Microcosmography
It is not likely that the Registrar's house (his father's house) at York added much to Earle's sketch-book; and we have to fall back on what Clarendon says of his delightful conversation, and by implication, of his delight in it. In the society of a University and in the life of a University town there would be presented to an observer of his exceptional penetration enough of the fusion or confusion of classes to furnish the analytical powers with a tolerably wide field.
And Earle does not suffer by comparison with his rivals. "The concise narrative manner"[AF] of Theophrastus, though in its way as humorously informing as we find Plautus and Terence, and as we should have found the New Comedy which they copied, leaves us a little cold from the looseness or the connexion in the quasi-narrative: we rise a little unsatisfied from the ingenious banquet of conversational scraps; we desire more. Overbury, again, says less than Earle, and is more artificial in saying it. Butler and Bishop Hall too directly suggest the essay[AG] and the sermon. In no one of them is brevity so obviously the soul of wit as it is in Earle; no one of them is so humorously thoughtful, so lucid in conception, so striking in phrase.
When one has reckoned up all these gifts, and all that his friends and contemporaries said of him, and remember also who and what these friends were, one is not startled by the eulogistic epitaph in Merton College Chapel; these words are as moving as they are strong:
Si nomen ejus necdum suboleat, Lector,Nomen ejus ut pretiosa unguenta;Johannes Earle EboracensisBut his own choicer Latin in the epitaph he wrote for the learned Peter Heylin would serve no less well for himself; and the beautiful brevity of its closing cadences has so much of the distinction of his English, and puts so forcibly what Earle deserves to have said of him, that it may fitly be the last word here:
Plura ejusmodi meditantimors indixit silentium:ut sileaturefficere non potestS.T.I.Clifton, May, 1896.
FOOTNOTES:[A] It came out in 1811. Forty-four years afterwards he wrote that in his interleaved copy the list of Seventeenth Century Characters had increased fourfold – good evidence of his affection for and interest in Earle's Characters. Yet he despaired of anyone republishing a book so "common and unimportant" (??). (See Arber's reprint of Earle.) It is to the credit of Bristol that this pessimism has not been justified.
[B] Since writing this preface I have added a small supplementary appendix; but there is nothing in it to require much qualification of the opinion here expressed. It was hardly possible, as I gather, for Bliss to have known of the Durham MS.
[C] Mr. John Morley has called Pattison's standard "the highest of our time." Bliss's conception of an editor's duties is well illustrated in the note on p. 73.
[D] "Varium ac multiplicem expetens cultum deus." —Mori Utopia Lib. II.
[E] Vol. iii., pp. 153 and 154.
[F] Were the unorthodox opinions of Hobbes known to his friends as early as 1647? If so, Earle could hardly have been very curious in scenting out heresy, for Clarendon hopes Earle's intercession may secure for him a book of Hobbes's. (See letters of Clarendon in Supplementary Appendix.)
[G] Professor Jebb, in his edition of The Characters of Theophrastus. I rejoice to see that Professor Jebb assigns Earle a place of far more distinction than is implied in the measured tribute of Hallam. His preface furnishes lovers of Earle with just those reasoned opinions with which instinctive attraction desires to justify itself; and I take this opportunity of acknowledging my great obligations to it.
[H] Hallam. The same tone is taken in the article on Earle in the "Encyclopædia Britannica."
[I] Mr. Bridges indeed, ("Achilles in Scyros"), finds that this character has been always with us, and gives it a place in the Heroic Age. The passage has almost the note of Troilus and Cressida: —
"My invitation, Sir,Was but my seal of full denial, a challengeFor honor's eye not to be taken up.Your master hath slipped in manners."[J] We may compare Matthew Arnold's travelling companion ("Essays in Criticism," 1st Edition, Preface), who was so nervous about railway murders, and who refused to be consoled by being reminded that though the worst should happen, there would still be the old crush at the corner of Fenchurch Street, and that he would not be missed: "the great mundane movement would still go on!"
