follows in the Creed,
"I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," whom, although involved in
eternal death, yet, in pursuance of the gratuitous election, God has
freely reconciled to himself in Christ, and made partakers of the Holy
Spirit, that, being ingrafted into Christ, they may have communion
with him as their head, whence flows a perpetual remission of sins,
and a full restoration to eternal life.
So in the fourth book our Author treats of the Church--then of the
means used by the Holy Spirit in effectually calling from spiritual
death, and preserving the church--the word and sacraments--baptism
and the Lord's supper--which are as it were Christ's regal sceptre, by
which he commences his spiritual reign in the Church by the energy of
his Spirit, and carries it forwards from day to day during the present
life, after the close of which he perfects it without those means.
And as political institutions are the asylums of the Church in this
life, though civil government is distinct from the spiritual kingdom
of Christ, our Author instructs us respecting it as a signal blessing
of God, which the Church ought to acknowledge with gratitude of
heart, till we are called out of this transitory state to the heavenly
inheritance, where God will be all in all.
This is the plan of the Institutes, which may be comprised in the
following brief summary:--
Man, created originally upright, being afterwards ruined, not
partially, but totally, finds salvation out of himself, wholly in
Christ; to whom being united by the Holy Spirit, freely bestowed,
without any regard of future works, he enjoys in him a twofold
benefit, the perfect imputation of righteousness, which attends him
to the grave, and the commencement of sanctification, which he daily
increases, till at length he completes it at the day of regeneration
or resurrection of the body, so that in eternal life and the heavenly
inheritance his praises are celebrated for such stupendous mercy.
DEDICATION OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES
BY NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1543)[A]
TO POPE PAUL III
I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some
people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to
the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be
rejected. For I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to
weigh what others will think about them, and although I know that the
meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the
laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so
far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe
that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy.
Accordingly, when I considered in my own mind how absurd a performance
it must seem to those who know that the judgment of many centuries has
approved the view that the Earth remains fixed as center in the midst
of the heavens, if I should, on the contrary, assert that the Earth
moves; I was for a long time at a loss to know whether I should
publish the commentaries which I have written in proof of its
motion, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the
Pythagoreans and of some others, who were accustomed to transmit the
secrets of Philosophy not in writing but orally, and only to their
relatives and friends, as the letter from Lysis to Hipparchus bears
witness. They did this, it seems to me, not as some think, because of
a certain selfish reluctance to give their views to the world, but
in order that the noblest truths, worked out by the careful study of
great men, should not be despised by those who are vexed at the idea
of taking great pains with any forms of literature except such as
would be profitable, or by those who, if they are driven to the study
of Philosophy for its own sake by the admonitions and the example
of others, nevertheless, on account of their stupidity, hold a place
among philosophers similar to that of drones among bees. Therefore,
when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear
because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly
induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
My friends, however, in spite of long delay and even resistance on my
part, withheld me from this decision. First among these was Nicolaus
Schonberg, Cardinal of Capua, distinguished in all branches of
learning. Next to him comes my very dear friend, Tidemann Giese,
Bishop of Culm, a most earnest student, as he is, of sacred and,
indeed, of all good learning. The latter has often urged me, at times
even spurring me on with reproaches, to publish and at last bring to
the light the book which had lain in my study not nine years merely,
but already going on four times nine. Not a few other very eminent and
scholarly men made the same request, urging that I should no longer
through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of
students of Mathematics. They said I should find that the more absurd
most men now thought this theory of mine concerning the motion of the
Earth, the more admiration and gratitude it would command after
they saw in the publication of my commentaries the mist of absurdity
cleared away by most transparent proofs. So, influenced by these
advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish
the work, as they had long besought me to do.
But perhaps Your Holiness will not so much wonder that I have ventured
to publish these studies of mine, after having taken such pains in
elaborating them that I have not hesitated to commit to writing my
views of the motion of the Earth, as you will be curious to hear
how it occurred to me to venture, contrary to the accepted view of
mathematicians, and well-nigh contrary to common sense, to form a
conception of any terrestrial motion whatsoever. Therefore I would not
have it unknown to Your Holiness, that the only thing which induced
me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly
bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their
investigations thereof. For, in the first place, they are so much in
doubt concerning the motion of the sun and the moon, that they can
not even demonstrate and prove by observation the constant length of
a complete year; and in the second place, in determining the motions
both of these and of the five other planets, they fail to employ
consistently one set of first principles and hypotheses, but use
methods of proof based only upon the apparent revolutions and motions.
For some employ concentric circles only; others, eccentric circles and
epicycles; and even by these means they do not completely attain the
desired end. For, although those who have depended upon concentric
circles have shown that certain diverse motions can be deduced from
these, yet they have not succeeded thereby in laying down any sure
principle, corresponding indisputably to the phenomena. These, on the
other hand, who have devised systems of eccentric circles, although
they seem in great part to have solved the apparent movements
by calculations which by these eccentrics are made to fit, have
nevertheless introduced many things which seem to contradict the first
principles of the uniformity of motion. Nor have they been able to
discover or calculate from these the main point, which is the shape of
the world and the fixed symmetry of its parts; but their procedure
has been as if someone were to collect hands, feet, a head, and other
members from various places, all very fine in themselves, but not
proportionate to one body, and no single one corresponding in its turn
to the others, so that a monster rather than a man would be formed
from them. Thus in their process of demonstration which they term a
"method," they are found to have omitted something essential, or to
have included something foreign and not pertaining to the matter in
hand. This certainly would never have happened to them if they had
followed fixed principles; for if the hypotheses they assumed were
not false, all that resulted therefrom would be verified indubitably.
Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be
made clearer in their proper place.
Therefore, having turned over in my mind for a long time this
uncertainty of the traditional mathematical methods of calculating
the motions of the celestial bodies, I began to grow disgusted that
no more consistent scheme of the movements of the mechanism of the
universe, set up for our benefit by that best and most law abiding
Architect of all things, was agreed upon by philosophers who otherwise
investigate so carefully the most minute details of this world.
Wherefore I undertook the task of rereading the books of all the
philosophers I could get access to, to see whether any one ever was of
the opinion that the motions of the celestial bodies were other than
those postulated by the men who taught mathematics in the schools. And
I found first, indeed, in Cicero, that Niceta perceived that the Earth
moved; and afterward in Plutarch I found that some others were of this
opinion, whose words I have seen fit to quote here, that they may be
accessible to all:--
"Some maintain that the Earth is stationary, but Philolaus the
Pythagorean says that it revolves in a circle about the fire of the
ecliptic, like the sun and moon. Heraklides of Pontus and Ekphantus
the Pythagorean make the Earth move, not changing its position,
however, confined in its falling and rising around its own center in
the manner of a wheel."
Taking this as a starting point, I began to consider the mobility of
the Earth; and although the idea seemed absurd, yet because I knew
that the liberty had been granted to others before me to postulate all
sorts of little circles for explaining the phenomena of the stars, I
thought I also might easily be permitted to try whether by postulating
some motion of the Earth, more reliable conclusions could be reached
regarding the revolution of the heavenly bodies, than those of my
predecessors.
And so, after postulating movements, which, farther on in the book, I
ascribe to the Earth, I have found by many and long observations that
if the movements of the other planets are assumed for the circular
motion of the Earth and are substituted for the revolution of each
star, not only do their phenomena follow logically therefrom, but
the relative positions and magnitudes both of the stars and all their
orbits, and of the heavens themselves, become so closely related that
in none of its parts can anything be changed without causing confusion
in the other parts and in the whole universe. Therefore, in the course
of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book
all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I
ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it
were, the general scheme of the universe. Thereafter in the remaining
books, I set forth the motions of the other stars and of all their
orbits together with the movement of the Earth, in order that one
may see from this to what extent the movements and appearances of the
other stars and their orbits can be saved, if they are transferred to
the movement of the Earth. Nor do I doubt that ingenious and learned
mathematicians will sustain me, if they are willing to recognize and
weigh, not superficially, but with that thoroughness which Philosophy
demands above all things, those matters which have been adduced by me
in this work to demonstrate these theories. In order, however, that
both the learned and the unlearned equally may see that I do not avoid
anyone's judgment, I have preferred to dedicate these lucubrations of
mine to Your Holiness rather than to any other, because, even in this
remote corner of the world where I live, you are considered to be the
most eminent man in dignity of rank and in love of all learning and
even of mathematics, so that by your authority and judgment you can
easily suppress the bites of slanderers, albeit the proverb hath it
that there is no remedy for the bite of a sycophant. If perchance
there shall be idle talkers, who, though they are ignorant of all
mathematical sciences, nevertheless assume the right to pass judgment
on these things, and if they should dare to criticise and attack this
theory of mine because of some passage of scripture which they have
falsely distorted for their own purpose, I care not at all; I will
even despise their judgment as foolish. For it is not unknown that
Lactantius, otherwise a famous writer but a poor mathematician, speaks
most childishly of the shape of the Earth when he makes fun of those
who said that the Earth has the form of a sphere. It should not seem
strange then to zealous students, if some such people shall ridicule
us also. Mathematics are written for mathematicians, to whom, if
my opinion does not deceive me, our labors will seem to contribute
something to the ecclesiastical state whose chief office Your Holiness
now occupies; for when not so very long ago, under Leo X, in the
Lateran Council the question of revising the ecclesiastical calendar
was discussed, it then remained unsettled, simply because the length
of the years and months, and the motions of the sun and moon were held
to have been not yet sufficiently determined. Since that time, I have
given my attention to observing these more accurately, urged on by a
very distinguished man, Paul, Bishop of Fossombrone, who at that time
had charge of the matter. But what I may have accomplished herein I
leave to the judgment of Your Holiness in particular, and to that of
all other learned mathematicians; and lest I seem to Your Holiness to
promise more regarding the usefulness of the work than I can perform,
I now pass to the work itself.
[Footnote A: Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473 at Thorn in West
Prussia, of a Polish father and a German mother. He attended
the university of Cracow and Bologna, lectured on astronomy and
mathematics at Rome, and later studied medicine at Padua and canon law
at Ferrara. He was appointed canon of the cathedral of Frauenburg, and
in this town he died in 1543, having devoted the latter part of his
life largely to astronomy.
The book which was introduced by this dedication laid the foundations
of modern astronomy. At the time when it was written, the earth was
believed by all to be the fixed centre of the universe; and although
many of the arguments used by Copernicus were invalid and absurd, he
was the first modern to put forth the heliocentric theory as "a
better explanation." It remained for Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, to
establish the theory on firm grounds.]
PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND
BY JOHN KNOX (C. 1566)[A]
To the gentill readar, grace and peace from God the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, with the perpetuall encrease of the Holy Spreit.
It is not unknowen, Christeane Reader, that the same clud of
ignorance, that long hath darkened many realmes under this accurssed
kingdome of that Romane Antichrist, hath also owercovered this poore
Realme; that idolatrie hath bein manteined, the bloode of innocentis
hath bene sched, and Christ Jesus his eternall treuth hath bene
abhorred, detested, and blasphemed. But that same God that caused
light to schyne out of darknes, in the multitud of his mercyes, hath
of long tyme opened the eis of some evin within this Realme, to see
the vanitie of that which then was universally embrased for trew
religioun; and hes gevin unto them strenth to oppone[1] thame selfis
unto the same: and now, into these our last and moist[2] corrupt
dayis, hath maid his treuth so to triumphs amonges us, that, in
despyte of Sathan, hipochrisye is disclosed, and the trew wyrshipping
of God is manifested to all the inhabitantis of this realme who
eis Sathan blyndis not, eyther by thair fylthy lustes, or ellis by
ambitioun, and insatiable covetousness, which mack them repung to[3]
the power of God working by his worde.
And becaus we ar not ignorant what diverse bruittis[4] war dispersed
of us, the professoures of Jesus Christ within this realme, in
the begynnyng of our interprise, ordour was tackin, that all our
proceidingis should be committed to register; as that thei war, by
such as then paynfullie travailled boith by toung and pen; and so was
collected a just volume, (as after will appeir,) conteanyng thingis
done frome the fyftie-awght[5] year of God, till the arrivall of the
Quenis Majestic[6] furth of France, with the which the Collectour and
Writtar for that tyme was content, and never mynded[7] further to have
travailled in that kynd of writting. But, after invocatioun of the
name of God, and after consultatioun with some faythfull, what was
thought by thame expedient to advance Goddis glorie, and to edifie
this present generatioun, and the posteritie to come, it was
concluded, that faythfull rehersall should be maid of such personages
as God had maid instruments of his glorie, by opponyng of thame selfis
to manifest abuses, superstitioun, and idolatrie; and albeit thare be
no great nomber, yet ar thei mo then the Collectour wold have looked
for at the begynnyng, and thairfoir is the volume somewhat enlarged
abuif his expectatioun: And yit, in the begynnyng, mon[8] we crave
of all the gentill Readaris, not to look[9] of us such ane History
as shall expresse all thingis that have occurred within this Realme,
during the tyme of this terrible conflict that lies bene betuix the
sanctes[10] of God and these bloody wolves who clame to thame selves
the titill of clargie, and to have authentic ower the saules of men;
for, with the Pollicey,[11] mynd we to meddill no further then it hath
Religioun mixed with it. And thairfoir albeit that many thingis which
wer don be omitted, yit, yf we invent no leys,[12] we think our selves
blamless in that behalf. Of one other (thing) we mon[8] foirwarne
the discreat Readaris, which is, that thei be not offended that the
sempill treuth be spokin without partialitie; for seing that of men we
neyther hunt for reward, nor yitt for vane glorie, we litill pass
by the approbatioun of such as seldome judge weill of God and of his
workis. Lett not thairfoar the Readir wonder, albeit that our style
vary and speik diverslie of men, according as thei have declared
thameselves sometymes ennemymes and sometymes freindis, sometymes
fervent, sometymes cold, sometymes constant, and sometymes changeable
in the cause of God and of his holy religioun: for, in this our
simplicitie, we suppoise that the Godlie shall espy our purpose, which
is, that God may be praised for his mercy schawin,[13] this present
age may be admonished to be thankfull for Goddis benefittis offerred,
and the posteritie to cum may be instructed how wonderouslie hath the
light of Christ Jesus prevailled against darkness in this last and
most corrupted age.
[Footnote A: John Knox (1505-1571), the leader of the Scottish
Reformation and its historian, was educated at Glasgow University; was
pastor to English congregations at Frankfort-on-Maine and at Geneva,
where he met Calvin; returned to Scotland in 1559; and from that time
till his death was active in the establishment of the Presbyterian
organization, through which his powerful personality has continued
to influence the Scottish national character to the present day. His
preface, which is printed here in the original Scottish spelling,
gives some indication of the sternness, not to say virulence, of his
temper towards the Roman Church.]
[Footnote 1: Oppose]
[Footnote 2: Most]
[Footnote 3: Resist.]
[Footnote 4: Rumors.]
[Footnote 5: I.e. 1558.]
[Footnote 6: Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in Scotland, Aug. 19,
1562.]
[Footnote 7: Intended.]
[Footnote 8: Must.]
[Footnote 9: Expect.]
[Footnote 10: Saints.]
[Footnote 11: Civil or State politics.]
[Footnote 12: Lies.]
[Footnote 13: Shown.]
PREFATORY LETTER TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH ON THE FAERIE QUEENE
BY EDMUND SPENSER (1589)[A]
A LETTER OF THE AUTHORS EXPOUNDING HIS WHOLE INTENTION IN THE COURSE
OF THIS WORKE: WHICH FOR THAT IT GIVETH GREAT LIGHT TO THE READER, FOR
THE BETTER UNDERSTANDING IS HEREUNTO ANNEXED
To the Right Noble, and Valorous, Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, Lord
Wardein of the Stanneryes, and Her Majesties Liefetenaunt of the
County of Cornewayll
Sir, knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be construed, and this
booke of mine, which I have entituled the _Faery Queene_, being a
continued allegory, or darke conceit, I have thought good, as well for
avoyding of gealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your
better light in reading thereof, (being so by you commanded,) to
discover unto you the general intention and meaning, which in the
whole course thereof I have fashioned, without expressing of any
particular purposes or by accidents therein occasioned. The generall
end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble
person in vertuous and gentle discipline: which for that I conceived
shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an
historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read,
rather for variety of matter then for profile of the ensample, I chose
the historye of King Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of
his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also
furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspition of present time. In
which I have followed all the antique poets historicall: first Homere,
who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good
governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his
Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person
of AEneas; after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and
lately Tasso dissevered them againe, and formed both parts in two
persons, namely that part which they in philosophy call Ethice, or
vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo; the other named
Politice in his Godfredo. By ensample of which excellente poets, I
labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of
a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as
Aristotle hath devised, the which is the purpose of these first
twelve bookes: which if I finde to be well accepted, I may be perhaps
encoraged to frame the other part of polliticke vertues in his person,
after that hee came to be king. To some, I know, this methode will
seeme displeasaunt, which had rather have good discipline delivered
plainly in way of precepts, or sermoned at large, as they use, then
thus clowdily enwrapped in allegoricall devises. But such, me seeme,
should be satisfide with the use of these dayes, seeing all things
accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not
delightfull and pleasing to commune sence. For this cause is Xenophon
preferred before Plato, for that the one, in the exquisite depth of
his judgement, formed a commune welth such as it should be, but the
other in the person of Cyrus and the Persians fashioned a governement,
such as might best be: so much more profitable and gratious is
doctrine by ensample, then by rule. So have I laboured to doe in
the person of Arthure: whome I conceive, after his long education by
Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone
as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to have seene in a dream or
vision the Faery Queen, with whose excellent beauty ravished, he
awaking resolved to seeke her out, and so being by Merlin armed, and
by Timon throughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye
Land. In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but
in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of
our soveraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery Land. And yet,
in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she
beareth two persons, the one of a most royall queene or empresse, the
other of a most vertuous and beautifull lady, this latter part in some
places I doe expresse in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to
your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phaebe and Cynthia being
both names of Diana.) So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette
forth magnificence in particular, which vertue, for that (according
to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and
conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the
deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue which I write of in that
booke. But of the xii. other vertues I make xii. other knights the
patrones, for the more variety of the history: of which these three
bookes contayn three. The first of the Knight of the Redcrosse, in
whome I expresse holynes: The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette
forth temperaunce: The third of Britomartis, a lady knight, in whome I
picture chastity. But because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth
abrupte and as depending upon other antecedents, it needs that ye
know the occasion of these three knights severall adventures. For the
methode of a poet historical is not such as of an historiographer. For
an historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne,
accounting as well the times as the actions; but a poet thrusteth into
the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing
to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a
pleasing analysis of all.
The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an
historiographer, should be the twelfth booke, which is the last; where
I devise that the Faery Queene kept her annuall feaste xii. dayes,
uppon which xii. severall dayes, the occasions of the xii. several
adventures hapned, which being undertaken by xii. severall knights,
are in these xii. books severally handled and discoursed. The first
was this. In the beginning of the feast, there presented him selfe
a tall clownish younge man, who, falling before the Queen of Faries,
desired a boone (as the manner then was) which during that feast she
might not refuse: which was that hee might have the atchievement of
any adventure, which during that feaste should happen: that being
graunted, he rested him on the floore, unfitte through his rusticity
for a better place. Soone after entred a faire ladye in mourning
weedes, riding on a white asse, with a dwarfe behind her leading a
warlike steed, that bore the armes of a knight, and his speare in the
dwarfes hand. Shee, falling before the Queene of Faeries, complayned
that her father and mother, an ancient king and queene, had bene by an
huge dragon many years shut up in a brasen castle, who thence suffred
them not to yssew: and therefore besought the Faery Queene to assygne
her some one of her knights to take on him that exployt. Presently
that clownish person, upstarting, desired that adventure: whereat the
Queene much wondering, and the lady much gainesaying, yet he earnestly
importuned his desire. In the end the lady told him, that unlesse that
armour which she brought would serve him (that is, the armour of a
Christian man specified by Saint Paul, vi. Ephes.), that he could not
succeed in that enterprise: which being forthwith put upon him with
dewe furnitures thereunto, he seemed the goodliest man in al that
company, and was well liked of the lady. And eftesoones taking on him
knighthood, and mounting on that straunge courser, he went forth with
her on that adventure: where beginneth the first booke vz.
A gentle knight was pricking on the playne, &c.
The second day ther came in a palmer bearing an infant with
bloody hands, whose parents he complained to have bene slayn by
an enchaunteresse called Acrasia: and therfore craved of the Faery
Queene, to appoint him some knight to performe that adventure; which
being assigned to Sir Guyon, he presently went forth with that same
palmer: which is the beginning of the second booke and the whole
subject thereof. The third day there came in a groome, who complained
before the Faery Queene, that a vile enchaunter, called Busirane,
had in hand a most faire lady, called Amoretta, whom he kept in most
grievous torment, because she would not yield him the pleasure of her
body. Whereupon Sir Scudamour, the lover of that lady, presently tooke
on him that adventure. But being unable to performe it by reason
of the hard enchauntments, after long sorrow, in the end met with
Britomartis, who succoured him, and reskewed his love.
But by occasion hereof, many other adventures are intermedled, but
rather as accidents then intendments: as the love of Britomart, the
overthrow of Marinell, the misery of Florimell, the vertuousnes of
Belphoebe, the lasciviousnes of Hellenora, and many the like.
Thus much, Sir, I have briefly overronne, to direct your understanding
to the wel-head of the history, that from thence gathering the whole
intention of the conceit, ye may, as in a handfull, gripe al the
discourse, which otherwise may happily seeme tedious and confused. So
humbly craving the continuance of your honourable favour towards me,
and th' eternall establishment of your happines, I humbly take leave.
23. January, 1589. Yours most humbly affectionate, Ed. Spenser.
[Footnote A: Edmund Spenser was born in London about 1552, and died
there in 1599. He was the greatest of the non-dramatic poets of the
age of Elizabeth; and the "Faerie Queene" is the longest and most
famous of his works. The first three books were published in 1590, the
second three in 1596; of the remaining six which he had planned some
fragments were issued after his death. The poem is a combination of
allegory and romance; and in this prefatory letter to Raleigh the
poet himself explains the plan of the work and its main allegorical
signification.]
PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1614)[A]
How unfit and how unworthy a choice I have made of myself, to
undertake a work of this mixture, mine own reason, though exceeding
weak, hath sufficiently resolved me. For had it been begotten then
with my first dawn of day, when the light of common knowledge began to
open itself to my younger years, and before any wound received either
from Fortune or Time, I might yet well have doubted that the darkness
of Age and Death would have covered over both It and Me, long before
the performance. For, beginning with the Creation, I have proceeded
with the History of the World; and lastly purposed (some few sallies
excepted) to confine my discourse with this our renowned Island of
Great Britain. I confess that it had better sorted with my disability,
the better part of whose times are run out in other travails, to have
set together (as I could) the unjointed and scattered frame of our
English affairs, than of the universal in whom, had there been no
other defect (who am all defect) than the time of the day, it were
enough, the day of a tempestuous life, drawn on to the very evening
ere I began. But those inmost and soul-piercing wounds, which are ever
aching while uncured; with the desire to satisfy those few friends,
which I have tried by the fire of adversity, the former enforcing,
the latter persuading; have caused me to make my thoughts legible, and
myself the subject of every opinion, wise or weak.
To the world I present them, to which I am nothing indebted: neither
have others that were, (Fortune changing) sped much better in any
age. For prosperity and adversity have evermore tied and untied vulgar
affections. And as we see it in experience, that dogs do always bark
at those they know not, and that it is their nature to accompany one
another in those clamors: so it is with the inconsiderate multitude;
who wanting that virtue which we call honesty in all men, and that
especial gift of God which we call charity in Christian men, condemn
without hearing, and wound without offence given: led thereunto by
uncertain report only; which his Majesty truly acknowledged for the
author of all lies. "Blame no man," saith Siracides, "before thou have
inquired the matter: understand first, and then reform righteously.
'Rumor, res sine teste, sine judice, maligna, fallax'; Rumor is
without witness, without judge, malicious and deceivable." This vanity
of vulgar opinion it was, that gave St. Augustine argument to affirm,
that he feared the praise of good men, and detested that of the evil.
And herein no man hath given a better rule, than this of Seneca;
"Conscientiae satisfaciamus: nihil in famam laboremus, sequatur vel
mala, dum bene merearis." "Let us satisfy our own consciences, and not
trouble ourselves with fame: be it never so ill, it is to be despised
so we deserve well."
For myself, if I have in anything served my Country, and prized it
before my private, the general acceptation can yield me no other
profit at this time, than doth a fair sunshine day to a sea-man after
shipwreck; and the contrary no other harm, than an outrageous tempest
after the port attained. I know that I lost the love of many, for my
fidelity towards Her,[1] whom I must still honor in the dust; though
further than the defence of her excellent person, I never persecuted
any man. Of those that did it, and by what device they did it, He that
is the Supreme Judge of all the world, hath taken the account: so as
for this kind of suffering, I must say With Seneca, "Mala opinio, bene
parta, delectat."[2] As for other men; if there be any that have made
themselves fathers of that fame which hath been begotten for them, I
can neither envy at such their purchased glory, nor much lament mine
own mishap in that kind; but content myself to say with Virgil, "Sic
vos non vobis,"[3] in many particulars. To labor other satisfaction,
were an effect of frenzy, not of hope, seeing it is not truth, but
opinion, that can travel the world without a passport. For were it
otherwise; and were there not as many internal forms of the mind, as
there are external figures of men; there were then some possibility to
persuade by the mouth of one advocate, even equity alone.
But such is the multiplying and extensive virtue of dead earth, and
of that breath-giving life which God hath cast upon time and dust, as
that among those that were, of whom we read and hear; and among those
that are, whom we see and converse with; everyone hath received a
several picture of face, and everyone a diverse picture of mind;
everyone a form apart, everyone a fancy and cogitation differing:
there being nothing wherein Nature so much triumpheth as in
dissimilitude. From whence it cometh that there is found so great
diversity of opinions; so strong a contrariety of inclinations;
so many natural and unnatural; wise, foolish, manly, and childish
affections and passions in mortal men. For it is not the visible
fashion and shape of plants, and of reasonable creatures, that makes
the difference of working in the one, and of condition in the other;
but the form internal.
And though it hath pleased God to reserve the art of reading men's
thoughts to himself: yet, as the fruit tells the name of the tree; so
do the outward works of men (so far as their cogitations are acted)
give us whereof to guess at the rest. Nay, it were not hard to express
the one by the other, very near the life, did not craft in many,
fear in the most, and the world's love in all, teach every capacity,
according to the compass it hath, to qualify and make over their
inward deformities for a time. Though it be also true, "Nemo potest
diu personam ferre fictam: cito in naturam suam residunt, quibus
veritas non subest": "No man can long continue masked in a counterfeit
behavior: the things that are forced for pretences having no ground of
truth, cannot long dissemble their own natures." Neither can any
man (saith Plutarch) so change himself, but that his heart may be
sometimes seen at his tongue's end.
In this great discord and dissimilitude of reasonable creatures, if we
direct ourselves to the multitude; "omnis honestae rei malus judex
est vulgus": "The common people are evil judges of honest things, and
whose wisdom (saith Ecclesiastes) is to be despised": if to the better
sort, every understanding hath a peculiar judgment, by which it both
censureth other men, and valueth itself. And therefore unto me it will
not seem strange, though I find these my worthless papers torn with
rats: seeing the slothful censurers of all ages have not spared to tax
the Reverend Fathers of the Church, with ambition; the severest men
to themselves, with hypocrisy; the greatest lovers of justice,
with popularity; and those of the truest valor and fortitude, with
vain-glory. But of these natures which lee in wait to find fault, and
to turn good into evil, seeing Solomon complained long since: and
that the very age of the world renders it every day after other
more malicious; I must leave the professors to their easy ways of
reprehension, than which there is nothing of more facility.
To me it belongs in the first part of this Preface, following the
common and approved custom of those who have left the memories of
time past to after ages, to give, as near as I can, the same right to
history which they have done. Yet seeing therein I should but borrow
other men's words, I will not trouble the Reader with the repetition.
True it is that among many other benefits for which it hath been
honored, in this one it triumpheth over all human knowledge, that it
hath given us life in our understanding, since the world itself had
life and beginning, even to this day: yea, it hath triumphed over
time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over: for
it hath carried our knowledge over the vast and devouring space of
many thousands of years, and given so fair and piercing eyes to our
mind; that we plainly behold living now (as if we had lived then) that
great world, "Magni Dei sapiens opus," "The wise work (saith Hermes)
of a great God," as it was then, when but new to itself. By it (I say)
it is, that we live in the very time when it was created: we behold
how it was governed: how it was covered with waters, and again
repeopled: how kings and kingdoms have flourished and fallen, and
for what virtue and piety God made prosperous; and for what vice and
deformity he made wretched, both the one and the other. And it is
not the least debt which we owe unto history, that it hath made us
acquainted with our dead ancestors; and, out of the depth and darkness
of the earth, delivered us their memory and fame. In a word, we may
gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal; by the
comparison and application of other men's fore-passed miseries with
our own like errors and ill deservings. But it is neither of examples
the most lively instruction, nor the words of the wisest men, nor the
terror of future torments, that hath yet so wrought in our blind and
stupified minds, as to make us remember, that the infinite eye and
wisdom of God doth pierce through all our pretences; as to make us
remember, that the justice of God doth require none other accuser than
our own consciences: which neither the false beauty of our apparent
actions, nor all the formality, which (to pacify the opinions of men)
we put on, can in any, or the least kind, cover from his knowledge.
And so much did that heathen wisdom confess, no way as yet qualified
by the knowledge of a true God. If any (saith Euripides) "having
in his life committed wickedness, thinks he can hide it from the
everlasting gods, he thinks not well."
To repeat God's judgments in particular, upon those of all degrees,
which have played with his mercies would require a volume apart: for
the sea of examples hath no bottom. The marks, set on private men,
are with their bodies cast into the earth; and their fortunes, written
only in the memories of those that lived with them: so as they who
succeed, and have not seen the fall of others, do not fear their own
faults. God's judgments upon the greater and greatest have been left
to posterity; first, by those happy hands which the Holy Ghost hath
guided; and secondly, by their virtue, who have gathered the acts and
ends of men mighty and remarkable in the world. Now to point far off,
and to speak of the conversion of angels into devils; for ambition: or
of the greatest and most glorious kings, who have gnawn the grass of
the earth with beasts for pride and ingratitude towards God: or of
that wise working of Pharaoh, when he slew the infants of Israel,
ere they had recovered their cradles: or of the policy of Jezebel, in
covering the murder of Naboth by a trial of the Elders, according to
the Law, with many thousands of the like: what were it other, than to
make an hopeless proof, that far-off examples would not be left to the
same far-off respects, as heretofore? For who hath not observed, what
labor, practice, peril, bloodshed, and cruelty, the kings and princes
of the world have undergone, exercised, taken on them, and committed;
to make themselves and their issues masters of the world? And yet
hath Babylon, Persia, Syria, Macedon, Carthage, Rome, and the rest,
no fruit, no flower, grass, nor leaf, springing upon the face of
the earth, of those seeds: no, their very roots and ruins do hardly
remain. "Omnia quae manu hominum facta sunt, vel manu hominum
evertuntur, vel stando et durando deficiunt": "All that the hand of
man can make, is either overturned by the hand of man, or at length
by standing and continuing consumed." The reasons of whose ruins, are
diversely given by those that ground their opinions on second causes.
