books, as birds that, entering by the chimney, flutter at the false light of a glass window, for want of wit to consider which way they came in. So that in the right definition of names lies the first use of speech, which is the acquisition of science, and in wrong or no definitions lies the first abuse; from which proceed all false and senseless tenets, which make those men that take their instruction from the authority of books, and not from their own meditation, to be as much below the condition of ignorant men as men endued with true science are above it. For between true science and erroneous doctrines, ignorance is in the middle. Natural sense and imagination are not subject to absurdity. Nature itself cannot err; and as men abound in copiousness of language, so they become more wise or more mad than ordinary. Nor is it possible without letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or, unless his memory be hurt by disease or ill constitution of organs, excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters they do but reckon by them-but they are the money of fools, that value them by the authority of an Aristotle, a Cicero, or a Thomas, or any other doctor whatsoever, if but a man. (From Leviathan.) Cognate is the famous saying, 'Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.' A very short specimen of Hobbes's poetry may suffice. His translation of the Iliad begins thus: O Goddess, sing what woe the discontent Leaving their bodies unto dogs and fowls; Apollo; who, incensed by the wrong To his priest Chryses by Atrides done, Sent a great pestilence the Greeks among; Apace they died and remedy was none. The standard edition of Hobbes is that by Sir W. Molesworth (16 vols., 1839-46); Professor H. Morley published editions of Leviathan in 1881, and again in 1885. See the monograph by Professor Croom Robertson (1886), and three papers in Sir J. Fitzjames Stephens's Hora Sabbaticæ (1891-93). Sir Robert Filmer (1590?-1653) is for all time the classical representative-in England, if not for all the world-of the extreme theory of the divine right of kings. One finds him referred to in this capacity where one least expects itin Gustave Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet, for example. He was the son of a Kentish knight, and was born at East Sutton, and studied at Cambridge. He published a series of political treatises in favour of extreme or unlimited monarchical power. The first of these seems to have appeared in 1646, and the latest and most celebrated, the Patriarcha, in 1679. The germ of his theory is the proposition that the father of a family is the divinely ordained type of a ruler, and that his power is absolute. Accordingly, Filmer taught, a king's acts should be subject to no check or control whatsoever; his will is the only right source of law. Hence he is not in any sense answerable to his subjects for his doings; for them either to depose him or even to criticise his conduct is criminal and immoral. His argument was answered by Algernon Sidney and by John Locke, who says that so much 'glib nonsense was never put together in wellsounding English.' It cannot certainly be said that the ability of Filmer's statement covers the monstrousness of his thesis. But Dr Gairdner holds that his view of English constitutional history is more correct than that of his chief opponents, and that his fundamental doctrine is not more absurd than Rousseau's of a social compact. And it should be remembered to his credit that, unlike many of his contemporaries who held similar views of government, he protested against the abominations of the witch mania. The following is part of the argument of the Patriarcha: If any desire the direction of the New Testament, he may find our Saviour limiting and distinguishing royal power, by giving to Cæsar those things that were Cæsar's, and to God those things that were God's. Obediendum est in quibus mandatum Dei non impeditur. We must obey where the commandment of God is not hindered; there is no other law but God's law to hinder our obedience. . . . When the Jews asked our blessed Saviour whether they should pay tribute, he did not first demand what the law of the land was, or whether there was any statute against it, nor enquired whether the tribute were given by consent of the people, nor advised them to stay their payment till they should grant it; he did no more but look upon the superscription, and concluded, This image you say is Cæsar's, therefore give it to Cæsar. Nor must it here be said that Christ taught this lesson only to the conquered Jews, for in this he gave direction for all nations, who are bound as much in obedience to their lawful kings as to any conquerour or usurper whatsoever. Whereas being subject to the higher powers, some have strained these words to signifie the laws of the land, or else to mean the highest power, as well aristocratical and democratical as regal: it seems St Paul looked for such interpretation, and therefore thought fit to be his own expositor, and to let it be known that by power he understood a monarch that carried a sword: Wilt thou not be afraid of the power? that is, the ruler that carrieth the sword, for he is the minister of God to thee . . . for he beareth not the sword in vain. It is not the law that is the minister of God, or that carries the sword, but the ruler or magistrate; so they that say the law governs the kingdom, may as well say that the carpenters rule builds an house, and not the carpenter; for the law is but the rule or instrument of the ruler. And St Paul concludes, for this cause pay you tribute also, for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom. He doth not say, give as a gift to God's minister; but άwódoтe, render or restore tribute, as a due. Also St Peter doth most clearly expound this place of St