[K] Chaucer could hardly have been well-known in 1811, or Dr. Bliss would scarcely have quoted in full the most familiar character in his Prologue; but I could not find courage to excise, or lay a profane hand on any of his notes.
[L] It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that no disrespect is intended to the Author of the "Ring and the Book"; but it would be difficult to find another poet who has had so many of the equivocal tributes of fashion.
[M] Sir Thomas Browne, "Christian Morals."
[N] "So infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination." —Clarendon (of Lord Falkland).
[O] Clarendon.
[P] "A great cherisher of good parts … and if he found men clouded with poverty, or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron." —Clarendon, ib.
[Q] Clarendon, ib.
[R] Between Earle himself and Berkeley there is much resemblance. Of Berkeley too it would have been said – "a person certainly of the sweetest and most obliging nature that lived in our age"; and this resemblance extends beyond their social gifts or their cast of mind, even to their language. Earle's "vulgar-spirited" man, with whom "to thrive is to do well," recalls a famous passage in the Siris.
"He that hath not thought much about God, the human soul, and the summum bonum, may indeed be a thriving earth-worm, but he will make a sorry patriot, and a sorry statesman."
[S] Is this from Pliny's Letters? "Totum patrem mira similitudine exscripserat." —Lib. V. xvi.
[T] One may recall, too, the famous words of the Sophoclean Ajax to his son in connection with Earle's phrases. "He is not come to his task of melancholy," "he arrives not at the mischief of being wise," read like a free translation of Soph. Ajax, II. 554 and 555.
[U] Perhaps the simile in Æn. viii. 408 and one or two other places would justify us in calling this also Virgilian, as, indeed, one may call most good things.
[V] Clarendon – his character of Lord Falkland.
[W] There are certain things not at all sombre applicable not only to our day, but to our hour, e. g. "the poet (I regret to say he is 'a pot poet,') now much employed in commendations of our navy"; or this, "His father sent him to the University, because he heard there were the best fencing and dancing schools there." If we substitute athletics of some kind, we have a very modern reason for the existence of such things as Universities accepted as sound by both parents and children. cf. too Dr. Bliss's note on the serving-man, and its quotation, "An' a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages nowadays, I'll not give a rush for him!"
[X] cf. Falconbridge in "King John":
"And if his name be George I'll call him Peter,For new-made honour doth forget men's names."It is this character which was the occasion of the most delightful of all stories of absence of mind, and though, doubtless, familiar to many, I cannot resist repeating it. The poet Rogers was looking at a new picture in the National Gallery in company with a friend. Rogers was soon satisfied, but his friend was still absorbed. "I say," said Rogers, "that fellow [Earle's insolent man] was at Holland House again last night, and he came up and asked me if my name was Rogers." "Yes," said the friend, still intent on the picture, "and was it?
[Y] The article in the "Dictionary of National Biography" lays stress on the freedom from conceits in Earle's few poems at a time when conceits were universal. The lines on Sir John Burroughs contain a couplet which is wonderfully close to Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior":
"His rage was tempered well, no fear could dauntHis reason, his cold blood was valiant."cf. "Who in the heat of conflict keeps the lawIn calmness made."Earle's standard in poetry was high. "Dr. Earle would not allow Lord Falkland to be a good poet though a Great Witt," yet many poets praised his verses. Aubrey, who tells us of Earle's opinion, confirms it. "He (Lord Falkland) writt not a smooth verse, but a great deal of sense."
[Z] "The Trimmer" is no doubt a political manifesto – but no retreat from politics could have chastened Halifax's style into a resemblance to Earle's; when the "Character" became a political weapon, its literary identity was all but at an end. "The Trimmer" is commended by Macaulay in his History, where it will be remembered he pays a tribute to its "vivacity."
[AA] Quintilian uses it of Thucydides.