All kingdoms and states have fallen (say the politicians) by outward
and foreign force, or by inward negligence and dissension, or by a
third cause arising from both. Others observe, that the greatest have
sunk down under their own weight; of which Livy hath a touch: "eo
crevit, ut magnitudine laboret sua":[4] Others, That the divine
providence (which Cratippus objected to Pompey) hath set _down_ the
date and period of every estate, before their first foundation and
erection. But hereof I will give myself a day over to resolve.
For seeing the first hooks of the following story, have undertaken the
discourse of the first kings and kingdoms: and that it is impossible
for the short life of a Preface, to travel after, and overtake far-off
antiquity, and to judge of it; I will, for the present, examine
what profit hath been gathered by our own Kings, and their neighbour
princes: who having beheld, both in divine and human letters, the
success of infidelity, injustice, and cruelty; have (notwithstanding)
planted after the same pattern.
True it is, that the judgments of all men are not agreeable; nor
(which is more strange) the affection of any one man stirred up alike
with examples of like nature: but every one is touched most, with that
which most nearly seemeth to touch his own private, or otherwise best
suiteth with his apprehension. But the judgments of God are forever
unchangeable: neither is He wearied by the long process of time, and
won to give His blessing in one age, to that which He hath cursed in
another. Wherefor those that are wise, or whose wisdom if it be not
great, yet is true and well grounded, will be able to discern the
bitter fruits of irreligious policy, as well among those examples that
are found in ages removed far from the present, as in those of latter
times. And that it may no less appear by evident proof, than by
asseveration, that ill doing hath always been attended with ill
success; I will here, by way of preface, run over some examples, which
the work ensuing hath not reached.
Among our kings of the Norman race, we have no sooner passed over the
violence of the Norman Conquest, than we encounter with a singular and
most remarkable example of God's justice, upon the children of Henry
the First. For that King, when both by force, craft, and cruelty, he
had dispossessed, overreached, and lastly made blind and destroyed his
elder brother Robert Duke of Normandy, to make his own sons lords
of this land: God cast them all, male and female, nephews and nieces
(Maud excepted) into the bottom of the sea, with above a hundred and
fifty others that attended them; whereof a great many were noble and
of the King dearly beloved.
To pass over the rest, till we come to Edward the Second; it is
certain, that after the murder of that King, the issue of blood then
made, though it had some times of stay and stopping, did again break
out, and that so often and in such abundance, as all our princes of
the masculine race (very few excepted) died of the same disease. And
although the young years of Edward the Third made his knowledge of
that horrible fact no more than suspicious; yet in that he afterwards
caused his own uncle, the Earl of Kent, to die, for no other offence
than the desire of his brother's redemption, whom the Earl as then
supposed to be living; the King making that to be treated in
his uncle, which was indeed treason in himself, (had his uncle's
intelligence been true) this I say made it manifest, that he was
not ignorant of what had past, nor greatly desirous to have had it
otherwise, though he caused Mortimer to die for the same.
This cruelty the secret and unsearchable judgment of God revenged on
the grandchild of Edward the Third: and so it fell out, even to the
last of that line, that in the second or third descent they were all
buried under the ruins of those buildings, of which the mortar had
been tempered with innocent blood. For Richard the Second, who saw
both his Treasurers, his Chancellor, and his Steward, with divers
others of his counsellors, some of them slaughtered by the people,
others in his absence executed by his enemies, yet he always
took himself for over-wise to be taught by examples. The Earls of
Huntingdon and Kent, Montagu and Spencer, who thought themselves as
great politicians in those days as others have done in these: hoping
to please the King, and to secure themselves, by the murder of
Gloucester; died soon after, with many other their adherents, by the
like violent hands; and far more shamefully than did that duke. And
as for the King himself (who in regard of many deeds, unworthy of his
greatness, cannot be excused, as the disavowing himself by breach of
faith, charters, pardons, and patents): he was in the prime of his
youth deposed, and murdered by his cousin-german and vassal, Henry of
Lancaster, afterwards Henry the Fourth.
This King, whose title was weak, and his obtaining the Crown
traitorous; who brake faith with the lords at his landing, protesting
to intend only the recovery of his proper inheritance, brake faith
with Richard himself; and brake faith with all the kingdom in
Parliament, to whom he swore that the deposed King should live. After
that he had enjoyed this realm some few years, and in that time
had been set upon all sides by his subjects, and never free from
conspiracies and rebellions: he saw (if souls immortal see and discern
anythings after the bodies' death) his grandchild Henry the Sixth,
and his son the Prince, suddenly and without mercy, murdered; the
possession of the Crown (for which he had caused so much blood to
be poured out) transferred from his race, and by the issues of
his enemies worn and enjoyed: enemies, whom by his own practice he
supposed that he had left no less powerless, than the succession of
the Kingdom questionless; by entailing the same upon his own issues
by Parliament. And out of doubt, human reason could have judged no
otherwise, but that these cautious provisions of the father, seconded
by the valor and signal victories of his son Henry the Fifth, had
buried the hopes of every competitor, under the despair of all
reconquest and recovery. I say, that human reason might so have
judged, were not this passage of Casaubon also true; "Dies, hora,
momentum, evertendis dominationibus sufficit, quae adamantinis
credebantur radicibus esse fundatae:" "A day, an hour, a moment, is
enough to overturn the things, that seemed to have been founded and
rooted in adamant."
Now for Henry the Sixth, upon whom the great storm of his
grandfather's grievous faults fell, as it formerly had done upon
Richard the grandchild of Edward: although he was generally esteemed
for a gentle and innocent prince, yet as he refused the daughter of
Armagnac, of the House of Navarre, the greatest of the Princes
of France, to whom he was affianced (by which match he might have
defended his inheritance in France) and married the daughter of Anjou,
(by which he lost all that he had in France) so in condescending to
the unworthy death of his uncle of Gloucester, the main and strong
pillar of the House of Lancaster; he drew on himself and this kingdom
the greatest joint-loss and dishonor, that ever it sustained since the
Norman Conquest. Of whom it may truly be said which a counsellor of
his own spake of Henry the Third of France, "Qu'il estait tme fort
gentile Prince; mais son reigne est advenu en une fort mauvais
temps:" "He was a very gentle Prince; but his reign happened in a very
unfortunate season."
It is true that Buckingham and Suffolk were the practicers and
contrivers of the Duke's death: Buckingham and Suffolk, because the
Duke gave instructions to their authority, which otherwise under the
Queen had been absolute; the Queen in respect of her personal wound,
"spretaeque injuria formae,"[5] because Gloucester dissuaded her
marriage. But the fruit was answerable to the seed; the success to
the counsel. For after the cutting down of Gloucester, York grew up so
fast, as he dared to dispute his right both by arguments and arms;
in which quarrel, Suffolk and Buckingham, with the greatest number of
their adherents, were dissolved. And although for his breach of oath
by sacrament, it pleased God to strike down York: yet his son the Earl
of March, following the plain path which his father had trodden out,
despoiled Henry the father, and Edward the son, both of their lives
and kingdom. And what was the end now of that politic lady the Queen,
other than this, that she lived to behold the wretched ends of all her
partakers: that she lived to look on, while her husband the King, and
her only son the Prince, were hewn in sunder; while the Crown was set
on his head that did it. She lived to see herself despoiled of her
estate, and of her moveables: and lastly, her father, by rendering up
to the Crown of France the Earldom of Provence and other places, for
the payment of fifty thousand crowns for her ransom, to become a
stark beggar. And this was the end of that subtility, which Siracides
calleth "fine" but "unrighteous:" for other fruit hath it never
yielded since the world was.
And now it came to Edward the Fourth's turn (though after many
difficulties) to triumph. For all the plants of Lancaster were rooted
up, one only Earl of Richmond excepted: whom also he had once bought
of the Duke of Brittany, but could not hold him. And yet was not
this of Edward such a plantation, as could any way promise itself
stability. For this Edward the King (to omit more than many of his
other cruelties) beheld and allowed the slaughter which Gloucester,
Dorset, Hastings, and others, made of Edward the Prince in his own
presence; of which tragical actors, there was not one that escaped the
judgment of God in the same kind And he, which (besides the execution
of his brother Clarence, for none other offence than he himself had
formed in his own imagination) instructed Gloucester to kill Henry the
Sixth, his predecessor; taught him also by the same art to kill his
own sons and successors, Edward and Richard. For those kings which
have sold the blood of others at a low rate; have but made the market
for their own enemies, to buy of theirs at the same price.
To Edward the Fourth succeeded Richard the Third, the greatest master
in mischief of all that fore-went him: who although, for the necessity
of his tragedy, he had more parts to play, and more to perform in his
own person, than all the rest; yet he so well fitted every affection
that played with him, as if each of them had but acted his own
interest. For he wrought so cunningly upon the affections of Hastings
and Buckingham, enemies to the Queen and to all her kindred, as he
easily allured them to condescend, that Rivers and Grey, the King's
maternal uncle and half brother, should (for the first) be severed
from him: secondly, he wrought their consent to have them imprisoned:
and lastly (for the avoiding of future inconvenience) to have their
heads severed from their bodies. And having now brought those his
chief instruments to exercise that common precept which the Devil hath
written on every post, namely, to depress those whom they had grieved,
and destroy those whom they had depressed; he urged that argument
so far and so forcibly, as nothing but the death of the young King
himself, and of his brother, could fashion the conclusion. For he
caused it to be hammered into Buckingham's head, that, whensoever the
King or his brother should have able years to exercise their power,
they would take a most severe revenge of that cureless wrong, offered
to their uncle and brother, Rivers and Grey.
But this was not his manner of reasoning with Hastings, whose fidelity
to his master's sons was without suspect: and yet the Devil, who never
dissuades by impossibility, taught him to try him. And so he did. But
when he found by Catesby, who sounded him, that he was not fordable;
he first resolved to kill him sitting in council: wherein having
failed with his sword, he set the hangman upon him, with a weapon
of more weight. And because nothing else could move his appetite,
he caused his head to be stricken off, before he ate his dinner. A
greater judgment of God than this upon Hastings, I have never observed
in any story. For the selfsame day that the Earl Rivers, Grey, and
others, were (without trial of law, of offence given) by Hastings'
advice executed at Pomfret: I say Hastings himself in the same day,
and (as I take it) in the same hour, in the same lawless manner had
his head stricken off in the Tower of London. But Buckingham lived a
while longer; and with an eloquent oration persuaded the Londoners
to elect Richard for their king. And having received the Earldom of
Hereford for reward, besides the high hope of marrying his daughter
to the King's only son; after many grievous vexations of mind, and
unfortunate attempts, being in the end betrayed and delivered up
by his trustiest servant; he had his head severed from his body at
Salisbury, without the trouble of any of his Peers. And what success
had Richard himself after all these mischiefs and murders, policies,
and counter-policies to Christian religion: and after such time
as with a most merciless hand he had pressed out the breath of his
nephews and natural lords; other than the prosperity of so short a
life, as it took end, ere himself could well look over and discern
it? The great outcry of innocent blood, obtained at God's hands the
effusion of his; who became a spectacle of shame and dishonor, both to
his friends and enemies.
This cruel King, Henry the Seventh cut off; and was therein (no doubt)
the immediate instrument of God's justice. A politic Prince he was if
ever there were any, who by the engine of his wisdom, beat down and
overturned as many strong oppositions both before and after he wore
the Crown, as ever King of England did: I say by his wisdom, because
as he ever left the reins of his affections in the hands of his
profit, so he always weighed his undertakings by his abilities,
leaving nothing more to hazard than so much as cannot be denied it in
all human actions. He had well observed the proceedings of Louis the
Eleventh, whom he followed in all that was royal or royal-like, but
he was far more just, and begun not their processes whom he hated or
feared by the execution, as Louis did.
He could never endure any mediation in rewarding his servants, and
therein exceeding wise; for whatsoever himself gave, he himself
received back the thanks and the love, knowing it well that the
affections of men (purchased by nothing so readily as by benefits)
were trains that better became great kings, than great subjects. On
the contrary, in whatsoever he grieved his subjects, he wisely put it
off on those, that he found fit ministers for such actions. Howsoever
the taking off of Stanley's head, who set the Crown on his, and the
death of the young Earl of Warwick, son to George, Duke of Clarence,
shows, as the success also did, that he held somewhat of the errors
of his ancestors; for his possession in the first line ended in his
grandchildren, as that of Edward the Third and Henry the Fourth had
done.
Now for King Henry the Eighth; if all the pictures and patterns of
a merciless prince were lost in the world, they might all again be
painted to the life, out of the story of this king. For how many
servants did he advance in haste (but for what virtue no man could
suspect) and with the change of his fancy ruined again; no man knowing
for what offence? To how many others of more desert gave he abundant
flowers from whence to gather honey, and in the end of harvest burnt
them in the hive? How many wives did he cut off, and cast off, as his
fancy and affection changed? How many princes of the blood (whereof
some of them for age could hardly crawl towards the block) with a
world of others of all degrees (of whom our common chronicles have
kept the account) did he execute? Yea, in his very death-bed, and when
he was at the point to have given his account to God for the abundance
of blood already spilt, he imprisoned the Duke of Norfolk the father;
and executed the Earl of Surrey the son; the one, whose deservings he
knew not how to value, having never omitted anything that concerned
his own honor, and the King's service; the other never having
committed anything worthy of his least displeasure: the one exceeding
valiant and advised; the other no less valiant than learned, and
of excellent hope. But besides the sorrows which he heaped upon
the fatherless and widows at home: and besides the vain enterprises
abroad, wherein it is thought that he consumed more treasure than all
our victorious kings did in their several conquests; what causeless
and cruel wars did he make upon his own nephew King James the First?
What laws and wills did he devise to cut off, and cut down those
branches, which sprang from the same root that himself did? And in
the end (notwithstanding these his so many irreligious provisions) it
pleased God to take away all his own, without increase; though, for
themselves in their several kinds, all princes of eminent virtue.
For these words of Samuel to Agag King of the Amalekites, have
been verified upon many others: "As thy sword hath made other women
childless, so shall thy mother be childless among other women." And
that blood which the same King Henry affirmed, that the cold air of
Scotland had frozen up in the North, God hath diffused by the sunshine
of his grace: from whence his Majesty now living, and long to live, is
descended. Of whom I may say it truly, "That if all the malice of the
world were infused into one eye: yet could it not discern in his
life, even to this day, any one of these foul spots, by which the
consciences of all the forenamed princes (in effect) have been
defiled; nor any drop of that innocent blood on the sword of his
justice, with which the most that fore-went him have stained both
their hands and fame." And for this Crown of England; it may truly he
avowed: that he hath received it even from the hand of God, and hath
stayed the time of putting it on, howsoever he were provoked to hasten
it: that he never took revenge of any man, that sought to put him
beside it: that he refused the assistance of Her enemies, that wore
it long, with as great glory as ever princess did: that his Majesty
entered not by a breach, nor by blood; but by the ordinary gate,
which his own right set open; and into which, by a general love and
obedience, he was received. And howsoever his Majesty's preceding
title to this Kingdom was preferred by many princes (witness the
Treaty at Cambray in the year 1559) yet he never pleased to dispute
it, during the life of that renowned lady his predecessor; no,
notwithstanding the injury of not being declared heir, in all the time
of her long reign.
Neither ought we to forget, or neglect our thankfulness to God for
the uniting of the northern parts of Britain to the south, to wit,
of Scotland to England, which though they were severed but by small
brooks and banks, yet by reason of the long continued war, and the
cruelties exercised upon each other, in the affections of the nations,
they were infinitely severed. This I say is not the least of God's
blessings which his Majesty hath brought with him unto this land:
no, put all our petty grievances together, and heap them up to their
height, they will appear but as a molehill compared with the
mountain of this concord. And if all the historians since then have
acknowledged the uniting of the Red Rose, and the White, for the
greatest happiness (Christian Religion excepted), that ever this
kingdom received from God, certainly the peace between the two lions
of gold and gules, and the making them one, doth by many degrees
exceed the former; for by it, besides the sparing of our British
blood, heretofore and during the difference, so often and abundantly
shed, the state of England is more assured, the kingdom more
enabled to recover her ancient honor and rights, and by it made more
invincible, than by all our former alliances, practises, policies, and
conquests. It is true that hereof we do not yet find the effect.
But had the Duke of Parma in the year 1588, joined the army which he
commanded, with that of Spain, and landed it on the south coast; and
had his Majesty at the same time declared himself against us in the
North: it is easy to divine what had become of the liberty of England,
certainly we would then without murmur have bought this union at far
greater price than it hath since cost us. It is true, that there was
never any common weal or kingdom in the world, wherein no man had
cause to lament. Kings live in the world, and not above it. They are
not infinite to examine every man's cause, or to relieve every man's
wants. And yet in the latter (though to his own prejudice), his
Majesty hath had more comparison of other men's necessities, than of
his own coffers. Of whom it may he said, as of Solomon,[6] "Dedit Deus
Solomon! latitudinem cordis": Which if other men do not understand
with Pineda, to be meant by liberality, but by "latitude of
knowledge"; yet may it be better spoken of His Majesty, than of
any king that ever England had; who as well in divine, as human
understanding, hath exceeded all that fore-went him, by many degrees.
I could say much more of the King's majesty, without flattery: did I
not fear the imputation of presumption, and withal suspect, that it
might befall these papers of mine (though the loss were little) as
it did the pictures of Queen Elizabeth, made by unskilful and common
painters, which by her own commandment were knocked in pieces and
cast into the fire. For ill artists, in setting out the beauty of the
external; and weak writers, in describing the virtues of the internal;
do often leave to posterity, of well formed faces a deformed
memory; and of the most perfect and princely minds, a most defective
representation. It may suffice, and there needs no other discourse; if
the honest reader but compare the cruel and turbulent passages of our
former kings, and of other their neighbor-princes (of whom for that
purpose I have inserted this brief discourse) with his Majesty's
temperate, revengeless and liberal disposition: I say, that if the
honest reader weigh them justly, and with an even hand; and withal but
bestow every deformed child on his true parent; he shall find, that
there is no man that hath so just cause to complain, as the King
himself hath. Now as we have told the success of the trumperies and
cruelties of our own kings, and other great personages: so we find,
that God is everywhere the same God. And as it pleased him to punish
the usurpation, and unnatural cruelty of Henry the First, and of our
third Edward, in their children for many generations: so dealt He
with the sons of Louis Debonnaire, the son of Charles the Great, or
Charlemagne. For after such time as Debonnaire of France, had torn
out the eyes of Bernard his nephew, the son of Pepin the eldest son
of Charlemagne, and heir of the Empire, and then caused him to die in
prison, as did our Henry to Robert his eldest brother: there followed
nothing but murders upon murders, poisoning, imprisonments, and civil
war; till the whole race of that famous Emperor was extinguished. And
though Debonnaire, after he had rid himself of his nephew by a violent
death; and of his bastard brothers by a civil death (having inclosed
them with sure guard, all the days of their lives, within a monastery)
held himself secure from all opposition: yet God raised up against him
(which he suspected not) his own sons, to vex him, to invade him,
to take him prisoner, and to depose him; his own sons, with whom
(to satisfy their ambition) he had shared his estate, and given them
crowns to wear, and kingdoms to govern, during his own life. Yea his
eldest son, Lothair (for he had four, three by his first wife, and one
by his second; to wit, Lothair, Pepin, Louis, and Charles), made it
the cause of his deposition, that he had used violence towards his
brothers and kinsmen; and that he had suffered his nephew (whom he
might have delivered) to be slain. "Eo quod," saith the text,[7]
"fratribus, et propinquis violentiam intulerit, et nepotem suum,
quern ipse liberate poterat, interfici permiserit": "Because he used
violence to his brothers and kinsmen, and suffered his nephew to be
slain whom he might have delivered."
Yet did he that which few kings do; namely, repent him of his cruelty.
For, among many other things which he performed in the General
Assembly of the States, it follows: "Post haec autem palam se errasse
confessus, et imitatus Imperatoris Theodosii exemplum, poenitentiam
spontaneam suscepit, tarn de his, quam quae in Bernardum proprium
nepotem gesserat": "After this he did openly confess himself to
have erred, and following the example of the Emperor Theodosius, he
underwent voluntary penance, as well for his other offences, as for
that which he had done against Bernard his own nephew."
This he did; and it was praise-worthy. But the blood that is unjustly
spilt, is not again gathered up from the ground by repentance. These
medicines, ministered to the dead, have but dead rewards.
This king, as I have said, had four sons. To Lothair his eldest he
gave the Kingdom of Italy; as Charlemagne, his father, had done to
Pepin, the father of Bernard, who was to succeed him in the Empire. To
Pepin the second son he gave the Kingdom of Aquitaine: to Louis,
the Kingdom of Bavaria: and to Charles, whom he had by a second wife
called Judith, the remainder of the Kingdom of France. But this second
wife, being a mother-in-law[8] to the rest, persuaded Debonnaire
to cast his son Pepin out of Aquitaine, thereby to greaten Charles,
which, after the death of his son Pepin, he prosecuted to effect,
against his grandchild bearing the same name. In the meanwhile, being
invaded by his son Louis of Bavaria, he dies for grief.
Debonnaire dead, Louis of Bavaria, and Charles afterwards called the
Bald, and their nephew Pepin, of Aquitaine, join in league against the
Emperor Lothair their eldest brother. They fight near to Auxerre the
most bloody battle that ever was stroken in France: in which, the
marvellous loss of nobility, and men of war, gave courage to the
Saracens to invade Italy; to the Huns to fall upon Almaine; and the
Danes to enter upon Normandy. Charles the Bald by treason seizeth upon
his nephew Pepin, kills him in a cloister: Carloman rebels against
his father Charles the Bald, the father burns out the eyes of his son
Carloman; Bavaria invades the Emperor Lothair his brother, Lothair
quits the Empire, he is assailed and wounded to the heart by his own
conscience, for his rebellion against his father, and for his other
cruelties, and dies in a monastery. Charles the Bald, the uncle,
oppresseth his nephews the sons of Lothair, he usurpeth the Empire to
the prejudice of Louis of Bavaria his elder brother; Bavaria's armies
and his son Carloman are beaten, he dies of grief, and the usurper
Charles is poisoned by Zedechias a Jew, his physician, his son Louis
le Begue dies of the same drink. Begue had Charles the Simple and two
bastards, Louis and Carloman; they rebel against their brother, but
the eldest breaks his neck, the younger is slain by a wild boar; the
son of Bavaria had the same ill destiny, and brake his neck by a fall
out of a window in sporting with his companions. Charles the Gross
becomes lord of all that the sons of Debonnaire held in Germany;
wherewith not contented, he invades Charles the Simple: but
being-forsaken of his nobility, of his wife, and of his understanding,
he dies a distracted beggar. Charles the Simple is held in wardship by
Eudes, Mayor of the Palace, then by Robert the brother of Eudes: and
lastly, being taken by the Earl of Vermandois; he is forced to die in
the prison of Peron, Louis the son of Charles the Simple breaks his
neck in chasing a wolf, and of the two sons of this Louis, the one
dies of poison, the other dies in the prison of Orleans; after whom
Hugh Capet, of another race, and a stranger to the French, makes
himself king.
These miserable ends had the issues of Debonnaire, who after he had
once apparelled injustice with authority, his sons and successors took
up the fashion, and wore that garment so long without other provision,
as when the same was torn from their shoulders, every man despised
them as miserable and naked beggars. The wretched success they had
(saith a learned Frenchman) shows, "que en ceste mort il y avait plus
du fait des homines que de Pieu, ou de la justice": "that in the death
of that Prince, to wit, of Bernard the son of Pepin, the true heir of
Charlemagne, men had more meddling than either God or justice had."
But to come nearer home; it is certain that Francis the First, one of
the worthiest kings (except for that fact) that ever Frenchmen had,
did never enjoy himself, after he had commended the destruction of the
Protestants of Mirandol and Cabrieres, to the Parliament of Provence,
which poor people were thereupon burnt and murdered; men, women, and
children. It is true that the said King Francis repented himself of
the fact, and gave charge to Henry his son, to do justice upon the
murderers, threatening his son with God's judgments, if he neglected
it. But this unseasonable care of his, God was not pleased to accept
for payment. For after Henry himself was slain in sport by Montgomery,
we all may remember what became of his four sons, Francis, Charles,
Henry, and Hercules. Of which although three of them became kings,
and were married to beautiful and virtuous ladies: yet were they,
one after another, cast out of the world, without stock or seed. And
notwithstanding their subtility, and breach of faith; with all their
massacres upon those of the religion,[9] and great effusion of blood,
the crown was set on his head, whom they all labored to dissolve; the
Protestants remain more in number than ever they were, and hold to
this day more strong cities than ever they had.
Let us now see if God be not the same God in Spain, as in England and
France. Towards whom we will look no further back than to Don Pedro
of Castile: in respect of which Prince, all the tyrants of Sicil, our
Richard the Third, and the great Ivan Vasilowich of Moscow, were but
petty ones: this Castilian, of all Christian and heathen kings, having
been the most merciless. For, besides those of his own blood and
nobility, which he caused to be slain in his own court and chamber,
as Sancho Ruis, the great master of Calatrava, Ruis Gonsales, Alphonso
Tello, and Don John of Arragon, whom he cut in pieces and cast into
the streets, denying him Christian burial: I say, besides these, and
the slaughter of Gomes Mauriques, Diego Peres, Alphonso Gomes, and the
great commander of Castile; he made away the two infants of Arragon
his cousin germans, his brother Don Frederick, Don John de la Cerde,
Albuquergues, Nugnes de Guzman, Cornel, Cabrera, Tenorio, Mendes de
Toledo, Guttiere his great treasurer and all his kindred; and a world
of others. Neither did he spare his two youngest brothers, innocent
princes: whom after he had kept in close prison from their cradles,
till one of them had lived sixteen years, and the other fourteen, he
murdered them there. Nay, he spared not his mother, nor his wife
the Lady Blanche of Bourbon. Lastly, as he caused the Archbishop of
Toledo, and the Dean to be killed of purpose to enjoy their treasures;
so did he put to death Mahomet Aben Alhamar, King of Barbary, with
thirty-seven of his nobility, that came unto him for succor, with a
great sum of money, to levy (by his favor) some companies of soldiers
to return withal. Yea, he would needs assist the hangman with his
own hand, in the execution of the old king; in so much as Pope Urban
declareth him an enemy both to God and man. But what was his end?
Having been formerly beaten out of his kingdom, and reestablished by
the valor of the English nation, led by the famous Duke of Lancaster:
he was stabbed to death by his younger brother the Earl of Astramara,
who dispossessed all his children of their inheritance; which, but for
the father's injustice and cruelty, had never been in danger of any
such thing.
If we can parallel any man with this king, it must be Duke John of
Burgogne, who, after his traitorous murder of the Duke of Orleans,
caused the Constable of Armagnac, the Chancellor of France, the
Bishops of Constance, Bayeux, Eureux, Senlis, Saintes, and other
religious and reverend Churchmen, the Earl of Gran Pre, Hector of
Chartres, and (in effect) all the officers of justice, of the Chamber
of Accounts, Treasury, and Request, (with sixteen hundred others to
accompany them) to be suddenly and violently slain. Hereby, while he
hoped to govern, and to have mastered France, he was soon after struck
with an axe in the face, in the presence of the Dauphin; and, without
any leisure to repent his misdeeds, presently[10] slain. _These were
the lovers of other men's miseries: and misery found them out_.
Now for the kings of Spain, which lived both with Henry the Seventh,
Henry the Eighth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth; Ferdinand of
Arragon was the first: and the first that laid the foundation of the
present Austrian greatness. For this King did not content himself
to hold Arragon by the usurpation of his ancestor; and to fasten
thereunto the Kingdom of Castile and Leon, which Isabel his wife held
by strong hand, and his assistance, from her own niece the daughter
of the last Henry: but most cruelly and craftily, without all color
or pretence of right, he also cast his own niece out of the Kingdom
of Navarre, and, contrary to faith, and the promise that he made to
restore it, fortified the best places, and so wasted the rest, as
there was no means left for any army to invade it. This King, I say,
that betrayed also Ferdinand and Frederick, Kings of Naples, princes
of his own blood, and by double alliance tied unto him; sold them
to the French: and with the same army, sent for their succor under
Gonsalvo, cast them out; and shared their kingdom with the French,
whom afterwards he most shamefully betrayed.
This wise and politic King, who sold Heaven and his own honor, to make
his son, the Prince of Spain, the greatest monarch of the world; saw
him die in the flower of his years; and his wife great with child,
with her untimely birth, at once and together buried. His eldest
daughter married unto Don Alphonso, Prince of Portugal, beheld her
first husband break his neck in her presence; and being with child
by her second, died with it. A just judgment of God upon the race of
John, father to Alphonso, now wholly extinguished; who had not only
left many disconsolate mothers in Portugal, by the slaughter of their
children; but had formerly slain with his own hand, the son and only
comfort of his aunt the Lady Beatrix, Duchess of Viseo.
The second daughter of Ferdinand, married to the Arch-Duke Philip,
turned fool, and died mad and deprived.[11] His third daughter,
bestowed on King Henry the Eighth, he saw cast off by the King: the
mother of many troubles in England; and the mother of a daughter, that
in her unhappy zeal shed a world of innocent blood; lost Calais to the
French; and died heartbroken without increase. To conclude, all those
kingdoms of Ferdinand have masters of a new name; and by a strange
family are governed and possessed.
Charles the Fifth, son to the Arch-Duke Philip, in whose vain
enterprises upon the French, upon the Almains, and other princes
and states, so many multitudes of Christian soldiers, and renowned
captains were consumed; who gave the while a most perilous entrance to
the Turks, and suffered Rhodes, the Key of Christendom, to be taken;
was in conclusion chased out of France, and in a sort out of Germany;
and left to the French, Mentz, Toule, and Verdun, places belonging
to the Empire, stole away from Inspurg; and scaled the Alps by
torchlight, pursued by Duke Maurice; having hoped to swallow up all
those dominions wherein he concocted nothing save his own disgraces.
And having, after the slaughter of so many millions of men, no one
foot of ground in either: he crept into a cloister, and made himself
a pensioner of an hundred thousand ducats by the year, to his son
Philip, from whom he very slowly received his mean and ordinary
maintenance.