Paul, where he saith, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governours, as unto them that are sent by him. Here the very selfsame word (supreme, or veрexovσaus) which St Paul coupleth with power, St Peter conjoyneth with the king, βασιλεῖ ὡς ὑπερέχοντι, thereby to manifest that king and power are both one. Robert Herrick. One of the most exquisite of our lyrical poets is Robert Herrick, born in Cheapside, London, in August 1591; fifteen months later his father, a goldsmith, died of a fall from a window, not without suspicion of suicide. He was put to school probably at Westminster, and in 1607 was apprenticed to an uncle, also a goldsmith; but during 1613-20 he was at Cambridge, migrating in 1616 from St John's to Trinity Hall. Classical influences, especially of Martial, are to be traced in much of his work. He associated in London with the jovial spirits of the age. He 'quaffed the mighty bowl' with Ben Jonson, but could not, he tells us, thrive in frenzy' like rare Ben, who seems to have excelled all his fellow-compotators' at the Mermaid in deep drinking as in high thinking. The recollection of these 'brave translunary scenes inspired Herrick to this effect : Ah Ben! Say how or when Shall we, thy guests, Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tunne? As made us nobly wild, not mad ; Out-did the meate, out-did the frolick wine. My Ben! Or come agen, Or send to us Thy wit's great over-plus. But teach us yet Wisely to husband it ; Lest we that tallent spend ; And having once brought to an end That precious stock, the store Of such a wit, the world sho'd have no more. Having taken holy orders, he was presented by Charles I. in 1629 to the vicarage of Dean Prior, near Totnes, in Devonshire. After eighteen years' residence in this sequestered parish, he was ejected from his living by the storms of the Civil War, which, as Jeremy Taylor says, 'dashed the vessel of the Church and State all in pieces.' Whatever regret the poet may have felt on being turned adrift on the world, he could have experienced little on parting with his parishioners, for he describes them much as Crabbe does the natives of Suffolk, among whom he was cast, as a 'wild amphibious race,' rude 'almost as salvages,' and 'churlish as the seas.' Herrick gives us a glimpse of his own character: Borne I was to meet with age, And to walke life's pilgrimage: Much I know of time is spent ; Tell I can't what's resident. Howsoever, cares adue; Ile have nought to say to you; But Ile spend my comming houres Drinking wine & crown'd with flowres. This light and genial temperament would enable the poet to ride out the storm in composure. Many of his lighter pieces were written as early as 1610-12, a large proportion of them before 1629. Some of his pieces may have seen the light as early as 1635; in a miscellaneous collectionWit's Recreations-without assignment of authorship, published in 1640, are sixty-two pieces that he subsequently included in Hesperides. About the time that he lost his vicarage Herrick appears to have published his works. His Noble Numbers, or Pious Pieces, are dated 1647; his Hesperides, or the Works, both Humane and Divine, of Robert Herrick, Esquire, 1648; and both came out in the same volume early in the latter year. The clerical prefix to his name seems now to have been abandoned, like the clerical habit, by the poet; and there are certainly many pieces in the second volume which, even in that lax age, could not be considered to become one ministering at the altar. Herrick lived in Westminster, and may have been supported or subsidised by the wealthy royalists; in 1662 he was restored to Dean Prior, and there he was buried on 15th October 1674How he was received by the 'rude salvages,' or how he felt on quitting the gaieties of the capital to resume his clerical duties and seclusion, is not recorded; but, being over seventy, he may well have grown tired of canary sack and tavern jollities. He had an open eye for the pleasures of a country life, if we may judge from his works and the fondness with which he dwells on old English festivals and rural customs. Yet on the whole he wearied of the country, even 'loathed' Devonshire, and pined for the town and its pleasures. Though his rhymes were sometimes wild, he says his life was chaste, and he repented of his errors: For those my unbaptized rhimes, That one of all the rest shall be The glory of my work, and me. The poet might have evinced the depth of his contrition by blotting out the unbaptised rhymes himself, or by not reprinting them; but the vanity of the author seems to have triumphed over the penitence of the Christian. The religious poems may have been written later than the least decorous verses, though we cannot be sure of it. Even in the secular section the arrangement is chaotic, and there is no chronological sequence whatever. There may be some slight significance in the fact that the Welcome to Sack' stands after the Farewell to Sack,' while the 'Welcome' seems the more hearty outcome, illustrates the more permanent temper. Though some of the religious pieces The Litany,' 'Jephthah's Daughter,' and 'A Thanksgiving,' for example are masterpieces, most of the sacred poems are weak or formal. The special charm of Herrick lies in his secular poems; and his most secular poems are sheer paganism and epicureanism. Depth and passion are not his forte: Mr Gosse has to admit that Herrick approaches the mysteries of life and death with 'airy frivolity, easy-going callousness of soul.' His careless gaiety and sensuousness are at least genuine, are his natural element; his pictures of English life are unforced, fresh, and natural; his love-poems are tender, seem heartfelt and natural, and reveal a real undertone of melancholy; the conceits and similes are sometimes overstrained, and the humour forced; but in