chosen Speaker of the peers in the convention, and obtained his old office of Privy Seal, but he again lost favour, and joined the ranks of the Opposition. He was a Trimmer, as Lord Macaulay says, from principle, as well as from constitution: 'Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive triumph incurred his censure; and every faction when vanquished and persecuted found in him a protector; and according to the same authority, the Revolution 'bears the character of the great and cautious mind of Halifax.' He figures (favourably) as Jotham in Absalom and Achitophel. His political and miscellaneous tracts deserve to be studied for their political insight and literary merit, and entitle him to a place among English classics. They consist of short treatises, including Advice to a Daughter, The Character of a Trimmer, Anatomy of an Equivalent, Maxims of State, and Letter to a Dissenter. Mackintosh said (hyperbolically) that the Letter to a Dissenter was the finest political tract ever written. The modern character of Halifax's style is no less remarkable than his logic and happy illustration. He ranks as one of the founders of modern English prose, and in his best passages matches the true eloquence of Sir Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor. The Character of a Trimmer (1685), interpreting the word in a good sense, was meant to advise Charles II. to throw off the influence of his brother James. The Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea, not published till 1701, fully recognises the importance to England of the sea and of her navy, and contains the sentence: 'To the question, What shall we do to be saved in this world? there is no answer but this: Look to your moat.' Amongst his Maxims of State are: 'He who thinks his place below him will certainly be below his place,' and 'Men love to see themselves in the false lookingglass of other men's failings.' It was Halifax who said that Rochester, when appointed to the post of Lord President, 'had been kicked upstairs.' His first wife was a daughter of Waller's 'Sacharissa ;' his daughter was the mother of the famous Earl of Chesterfield. Henry Carey, the poet-musician, was a natural son of Halifax.

Miss Foxcroft has no doubt that the Character of a Trimmer was a retort to a denunciation by L'Estrange (see page 741), in the Observator in December 1684, of the humour of a trimmer ;' as L'Estrange's burst was a reply to a pamphlet called The Observator proved a Trimmer. L'Estrange rails at a Trimmer as a hundred thousand things,' as a man of latitude as well in politiques as divinity,' as one that for the ease of travellers towards the New Jerusalem proposes the cutting of the broad way and the narrow both into one,' and so on, in a vehement paragraph. As L'Estrange was licenser of the press, Halifax must have made up his mind beforehand to circulate his pamphlet in MS. It was presumably written in December 1684 or January 1685, and was not published till some time in 1688.

The following are extracts (the first being the preface, the last the conclusion) from

'The Character of a Trimmer.'

It must be more than an ordinary provocation that can tempt a man to write in an age overrun with scribblers as Egypt was with flies and locusts. That worse vermin of small authors hath given the world such a surfeit that, instead of desiring to write, a man would be inclined to wish, for his own ease, that he could not read; but there are some things that do so raise our passions that our reason can make no resistance; and when madmen in the two extremes shall agree to make common-sense treason, and join to fix an ill character on the only men in a nation who deserve a good one, I am no longer master of my better resolutions to let the world alone, and must break loose from my more reasonable thoughts to expose those false coiners who would make their copper words pass upon us for good payment.

Amongst all the engines of dissension there hath been none more powerful in all times than the fixing names upon one another of contumely and reproach. And the reason is plain in respect of the people, who, though generally they are uncapable of making a syllogism or forming an argument, yet they can pronounce a word; and that serveth their turn to throw it with their dull malice at the head of those they do not like. Such things ever begin in jest, and end in blood; and the same word which at first maketh the company merry, groweth in time to a military signal to cut one another's throats. These mistakes are to be lamented, though not easily to be cured, being suitable enough to the corrupted nature of mankind; but it is hard that men will not only invent ill names, but they will wrest and misinterpret good ones. So afraid some are even of a reconciling sound that they raise another noise to keep it from being heard, lest it should set up and encourage a dangerous sort of men, who prefer peace and agreement before violence and confusion. Were it not for this, why, after we have played the fool with throwing Whig and Tory one at another as boys do snowballs, do we grow angry at a new name which by its true signification might do as much to put us into our wits as the others have done to put us out of them?

