Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

UPON HEARING OF MUSIC BY NIGHT.

How sweetly doth this music sound in this dead season! In the day-time it would not, it could not, so much affect the ear. All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darkness; thus it is with the glad tidings of salvation; the gospel never sounds so sweet as in the night of preservation, or of our own private affliction; it is ever the same, the difference is in our disposition to receive it. O God, whose praise it is to give songs in the night, make my prosperity conscionable, and my crosses cheerful.

The sermons of Bishop Hall display an uncommonly rapid and vehement species of eloquence, well fitted to arouse and impress even the most listless audience. As a specimen, we present the following extract from a discourse on the text, 'It is finished :

over.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED AFRESH BY SINNERS.

Behold, this storm, wherewith all the powers of the world were shaken, is now The elders, Pharisees, Judas, the soldiers, priests, witnesses, judges, thieves, executioners, devils, have all tired themselves in vain with their own malice; and he triumphs over all, upon the throne of his cross his enemies are vanquished, his Father satisfied, his soul with this world at rest and glory; 'It is finished.' Now there is no more betraying, agonies, arraignments, scourgings, scoffings, crucifying, conflicts, terrors; all 'is finished.' Alas! beloved, and will we not let the Son of God be at rest? Do we now again go about to fetch him out of his glory, to scorn and crucify him? I fear to say it: God's spirit dare and doth; 'They crucify again to themselves the Son of God, and make a mock of him :' to themselves, not in himself; that they can not, it is no thanks to them; they would do it. See and consider: the notoriously sinful conversations of those that should be Christians, offer violence unto our glorified Saviour; they stretch their hand to heaven, and pull him down from his throne to his cross; they tear him with thorns, pierce him with nails, load him with reproaches. Thou hatest the Jews, spittest at the name of Judas, railest on Pilate, condemnest the cruel butchers of Christ; yet thou canst blaspheme, swear him quite over, curse, swagger, lie, oppress, boil with lust, scoff, riot, and livest like a debauched man; yea, like a human beast, yea, like an unclean devil. Cry Hosanna as long as thou wilt; thou art a Pilate, a Jew, a Judas, an executioner of the Lord of life; and so much greater shall thy judgment be, by how much thy light and his glory is more. Oh, beloved, is it not enough that he died once for us? Were those pains so light that we should every day redouble them? Is this the entertainment that so gracious a Saviour hath deserved of us by dying? Is this the recompense of that infinite love of his that thou shouldest thus cruelly vex and wound him with thy sins? Every of our sins is a thorn, and nail, and spear to him; while thou pourest down thy drunken carouses, thou givest thy Saviour a portion of gall; while thou despisest his poor servants, thou spittest on thy proud dresses, and liftest up thy vain heart with high conceits, thou settest a crown of thorns on his head, while thou wringest and oppressest his poor children, thou whippest him, and drawest blood of his hands and feet. Thou hypocrite, how darest thou offer to receive the sacrament of God with that hand which is thus imbrued with the blood of him whom thou receivest? In every ordinary thy profane tongue walks, in the disgrace of the religious and conscionable. Thou makest no scruple of thine own sins, and scornest those that do: not to be wicked, is crime enough. Hear him that saith, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' Saul strikes at Damascus; Christ suffers in heaven. Thou strikest; Christ Jesus smarteth, and will revenge. These are the afterings of Christ's sufferings. In himself it is finished;' in his members it is not, till the world be finished. We must toil, and groan, and bleed, that we may reign;

if he had not done so, 'It had not been finished.' This is our warfare; this is the religion of our sorrow and death. Now are we set upon the sandy pavement of our theatre, and are matched with all sorts of evils; evil men, evil spirits, evil accidents, and, which is worst, our own evil hearts; temptations, crosses, persecutions, sicknesses, wants, infamies, death; all these must in our courses be encountered by the law of our profession. What should we do but strive and suffer, as our general hath done, that we may reign as he doth, and once triumph in our consummatum est? God and his angels sit upon the scaffolds of heaven, and behold us: our crown is ready; our day of deliverance shall come; yea, our redemption is near, when all tears shall be wiped from our eyes, and we that have sown in tears shall reap in joy. In the mean time, let us possess our souls not in patience only, but in comfort; let us adore and magnify our Saviour in his sufferings, and imitate him in our own. Our sorrows shall have an end; our joys shall not: our pains shall soon be finished; our glory shall be finished, but never ended.

