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Lecture the Twentieth.

JOHN EARLE PETER HEYLIN WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH- JOHN GAUDENJEREMY TAYLOR-THOMAS BROWNE-JOHN KNOX-DAVID CALDERWOODSIR JAMES MELVIL-JOHN LESLEY-JOHN SPOTISWOOD.

THE present lecture will close our remarks upon the literature of the age of Queen Elizabeth and King James; and though we may be thought to have dwelt too long and too minutely upon this period, yet its varied intellectual richness would not permit us to make our investigations less thorough, or less extensive. There were giants in the land in those days,' and the impress of their mighty minds upon their still living and breathing pages, throws round their productions a halo of splendor from which we instinctively draw back with awe. Their works are the offspring of that creative mental power which moulds every thing with which it comes in contact into its own likeness; and though occasional defects may be found in their writings, they are uniformly the defects incident to the highest order of genius. Of these writers we have still to notice Earle, Heylin, Chillingworth, Gauden, Taylor, and Browne.

JOHN EARLE was born at York, in 1601, and educated at Merton College, Oxford. He was a man of extensive learning and great eloquence, extremely agreeable and facetious in conversation, and of such excellent moral and religious qualities, that in the language of Walton, there had lived, since the death of Richard Hooker, no man whom God had blessed with more innocent wisdom, more sanctified learning, or a more pious, peaceable, primative temper.' He was at one period chaplain and tutor to Prince Charles, and went with him into exile during the civil wars, after having been deprived of his whole property for his adherence to the royal cause. At the Restoration his fidelity was amply rewarded, being first made dean of Windsor, then Bishop of Worcester, and, in 1663, Bishop of Salisbury, where he died two years after this last honor was conferred upon him.

Bishop Earle was a very successful writer, and extremely happy in the drawing of characters. His principal literary performance is entitled Micro

cosmography, or a Piece of the World Discovered, in Essays and Characters. This was published in 1628, and is a valuable storehouse of particulars illustrative of the manners of the times. Among the characters drawn are those of an Antiquary, a Carrier, a Player, a Pot-poet, a University Dun, and a Clown. The last of these we here present:—

THE CLOWN.

The plain country fellow is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. He seems to have the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar, for his conversation is among beasts, and his talons none of the shortest, only he eats not grass, because he loves not sallets. His hand guides the plough, and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much distracted with objects; but if a good fat cow come in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, though his haste be never so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let out smoke, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastener on a piece of beef and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold, which he takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to his discretion: yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian, to his power (that is), comes to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain and fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but on good ground. Sunday he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bagpipe as essential to it as evening prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse. He thinks nothing to be vices but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hobnail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of corn, or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not.

PETER HEYLIN was another of those clerical adherents of the king, who, like Bishop Earle, were despoiled of their goods by the Parliament. Descended from an ancient family, and born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, on the twenty-ninth of November, 1600, he, in the fourteenth year of his age, entered Hart-Hall College, Oxford, and two years after passed to Magdalen College, in the same university. While at school Heylin had given a specimen of his genius for dramatic poetry, in the production of a tragedy on the war of Troy; and during his third collegiate year he wrote a drama entitled Spurious, with which the president of the college was so much pleased that he ordered it to be performed in his presence. Heylin, however,

early abandoned poetry, and turned his attention to more solid pursuits. In 1619, he became lecturer to his college on cosmography, and two years after published his Microcosmus, or Description of the Great World. This publication acquired, for its author, so great celebrity, as to attract royal attention, and, accordingly, in 1629, he was made chaplain to his majesty, and in the course of the two following years, received the rectory of Hemmingford, the prebendary of Westminster, and the living of Houghton, in Durham. In 1633, the degree of doctor of divinity was conferred upon him, and in 1637, he was made rector of Islip, in Oxfordshire; but while he was expecting higher preferments, he found his hopes at once shattered by the violence of civil war, and he was, therefore, not only stripped of his benefices and property, but declared, by parliament, a delinquent. He fled from the fury of his persecutors, and concealed himself, for some time, first at Winchester, then at Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, and afterward at Abingdon, where he remained, for a number of years, in comparative repose, and devoted himself exclusively to literature. At the Restoration he was reinstated in all his ecclesiastical honors, but while he expected, in higher dignities, the reward of his faithful services in favor of royalty, he sunk under a disease brought on, or at least aggravated by disappointment, and died on the eighth of May, 1662. The king, who had refused Heylin's ecclesiastical promotion, ordered him, at his death, a burial in Westminster Abbey.