[AB] The "She precise hypocrite" is a striking example – one of Earle's most humorous pieces.
cf. also "The plain country fellow."
[AC] The pictures, with the moral attached, are best seen in places: in "The Tavern, the best theatre of natures"; in "The Bowl-alley, an emblem of the world where some few justle in to the mistress fortune"; in Paul's Walk, "where all inventions are emptied and not a few pockets!"
[AD] Professor Jebb, preface to "The Characters of Theophrastus."
[AE] Anthony Wood.
[AF] Professor Jebb.
[AG] Professor Jebb justly replies to Hallam that if La Bruyère is far superior to Theophrastus the scope of the two writers makes the comparison unfair. The difference between them may perhaps be expressed by saying that an essay was the last thing that the master and the first thing that the disciple was anxious to produce.
CONTENTS OF THE SUPPLEMENTARY APPENDIX
(1) The Durham MSIn the Cathedral Library at Durham is a small bound volume which contains forty-six of Earle's Characters, bearing date 1627[AH], – the date of the first edition being 1628. I was enabled by the kindness of Dr. Greenwell, the Librarian, to take it away and examine it at leisure; and the courtesy of the University Librarian, Dr. Fowler, furnished me with an exact collation of the MS. versions with the printed text[AI] of these forty-six Characters, the original of the contributions made by him to "Notes and Queries," and referred to in the "Dictionary of National Biography."
(2) I have printed, besides, some other versions quoted by Bliss from "Dr. Bright's MS.," and incorporated in his annotated copy of his own book. These are often the same with those of the Durham MS. I should mention that though this annotated copy is in the Bodleian Library, the Sub-Librarian, Mr. Falconer Madan, "knows of no 'Bright MS.,'[AJ] nor where Bliss's MS. with that name is." The copy in question contains so much additional matter that I have added a few things from it, but my space was necessarily limited; there is good evidence in it of Bliss's statement that he had continued collecting materials for the book for forty-four years after its publication. Moreover, in the "Bliss Sale Catalogue" in the Bodleian there are some 530 books of Characters (including duplicates). I am myself in possession, as I believe, of a copy of Bliss's edition which belonged to himself, and which is annotated by himself and Haslewood.[AK] It contains a castrated title-page (originally Bliss suppressed his name) and a notice of the book in the "Monthly Review" of 1812.
(3) I have added a few "testimonies" to Earle from Anthony Wood and others.
(4) I have printed three letters from Clarendon to Earle from the "Clarendon State Papers," with short extracts from two others; as well as two letters of Earle's from the Bodleian Library – interesting rather as personal relics than as containing anything very significant. All that relates to its author will, I believe, be acceptable to lovers of the "Cosmography."
For this additional matter, as well as for other help and counsel, I am indebted to Mr. Charles Firth, of Balliol College, Oxford, whose learning is always at the service of his friends, and who stands in no need of the old injunction – "not to be reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness."
(5) From a notebook of Bliss's (in MS.) in my possession I have added a few titles of Books of Characters.
I have retained in this Appendix the spelling I found. Bliss's text has, with a few exceptions (possibly accidental), the modern spelling.
FOOTNOTES:[AH] Dec. 14th, 1627. [At the end, by way of Colophon: ] at the top of page 1, in a different hand, "Edw. Blunt Author." This MS. was obviously one of "the written copies, passing severally from hand to hand, which grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume." (See Blount's Preface to the Reader.)
[AI] As it appears in Arber's Reprint.
[AJ] The "Bright MS." was obviously later than that in the Durham Cathedral Library, since it contained several Characters known to have been added to the first edition.
[AK] Joseph Haslewood, Antiquary. One of the founders of the Roxburghe Club.
ADVERTISEMENT
The present edition of Bishop Earle's Characters was undertaken from an idea that they were well worthy of republication, and that the present period, when the productions of our early English writers are sought after with an avidity hitherto unexampled, would be the most favourable for their appearance.