His son again King Philip the Second, not satisfied to hold Holland
and Zeeland, (wrested by his ancestors from Jacqueline their lawful
Princess) and to possess in peace many other provinces of the
Netherlands: persuaded by that mischievous Cardinal of Granvile, and
other Romish tyrants; not only forgot the most remarkable services
done to his father the Emperor by the nobilities of those countries,
not only forgot the present made him upon his entry, of forty millions
of florins, called the "Novaile aide"; nor only forgot that he had
twice most solemnly sworn to the General States, to maintain and
preserve their ancient rights, privileges, and customs, which they
had enjoyed under their thirty and five earls before him, Conditional
Princes of those provinces: but beginning first to constrain them, and
enthrall them by the Spanish Inquisition, and then to impoverish them
by many new devised and intolerable impositions; he lastly, by strong
hand and main force, attempted to make himself not only an absolute
monarch over them, like unto the kings and sovereigns of England and
France; but Turk-like to tread under his feet all their natural and
fundamental laws, privileges, and ancient rights. To effect which,
after he had easily obtained from the Pope a dispensation of his
former oaths (which dispensation was the true cause of the war and
bloodshed since then;) and after he had tried what he could perform,
by dividing of their own nobility, under the government of his base
sister Margaret of Austria, and the Cardinal Granvile; he employed
that most merciless Spaniard Don Ferdinand Alvarez of Toledo, Duke
of Alva, followed with a powerful army of strange nations: by whom he
first slaughtered that renowned captain, the Earl of Egmont, Prince of
Gavare: and Philip Montmorency, Earl of Horn: made away Montigue,
and the Marquis of Bergues, and cut off in those six years (that Alva
governed) of gentlemen and others, eighteen thousand and six hundred,
by the hands of the hangman, besides all his other barbarous murders
and massacres. By whose ministry when he could not yet bring his
affairs to their wished ends, having it in his hope to work that
by subtility, which he had failed to perform by force; he sent for
governor his bastard brother Don John of Austria, a prince of great
hope, and very gracious to those people. But he, using the same papal
advantage that his predecessors had done, made no scruple to take oath
upon the Holy Evangelists, to observe the treaty made with the General
States; and to discharge the Low Countries of all Spaniards, and other
strangers therein garrisoned: towards whose pay and passport, the
Netherlands strained themselves to make payment of six hundred
thousand pounds. Which monies received, he suddenly surprised the
citadels of Antwerp and Nemours: not doubting (being unsuspected by
the states) to have possessed himself of all the mastering places
of those provinces. For whatsoever he overtly pretended, he held
in secret a contrary counsel with the Secretary Escovedo, Rhodus,
Barlemont, and others, ministers of the Spanish tyranny, formerly
practised, and now again intended. But let us now see the effect and
end of this perjury and of all other the Duke's cruelties. First, for
himself, after he had murdered so many of the nobility; executed (as
aforesaid) eighteen thousand and six hundred in six years, and most
cruelly slain man, woman, and child, in Mechlin, Zutphen, Naerden,
and other places: notwithstanding his Spanish vaunt, that he would
suffocate the Hollanders in their own butter-barrels, and milk-tubs;
he departed the country no otherwise accompanied, than with the curse
and detestation of the whole nation; leaving his master's affairs in a
tenfold worse estate, than he found them at his first arrival. For
Don John, whose haughty conceit of himself overcame the greatest
difficulties; though his judgment were over-weak to manage the least:
what wonders did his fearful breach of faith bring forth, other than
the King his brother's jealousy and distrust, with the untimely death
that seized him, even in the flower of his youth? And for Escovedo his
sharp-witted secretary, who in his own imagination had conquered for
his master both England and the Netherlands; being sent into Spain
upon some new project, he was at the first arrival, and before any
access to the King, by certain ruffians appointed by Anthony Peres
(though by better warrant than his) rudely murdered in his own
lodging. Lastly, if we consider the King of Spain's carriage, his
counsel and success in this business, there is nothing left to the
memory of man more remarkable. For he hath paid above an hundred
millions, and the lives of above four hundred thousand Christians,
for the loss of all those countries; which, for beauty, gave place to
none; and for revenue, did equal his West Indies: for the loss of a
nation which most willingly obeyed him; and who at this day, after
forty years war, are in despite of all his forces become a free
estate, and far more rich and powerful than they were, when he first
began to impoverish and oppress them.
Oh, by what plots, by what forswearings, betrayings, oppressions,
imprisonments, tortures, poisonings, and under what reasons of state,
and politic subtlety, have these fore-named kings, both strangers,
and of our own nation, pulled the vengeance of God upon themselves,
upon theirs, and upon their prudent ministers! and in the end have
brought those things to pass for their enemies, and seen an effect so
directly contrary to all their own counsels and cruelties; as the
one could never have hoped for themselves; and the other never have
succeeded; if no such opposition had ever been made. God hath said it
and performed it ever: "Perdam sapientiam sapientum"; "I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise."
But what of all this? and to what end do we lay before the eyes of
the living, the fall and fortunes of the dead: seeing the world is
the same that it hath been; and the children of the present time, will
still obey their parents? It is in the present time that all the wits
of the world are exercised. To hold the times we have, we hold all
things lawful: and either we hope to hold them forever; or at least we
hope that there is nothing after them to be hoped for. For as we are
content to forget our own experience, and to counterfeit the ignorance
of our own knowledge, in all things that concern ourselves; or
persuade ourselves, that God hath given us letters patents to pursue
all our irreligious affections, with a "non obstante"[12] so we
neither look behind us what hath been, nor before us what shall be. It
is true, that the quantity which we have, is of the body: we are by
it joined to the earth: we are compounded of earth; and we inhabit
it. The Heavens are high, far off, and unsearchable: we have sense and
feeling of corporal things; and of eternal grace, but by revelation.
No marvel then that our thoughts are also earthly: and it is less to
be wondered at, that the words of worthless men can not cleanse them:
seeing their doctrine and instruction, whose understanding the Holy
Ghost vouchsafed to inhabit, have not performed it. For as the Prophet
Isaiah cried out long ago, "Lord, who hath believed our reports?" And
out of doubt, as Isaiah complained then for himself and others: so are
they less believed, every day after other. For although religion, and
the truth thereof be in every man's mouth, yea, in the discourse of
every woman, who for the greatest number are but idols of vanity: what
is it other than an universal dissimulation? We profess that we know
God: but by works we deny him. For beatitude doth not consist in the
knowledge of divine things, but in a divine life: for the Devils know
them better than men. "Beatitudo non est divinorum cognitio, sed vita
divina." And certainly there is nothing more to be admired, and more
to be lamented, than the private contention, the passionate dispute,
the personal hatred, and the perpetual war, massacres, and murders for
religion among Christians: the discourse whereof hath so occupied the
world, as it hath well near driven the practice thereof out of the
world. Who would not soon resolve, that took knowledge but of the
religious disputations among men, and not of their lives which
dispute, that there were no other thing in their desires, than the
purchase of Heaven; and that the world itself were but used as it
ought, and as an inn or place, wherein to repose ourselves in passing
on towards our celestial habitation? when on the contrary, besides the
discourse and outward profession, the soul hath nothing but hypocrisy.
We are all (in effect) become comedians in religion: and while we act
in gesture and voice, divine virtues, in all the course of our lives
we renounce our persons, and the parts we play. For Charity, Justice,
and Truth have but their being _in terms_, like the philosopher's
_Materia prima_.
Neither is it that wisdom, which Solomon defineth to be the
"Schoolmistress of the knowledge of God," that hath valuation in the
world: it is enough that we give it our good word: but the same which is
altogether exercised in the service of the world as the gathering of
riches chiefly, by which we purchase and obtain honor, with the many
respects which attend it. These indeed be the marks, which (when we have
bent our consciences to the highest) we all shoot at. For the obtaining
whereof it is true, that the care is our own; the care our own in this
life, the peril our own in the future: and yet when we have gathered the
greatest abundance, we ourselves enjoy no more thereof, than so much as
belongs to one man. For the rest, he that had the greatest wisdom and
the greatest ability that ever man had, hath told us that this is the
use: "When goods increase (saith Solomon) they also increase that eat
them; and what good cometh to the owners, but the beholding thereof with
their eyes?" As for those that devour the rest, and follow us in fair
weather: they again forsake us in the first tempest of misfortune, and
steer away before the sea and wind; leaving us to the malice of our
destinies. Of these, among a thousand examples, I will take but one out
of Master Danner, and use his own words: "Whilest the Emperor Charles
the Fifth, after the resignation of his estates, stayed at Flushing for
wind, to carry him his last journey into Spain; he conferred on a time
with Seldius, his brother Ferdinand's Ambassador, till the deep of the
night. And when Seldius should depart, the Emperor calling for some of
his servants, and nobody answering him (for those that attended upon
him, were some gone to their lodgings, and all the rest asleep), the
Emperor took up the candle himself, and went before Seldius to light him
down the stairs; and so did, notwithstanding all the resistance that
Seldius could make. And when he was come to the stair's foot, he said
thus unto him: "Seldius, remember this of Charles the Emperor, when he
shall be dead and gone, that him, whom thou hast known in thy time
environed with so many mighty armies and guards of soldiers, thou hast
also seen alone, abandoned, and forsaken, yea even of his own domestical
servants, &c. I acknowledge this change of Fortune to proceed from the
mighty hand of God, which I will by no means go about to withstand."
But you will say, that there are some things else, and of greater
regard than the former. The first is the reverend respect that is held
of great men, and the honor done unto them by all sorts of people. And
it is true indeed: provided, that an inward love for their justice and
piety accompany the outward worship given to their places and power;
without which what is the applause of the multitude, but as the outcry
of an herd of animals, who without the knowledge of any true cause,
please themselves with the noise they make? For seeing it is a thing
exceeding rare, to distinguish Virtue and Fortune: the most impious
(if prosperous) have ever been applauded; the most virtuous (if
unprosperous) have ever been despised. For as Fortune's man rides the
horse, so Fortune herself rides the man; who when he is descended and
on foot, the man taken from his beast, and Fortune from the man, a
base groom beats the one, and a bitter contempt spurns at the other,
with equal liberty.
The second is the greatening of our posterity, and the contemplation
of their glory whom we leave behind us. Certainly, of those which
conceive that their souls departed take any comfort therein, it may
be truly said of them, which Lactantius spake of certain heathen
philosophers, "quod sapientes sunt in re stulta."[13] For when our
spirits immortal shall be once separate from our mortal bodies,
and disposed by God; there remaineth in them no other joy of their
posterity which succeed, than there doth of pride in that stone, which
sleepeth in the wall of the king's palace; nor any other sorrow for
their poverty, than there doth of shame in that, which beareth up a
beggar's cottage. "Nesciunt mortui, etiam sancti, quid agunt
vivi, etiam eorum filii, quia animae mortuorum rebus viventium non
intersunt": "The dead, though holy, know nothing of the living, no,
not of their own children: for the souls of those departed, are not
conversant with their affairs that remain."[14] And if we doubt of St.
Augustine, we can not of Job; who tells us, "That we know not if our
sons shall be honorable: neither shall we understand concerning
them, whether they shall be of low degree." Which Ecclesiastes also
confirmeth: "Man walketh in a shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain:
he heapeth up riches, and can not tell who shall gather them. The
living (saith he) know that they shall die, but the dead know nothing
at all: for who can show unto man what shall be after him under the
sun?" He therefore accounteth it among the rest of worldly vanities,
to labor and travail in the world; not knowing after death whether
a fool or a wise man should enjoy the fruits thereof: "which made me
(saith he) endeavor even to abhor mine own labor." And what can other
men hope, whose blessed or sorrowful estates after death God hath
reserved? man's knowledge lying but in his hope, seeing the Prophet
Isaiah confesseth of the elect, "That Abraham is ignorant of us, and
Israel knows us not." But hereof we are assured, that the long and
dark night of death (of whose following day we shall never behold the
dawn till his return that hath triumphed over it), shall cover us
over till the world be no more. After which, and when we shall again
receive organs glorified and incorruptible, the seats of angelical
affections, in so great admiration shall the souls of the blessed be
exercised, as they can not admit the mixture of any second or less
joy; nor any return of foregone and mortal affection towards friends,
kindred, or children. Of whom whether we shall retain any particular
knowledge, or in any sort distinguish them, no man can assure us; and
the wisest men doubt. But on the contrary, if a divine life retain any
of those faculties which the soul exercised in a mortal body, we shall
not at that time so divide the joys of Heaven, as to cast any part
thereof on the memory of their felicities which remain in the world.
No, be their estates greater than ever the world gave, we shall (by
the difference known unto us) even detest their consideration. And
whatsoever comfort shall remain of all forepast, the same will consist
in the charity which we exercised living; and in that piety, justice,
and firm faith, for which it pleased the infinite mercy of God to
accept of us, and receive us. Shall we therefore value honor and
riches at nothing? and neglect them, as unnecessary and vain?
Certainly no. For that infinite wisdom of God, which hath
distinguished his angels by degrees; which hath given greater and
less light and beauty to heavenly bodies; which hath made differences
between beasts and birds; created the eagle and the fly, the cedar and
the shrub; and among stones, given the fairest tincture to the ruby,
and the quickest light to the diamond; hath also ordained kings,
dukes, or leaders of the people, magistrates, judges, and other
degrees among men. And as honor is left to posterity, for a mark and
ensign of the virtue and understanding of their ancestors: so (seeing
Siracides preferreth death before beggary: and that titles, without
proportionable estates, fall under the miserable succor of other men's
pity) I account it foolishness to condemn such a care: provided, that
worldly goods be well gotten, and that we raise not our own buildings
out of other men's ruins. For, as Plato doth first prefer the
perfection of bodily health; secondly, the form and beauty; and
thirdly, "Divitias nulla fraude quaesitas":[15] so Jeremiah cries,
"Woe unto them that erect their houses by unrighteousness, and their
chambers without equity": and Isaiah the same, "Woe to those that
spoil and were not spoiled." And it was out of the true wisdom of
Solomon, that he commandeth us, "not to drink the wine of violence;
not to lie in wait for blood, and not to swallow them up alive, whose
riches we covet: for such are the ways (saith he) of everyone that is
greedy of gain."
And if we could afford ourselves but so much leisure as to consider,
that he which hath most in the world, hath, in respect of the world,
nothing in it: and that he which hath the longest time lent him to
live in it, hath yet no proportion at all therein, setting it either
by that which is past, when we were not, or by that time which is to
come, in which we shall abide forever: I say, if both, to wit, our
proportion in the world, and our time in the world, differ not
much from that which is nothing; it is not out of any excellency of
understanding, that we so much prize the one, which hath (in effect)
no being: and so much neglect the other, which hath no ending:
coveting those mortal things of the world, as if our souls were
therein immortal; and neglecting those things which are immortal, as
if ourselves after the world were but mortal.
But let every man value his own wisdom, as he pleaseth. Let the rich
man think all fools, that cannot equal his abundance: the revenger
esteem all negligent, that have not trodden down their opposites; the
politician, all gross that cannot merchandise their faith: yet when we
once come in sight of the port of death, to which all winds drive us,
and when by letting fall that fatal anchor, which can never be weighed
again, the navigation of this life takes end; then it is, I say, that
our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten
from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the
uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our lives past. It is then
that we cry out to God for mercy; then when our selves can no longer
exercise cruelty to others; and it is only then, that we are strucken
through the soul with this terrible sentence, "That God will not be
mocked." For if according to St. Peter, "The righteous scarcely be
saved: and that God spared not his angels"; where shall those appear,
who, having served their appetites all their lives, presume to think,
that the severe commandments of the all-powerful God were given but
in sport; and that the short breath, which we draw when death presseth
us, if we can but fashion it to the sound of mercy (without any kind
of satisfaction or amends) is sufficient? "O quam multi," saith
a reverend father, "cum hac spe ad aeternos labores et bella
descendunt!"[16] I confess that it is a great comfort to our friends,
to have it said, that we ended well; for we all desire (as Balaam
did) "to die the death of the righteous." But what shall we call a
disesteeming, an opposing, or (indeed) a mocking of God: if those men
do not oppose Him, disesteem Him, and mock Him, that think it enough
for God, to ask Him forgiveness at leisure, with the remainder and
last drawing of a malicious breath? For what do they otherwise,
that die this kind of well-dying, but say unto God as followeth?
"We beseech Thee, O God, that all the falsehoods, forswearings, and
treacheries of our lives past, may be pleasing unto Thee; that Thou
wilt for our sakes (that have had no leisure to do anything for Thine)
change Thy nature (though impossible,) and forget to be a just God;
that Thou wilt love injuries and oppressions, call ambition wisdom,
and charity foolishness. For I shall prejudice my son (which I am
resolved not to do) if I make restitution; and confess myself to have
been unjust (which I am too proud to do) if I deliver the oppressed."
Certainly, these wise worldlings have either found out a new God,
or made one: and in all likelihood such a leaden one, as Louis the
Eleventh wore in his cap; which when he had caused any that he feared,
or hated, to be killed, he would take it from his head and kiss it:
beseeching it to pardon him this one evil act more, and it should be
the last; which (as at other times) he did, when by the practice of a
cardinal and a falsified sacrament, he caused the Earl of Armagnac to
be stabbed to death: mockeries indeed fit to be used towards a leaden,
but not towards the ever-living God. But of this composition are all
devout lovers of the world, that they fear all that is dureless[17]
and ridiculous: they fear the plots and practises of their
opposites,[18] and their very whisperings: they fear the opinions
of men, which beat but upon shadows: they flatter and forsake the
prosperous and unprosperous, be they friends or kings: yea they dive
under water, like ducks, at every pebblestone, that is but thrown
toward them by a powerful hand: and on the contrary, they show an
obstinate and giant-like valor, against the terrible judgments of
the all-powerful God, yea they show themselves gods against God, and
slaves towards men; towards men whose bodies and consciences are alike
rotten.
Now for the rest: If we truly examine the difference of both
conditions; to wit, of the rich and mighty, whom we call fortunate;
and of the poor and oppressed, whom we account wretched we shall find
the happiness of the one, and the miserable estate of the other, so
tied by God to the very instant, and both so subject to interchange
(witness the sudden downfall of the greatest princes, and the speedy
uprising of the meanest persons) as the one hath nothing so certain,
whereof to boast; nor the other so uncertain, whereof to bewail
itself. For there is no man so assured of his honor, of his riches,
health, or life; but that he may be deprived of either, or all, the
very next hour or day to come. "Quid vesper vehat, incertum est,"
"What the evening will bring with it, it is uncertain." "And yet ye
cannot tell (saith St. James) what shall be tomorrow. Today he is set
up, and tomorrow he shall not be found; for he is turned into dust,
and his purpose perisheth." And although the air which compasseth
adversity be very obscure; yet therein we better discern God, than in
that shining light which environeth worldly glory; through which, for
the clearness thereof, there is no vanity which escapeth our sight.
And let adversity seem what it will; to happy men ridiculous, who make
themselves merry at other men's misfortunes; and to those under the
cross, grievous: yet this is true, that for all that is past, to the
very instant, the portions remaining are equal to either. For be it
that we have lived many years, "and (according to Solomon) in them all
we have rejoiced;" or be it that we have measured the same length of
days and therein have evermore sorrowed: yet looking back from our
present being, we find both the one and the other, to wit, the joy and
the woe, sailed out of sight; and death, which doth pursue us and hold
us in chase, from our infancy, hath gathered it. "Quicquid aetatis
retro est, mors tenet:" "Whatsoever of our age is past, death holds
it." So as whosoever he be, to whom Fortune hath been a servant, and
the Time a friend; let him but take the account of his memory (for we
have no other keeper of our pleasures past), and truly examine what it
hath reserved either beauty and youth, or foregone delights; what
it hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of
whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment,
then unvaluable; and he shall find that all the art which his elder
years have, can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions, than
heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining, but
those sorrows, which grow up after our fast-springing youth; overtake
it, when it is at a stand; and overtopped it utterly, when it begins
to wither: in so much as looking back from the very instant time, and
from our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature, hath as
little sense of all his former miseries and pains, as he, that is
most blessed in common opinions, hath of his fore-passed pleasure and
delights. For whatsoever is cast behind us, is just nothing: and what
is to come, deceitful hope hath it: "Omnia quae eventura sunt, in
incerto jacent."[19] Only those few black swans, I must except: who
having had the grace to value worldly vanities at no more than their
own price; do, by retaining the comfortable memory of a well acted
life, behold death without dread, and the grave without fear; and
embrace both, as necessary guides to endless glory.
For myself, this is my consolation, and all that I can offer to
others, that the sorrows of this life are but of two sorts: whereof
the one hath respect to God, the other, to the world. In the first we
complain to God against ourselves, for our offences against Him; and
confess, "Et Tu Justus es in omnibus quae venerunt super nos." "And
Thou, O Lord, are just in all that hath befallen us." In the second we
complain to ourselves against God: as if he had done us wrong, either
in not giving us worldly goods and honors, answering our appetites: or
for taking them again from us having had them; forgetting that humble
and just acknowledgment of Job, "the Lord hath given, and the Lord
hath taken." To the first of which St. Paul hath promised blessedness;
to the second, death. And out of doubt he is either a fool, or
ungrateful to God, or both, that doth not acknowledge, how mean soever
his estate be, that the same is yet far greater than that which God
oweth him: or doth not acknowledge, how sharp soever his afflictions
be, that the same are yet far less, than those which are due unto
him. And if an heathen wise man call the adversities of the world
but "tributa vivendi," "the tributes of living;" a wise Christian man
ought to know them, and bear them, but as the tributes of offending.
He ought to bear them manlike, and resolvedly; and not as those
whining soldiers do, "qui gementes sequuntur imperatorem."[20]
For seeing God, who is the author of all our tragedies, hath written
out for us and appointed us all the parts we are to play: and hath
not, in their distribution, been partial to the most mighty princes of
the world: that gave unto Darius the part of the greatest emperor, and
the part of the most miserable beggar, a beggar begging water of an
enemy, to quench the great drought of death: that appointed Bajazet
to play the Grand Signior of the Turks in the morning, and in the same
day the footstool of Tamerlane (both which parts Valerian had also
played, being taken by Sapores): that made Belisarius play the most
victorious captain, and lastly the part of a blind beggar: of which
examples many thousands may be produced: why should other men, who are
but as the least worms, complain of wrong? Certainly there is no other
account to be made of this ridiculous world, than to resolve, that
the change of fortune on the great theatre, is but as the change of
garments on the less. For when on the one and the other, every man
wears but his own skin, the players are all alike. Now, if any man
out of weakness prize the passages of this world otherwise (for saith
Petrarch, "Magni ingenii est revocare mentem a sensibus"[21]) it is by
reason of that unhappy phantasy of ours, which forgeth in the brains
of man all the miseries (the corporal excepted) whereunto he is
subject. Therein it is, that misfortunes and adversity work all that
they work. For seeing Death, in the end of the play, takes from all
whatsoever Fortune or Force takes from any one; it were a foolish
madness in the shipwreck of worldly things, where all sinks but the
sorrow, to save it. That were, as Seneca saith, "Fortunae succumbere,
quod tristius est omni fato:" "To fall under Fortune, of all other the
most miserable destiny."
But it is now time to sound a retreat; and to desire to be excused of
this long pursuit: and withal, that the good intent, which hath moved
me to draw the picture of time past (which we call History) in so
large a table, may also be accepted in place of a better reason.
The examples of divine providence, everywhere found (the first divine
histories being nothing else but a continuation of such examples) have
persuaded me to fetch my beginning from the beginning of all things:
to wit, Creation. For though these two glorious actions of the
Almighty be so near, and (as it were) linked together, that the one
necessarily implieth the other: Creation inferring Providence (for
what father forsaketh the child that he hath begotten?) and Providence
pre-supposing Creation: yet many of those that have seemed to excel in
worldly wisdom, have gone about to disjoin this coherence; the epicure
denying both Creation and Providence, but granting the world had a
beginning; the Aristotelian granting Providence, but denying both the
creation and the beginning.
Now although this doctrine of faith, touching the creation in time
(for by faith we understand, that the world was made by the word of
God), be too weighty a work for Aristotle's rotten ground to bear
up, upon which he hath (notwithstanding) founded the defences and
fortresses of all his verbal doctrine: yet that the necessity of
infinite power, and the world's beginning, and the impossibility
of the contrary even in the judgment of natural reason, wherein he
believed, had not better informed him; it is greatly to be marvelled
at. And it is no less strange, that those men which are desirous of
knowledge (seeing Aristotle hath failed in this main point; and taught
little other than terms in the rest) have so retrenched their
minds from the following and overtaking of truth, and so absolutely
subjected themselves to the law of those philosophical principles;
as all contrary kind of teaching, in the search of causes, they have
condemned either for phantastical, or curious. Both doth it follow,
that the positions of heathen philosophers are undoubted grounds and
principles indeed, because so called? Or that _ipsi dixerunt_, doth
make them to be such? Certainly no. But this is true, that where
natural reason hath built anything so strong against itself, as the
same reason can hardly assail it, much less batter it down: the same
in every question of nature, and infinite power, may be approved for
a fundamental law of human knowledge. For saith Charron in his book of
wisdom, "Toute proposition humaine a autant d'authorite quel'autre,
si la raison n'on fait la difference;" "Every human proposition hath
equal authority, if reason make not the difference," the rest being
but the fables of principles. But hereof how shall the upright and
impartial judgment of man give a sentence, where opposition and
examination are not admitted to give in evidence? And to this purpose
it was well said of Lactantius, "Sapientiam sibi adimunt, qui sine
ullo judicio inventa maiorum probant, et ab aliis pecudum more
ducuntur:" "They neglect their own wisdom, who without any judgment
approve the invention of those that forewent them; and suffer
themselves after the manner of beasts, to be led by them;" by the
advantage of which sloth and dullness, ignorance is now become so
powerful a tyrant, as it hath set true philosophy, physics, and
divinity in a pillory; and written over the first, "Contra negantem
principia;"[22] over the second, "Virtus specifica;"[23] over the
third, "Ecclesta Romana."[24]
But for myself, I shall never be persuaded, that God hath shut up all
light of learning within the lanthorn of Aristotle's brains: or that
it was ever said unto him, as unto Esdras, "_Accendam in corde tuo
Lucernam intellectus_";[25] that God hath given invention but to the
heathen, and that they only invaded nature, and found the strength
and bottom thereof; the same nature having consumed all her store,
and left nothing of price to after-ages. That these and these be
the causes of these and these effects, time hath taught us; and not
reason: and so hath experience without art. The cheese-wife knoweth it
as well as the philosopher, that sour rennet doth coagulate her milk
into a curd. But if we ask a reason of this cause, why the sourness
doth it? whereby it doth it? and the manner how? I think that there
is nothing to be found in vulgar philosophy, to satisfy this and many
other like vulgar questions. But man to cover his ignorance in the
least things, who can not give a true reason for the grass under his
feet, why it should be green rather than red, or of any other color;
that could never yet discover the way and reason of nature's working,
in those which are far less noble creatures than himself; who is far
more noble than the heavens themselves: "Man (saith Solomon) that
can hardly discern the things that are upon the earth, and with great
labor find out the things that are before us"; that hath so short a
time in the world, as he no sooner begins to learn, than to die;
that hath in his memory but borrowed knowledge; in his understanding,
nothing truly; that is ignorant of the essence of his own soul, and
which the wisest of the naturalists (if Aristotle be he) could never
so much as define, but by the action and effect, telling us what it
works (which all men knew as well as he) but not what it is, which
neither he, nor any else, doth know, but God that created it; ("For
though I were perfect, yet I know not my soul," saith Job). Man, I
say, that is but an idiot in the next cause of his own life, and in
the cause of all actions of his life, will (notwithstanding) examine
the art of God in creating the world; of God, who (saith Job) "is so
excellent as we know him not"; and examine the beginning of the work,
which had end before mankind had a beginning of being. He will disable
God's power to make a world, without matter to make it of. He will
rather give the motes of the air for a cause; cast the work on
necessity or chance; bestow the honor thereof on nature; make two
powers, the one to be the author of the matter, the other of the
form; and lastly, for want of a workman, have it eternal: which latter
opinion Aristotle, to make himself the author of a new doctrine,
brought into the world: and his Sectators[26] have maintained it;
"parati ac conjurati, quos sequuntur, philosophorum animis invictis
opiniones tueri."[27] For Hermes, who lived at once with, or
soon after Moses, Zoroaster, Musaeus, Orpheus, Linus, Anaximenes,
Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Melissus, Pherecydes, Thales, Cleanthes,
Pythagoras, Plato, and many other (whose opinions are exquisitely
gathered by Steuchius Eugubinus) found in the necessity of invincible
reason, "One eternal and infinite Being," to be the parent of the
universal. "Horum omnium sententia quamvis sit incerta, eodem tamen
spectat, ut Providentiam unam esse consentiant: sive enim natura, sive
aether, sive ratio, sive mens, sive fatalis necessitas, sive divina
lex; idem est quod a nobis dicitur Deus": "All these men's opinions
(saith Lactantius) though uncertain, come to this; That they agree
upon one Providence; whether the same be nature, or light, or reason,
or understanding, or destiny, or divine ordinance, that it is the same
which we call God." Certainly, as all the rivers in the world, though
they have divers risings, and divers runnings; though they sometimes
hide themselves for a while under ground, and seem to be lost in
sea-like lakes; do at last find, and fall into the great ocean:
so after all the searches that human capacity hath, and after all
philosophical contemplation and curiosity; in the necessity of this
infinite power, all the reason of man ends and dissolves itself.
As for the others; the first touching those which conceive the matter
of the world to have been eternal, and that God did not create
the world "Exnihilo,"[28] but "ex materia praeexistente":[29] the
supposition is so weak, as is hardly worth the answering. For
(saith Eusebius) "Mihi videntur qui hoc dicunt, fortunam quoque Deo
annectere," "They seem unto me, which affirm this, to give part of the
work to God, and part to Fortune"; insomuch as if God had not found
this first matter by chance, He had neither been author nor father,
nor creator, nor lord of the universal. For were the matter or chaos
eternal, it then follows, that either this supposed matter did fit
itself to God, or God accommodate Himself to the matter. For the
first, it is impossible, that things without sense could proportion
themselves to the workman's will. For the second: it were horrible to
conceive of God, that as an artificer He applied himself, according to
the proportion of matter which He lighted upon.
But let it be supposed, that this matter hath been made by any power,
not omnipotent, and infinitely wise; I would gladly learn how it came
to pass, that the same was proportionable to his intention, that was
omnipotent and infinitely wise; and no more, nor no less, than served
to receive the form of the universal. For, had it wanted anything of
what was sufficient; then must it be granted, that God created out of
nothing so much new matter, as served to finish the work of the world:
or had there been more of this matter than sufficed, then God did
dissolve and annihilate whatsoever remained and was superfluous. And
this must every reasonable soul confess, that it is the same work of
God alone, to create anything out of nothing, and by the same art
and power, and by none other, can those things, or any part of that
eternal matter, be again changed into nothing; by which those things,
that once were nothing, obtained a beginning of being.
Again, to say that this matter was the cause of itself; this, of all
other, were the greatest idiotism. For, if it were the cause of itself
at any time; then there was also a time when itself was not: at
which time of not being, it is easy enough to conceive, that it could
neither procure itself, nor anything else. For to be, and not to be,
at once, is impossible. "Nihil autem seipsum praecedit, neque; seipsum
componit corpus": "There is nothing that doth precede itself, neither
do bodies compound themselves."
For the rest, those that feign this matter to be eternal, must of
necessity confess, that infinite cannot be separate from eternity. And
then had infinite matter left no place for infinite form, but that
the first matter was finite, the form which it received proves it. For
conclusion of this part, whosoever will make choice, rather to believe
in eternal deformity, or in eternal dead matter, than in eternal light
and eternal life: let eternal death be his reward. For it is a madness
of that kind, as wanteth terms to express it. For what reason of man
(whom the curse of presumption hath not stupefied) hath doubted, that
infinite power (of which we can comprehend but a kind of shadow, "quia
comprehensio est intra terminos, qui infinito repugnant"[30]) hath
anything wanting in itself, either for matter of form; yea for as many
worlds (if such had been God's will) as the sea hath sands? For where
the power is without limitation, the work hath no other limitation,
than the workman's will. Yea reason itself finds it more easy for
infinite power to deliver from itself a finite world, without the help
of matter prepared; than for a finite man, a fool and dust, to change
the form of matter made to his hands. They are Dionysius his words,
"Deus in una existentia omnia praehabet"[31] and again, "Esse omnium
est ipsa divinitas, omne quod vides, et quod non vides",[32] to wit,
"causaliter",[33] or in better terms, "non tanquam forma, sed tanquam
causa universalis"[34] Neither hath the world universal closed up all
of God "For the most part of his works (saith Siracides) are hid".
