Chapter IV: Part 4

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse to
give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the
spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to
herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting;
whether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and
those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the
book of Job a brief model: or whether the rules of Aristotle
herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed,
which in them that know art, and use judgment, is no
transgression, but an enriching of art: and lastly, what king
or knight, before the conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay
the pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso gave to a prince
of Italy his choice whether he would command him to write of
Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels, or Belisarius
against the Goths, or Charlemagne against the Lombards; if to
the instinct of nature and the emboldening of art aught may be
trusted, and that there be nothing adverse in our climate, or
the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an
equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in
our own ancient stories; or whether those dramatic
constitutions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, shall be
found more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation. The Scripture
also affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of
Solomon, consisting of two persons, and a double chorus, as
Origen rightly judges. And the Apocalypse of St. John is the
majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and
intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies: and this my
opinion the grave authority of Pareus, commenting that book,
is sufficient to confirm. Or if occasion shall lead, to
imitate those magnific odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and
Callimachus are in most things worthy, some others in their
frame judicious, in their matter most an end faulty. But those
frequent songs throughout the law and prophets beyond all
these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very
critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over
all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. These
abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of
God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in
every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit,
to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue
and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind,
and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate in glorious
and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness,
and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high
providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of
martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious
nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of
Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states
from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in
religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave,
whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of
that which is called fortune from without, or the wily
subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all
these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint
out and describe. Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and
virtue, through all the instances of example, with such
delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who
will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see
her elegantly dressed; that whereas the paths of honesty and
good life appear now rugged and difficult, though they be
indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men
both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult
indeed. And what a benefit this would be to our youth and
gentry, may be soon guessed by what we know of the corruption
and bane which they suck in daily from the writings and
interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who having
scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a
true poem, the choice of such persons as they ought to
introduce, and what is moral and decent to each one; do for
the most part lay up vicious principles in sweet pills to be
swallowed down, and make the taste of virtuous documents harsh
and sour. But because the spirit of man cannot demean itself
lively in this body, without some recreating intermission of
labour and serious things, it were happy for the commonwealth,
if our magistrates, as in those famous governments of old,
would take into their care, not only the deciding of our
contentious law-cases and brawls, but the managing of our
public sports and festival pastimes; that they might be, not
such as were authorized a while since, the provocations of
drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure and harden our
bodies by martial exercises to all warlike skill and
performance; and may civilize, adorn, and make discreet our
minds by the learned and affable meeting of frequent
academies, and the procurement of wise and artful recitations,
sweetened with eloquent and graceful enticements to the love
and practice of justice, temperance, and fortitude,
instructing and bettering the nation at all opportunities,
that the call of wisdom and virtue may be heard everywhere, as
Solomon saith: 'She crieth without, she uttereth her voice in
the streets, in the top of high places, in the chief
concourse, and in the openings of the gates.' Whether this may
not be, not only in pulpits, but after another persuasive
method, at set and solemn paneguries, in theatres, porches, or
what other place or way may win most upon the people to
receive at once both recreation and instruction, let them in
authority consult. The thing which I had to say and those
intentions which have lived within me ever since I could
conceive myself anything worth to my country, I return to
crave excuse that urgent reason hath plucked from me, by an
abortive and foredated discovery. And the accomplishment of
them lies not but in a power above man's to promise; but that
none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with more
unwearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of
myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend; and that
the land had once enfranchised herself from this impertinent
yoke of prelaty, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical
duncery, no free and splendid wit can flourish. Neither do I
think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for
some years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment
of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised
from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that
which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or
the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by
the invocation of dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by
devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all
utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the
hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of
whom he pleases: to this must be added industrious and select
reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and
generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be
compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain
this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so
much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them.
Although it nothing content me to have disclosed thus much
beforehand, but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with
what small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no
less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing
solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to
embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes, put
from beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet
and still air of delightful studies, to come into the dim
reflection of hollow antiquities sold by the seeming bulk, and
there be fain to club quotations with men whose learning and
belief lies in marginal stuffings, who, when they have, like
good sumpters, laid ye down their horse-loads of citations and
fathers at your door, with a rhapsody of who and who were
bishops here or there, ye may take off their packsaddles,
their day's work is done, and episcopacy, as they think,
stoutly vindicated. Let any gentle apprehension, that can
distinguish learned pains from unlearned drudgery imagine what
pleasure or profoundness can be in this, or what honour to
deal against such adversaries. But were it the meanest
under-service, if God by his secretary conscience enjoin it,
it were sad for me if I should draw back; for me especially,
now when all men offer their aid to help, ease, and lighten
the difficult labours of the church, to whose service, by the
intentions of my parents and friends, I was destined of a
child, and in mine own resolutions: till coming to some
maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had invaded the
church, that he who would take orders must subscribe slave,
and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a
conscience that would retch, he must either straight perjure,
or split his faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless
silence before the sacred office of speaking, bought and begun
with servitude and forswearing. Howsoever, thus church-outed
by the prelates, hence may appear the right I have to meddle
in these matters, as before the necessity and constraint
appeared.

