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GEORGE SANDYS.

by some bad object; and they, being now habituated to such vain meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, "subrusticus pudor," discontent, cares, and weariness of life, surprise them in a moment; and they can think of nothing else: continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now, by no means, no labour, no persuasions, they can avoid; "hæret lateri lethalis arundo;" they may not be rid of it; they cannot resist. I may not deny but there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of solitariness to be embraced which the fathers so highly commended (Hierom, Chrysostome, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch, Erasmus, Stella, and others so much magnify in their books); a paradise, a heaven on earth, if it be used aright, good for the body and better for the soul; as many of these old monks used it to divine contemplation; as Simulus, a courtier in Adrian's time, Dioclesian, the emperor, retired themselves, &c. In that sense, Vatia solus scit vivere," which the Romans were wont to say when they commended a country life; or to the bettering of their knowledge, as Democritus, Cleanthes, and those excellent philosophers have ever done, to sequester themselves from the tumultuous world; or as in Pliny's Villa Laurentana, Tully's Tusculu, Jovius's study, that they might better "vacare studiis et Deo." Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, promiscuously to fling down all. They might have taken away those gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have raved and ravaged against those fair buildings and everlasting monuments of our forefathers' devotion, consecrated to pious uses. Anatomy of Melancholy.

GEORGE SANDYS, seventh son of Archbishop Sandys, was bori. in 1577; became a great traveller; was for some time in Virginia as Treasurer for the English colony, and completed his excellent translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid on the banks of the James; returned to England, and died there 1643.

He published A Relation of a Journey begun A.D. 1610; Four Bookes, containing a Description of the Turkish Empire, of Egypt, of the Holy Land, of the remote

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Parts of Italy, and Islands adjoining, Lond., | 1615, fol.

"The descriptions and draughts of our learned, remarkable places in and about Jerusalem, must sagacious countryman, Mr. Sandys, respecting the be acknowledged so faithful and perfect that they leave very little to be added by after-comers, and nothing to be corrected."-MAUNDRELL: Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, Oxf., 1703, 8vo, p. 68.

tion of his Relation to Prince Charles, afterWe give an extract from Sandys's dedicawards King Charles I.

MODERN STATE OF ANCIENT COUNTRIES.

The parts I speak of are the most renowned countries and kingdoms; once the seats of most glorious and triumphant empires; the theatres of valour and heroical actions; the soils enriched with all earthly felicities; the places where Nature hath produced her wonderful works; where arts and sciences have been invented and perfected; where wisdom, virtue, policy, and civility have been planted, have flourished; and, lastly, where God himself did place his own commonwealth, gave laws and oracles, inspired his prophets, sent angels to converse with men; above all, where the Son of God descen led to become man; where he honoured the earth with his beautiful steps, wrought the works of our redemption, triumphed over death, and ascended into glory; which countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate, are now, through vice and ingratitude, become the most deplored spectacles of extreme misery; the wild beasts of mankind having broken in upon them, and rooted out all civility, and the pride of a stern and barbarous tyrant possessing the thrones of ancient and just dominion. Who, aiming only at the height of greatness and sensuality, hath in tract of time reduced so great and goodly a part of the world to that lamentable distress and servitude, under which (to the astonishment of the understanding beholders) it now faints and groaneth. Those rich lands at this present remain waste and overgrown with bushes, receptacles of wild beasts, of thieves and murderers; large territories dispeopled or thinly inhabited; goodly cities made desolate; sumptuous buildings become ruins; glorious temples either subverted or prostituted to impiety; true religion discountenanced and oppressed; all nobility extinguished; no light of learning permitted, nor virtue cherished; violence and rapine insulting over all, and leaving no security except to an abject mind, and unlooked-on poverty; which calamities of theirs, so great and deserved, are to the rest of the world as threatening instructions. For assistance

wherein, I have not only related what I saw of their present condition, but, so far as convenience might permit, presented a brief view of the former estates and first antiquities of those peoples and countries; thence to draw a right image of the frailty of man, the mutability of whatever is worldly, and assurance that, as there is nothing unchangeable saving God, so nothing stable but by his grace and protection.

SAMUEL PURCHAS, D.D., born 1577, died 1628, gained well-deserved fame by his collections of Voyages, viz.: Ilaklvytvs Posthumus, or Pvrchas his Pilgrimes, contayning a History of the World, in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and others, Lond., 1625-6, 5 vols. fol.

"He has imitated Hakluyt too much, swelling his work into five volumes in folio: yet the whole collection is very valuable, as having preserved many considerable voyages that might otherwise have perished. But, like Hakluyt, he has thrown all that came to hand to fill up so many volumes,

and is excessive full of his own notions and of mean quibbling and playing words: yet for such as can make choice of the best, the collection is very valuable."-Explan. Cat. of Voy. prefixed to Churchill's Collec., ascribed to John Locke.