Neither can the depth of his wisdom be opened, by the glorious work of
the world, which never brought to knowledge all it can, for then were
his infinite power bounded and made finite. And hereof it comes, That
we seldom entitle God the all-showing, or the all-willing, but the
Almighty, that is, infinitely able.
But now for those, who from that ground, "that out of nothing, nothing
is made," infer the world's eternity, and yet not so savage therein,
as those are, which give an eternal being to dead matter, it is true
if the word (nothing) be taken in the affirmative, and the making,
imposed upon natural agents and finite power; that out of nothing,
nothing is made. But seeing their great doctor Aristotle himself
confesseth, "quod omnes antiqui decreverunt quasi quodam return
principium, ipsumque infinitum" "That all the ancient decree a kind
of beginning, and the same to be infinite"; and a little after, more
largely and plainly, "Principium eius est nullum, sed ipsum omnium
cernitur esse principium, ac omnia complecti ac regere",[35] it is
strange that this philosopher, with his followers, should rather make
choice out of falsehood, to conclude falsely, than out of truth, to
resolve truly. For if we compare the world universal, and all the
unmeasureable orbs of Heaven, and those marvellous bodies of the sun,
moon, and stars, with "ipsum infinitum": it may truly be said of them
all, which himself affirms of his imaginary "Materia prima,"[36] that
they are neither "quid, quale," nor "quantum "; and therefore to bring
finite (which hath no proportion with infinite) out of infinite ("qui
destruit omnem proportionem"[37]) is no wonder in God's power. And
therefore Anaximander, Melissus, and Empedocles, call the world
universal, but "particulam universitatis" and "infinitatis," a parcel
of that which is the universality and the infinity inself; and Plato,
but a shadow of God. But the other to prove the world's eternity,
urgeth this maxim, "that, a sufficient and effectual cause being
granted, an answerable effect thereof is also granted": inferring that
God being forever a sufficient and effectual cause of the world, the
effect of the cause should also have been forever; to wit, the world
universal. But what a strange mockery is this in so great a master,
to confess a sufficient and effectual cause of the world, (to wit,
an almighty God) in his antecedent; and the same God to be a God
restrained in his conclusion; to make God free in power, and bound in
will; able to effect, unable to determine; able to make all things,
and yet unable to make choice of the time when? For this were
impiously to resolve of God, as of natural necessity; which hath
neither choice, nor will, nor understanding; which cannot but work
matter being present: as fire, to burn things combustible. Again he
thus disputeth, that every agent which can work, and doth not work,
if it afterward work, it is either thereto moved by itself, or by
somewhat else: and so it passeth from power to act. But God (saith he)
is immovable, and is neither moved by himself, nor by any other: but
being always the same, doth always work. Whence he concludeth, if the
world were caused by God, that he was forever the cause thereof: and
therefore eternal. The answer to this is very easy, for that God's
performing in due time that which he ever determined at length to
perform, doth not argue any alteration or change, but rather constancy
in him. For the same action of his will, which made the world forever,
did also withhold the effect to the time ordained. To this answer, in
itself sufficient, others add further, that the pattern or image
of the world may be said to be eternal: which the Platonics call
"spiritualem mundum"[38] and do in this sort distinguish the idea
and creation in time. "Spiritualis ille mundus, mundi huius exemplar,
primumque Dei opus, vita aequali est architecto, fuit semper cum illo,
eritque semper. Mundus autem corporalis, quod secundum opus est Dei,
decedit iam ab opifice ex parte una, quia non fuit semper: retinet
alteram, quia sit semper futurus": "That representative, or the
intentional world (say they) the sampler of this visible world, the
first work of God, was equally ancient with the architect; for it was
forever with him, and ever shall be. This material world, the second
work or creature of God, doth differ from the worker in this, that it
was not from everlasting, and in this it doth agree, that it shall
be forever to come." The first point, that it was not forever, all
Christians confess: the other they understand no otherwise, than that
after the consummation of this world, there shall be a new Heaven and
a new earth, without any new creation of matter. But of these things
we need not here stand to argue; though such opinions be not unworthy
the propounding, in this consideration, of an eternal and unchangeable
cause, producing a changeable and temporal effect. Touching which
point Proclus the Platonist disputeth, that the compounded essence of
the world (and because compounded, therefore dissipable) is continued,
and knit to the Divine Being, by an individual and inseparable power,
flowing from Divine unity; and that the world's natural appetite of
God showeth, that the same proceedeth from a good and understanding
divine; and that this virtue, by which the world is continued and knit
together, must be infinite, that it may infinitely and everlastingly
continue and preserve the same. Which infinite virtue, the finite
world (saith he) is not capable of, but receiveth it from the divine
infinite, according to the temporal nature it hath, successively every
moment by little and little; even as the whole material world is not
altogether: but the abolished parts are departed by small degrees, and
the parts yet to come, do by the same small degrees succeed; as the
shadow of a tree in a river seemeth to have continued the same a long
time in the water, but it is perpetually renewed, in the continual
ebbing and flowing thereof.
But to return to them, which denying that ever the world had any
beginning, withal deny that ever it shall have any end, and to this
purpose affirm, that it was never heard, never read, never seen,
no not by any reason perceived, that the heavens have ever suffered
corruption; or that they appear any way the older by continuance; or
in any sort otherwise than they were; which had they been subject to
final corruption, some change would have been discerned in so long a
time. To this it is answered, that the little change as yet perceived,
doth rather prove their newness, and that they have not continued
so long; than that they will continue forever as they are. And if
conjectural arguments may receive answer by conjectures; it then
seemeth that some alteration may be found. For either Aristotle,
Pliny, Strabo, Beda, Aquinas, and others, were grossly mistaken; or
else those parts of the world lying within the burnt zone, were not in
elder times habitable, by reason of the sun's heat, neither were the
seas, under the equinoctial, navigable. But we know by experience,
that those regions, so situate, are filled with people, and exceeding
temperate; and the sea, over which we navigate, passable enough. We
read also many histories of deluges: and how in the time of Phaeton,
divers places in the world were burnt up, by the sun's violent heat.
But in a word, this observation is exceeding feeble. For we know it
for certain, that stone walls, of matter mouldering and friable, have
stood two, or three thousand years; that many things have been digged
up out of the earth, of that depth, as supposed to have been buried
by the general flood; without any alteration either of substance or
figure: yea it is believed, and it is very probable, that the gold
which is daily found in mines, and rocks, under ground, was created
together with the earth.
And if bodies elementary, and compounded, the eldest times have not
invaded and corrupted: what great alteration should we look for in
celestial and quint-essential bodies? And yet we have reason to think,
that the sun, by whose help all creatures are generate, doth not
in these latter ages assist nature, as heretofore. We have neither
giants, such as the eldest world had; nor mighty men, such as the
elder world had; but all things in general are reputed of less virtue
which from the heavens receive virtue. Whence, if the nature of a
preface would permit a larger discourse, we might easily fetch store
of proof; as that this world shall at length have end, as that once it
had beginning.
And I see no good answer that can be made to this objection: if the
world were eternal, why not all things in the world eternal? If there
were no first, no cause, no father, no creator, no incomprehensible
wisdom, but that every nature had been alike eternal; and man more
rational than every other nature: why had not the eternal reason of
man provided for his eternal being in the world? For if all were
equal why not equal conditions to all? Why should heavenly bodies live
forever; and the bodies of men rot and die?
Again, who was it that appointed the earth to keep the center, and
gave order that it should hang in the air: that the sun should travel
between the tropics, and never exceed those bounds, nor fail to
perform that progress once in every year: the moon to live by borrowed
light; the fixed stars (according to common opinion) to be fastened
like nails in a cartwheel; and the planets to wander at their
pleasure? Or if none of these had power over other: was it out of
charity and love, that the sun by his perpetual travel within these
two circles, hath visited, given light unto, and relieved all parts
of the earth, and the creatures therein, by turns and times? Out
of doubt, if the sun have of his own accord kept this course in all
eternity, he may justly be called eternal charity and everlasting
love. The same may be said of all the stars; who being all of them
most large and clear fountains of virtue and operation, may also, be
called eternal virtues: the earth may be called eternal patience; the
moon, an eternal borrower and beggar; and man of all other the most
miserable, eternally mortal. And what were this, but to believe again
in the old play of the gods? Yea in more gods by millions, than ever
Hesiodus dreamed of. But instead of this mad folly, we see it well
enough with our feeble and mortal eyes; and the eyes of our reason
discern it better; that the sun, moon, stars, and the earth, are
limited bounded, and constrained: themselves they have not constrained
nor could. "Omne determinatum causam habet aliquam efficientem, quae
illud determinaverit:" "Everything bounded hath some efficient cause,
by which it is bounded."
Now for Nature; as by the ambiguity of this name, the school of
Aristotle hath both commended many errors unto us, and sought also
thereby to obscure the glory of the high moderator of all things,
shining in the creation, and in the governing of the world: so if the
best definition be taken out of the second of Aristotle's "Physics,"
or "primo de Coelo," or out of the fifth of his "Metaphysics"; I
say that the best is but nominal, and serving only to difference the
beginning of natural motion from artificial: which yet the Academics
open better, when they call it "a seminary strength, infused into
matter by the soul of the world": who give the first place to
Providence, the second to Fate, and but the third to Nature.
"Providentia" (by which they understand God) "dux et caput; Fatum,
medium ex providentia prodiens; Natura postremum"[39] But be it what
he will, or be it any of these (God excepted) or participating of all:
yet that it hath choice or understanding (both which are necessarily
in the cause of all things) no man hath avowed. For this is
unanswerable of Lactantius, "Is autem facit aliquid, qui aut
voluntatem faciendi habet, aut scientiam:" "He only can be said to be
the doer of a thing, that hath either will or knowledge in the doing
it."
But the will and science of Nature, are in these words truly expressed
by Ficinus: "Potest ubique Natura, vel per diversa media, vel ex
diversis materiis, diversa facere: sublata vero mediorum materiatumque
diversitate, vel unicum, vel similimum operatur, neque potest
quando adest materia non operari"; "It is the power of Nature by the
diversity of means, or out of diversity of matter, to produce divers
things: but taking away the diversity of means, and the diversity of
matter, it then works but one or the like work; neither can it but
work, matter being present." Now if Nature made choice of diversity of
matter, to work all these variable works of heaven and earth, it had
then both understanding and will; it had counsel to begin; reason to
dispose; virtue and knowledge to finish, and power to govern: without
which all things had been but one and the same: all of the matter of
heaven; or all of the matter of earth. And if we grant Nature this
will, and this understanding, this course, reason, and power: "Cur
Natura potius quam Deus nominetur?" "Why should we then call such a
cause rather Nature, than God?" "God, of whom all men have notion,
and give the first and highest place to divine power": "Omnes homines
notionem deorum habent, omnesque summun locum divino cuidam numini
assignant." And this I say in short; that it is a true effect of true
reason in man (were there no authority more binding than reason)
to acknowledge and adore the first and most sublime power. "Vera
philosophia, est ascensus ab his quae fluunt, et oriuntur, et
occidunt, ad ea quae vera sunt, et semper eadem": "True philosophy, is
an ascending from the things which flow, and arise, and fall, to the
things that are forever the same."
For the rest; I do also account it not the meanest, but an impiety
monstrous, to confound God and Nature; be it but in terms. For it is
God, that only disposeth of all things according to His own will, and
maketh of one earth, vessels of honor and dishonor. It is Nature
that can dispose of nothing, but according to the will of the matter
wherein it worketh. It is God that commandeth all: it is Nature that
is obedient to all: it is God that doth good unto all, knowing and
loving the good He doth: It is Nature, that secondarily doth also
good, but it neither knoweth nor loveth the good it doth. It is God,
that hath all things in Himself: Nature, nothing in itself. It is God,
which is the Father, and hath begotten all things: it is Nature, which
is begotten by all things, in which it liveth and laboreth; for by
itself it existeth not. For shall we say, that it is out of affection
to the earth, that heavy things fall towards it? Shall we call it
reason, which doth conduct every river into the salt sea? Shall
we term it knowledge in fire, that makes it to consume combustible
matter? If it be affection, reason, and knowledge in these; by the
same affection, reason, and knowledge it is, that Nature worketh.
And therefore seeing all things work as they do, (call it by Form, or
Nature, or by what you please) yet because they work by an impulsion,
which they cannot resist, or by a faculty, infused by the supremest
power; we are neither to wonder at, nor to worship, the faculty that
worketh, nor the creature wherein it worketh. But herein lies the
wonder: and to him is the worship due, who hath created such a nature
in things, and such a faculty, as neither knowing itself, the matter
wherein it worketh, nor the virtue and power which it hath; do yet
work all things to their last and uttermost perfection. And therefore
every reasonable man, taking to himself for a ground that which is
granted by all antiquity, and by all men truly learned that ever the
world had; to wit; that there is a power infinite, and eternal (which
also necessity doth prove unto us, without the help of faith, and
reason; without the force of authority) all things do as easily
follow which have been delivered by divine letters, as the waters of
a running river do successfully pursue each other from the first
fountains.
This much I say it is, that reason itself hath taught us: and this is
the beginning of knowledge. "Sapientia praecedit, Religio sequitur:
quia prius est Deum scire, consequens colere"; "Sapience goes before,
Religion follows: because it is first to know God, and then to worship
Him." This sapience Plato calleth "absoluti boni scientiam," "the
science of the absolute good": and another "scientiam rerum primarum,
sempiternarum, perpetuarum"[40] For "faith (saith Isidore) is not
extorted by violence; but by reason and examples persuaded": "fides
nequaquam vi extorquetur, sed ratione et exemplis suadetur." I confess
it, that to inquire further, as to the essence of God, of His power,
of His art, and by what means He created the world: or of His secret
judgment, and the causes, is not an effect of reason. "Sed cum ratione
insaniunt," but "they grow mad with reason," that inquire after it.
For as it is no shame, nor dishonor (saith a French author) "de faire
arrest au but qu'on nasceu surpasser," "for a man to rest himself
there where he finds it impossible to pass on further": so whatsoever
is beyond, and out of the reach of true reason, it acknowledged it to
be so; as understanding itself not to be infinite, but according to
the name and nature it hath, to be a teacher, that best knows the end
of his own art. For seeing both reason and necessity teach us (reason,
which is "pars divini spiritus in corpus humanum mersi"[41]) that the
world was made by a power infinite; and yet how it was made, it cannot
teach us: and seeing the same reason and necessity make us know,
that the same infinite power is everywhere in the world; and yet how
everywhere, it cannot inform us: our belief hereof is not weakened,
but greatly strengthened, by our ignorance, because it is the same
reason that tells us, that such a nature cannot be said to be God,
that can be in all conceived by man.
I have already been over-long, to make any large discourse either of
the parts of the following story, or in mine own excuse: especially in
the excuse of this or that passage; seeing the whole is exceeding
weak and defective. Among the grossest, the unsuitable division of
the books, I could not know how to excuse, had I not been directed to
enlarge the building after the foundation was laid, and the first
part finished. All men know that there is no great art in the dividing
evenly of these things, which are subject to number and measure. For
the rest, it suits well enough with a great many books of this
age, which speak too much, and yet say little; "Ipsi nobis furto
subducimur"; "We are stolen away from ourselves," setting a high price
on all that is our own. But hereof, though a late good writer make
complaint, yet shall it not lay hold on me, because I believe as he
doth; that who so thinks himself the wisest man, is but a poor and
miserable ignorant. Those that are the best men of war against all
the vanities and fooleries of the world, do always keep the strongest
guards against themselves, to defend them from themselves; from
self-love, self-estimation, and self-opinion.
Generally concerning the order of the work, I have only taken counsel
from the argument. For of the Assyrians, which after the downfall of
Babel take up the first part, and were the first great kings of
the world, there came little to the view of posterity: some few
enterprises, greater in fame than faith, of Ninus and Semiramis,
excepted.
It was the story of the Hebrews, of all before the Olympiads, that
overcame the consuming disease of time, and preserved itself, from the
very cradle and beginning to this day: and yet not so entire, but
that the large discourses thereof (to which in many Scriptures we are
referred) are nowhere found. The fragments of other stories, with the
actions of those kings and princes which shot up here and there in the
same time, I am driven to relate by way of digression: of which we may
say with Virgil: "Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto"; "They appear
here and there floating in the great gulf of time."
To the same first ages do belong the report of many inventions therein
found, and from them derived to us; though most of the authors' names
have perished in so long a navigation. For those ages had their laws;
they had diversity of government; they had kingly rule; nobility;
policy in war; navigation, and all, or the most of needful trades. To
speak therefore of these (seeing in a general history we should have
left a great deal of nakedness, by their omission) it cannot properly
be called a digression. True it is, that I have made also many others:
which if they shall be laid to my charge, I must cast the fault into
the great heap of human error. For seeing we digress in all the
ways of our lives: yea, seeing the life of man is nothing else but
digression; I may the better be excused, in writing their lives and
actions. I am not altogether ignorant in the laws of history and of
the kinds.
The same hath been taught by many, but no man better, and with greater
brevity, than by that excellent learned gentleman, Sir Francis Bacon.
Christian laws are also taught us by the prophets and apostles; and
every day preached unto us. But we still make large digressions: yea,
the teachers themselves do not (in all) keep the path which they point
out to others.
For the rest, after such time as the Persians had wrested the Empire
from the Chaldeans, and had raised a great monarchy, producing actions
of more importance than were elsewhere to be found; it was agreeable
to the order of the story, to attend this Empire; whilst it so
flourished, that the affairs of the nations adjoining had reference
thereunto. The like observance was to be used towards the fortunes of
Greece, when they again began to get ground upon the Persians; as also
towards the affairs of Rome, when the Romans grew more mighty than the
Greeks.
As for the Medes, the Macedonians, the Sicilians, the Carthaginians,
and other nations who resisted the beginnings of the former empires,
and afterwards became but parts of their composition and enlargement;
it seemed best to remember what was known of them from their several
beginnings, in such times and places as they in their flourishing
estates opposed those monarchies, which in the end swallowed them up.
And herein I have followed the best geographers: who seldom give
names to those small brooks, whereof many, joined together, make great
rivers: till such times as they become united, and run in main stream
to the ocean sea. If the phrase be weak, and the style not everywhere
like itself: the first shows their legitimation and true parent; the
second will excuse itself upon the variety of matter. For Virgil, who
wrote his _Eclogues_, "gracili avena,"[42] used stronger pipes, when
he sounded the wars of Aeneas. It may also be laid to my charge, that
I use divers Hebrew words in my first book, and elsewhere: in which
language others may think and I myself acknowledge it, that I am
altogether ignorant: but it is true, that some of them I find in
Montanus, others in Latin characters in S. Senensis; and of the rest I
have borrowed the interpretation of some of my friends. But say I had
been beholding to neither, yet were it not to be wondered at, having
had an eleven years' leisure, to attain the knowledge of that, or of
any other tongue; howsoever, I know that it will be said by many, that
I might have been more pleasing to the reader, if I had written the
story of mine own times, having been permitted to draw water as near
the well-head as another. To this I answer, that whosoever in writing
a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply
strike out his teeth. There is no mistress or guide, that hath led her
followers and servants into greater miseries. He that goes after her
too far off, loseth her sight, and loseth himself: and he that walks
after her at a middle distance: I know not whether I should call that
kind of course, temper,[43] or baseness. It is true, that I never
travelled after men's opinions, when I might have made the best use
of them: and I have now too few days remaining, to imitate those, that
either out of extreme ambition, or of extreme cowardice, or both, do
yet (when death hath them on his shoulders) flatter the world, between
the bed and the grave. It is enough for me (being in that state I am)
to write of the eldest times: wherein also why may it not be said,
that in speaking of the past, I point at the present, and tax the
vices of those that are yet living, in their persons that are long
since dead; and have it laid to my charge? But this I cannot help,
though innocent. And certainly, if there be any, that finding
themselves spotted like the tigers of old time, shall find fault with
me for painting them over anew, they shall therein accuse themselves
justly, and me falsely.
For I protest before the Majesty of God, that I malice no man under
the sun. Impossible I know it is to please all; seeing few or none are
so pleased with themselves, or so assured of themselves, by reason of
their subjection to their private passions, but that they seem divers
persons in one and the same day. Seneca hath said it, and so do I:
"Unus mihi pro populo erat";[44] and to the same effect Epicurus, "Hoc
ego non multis sed tibi";[45] or (as it hath since lamentably fallen
out) I may borrow the resolution of an ancient philosopher, "Satis
est unus, satis est nullus."[46] For it was for the service of that
inestimable Prince Henry, the successive hope, and one of the greatest
of the Christian world, that I undertook this work. It pleased him to
peruse some part thereof, and to pardon what was amiss. It is now left
to the world without a master: from which all that is presented, hath
received both blows and thanks: "Eadem probamus, eadem reprehendimus:
hic exitus est omnis judicii, in quolis secundum plures datur."[47]
But these discourses are idle. I know that as the charitable will
judge charitably: so against those, "Qui gloriantur in malitia,"[48]
my present adversity hath disarmed me, I am on the ground already,
and therefore have not far to fall: and for rising again, as in the
natural privation there is no recession to habit; so it is seldom seen
in the privation politic. I do therefore forbear to style my readers
gentle, courteous, and friendly, thereby to beg their good opinions,
or to promise a second and third volume (which I also intend) if the
first receive grace and good acceptance. For that which is already
done, may be thought enough, and too much: and it is certain, let us
claw the reader with never so many courteous phrases, yet shall we
evermore be thought fools, that write foolishly. For conclusion, all
the hope I have lies in this, that I have already found more ungentle
and uncourteous readers of my love towards them, and well-deserving of
them, than ever I shall do again. For had it been otherwise, I should
hardly have had this leisure, to have made myself a fool in print.
[Footnote A: A sketch of the life of Raleigh will be found prefixed to
his "Discovery of Guiana" in the volume of "Voyages and Travels".
His "History of the World" was written during his imprisonment in
the Tower of London, which lasted from 1603 to 1616. The Preface
is interesting not only as a fine piece of Elizabethan prose but as
exhibiting the attitude toward history, and the view of the relation
of history to religion and philosophy, which characterized one who
represented with exceptional vigor the typical Elizabethan man of
action and who was also a man of thought and imagination.]
[Footnote 1: Queen Elizabeth]
[Footnote 2: "An ill opinion, honorably acquired, is pleasing."]
[Footnote 3: "So you not to yourselves."]
[Footnote 4: "He increased, with the result that he is oppressed by
his greatness."]
[Footnote 5: "The insult done in scorning her beauty."]
[Footnote 6: "God gave to Solomon largeness of heart."--1 Kings iv.
89.]
[Footnote 7: Step. Pasquiere, Recherches, lib. v. cap. i.]
[Footnote 8: Step-mother.]
[Footnote 9: i.e., Protestantism]
[Footnote 10: Instantly.]
[Footnote 11: Dispossessed.]
[Footnote 12: "Nothing hindering."]
[Footnote 13: "That they are wise in a foolish matter."--Lactantius,
_De falsa sapientia_, 3, 29.]
[Footnote 14: Augustine, _De cura pro morte_.]
[Footnote 15: "Wealth acquired without fraud."]
[Footnote 16: "O how many go down with this hope to endless labors and
wars."]
[Footnote 17: Transient.]
[Footnote 18: Opponents.]
[Footnote 19: "Everything which is to come lies in uncertainty."]
[Footnote 20: "Who follow their commander with groans."]
[Footnote 21: "It takes great genius to call back the mind from the
senses."]
[Footnote 22: "Against him who denies the principles."]
[Footnote 23: "Specific virtue, or power."]
[Footnote 24: "The Roman Church."]
[Footnote 25: "I shall light a lamp of understanding in thine
heart."--IV. Esdras xiv. 25.]
[Footnote 26: Followers.]
[Footnote 27: "Prepared and sworn to protect with unconquered minds
the opinions of the philosophers whom they follow."]
[Footnote 28: "Out of nothing."]
[Footnote 29: "Out of pre-existing matter."]
[Footnote 30: "Because comprehension is between limits, which are
opposed to infinity."]
[Footnote 31: "God exhibits all things in one existence"]
[Footnote 32: "The essence of all things, visible and invisible, is
divinity itself"]
[Footnote 33: "Causally."]
[Footnote 34: "Not as form, but as universal cause"]
[Footnote 35: "It [i.e., the infinite] has no beginning, but itself is
perceived to be the beginning of all things, and to embrace and govern
all things."]
[Footnote 36: "Primal matter."]
[Footnote 37: "Which destroys all proportion."]
[Footnote 38: "The spiritual world."]
[Footnote 39: "Providence, leader and head; Fate, in the middle and
proceeding from Providence; Nature, last."]
[Footnote 40: "The science of things first, eternal, perpetual."]
[Footnote 41: "Part of the divine spirit immersed in the human body."]
[Footnote 42: "With delicate pipe."]
[Footnote 43: Moderation]
[Footnote 44: "To me one man stood for the people."]
[Footnote 45: "I [have done] this not for many, but for thee."]
[Footnote 46: "One is enough, none is enough."]
[Footnote 47: "We approve the same things, we blame the same
things--this is the result in every case in which the verdict is
rendered according to the majority."]
[Footnote 48: "Who glory in malice"]
PROOEMIUM, EPISTLE DEDICATORY, PREFACE, AND PLAN OF THE INSTAURATIO
MAGNA, ETC.
BY FRANCIS BACON[A]
FRANCIS OF VERULAM REASONED THUS WITH HIMSELF,
AND JUDGED IT TO BE FOR THE INTEREST OF THE PRESENT AND FUTURE
GENERATIONS THAT THEY SHOULD BE MADE ACQUAINTED WITH HIS THOUGHTS
Being convinced that the human intellect makes its own difficulties,
not using the true helps which are at man's disposal soberly and
judiciously; whence follows manifold ignorance of things, and by
reason of that ignorance mischiefs innumerable; he thought all trial
should be made, whether that commerce between the mind of man and the
nature of things, which is more precious than anything on earth, or
at least than anything that is of the earth, might by any means be
restored to its perfect and original condition, or if that may not be,
yet reduced to a better condition than that in which it now is. Now
that the errors which have hitherto prevailed, and which will prevail
forever, should (if the mind be left to go its own way), either by
the natural force of the understanding or by help of the aids and
instruments of Logic, one by one correct themselves, was a thing not
to be hoped for: because the primary notions of things which the mind
readily and passively imbibes, stores up, and accumulates (and it is
from them that all the rest flow) are false, confused, and overhastily
abstracted from the facts; nor are the secondary and subsequent
notions less arbitrary and inconstant; whence it follows that the
entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of
nature, is badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent
structure without any foundation. For while men are occupied in
admiring and applauding the false powers of the mind, they pass by and
throw away those true powers, which, if it be supplied with the proper
aids and can itself be content to wait upon nature instead of vainly
affecting to overrule her, are within its reach. There was but one
course left, therefore,--to try the whole thing anew upon a better
plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and
all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations. And this,
though in the project and undertaking it may seem a thing infinite and
beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt with it will
be found sound and sober, more so than what has been done hitherto.
For of this there is some issue; whereas in what is now done in the
matter of science there is only a whirling round about, and perpetual
agitation, ending where it began. And although he was well aware how
solitary an enterprise it is, and how hard a thing to win faith and
credit for, nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon either it or
himself; nor to be deterred from trying and entering upon that one
path which is alone open to the human mind. For better it is to make
a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in
a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit. And
certainly the two ways of contemplation are much like those two ways
of action, so much celebrated, in this--that the one, arduous and
difficult in the beginning, leads out at last into the open
country; while the other, seeming at first sight easy and free from
obstruction, leads to pathless and precipitous places.
Moreover, because he knew not how long it might be before these things
would occur to any one else, judging especially from this, that he
has found no man hitherto who has applied his mind to the like, he
resolved to publish at once so much as he has been able to complete.
The cause of which haste was not ambition for himself, but solicitude
for the work; that in case of his death there might remain some
outline and project of that which he had conceived, and some evidence
likewise of his honest mind and inclination towards the benefit of the
human race. Certain it is that all other ambition whatsoever seemed
poor in his eyes compared with the work which he had in hand; seeing
that the matter at issue is either nothing, or a thing so great that
it may well be content with its own merit, without seeking other
recompence.
[Footnote A: A sketch of Bacon's life will be found prefixed to his
"Essays" in another volume of the Harvard Classics. His "Instauratio
Magna" or "Great Renewal," the great work by which he hoped to create
a scientific revolution and deliver mankind from Aristotelianism, was
left far from complete; but the nature of his scheme and the scale
on which it was planned are indicated in these Prefaces, which are
typical both of the man and of the age in which he lived.]
EPISTLE DEDICATORY
TO THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA
TO OUR MOST GRACIOUS AND MIGHTY PRINCE AND LORD
JAMES
BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE AND IRELAND KING,
DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, ETC.
_Most Gracious and Mighty King_,
Your Majesty may perhaps accuse me of larceny, having stolen from your
affairs so much time as was required for this work. I know not what to
say for myself. For of time there can be no restitution, unless it be
that what has been abstracted from your business may perhaps go to the
memory of your name and the honour of your age; if these things are
indeed worth anything. Certainly they are quite new; totally new in
their very kind: and yet they are copied from a very ancient model;
even the world itself and the nature of things and of the mind. And to
say truth, I am wont for my own part to regard this work as a child of
time rather than of wit; the only wonder being that the first notion
of the thing, and such great suspicions concerning matters long
established, should have come into any man's mind. All the rest
follows readily enough. And no doubt there is something of accident
(as we call it) and luck as well in what men think as in what they do
or say. But for this accident which I speak of, I wish that if
there be any good in what I have to offer, it may be ascribed to
the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and to the felicity of your
Majesty's times; to which as I have been an honest and affectionate
servant in my life, so after my death I may yet perhaps, through the
kindling of this new light in the darkness of philosophy, be the means
of making this age famous to posterity; and surely to the times of the
wisest and most learned of kings belongs of right the regeneration
and restoration of the sciences. Lastly, I have a request to make--a
request no way unworthy of your Majesty, and which especially concerns
the work in hand; namely, that you who resemble Solomon in so many
things--in the gravity of your judgments, in the peacefulness of your
reign, in the largeness of your heart, in the noble variety of the
books which you have composed--would further follow his example
in taking order for the collecting and perfecting of a Natural and
Experimental History, true and severe (unincumbered with literature
and book-learning), such as philosophy may be built upon,--such, in
fact, as I shall in its proper place describe: that so at length,
after the lapse of so many ages, philosophy and the sciences may no
longer float in air, but rest on the solid foundation of experience
of every kind, and the same well examined and weighed. I have provided
the machine, but the stuff must be gathered from the facts of nature.
May God Almighty long preserve your Majesty!
Your Majesty's
Most bounden and devoted Servant,
FRANCIS VERULAM,
Chancellor.