THOMAS OVERBURY, memorable chiefly for his tragical end, was of an ancient family, and born in Warwickshire, in 1581. At the age of fourteen he was entered a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, where he applied himself to his studies with such diligence, that when but seventeen years of age he received the degree of bachelor of arts. His father designing him for the legal profession, he entered the Middle Temple as a student of law; but his genius most inclined him to polite literature, and the elegancies of a court life impelled him to push his fortunes in that direction. Accordingly, soon after the coronation of James the First, he commenced an acquaintance with the famous Robert Car, afterward Earl of Somerset; and that gentleman, finding that Overbury's accomplishments would be very serviceable to him in furthering his ambitious views, entered into the most intimate connection with him. Car becoming, in a few years, a very great favorite of the king, used his influence, in 1608, to obtain for Overbury the honor of knighthood, and at the same time had his father appointed one of the judges for Wales. The year following, Sir Thomas made a tour through Holland, Flanders, and France, and on his return to England, published his observations abroad in a large quarto volume.

In 1612, Overbury assisted his friend, who had meantime become Viscount Rochester, in an amour with the notorious Countess of Essex; but being afterward displeased with his lordship's design of marrying that worthless lady, he remonstrated with him with the same liberty that he had been accustomed to use on other subjects. The courtier was offended, and made no scruple of sacrificing his friend to his purpose. Disclosing, therefore, the interview with Sir Thomas, to Lady Essex, it was immediately resolved, that the successful issue of their intrigue necessarily required the removal of Overbury out of the way. With this view, the minion first obtained for him from his majesty, the offer of an embassy to Russia; and then prevailing on him to refuse it, easily procured his imprisonment for a contempt of the king's command. He was, accordingly, apprehended, and on the twenty-first of August, 1613, sent to the Tower, where his death was soon after compassed by poison.

1 It is finished.

Sir Thomas Overbury was a witty and ingenious describer of characters. He had also some pretensions to poetry, and early wrote two didactic poems, called The Wife and The Choice of a Wife; but though popular at the time, they are now held in little estimation. Some of his prose Characters, or Witty Descriptions of the Properties of Sundry Persons, are, however, excellent, though, like many other productions of James's reign, disfigured by far-fetched conceits. Of these, the following is a fair specimen.

THE FAIR AND HAPPY MILKMAID

Is a country wench, that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all face-physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to command virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellences stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel, which is herself, is far better than outsides of tissue; for though she be not arrayed in the spoils of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocence, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long in bed, spoil both her complexion and conditions: nature hath taught her, too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul; she rises, therefore, with Chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes the lamb her curfue. In milking a cow, and straining the teats through her fingers, it seems that so sweet a milk-press makes the milk whiter or sweeter; for never came almond-glore or aromatic ointment on her palm to taint it. The golden ears of corn fall and kiss her feet when she reaps them, as if they wished to be bound and led prisoners by the same hand that felled them. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June, like a new-made hay-cock. She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity; and when winter evenings fall early, sitting at her merry wheel, she sings defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She bestows her year's wages at next fair, and in choosing her garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and bee-hive are all her physic and surgery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone, and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none; yet to say truth, she is never alone, but is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with ensuing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them; only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she, and all her care is, she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet.

JOHN SELDEN, a man of extensive knowledge and vast learning, was of a respectable family, and was born at Salvington, in Sussex, on the sixteenth of December, 1584. He commenced his classical education at the freeschool in Chichester, and at sixteen years of age was sent to Hart-Hall College, Oxford, where he remained three years. He then went to London and entered Clifford's Inn, as a student of law; but at the expiration of two years he removed to the Inner Temple, where he soon acquired great reputation for his learning. Though he designed to make the law his profession, yet he by no means confined himself to its dry details, but gave much of his time and attention to subjects more purely literary. Between 1607, and 1610, he published, in the Latin language, several historical and antiquarian

works relative to his native country. These acquired for him, beside considerable reputation, the esteem and friendship of Camden, Spelman, Colton, Browne, and also of Drayton, to whose 'Polyolbion' he furnished notes. By Milton he is afterward mentioned as 'the chief of learned men reputed in this land.'