ON THE SEA.

As God hath combined the sea and land into one globe, so their joint combination and mutual assistance is necessary to secular happiness and glory. The sea covereth one-half of this patrimony of man, whereof God set him in possession when he said,

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Replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Thus should man at once lose half his inheritance, if the art of navigation did not enable him to manage this untamed beast, and with the bridle of the winds and saddle of his shipping to make him serviceable. Now for the services of the sea, they are innumerable: it is the great purveyor of the world's commodities to our use; conveyer of the excess of rivers; uniter, by traffick, of all nations: it presents the eye with diversified colours and motions, and is, as it were, with rich brooches, adorned with various islands. It is an open field for merchandise in peace; a pitched field for the most dreadful fights of war; yields diversity of fish and fowl for diet; materials for wealth, medicine for health, simples for medicines, pearls and other jewels for ornament; amber and ambergrise for delight;

"the wonders of the Lord in the deep" for instruction, variety of creatures for use, multiplicity of natures for contemplation, diversity of accidents for admiration, compendiousness to the way, to full bodies healthful evacuation, to the thirsty earth fertile moisture, to distant friends pleasant meeting, to weary persons delightful refreshing, to studious and religious minds a map of knowledge, mystery of temperance, exercise of continence; school of prayer, meditation, devotion, and sobriety; refuge to the distressed, portage to the merchant, passage to the traveller, customs to the prince, springs, lakes, rivers, to the earth; it hath on it tempests and calms to chastise the sins, to exercise the faith, of seamen; manifold affections in itself, to affect and stupefy the subtlest philosopher; sustaineth movable fortresses for the soldier; maintaineth (as in our island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state; entertains the sun with vapours, the moon with obsequiousness, the stars also with a natural looking-glass, the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility; containeth most diversified matter for meteors, most multiform shapes, most various, numerous kinds, most immense, difformed, deformed, unformed monsters; once (for why should I longer detain you?) the sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts, navigation. Pilgrimes.

LORD EDWARD HERBERT, of Cherbury, born 1581, and died 1648. among other productions gave to the world VIII. of England, Lond., 1649, fol. a History of the Life and Reign of Henry

"Has ever been esteemed one of the best histories in the English language; but there is not in it that perfect candour which one would wish, or expect to see, in so celebrated an historian. He has given us a much juster portrait of himself than he has of Henry. He appears to have laid open every foible or defect in his own character, but has cast the monstrous vices of that monstrous tyrant into shade, and has displayed to great advantage his gallantry, magnificence, and generosity."-GRANGER: Biog. Hist. of Eng. SIR THOMAS MORE'S RESIGNATION OF THE

GREAT SEAL.

Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, after divers suits to be discharged of his place (which he had held two years and a half) did at length by the king's good

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

leave resign it. The example whereof being rare, will give me occasion to speak more particularly of him. Sir Thomas More, a person of sharp wit, and endued besides with excellent parts of learning (as his works may testify), was yet (out of I know not what natural facetiousness) given so much to jesting that it detracted no little from the gravity and importance of his place, which, though generally noted and disliked, I do not think was enough to make him give it over in that merriment we shall find anon, or retire to a private life. Neither can I believe him so much addicted to his private opinions as to detest all other governments by his own Utopia, so that it is probable some vehement desire to follow his book, or secret offence taken against some person or matter (among which perchance the king's new intended marriage, or the like, might be accounted) occasioned this strange counsel; though yet I find no reason pretended for it but infirmity and want of health. Our king hereupon taking the seal, and giving it, together with the order of knighthood, to Thomas Audeley, speaker of the Lower House, Sir Thomas More, without acquainting anybody with what he had done, repairs to his family at Chelsea, where, after a inass celebrated the next day in the church, he came to his lady's pew, with his hat in his hand (an office formerly done by one of his gentlemen), and says, "Madam, my lord is gone." But she thinking this at first to be but one of his jests, was little moved, till he told her sadly, he had given up the great seal; whereupon she speaking some passionate words, he called his daughters then present to see if they could not spy some fault about their mother's dressing; but they after search after search saying they could find none, he replied, "Do you not perceive that your mother's nose standeth somewhat awry?"-of which jeer the provoked lady

was so sensible that she went from him in a rage. Shortly after he acquainted his servants with what he had done, dismissing them also to the attendance of some other great personages, to whom he had recommended them. For his fool, he bestowed him on the lord mayor during his office, and afterwards on his successors in that charge. And now coming to himself, he began to consider how much he had left, and finding that it was not above one hundred pounds yearly in lands, besides some money, he advised with his daughters how to live together. But the grieved gentlewomen (who knew not what to reply, or indeed how to take these jests) remaining astonished, he says, "We will begin with the slender diet of the students of the law, and if that will not hold out, we will take such commons as they have