The text has been taken from the edition of 1732, collated with the first impression in 1628. The variations from the latter are thus distinguished: – those words or passages which have been added since the first edition are contained between brackets, [and printed in the common type]; those which have received some alteration, are printed in italic, and the passages, as they stand in the first edition, are always given in a note.
For the Notes, Appendix, and Index, the editor is entirely answerable, and although he is fully aware that many superfluities will be censured, many omissions discovered, and many errors pointed out, he hopes that the merits of the original author will, in a great measure, compensate for the false judgment or neglect of his reviver.
January 30, 1811.
THE PREFACE
[TO THE EDITION OF 1732[AL].]This little book had six editions between 1628 and 1633, without any author's name to recommend it: I have heard of an eighth in 1664. From that of 33 this present edition is reprinted, without altering any thing but the plain errors of the press, and the old pointing and spelling in some places.
The language is generally easy, and proves our English tongue not to be so very changeable as is commonly supposed; nay, sometimes the phrase seems a little obscure, more by the mistakes of the printer than the distance of time. Here and there we meet with a broad expression, and some characters are far below others; nor is it to be expected that so great a variety of portraits should all be drawn with equal excellence, though there are scarce any without some masterly touches. The change of fashions unavoidably casts a shade upon a few places, yet even those contain an exact picture of the age wherein they were written, as the rest does of mankind in general: for reflections founded upon nature will be just in the main, as long as men are men, though the particular instances of vice and folly may be diversified. Paul's Walk is now no more, but then good company adjourn to coffee-houses, and, at the reasonable fine of two or three pence, throw away as much of their precious time as they find troublesome.
Perhaps these valuable essays may be as acceptable to the public now as they were at first; both for the entertainment of those who are already experienced in the ways of mankind, and for the information of others who would know the world the best way, that is – without trying it[AM].
FOOTNOTES:[AL] London: Printed by E. Say, Anno Domini m. dcc.xxxii.
[AM] A short account of Earle, taken from the Athenæ Oxonienses is here omitted.
ADVERTISEMENT
[TO THE EDITION OF 1786[AN].]As this entertaining little book is become rather scarce, and is replete with so much good sense and genuine humour, which, though in part adapted to the times when it first appeared, seems, on the whole, by no means inapplicable to any æra of mankind, the editor conceives that there needs little apology for the republication. A farther inducement is, his having, from very good authority, lately discovered[AO] that these Characters (hitherto known only under the title of Blount's[AP]), were actually drawn by the able pencil of John Earle, who was formerly bishop of Sarum, having been translated to that see from Worcester, A.D. 1663, and died at Oxford, 1665.
Isaac Walton, in his Life of Hooker, delineates the character of the said venerable prelate.
It appears from Antony Wood's Athen. Oxon. under the Life of Bishop Earle, that this book was first of all published at London in 1628, under the name of "Edward Blount."
FOOTNOTES:[AN] "Microcosmography; or, a Piece of the World characterized; in Essays and Characters. London, printed A.D. 1650. Salisbury, Reprinted and sold by E. Easton, 1786. Sold also by G. and T. Wilkie, St. Paul's Church-yard, London."
[AO] I regret extremely that I am unable to put the reader in possession of this very acute discoverer's name.
[AP] This mistake originated with Langbaine, who, in his account of Lilly, calls Blount "a gentleman who has made himself known to the world by the several pieces of his own writing, (as Horæ Subsecivæ, his Microcosmography, &c.") Dramatic Poets, 8vo, 1691, p. 327.
EDITIONS OF "MICROCOSMOGRAPHY."