_From 'Apology for Smectymnuus'_

If, readers, to that same great difficulty of well-doing what
we certainly know, were not added in most men as great a
carelessness of knowing what they and others ought to do, we
had been long ere this, no doubt but all of us, much further
on our way to some degree of peace and happiness in this
kingdom. But since our sinful neglect of practising that which
we know to be undoubtedly true and good, hath brought forth
among us, through God's just anger, so great a difficulty now
to know that which otherwise might be soon learnt, and hath
divided us by a controversy of great importance indeed, but of
no hard solution, which is the more our punishment; I resolved
(of what small moment soever I might be thought) to stand on
that side where I saw both the plain authority of scripture
leading, and the reason of justice and equity persuading; with
this opinion, which esteems it more unlike a Christian to be a
cold neuter in the cause of the church, than the law of Solon
made it punishable after a sedition in the state.

And because I observe that fear and dull disposition,
lukewarmness and sloth, are not seldomer wont to cloak
themselves under the affected name of moderation, than true
and lively zeal is customably disparaged with the term of
indiscretion, bitterness, and choler; I could not to my
thinking honour a good cause more from the heart, than by
defending it earnestly, as oft as I could judge it to behove
me, notwithstanding any false name that could be invented to
wrong or undervalue an honest meaning. Wherein although I have
not doubted to single forth more than once such of them as
were thought the chief and most nominated opposers on the
other side, whom no man else undertook; if I have done well
either to be confident of the truth, whose force is best seen
against the ablest resistance, or to be jealous and tender of
the hurt that might be done among the weaker by the entrapping
authority of great names titled to false opinions; or that it
be lawful to attribute somewhat to gifts of God's imparting,
which I boast not, but thankfully acknowledge, and fear also
lest at my certain account they be reckoned to me rather many
than few; or if lastly it be but justice not to defraud of due
esteem the wearisome labours and studious watchings, wherein I
have spent and tired out almost a whole youth, I shall not
distrust to be acquitted of presumption: knowing, that if
heretofore all ages have received with favour and good
acceptance the early industry of him that hath been hopeful,
it were but hard measure now if the freedom of any timely
spirit should be oppressed merely by the big and blunted fame
of his elder adversary; and that his sufficiency must be now
sentenced, not by pondering the reason he shews, but by
calculating the years he brings.

However, as my purpose is not, nor hath been formerly, to look
on my adversary abroad, through the deceiving glass of other
men's great opinion of him, but at home, where I may find him
in the proper light of his own worth, so now against the
rancour of an evil tongue, from which I never thought so
absurdly, as that I of all men should be exempt, I must be
forced to proceed from the unfeigned and diligent inquiry of
my own conscience at home, (for better way I know not,
readers,) to give a more true account of myself abroad than
this modest confuter, as he calls himself, hath given of me.
Albeit, that in doing this I shall be sensible of two things
which to me will be nothing pleasant; the one is, that not
unlikely I shall be thought too much a party in mine own
cause, and therein to see least: the other, that I shall be
put unwillingly to molest the public view with the vindication
of a private name; as if it were worth the while that the
people should care whether such a one were thus, or thus. Yet
those I entreat who have found the leisure to read that name,
however of small repute, unworthily defamed, would be so good
and so patient as to hear the same person not unneedfully
defended.

I will not deny but that the best apology against false
accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set
against dishonest words. And that I could at this time most
easily and securely, with the least loss of reputation, use no
other defence, I need not despair to win belief; whether I
consider both the foolish contriving and ridiculous aiming of
these his slanderous bolts, shot so wide of any suspicion to
be fastened on me, that I have oft with inward contentment
perceived my friends congratulating themselves in my
innocence, and my enemies ashamed of their partner's folly: or
whether I look at these present times, wherein most men, now
scarce permitted the liberty to think over their own
concernments, have removed the seat of their thoughts more
outward to the expectation of public events: or whether the
examples of men, either noble or religious, who have sat down
lately with a meek silence and sufferance under many libellous
endorsements, may be a rule to others, I might well appease
myself to put up any reproaches in such an honourable society
of fellow-sufferers, using no other defence.