PREFACE
TO THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA
_That the state of knowledge is not prosperous nor greatly advancing;
and that a way must be opened for the human understanding entirely
different from any hitherto known, and other helps provided, in order
that the mind may exercise over the nature of things the authority
which properly belongs to it._
It seems to me that men do not rightly understand either their store
or their strength, but overrate the one and underrate the other. Hence
it follows, that either from an extravagant estimate of the value of
the arts which they possess, they seek no further; or else from too
mean an estimate of their own powers, they spend their strength in
small matters and never put it fairly to the trial in those which
go to the main. These are as the pillars of fate set in the path of
knowledge; for men have neither desire nor hope to encourage them
to penetrate further. And since opinion of store is one of the chief
causes of want, and satisfaction with the present induces neglect
of provision for the future, it becomes a thing not only useful, but
absolutely necessary, that the excess of honour and admiration with
which our existing stock of inventions is regarded be in the very
entrance and threshold of the work, and that frankly and without
circumlocution, stripped off, and men be duly warned not to exaggerate
or make too much of them. For let a man look carefully into all that
variety of books with which the arts and sciences abound, he will
find everywhere endless repetitions of the same thing, varying in the
method of treatment, but not new in substance, insomuch that the whole
stock, numerous as it appears at first view, proves on examination to
be but scanty. And for its value and utility it must be plainly avowed
that that wisdom which we have derived principally from the Greeks is
but like the boyhood of knowledge, and has the characteristic property
of boys; it can talk, but it cannot generate; for it is fruitful of
controversies but barren of works. So that the state of learning as
it now is appears to be represented to the life in the old fable of
Scylla, who had the head and face of a virgin, but her womb was hung
round with barking monsters, from which she could not be delivered.
For in like manner the sciences to which we are accustomed have
certain general positions which are specious and flattering; but
as soon as they come to particulars, which are as the parts of
generation, when they should produce fruit and works, then arise
contentions and barking disputations, which are the end of the matter
and all the issue they can yield. Observe also, that if sciences of
this kind had any life in them, that could never have come to pass
which has been the case now for many ages--that they stand almost at
a stay, without receiving any augmentations worthy of the human race;
insomuch that many times not only what was asserted once is asserted
still, but what was a question once is a question still, and instead
of being resolved by discussion is only fixed and fed; and all the
tradition and succession of schools is still a succession of masters
and scholars, not of inventors and those who bring to further
perfection the things invented. In the mechanical arts we do not find
it so; they, on the contrary, as having in them some breath of life,
are continually growing and becoming more perfect. As originally
invented they are commonly rude, clumsy, and shapeless; afterwards
they acquire new powers and more commodious arrangements and
constructions; in so far that men shall sooner leave the study and
pursuit of them and turn to something else, than they arrive at the
ultimate perfection of which they are capable. Philosophy and the
intellectual sciences, on the contrary, stand like statues, worshiped
and celebrated, but not moved or advanced. Nay, they sometimes
flourish most in the hands of the first author, and afterwards
degenerate. For when men have once made over their judgments to
others' keeping, and (like those senators whom they called _Pedarii_)
have agreed to support some one person's opinion, from that time
they make no enlargement of the sciences themselves, but fall to
the servile office of embellishing certain individual authors and
increasing their retinue. And let it not be said that the sciences
have been growing gradually till they have at last reached their full
stature, and so (their course being completed) have settled in the
works of a few writers; and that there being now no room for the
invention of better, all that remains is to embellish and cultivate
those things which have been invented already. Would it were so! But
the truth is that this appropriating of the sciences has its origin in
nothing better than the confidence of a few persons and the sloth
and indolence of the rest. For after the sciences had been in several
parts perhaps cultivated and handled diligently, there has risen up
some man of bold disposition, and famous for methods and short ways
which people like, who has in appearance reduced them to an art, while
he has in fact only spoiled all that the others had done. And yet this
is what posterity like, because it makes the work short and easy, and
saves further inquiry, of which they are weary and impatient. And if
any one take this general acquiescence and consent for an argument
of weight, as being the judgment of Time, let me tell him that the
reasoning on which he relies is most fallacious and weak. For, first,
we are far from knowing all that in the matter of sciences and arts
has in various ages and places been brought to light and published;
much less, all that has been by private persons secretly attempted
and stirred, so neither the births nor the miscarriages of Time are
entered in our records. Nor, secondly, is the consent itself and
the time it has continued a consideration of much worth. For however
various are the forms of civil politics, there is but one form of
polity in the sciences; and that always has been and always will be
popular. Now the doctrines which find most favour with the populace
are those which are either contentious and pugnacious, or specious
and empty; such, I say, as either entangle assent or tickle it. And
therefore no doubt the greatest wits in each successive age have been
forced out of their own course, men of capacity and intellect above
the vulgar having been fain, for reputation's sake, to bow to the
judgment of the time and the multitude; and thus if any contemplations
of a higher order took light anywhere, they were presently blown out
by the winds of vulgar opinions. So that Time is like a river, which
has brought down to us things light and puffed up, while those which
are weighty and solid have sunk. Nay, those very authors who have
usurped a kind of dictatorship in the sciences and taken upon them to
lay down the law with such confidence, yet when from time to time they
come to themselves again, they fall to complaints of the subtlety
of nature, the hiding-places of truth, the obscurity of things,
the entanglement of causes, the weakness of the human mind; wherein
nevertheless they show themselves never the more modest, seeing that
they will rather lay the blame upon the common condition of man
and nature than upon themselves. And then whatever any art fails to
attain, they ever set it down upon the authority of that art itself as
impossible of attainment; and how can art be found guilty when it is
judge in its own cause? So it is but a device for exempting ignorance
from ignominy. Now for those things which are delivered and received,
this is their condition: barren of works, full of questions; in point
of enlargement slow and languid; carrying a show of perfection in
the whole, but in the parts ill filled up; in selection popular, and
unsatisfactory even to those who propound them; and therefore fenced
round and set forth with sundry artifices. And if there be any who
have determined to make trial for themselves, and put their own
strength to the work of advancing the boundaries of the sciences,
yet have they not ventured to cast themselves completely loose from
received opinions or to seek their knowledge at the fountain; but they
think they have done some great thing if they do but add and introduce
into the existing sum of science something of their own; prudently
considering with themselves that by making the addition they can
assert their liberty, while they retain the credit of modesty by
assenting to the rest. But these mediocrities and middle ways so
much praised, in deferring to opinions and customs, turn to the great
detriment of the sciences. For it is hardly possible at once to admire
an author and to go beyond him; knowledge being as water, which
will not rise above the level from which it fell. Men of this kind,
therefore, amend some things, but advance little; and improve the
condition of knowledge, but do not extend its range. Some, indeed,
there have been who have gone more boldly to work, and taking it all
for an open matter and giving their genius full play, have made a
passage for themselves and their own opinions by pulling down and
demolishing former ones; and yet all their stir has but little
advanced the matter; since their aim has been not to extend philosophy
and the arts in substance and value, but only to change doctrines and
transfer the kingdom of opinions to themselves; whereby little has
indeed been gained, for though the error be the opposite of the other,
the causes of erring are the same in both. And if there have been any
who, not binding themselves either to other men's opinions or to their
own, but loving liberty, have desired to engage others along with
themselves in search, these, though honest in intention, have been
weak in endeavour. For they have been content to follow probable
reasons, and are carried round in a whirl of arguments, and in the
promiscuous liberty of search have relaxed the severity of inquiry.
There is none who has dwelt upon experience and the facts of nature
as long as is necessary. Some there are indeed who have committed
themselves to the waves of experience, and almost turned mechanics;
yet these again have in their very experiments pursued a kind of
wandering inquiry, without any regular system of operations. And
besides they have mostly proposed to themselves certain petty tasks,
taking it for a great matter to work out some single discovery;--a
course of proceeding at once poor in aim and unskilful in design. For
no man can rightly and successfully investigate the nature of anything
in the thing itself; let him vary his experiments as laboriously as he
will, he never comes to a resting-place, but still finds something to
seek beyond. And there is another thing to be remembered; namely,
that all industry in experimenting has begun with proposing to itself
certain definite works to be accomplished, and has pursued them
with premature and unseasonable eagerness; it has sought, I say,
experiments of Fruit, not experiments of Light; not Imitating the
divine procedure, which In its first day's work created light only and
assigned to it one entire day; on which day it produced no material
work, but proceeded to that on the days following. As for those who
have given the first place to Logic, supposing that the surest helps
to the sciences were to be found in that, they have indeed most truly
and excellently perceived that the human intellect left to its own
course is not to be trusted; but then the remedy is altogether too
weak for the disease; nor is it without evil in itself. For the
Logic which is received, though it be very properly applied to civil
business and to those arts which rest in discourse and opinion, is not
nearly subtle enough to deal with nature; and in offering at what it
cannot master, has done more to establish and perpetuate error than to
open the way to truth.
Upon the whole therefore, it seems that men have not been happy
hitherto either in the trust which they have placed in others or in
their own industry with regard to the sciences; especially as neither
the demonstrations nor the experiments as yet known are much to be
relied upon. But the universe to the eye of the human understanding is
framed like a labyrinth; presenting as it does on every side so many
ambiguities of way, such deceitful resemblances of objects and signs,
natures so irregular in their lines, and so knotted and entangled. And
then the way is still to be made by the uncertain light of the sense,
sometimes shining out, sometimes clouded over, through the woods
of experience and particulars; while those who offer themselves for
guides are (as was said) themselves also puzzled, and increase the
number of errors and wanderers. In circumstances so difficult neither
the natural force of man's judgment nor even any accidental felicity
offers any chance of success. No excellence of wit, no repetition of
chance experiments, can overcome such difficulties as these. Our
steps must be guided by a clue, and the whole way from the very first
perception of the senses must be laid out upon a sure plan. Not that I
would be understood to mean that nothing whatever has been done in so
many ages by so great labours. We have no reason to be ashamed of the
discoveries which have been made, and no doubt the ancients proved
themselves in everything that turns on wit and abstract meditation,
wonderful men. But as in former ages when men sailed only by
observation of the stars, they could indeed coast along the shores
of the old continent or cross a few small and mediterranean seas; but
before the ocean could be traversed and the new world discovered, the
use of the mariner's needle, as a more faithful and certain guide,
had to be found out; in like manner the discoveries which have been
hitherto made in the arts and sciences are such as might be made by
practice, meditation, observation, argumentation,--for they lay near
to the senses, and immediately beneath common notions; but before we
can reach the remoter and more hidden parts of nature, it is necessary
that a more perfect use and application of the human mind and
intellect be introduced.
For my own part at least, in obedience to the everlasting love of
truth, I have committed myself to the uncertainties and difficulties
and solitudes of the ways, and relying on the divine assistance have
upheld my mind both against the shocks and embattled ranks of opinion,
and against my own private and inward hesitations and scruples, and
against the fogs and clouds of nature, and the phantoms flitting about
on every side; in the hope of providing at last for the present and
future generations guidance more faithful and secure. Wherein if I
have made any progress, the way has been opened to me by no other
means than the true and legitimate humiliation of the human spirit.
For all those who before me have applied themselves to the invention
of arts have but cast a glance or two upon facts and examples and
experience, and straightway proceeded, as if invention were nothing
more than an exercise of thought, to invoke their own spirits to give
them oracles. I, on the contrary, dwelling purely and constantly among
the facts of nature, withdraw my intellect from them no further than
may suffice to let the images and rays of natural objects meet in a
point, as they do in the sense of vision; whence it follows that the
strength and excellency of the wit has but little to do in the matter.
And the same humility which I use in inventing I employ likewise in
teaching. For I do not endeavour either by triumphs of confutation,
or pleadings of antiquity, or assumption of authority, or even by
the veil of obscurity, to invest these inventions of mine with any
majesty; which might easily be done by one who sought to give lustre
to his own name rather than light to other men's minds. I have
not sought (I say) nor do I seek either to force or ensnare men's
judgments, but I lead them to things themselves and the concordances
of things, that they may see for themselves what they have, what they
can dispute, what they can add and contribute to the common stock.
And for myself, if in anything I have been either too credulous or
too little awake and attentive, or if I have fallen off by the way and
left the inquiry incomplete, nevertheless I so present these things
naked and open, that my errors can be marked and set aside before the
mass of knowledge be further infected by them; and it will be easy
also for others to continue and carry on my labours. And by these
means I suppose that I have established for ever a true and lawful
marriage between the empirical and the rational faculty, the unkind
and ill-starred divorce and separation of which has thrown into
confusion all the affairs of the human family.
Wherefore, seeing that these things do not depend upon myself, at the
outset of the work I most humbly and fervently pray to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, that remembering the sorrows of
mankind and the pilgrimage of this our life wherein we wear out days
few and evil, they will vouchsafe through my hands to endow the human
family with new mercies. This likewise I humbly pray, that things
human may not interfere with things divine, and that from the opening
of the ways of sense and the increase of natural light there may arise
in our minds no incredulity or darkness with regard to the divine
mysteries; but rather that the understanding being thereby purified
and purged of fancies and vanity, and yet not the less subject and
entirely submissive to the divine oracles, may give to faith that
which is faith's. Lastly, that knowledge being now discharged of that
venom which the serpent infused into it, and which makes the mind
of man to swell, we may not be wise above measure and sobriety, but
cultivate truth in charity.
And now having said my prayers I turn to men; to whom I have certain
salutary admonitions to offer and certain fair requests to make. My
first admonition (which was also my prayer) is that men confine the
sense within the limits of duty in respect to things divine: for the
sense is like the sun, which reveals the face of earth, but seals and
shuts up the face of heaven. My next, that in flying from this evil
they fall not into the opposite error, which they will surely do if
they think that the inquisition of nature is in any part interdicted
or forbidden. For it was not that pure and uncorrupted natural
knowledge whereby Adam gave names to the creatures according to their
propriety, which gave occasion to the fall. It was the ambitious and
proud desire of moral knowledge to judge of good and evil, to the end
that man may revolt from God and give laws to himself, which was
the form and manner of the temptation. Whereas of the sciences which
regard nature, the divine philosopher declares that "it is the glory
of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the King to find
a thing out," Even as though the divine nature took pleasure in the
innocent and kindly sport of children playing at hide and seek, and
vouchsafed of his kindness and goodness to admit the human spirit
for his playfellow at that game. Lastly, I would address one general
admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of
knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind,
or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or
fame, or power, or any of these inferior things; but for the benefit
and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For
it was from lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge
that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did
angel or man ever come in danger by it.
The requests I have to make are these. Of myself I say nothing; but in
behalf of the business which is in hand I entreat men to believe that
it is not an opinion to be held, but a work to be done; and to be well
assured that I am labouring to lay the foundation, not of any sect
or doctrine, but of human utility and power. Next, I ask them to deal
fairly by their own interests, and laying aside all emulations and
prejudices in favour of this or that opinion, to join in consultation
for the common good; and being now freed and guarded by the securities
and helps which I offer from the errors and impediments of the way, to
come forward themselves and take part in that which remains to be done
Moreover, to be of good hope, nor to imagine that this Instauration
of mine is a thing infinite and beyond the power of man, when it is in
fact the true end and termination of infinite error, and seeing also
that it is by no means forgetful of the conditions of mortality and
humanity, (for it does not suppose that the work can be altogether
completed within one generation, but provides for its being taken up
by another), and finally that it seeks for the sciences not arrogantly
in the little cells of human wit, but with reverence in the greater
world. But it is the empty things that are vast things solid are most
contracted and lie in little room. And now I have only one favour
more to ask (else injustice to me may perhaps imperil the business
itself)--that men will consider well how far, upon that which I must
needs assert (if I am to be consistent with myself), they are entitled
to judge and decide upon these doctrines of mine, inasmuch as all that
premature human reasoning which anticipates inquiry, and is abstracted
from the facts rashly and sooner than is fit, is by me rejected (so
far as the inquisition of nature is concerned), as a thing uncertain,
confused, and ill built up, and I cannot be fairly asked to abide by
the decision of a tribunal which is itself on its trial.
THE PLAN OF THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA
The work is in six Parts:--
1. _The Divisions of the Sciences_.
2. _The New Organon; or Directions concerning the
Interpretation of Nature_.
3. _The Phenomena of the Universe; or a Natural and
Experimental History for the foundation of
Philosophy_.
4. _The Ladder of the Intellect_.
5. _The Forerunners; or Anticipations of the New
Philosophy_.
6. _The New Philosophy; or Active Science_.
_The Arguments of the several Parts_.
It being part of my design to set everything forth, as far as may
be, plainly and perspicuously (for nakedness of the mind is still,
as nakedness of the body once was, the companion of innocence and
simplicity), let me first explain the order and plan of the work. I
distribute it into six parts.
The first part exhibits a summary or general description of the
knowledge which the human race at present possesses. For I thought it
good to make some pause upon that which is received; that thereby
the old may be more easily made perfect and the new more easily
approached. And I hold the improvement of that which we have to be as
much an object as the acquisition of more. Besides which it will make
me the better listened to; for "He that is ignorant (says the proverb)
receives not the words of knowledge, unless thou first tell him that
which is in his own heart." We will therefore make a coasting voyage
along the shores of the arts and sciences received; not without
importing into them some useful things by the way.
In laying out the divisions of the sciences however, I take into
account not only things already invented and known, but likewise
things omitted which ought to be there. For there are found in the
intellectual as in the terrestial globe waste regions as well as
cultivated ones. It is no wonder therefore if I am sometimes obliged
to depart from the ordinary divisions. For in adding to the total you
necessarily alter the parts and sections; and the received divisions
of the sciences are fitted only to the received sum of them as it
stands now.
With regard to those things which I shall mark down as omitted, I
intend not merely to set down a simple title or a concise argument
of that which is wanted. For as often as I have occasion to report
anything as deficient, the nature of which is at all obscure, so that
men may not perhaps easily understand what I mean or what the work is
which I have in my head, I shall always (provided it be a matter of
any worth) take care to subjoin either directions for the execution of
such work, or else a portion of the work itself executed by myself as
a sample of the whole: thus giving assistance in every case either by
work or by counsel. For if it were for the sake of my reputation only
and other men's interests were not concerned in it, I would not have
any man think that in such cases merely some light and vague notion
has crossed my mind, and that the things which I desire and offer at
are no better than wishes; when they are in fact things which men may
certainly command if they will, and of which I have formed in my own
mind a clear and detailed conception. For I do not propose merely to
survey these regions in my mind, like an augur taking auspices, but to
enter them like a general who means to take possession.--So much for
the first part of the work.
* * * * *
Having thus coasted past the ancient arts, the next point is to equip
the intellect for passing beyond. To the second part therefore belongs
the doctrine concerning the better and more perfect use of human
reason in the inquisition of things, and the true helps of the
understanding: that thereby (as far as the condition of mortality and
humanity allows) the intellect may be raised and exalted, and made
capable of overcoming the difficulties and obscurities of nature. The
art which I introduce with this view (which I call _Interpretation of
Nature_) is a kind of logic; though the difference between it and
the ordinary logic is great; indeed immense. For the ordinary
logic professes to contrive and prepare helps and guards for the
understanding, as mine does; and in this one point they agree. But
mine differs from it in three points especially; viz. in the end aimed
at; in the order of demonstration; and in the starting point of the
inquiry.
For the end which this science of mine proposes is the invention not
of arguments but of arts; not of things in accordance with principles,
but of principles themselves; not of probable reasons, but of
designations and directions for works. And as the intention is
different, so accordingly is the effect; the effect of the one being
to overcome an opponent in argument, of the other to command nature in
action.
In accordance with this end is also the nature and order of the
demonstrations. For in the ordinary logic almost all the work is spent
about the syllogism. Of induction the logicians seem hardly to have
taken any serious thought, but they pass it by with a slight notice,
and hasten on to the formulae of disputation. I on the contrary reject
demonstration by syllogism, as acting too confusedly, and letting
nature slip out of its hands. For although no one can doubt that
things which agree in a middle term agree with one another (which is
a proposition of mathematical certainty), yet it leaves an opening
for deception; which is this. The syllogism consists of propositions;
propositions of words; and words are the tokens and signs of notions.
Now if the very notions of the mind (which are as the soul of words
and the basis of the whole structure) be improperly and over-hastily
abstracted from facts, vague not sufficiently definite, faulty in
short in many ways, the whole edifice tumbles. I therefore reject the
syllogism; and that not only as regards principles (for to principles
the logicians themselves do not apply it) but also as regards middle
propositions; which, though obtainable no doubt by the syllogism,
are, when so obtained, barren of works, remote from practice, and
altogether unavailable for the active department of the sciences.
Although therefore I leave to the syllogism and these famous and
boasted modes of demonstration their jurisdiction over popular arts
and such as are matter of opinion (in which department I leave all
as it is), yet in dealing with the nature of things I use induction
throughout, and that in the minor propositions as well as the major.
For I consider induction to be that form of demonstration which
upholds the sense, and closes with nature, and comes to the very brink
of operation, if it does not actually deal with it.
Hence it follows that the order of demonstration is likewise inverted.
For hitherto the proceeding has been to fly at once from the sense
and particulars up to the most general propositions, as certain fixed
poles for the argument to turn upon, and from these to derive the rest
by middle terms a short way, no doubt, but precipitate, and one which
will never lead to nature, though it offers an easy and ready way to
disputation. Now my plan is to proceed regularly and gradually from
one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached till
the last but then when you do come to them you find them to be not
empty notions, but well defined, and such as nature would really
recognise as her first principles, and such as lie at the heart and
marrow of things.
But the greatest change I introduce is in the form itself of induction
and the judgment made thereby. For the induction of which the
logicians speak, which proceeds by simple enumeration, is a puerile
thing, concludes at hazard, is always liable to be upset by a
contradictory instance, takes into account only what is known and
ordinary, and leads to no result.
Now what the sciences stand in need of is a form of induction which
shall analyse experience and take it to pieces, and by a due process
of exclusion and rejection lead to an inevitable conclusion. And
if that ordinary mode of judgment practised by the logicians was so
laborious, and found exercise for such great wits how much more labour
must we be prepared to bestow upon this other, which is extracted not
merely out of the depths of the mind, but out of the very bowels of
nature.
Nor is this all. For I also sink the foundations of the sciences
deeper and firmer; and I begin the inquiry nearer the source than men
have done heretofore; submitting to examination those things which
the common logic takes on trust. For first, the logicians borrow the
principles of each science from the science itself; secondly, they
hold in reverence the first notions of the mind; and lastly, they
receive as conclusive the immediate informations of the sense, when
well disposed. Now upon the first point, I hold that true logic
ought to enter the several provinces of science armed with a higher
authority than belongs to the principles of those sciences themselves,
and ought to call those putative principles to account until they
are fully established. Then with regard to the first notions of the
intellect; there is not one of the impressions taken by the intellect
when left to go its own way, but I hold it for suspected, and no
way established, until it has submitted to a new trial and a fresh
judgment has been thereupon pronounced. And lastly, the information
of the sense itself I sift and examine in many ways. For certain it
is that the senses deceive; but then at the same time they supply the
means of discovering their own errors; only the errors are here, the
means of discovery are to seek.
The sense fails in two ways. Sometimes it gives no information,
sometimes it gives false information. For first, there are very many
things which escape the sense, even when best disposed and no way
obstructed; by reason either of the subtlety of the whole body, or
the minuteness of the parts, or distance of place, or slowness or else
swiftness of motion, or familiarity of the object, or other causes.
And again when the sense does apprehend a thing its apprehension is
not much to be relied upon. For the testimony and information of the
sense has reference always to man, not to the universe; and it is a
great error to assert that the sense is the measure of things.
To meet these difficulties, I have sought on all sides diligently and
faithfully to provide helps for the sense--substitutes to supply its
failures, rectifications to correct its errors; and this I endeavour
to accomplish not so much by instruments as by experiments. For the
subtlety of experiments is far greater than that of the sense itself,
even when assisted by exquisite instruments; such experiments, I mean,
as are skilfully and artificially devised for the express purpose
of determining the point in question. To the immediate and proper
perception of the sense therefore I do not give much weight; but I
contrive that the office of the sense shall be only to judge of the
experiment, and that the experiment itself shall judge of the thing.
And thus I conceive that I perform the office of a true priest of the
sense (from which all knowledge in nature must be sought, unless men
mean to go mad) and a not unskilful interpreter of its oracles; and
that while others only profess to uphold and cultivate the sense, I
do so in fact. Such then are the provisions I make for finding the
genuine light of nature and kindling and bringing it to bear. And they
would be sufficient of themselves, if the human intellect were even,
and like a fair sheet of paper with no writing on it. But since the
minds of men are strangely possessed and beset, so that there is no
true and even surface left to reflect the genuine rays of things, it
is necessary to seek a remedy for this also.
Now the idols, or phantoms, by which the mind is occupied are either
adventitious or innate. The adventitious come into the mind from
without; namely, either from the doctrines and sects of philosophers,
or from perverse rules of demonstration. But the innate are inherent
in the very nature of the intellect, which is far more prone to error
than the sense is. For let men please themselves as they will in
admiring and almost adoring the human mind, this is certain: that as
an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its own
figure and section, so the mind, when it receives impressions of
objects through the sense, cannot be trusted to report them truly,
but in forming its notions mixes up its own nature with the nature of
things.
And as the first two kinds of idols are hard to eradicate, so idols of
this last kind cannot be eradicated at all. All that can be done is
to point them out, so that this insidious action of the mind may be
marked and reproved (else as fast as old errors are destroyed new ones
will spring up out of the ill complexion of the mind itself, and so we
shall have but a change or errors, and not a clearance); and to lay it
down once for all as a fixed and established maxim, that the intellect
is not qualified to judge except by means of induction, and induction
in its legitimate form. This doctrine then of the expurgation of the
intellect to qualify it for dealing with truth, is comprised in three
refutations: the refutation of the Philosophies; the refutation of the
Demonstrations; and the refutation of the Natural Human Reason. The
explanation of which things, and of the true relation between the
nature of things and the nature of the mind, is as the strewing and
decoration of the bridal chamber of the Mind and the Universe, the
Divine Goodness assisting; out of which marriage let us hope (and be
this the prayer of the bridal song) there may spring helps to man,
and a line and race of inventions that may in some degree subdue and
overcome the necessities and miseries of humanity. This is the second
part of the work.
* * * * *
But I design not only to indicate and mark out the ways, but also
to enter them. And therefore the third part of the work embraces the
Phenomena of the Universe; that is to say, experience of every kind,
and such a natural history as may serve for a foundation to build
philosophy upon. For a good method of demonstration or form of
interpreting nature may keep the mind from going astray or stumbling,
but it is not any excellence of method that can supply it with the
material of knowledge. Those however who aspire not to guess and
divine, but to discover and know; who propose not to devise mimic and
fabulous worlds of their own, but to examine and dissect the nature
of this very world itself; must go to facts themselves for
everything. Nor can the place of this labour and search and
worldwide perambulation be supplied by any genius or meditation or
argumentation; no, not if all men's wits could meet in one. This
therefore we must have, or the business must be for ever abandoned.
But up to this day such has been the condition of men in this matter,
that it is no wonder if nature will not give herself into their hands.
For first, the information of the sense itself, sometimes failing,
sometimes false; observation, careless, irregular, and led by chance;
tradition, vain and fed on rumour; practice, slavishly bent upon its
work; experiment, blind, stupid, vague, and prematurely broken off;
lastly, natural history, trivial and poor;--all these have contributed
to supply the understanding with very bad materials for philosophy and
the sciences.
Then an attempt is made to mend the matter by a preposterous subtlety
and winnowing of argument. But this comes too late, the case being
already past remedy; and is far from setting the business right
or sifting away the errors. The only hope therefore of any greater
increase or progress lies in a reconstruction of the sciences.
Of this reconstruction the foundation must be laid in natural history,
and that of a new kind and gathered on a new principle. For it is
in vain that you polish the mirror if there are no images to be
reflected; and it is as necessary that the intellect should be
supplied with fit matter to work upon, as with safeguards to guide its
working. But my history differs from that in use (as my logic does) in
many things,--in end and office, in mass and composition, in subtlety,
in selection also and setting forth, with a view to the operations
which are to follow.
For first, the object of a natural history which I propose is not so
much to delight with variety of matter or to help with present use of
experiments, as to give light to the discovery of causes and supply a
suckling philosophy with its first food. For though it be true that
I am principally in pursuit of works and the active department of the
sciences, yet I wait for harvest-time, and do not attempt to mow
the moss or to reap the green corn. For I well know that axioms once
rightly discovered will carry whole troops of works along with them,
and produce them, not here and there one, but in clusters. And that
unseasonable and puerile hurry to snatch by way of earnest at the
first works which come within reach, I utterly condemn and reject, as
an Atalanta's apple that hinders the race. Such then is the office of
this natural history of mine.
Next, with regard to the mass and composition of it: I mean it to be a
history not only of nature free and at large (when she is left to
her own course and does her work her own way)--such as that of
the heavenly bodies, meteors, earth and sea, minerals, plants,
animals,--but much more of nature under constraint and vexed; that
is to say, when by art and the hand of man she is forced out of her
natural state, and squeezed and moulded. Therefore I set down at
length all experiments of the mechanical arts, of the operative part
of the liberal arts, of the many crafts which have not yet grown into
arts properly so called, so far as I have been able to examine them
and as they conduce to the end in view. Nay (to say the plain truth)
I do in fact (low and vulgar as men may think it) count more upon this
part both for helps and safeguards than upon the other; seeing that
the nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations
of art than in its natural freedom.
Nor do I confine the history to Bodies; but I have thought it my
duty besides to make a separate history of such Virtues as may be
considered cardinal in nature. I mean those original passions or
desires of matter which constitute the primary elements of nature;
such as Dense and Rare, Hot and Cold, Solid and Fluid, Heavy and
Light, and several others.
Then again, to speak of subtlety: I seek out and get together a
kind of experiments much subtler and simpler than those which occur
accidentally. For I drag into light many things which no one who was
not proceeding by a regular and certain way to the discovery of causes
would have thought of inquiring after; being indeed in themselves of
no great use; which shows that they were not sought for on their own
account; but having just the same relation to things and works which
the letters of the alphabet have to speech and words--which, though
in themselves useless, are the elements of which all discourse is made
up.
Further, in the selection of the relation and experiments I conceive I
have been a more cautious purveyor than those who have hitherto dealt
with natural history. For I admit nothing but on the faith of eyes,
or at least of careful and severe examination; so that nothing is
exaggerated for wonder's sake, but what I state is sound and without
mixture of fables or vanity. All received or current falsehoods
also (which by strange negligence have been allowed for many ages to
prevail and become established) I proscribe and brand by name; that
the sciences may be no more troubled with them For it has been well
observed that the fables and superstitions and follies which nurses
instil into children do serious injury to their minds; and the same
consideration makes me anxious, having the management of the childhood
as it were of philosophy in its course of natural history, not to let
it accustom itself in the beginning to any vanity. Moreover, whenever
I come to a new experiment of any subtlety (though it be in my own
opinion certain and approved), I nevertheless subjoin a clear account
of the manner in which I made it; that men knowing exactly how each
point was made out, may see whether there be any error connected with
it, and may arouse themselves to devise proofs more trustworthy and
exquisite, if such can be found; and finally, I interpose everywhere
admonitions and scruples and cautions, with a religious care to eject,
repress, and as it were exorcise every kind of phantasm.