sweetness of melody and in harmony of sound with sense Herrick has no equal amongst his Caroline contemporaries. Only his epigrams are poor and gross and thoroughly unworthy of him. The arrangement of the secular pieces is chaotic and incongruous, offering to us a medley of poems to friends, amatory poems, epigrams, fairy fancies, odes, and short poems on all manner of subjects. Some of them are so difficult to harmonise with the devotional vein of his sacred pieces, even if we conceive the author a man of very varied moods, that it has been argued the sacred poems were in time of writing separated by a quarter of a century from his less decorous ones. But they were all published together. Herrick's poems lay neglected for many years, were republished at the very end of the eighteenth century, but were hardly re-established in general esteem till well on in the nineteenth century; many of his shorter lyrics are now known to everybody, and some of them have been set to modern music. Cherry Ripe' (the idea and words of which are partly Campion's-see page 401) and 'Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may' delightfully combine playful fancy and natural feeling. Those 'To Blossoms,' 'To Daffodils,' and 'To Primroses' have even a touch of pathos that wins its way to the heart. Other gems are 'To Anthea,' 'The Mad Maid's Song,' 'The Night-piece to Julia' (Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee'), and 'To Electra' ("Tis evening, my sweet'). Shakespeare and Jonson had scattered such delicate fancies and snatches of lyrical melody among their plays and masques; and Herrick may have been directly influenced by the songs of Marlowe, Greene, and Fletcher. It has been debated whether he formed himself after any classical models. There is in his songs and anacreontics an unforced gaiety and natural tenderness that show he wrote chiefly from the spontaneous impulses of his own thoroughly artistic, pleasureloving temperament. Herrick's choice of words, when he is in his happiest vein, is perfect; his versification is harmony itself. His verses bound and flow like some exquisite lively melody that echoes nature by wood and dell, and presents new beauties at every turn and winding. The strain is short and sometimes fantastic; but the notes linger in the mind, and take their place for ever in the memory. Mr Swinburne has pointed out that the first great age of lyric poetry in England was the one great age of our dramatic poetry, but that the lyric school advanced as the dramatic school declined; the lyrical record that begins with the author of Euphues and Endymion grows fuller if not brighter through a whole series of constellations till it culminates in the crowning star of Herrick,' whose master was undoubtedly Marlowe. The last of his line, Herrick is the first of English songwriters; 'he lives simply by virtue of his songs; his more ambitious or pretentious lyrics are merely magnified and prolonged and elaborated songs. Elegy or litany, epicede or epithalamium, his work is always a song-writer's: nothing more but nothing less than the work of the greatest song-writer ever born of English race.' 'Ye have been fresh and green' is a sweeter and better song than 'Gather ye Rose-buds ;' 'The Mad Maid's Song' can only be compared with William Blake's poems. Yet Herrick has his 'brutal blemishes,' and seems to have deliberately relieved the monotony of 'spices and flowers, condiments and kisses,' by admitting rank and intolerable odours. Though his 'sacred verse at its worst is as offensive as his secular verse at its worst,' 'neither Herbert nor Crashaw could have bettered'— We see Him come and know Him ours, To Meadows. Ye have been fresh and green, Ye have been fill'd with flowers; And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their houres. You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come, To kiss and beare away The richer couslips home. Y'ave heard them sweetly sing, But now, we see none here, Adorn'd this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock, and needy grown, Y'are left here to lament Your poore estates alone. Cherry Ripe. Cherrie-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, Full and faire ones-come and buy. If so be you ask me where They doe grow?--I answer: There, Where my Julia's lips doe smile; There's the land, or cherry-ile; Whose plantations fully shew All the yeere where cherries grow. The Rock of Rubies and the Quarrie of Pearls. Some ask'd me where the rubies grew, And nothing did I say, But with my finger pointed to The lips of Julia. Some asked how pearls did grow, and where ; Then spake I to my girle, To part her lips, and shew'd them there The quarrelets of pearl. Upon Julia's Recovery. Droop, droop no more, or hang the head, Ye roses almost withered; New strength and newer purple get Each here declining violet; O primroses! let this day be A resurrection unto ye; And to all flowers ally'd in blood, The Bag of the Bee. About the sweet bag of a bee, Two Cupids fell at odds; And for their boldness stript them; The Kiss-A Dialogue. 1. Among thy fancies, tell me this : What is the thing we call a kisse? 2. I shall resolve ye, what it is. 1. Has it a speaking virtue?-2. Yes. 1. Has it a body?-2. Ay, and wings, Corinna's going a-Maying. Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east, Nay! not so much as out of bed? And sung their thankfull hymnes: 'tis sin, When as a thousand virgins on this day, Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seene For jewels for your gowne or haire ; Retires himselfe, or else stands still Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying; Come, my Corinna, come; and, comming, mark Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this, Made up of white thorn neatly enterwove; There's not a budding boy or girle, this day, |