And were it that slander would be content to make an end where
it first fixes, and not seek to cast out the like infamy upon
each thing that hath but any relation to the person traduced,
I should have pleaded against this confuter by no other
advocates than those which I first commended, silence and
sufferance, and speaking deeds against faltering words. But
when I discerned his intent was not so much to smite at me, as
through me to render odious the truth which I had written, and
to stain with ignominy that evangelic doctrine which opposes
the tradition of prelacy, I conceived myself to be now not as
mine own person, but as a member incorporate into that truth
whereof I was persuaded, and whereof I had declared openly to
be a partaker. Whereupon I thought it my duty, if not to
myself, yet to the religious cause I had in hand, not to leave
on my garment the least spot or blemish in good name, so long
as God should give me to say that which might wipe it off;
lest those disgraces which I ought to suffer, if it so befall
me, for my religion, through my default religion be made
liable to suffer for me. And, whether it might not something
reflect upon those reverent men, whose friend I may be thought
in writing the Animadversions, was not my last care to
consider: if I should rest under these reproaches, having the
same common adversary with them, it might be counted small
credit for their cause to have found such an assistant, as
this babbler hath devised me. What other thing in his book
there is of dispute or question, in answering thereto I doubt
not to be justified; except there be who will condemn me to
have wasted time in throwing down that which could not keep
itself up. As for others, who notwithstanding what I can
allege have yet decreed to misinterpret the intents of my
reply, I suppose they would have found as many causes to have
misconceived the reasons of my silence.

* * * * *

Thus having spent his first onset, not in confuting, but in a
reasonless defaming of the book, the method of his malice
hurries him to attempt the like against the author; not by
proofs and testimonies, but 'having no certain notice of me,'
as he professes, 'further than what he gathers from the
Animadversions,' blunders at me for the rest, and flings out
stray crimes at a venture, which he could never, though he be
a serpent, suck from anything that I have written, but from
his own stuffed magazine and hoard of slanderous inventions,
over and above that which he converted to venom in the
drawing. To me, readers, it happens as a singular contentment;
and let it be to good men no light satisfaction, that the
slanderer here confesses he has 'no further notice of me than
his own conjecture.' Although it had been honest to have
inquired, before he uttered such infamous words, and I am
credibly informed he did inquire; but finding small comfort
from the intelligence which he received, whereon to ground the
falsities which he had provided, thought it his likeliest
course, under a pretended ignorance, to let drive at random,
lest he should lose his odd ends, which from some penurious
book of characters he had been culling out and would fain
apply. Not caring to burden me with those vices, whereof,
among whom my conversation hath been, I have been ever least
suspected; perhaps not without some subtlety to cast me into
envy, by bringing on me a necessity to enter into mine own
praises. In which argument I know every wise man is more
unwillingly drawn to speak, than the most repining ear can be
averse to hear.

Nevertheless, since I dare not wish to pass this life
unpersecuted of slanderous tongues, for God hath told us that
to be generally praised is woeful, I shall rely on his promise
to free the innocent from causeless aspersions: whereof
nothing sooner can assure me, than if I shall feel him now
assisting me in the just vindication of myself, which yet I
could defer, it being more meet, that to those other matters
of public debatement in this book I should give attendance
first, but that I fear it would but harm the truth for me to
reason in her behalf, so long as I should suffer my honest
estimation to lie unpurged from these insolent suspicions. And
if I shall be large, or unwonted in justifying myself to those
who know me not, for else it would be needless, let them
consider that a short slander will ofttimes reach further than
a long apology; and that he who will do justly to all men,
must begin from knowing how, if it so happen, to be not unjust
to himself. I must be thought, if this libeller (for now he
shows himself to be so) can find belief, after an inordinate
and riotous youth spent at the university, to have been at
length 'vomited out thence.' For which commodious lie, that he
may be encouraged in the trade another time, I thank him; for
it hath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge publicly with
all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect,
which I found above any of my equals at the hands of those
courteous and learned men, the fellows of that college wherein
I spent some years: who, at my parting, after I had taken two
degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how much better
it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters
full of kindness and loving respect, both before that time,
and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection
towards me. Which being likewise propense to all such as were
for their studious and civil life worthy of esteem, I could
not wrong their judgments and upright intentions, so much as
to think I had that regard from them for other cause, than
that I might be still encouraged to proceed in the honest and
laudable courses, of which they apprehended I had given good
proof. And to those ingenuous and friendly men, who were ever
the countenancers of virtuous and hopeful wits, I wish the
best and happiest thing that friends in absence wish one to
another.