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at Oxford; which yet if our purse will not stretch to maintain, for our last refuge we will go a-begging, and at every man's door sing together a Salve Regina to get alms." But these jests were thought to have in them more levity than to be taken everywhere for current; he might have quitted his dignity without using such sarcasms, and be taken himself to a more retired and quiet life, without making them or himself contemptible. And certainly whatsoever he intended hereby, his family so little understood his meaning that they needed some more serious instructions. So that I cannot persuade myself for all this talk, that so excellent a person would omit at fit times to give his family that sober account of his relinquishing this place which I find he did to the Archbishop Warham, Erasmus, and others.

History of the Life and Reign of Henry
VIII.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, born 1581, became a companion of the Earl of Somerset, and for opposing his marriage with the Countess of Essex, was murdered in the Tower in 1613. See the Great Oyer of Poisoning: the Trial of the Earl of Somerset for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in the Tower of London, and various matters connected therewith, from contemporary MSS., by Andrew Amos, Lond., 1846, 8vo. Of Overbury's works, the best known is entitled A Wife, now the Widdow of Sir Thomas Overbvrye; Being a most exquisite and singular Poem of the Choice of a Wife; Wherevnto are added many witty Characters, and conceited Newes, written by himselfe and other learned Gentlemen his Friends, Lond., 1614, 4to, second edition.

"The characters, though rather too antithetical

in their style, are drawn with a masterly hand, and are evidently the result of personal observation."-DRAKE: Shakspeare and his Times, i. 510.

THE TINKER.

A tinker is a moveable, for he hath no abiding in one place; by his motion he gathers heat, thence his choleric nature. He seems to be very devout, for his life is a continual pilgrimage; and sometimes in humility goes barefoot, therein making necessity a virtue. His house is as ancient as Tubal Cain's, and so is a renegade by antiquity; yet he proves himself a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back: or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance about him. From his art was music first invented, and therefore is he always furnished with a song, to which his hammer keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder of

the kettle-drum. Note, that where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. The companion of his travels is some foul, sun-burnt quean; that, since the terrible statute, recanted gipsyism, and is turned pedlaress. So marches he all over England with his bag and baggage; his conversation is irreproveable, for he is ever mending. He observes truly the statutes, and therefore had rather steal than beg, in which he is irremoveably constant, in spite of whips or imprisonment; and so strong an enemy to idleness, that in mending one hole he had rather make three than want work; and when he hath done he throws the wallet of his faults behind him. He embraceth, naturally, ancient customs, conversing in open fields and lowly cottages; if he visit cities or towns, 'tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which, with canting, proves him a linguist. He is entertained in every place. but enters no farther than the door, to avoid suspicion. Some would take him to be a coward, but, believe it, he is a lad of mettle; his valour is commonly three or four yards long, fastened to a pike in the end for flying off. He is very provident, for he will fight with but one at once, and then also he had rather submit than be counted obstinate. To conclude, if he scape Tyburn and Banbury, he dies a beggar.

Characters.

A FRANKLIN.

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snares for the snipe, or pitfalls for the blackbird; nor oppression, but when in the month of July he goes to the next river and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead anything bruised, or the worse for it, though the country lasses dance in the church-yard after even-song. Rock-Monday, and the wake in summer, shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas-eve, the hoky, or seedcake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of Popery. He is not so inquis itive after news derived from the privy-closet, when the finding an eyry of hawks in his own ground, or the foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant and more profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never so mean a tenure, and dies the more contentedly (though he leave his heir young), in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous guardian. Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes: he needs not fear his audit, for his quietus is in heaven. Characters.

JOHN HALES,

a famous divine of the Church of England, styled from his learning "The Ever-Memor able," was born 1584, and died 1655.

"He had read more and carried more about him, in his excellent memory, than any man I ever knew. He was one of the least men in the kingdom, and one of the greatest scholars in Europe."

His outside is an ancient yeoman of Eng--Lord Clarendon. land, though his inside may give arms (with OF INQUIRY AND PRIVATE JUDGMENT IN

the best gentleman) and never fee the herald. There is no truer servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to his servants, go to field, but, let us go; and with his own eye doth fatten his flock, and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him both food and raiment; he is pleased with any nourishment God sends, whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's ark for food, only to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law; understanding to be law-bound among men, is like to be hidebound among his beasts; they thrive not under it, and that such men sleep as unquietly as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers' pen-knives. When he builds, no poor tenant's cottage hinders his prospect; they are, indeed, his alms-houses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He never sits up late, but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his lambs; nor uses he any cruelty, but when he hunts the hare; nor subtlety, but when he setteth

RELIGION.