The first edition (of which the Bodleian possesses a copy, 8vo. P. 154. Theol.) was printed with the following title: "Microcosmographie: or, a Peece of the World discovered; In Essayes and Characters. Newly composed for the Northerne parts of this Kingdome. At London. Printed by W. S. for Ed. Blount, 1628." This contains only fifty-four characters[AQ], which in the present edition are placed first. I am unable to speak of any subsequent copy, till one in the following year, (1629), printed for Robert Allot[AR], and called in the title "The first edition much enlarged." This, as Mr. Henry Ellis kindly informs me, from a copy in the British Museum, possesses seventy-six characters. The sixth was printed for Allot, in 1633, (Bodl. Mar. 441,) and has seventy-eight, the additional ones being "a herald," and "a suspicious, or jealous man." The seventh appeared in 1638, for Andrew Crooke, agreeing precisely with the sixth; and in 1650 the eighth. A copy of the latter is in the curious library of Mr. Hill, and, as Mr. Park acquaints me, is without any specific edition numbered in the title. I omit that noticed by the editor of 1732, as printed in 1664, for if such a volume did exist, which I much doubt, it was nothing more than a copy of the eighth with a new title-page. In 1732 appeared the ninth, which was a reprint of the sixth, executed with care and judgment. I have endeavoured in vain to discover to whom we are indebted for this republication of bishop Earle's curious volume, but it is probable that the person who undertook it, found so little encouragement in his attempt to revive a taste for the productions of our early writers, that he suffered his name to remain unknown. Certain it is that the impression, probably not a large one, did not sell speedily, as I have seen a copy, bearing date 1740, under the name of "The World display'd: or several Essays; consisting of the various Characters and Passions of its principal Inhabitants," &c. London, printed for C. Ward, and R. Chandler. The edition printed at Salisbury, in 1786, (which has only seventy-four characters,) with that now offered to the public, close the list.
FOOTNOTES:[AQ] Having never seen or been able to hear of any copy of the second, third, or fourth editions, I am unable to point out when the additional characters first appeared.
[AR] Robert Allot, better known as the editor of England's Parnassus, appears to have succeeded Blount in several of his copy-rights, among others, in that of Shakspeare, as the second edition (1632) was printed for him.
TO THE READER[AT]
I have (for once) adventured to play the midwife's part, helping to bring forth these infants into the world, which the father would have smothered; who having left them lapt up in loose sheets, as soon as his fancy was delivered of them, written especially for his private recreation, to pass away the time in the country, and by the forcible request of friends drawn from him: yet, passing severally from hand to hand, in written copies, grew at length to be a pretty number in a little volume: and among so many sundry dispersed transcripts, some very imperfect and surreptitious had liked to have passed the press, if the author had not used speedy means of prevention; when, perceiving the hazard he ran to be wronged, was unwillingly[AU] willing to let them pass as now they appear to the world. If any faults have escaped the press (as few books can be printed without), impose them not on the author, I intreat thee; but rather impute them to mine and the printer's oversight, who seriously promise, on the re-impression hereof, by greater care and diligence for this our former default, to make thee ample satisfaction. In the mean while, I remain
Thine,
Ed. Blount[AV].
FOOTNOTES:[AT] Gentile, or Gentle, 8th edit. 1650.
[AU] Willingly, 8th edit. evidently a typographical error.
[AV] Edward Blount, who lived at the Black Bear, Saint Paul's Church-yard, appears to have been a bookseller of respectability, and in some respects a man of letters. Many dedications and prefaces, with as much merit as compositions of this nature generally possess, bear his name, and there is every reason to suppose that he translated a work from the Italian, which is intituled "The Hospitall of Incurable Fooles," &c. 4to. 1600. Mr. Ames has discovered, from the Stationer's Register, that he was the son of Ralph Blount or Blunt, merchant-taylor of London; that he was apprenticed to William Ponsonby, in 1578, and made free in 1588. It is no slight honour to his taste and judgment, that he was one of the partners in the first edition of Shakspeare.
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
or,
A piece of the World characterized
I.
A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write his character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper1 unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by fore-seeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. [2All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish ports,
Shakspeare, of a child, says," – the hand of timeShall draw this brief into as huge a volume." K. John II. i.but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.3 He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.