Lastly, knowing how much the sight of man's mind is distracted by
experience and history, and how hard it is at the first (especially
for minds either tender or preoccupied) to become familiar with
nature, I not unfrequently subjoin observations of my own, being as
the first offers, inclinations, and as it were glances of history
towards philosophy; both by way of an assurance to men that they will
be kept for ever tossing on the waves of experience, and also that
when the time comes for the intellect to begin its work, it may find
everything the more ready. By such a natural history then as I have
described, I conceive that a safe and convenient approach may be made
to nature, and matter supplied of good quality and well prepared for
the understanding to work upon.
* * * * *
And now that we have surrounded the intellect with faithful helps and
guards, and got together with most careful selection a regular army of
divine works, it may seem that we have no more to do but to proceed to
philosophy itself. And yet in a matter so difficult and doubtful there
are still some things which it seems necessary to premise, partly for
convenience of explanation, partly for present use.
Of these the first is to set forth examples of inquiry and invention
according to my method, exhibited by anticipation in some particular
subjects; choosing such subjects as are at once the most noble in
themselves among those under inquiry, and most different one from
another; that there may be an example in every kind. I do not speak of
those examples which are joined to the several precepts and rules by
way of illustration (for of these I have given plenty in the second
part of the work); but I mean actual types and models, by which the
entire process of the mind and the whole fabric and order of invention
from the beginning to the end, in certain subjects, and those various
and remarkable, should be set as it were before the eyes. For
I remember that in the mathematics it is easy to follow the
demonstration when you have a machine beside you; whereas without
that help all appears involved and more subtle than it really is. To
examples of this kind,--being in fact nothing more than an application
of the second part in detail and at large,--the fourth part of the
work is devoted.
* * * * *
The fifth part is for temporary use only, pending the completion of
the rest; like interest payable from time to time until the principal
be forthcoming. For I do not make so blindly for the end of my
journey, as to neglect anything useful that may turn up by the way.
And therefore I include in this fifth part such things as I have
myself discovered, proved, or added,--not however according to the
true rules and methods of interpretation, but by the ordinary use of
the understanding in inquiring and discovering. For besides that I
hope my speculations may in virtue of my continual conversancy with
nature have a value beyond the pretensions of my wit, they will
serve in the meantime for wayside inns in which the mind may rest
and refresh itself on its journey to more certain conclusions.
Nevertheless I wish it to be understood in the meantime that they are
conclusions by which (as not being discovered and proved by the true
form of interpretation) I do not at all mean to bind myself. Nor
need any one be alarmed at such suspension of judgment, in one who
maintains not simply that nothing can be known, but only that nothing
can be known except in a certain course and way; and yet establishes
provisionally certain degrees of assurance, for use and relief until
the mind shall arrive at a knowledge of causes in which it can
rest. For even those schools of philosophy which held the absolute
impossibility of knowing anything were not inferior to those which
took upon them to pronounce. But then they did not provide helps for
the sense and understanding, as I have done, but simply took away all
their authority: which is quite a different thing--almost the reverse.
* * * * *
The sixth part of my work (to which the rest is subservient and
ministrant) discloses and sets forth that philosophy which by
the legitimate, chaste, and severe course of inquiry which I have
explained and provided is at length developed and established. The
completion however of this last part is a thing both above my strength
and beyond my hopes. I have made a beginning of the work--a beginning,
as I hope, not unimportant:--the fortune of the human race will give
the issue;--such an issue, it may be, as in the present condition of
things and men's minds cannot easily be conceived or imagined. For
the matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real
business and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation.
For man is but the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and
what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's order in fact
or in thought; beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing. For
the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can
nature be commanded except by being obeyed. And so those twin objects,
human Knowledge and human Power, do really meet in one; and it is from
ignorance of causes that operation fails.
And all depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts
of nature and so receiving their images simply as they are. For God
forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a
pattern of the world; rather may he graciously grant to us to write an
apocalypse or true vision of the footsteps of the Creator imprinted on
his creatures.
Therefore do thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the
first fruits of creation, and didst breathe into the face of man the
intellectual light as the crown and consummation thereof, guard and
protect this work, which coming from thy goodness returneth to thy
glory. Thou when thou turnedst to look upon the works which thy hands
had made, sawest that all was very good, and didst rest from thy
labours. But man, when he turned to look upon the work which his hands
had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could
find no rest therein. Wherefore if we labour in thy works with the
sweat of our brows thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy
sabbath. Humbly we pray that this mind may be steadfast in us, and
that through these our hands, and the hands of others to whom thou
shalt give the same spirit, thou wilt vouchsafe to endow the human
family with new mercies.
PREFACE
TO THE NOVUM ORGANUM
Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a
thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken
in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done
philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been
successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in
quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling
and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own.
Those on the other hand who have taken a contrary course, and asserted
that absolutely nothing can be known,--whether it were from hatred of
the ancient sophists, or from uncertainty and fluctuation of mind,
or even from a kind of fulness of learning, that they fell upon this
opinion,--have certainly advanced reasons for it that are not to be
despised; but yet they have neither started from true principles nor
rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried
them much too far. The more ancient of the Greeks (whose writings
are lost) took up with better judgment a position between these two
extremes,--between the presumption of pronouncing on everything,
and the despair of comprehending anything; and though frequently and
bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry and the obscurity of
things, and like impatient horses champing the bit, they did not
the less follow up their object and engage with Nature; thinking (it
seems) that this very question,--viz. whether or no anything can be
known,--was to be settled not by arguing, but by trying. And yet they
too, trusting entirely to the force of their understanding, applied
no rule, but made everything turn upon hard thinking and perpetual
working and exercise of the mind.
Now my method, though hard to practise, is easy to explain; and it
is this. I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty. The
evidence of the sense, helped and guarded by a certain process of
correction, I retain. But the mental operation which follows the act
of sense I for the most part reject; and instead of it I open and
lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting
directly from the simple sensuous perception. The necessity of this
was felt no doubt by those who attributed so much importance to
Logic; showing thereby that they were in search of helps for the
understanding, and had no confidence in the native and spontaneous
process of the mind. But this remedy comes too late to do any
good, when the mind is already, through the daily intercourse and
conversation of life, occupied with unsound doctrines and beset on all
sides by vain imaginations. And therefore that art of Logic, coming
(as I said) too late to the rescue, and no way able to set matters
right again, has had the effect of fixing errors rather than
disclosing truth. There remains but one course for the recovery of
a sound and healthy condition,--namely, that the entire work of the
understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the
very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step;
and the business be done as if by machinery. Certainly if in things
mechanical men had set to work with their naked hands, without help or
force of instruments, just as in things intellectual they have set to
work with little else than the naked forces of the understanding, very
small would the matters have been which, even with their best efforts
applied in conjunction, they could have attempted or accomplished. Now
(to pause while upon this example and look in it as in a glass) let us
suppose that some vast obelisk were (for the decoration of a triumph
or some such magnificence) to be removed from its place, and that men
should set to work upon it with their naked hands; would not any
sober spectator think them mad? And if they should then send for more
people, thinking that in that way they might manage it, would he
not think them all the madder? And if they then proceeded to make a
selection, putting away the weaker hands, and using only the strong
and vigorous, would he not think them madder than ever? And if
lastly, not content with this, they resolved to call in aid the art
of athletics, and required all their men to come with hands, arms,
and sinews well anointed and medicated according to the rules of art,
would he not cry out that they were only taking pains to show a kind
of method and discretion in their madness? Yet just so it is that
men proceed in matters intellectual,--with just the same kind of mad
effort and useless combination of forces,--when they hope great things
either from the number and cooperation or from the excellency and
acuteness of individual wits; yea, and when they endeavour by Logic
(which may be considered as a kind of athletic art) to strengthen the
sinews of the understanding; and yet with all this study and endeavour
it is apparent to any true judgment that they are but applying the
naked intellect all the time; whereas in every great work to be done
by the hand of man it is manifestly impossible, without instruments
or machinery, either for the strength of each to be exerted or the
strength of all to be united.
Upon these premises two things occur to me of which, that they may
not be overlooked, I would have men reminded. First it falls out
fortunately as I think for the allaying of contradictions and
heart-burnings, that the honour and reverence due to the ancients
remains untouched and undiminished; while I may carry out my designs
and at the same time reap the fruit of my modesty. For if I should
profess that I, going the same road as the ancients, have something
better to produce, there must needs have been some comparison or
rivalry between us (not to be avoided by any art of words) in respect
of excellency or ability of wit; and though in this there would be
nothing unlawful or new (for if there be anything misapprehended by
them, or falsely laid down, why may not I, using a liberty common
to all, take exception to it?) yet the contest, however just and
allowable, would have been an unequal one perhaps, in respect of the
measure of my own powers. As it is however,--my object being to open a
new way for the understanding, a way by them untried and unknown,--the
case is altered; party zeal and emulation are at an end; and I appear
merely as a guide to point out the road; an office of small authority,
and depending more upon a kind of luck than upon any ability or
excellency. And thus much relates to the persons only. The other point
of which I would have men reminded relates to the matter itself.
Be it remembered then that I am far from wishing to interfere with
the philosophy which now flourishes, or with any other philosophy
more correct and complete than this which has been or may hereafter
be propounded. For I do not object to the use of this received
philosophy, or others like it, for supplying matter for disputations
or ornaments for discourse,--for the professor's lecture and for the
business of life. Nay more, I declare openly that for these uses the
philosophy which I bring forward will not be much available. It does
not lie in the way. It cannot be caught up in passage. It does not
flatter the understanding by conformity with preconceived notions.
Nor will it come down to the apprehension of the vulgar except by its
utility and effects.
Let there be therefore (and may it be for the benefit of both) two
streams and two dispensations of knowledge; and in like manner two
tribes or kindreds of students in philosophy--tribes not hostile or
alien to each other, but bound together by mutual services;--let there
in short be one method for the cultivation, another for the invention,
of knowledge.
And for those who prefer the former, either from hurry or from
considerations of business or for want of mental power to take in and
embrace the other (which must needs be most men's case), I wish that
they may succeed to their desire in what they are about, and obtain
what they are pursuing. But if any man there be who, not content
to rest in and use the knowledge which has already been discovered,
aspires to penetrate further; to overcome, not an adversary in
argument, but nature in action; to seek, not pretty and probable
conjectures, but certain and demonstrable knowledge;--I invite all
such to join themselves, as true sons of knowledge, with me, that
passing by the outer courts of nature, which numbers have trodden,
we may find a way at length into her inner chambers. And to make my
meaning clearer and to familiarise the thing by giving it a name, I
have chosen to call one of these methods or ways _Anticipation of the
Mind_, the other _Interpretation of Nature_.
Moreover I have one request to make. I have on my own part made it my
care and study that the things which I shall propound should not only
be true, but should also be presented to men's minds, how strangely
soever preoccupied and obstructed, in a manner not harsh or
unpleasant. It is but reasonable however (especially in so great a
restoration of learning and knowledge) that I should claim of men one
favour in return; which is this; If any one would form an opinion or
judgment either out of his own observation, or out of the crowd of
authorities, or out of the forms of demonstration (which have now
acquired a sanction like that of judicial laws), concerning these
speculations of mine, let him not hope that he can do it in passage or
by the by; but let him examine the thing thoroughly; let him make some
little trial for himself of the way which I describe and lay out; let
him familiarise his thoughts with that subtlety of nature to which
experience bears witness; let him correct by seasonable patience and
due delay the depraved and deep-rooted habits of his mind; and when
all this is done and he has begun to be his own master, let him (if he
will) use his own judgment.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS (1623)[A]
TO THE GREAT VARIETY OF READERS
From the most able, to him that can but spell: There you are number'd.
We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes
depends vpon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your
purses. Well! it is now publique, & you wil stand for your priuiledges
wee know: to read, and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth
best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soeuer your
braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and
spare not. Iudge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your fiue
shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the iust rates,
and welcome. But, what euer you do, Buy. Censure will not driue a
Trade, or make the Iacke go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit,
and sit on the Stage at _Black-Friers_, or the _Cock-pit_, to arraigne
Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie,
and stood out all Appeals; and do now come forth quitted rather by a
Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation.
It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that
the Author himselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne
writings. But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death
departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the
office of their care, and paine to haue collected & publish'd them,
and so to haue publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with
diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the
frauds and stealthes of iniurious imposters, that expos'd them euen
those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and perfect of their
limbes, and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as he conceiued
them. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle
expresser of it. His mind and hand went together. And what he thought,
he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse receiued from him
a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who onely gather his
works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him.
And there we hope, to your diuers capacities, you will finde enough,
both to draw, and hold you for his wit can no more lie hid then it
could be lost. Reade him, therefore and againe and againe. And if then
you doe not like him surely you are in some manifest danger, not to
vnderstand him. And so we leaue you to other of his Friends, whom if
you need can bee your guides: if you neede them not, you can leade
your selues, and others. And such Readers we wish him.
JOHN HEMINGE HENRIE CONDELL.
[Footnote A: Little more than half of Shakespeare's plays were
published during his lifetime; and in the publication of these there
is no evidence that the author had any hand. Seven years after his
death, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of his fellow-actors,
collected the unpublished plays, and, in 1623, issued them along with
the others in a single volume, usually known as the First Folio.
When one considers what would have been lost had it not been for the
enterprise of these men, it seems safe to say that the volume they
introduced by this quaint and not too accurate preface, is the most
important single book in the imaginative literature of the world.]
PREFACE TO THE PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA
BY SIR ISAAC NEWTON. (1686)[A]
Since the ancients (as we are told by Pappus) made great account of
the science of mechanics in the investigation of natural things; and
the moderns, laying aside substantial forms and occult qualities,
have endeavored to subject the phenomena of nature to the laws of
mathematics, I have in this treatise cultivated mathematics so far as
it regards philosophy. The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold
respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and
practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from
which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with
perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished
from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical;
what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the
art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an
imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he
would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of
right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs
to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but
requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should
first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon
geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be
solved. To describe right lines and circles are problems, but not
geometrical problems. The solution of these problems is required from
mechanics; and by geometry the use of them, when so solved, is shown;
and it is the glory of geometry that from those few principles,
fetched from without, it is able to produce so many things. Therefore
geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and is nothing but that
part of universal mechanics which accurately proposes and demonstrates
the art of measuring. But since the manual arts are chiefly conversant
in the moving of bodies, it comes to pass that geometry is commonly
referred to their magnitudes, and mechanics to their motion. In this
sense rational mechanics will be the science of motions resulting
from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any
motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated. This part of mechanics
was cultivated by the ancients in the five powers which relate to
manual arts, who considered gravity (it not being a manual power) no
otherwise than as it moved weights by those powers. Our design, not
respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but
natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to
gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like
forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this
work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty
of philosophy seems to consist in this--from the phenomena of motions
to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces
to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to this end the general
propositions in the first and second book are directed. In the third
book we give an example of this in the explication of the system of
the World; for by the propositions mathematically demonstrated in the
first book, we there derive from the celestial phenomena the forces
of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the several planets.
Then, from these forces, by other propositions which are also
mathematical, we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the
moon, and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of
nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for
I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend
upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes
hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and
cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other;
which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the
search of nature in vain; but I hope the principles here laid
down will afford some light either to that or some truer method of
philosophy.
In the publication of this work, the most acute and universally
learned Mr. Edmund Halley not only assisted me with his pains in
correcting the press and taking care of the schemes, but it was to
his solicitations that its becoming public is owing; for when he
had obtained of me my demonstrations of the figure of the celestial
orbits, he continually pressed me to communicate the same to the Royal
Society, who afterwards, by their kind encouragement and entreaties,
engaged me to think of publishing them. But after I had begun to
consider the inequalities of the lunar motions, and had entered upon
some other things relating to the laws and measures of gravity,
and other forces; and the figures that would be described by bodies
attracted according to given laws; and the motion of several bodies
moving among themselves; the motion of bodies in resisting mediums;
the forces, densities, and motions of mediums; the orbits of the
comets, and such like; I put off that publication till I had made a
search into those matters, and could put out the whole together. What
relates to the lunar motions (being imperfect) I have put all together
in the corollaries of proposition 66, to avoid being obliged to
propose and distinctly demonstrate the several things there contained
in a method more prolix than the subject deserved, and interrupt the
series of the several propositions. Some things, found out after the
rest, I chose to insert in places less suitable, rather than change
the number of the propositions and the citations. I heartily beg that
what I have here done may be read with candor; and that the defects
I have been guilty of upon this difficult subject may be not so much
reprehended as kindly supplied, and investigated by new endeavors of
my readers.
Cambridge, Trinity College, ISAAC NEWTON.
May 8, 1686
[Footnote A: Sir Isaac Newton, the great English mathematician and
physicist, was born at Woolsthorpe in 1642, and died at Kensington in
1727. He held a professorship at Cambridge, represented the University
in Parliament, as master of the mint reformed the English coinage, and
for twenty five years was president of the Royal Society. His theory
of the law of universal gravitation, the most important of his many
discoveries, is expounded in his "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia
Mathematical," usually known merely as the "Principia," from which,
this Preface is translated.]
PREFACE TO FABLES,
ANCIENT AND MODERN
BY JOHN DRYDEN. (1700)[A]
'Tis with a poet as with a man who designs to build, and is very
exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand, but,
generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short
of the expense he first intended. He alters his mind as the work
proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had
not thought when he began. So has it happened to me; I have built a
house, where I intended but a lodge; yet with better success than a
certain nobleman,[1] who, beginning with a dog kennel, never liv'd to
finish the palace he had contriv'd.
From translating the first of Homer's _Iliads_ (which I intended as an
essay to the whole work) I proceeded to the translation of the twelfth
book of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, because it contains, among other
things, the causes, the beginning, and ending, of the Trojan war.
Here I ought in reason to have stopp'd; but the speeches of Ajax
and Ulysses lying next in my way, I could not balk 'em. When I had
compass'd them, I was so taken with the former part of the fifteenth
book, (which is the masterpiece of the whole _Metamorphoses_,) that
I enjoin'd myself the pleasing task of rend'ring it into English. And
now I found, by the number of my verses, that they began to swell into
a little volume; which gave me an occasion of looking backward on some
beauties of my author, in his former books. There occurred to me the
_Hunting of the Boar, Cinyras and Myrrha_, the good-natur'd story of
_Baucis and Philemon_, with the rest, which I hope I have translated
closely enough, and given them the same turn of verse which they had
in the original; and this, I may say without vanity, is not the talent
of every poet. He who has arriv'd the nearest to it, is the ingenious
and learned Sandys, the best versifier of the former age; if I may
properly call it by that name, which was the former part of this
concluding century. For Spenser and Fairfax both flourish'd in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our language, and who
saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers than those who
immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and
Mr. Waller of Fairfax, for we have our lineal descents and clans as
well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates that the
soul of Chaucer was transfus'd into his body, and that he was begotten
by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledg'd to
me that Spenser was his original, and many besides myself have heard
our famous Waller own that he deriv'd the harmony of his numbers
from the _Godfrey of Bulloign_, which was turned into English by Mr.
Fairfax. But to return. Having done with Ovid for this time, it
came into my mind that our old English poet, Chaucer, in many things
resembled him, and that with no disadvantage on the side of the modern
author, as I shall endeavor to prove when I compare them; and as I
am, and always have been, studious to promote the honor of my native
country, so I soon resolv'd to put their merits to the trial, by
turning some of the _Canterbury Tales_ into our language, as it is
now refin'd; for by this means, both the poets being set in the same
light, and dress'd in the same English habit, story to be compar'd
with story, a certain judgment may be made betwixt them by the reader,
without obtruding my opinion on him. Or, if I seem partial to my
countryman and predecessor in the laurel, the friends of antiquity
are not few; and besides many of the learn'd, Ovid has almost all the
beaux, and the whole fair sex, his declared patrons. Perhaps I have
assum'd somewhat more to myself than they allow me, because I have
adventur'd to sum up the evidence; but the readers are the jury, and
their privilege remains entire, to decide, according to the merits of
the cause, or if they please, to bring it to another hearing before
some other court. In the mean time, to follow the thrid of my
discourse, (as thoughts, according to Mr. Hobbes, have always some
connection,) so from Chaucer I was led to think on Boccace, who was
not only his contemporary, but also pursued the same studies; wrote
novels in prose, and many works in verse; particularly is said to have
invented the octave rhyme,[2] or stanza of eight lines, which ever
since has been maintain'd by the practice of all Italian writers, who
are, or at least assume the title of, heroic poets. He and Chaucer,
among other things, had this in common, that they refin'd their mother
tongues; but with this difference, that Dante had begun to file their
language, at least in verse, before the time of Boccace, who likewise
receiv'd no little help from his master Petrarch. But the reformation
of their prose was wholly owing to Boccace himself, who is yet the
standard of purity in the Italian tongue; tho' many of his phrases are
become obsolete, as in process of time it must needs happen. Chaucer
(as you have formerly been told by our learn'd Mr. Rymer) first
adorn'd and amplified our barren tongue from the Provencal,[3] which
was then the most polish'd of all the modern languages; but this
subject has been copiously treated by that great critic, who deserves
no little commendation from us his countrymen. For these reasons of
time, and resemblance of genius in Chaucer and Boccace, I resolv'd
to join them in my present work; to which I have added some original
papers of my own; which, whether they are equal or inferior to my
other poems, an author is the most improper judge, and therefore I
leave them wholly to the mercy of the reader. I will hope the best,
that they will not be condemn'd; but if they should, I have the excuse
of an old gentleman, who mounting on horseback before some ladies,
when I was present, got up somewhat heavily, but desir'd of the fair
spectators that they would count fourscore and eight before they
judg'd him. By the mercy of God, I am already come within twenty years
of his number, a cripple in my limbs; but what decays are in my mind,
the reader must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever in the
faculties of my soul, excepting only my memory, which is not impair'd
to any great degree; and if I lose not more of it, I have no great
reason to complain. What judgment I had, increases rather than
diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast
upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject; to run
them into verse, or to give them the other harmony of prose. I have so
long studied and practic'd both, that they are grown into a habit, and
become familiar to me. In short, tho' I may lawfully plead some part
of the old gentleman's excuse, yet I will reserve it till I think I
have greater need, and ask no grains of allowance for the faults of
this my present work, but those which are given of course to human
frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in
which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness. They who think
too well of their own performances are apt to boast in their prefaces
how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of
more importance interfere'd; but the reader will be as apt to ask the
question, why they allow'd not a longer time to make their works more
perfect, and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges
as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they deser'd no
better.
With this account of my present undertaking, I conclude the first part
of this discourse; in the second part, as at a second sitting, tho' I
alter not the draught, I must touch the same features over again, and
change the dead coloring[4] of the whole. In general, I will only say
that I have written nothing which savors of immorality or profaneness;
at least, I am not conscious to myself of any such intention. If there
happen to be found an irreverent expression, or a thought too wanton,
they are crept into my verses thro' my inadvertency; if the searchers
find any in the cargo, let them be stay'd or forfeited, like
counterbanded goods; at least, let their authors be answerable
for them, as being but imported merchandise, and not of my own
manufacture. On the other side, I have endeavor'd to choose such
fables, both ancient and modern, as contain in each of them some
instructive moral; which I could prove by induction, but the way
is tedious, and they leap foremost into sight, without the reader's
trouble of looking after them. I wish I could affirm, with a safe
conscience, that I had taken the same care in all my former writings;
for it must be own'd, that supposing verses are never so beautiful or
pleasing, yet if they contain anything which shocks religion, or good
manners, they are at best what Horace says of good numbers without
good sense, _Versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae_.[5] Thus far, I
hope, I am right in court, without renouncing to my other right of
self-defense, where I have been wrongfully accus'd, and my sense
wiredrawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a
religious lawyer,[6] in a late pleading against the stage; in which
he mixes truth with falsehood, and has not forgotten the old rule of
calumniating strongly, that something may remain.
I resume the thrid of my discourse with the first of my translations,
which was the _First Iliad_ of Homer. If it shall please God to give
me longer life, and moderate health, my intentions are to
translate the whole _Ilias_; provided still that I meet with those
encouragements from the public which may enable me to proceed in my
undertaking with some cheerfulness. And this I dare assure the world
beforehand, that I have found by trial Homer a more pleasing task than
Virgil, (tho' I say not the translation will be less laborious). For
the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin poet. In
the works of the two authors we may read their manners and natural
inclinations, which are wholly different. Virgil was of a quiet,
sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The
chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of
words; Homer was rapid in his thoughts, and took all the liberties,
both of numbers and of expressions, which his language, and the age
in which he liv'd, allow'd him. Homer's invention was more copious,
Virgil's more confin'd; so that if Homer had not led the way, it was
not in Virgil to have begun heroic poetry; for nothing can be more
evident than that the Roman poem is but the second part of the
_Ilias_; a continuation of the same story, and the persons already
form'd; the manners of AEneas are those of Hector superadded to those
which Homer gave him. The adventures of Ulysses in the _Odysseis_ are
imitated in the first six books of Virgil's _Aeneis_; and tho' the
accidents are not the same, (which would have argued him of a servile,
copying, and total barrenness of invention,) yet the seas were the
same, in which both the heroes wander'd; and Dido cannot be denied to
be the poetical daughter of Calypso. The six latter books of Virgil's
poem are the four and twenty _Iliads_ contracted: a quarrel occasioned
by a lady, a single combat, battles fought, and a town besieg'd. I
say not this in derogation to Virgil, neither do I contradict anything
which I have formerly said in his just praise: for his episodes are
almost wholly of his own invention; and the form which he has given to
the telling makes the tale his own, even tho' the original story had
been the same. But this proves, however, that Homer taught Virgil to
design; and if invention be the first virtue of an epic poet, then the
Latin poem can only be allow'd the second place. Mr. Hobbes, in the
preface to his own bald translation of the _Ilias_ (studying poetry as
he did mathematics, when it was too late)--Mr. Hobbes, I say, begins
the praise of Homer where he should have ended it. He tells us that
the first beauty of an epic poem consists in diction, that is, in
the choice of words, and harmony of numbers; now the words are the
coloring of the work, which in the order of nature is last to
be consider'd. The design, the disposition, the manners, and the
thoughts, are all before it: where any of those are wanting or
imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human
life; which is in the very definition of a poem. Words, indeed, like
glaring colors, are the first beauties that arise and strike the
sight: but if the draught be false or lame, the figures ill disposed,
the manners obscure or inconsistent, or the thoughts unnatural,
then the finest colors are but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful
monster at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of
the former beauties; but in this last, which is expression, the Roman
poet is at least equal to the Grecian, as I have said elsewhere;
supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and by his
diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being so different in
their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and
melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is
that each of them has follow'd his own natural inclination, as well
in forming the design as in the execution of it. The very heroes
shew their authors: Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, _Impiger,
iracundus, inexorabidis, acer_[7] &c.; AEneas patient, considerate,
careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive
to the will of Heaven--_Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque seqitamur_.[8]
I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forc'd to
defer it to a fitter time. From all I have said I will only draw this
inference, that the action of Homer being more full of vigor than that
of Virgil, according to the temper of the writer, is of consequence
more pleasing to the reader. One warms you by degrees: the other sets
you on fire all at once, and never intermits his heat. 'Tis the same
difference which Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in
Demosthenes and Tully. One persuades; the other commands. You never
cool while you read Homer, even not in the second book (a graceful
flattery to his countrymen); but he hastens from the ships, and
concludes not that book till he has made you an amends by the violent
playing of a new machine. From thence he hurries on his action with
variety of events, and ends it in less compass than two months.
This vehemence of his, I confess, is more suitable to my temper; and
therefore I have translated his first book with greater pleasure
than any part of Virgil; but it was not a pleasure without pains. The
continual agitations of the spirits must needs be a weakening of any
constitution, especially in age; and many pauses are required for
refreshment betwixt the heats; the _Iliad_ of itself being a third
part longer than all Virgil's works together.
This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I
proceed to Ovid and Chaucer, considering the former only in relation
to the latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue;
from Chaucer the purity of the English tongue began. The manners of
the poets were not unlike: both of them were well bred, well natur'd,
amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings, it may be also in
their lives. Their studies were the same, philosophy and philology.
Both of them were knowing in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the
Roman feasts, and Chaucer's treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient
witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil,
Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and
clearness: neither were great inventors; for Ovid only copied the
Grecian fables; and most of Chaucer's stones were taken from his
Italian contemporaries, or their predecessors.[9] Boccace his
_Decameron_ was first publish'd; and from thence our Englishman has
borrow'd many of his _Canterbury Tales_; yet that of _Palamon and
Arcite_ was written in all probability by some Italian wit in a former
age, as I shall prove hereafter. The tale of Grizild was the invention
of Petrarch; by him sent to Boccace; from whom it came to Chaucer.
_Troilus and Cressida_ was also written by a Lombard author; but much
amplified by our English translator, as well as beautified; the genius
of our countrymen, in general, being rather to improve an invention,
than to invent themselves; as is evident not only in our poetry, but
in many of our manufactures. I find I have anticipated already, and
taken up from Boccace before I come to him; but there is so much
less behind; and I am of the temper of most kings, _who love to be
in debt_, are all for present money, no matter how they pay it
afterwards: besides, the nature of a preface is rambling; never wholly
out of the way, nor in it. This I have learn'd from the practice of
honest Montaigne, and return at my pleasure to Ovid and Chaucer, of
whom I have little more to say. Both of them built on the inventions
of other men; yet since Chaucer had something of his own, as _The Wife
of Bath's Tale, The Cock and the Fox_,[10] which I have translated,
and some others, I may justly give our countryman the precedence in
that part; since I can remember nothing of Ovid which was wholly his.
Both of them understood the manners, under which name I comprehend
the passions, and, in a larger sense, the descriptions of persons,
and their very habits; for an example, I see Baucis and Philemon as
perfectly before me, as if some ancient painter had drawn them;
and all the pilgrims in the _Canterbury Tales_, their humors, their
features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supp'd with
them at the Tabard in Southwark; yet even there too the figures of
Chaucer are much more lively, and set in a better light: which tho'
I have not time to prove, yet I appeal to the reader, and am sure he
will clear me from partiality. The thoughts and words remain to be
consider'd in the comparison of the two poets; and I have sav'd myself
one half of that labor, by owning that Ovid liv'd when the Roman
tongue was in its meridian, Chaucer in the dawning of our language;
therefore that part of the comparison stands not on an equal foot,
any more than the diction of Ennius and Ovid, or of Chaucer and our
present English. The words are given up as a post not to be defended
in our poet, because he wanted the modern art of fortifying. The
thoughts remain to be consider'd, and they are to be measured only by
their propriety; that is, as they flow more or less naturally from
the persons describ'd, on such and such occasions. The vulgar judges,
which are nine parts in ten of all nations, who call conceits and
jingles wit, who see Ovid full of them, and Chaucer altogether
without them, will think me little less than mad, for preferring the
Englishman to the Roman: yet, with their leave, I must presume to say
that the things they admire are only glittering trifles, and so far
from being witty, that in a serious poem they are nauseous, because
they are unnatural. Would any man who is ready to die for love
describe his passion like Narcissus? Would he think of _inopem me
copia fecit_,[11] and a dozen more of such expressions, pour'd on the
neck of one another, and signifying all the same thing? If this were
wit, was this a time to be witty, when the poor wretch was in the
agony of death? This is just John Littlewit in _Bartholomew Fair_,[12]
who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a
miserable conceit. On these occasions the poet should endeavor to
raise pity; but instead of this, Ovid is tickling you to laugh. Virgil
never made use of such machines, when he was moving you to commiserate
the death of Dido: he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer
makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet
when he came to die, he made him think more reasonably: he repents not
of his love, for that had alter'd his character; but acknowledges
the injustice of his proceedings, and resigns Emilia to Palamon. What
would Ovid have done on this occasion? He would certainly have made
Arcite witty on his deathbed. He had complain'd he was farther off
from possession by being so near, and a thousand such boyisms, which
Chaucer rejected as below the dignity of the subject. They who think
otherwise would by the same reason prefer Lucan and Ovid to Homer and
Virgil, and Martial to all four of them. As for the turn of words, in
which Ovid particularly excels all poets, they are sometimes a fault,
and sometimes a beauty, as they are us'd properly or improperly; but
in strong passions always to be shunn'd, because passions are serious,
and will admit no playing. The French have a high value for them;
and I confess, they are often what they call delicate, when they are
introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and
followed nature more closely, than to use them. I have thus far, to
the best of my knowledge, been an upright judge betwixt the parties in
competition, not meddling with the design nor the disposition of it;
because the design was not their own, and in the disposing of it they
were equal. It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular.