This innocent word 'Trimmer' signifieth no more than this, that if men are together in a boat, and one part of the company would weigh it down of one side, another would make it lean as much to the contrary; it happeneth there is a third opinion of those who conceive it would do as well if the boat went even, without endangering the passengers. Now, it is hard to imagine by what figure in language, or by what rule in sense, this cometh to be a fault, and it is much more a wonder it should be thought a heresy. But it so happeneth that the poor Trimmer hath now all the powder spent upon him alone, whilst the Whig is a forgotten or at least a neglected enemy. There is no danger now to the state (if some men may be believed) but from the beast called a Trimmer. Take heed of him: he is the instrument that must destroy Church and State-a strange kind of monster whose deformity is so exposed that, were it a true picture that is made of him, it would be enough to fright children and make women miscarry at the first sight of it. But it may be worth examining whether he is such a beast as he is painted. I am not of that opinion, and am so far from thinking him an infidel either in Church or

State that I am neither afraid to expose the articles of his faith in relation to government, nor to say I prefer them before any other political creed that either our angry divines or our refined statesmen would impose upon us. I have therefore in the following discourse endeavoured to explain the Trimmer's principles and opinions, and then leave it to all discerning and impartial judges whether he can with justice be so arraigned, and whether those who deliberately pervert a good name do not very justly deserve the worst that can be put upon themselves.

Political Agitation not always Hurtful. Our government is like our climate. There are winds which are sometimes loud and unquiet, and yet with all the trouble they give us, we owe great part of our health to them. They clear the air, which else would be like a standing pool, and instead of a refreshment would be a disease to us. There may be fresh gales of asserted liberty without turning into such storms of hurricane as that the state should run any hazard of being cast away by them. Those strugglings which are natural to all mixed governments, while they are kept from growing into convulsions, do by a natural agitation of the several parts rather support and strengthen than weaken or maim the constitution; and the whole frame, instead of being torn or disjointed, cometh to be the better and closer knit by being thus exercised.

Truth and Moderation.

Our Trimmer adoreth the goddess Truth, though in all ages she has been scurvily used, as well as those that worshipped her. . . . She showeth her greatness in this, that her enemies, even when they are successful, are ashamed to own it; nothing but powerful truth hath the prerogative of triumphing, not only after victory, but in spite of it, and to put conquest itself out of countenance. She may be kept under and suppressed, but her dignity still remaineth with her, even when she is in chains. Falsehood with all her impudence hath not enough to speak ill of her before her face. Such majesty she carrieth about her, that her most prosperous enemies are fain to whisper their treason; all the power upon the earth can never extinguish her; she hath lived in all ages; and, let the mistaken zeal of prevailing authority christen an opposition to it with what name they please, she makes it not only an ugly and unmannerly but a dangerous thing to persist. She has lived very retiredly indeed, nay sometimes so buried that only some few of the discerning part of mankind could have a glimpse of her; with all that, she hath eternity in her; she knoweth not how to die, and from the darkest clouds that shade and cover her, she breaketh from time to time with triumph for her friends and terror to her enemies.

Our Trimmer, therefore, inspired by this divine virtue, thinks fit to conclude with these assertions: That our climate is a trimmer between that part of the world where men are roasted, and the other where they are frozen that our church is a trimmer between the frenzy of fanatic visions and the lethargic ignorance of popish dreams: that our laws are trimmers, between the excess of unbounded power and the extravagance of liberty not enough restrained: that true virtue hath ever been thought a trimmer, and to have its dwelling between the two extremes: that even God Almighty himself is divided between his two great attributes, his mercy and justice. In such company, our Trimmer is

not ashamed of his name, and willingly leaveth to the bold champions of either extreme the honour of contending with no less adversaries than nature, religion, liberty, prudence, humanity, and common-sense.

The works of Halifax were for the first time collected, revised, and edited along with his Letters and a Life by Miss H. C. Foxcroft in 1898.

Isaac Barrow (1630-77) was the son of a London linen-draper. At the Charterhouse he was more distinguished for pugnacity than for application to his books; but at Felstead, in Essex, his next school, he greatly improved. He studied for the Church at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was elected a fellow in 1649. Perceiving that under the Commonwealth the ascendency of alien theological and political opinions gave him little chance of preferment, he turned to medicine, anatomy, botany, and chemistry; but ere long he returned to theology, with mathematics and astronomy. In 1655, disappointed in his hopes. of the Greek professorship at Cambridge, he went abroad for four years, visiting France, Italy, Smyrna, Constantinople, Venice, Germany, and Holland. On his outward voyage he fought bravely in a brush with Algerine corsairs; at the Turkish capital, where he spent twelve months, he studied with great delight the works of St Chrysostom, originally written in Constantinople. He returned to England in 1659, and in the following year obtained the Greek chair without opposition; and in 1662 he was further made Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London. Both these appointments he resigned in 1663, on becoming Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. After lecturing for six years, and publishing a profound work on Optics, he resolved to devote himself to theology, and in 1669 resigned his chair to Newton. He was appointed one of the royal chaplains; in 1672 he was nominated to the mastership of Trinity College by the king, and for the two years before his death he was vice-chancellor of the university; and he was buried in Westminster Abbey. His candour, modesty, disinterestedness, and serenity of temper were conspicuous; his manners and aspect were more those of a student than of a man of the world; and he was oddly heedless about dress.