As for the common approbation or dislike of that place, as now
it is, that I should esteem or disesteem myself, or any other
the more for that, too simple and too credulous is the
confuter, if he think to obtain with me, or any right
discerner. Of small practice were that physician, who could
not judge by what both she and her sister hath of long time
vomited, that the worser stuff she strongly keeps in her
stomach, but the better she is ever kecking at, and is queasy.
She vomits now out of sickness; but ere it will be well with
her, she must vomit by strong physic. In the meantime, that
suburb sink, as this rude scavenger calls it, and more than
scurrilously taunts it with the plague, having a worse plague
in his middle entrail, that suburb wherein I dwell shall be in
my account a more honourable place than his university. Which
as in the time of her better health, and mine own younger
judgment, I never greatly admired, so now much less. But he
follows me to the city, still usurping and forging beyond his
book notice, which only _he_ affirms to have had; 'and where
my morning haunts are, he wisses not.' It is wonder that,
being so rare an alchymist of slander, he could not extract
that, as well as the university vomit, and the suburb sink
which his art could distil so cunningly; but because his
lembec fails him, to give him and envy the more vexation, I
will tell him.

Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home; not
sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast,
but up and stirring, in winter often ere the sound of any bell
awake men to labour or to devotion; in summer as oft with the
bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good
authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be
weary, or memory have its full fraught: then, with useful and
generous labours preserving the body's health and hardiness to
render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the
mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty,
when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand and
cover their stations, rather than to see the ruin of our
protestation, and the inforcement of a slavish life.

These are the morning practices: proceed now to the afternoon;
'in playhouses,' he says, 'and the bordelloes.' Your
intelligence, unfaithful spy of Canaan? He gives in his
evidence, that 'there he hath traced me.' Take him at his
word, readers; but let him bring good sureties ere ye dismiss
him, that while he pretended to dog others, he did not turn in
for his own pleasure: for so much in effect he concludes
against himself, not contented to be caught in every other
gin, but he must be such a novice as to be still hampered in
his own hemp. In the Animadversions, saith he, I find the
mention of old cloaks, false beards, night-walkers, and salt
lotion; therefore, the animadverter haunts playhouses and
bordelloes; for if he did not, how could he speak of such
gear? Now that he may know what it is to be a child, and yet
to meddle with edged tools, I turn his antistrophon upon his
own head; the confuter knows that these things are the
furniture of playhouses and bordelloes, therefore, by the same
reason, 'the confuter himself hath been traced in those
places.' Was it such a dissolute speech, telling of some
politicians who were wont to eavesdrop in disguises, to say
they were often liable to a night-walking cudgeller, or the
emptying of a urinal? What if I had writ, as your friend the
author of the aforesaid mime, 'Mundus alter et idem,' to have
been ravished like some young Cephalus or Hylas, by a troop of
camping housewives in Viraginea, and that he was there forced
to swear himself an uxorious varlet; then after a long
servitude to have come into Aphrodisia, that pleasant country,
that gave such a sweet smell to his nostrils among the
shameless courtezans of Desvergonia? Surely he would have then
concluded me as constant at the bordello, as the galley-slave
at his oar.

But since there is such necessity to the hearsay of a tire, a
periwig, or a vizard, that plays must have been seen, what
difficulty was there in that? when in the colleges so many of
the young divines, and those in next aptitude to divinity,
have been seen so often upon the stage, writhing and unboning
their clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of
Trinculoes, buffoons, and bawds; prostituting the shame of
that ministry, which either they had, or were nigh having, to
the eyes of courtiers and court ladies, with their grooms and
mademoiselles. There, while they acted and overacted, among
other young scholars, I was a spectator; they thought
themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools; they made
sport, and I laughed; they mispronounced, and I misliked; and,
to make up the Atticism, they were out, and I hissed. Judge
now whether so many good textmen were not sufficient to
instruct me of false beards and vizards, without more
expositors; and how can this confuter take the face to object
to me the seeing of that which his reverend prelates allow,
and incite their young disciples to act? For if it be unlawful
to sit and behold a mercenary comedian personating that which
is least unseemly for a hireling to do, how much more blameful
is it to endure the sight of as vile things acted by persons
either entered, or presently to enter, into the ministry; and
how much more foul and ignominious for them to be the actors!