In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold
him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the
Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learn'd in
all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects as he knew
what to say, so he knows also when to leave off, a continence which
is practic'd by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients,
excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets[13] is sunk
in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which
came in his way, but swept like a dragnet, great and small. There
was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted, whole pyramids of
sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men.
All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment,
neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of
other poets, but only indulg'd himself in the luxury of writing, and
perhaps knew it was a fault, but hop'd the reader would not find it.
For this reason, tho' he must always be thought a great poet he is
no longer esteem'd a good writer, and for ten impressions, which his
works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred
books are scarcely purchas'd once a twelvemonth for, as my last Lord
Rochester said, tho' somewhat profanely, "Not being of God, he could
not stand."
Chaucer follow'd Nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond
her, and there is a great difference of being _poeta_ and _aimis
poeta_,[14] if we may believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest
behavior and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not
harmonious to us, but 'tis like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus
commends it was _auribus istius temporis accommodata_[15] they who
liv'd with him, and some time after him, thought it musical and it
continued so even in our judgment, if compar'd with the numbers of
Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries there is the rude sweetness of
a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, tho' not perfect.
'Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of
him [16] for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and
that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine
but this opinion is not worth confuting, 'tis so gross and obvious an
error, that common sense (which is a rule in everything but matters
of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equality of
numbers in every verse which we call heroic was either not known,
or not always practic'd, in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to
produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of half
a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can
make otherwise. We can only say, that he liv'd in the infancy of our
poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We
must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in
process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace;
even after Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax,
before Waller and Denham were in being: and our numbers were in their
nonage till these last appear'd. I need say little of his parentage,
life, and fortunes;[17] they are to be found at large in all the
editions of his works. He was employ'd abroad and favor'd by Edward
the Third, Richard the Second, and Henry the Fourth, and was poet, as
I suppose, to all three of them. In Richard's time, I doubt, he was
a little dipp'd in the rebellion of the commons, and being
brother-in-law to John of Ghant, it was no wonder if he follow'd the
fortunes of that family, and was well with Henry the Fourth when he
had depos'd his predecessor. Neither is it to be admir'd,[18] that
Henry, who was a wise as well as a valiant prince, who claim'd by
succession, and was sensible that his title was not sound, but was
rightfully in Mortimer, who had married the heir of York; it was not
to be admir'd, I say, if that great politician should be pleas'd to
have the greatest wit of those times in his interests, and to be the
trumpet of his praises. Augustus had given him the example, by the
advice of Maecenas, who recommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose
praises help'd to make him popular while he was alive, and after his
death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of
our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards the opinions of
Wycliffe, after John of Ghant his patron; somewhat of which appears in
the tale of Piers Plowman.[19] Yet I cannot blame him for inveighing
so sharply against the vices of the clergy in his age; their pride,
their ambition, their pomp, their avarice, their worldly interest,
deserv'd the lashes which he gave them, both in that and in most of
his _Canterbury Tales_: neither has his contemporary Boccace spar'd
them. Yet both those poets liv'd in much esteem with good and holy
men in orders; for the scandal which is given by particular priests
reflects not on the sacred function. Chaucer's Monk, his Canon, and
his Friar, took not from the character of his Good Parson. A satirical
poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests. We are only to take
care that we involve not the innocent with the guilty in the same
condemnation. The good cannot be too much honor'd, nor the bad too
coarsely us'd: for the corruption of the best becomes the worst. When
a clergyman is whipp'd, his gown is first taken off, by which the
dignity of his order is secur'd: if he be wrongfully accus'd, he has
his action of slander; and 'tis at the poet's peril if he transgress
the law. But they will tell us that all kind of satire, tho' never so
well deserv'd by particular priests, yet brings the whole order into
contempt. Is then the peerage of England anything dishonored, when a
peer suffers for his treason? If he be libel'd or any way defam'd, he
has his _scandalum magnatum_[20] to punish the offender. They who use
this kind of argument seem to be conscious to themselves of somewhat
which has deserv'd the poet's lash, and are less concern'd for their
public capacity than for their private; at least there is pride at the
bottom of their reasoning. If the faults of men in orders are only to
be judg'd among themselves, they are all in some sort parties: for,
since they say the honor of their order is concern'd in every member
of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges? How far
I may be allow'd to speak my opinion in this case, I know not; but I
am sure a dispute of this nature caus'd mischief in abundance betwixt
a king of England and an archbishop of Canterbury,[21] one standing
up for the laws of his land, and the other for the honor (as he call'd
it) of God's Church; which ended in the murther of the prelate, and in
the whipping of his Majesty from post to pillar for his penance.
The learn'd and ingenious Dr. Drake[22] has say'd me the labour of
inquiring into the esteem and reverence which the priests have had
of old, and I would rather extend than diminish any part of it: yet
I must needs say, that when a priest provokes me without any occasion
given him, I have no reason, unless it be the charity of a Christian,
to forgive him: _prior laesit_[23] is justification sufficient in the
civil law. If I answer him in his own language, self-defense, I am
sure, must be allow'd me; and if I carry it farther, even to a sharp
recrimination, somewhat may be indulg'd to human frailty. Yet my
resentment has not wrought so far, but that I have followed Chaucer
in his character of a holy man, and have enlarg'd on that subject with
some pleasure, reserving to myself the right, if I shall think fit
hereafter, to describe another sort of priests, such as are more
easily to be found than the Good Parson; such as have given the last
blow to Christianity in this age, by a practice so contrary to their
doctrine. But this will keep cold till another time. In the mean while
I take up Chaucer where I left him. He must have been a man of a most
wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed
of him, he has taken into the compass of his _Canterbury Tales_ the
various manners and humors (as we now call them) of the whole English
nation, in his age. Not a single character has escap'd him. All his
pilgrims are severally distinguish'd from each other; and not only
in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons.
Bapista Porta[24] could not have described their natures better, than
by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of
their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different
educations, humors, and callings, that each of them would be improper
in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are
distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their discourses are
such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such
as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are
vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearn'd, or (as Chaucer
calls them) lewd, and some are learn'd. Even the ribaldry of the
low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are
several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing
Lady Prioress and the broad-speaking gap-tooth'd Wife of Bath. But
enough of this: there is such a variety of game springing up before
me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow.
'Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's
plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grandames all before us,
as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still
remaining in mankind, and even in England, tho' they are call'd by
other names than those of Monks and Friars, and Canons, and Lady
Abbesses, and Nuns: for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out
of nature, tho' everything is alter'd. May I have leave to do myself
the justice--since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from
granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as
to be a Christian, or a moral man--may I have leave, I say, to inform
my reader that I have confin'd my choice to such tales of Chaucer as
savor nothing of immodesty. If I had desir'd more to please than
to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the
Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale,
would have procured me as many friends and readers, as there are beaux
and ladies of pleasure in the town. But I will no more offend against
good manners: I am sensible, as I ought to be, of the scandal I have
given by my loose writings; and make what reparation I am able,
by this public acknowledgment. If anything of this nature, or of
profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far from defending it,
that I disown it. _Totum hoc indictum volo._[25] Chaucer makes another
manner of apology for his broad speaking, and Boccace makes the like;
but I will follow neither of them. Our countryman, in the end of his
characters, before the _Canterbury Tales_, thus excuses the ribaldry,
which is very gross in many of his novels:
But first, I pray you of your courtesy,
That ye ne arrete[26] it nought my villany,
Though that I plainly speak in this mattere
To tellen you her[27] words, and eke her chere:
Ne though I speak her words properly,
For this ye knowen as well as I,
Who shall tellen a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can:
Everich word of it been in his charge,
_All speke he never so rudely ne large._
Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue,
Or feine things, or find words new:
He may not spare, altho he were his brother,
He mote as well say o word as another.
Christ spake himself full broad in holy writ,
And well I wote no villany is it.
Eke Plato saith, who so can him rede,
The words mote[28] been cousin to the dede.[29]
Yet if a man should have enquired of Boccace or of Chaucer, what need
they had of introducing such characters, where obscene words were
proper in their mouths, but very undecent to be heard; I know not what
answer they could have made: for that reason such tales shall be left
untold by me. You have here a specimen of Chaucer's language, which
is so obsolete that his sense is scarce to be understood; and you
have likewise more than one example of his unequal numbers, which were
mentioned before. Yet many of his verses consist of ten syllables, and
the words not much behind our present English: as for example, these
two lines, in the description of the carpenter's young wife:
Wincing she was, as is a jolly colt,
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
I have almost done with Chaucer, when I have answer'd some objections
relating to my present work. I find some people are offended that I
have turn'd these tales into modern English; because they think them
unworthy of my pains, and look on Chaucer as a dry, old-fashion'd wit,
not worth reviving. I have often heard the late Earl of Leicester say
that Mr. Cowley himself was of that opinion; who having read him over
at my lord's request, declar'd he had no taste of him. I dare not
advance my opinion against the judgment of so great an author; but
I think it fair, however, to leave the decision to the public: Mr.
Cowley was too modest to set up for a dictator; and being shock'd
perhaps with his old style, never examin'd into the depth of his
good sense. Chaucer, I confess, is a rough diamond, and must first
be polish'd, ere he shines. I deny not, likewise, that, living in our
early days of poetry, he writes not always of a piece, but sometimes
mingles trivial things with those of greater moment. Sometimes also,
tho' not often, he runs riot, like Ovid, and knows not when he has
said enough. But there are more great wits, beside Chaucer, whose
fault is their excess of conceits, and those ill sorted. An author is
not to write all he can, but only all he ought. Having observ'd this
redundancy in Chaucer, (as it is an easy matter for a man of ordinary
parts to find a fault in one of greater,) I have not tied myself to a
literal translation; but have often omitted what I judg'd unnecessary,
or not of dignity enough to appear in the company of better thoughts.
I have presumed farther, in some places, and added somewhat of my
own where I thought my author was deficient, and had not given his
thoughts their true luster, for want of words in the beginning of our
language. And to this I was the more embolden'd, because (if I may be
permitted to say it of myself) I found I had a soul congenial to his,
and that I had been conversant in the same studies. Another poet, in
another age, may take the same liberty with my writings; if at least
they live long enough to deserve correction. It was also necessary
sometimes to restore the sense of Chaucer, which was lost or mangled
in the errors of the press. Let this example suffice at present;
in the story of _Palawan and Arcite_, where the temple of Diana is
describ'd, you find these verses, in all the editions of our author:
There saw I Dane turned unto a tree,
I mean not the goddess Diane,
But Venus daughter, which that hight Dane;
which after a little consideration I knew was to be reformed into this
sense, that Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, was turn'd into a tree. I
durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourne should
arise, and say I varied from my author, because I understood him not.
But there are other judges, who think I ought not to have translated
Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion: they suppose
there is a certain veneration due to his old language; and that it
is little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are
farther of opinion that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this
transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be
lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit. Of this
opinion was that excellent person whom I mention'd, the late Earl of
Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despis'd him. My
lord dissuaded me from this attempt, (for I was thinking of it some
years before his death,) and his authority prevail'd so far with me
as to defer my undertaking while he liv'd, in deference to him: yet my
reason was not convinc'd with what he urg'd against it. If the first
end of a writer be to be understood, then as his language grows
obsolete, his thoughts must grow obscure:
Multa renascentur quae nunc cecidere; cadentque,
Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.[30]
When an ancient word for its sound and significance deserves to be
reviv'd, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity, to restore
it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so
sacred as never to be remov'd; customs are chang'd, and even statutes
are silently repeal'd, when the reason ceases for which they were
enacted. As for the other part of the argument, that his thoughts
will lose of their original beauty, by the innovation of words; in
the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where
they are no longer understood, which is the present case. I grant
that something must be lost in all transfusion, that is, in all
translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be
lost, or at least be maim'd, when it is scarce intelligible; and
that but to a few. How few are there who can read Chaucer so as to
understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit
and no pleasure. 'Tis not for the use of some old Saxon friends that I
have taken these pains with him: let them neglect my version, because
they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes who understand
sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and sense is put
into words which they understand. I will go farther, and dare to add,
that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to others which had
them not originally; but in this I may be partial to myself; let the
reader judge, and I submit to his decision. Yet I think I have just
occasion to complain of them, who, because they understand Chaucer,
would deprive the greater part of their countrymen of the same
advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do their grandam gold, only to
look on it themselves and hinder others from making use of it. In
sum, I seriously protest that no man ever had, or can have, a greater
veneration for Chaucer, than myself. I have translated some part
of his works, only that I might perpetuate his memory, or at least
refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have alter'd him anywhere for
the better, I must at the same time acknowledge that I could have done
nothing without him: _facile est inventis addere_,[31] is no great
commendation; and I am not so vain to think I have deserv'd a greater.
I will conclude what I have to say of him singly, with this one
remark: a lady of my acquaintance, who keeps a kind of correspondence
with some authors of the fair sex in France, has been inform'd by
them, that Mademoiselle de Scudery, who is as old as Sibyl, and
inspir'd like her by the same God of Poetry, is at this time
translating Chaucer into modern French. From which I gather that
he has been formerly translated into the old Provencal (for how she
should come to understand old English I know not). But the matter of
fact being true, it makes me think that there is something in it like
fatality; that, after certain periods of time, the fame and memory
of great wits should be renewed, as Chaucer is both in France and
England. If this be wholly chance, 't is extraordinary, and I dare not
call it more, for fear of being tax'd with superstition.
Boccace comes last to be consider'd, who living in the same age with
Chaucer, had the same genius, and follow'd the same studies: both
writ novels, and each of them cultivated his mother tongue. But the
greatest resemblance of our two modern authors being in their familiar
style, and pleasing way of relating comical adventures, I may pass it
over, because I have translated nothing from Boccace of that nature.
In the serious part of poetry, the advantage is wholly on Chaucer's
side; for tho' the Englishman has borrow'd many tales from the
Italian, yet it appears that those of Boccace were not generally of
his own making, but taken from authors of former ages, and by him only
model'd; so that what there was of invention in either of them may be
judg'd equal. But Chaucer has refin'd on Boccace, and has mended the
stones which he has borrowed, in his way of telling; tho' prose
allows more liberty of thought, and the expression is more easy when
unconfin'd by numbers. Our countryman carries weight, and yet wins the
race at disadvantage. I desire not the reader should take my word, and
therefore I will set two of their discourses on the same subject,
in the same light, for every man to judge betwixt them. I translated
Chaucer first, and, amongst the rest, pitch'd on _The Wife of Bath's
Tale_; not daring, as I have said, to adventure on her prologue,
because 't is too licentious: there Chaucer introduces an old woman
of mean parentage, whom a youthful knight of noble blood was forc'd to
marry, and consequently loath'd her; the crone being in bed with him
on the wedding night, and finding his aversion, endeavors to win his
affection by reason, and speaks a good word for herself (as who could
blame her?) in hope to mollify the sullen bridegroom. She takes her
topics from the benefits of poverty, the advantages of old age and
ugliness, the vanity of youth, and the silly pride of ancestry and
titles without inherent virtue, which is the true nobility. When I had
clos'd Chaucer, I returned to Ovid, and translated some more of his
fables; and by this time had so far forgotten _The Wife of Bath's
Tale_, that, when I took up Boccace, unawares I fell on the same
argument of preferring virtue to nobility of blood, and titles, in the
story of Sigismonda; which I had certainly avoided for the resemblance
of the two discourses, if my memory had not fail'd me. Let the reader
weigh them both; and if he thinks me partial to Chaucer, 't is in him
to right Boccace.
I prefer in our countryman, far above all his other stories, the noble
poem of _Palamon and Arcite_, which is of the epic kind, and perhaps
not much inferior to the _Ilias_ or the _AEneis_: the story is more
pleasing than either of them, the manners as perfect, the diction as
poetical, the learning as deep and various, and the disposition full
as artful; only it includes a greater length of time, as taking up
seven years at least, but Aristotle has left undecided the duration of
the action; which yet is easily reduc'd into the compass of a year,
by a narration of what preceded the return of Palamon to Athens. I had
thought for the honor of our nation, and more particularly for his,
whose laurel, tho' unworthy, I have worn after him, that this story
was of English growth, and Chaucer's own; but I was undeceiv'd by
Boccace; for, casually looking on the end of his seventh _Giornata_,
I found Dionco (under which name he shadows himself) and Fiametta
(who represents his mistress, the natural daughter of Robert, King of
Naples), of whom these words are spoken: _Dionco e Fiametta gran pezza
cantarono insieme d'Arcita, e di Palamone_:[32] by which it appears
that this story was written before the time of Boccace; but, the name
of its author being wholly lost, Chaucer is now become an original;
and I question not but the poem has receiv'd many beauties by passing
thro' his noble hands. Besides this tale, there is another of his own
invention, after the manner of the Provencals, call'd _The Flower and
the Leaf_,[33] with which I was so particularly pleas'd, both for the
invention and the moral, that I cannot hinder myself from recommending
it to the reader.
As a corollary to this preface, in which I have done justice to
others, I owe somewhat to myself: not that I think it worth my time
to enter the lists with one M----,[34] or one B----,[35] but barely
to take notice, that such men there are who have written scurrilously
against me, without any provocation. M----, who is in orders, pretends
amongst the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on
priesthood: if I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and
am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him to
satisfied that he shall not be able to force himself upon me for an
adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him.
His own translations of Virgil have answer'd his criticisms on mine.
If (as they say he has declar'd in print) he prefers the version of
Ogleby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment: for 't is
agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogleby: that, you will
say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot M---- bring about? I am
satisfied, however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be
thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desir'd him
underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word I have
not brib'd him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his
pamphlet. 'T is true, I should be glad if I could persuade him to
continue his good offices, and write such another critique on anything
of mine for I find by experience he has a great stroke with the
reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a
better opinion of them. He has taken some pains with my poetry, but
nobody will be persuaded to take the same with his. If I had taken
to the Church, (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts,)
I should have had more sense, if not more grace, than to have turn'd
myself out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But
his account of my manners and my principles are of a piece with his
cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.
As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is
that I was the author of _Absalom and Achitophel_, which, he thinks,
is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.
But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing
ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the _manes_
of his _Arthurs_. I will only say that it was not for this noble
knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my
preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms
were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he
rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were
thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took
his hint: for he began immediately upon the story, tho' he had the
baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor but, instead of it, to
traduce me in a libel.
I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he
has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts
and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity,
profaneness, of immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy,
let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal
occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes
me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, when I have so
often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove
that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and
interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were
not guilty. Besides that, he is too much given to horseplay in his
raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plow. I will
not say: "The zeal of God's house has eaten him up;" but I am sure it
has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also
be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this
rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function
to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might
have employ'd his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of
Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so
it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some
pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on
Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explain'd some vices which, without
their interpretation, had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he
judg'd impartially betwixt the former age and us.
There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, call'd _The Custom of
the Country_, than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted
on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reform'd
now than they were five and twenty years ago? If they are, I
congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice
the cause of my fellow poets, tho' I abandon my own defense: they have
some of them answer'd for themselves, and neither they nor I can think
Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy that we should shun him. He has
lost ground at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too
far, like the Prince of Conde at the battle of Seneffe: from immoral
plays to no plays, _ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia_[36]. But
being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest
of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels that
they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them, B---- and M----
are only distinguish'd from the crowd by being remember'd to their
infamy:
--Demetri, teque Tigelli[37]
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.
[Footnote A: John Dryden (1631-1700), the great dramatic and satirical
poet of the later seventeenth century, whose translation of Virgil's
"AEneid" appears in another volume of the Harvard Classics, deserves
hardly less distinction as a prose writer than as a poet. The present
essay, prefixed to a volume of narrative poems, is largely concerned
with Chaucer, and in its genial and penetrating criticism, expressed
with characteristic clearness and vigor, can be seen the ground for
naming Dryden the first of English literary critics, and the founder
of modern prose style.]
[Footnote 1: Scott suggests that the allusion is to the Duke of
Buckingham, who was often satirized for the slow progress of his great
mansion at Chefden.]
[Footnote 2: Boccaccio did not invent this stanza, which had been used
in both French and Italian before his day, but he did constitute it
the Italian form for heroic verse.]
[Footnote 3: Rymer misled Dryden. There is no trace of Provencal
influence on Chaucer.]
[Footnote 4: The foundation layer of color in a painting.]
[Footnote 5: "Verses without content, melodious trifles."--_Ars Poet_.
322.]
[Footnote 6: Jeremy Collier, in his _Short View of the Immortality and
Profaneness of the Stage_, 1698.]
[Footnote 7: "Energetic, irascible, unyielding, vehement."--Horace,
_Ars Poet._121.]
[Footnote 8: "Whithersoever the fates drag us to and fro, let us
follow."--Virgil, _AEneid_, v. 709.]
[Footnote 9: The statements that follow as to Chaucer's sources are
mostly not in accord with the results of modern scholarship.]
[Footnote 10: The plot of neither of these poems was original with
Chaucer.]
[Footnote 11: "Plenty has made me poor."--_Meta._ iii, 466.]
[Footnote 12: By Ben Jonson.]
[Footnote 13: Cowley]
[Footnote 14: 'Too much a poet'--Martial iii 44 (not Catullus)]
[Footnote 15: Suited to the ears of that time]
[Footnote 16: Speght, whom modern scholarship has shown to be right in
this matter.]
[Footnote 17: What follows on Chaucer's life is full of errors.]
[Footnote 18: Wondered at]
[Footnote 19: A spurious "Plowman's Tale" was included in the older
editions of Chaucer.]
[Footnote 20: A law term for slander of a man of high rank, involving
more severe punishment than ordinary slander.]
[Footnote 21: Henry II. and Thomas a Becket.]
[Footnote 22: Dr. James Drake wrote a reply to Jeremy Collier's _Short
View_.]
[Footnote 23: "He did the first injury"]
[Footnote 24: A Neapolitan physician who wrote on physiognomy.]
[Footnote 25: "I wish all this unsaid."]
[Footnote 26: Reckon.]
[Footnote 27: Their.]
[Footnote 28: Must.]
[Footnote 29: The corrupt state of the text of this passage is enough
to explain why Dryden found Chaucer rough.]
[Footnote 30: "Many words which have now fallen out of use shall be
born again; and others which are now in honor shall fall, if custom
wills it, in the force of which lie the judgement and law and rules of
speech."--Horace _Ars Poet._ 70-72.]
[Footnote 31: "It is easy to add to what is already invented."]
[Footnote 32: Dionco and Fiametta sang together a long time of Arcite
and Palamon.]
[Footnote 33: Not by Chaucer.]
[Footnote 34: Rev. Luke Milbourne, who had attacked Dryden's Virgil.]
[Footnote 35: Sir Richard Blackmore, who had censured Dryden for the
indecency of his writings.]
[Footnote 36: "The argument from abuse to use is not valid."]
[Footnote 37: "You, Demetrius and Tigellius, I bid lament among
the chairs of your scholars." Blackmore had once been a
schoolmaster.--Noyes.]
PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS
BY HENRY FIELDING (1742)[A]
THE COMIC EPIC IN PROSE
As it is possible the mere English reader may have a different idea of
romance with the author of these little volumes; and may consequently
expect a kind of entertainment, not to be found, nor which was even
intended, in the following pages; it may not be improper to premise a
few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to
have seen hitherto attempted in our language.
The EPIC, as well as the DRAMA, is divided into tragedy and comedy.
HOMER, who was the father of this species of poetry, gave us the
pattern of both these, tho' that of the latter kind is entirely lost;
which Aristotle tells us, bore the same relation to comedy which his
Iliad bears to tragedy. And perhaps, that we have no more instances of
it among the writers of antiquity, is owing to the loss of this
great pattern, which, had it survived, would have found its imitators
equally with the other poems of this great original.
And farther, as this poetry may be tragic or comic, I will not scruple
to say it may be likewise either in verse or prose: for tho' it wants
one particular, which the critic enumerates in the constituent parts
of an epic poem, namely, metre; yet, when any kind of writing contains
all its other parts, such as fable, action, characters, sentiments,
and diction, and is deficient in metre only, it seems, I think,
reasonable to refer it to the epic; at least, as no critic hath
thought proper to range it under any other head, nor to assign it a
particular name to itself.
Thus the Telemachus of the archbishop of Cambray appears to me of the
epic kind, as well as the Odyssey of Homer, indeed, it is much fairer
and more reasonable to give it a name common with that species from
which it differs only in a single instance, than to confound it with
those which it resembles in no other. Such are those voluminous works,
commonly called Romances, namely Clelia, Cleopatra, Astraea, Cassandra,
the Grand Cyrus, and innumerable others which contain, as I apprehend,
very little instruction or entertainment.
Now, a comic romance is a comic epic-poem in prose; differing from
comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more
extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of
incidents, and introducing a greater variety of characters. It differs
from the serious romance in its fable and action, in this: that as in
the one these are grave and solemn, so in the other they are light and
ridiculous; it differs in its characters, by introducing persons of
inferiour rank, and consequently of inferiour manners, whereas the
grave romance sets the highest before us; lastly in its sentiments and
diction; by preserving the ludicrous instead of the sublime. In the
diction I think, burlesque itself may be sometimes admitted; of which
many instances will occur in this work, as in the description of the
battles, and some other places not necessary to be pointed out to the
classical reader; for whose entertainment those parodies or burlesque
imitations are chiefly calculated.
But tho' we have sometimes admitted this in our diction, we have
carefully excluded it from our sentiments and characters; for there
it is never properly introduced, unless in writings of the burlesque
kind, which this is not intended to be. Indeed, no two species of
writing can differ more widely than the comic and the burlesque:
for as the latter is ever the exhibition of what is monstrous and
unnatural, and where our delight, if we examine it, arises from the
surprising absurdity, as in appropriating the manners of the highest
to the lowest, or _e converso_; so in the former, we should ever
confine ourselves strictly to nature, from the just imitation of
which, will flow all the pleasure we can this way convey to a sensible
reader. And perhaps, there is one reason, why a comic writer should
of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since
it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great
and the admirable; but life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer
with the ridiculous.
I have hinted this little, concerning burlesque; because I have often
heard that name given to performances, which have been truly of the
comic kind, from the author's having sometimes admitted it in his
diction only; which as it is the dress of poetry, doth like the dress
of men establish characters, (the one of the whole poem, and the other
of the whole man), in vulgar opinion, beyond any of their greater
excellences: but surely, a certain drollery in style, where characters
and sentiments are perfectly natural, no more constitutes the
burlesque, than an empty pomp and dignity of words, where everything
else is mean and low, can entitle any performance to the appellation
of the true sublime.
And I apprehend, my Lord Shaftesbury's opinion of mere burlesque
agrees with mine, when he asserts, "There is no such thing to be found
in the writings of the antients." But perhaps I have less abhorrence
than he professes for it: and that not because I have had some little
success on the stage this way; but rather as it contributes more to
exquisite mirth and laughter than any other; and these are probably
more wholesome physic for the mind, and conduce better to purge away
spleen, melancholy, and ill affections, than is generally imagined.
Nay, I will appeal to common observation, whether the same companies
are not found more full of good-humour and benevolence, after they
have been sweetened for two or three hours with entertainments of this
kind, than soured by a tragedy or a grave lecture.
But to illustrate all this by another science, in which, perhaps, we
shall see the distinction more clearly and plainly: let us examine the
works of a comic history-painter, with those performances which
the Italians call _Caricatura_, where we shall find the greatest
excellence of the former to consist in the exactest copy of nature,
insomuch, that a judicious eye instantly rejects anything _outre_, any
liberty which the painter hath taken with the features of that _alma
mater_. Whereas in the _Caricatura_ we allow all licence. Its aim is
to exhibit monsters, not men, and all distortions and exaggerations
whatever are within its proper province.
Now what Caricatura is in painting Burlesque is in writing, and in the
same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other. And
here I shall observe, that as in the former, the painter seems to have
the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the
writer, for the Monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and
the Ridiculous to describe than paint.
And tho' perhaps this latter species doth not in either science so
strongly affect and agitate the muscles as the other, yet it will be
owned I believe, that a more rational and useful pleasure arises to us
from it. He who should call the ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter,
would, in my opinion, do him very little honour: for sure it is much
easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a
nose, or any other feature of a preposterous size, or to expose him in
some absurd or monstrous attitude, than to express the affections of
men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commendation of a painter
to say his figures _seem to breathe_, but surely it is a much greater
and nobler applause, _that they appear to think_.
But to return The Ridiculous only, as I have before said, falls within
my province in the present work. Nor will some explanation of this
word be thought impertinent by the reader, if he considers how
wonderfully it hath been mistaken, even by writers who have profess'd
it; for to what but such a mistake, can we attribute the many attempts
to ridicule the blackest villainies, and what is yet worse the most
dreadful calamities? What could exceed the absurdity of an author, who
should write the comedy of Nero, with the merry incident of ripping
up his mother's belly, or what would give a greater shock to humanity
than an attempt to expose the miseries of poverty and distress to
ridicule? And yet, the reader will not want much learning to suggest
such instances to himself.
Besides, it may seem remarkable, that Aristotle, who is so fond and
free of definitions, hath not thought proper to define the Ridiculous.
Indeed, where he tells us it is proper to comedy, he hath remarked
that villainy is not its object: but that he hath not, as I remember,
positively asserted what is. Nor doth the Abbe Bellegarde, who hath
written a treatise on this subject, tho' he shows us many species of
it, once trace it to its fountain.
The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is
affectation. But tho' it arises from one spring only, when we consider
the infinite streams into which this one branches, we shall presently
cease to admire at the copious field it affords to an observer.