This able and indefatigable writer, whom Wood declares to have been endowed with 'singular gifts, and a sharp and pregnant wit,' was the author of no less than thirty-seven different publications, of which the 'Microcosmus,' already mentioned, is the most celebrated. As an historian, he displays too much of the spirit of a partisan and bigot, and must be ranged among the defenders of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. His works, though now almost forgotten, were much read in the seventeenth century, and portions of them may still be perused with pleasure. In a narrative of a six weeks' tour in France, which he published in 1620, he gives the following humorous description of that people:

THE FRENCH.

The present French is nothing but an old Gaul, moulded into a new name: as rash he is, as headstrong, and as hair-brained. A nation whom you shall win with a feather, and lose with a straw; upon the first sight of him, you shall have him as familiar as your sleep, or the necessity of breathing. In one hour's conference you may endear him to you, in the second unbutton him, the third pumps him dry of all his secrets, and he gives them you as faithfully as if you were his ghostly father, and bound to conceal them 'sub sigillo confessionis,' (' under the seal of confession;') when you have learned this, you may lay him aside, for he is no longer serviceable. If you have any humour in holding him in further acquaintance (a favour which he confesseth, and I believe him, he is worthy of), himself will make the first separation: he hath said over his lesson now unto you, and now must find somebody else to whom to repeat it. Fare him well; he is a garment whom I should be loath to wear above two days together, for in that time he will be threadbare. Familiare

est hominis omnia sibi remittere,'-(it is usual for men to overlook their own faults,') saith Velleius of all; it holdeth most properly in this people. He is very kind-hearted to himself, and thinketh himself as free from wants as he is full; so much he hath in him the nature of a Chinese, that he thinketh all men blind but himself. In this private self-conceitedness he hateth the Spaniard, loveth not the English, and contemneth the German; himself is the only courtier and complete gentleman, but it is his own glass which he seeth in. Out of this conceit of his own excellency, and partly out of a shallowness of brain, he is very liable to exceptions; the least distaste that can be draweth his sword, and a minute's pause sheatheth it to your hand; afterward, if you beat him into better manners, he shall take it kindly, and cry, serviteur. In this one thing they are wonderfully like the devil; meekness or submission makes them insolent; a little resistance putteth them to their heels, or makes them your spaniels. In a word (for I have held him too long), he is a walking vanity in a new fashion.

I will give you now a taste of his table, which you shall find in a measure furnished (I speak not of the peasant), but not with so full a manner as with us. Their beef they cut out into such chops, that that which goeth there for a laudable dish, would be thought here a university commons, new served from the hatch. A loin of mutton serves amongst them three roastings, besides the hazard of making pottage with the rump. Fowl, also, they have in good plenty, especially such as the king found in Scotland; to say truth, that which they have is sufficient for nature and a friend, were it not for the mistress or the kitchen wench. I have heard much fame of French cooks, but their skill lieth not in the neat handling of beef and mutton. They have (as generally have all this nation) good fancies, and are special fellows for the making of puff-pastes, and the ordering of banquets. Their trade is not to feed the belly, but the palate. It is now time you were set down, where the first thing you must do is to say your grace; private graces are as ordinary there as private masses, and from thence I think they learned them. That done, fall to where you like best; they observe no method in their eating, and if you look for a carver, you may rise fasting. When you are risen, if you can digest the sluttishness of the cookery (which is most abominable at first sight), I dare trust you in a garrison. Follow him to church, and there he will show himself most irreligious and irreverent: I speak not of all, but the general. At a mass, in Cordeliers' church in Paris, I saw two French papists, even when the most sacred mystery of their faith was celebrating, break out into such a blasphemous and atheistical laughter, that even an Ethnic would have hated it; it was well they were Catholics, otherwise some French hothead or other would have sent them laughing to Pluto.