But because as well by this upbraiding to me the bordelloes,
as by other suspicious glancings in his book, he would seem
privily to point me out to his readers, as one whose custom of
life were not honest, but licentious, I shall entreat to be
borne with, though I digress; and in a way not often trod,
acquaint ye with the sum of my thoughts in this matter,
through the course of my years and studies: although I am not
ignorant how hazardous it will be to do this under the nose of
the envious, as it were in skirmish to change the compact
order, and instead of outward actions, to bring inmost
thoughts into front. And I must tell ye, readers, that by this
sort of men I have been already bitten at; yet shall they not
for me know how slightly they are esteemed, unless they have
so much learning as to read what in Greek ἀπειροκαλία is,
which, together with envy, is the common disease of those
who censure books that are not for their reading. With me it
fares now, as with him whose outward garment hath been injured
and ill-bedighted; for having no other shift, what help but to
turn the inside outwards, especially if the lining be of the
same, or, as it is sometimes, much better? So if my name and
outward demeanour be not evident enough to defend me, I must
make trial if the discovery of my inmost thoughts can: wherein
of two purposes, both honest and both sincere, the one
perhaps I shall not miss; although I fail to gain belief with
others, of being such as my perpetual thoughts shall here
disclose me, I may yet not fail of success in persuading some
to be such really themselves, as they cannot believe me to be
more than what I feign.

I had my time, readers, as others have, who have good learning
bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where, the
opinion was, it might be soonest attained; and as the manner
is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most
commended. Whereof some were grave orators and historians,
whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was,
so I understood them; others were the smooth elegiac poets,
whereof the schools are not scarce, whom both for the pleasing
sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found
most easy, and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and for
their matter, which what it is, there be few who know not, I
was so allured to read, that no recreation came to me better
welcome. For that it was then those years with me which are
excused, though they be least severe, I may be saved the
labour to remember ye. Whence having observed them to account
it the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to
judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves
worthiest to love those high perfections, which under one or
other name they took to celebrate; I thought with myself by
every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be
false, that what emboldened them to this task, might with such
diligence as they used embolden me; and that what judgment,
wit, or elegance was my share, would herein best appear, and
best value itself, by how much more wisely, and with more love
of virtue I should choose (let rude ears be absent) the object
of not unlike praises. For albeit these thoughts to some will
seem virtuous and commendable, to others only pardonable, to a
third sort perhaps idle; yet the mentioning of them now will
end in serious.

Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to themselves
such a reward, as the noblest dispositions above other things
in this life have sometimes preferred: whereof not to be
sensible when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a
gross and shallow judgment, and withal an ungentle and
swainish breast. For by the firm settling of these
persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a
proficient, that if I found those authors anywhere speaking
unworthy things of themselves, or unchaste of those names
which before they had extolled; this effect it wrought with
me, from that time forward their art I still applauded, but
the men I deplored; and above them all, preferred the two
famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but
honour of them to whom they devote their verse, displaying
sublime and pure thoughts, without transgression. And long it
was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, _that he
who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter
in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is,
a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things;
not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous
cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the
practice of all that which is praiseworthy_. These reasonings,
together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest
haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I
might be, (which let envy call pride,) and lastly that
modesty, whereof, though not in the title-page, yet here I may
be excused to make some beseeming profession; all these
uniting the supply of their natural aid together, kept me
still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must
deject and plunge himself, that can agree to saleable and
unlawful prostitutions.

Next, (for hear me out now, readers,) that I may tell ye
whither my younger feet wandered; I betook me among those
lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn cantos the
deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from
hence had in renown over all Christendom. There I read it in
the oath of every knight, that he should defend to the expense
of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the
honour and chastity of virgin or matron; from whence even then
I learned what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the
defence of which so many worthies, by such a dear adventure of
themselves, had sworn. And if I found in the story afterward,
any of them, by word or deed, breaking that oath, I judged it
the same fault of the poet, as that which is attributed to
Homer, to have written indecent things of the gods. Only this
my mind gave me, that every free and gentle spirit, without
that oath, ought to be born a knight, nor needed to expect the
guilt spur, or the laying of a sword upon his shoulder to stir
him up both by his counsel and his arms, to secure and protect
the weakness of any attempted chastity. So that even these
books, which to many others have been the fuel of wantonness
and loose living, I cannot think how, unless by divine
indulgence, proved to me so many incitements, as you have
heard, to the love and steadfast observation of that virtue
which abhors the society of bordelloes.

