inventors of it to bee those whom ye will be loath to own; next, what is to be thought in generall of reading, what ever sort the Books be; and that this ragesimal:-however quaintly the word now sounds, we must not impute this Latin synonyme for the English Adjective lenten to MILTON as a pedantic intrusion of his own on our language. I find it in The Ordinary, one of Cartwright's Comedies: "But Quadragessimall wits and fancies leane p. 49, 12mo. 1651. Quadragesimal Licenses, I conclude to have been the permissions which, even subsequently to the Reformation, were granted for eating white Meats in Lent, on Ember Days, and on others, which were appointed by Act of Parliament for Fish-Days. "Queen Elizabeth used to say that she would never eat Flesh in Lent without obtaining License from her little black Husband," (Walton's Life of Hooker: p. 209. ed. 1807) as she called ArchBishop Whitgift. During the inter-regnum, Marriages were by an Ordinance of Parliament solemnized before a civil Magistrate, and without a license. I copy the form of a Certificate on the occasion from the original, now before me. "Sussex. These are to certifie "those whom it may concerne that Thomas Holt of Petersfield "in the County of Southton Clerk, and Charity Shirley of Kird"ford in the County of Sussex, Spinster, were marryed at Plai"stow in the Parish of Kirdford on the one and twentieth of "May by Richd. Knowles Esqr. one of the Commissioners "for the Peace in the said County of Sussex. "In the presence of (L. S.) RICH. KNOWLES. " WILLM. MILLWOOD, "JOHN BEATON." MILTON's allusion must have been to this practice. Homily is here in its original signification-a Discourse, or Discussion: 'Ouiia: see "OMIAOE, in Steph. Thes. Grac. Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous Books, which were mainly intended to be supprest. Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all Learning, and the stop of Truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might bee yet further made both in religious and civill Wisdome. * I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane themselves as well as Men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors: For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of Life in them to be as active as that Soule was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, GODS Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills Reason it selfe, kills the Image of GOD, as it were in the eye. Many a Man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the C pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a Life beyond Life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a Life, whereof perhaps there is no great losse ; and revolutions of ages doe not oft recover the losse of a rejected Truth, for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men, how we spill that season'd Life of Man preserv'd and stor'd up in Books; since we see a kinde of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdome; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kinde of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall Life, but strikes at that ethereall and fift essence, the breath of Reason it selfe, slaies an Immortality rather then a Life. But 8 —if it extend to the whole impression, a kinde of massacre whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall life, but strikes at that ethereall and fift essence, the breath of Reason itselfe; slaies an Immortality rather then a Life.] It is far from unlikely, that this passage floated on Lord Shaftesbury's mind, while remarking that Hobbes "acted in the "spirit of Massacre" by recommending "the very extinguish"ing of Letters," and the extirpation of Greek and Roman Literature (Characteristics; I. 50. 12mo.). The noble Authour well subjoins, "by this reasoning it should follow, that there "can never be any tumults or deposing of Sovereigns at Con stantinople or in Mogul." But the Writer of the Leviathan had witnessed the instructive lessons taught by antient Learning to Neville and Harrington, to Sydney and MILTON. This it was that made him desirous of its extermination. As now, so in Par. Lost, our Authour availed himself of lest I should be condemn'd of introducing licence, while I oppose licencing, I refuse not the paines Aristotle's hypothesis, then very generally received, of four Elements which composed the material World, with a fifth Essence, peculiar to GoD and to the Soul of Man: "Swift to their several quarters hasted then "The cumbrous Elements, Earth, Flood, Air, Fire, III. 714. The conceit of "slaying an Immortality rather then a Life" is quite in the metaphysical style of that day; and will be elucidated by the succeeding extract from Bacon's Advancement of Learning; whence it is highly probable that he derived it. "Some of the Philosophers which were least divine, and most "immersed in the senses, and denied generally the Immortality "of the Soul; yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions "the spirit of Man could act and perform without the organs of "the body, they thought, might remain after Death, which were "only those of the Understanding, and not of the affections, so “immortal and incorruptible a thing did Knowledge seem unto them "to be." Works; I. 35. 4to. 1765. Donne and Cowley are under obligations to the same rich mine of metaphoric and philosophical imagery, which, however unfit, as was not unfrequently the case, they pressed into the service of Poetry. • Lest I should be condemn'd of introducing licence, while İ oppose Licencing-] "Condemn'd of" was once common. Thus Lylie; "That thou shouldest condemne me of rigor." Euphues: The Anatomie of Wit. Signat D. 2. sm. 4to. 1636. And it was still the language of the time. May writes, "The King was not satisfied in conscience to condemne him of High-Trea"son."-Hist. of the Parliament, p. 63. 4to. Of was heretofore used with much laxity; as equivalent to from, an, for, by, with, at, concerning, and among. Sometimes it seems to have been merely expletory; as hereafter in this Tract-" What some to be so much historicall, as will serve to shew what hath been done by ancient and famous Commonwealths, against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licencing crept out of the Inquisition, was catcht up by our Prelates, and hath caught some of our Presbyters. "lament of."-Hurd thought "Quench'd of hope" to be a Grecism.-Works; I. 84. 8vo. This might have been safely predicated if it had been found in MILTON. We may be assured that Shakspeare, whose phraseology it is, only availed himself of the licence of his day. Scholars agree that the idioms of the Greek coalesce more aptly with our Language than with the Latin. In Sonnet XII, MILTON says, of some Adversaries, "That bawl for Freedom in their senseless mood, "For who loves that, must first be wise and good." He was fond of this sentiment, and repeats it again and again through his writings. There is a shining sentence of the same tenour in his Treatise Of Reformation, &c. "Well knows every "wise nation that their Liberty consists in manly and honest "labours, in sobriety and rigourous honour to the Marriage "Bed, which in both sexes should be bred up from chast hopes "to loyall Enjoyments; and when the People slacken, and fall "to loosenes and riot, then doe they as much as if they laid "downe their necks for some wily Tyrant to get up and ride." p. 60. 4to. 1641. And he protests much the same very early in the Defensio secunda-" Quos non legum contemptus aut violatio in effre"natam licentiam effudit; non virtutis et gloriæ falsa species, "aut stulta veterum æmulatio inani nomine Libertatis incendit, "sed innocentiâ vitæ, morùmque sanctitas rectum atque solum "iter, ad Libertatem veram docuit, legum et religionis justis"sima defensio necessariò armavit." |