The French language is, indeed, very sweet and delectable: it is cleared of all harshness, by the cutting and leaving out the consonants, which maketh it fall off the tongue very volubly; yet, in my opinion, it is rather elegant than copious; and, therefore, is much troubled for want of words to find out paraphrases. It expresseth very much of itself in the action; the head, body, and shoulders, concur all in the pronouncing of it; and he that hopeth to speak it with good grace, must have something in him of a mimic. It is enriched with a full number of significant proverbs, which is a great help to the French humour in scoffing; and very full of courtship, which maketh all the people complimental. The poorest cobbler in the village hath his court cringes, and his eau benite de cour; his court holy-water as perfectly as the prince of Condé.

WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH, like his contemporary Usher, was one of those pillars of the Church of England, whose opposition to Romanism was uncompromising. He was born at Oxford, in October, 1602, and having, until the sixteenth year of his age, pursued preparatory studies at a private

grammar-school in his native place, he then entered Trinity College, in Oxford university, whence he took both of his degrees, and of which he eventually became a fellow. He was early destined for the clerical office, and his studies, therefore, were chiefly directed to preparation for its sacred duties; but he, at the same time, gave sufficient attention to other branches of learning, to become a respectable poet, and an accomplished mathematician. Having resolved to take orders, his fellowship enabled him to remain at Oxford, and there prosecute his studies in divinity without embarrassment. There were, through the indulgence of the king, residing at this period, in the vicinity of Oxford, many Romanists of extensive literary attainments, among whom John Perse, or, as he is usually called, Fisher, a Jesuit, was the most conspicuous. This cunning priest took every opportunity of coming in contact with university students, and as Chillingworth had early acquired a love of disputation, and great skill in argument, he was the frequent object of Perse's attacks. Long practice in disputation eventually induced a habit of doubting to such an extent, that his opinions became unsettled on almost all subjects, insomuch that the Jesuit succeeded in arguing him into a belief of the doctrines of Popery. The main argument that led to this result was that which maintained the necessity of an infallible living guide in matters of faith, to which character the Romish church appeared to him to be best entitled. In consequence of the effect thus wrought upon his mind, Chillingworth left Oxford and repaired to the Jesuit's College at Douay, in France; where he continued his theological studies, until induced, by the correspondence of Laud, his godfather, and now bishop of London, to return to England. On his return he re-entered the university of Oxford, where, after additional study of the points of difference, he declared in favor of the Protestant faith. This necessarily drew him into severe controversies, in which he employed the arguments that were afterward methodically arranged and exhibited in his famous work entitled The Religion of the Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation, published in 1637. This treatise, which has placed its author in the first rank of religious controversialists, is a model of perspicuous reasoning, and one of the ablest defences of the Protestant cause ever produced. In it the writer maintains that the Scriptures are the only rule to which appeal ought to be made in theological disputes; and that the Apostles' Creed embraces all the necessary points of faith.

The latitudinarianism of Chillingworth brought upon him the appellation of Arian, and Socinian; and his character of orthodoxy was still farther shaken by his refusal to accept of preferment on condition of subscribing to the thirty-nine articles. His scruples having, however, at length been overcome, he was promoted, in 1638, to the chancellorship of Salisbury. During the civil war, he zealously adhered to the royal party, and even at the siege of Gloucester, in 1643, called his mathematical knowledge into requisition, and acted as engineer. Soon after, having accompanied Lord Hopton, general of the king's forces in the west, to Arundel Castle, in Sussex, he was

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