Thus, from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years and
the ceaseless round of study and reading led me to the shady
spaces of philosophy; but chiefly to the divine volumes of
Plato, and his equal Xenophon: where, if I should tell ye what
I learnt of chastity and love, I mean that which is truly so,
whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand
to those who are worthy; (the rest are cheated with a thick
intoxicating potion, which a certain sorceress, the abuser of
love's name, carries about;) and how the first and chiefest
office of love begins and ends in the soul, producing those
happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and virtue.
With such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth
your listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have ye in a
still time, when there shall be no chiding; not in these
noises, the adversary, as ye know, barking at the door, or
searching for me at the bordelloes, where it may be he has
lost himself, and raps up without pity the sage and rheumatic
old prelatess with all her young Corinthian laity, to inquire
for such a one.

Last of all, not in time, but as perfection is last, that care
was ever had of me, with my earliest capacity, not to be
negligently trained in the precepts of the Christian religion:
this that I have hitherto related, hath been to show, that
though Christianity had been but slightly taught me, yet a
certain reservedness of natural disposition, and moral
discipline, learnt out of the noblest philosophy, was enough
to keep me in disdain of far less incontinences than this of
the bordello. But having had the doctrine of holy scripture
unfolding those chaste and high mysteries, with timeliest care
infused, that 'the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the
body;' thus also I argued to myself, that if unchastity in a
woman, whom St. Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandal
and dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the image
and glory of God, it must, though commonly not so thought, be
much more deflouring and dishonourable; in that he sins both
against his own body, which is the perfecter sex, and his own
glory, which is in the woman; and, that which is worst,
against the image and glory of God, which is in himself. Nor
did I slumber over that place expressing such high rewards of
ever accompanying the Lamb with those celestial songs to
others inapprehensible, but not to those who were not defiled
with women, which doubtless means fornication; for marriage
must not be called a defilement.

Thus large I have purposely been, that if I have been justly
taxed with this crime, it may come upon me, after all this my
confession, with a tenfold shame: but if I have hitherto
deserved no such opprobious word, or suspicion, I may hereby
engage myself now openly to the faithful observation of what I
have professed.

* * * * *

I had said, that because the Remonstrant was so much offended
with those who were tart against the prelates, sure he loved
toothless satires, which I took were as improper as a toothed
sleekstone. This champion from behind the arras cries out,
that those toothless satires were of the Remonstrant's making;
and arms himself here tooth and nail, and horn, to boot, to
supply the want of teeth, or rather of gums in the satires;
and for an onset tells me, that the simile of a sleekstone
'shows I can be as bold with a prelate as familiar with a
laundress.' But does it not argue rather the lascivious
promptness of his own fancy, who, from the harmless mention of
a sleekstone, could neigh out the remembrance of his old
conversation among the viragian trollops? For me, if he move
me, I shall claim his own oath, the oath _ex officio_, against
any priest or prelate in the kingdom, to have ever as much
hated such pranks as the best and chastest of them all. That
exception which I made against toothless satires, the confuter
hopes I had from the satirist, but is far deceived: neither
have I ever read the hobbling distich which he means.

For this good hap I had from a careful education, to be inured
and seasoned betimes with the best and elegantest authors of
the learned tongues, and thereto brought an ear that could
measure a just cadence, and scan without articulating: rather
nice and humorous in what was tolerable, than patient to read
every drawling versifier. Whence lighting upon this title of
'toothless satires,' I will not conceal ye what I thought,
readers, that sure this must be some sucking satyr, who might
have done better to have used his coral, and made an end of
teething, ere he took upon him to wield a satire's whip. But
when I heard him talk of 'scouring the rusty swords of elvish
knights,' do not blame me if I changed my thought, and
concluded him some desperate cutler.

* * * * *

But now, readers, we have the port within sight; his last
section, which is no deep one, remains only to be forded, and
then the wished shore. And here first it pleases him much,
that he had descried me, as he conceives, to be unread in the
councils. Concerning which matter it will not be unnecessary
to shape him this answer: that some years I had spent in the
stories of those Greek and Roman exploits, wherein I found
many things both nobly done, and worthily spoken: when, coming
in the method of time to that age wherein the church had
obtained a Christian emperor, I so prepared myself, as being
now to read examples of wisdom and goodness among those who
were foremost in the church, not elsewhere to be paralleled;
but to the amazement of what I expected I found it all quite
contrary: excepting in some very few, nothing but ambition,
corruption, contention, combustion; insomuch that I could not
but love the historian, Socrates, who, in the proem to his
fifth book professes, 'he was fain to intermix affairs of
state; for that it would be else an extreme annoyance to hear,
in a continued discourse, the endless brabbles and
counterplottings of the bishops.'