It were a thing worth looking into, to know the reason why men are so generally willing, in point of religion, to cast thenselves into other men's arms, and, leaving their own reason, rely so much upon another man's. Is it because it is modesty and humility to think another man's reason better than our own? Indeed, I know not how it comes to pass, we account it a vice, a part of envy, to think another man's goods, or another man's fortunes, to be better than our own; and yet we account it a singular virtue to esteem our reason and wit meaner than other men's. Let us not mistake our

selves: to contemn the advice and help others, in love and admiration to our own conceits, to depress and disgrace other men's, this is the foul vice of pride; on the contrary, thankfully to entertain the advice of others, to give it its due, and ingenuously to prefer it before our own if it deserve it, this is that gracious virtue of modesty; but altogether to mistrust and relinquish our own

JOHN SELDEN.

faculties, and commend ourselves to others, this is nothing but poverty of spirit and indiscretion. I will not forbear to open unto you what I conceive to be the causes of this so general an error amongst men. . . . To return, therefore, and proceed in the refutation of this gross neglect in men of their own reason, and casting themselves upon other wits. Hath God given you eyes to see, and legs to support you, that so yourselves might lie still or sleep, and require the use of other men's eyes and legs? That faculty of reason which is in every one of you, even in the meanest that hears me this day, next to the help of God, is your eyes to direct you, and your legs to support you, in your course of integrity and sanctity; you may no more refuse or neglect the use of it, and rest yourselves upon the use of other men's reason, than neglect your own and call for the use of other men's eyes and legs. The man in the gospel, who had bought a farm, excuses himself from going to the marriage-supper, because himself would go and see it: but we have taken an easier course; we can buy our farm, and go to supper too, and that only by saving our pains to see it; we profess ourselves to have made a great purchase of heavenly doctrine, yet we refuse to see it and survey it ourselves, but trust to other men's eyes, and our surveyors: and wot you to what end? I know not, except it be that so we may with the better leisure go to the marriagesupper; that, with Haman, we may the more merrily go in to the banquet provided for us; that so we may the more freely betake ourselves to our pleasures, to our profits, to our trades, to our preferments and ambition. .. Would you see how ridiculously we abuse ourselves when we thus neglect our own knowledge, and securely hazard ourselves upon others' skill? Give me leave, then, to show you a perfect pattern of it, and to report to you what I find in Seneca the philosopher recorded of a gentleman in Rome, who, being purely ignorant, yet greatly desirous to seem learned, procured himself many servants, of whom some he caused to study the poets, some the orators, some the historians, some the philosophers, and, in a strange kind of fancy, all their learning he verily thought to be his own, and persuaded himself that he knew all that his servants understood; yea, he grew to that height of madness in this kind, that, being weak in body and diseased in his feet, he provided himself of wrestlers and runners, and proclaimed games and races, and performed them by his servants; still applauding himself, as if himself had done them. Beloved, you are this man: when you neglect to try the spirits, to study the means

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of salvation yourselves, but content yourselves to take them upon trust, and repose yourselves altogether on the wit and knowledge of us that are your teachers, what is this in a manner but to account with yourselves, that our knowledge is yours, that you know all that we know, who are but your servants in Jesus Christ? Sermons in Golden Remaines.

JOHN SELDEN,

one of the most learned men whom England has produced, was born at Salvington, Sus sex, 1584, occupied many important public posts, and died 1654. His erudite works are now known only to scholars and antiquaries, but the volume of his Table-Talk, published by his amanuensis, Richard Milward, "who had observed his discourses for twenty years together," Lond., 1689, 4to, and later editions, still commands the attention of the general reader.

"Mr. Selden was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of such stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages, as may appear from his excellent and transcendent writings, that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability were such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding."-EARL OF CLARENDON (his intimate friend for many years): Life.

When Selden was dying, he said to Archbishop Usher:

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"I have surveyed most of the learning that is among the sons of men, and my study is filled with books and manuscripts [he had 8000 volumes in his library] on various subjects; but at present I cannot recollect any passage out of all my books and papers whereon I can rest my soul, save this from the sacred Scriptures: The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' (Tit. ii. 14.)”*

Dr. Johnson and Hallam considered Selden's Table-Talk to be far superior to the Ana of the Continent; and another eminent authority thus speaks of Selden's volume:

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