Selden's largest English work, A Treatise on Titles of Honour, was published in 1614, and still continues to be a standard authority respecting the degrees of nobility and gentry in England, and the origin of such distinctions in other countries. In 1617 his fame was greatly extended, both at home and on the continent, by the publication of a Latin work on the idolatry of the Syrians, and more especially on the heathen deities mentioned in the Old Testament. In his next performance, A History of Tithes, published in 1618, he, by leaning to the side of those who question the divine right of the church to that fund, gave great offence to the clergy, at whose instigation the king summoned the author to his presence, and reprimanded him. He was also called before several members of the formidable high commission court, who extracted from him a written declaration of sorrow for what he had done, without, however, any retraction of his opinions. To this great work several replies appeared, but to these he was not allowed to publish a rejoinder.

During the subsequent part of his life, Selden showed but little respect for his clerical contemporaries, whose conduct he deemed arrogant and oppressive. Nor did he long want an opportunity of showing that civil tyranny was as little to his taste as ecclesiastical; for being consulted by the parliament in 1621, on the occasion of the dispute with James concerning their powers and privileges, he spoke so freely on the popular side, and took so prominent a part in drawing up the spirited protestation of parliament, that he suffered a short confinement in consequence of the king's displeasure. As a member of parliament, both in this and the subsequent reign, he continued to defend the liberty of the people, for which, upon one occasion, he was committed to the Tower, on a charge of sedition. In 1640, when the Long Parliament met, Selden was unanimously elected one of the representatives of Oxford university; but though he still opposed the abuses and oppressions of which the people complained, he was averse to extreme measures, and desirous to prevent the power of the sword from falling into the hands of either party. Finding his exertions to ward off a civil war unavailing, he seems to have withdrawn himself as much as possible from public life. While in parliament he constantly exerted his influence in behalf of learning and of learned men, and performed great services to both universities. In 1643, he was appointed keeper of the records of the Tower; but his political occupations were not suffered to divert his mind altogether from literary pursuits. Besides an account published in 1628, of the celebrated Arundelian marbles, which had been brought from Greece during the previous year, and which, by furnishing the dates of many events in ancient history, proved of very great use in chronological investigations, he gave to the world va

rious works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities; particularly those of the Jewish nation. He also wrote, in 1635, an elaborate Latin treatise in support of the right of British dominion over the circumjacent seas. This work found great favor with all parties, and a defence of it against a Dutch writer, was his last literary performance. Selden died on the thirtieth of November, 1654, at the residence of Elizabeth, countess of Kent, with whom he had long lived on terms of very close intimacy. His funeral sermon was preached by his friend, Archbishop Usher, and his valuable library was added, by his executors, to the Bodleian library, at Oxford.

After Selden's death, a collection of his sayings, entitled Table Talk, was published by his amanuensis, who states that he enjoyed, for twenty years, the opportunity of hearing his employer's discourse, and was in the habit of committing faithfully to writing, the excellent things that usually fell from him.' It is more by his 'Table Talk' than by the works published during his life-time, that Selden is now generally known as a writer; for though he was a man of great talent and learning, his style was deficient in ease and grace, and the class of subjects upon which he employed his pen, was little suited to the popular taste. Many of the apophthegms to be found in his 'Table Talk,' are exceedingly acute; many of them are harmonious; while some embody propositions, which, though uttered in familiar conversation, he probably would not have seriously entertained. As might be expected, satirical remarks on the clergy of the Establishment abound, and there are displays also of that cautious spirit which distinguished him throughout his whole career. Marriage, for example, he characterizes as 'a desperate thing: the frogs in Æsop were extreme wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.' The following are farther extracts from the 'Table Talk:'

EVIL SPEAKING.

1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly before he is aware, makes himself such a one as he speaks against; for, if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind of language.

2. A gallant man is above ill words. An example we have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court, fool; the lord complains, and has Stone whipped; Stone cries, 'I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool often enough, before he would have had me whipped.'

3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give him good words, that he may use you the better, if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was dying; his confessor told him, to work him to repentance, how the devil tormented the wicked that went to hell; the Spaniard replying, called the devil, my lord: 'I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel.' His confessor reproved him. 'Excuse me,' said the Don, for calling him so; I know not into what hands I may fall; and if I happen into his I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words.'

HUMILITY.

1. Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

2. There is humilitas quædam in vitio. If a man does not take notice of that ex

« AnteriorContinuar »