Finding, therefore, the most of their actions in single to be
weak, and yet turbulent, full of strife and yet flat of
spirit; and the sum of their best council there collected, to
be most commonly in questions either trivial or vain, or else
of short and easy decision, without that great bustle which
they made; I concluded that if their single ambition and
ignorance was such, then certainly united in a council it
would be much more; and if the compendious recital of what
they there did was so tedious and unprofitable, then surely to
set out the whole extent of their tattle in a dozen volumes
would be a loss of time irrecoverable. Besides that which I
had read of St. Martin, who for his last sixteen years could
never be persuaded to be at any council of the bishops. And
Gregory Nazianzen betook him to the same resolution, affirming
to Procopius, 'that of any council or meeting of bishops he
never saw good end; nor any remedy thereby of evil in the
church, but rather an increase. For,' saith he, 'their
contentions and desire of lording no tongue is able to
express.'

I have not, therefore, I confess, read more of the councils,
save here and there; I should be sorry to have been such a
prodigal of my time; but, that which is better, I can assure
this confuter, I have read into them all. And if I want
anything yet I shall reply something toward that which in the
defence of Murena was answered by Cicero to Sulpitius the
lawyer. 'If ye provoke me (for at no hand else will I
undertake such a frivolous labour) I will in three months be
an expert councilist.' For, be not deceived, readers, by men
that would overawe your ears with big names and huge tomes
that contradict and repeal one another, because they can cram
a margin with citations. Do but winnow their chaff from their
wheat, ye shall see their great heap shrink and wax thin, past
belief.

* * * * *

But this which comes next in view, I know not what good vein
or humour took him when he let drop into his paper; I that
was erewhile the ignorant, the loiterer, on the sudden by his
permission am now granted 'to know something.' And that 'such
a volley of expressions' he hath met withal, 'as he would
never desire to have them better clothed.' For me, readers,
although I cannot say that I am utterly untrained in those
rules which best rhetoricians have given, or unacquainted with
those examples which the prime authors of eloquence have
written in any learned tongue; yet true eloquence I find to be
none, but the serious and hearty love of truth: and that whose
mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know
good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the
knowledge of them into others, when such a man would speak,
his words, (by what I can express,) like so many nimble and
airy servitors, trip about him at command, and in well-ordered
files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places.

_To Carlo Dati, Nobleman of Florence._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. X.)

When I came upon that passage where you write that you had
sent me three letters before, which I now know to have been
lost, then, in the first place, that sincere gladness of mine
at the receipt of this one began to be infected and troubled
with a sad regret, and presently a something heavier creeps in
upon me, to which I am accustomed in very frequent grievings
over my own lot: the sense, namely, that those whom the mere
necessity of neighbourhood, or something else of a useless
kind, has closely conjoined with me, whether by accident or by
the tie of law (sive casu, sive lege, conglutinavit), they are
the persons, though in no other respect commendable, who sit
daily in my company, weary me, nay, by heaven, all but plague
me to death whenever they are jointly in the humour for it,
whereas those whom habits, disposition, studies, had so
handsomely made my friends, are now almost all denied me
either by death or by most unjust separation of place, and are
so for the most part snatched from my sight that I have to
live well nigh in a perpetual solitude. As to what you say
that from the time of my departure from Florence you have been
anxious about my health and always mindful of me, I truly
congratulate myself that a feeling has been equal and mutual
in both of us, the existence of which on my side only I was
perhaps claiming to my credit. Very sad to me also, I will not
conceal from you, was that departure, and it planted stings in
my heart which now rankle there deeper, as often as I think
with myself of my reluctant parting, my separation as by a
wrench, from so many companions at once, such good friends as
they were, and living so pleasantly with each other in one
city, far off indeed, but to me most dear. I call to witness
that tomb of Damon, ever to be sacred and solemn to me, whose
adornment with every tribute of grief was my weary task, till
I betook myself at length to what comforts I could, and
desired again to breathe a little—I call that sacred grave to
witness that I have had no greater delight all this while than
in recalling to my mind the most pleasant memory of all of
you, and of yourself especially. This you must have read for
yourself long ere now, if that poem reached you, as now first
I hear from you it did. I had carefully caused it to be sent,
in order that, however small a proof of talent, it might, even
in those few lines introduced into it emblem-wise, be no
obscure proof of my love towards you. My idea was that by this
means I should lure either yourself or some of the others to
write to me; for, if I wrote first, either I had to write to
all, or I feared that, if I gave the preference to any one, I
should incur the reproach of such others as came to know it,
hoping as I do that very many are yet there alive who might
certainly have a claim to this attention from me. Now,
however, you first of all, both by this most friendly call of
your letter, and by your thrice repeated attention of writing
before, have freed the reply for which I have been somewhile
since in your debt from any expostulation from the others.
There was, I confess, an additional cause for my silence in
that most turbulent state of our Britain, subsequent to my
return home, which obliged me to divert my mind shortly
afterwards from the prosecution of my studies to the defence
anyhow of life and fortune. What safe retirement for literary
leisure could you suppose given one among so many battles of a
civil war, slaughters, flights, seizures of goods? Yet, even
in the midst of these evils, since you desire to be informed
about my studies, know that we have published not a few things
in our native tongue; which, were they not written in English,
I would willingly send to you, my friends in Florence, to
whose opinions, I attach very much value. The part of the
Poems which is in Latin I will send shortly, since you wish
it; and I would have done so spontaneously long ago, but that,
on account of the rather harsh sayings against the Pope of
Rome in some of the pages, I had a suspicion they would not be
quite agreeable to your ears. Now I beg of you that the
indulgence you were wont to give, I say not to your own Dante
and Petrarch in the same case, but with singular politeness to
my own former freedom of speech, as you know, among you, the
same you, Dati, will obtain (for of yourself, I am sure) from
my other friends whenever I may be speaking of your religion
in our peculiar way.