Now affectation proceeds from one of these two causes; vanity, or
hypocrisy: for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in
order to purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavour to
avoid censure by concealing our vices under an appearance of their
opposite virtues. And tho' these two causes are often confounded,
(for they require some distinguishing;) yet, as they proceed from
very different motives, so they are as clearly distinct in their
operations: for indeed, the affectation which arises from vanity is
nearer to truth than the other; as it hath not that violent repugnancy
of nature to struggle with, which that of the hypocrite hath. It
may be likewise noted, that affectation doth not imply an absolute
negation of those qualities which are affected: and therefore, tho',
when it proceeds from hypocrisy, it be nearly allied to deceit;
yet when it comes from vanity only, it partakes of the nature of
ostentation: for instance, the affectation of liberality in a vain
man, differs visibly from the same affectation in the avaricious; for
tho' the vain man is not what he would appear, or hath not the virtue
he affects, to the degree he would be thought to have it; yet it sits
less awkwardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is the very
reverse of what he would seem to be.
From the discovery of this affectation arises the Ridiculous--which
always strikes the reader with surprize and pleasure; and that in a
higher and stronger degree when the affectation arises from hypocrisy,
than when from vanity: for to discover any one to be the exact
reverse of what he affects, is more surprizing, and consequently more
ridiculous, than to find him a little deficient in the quality he
desires the reputation of. I might observe that our Ben Jonson, who
of all men understood the Ridiculous the best, hath chiefly used the
hypocritical affectation.
Now from affectation only, the misfortunes and calamities of life,
or the imperfections of nature, may become the objects of ridicule.
Surely he hath a very ill-framed mind, who can look on ugliness,
infirmity, or poverty, as ridiculous in themselves: nor do I believe
any man living who meets a dirty fellow riding through the streets in
a cart, is struck with an idea of the Ridiculous from it; but if he
should see the same figure descend from his coach and six, or bolt
from his chair with his hat under his arm, he would then begin to
laugh, and with justice. In the same manner, were we to enter a poor
house and behold a wretched family shivering with cold and languishing
with hunger, it would not incline us to laughter, (at least we must
have very diabolical natures, if it would): but should we discover
there a grate, instead of coals, adorned with flowers, empty plate or
china dishes on the side-board, or any other affectation of riches and
finery either on their persons or in their furniture: we might then
indeed be excused, for ridiculing so fantastical an appearance.
Much less are natural imperfections the object of derision: but when
ugliness aims at the applause of beauty, or lameness endeavours to
display agility; it is then that these unfortunate circumstances,
which at first moved our compassion, tend only to raise our mirth.
The poet carries this very far;
None are for being what they are in fault,
But for not being what they would be thought.
Where if the metre would suffer the word Ridiculous to close the first
line, the thought would be rather more proper. Great vices are the
proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity: but
affectation appears to me the only true source of the Ridiculous.
But perhaps it may be objected to me, that I have against my own rules
introduced vices, and of a very black kind into this work. To this I
shall answer: First, that it is very difficult to pursue a series of
human actions and keep clear from them. Secondly, that the vices to
be found here, are rather the accidental consequences of some human
frailty, or foible, than causes habitually existing in the mind.
Thirdly, that they are never set forth as the objects of ridicule,
but detestation. Fourthly, that they are never the principal figure at
that time on the scene; lastly, they never produce the intended evil.
[Footnote A: Henry Fielding, dramatist, novelist, and judge, was born
near Glastonbury, Somersetshire, April 22, 1707, and died at Lisbon,
October 8, 1754. Though seldom spoken of as an essayist, Fielding
scattered through his novels a large number of detached or detachable
discussions which are essentially essays, of which the preface
to "Joseph Andrews" on the "Comic Epic in Prose," is a favorable
specimen. The novel which it introduces was begun as a parody on
Richardson's "Pamela," and the preface gives Fielding's conception of
this form of fiction.]
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY
BY SAMUEL JOHNSON (1755)[A]
It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to
be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect
of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be
disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would
have been without applause; and diligence without reward.
Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom
mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science,
the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear
obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press
forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble
drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire
to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and
even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a Dictionary of
the English Language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation
of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected;
suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild
exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion: and exposed
to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation.
When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech
copious without order, and energetic without rule: wherever I turned
my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be
regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any
established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected,
without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be
rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of
classical reputation or acknowledged authority.
Having therefore no assistance but from general grammar, I applied
myself to the perusal of our writers; and noting whatever might be of
use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time
the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reduced to
method, establishing to myself, in the progress of the work, such as
experience and analogy suggested to me; experience, which practice and
observation were continually increasing; and analogy, which, though in
some words obscure, was evident in others.
In adjusting the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this time
unsettled and fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those
irregularities that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval
with it, from others which the ignorance or negligence of later
writers has produced. Every language has its anomalies, which though
inconvenient, and in themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated
among the imperfections of human things, and which require only to be
registered, that they may not be increased; and ascertained, that
they may not be confounded: but every language has likewise
its improprieties and absurdities, which it is the duty of the
lexicographer to correct or proscribe.
As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessary
or common use were spoken before they were written; and while they
were unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with great
diversity, as we now observe those who cannot read to catch sounds
imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous
jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavored to
express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed to pronounce
or to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as were already
vitiated in speech. The powers of the letters, when they were applied
to a new language, must have been vague and unsettled, and
therefore different hands would exhibit the same sound by different
combinations.
From this uncertain pronunciation arise in a great part the various
dialects of the same country, which will always be observed to grow
fewer, and less different, as books are multiplied; and from this
arbitrary representation of sounds by letters proceeds that diversity
of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and I suppose in the
first books of every nation, which perplexes or destroys analogy,
and produces anomalous formations, which, being once incorporated can
never be afterward dismissed or reformed.
Of this kind are the derivatives _length_ from _long_, _strength_ from
_strong_, _darling_ from _dear_, _breadth_ from _broad_, from _dry_,
_drought_, and from _high_, _height_, which Milton, in zeal for
analogy, writes highth. 'Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus
una?' To change all would be too much, and to change one is nothing.
This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so
capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident or
affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth, that to
them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is to be shown
in the deduction of one language from another.
Such defects are not errors in orthography, but spots of barbarity
impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can
never wash them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain
untouched; but many words have likewise been altered by accident, or
depraved by ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been
weakly followed; and some still continue to be variously written,
as authors differ in their care or skill: of these it was proper
to inquire the true orthography, which I have always considered as
depending on their derivation, and have therefore referred them to
their original languages; thus I write _enchant_, _enchantment_,
_enchanter_, after the French, and _incantation_ after the Latin; thus
_entire_ is chosen rather than _intire_, because it passed to us not
from the Latin _integer_, but from the French _entier_.
Of many words it is difficult to say whether they were immediately
received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had
dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is,
however, my opinion that the French generally supplied us; for we
have few Latin words, among the terms of domestic use, which are not
French; but many French, which are very remote from Latin.
Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often
obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in compliance
with a numberless majority, _convey_ and _inveigh_, _deceit_ and
_receipt_, _fancy_ and _phantom_; sometimes the derivative varies
from the primitive, as _explain_ and _explanation_, _repeat_ and
_repetition_.
Some combinations of letters having the same power, are used
indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in
_choak, choke; soap, sope; fewel, fuel_, and many others; which I have
sometimes inserted twice, that those who search for them under either
form, may not search in vain.
In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of
spelling by which it is inserted in the series of the dictionary, is
to be considered as that to which I give, perhaps not often rashly,
the preference. I have left, in the examples, to every author his own
practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and
judge between us: but this question is not always to be determined
by reputed or by real learning; some men, intent upon greater things,
have thought little on sounds and derivations; some, knowing in the
ancient tongues, have neglected those in which our words are commonly
to be sought. Thus Hammond writes _fecibleness_ for _feasibleness_,
because I suppose he imagined it derived immediately from the
Latin; and some words, such as _dependant, dependent; dependance,
dependence_, vary their final syllable, as one or other language is
present to the writer.
In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without
control, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have
endeavored to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a
grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have attempted few
alterations, and among those few, perhaps the greater part is from
the modern to the ancient practice; and I hope I may be allowed to
recommend to those, whose thoughts have been perhaps employed too
anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon narrow views,
or for minute propriety, the orthography of their fathers. It has been
asserted, that for the law to be _known_, is of more importance
than to be _right_. 'Change,' says Hooker, 'is not made without
inconvenience, even from worse to better.' There is in constancy
and stability a general and lasting advantage, which will always
overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less
ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral
utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes
different from itself, and imitate those changes, which will again be
changed, while imitation is employed in observing them.
This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceed from
an opinion that particular combinations of letters have much influence
on human happiness; or that truth may not be successfully taught by
modes of spelling fanciful and erroneous; I am not yet so lost in
lexicography as to forget that 'words are the daughters of earth, and
that things are the sons of heaven.' Language is only the instrument
of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however,
that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might
be permanent, like the things which they denote.
In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the
pronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon the
acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found that the accent
is placed by the author quoted, on a different syllable from that
marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be understood, that
custom has varied, or that the author has, in my opinion, pronounced
wrong. Short directions are sometimes given where the sound of letters
is irregular; and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such minute
observations will be more easily excused, than superfluity.
In the investigation, both of the orthography and signification of
words, their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they were
therefore to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primitive
word is that which can be traced no further to any English root;
thus _circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave_, and
_complicate_, though compounds in the Latin, are to us primitives.
Derivatives, are all those that can be referred to any word in English
of greater simplicity.
The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an accuracy
sometimes needless; for who does not see that _remoteness_ comes
from _remote_, _lovely_ from _love_, _concavity_ from _concave_, and
_demonstrative_ from _demonstrate_? But this grammatical exuberance
the scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of great
importance, in examining the general fabric of a language, to trace
one word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and
inflection; and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works;
though sometimes at the expense of particular propriety.
Among other derivatives I have been careful to insert and elucidate
the anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the
Teutonic dialects are very frequent, and, though familiar to those
who have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners of our
language.
The two languages from which our primitives have been derived, are
the Roman and Teutonic: under the Roman, I comprehend the French and
provincial tongues; and under the Teutonic, range the Saxon, German,
and all their kindred dialects. Most of our polysyllables are Roman,
and our words of one syllable are very often Teutonic.
In assigning the Roman original, it has perhaps sometimes happened
that I have mentioned only the Latin, when the word was borrowed
from the French; and considering myself as employed only in the
illustration of my own language, I have not been very careful to
observe whether the Latin would be pure or barbarous, or the French
elegant or obsolete.
For the Teutonic etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and
Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied
their books; not that I might appropriate their labors or usurp their
honors, but that I might spare perpetual repetition by one general
acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the
reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius appears to
have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in rectitude of
understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in all the northern
languages, Skinner probably examined the ancient and remoter dialects
only by occasional inspection into dictionaries; but the learning of
Junius is often of no other use than to show him a track by which he
may deviate from his purpose, to which Skinner always presses forward
by the shortest way. Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous:
Junius is always full of knowledge; but his variety distracts his
judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his
absurdities.
The votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restrain
their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded
by a disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due to
his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of
censoriousness to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who
can seriously derive _dream_ from _drama_, because 'life is a drama
and a drama is a dream'; and who declares with a tone of defiance,
that no man can fail to derive _moan_ from [Greek: monos], _monos,
single_ or _solitary_, who considers that grief naturally loves to be
alone.
Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that of words
undoubtedly Teutonic, the original is not always to be found in
an ancient language; and I have therefore inserted Dutch or German
substitutes, which I consider not as radical, but parallel, not as the
parents, but sisters of the English.
The words which are represented as thus related by descent or
cognation, do not always agree in sense; for it is incident to words,
as to their authors, to degenerate from their ancestors, and to change
their manners when they change their country. It is sufficient, in
etymological inquiries, if the senses of kindred words be found such
as may easily pass into each other, or such as may both be referred to
one general idea.
The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the
volumes, where it is particularly and professedly delivered, and, by
proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography was
soon adjusted. But to COLLECT THE WORDS of our language was a task
of greater difficulty the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately
apparent, and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be
sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books and gleaned
as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless
chaos of a living speech. My search, however, has been either skilful
or lucky, for I have much augmented the vocabulary.
As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have omitted
all words which have relation to proper names, such as _Arian,
Socinian, Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan_, but have retained those
of a more general nature, as _Heathen, Pagan_.
Of the terms of art I have received such as could be found either in
books of science or technical dictionaries, and have often inserted,
from philosophical writers, words which are supported perhaps only by
a single authority, and which, being not admitted into general use,
stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must depend for their
adoption on the suffrage of futurity. The words which our authors have
introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages or ignorance of
their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust
of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly
only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of
naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.
I have not rejected any by design, merely because they were
unnecessary or exuberant, but have received those which by different
writers have been differently formed, as _viscid_, and _viscidity,
viscous_, and _viscosity_.
Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when they
obtain a signification different from that which the components have
in then simple state.
Thus _highwayman, woodman_, and _horsecourser_, require an
explanation, but of _thieflike_, or _coachdriver_, no notice was
needed, because the primitives contain the meaning of the compounds.
Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like
diminutive adjectives in _ish, as greenish, bluish_; adverbs in _ly_,
as _dully, openly_; substantives in _ness_, as _vileness, faultiness_;
were less diligently sought, and many sometimes have been omitted,
when I had no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they
are not genuine, and regular offsprings of English roots, but
because their relation to the primitive being always the same, their
signification cannot be mistaken.
The verbal nouns in _ing_, such as the _keeping_ of the _castle_,
the _leading_ of the _army_, are always neglected, or placed only to
illustrate the sense of the verb, except when they signify things as
well as actions, and have therefore a plural number, as _dwelling,
living_; or have an absolute and abstract signification, as _coloring,
painting, learning_.
The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying rather
habit or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives; as a
_thinking_ man, a man of prudence; a _pacing_ horse, a horse that
can pace: these I have ventured to call _participial adjectives_. But
neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be
understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb.
Obsolete words are admitted when they are found in authors not
obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve
revival.
As composition is one of the chief characteristics of a language, I
have endeavored to make some reparation for the universal negligence
of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words,
as may be found under _after, fore, new, night, fair_, and many more.
These, numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and
curiosity are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and modes
of our combination amply discovered.
Of some forms of composition, such as that by which _re_ is
prefixed to note _repetition_, and _un_ to signify _contrariety_ or
_privation_, all the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use
of these particles, if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited,
that they are hourly affixed to new words as occasion requires, or is
imagined to require them.
There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language
than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners the
greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a
particle subjoined; as to _come off_, to escape by a fetch; to _fall
on_, to attack; _fall off_, to apostatize; to _break off_, to stop
abruptly; to _bear out_, to justify; _to fall in_, to comply; to _give
over_, to cease; to _set off_, to embellish; to _set in_, to begin a
continual tenor; to _set out_, to begin a course or journey; to _take
off_, to copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which
some appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of
the simple words, that no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by
which they arrived at the present use. These I have noted with great
care; and though I cannot flatter myself that the collection is
complete, I believe I have so far assisted the students of our
language that this kind of phraseology will be no longer insuperable;
and the combinations of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will
be easily explained by comparison with those that may be found.
Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth,
Philips, or the contracted _Dict._ for Dictionaries, subjoined; of
these I am not always certain that they are read in any book but the
works of lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, because I had
never read them; and many I have inserted, because they may perhaps
exist, though they have escaped my notice: they are, however, to be
yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries.
Others, which I considered as useful, or know to be proper, though I
could not at present support them by authorities, I have suffered to
stand upon my own attestation, claiming the same privilege with my
predecessors, of being sometimes credited without proof.
The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered;
they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced when they
are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations;
and illustrated by observations, not indeed of great or striking
importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation
of our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English
grammarians.
That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently to
fasten, is the EXPLANATION; in which I cannot hope to satisfy those,
who are perhaps not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always
been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language by itself is very
difficult; many words cannot be explained by synonimes, because the
idea signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by
paraphrase, because simple ideas cannot be described. When the nature
of things is unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite,
and various in various minds, the words by which such notions are
conveyed, or such things denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And
such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but
light impedes and distresses it; things may be not only too little,
but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain, requires
the use of terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained, and
such terms cannot always be found; for as nothing can be proved but by
supposing something intuitively known, and evident without proof, so
nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to admit a
definition.
Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtle and evanescent
to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by the
grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered
to pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to
modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues to
have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other form
of expression can convey.
My labor has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too
frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so
loose and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the senses
detorted so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them
through the maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter
inanity, to circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them
by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such are _bear, break,
come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn,
throw_. If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered,
it must be remembered, that while our language is yet living, and
variable by the caprice of every one that speaks it, these words are
hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in
a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be
accurately delineated from its picture in the water.
The particles are among all nations applied with so great latitude,
that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of
explication: this difficulty is not less, nor perhaps greater, in
English, than in other languages. I have labored them with diligence,
I hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which
no man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able to perform.
Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not
understand them; these might have been omitted very often with little
inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity as to
decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether
_lessus_, in the twelve tables, means a _funeral song_, or _mourning
garment_; and Aristotle doubts whether [Greek: ourous] in the _Iliad_
signifies a _mule, or muleteer_, I may surely without shame, leave
some obscurities to happier industry, or future information.
The rigor of interpretative lexicography requires that _the
explanation_, and _the word explained should be always reciprocal_;
this I have always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Words are
seldom exactly synonymous; a new term was not introduced, but because
the former was thought inadequate: names, therefore, have often many
ideas, but few ideas have many names. It was then necessary to use the
proximate word, for the deficiency of single terms can very seldom
be supplied by circumlocution; nor is the inconvenience great of such
mutilated interpretations, because the sense may easily be collected
entire from the examples.
In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the progress
of its meaning, and show by what gradations of intermediate sense
it has passed from its primitive to its remote and accidental
signification; so that every foregoing explanation should tend to that
which follows, and the series be regularly concatenated from the first
notion to the last.
This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may be so
interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor any
reason be assigned why one should be ranged before the other. When
the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a
consecutive series be formed of senses in their nature collateral?
The shades of meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into each other, so
that though on one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible
to mark the point of contact. Ideas of the same race, though not
exactly alike, are sometimes so little different, that no words can
express the dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it when
they are exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion
of acceptations, that discernment is wearied and distinction puzzled,
and perseverance herself hurries to an end, by crowding together what
she cannot separate.
These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have never
considered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon
of a man willing to magnify his labors, and procure veneration to his
studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those
that have not learned it; this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of
ideas, is well known to those who have joined philosophy with grammar;
and if I have not expressed them very clearly, it must be remembered
that I am speaking of that which words are insufficient to explain.
The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their
metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of a
regular origination. Thus I know not whether _ardor_ is used for
_material heat_, or whether _flagrant_, in English, ever signifies the
same with _burning_; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words,
which are therefore set first, though without examples, that the
figurative senses may be commodiously deduced.
Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have
obtained, that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses;
sometimes the meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother
term, and sometimes deficient explanations of the primitive may
he supplied in the train of derivation. In any case of doubt or
difficulty, it will be always proper to examine all the words of
the same race; for some words are slightly passed over to avoid
repetition, some admitted easier and clearer explanation than others,
and all will be better understood, as they are considered in greater
variety of structures and relations.
All the interpretations of words are not written with the same skill,
or the same happiness: things equally easy in themselves, are not all
equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a long word commits
errors, where there appears neither ambiguity to mislead, nor
obscurity to confound him; and in a search like this, many felicities
of expression will be casually overlooked, many convenient parallels
will be forgotten, and many particulars will admit improvement from a
mind utterly unequal to the whole performance.
But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of
the undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some
explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as _hind, the
female of the stag; stag, the male of the hind_: sometimes easier
words are changed into harder, as _burial_ into _sepulture, or
interment, drier_ into _desiccative, dryness_ into _siccity_ or
_aridity, fit_ into _paroxysm_; for the easiest word, whatever it
be, can never be translated into one more easy. But easiness and
difficulty are merely relative; and if the present prevalence of our
language should invite foreigners to this Dictionary, many will be
assisted by those words which now seem only to increase or produce
obscurity. For this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a
Teutonic and Roman interpretation, as to _cheer_, to _gladden_ or
_exhilarate_, that every learner of English may be assisted by his own
tongue.
The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects must
be sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each
word, and ranged according to the time of their authors.
When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every
quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of
a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science;
from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes;
from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful
descriptions. Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from
execution. When the time called upon me to range this accumulation
of elegance and wisdom into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered
that the bulk of my volumes would fright away the student, and was
forced to depart from my scheme of including all that was pleasing or
useful in English literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to
clusters of words, in which scarcely any meaning is retained; thus
to the weariness of copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of
expunging. Some passages I have yet spared, which may relieve the
labor of verbal searches, and intersperse with verdure and flowers the
dusty deserts of barren philology.
The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be considered as
conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authors; the word for
the sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant clauses,
has been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty
detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence may be
changed: the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher his
system.
Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were never
mentioned as masters of elegance, or models of style; but words must
be sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent for purity,
can terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many quotations
serve no other purpose than that of proving the bare existence of
words, and are therefore selected with less scrupulousness than those
which are to teach their structures and relations.
My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might
not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might
have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but
when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration,
when my memory supplied me, from late books, with an example that was
wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited
admission for a favorite name.
So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with modern
decorations, that I have studiously endeavored to collect examples
and authorities from the writers before the Restoration, whose works
I regard as the 'wells of English undefiled,' as the pure sources
of genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the
concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original
Teutonic character and deviating towards a Gallic structure and
phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavor to recall it, by
making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style, admitting
among the additions of later times, only such as may supply real
deficiencies, such as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue,
and incorporate easily with our native idioms.
But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfection,
as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cautious
lest my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote,
and crowd my book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed
Sidney's work for the boundary, beyond which I make few excursions.
From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might
be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the
language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of
the Bible, the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon, the phrases of
policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh, the dialect of poetry and
fiction from Spender and Sidney, and the diction of common life from
Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English
words in which they might be expressed.
It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined
as that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenor
of the sentence, such passages I have therefore chosen, and when
it happened that any author gave a definition of a term, or such
an explanation as is equivalent to a definition, I have placed
his authority as a supplement to my own, without regard to the
chronological order that is otherwise observed.
Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they are
commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitives by
regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurring in
books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence.
There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity
of examples, authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulated
without necessity or use, and perhaps some will be found, which
might, without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind is not
hastily to be charged with superfluities; those quotations, which to
careless or unskillful perusers appear only to repeat the same sense,
will often exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of
signification, or, at least, afford different shades of the same
meaning: one will show the word applied to persons, another to things;
one will express an ill, another a good, and a third a neutral sense;
one will prove the expression genuine from an ancient author;
another will show it elegant from a modern: a doubtful authority
is corroborated by another of more credit; an ambiguous sentence is
ascertained by a passage clear and determinate: the word, how
often soever repeated, appears with new associates and in different
combinations, and every quotation contributes something to the
stability or enlargement of the language.
When words are used equivocally I receive them in either sense; when
they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation.
I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of
exhibiting a genealogy of sentiments, by showing how one author copied
the thoughts and diction of another: such quotations are indeed little
more than repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not
gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectual history.
The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have been
carefully noted; the license or negligence with which many words have
been hitherto used, has made our style capricious and indeterminate;
when the different combinations of the same word are exhibited
together, the preference is readily given to propriety, and I have
often endeavored to direct the choice.
Thus have I labored by settling the orthography, displaying the
analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the
signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful
lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or
satisfied my own expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence
and attention it may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements; the
orthography which I recommend is still controvertible, the etymology
which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently erroneous; the
explanations are sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much
diffused, the significations are distinguished rather with subtlety
than skill, and the attention is harassed with unnecessary minuteness.
The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps
sometimes--I hope very rarely--alleged in a mistaken sense; for in
making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state of
disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed to supply
at the review what was left incomplete in the first transcription.
Many terms appropriated to particular occupations, though necessary
and significant, are undoubtedly omitted, and of the words most
studiously considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped
observation.
Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and
apology. To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the
enterprise is above the strength that undertakes it: to rest below
his own aim is incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose
views are comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself because
he has done much, but because he can conceive little. When first I
engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things
unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I
should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure recesses of
northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with
which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my
labor, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions
to mankind. When I had thus inquired into the original of words, I
resolved to show likewise my attention to things; to pierce deep into
every science, to inquire the nature of every substance of which
I inserted the name, to limit every idea by a definition strictly
logical, and exhibit every production of art or nature in an accurate
description, that my book might be in place of all other dictionaries
whether appellative or technical. But these were the dreams of a poet
doomed at last to wake a lexicographer. I soon found that it is too
late to look for instruments, when the work calls for execution, and
that whatever abilities I had brought to my task, with those I must
finally perform it. To deliberate whenever I doubted, to inquire
whenever I was ignorant, would have protracted the undertaking without
end, and, perhaps, without much improvement; for I did not find by
my first experiments, that what I had not of my own was easily to be
obtained: I saw that one inquiry only gave occasion to another, that
book referred to book, that to search was not always to find, and
to find was not always to be informed; and that thus to pursue
perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia, to chase the
sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed to rest,
was still beheld at the same distance from them.
I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and
no longer to solicit auxiliaries which produced more incumbrance than
assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set
limits to my work, which would in time be ended, though not completed.
Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence;
some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence
and persevering activity. The nice and subtle ramifications of meaning
were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, and convinced
of the necessity of disentangling combinations, and separating
similitudes. Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear
useless and idle, will be found real and important by men versed
in the school philosophy, without which no dictionary can ever be
accurately compiled, or skillfully examined.
Some senses, however, there are, which, though not the same, are
yet so nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men
think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness; and
consequently some examples might be indifferently put to either
signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not
form, but register the language; who do not teach men how they should
think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts.
The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not remedy,
and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages selected
with propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining with sparks
of imagination, and some replete with treasures of wisdom.
The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfect
for want of care, but because care will not always be successful, and
recollection or information come too late for use.
That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly
acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it is
unavoidable; I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's language,
nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation,
nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to
gain the names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is
found in books; what favorable accident or easy inquiry brought within
my reach, has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labor to
glean up words, by courting living information, and contesting with
the sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.
To furnish the Academicians _della Crusca_ with words of this kind, a
series of comedies called _La Fiera_, or _The Fair_, was professedly
written by Buonaroti; but I had no such assistant, and therefore was
content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had they not
luckily been so supplied.
Nor are all words which are not found in the vocabulary, to be
lamented as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the
people, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of
their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and
though current at certain times and places, are in others utterly
unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase
or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of
a language, and therefore must be suffered to perish with other things
unworthy of preservation.
Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is
catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass
by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching
for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and
familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have
been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the
authorities, I forebore to copy those which I thought likely to occur
whenever they were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my
collection, I found the word _sea_ unexemplified.
Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger from
ignorance, and in things easy, from confidence; the mind, afraid of
greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself
from painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks
not adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and
again too anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path,
and sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by different
intentions.
A large work is difficult because it is large, even though all its
parts might singly be performed with facility; where there are many
things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time and labor,
in the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor can it be
expected, that the stones which form the dome of a temple, should be
squared and polished like the diamond of a ring.
Of the event of this work, for which; having labored it with so much
application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness, it
is natural to form conjectures. Those who have been persuaded to think
well of my design, will require that it should fix our language, and
put a stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto
been suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence
I will confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin
to fear that I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor
experience can justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain
time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the
elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with
equal justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to
produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and
phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm
his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in
his power to change sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from
folly, vanity, and affectation.
With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard
the avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse
intruders; but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain;
sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain
syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of
pride, unwilling to measure its desires by its strength. The French
language has visibly changed under the inspection of the Academy;
the style of Amelot's translation of Father Paul is observed by Le
Courayer to be _un peu passe_; and no Italian will maintain that the
diction of any modern writer is not perceptibly different from that of
Boccace, Machiavel, or Caro.
Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen;
conquests and migrations are now very rare: but there are other causes
of change, which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in
their progress, are perhaps as much superior to human resistance, as
the revolutions of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. Commerce,
however necessary, however lucrative, as it depraves the manners,
corrupts the language; they that have frequent intercourse with
strangers, to whom they endeavor to accommodate themselves, must
in time learn a mingled dialect, like the jargon which serves the
traffickers on the Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not
always be confined to the exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but
will be communicated by degrees to other ranks of the people, and be
at last incorporated with the current speech.
There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language most
likely to continue long without alterations, would be that of a nation
raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from
strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniences of life;
either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan countries, with
every few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only such words as
common use requires, would perhaps long continue to express the same
notions by the same signs. But no such constancy can be expected in a
people polished by arts, and classed by subordination, where one part
of the community is sustained and accommodated by the labor of the
other. Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging
the stock of ideas; and every increase of knowledge, whether real or
fancied, will produce new words, or combination of words. When the
mind is unchained from necessity, it will range after convenience;
when it is left at large in the fields of speculation, it will shift
opinions; as any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must
perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech
in the same proportion as it alters practice.
As by the cultivation of various sciences a language is amplified, it
will be more furnished with words deflected from their original sense;
the geometrician will talk of a courtier's zenith or the eccentric
virtue of a wild hero, and the physician, of sanguine expectations and
phlegmatic delays. Copiousness of speech will give opportunities to
capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred, and others
degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the use of new, or
extend the signification of known terms. The tropes of poetry will
make hourly encroachments, and the metaphorical will become the
current sense: pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance,
and the pen must at length comply with the tongue; illiterate writers
will, at one time or other, by public infatuation, rise into renown,
who, not knowing the original import of words, will use them with
colloquial licentiousness, confound distinction, and forget propriety.
As politeness increases, some expressions will be considered as
too gross and vulgar for the delicate, others as too formal and
ceremonious for the gay and airy; new phrases are therefore adopted,
which must for the same reasons be in time dismissed. Swift, in his
petty treatise on the English language, allows that new words must
sometimes be introduced, but proposes that none should be suffered
to become obsolete. But what makes a word obsolete, more than general
agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it
conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the mouths of
mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and unpleasing
by unfamiliarity?
There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other,
which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. A
mixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both, and
they will always be mixed, where the chief parts of education, and
the most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign
tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find
its words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste and
negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms
and exotic expressions.
The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book was ever
turned from one language into another, without imparting something
of its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehensive
innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and the fabric of the
tongue continue the same; but new phraseology changes much at once;
it alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the
columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of
our style--which I, who can never wish to see dependence multiplied,
hope the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy--let them,
instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavor, with all
their influence, to stop the license of translators, whose idleness
and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble
a dialect of France.
If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to
acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses
of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we
palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though
death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have
a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our
constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.
In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be
immortal, I have devoted this book, the labor of years, to the honor
of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology,
without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of
every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by
my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left
to time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of
disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in
provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think
my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations,
and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and
understand the teachers of truth; if my labors afford light to the
repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to
Milton, and to Boyle.
When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book,
however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a
man that has endeavored well. That it will immediately become popular
I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and risible
absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free,
may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into
contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never
can be wanting some who distinguish desert; who will consider that no
dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it
is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling
away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and
that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design
includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what
he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by
eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task
which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that
what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always
present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance,
slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the
mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain
trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he
knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his
thoughts to-morrow.
In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not
be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was
ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is
little solicitous to know whence proceed the faults of that which it
condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English
Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and
without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities
of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst
inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may
repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our
language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt
which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of
ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes,
be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive;
if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian
academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the
embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon
their work, were obliged to change its ec |