LONDON, April 21, 1647.

_On his Blindness_

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present 5
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
'Doth God exact day labour, light denied?'
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 10
Bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.'

_To the most distinguished Leonard Philaras, of Athens, Ambassador from the Duke of Parma to the King of France._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XII.)

Your good will toward me, most honoured Leonard Philaras, as
well as your high opinion of our _Defence for the English
People_, I learnt from your letters, written partly on that
subject, to Mr. Augier, a man illustrious among us for his
remarkable fidelity in diplomatic business for this republic:
after which I received, through the same, your kind greeting,
with your portrait, and the accompanying eulogium, certainly
most worthy of your virtues,—and then, finally, a most polite
letter from yourself. Be assured that I, who am not in the
habit of despising the genius of the Germans, or even of the
Danes or Swedes, cannot but value very much such an opinion of
me from _you_, a native of Attic Athens, who have besides,
after happily finishing a course of literary studies among the
Italians, reached such ample honours by great handling of
affairs. For, as the great Alexander himself, when carrying on
war in the remotest parts of the earth, declared that he had
undergone such great labours _for the sake of the good opinion
of the Athenians_, why should not I congratulate myself, and
think myself honoured to the highest, in having received
praises from one in whom singly at this day the Arts of the
old Athenians and all their celebrated excellencies appear,
after so long an interval, to revive and rebloom? Remembering
how many men of supreme eloquence were produced by that city,
I have pleasure in confessing that whatever literary advance I
have made I owe chiefly to steady intimacy with their writings
from my youth upwards. But, were there in me, by direct gift
from them, or a kind of transfusion, such a power of pleading
that I could rouse our armies and fleets for the deliverance
of Greece, the land of eloquence, from her Ottoman
oppressor,—to which mighty act you seem almost to implore our
aid—truly there is nothing which it would be more or sooner
in my desire to do. For what did even the bravest men of old,
or the most eloquent, consider more glorious or more worthy of
them than, whether by pleading or by bravely acting, to make
the Greeks free and self-governing? There is, however,
something else besides to be tried, and in my judgment far the
most important: namely, that some one should, if possible,
arouse and rekindle in the minds of the Greeks, by the
relation of that old story, the old Greek valour itself, the
old industry, the old patience of labour. Could some one do
_that_—and from no one more than yourself ought we to expect
it, looking to the strength of your feeling for your native
land, and the combination of the same with the highest
prudence, skill in military affairs, and a powerful passion
for the recovery of the ancient political liberty—then, I am
confident, neither would the Greeks be wanting to themselves,
nor any other nation wanting to the Greeks. Farewell.

LONDON, June, 1652.

_To Henry Oldenburg, agent for the city of Bremen in Lower Saxony with the Commonwealth._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. XIV.)