Of his great powers as a mathematician Barrow left evidence in a series of treatises, nearly all in Latin, though afterwards translated; and he wrote Latin verses. But it is by his theological works that he is generally known-expositions of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Decalogue, and the Doctrine of the Sacraments; treatises on the Pope's Supremacy and the Unity of the Church; and sermons prized for depth and copiousness of thought, and nervous though unpolished eloquence. Less academic, more modern and popular than South, Barrow was rather fond of antitheses and rhetorical interrogations, and occasionally permitted himself a very homely vernacular word or a

fantastic coinage from Latin. He transcribed his sermons three or four times; they seldom occupied less than an hour and a half in delivery. At a charity sermon before the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, he spoke for three hours and a half; and when asked, on coming down from the pulpit, whether he was not tired, he replied, 'Yes, indeed, I began to be weary with standing so long.'

Of Apparitions.

I may adjoin to the former sorts of extraordinary actions, some other sorts, the consideration of which (although not so directly and immediately) may serve our main design; those (which the general opinion of

ISAAC BARROW.

From the Portrait by Claude Le Fevre in the National Portrait Gallery.

mankind hath approved, and manifold testimony hath declared frequently to happen) which concern apparitions from another world, as it were, of beings unusual; concerning spirits haunting persons and places (these discerned by all senses, and by divers kinds of effects); of which the old world (the ancient poets and historians) did speak so much, and of which all ages have afforded several attestations very direct and plain, and having all advantages imaginable to beget credence; concerning visions made unto persons of especial eminency and influence (to priests and prophets); concerning presignifications of future events by dreams; concerning the power of enchantments, implying the co-operation of invisible powers; concerning all sorts of intercourse and contederacy (formal or virtual) with bad spirits: all which things he that shall affirm to be mere fiction and delusion, must thereby with exceeding immodesty and rudeness charge the world with extreme both vanity and malignity; many, if not all, worthy historians, of much inconsiderateness or fraud; most lawgivers, of great silliness and rashness; most judicatories, of high stupidity or cruelty; a vast number of witnesses, of the greatest malice or madness; all which have concurred to assert these matters of fact.

It is true no question but there have been many vain pretences, many false reports, many unjust accusations, and some undue decisions concerning these matters; that the vulgar sort is apt enough to be abused about them; that even intelligent and considerate men may at a distance in regard to some of them be imposed upon; but, as there would be no false gems obtruded, if there were no true ones found in nature; as no counterfeit coin would appear, were there no true one current; so neither can we well suppose that a confidence in some to feign or a readiness in most to believe stories of this kind could arise or should subsist without some real ground, or without such things having in gross somewhat of truth and reality. However, that the wiser and more refined sort of men, highest in parts and improvements both from study and experience (indeed the flower of every commonwealth; statesmen, lawgivers, judges, and priests), upon so many occasions of great importance, after most deliberate scanning such pretences and reports, should so often suffer themselves to be deluded, to the extreme injury of particular persons concerned, to the common abusing of mankind, to the hazard of their own reputation in point of wisdom and honesty, seems nowise reasonable to conceive. In likelihood rather the whole kind of all these things, were it altogether vain and groundless, would upon so frequent and so mature discussions have appeared to be so, and would consequently long since have been disowned, exploded, and thrust out of the world; for as upon this occasion it is said in Tully, Time wipeth out groundless conceits, but confirms that which is founded in nature and real.

Now if the truth and reality of these things all or any of them), inferring the existence of powers invisible, at least inferior ones, though much superior to us in all sort of ability, be admitted, it will at least (as removing the chief obstacles of incredulity) confer much to the belief of that supreme Divinity, which our discourse strives to maintain.

I must acknowledge that both these arguments, drawn from testimonies concerning matters of fact (and indeed all other arguments), were invalid and insignificant, could any demonstration or any argument weighty enough be brought to shew the impossibility of such a thing to exist, as we infer to exist from them. But as it is a very easy thing (so whoever is versed in speculation and reasoning about things cannot but find) to prove many things possible to be, which do not actually exist; so it is hard to prove the impossibility of a thing's being; yea there is plainly no other mean of doing this than the manifesting an evident repugnance between being itself and some property assigned to that thing, or between several properties attributed thereto; as if we should suppose a square circle or a round square to exist. But in our case no, man can shew such a repugnance; between being and wisdom, power or goodness, there is no inconsistence surely; nor can any man evince one to be between being and coexisting with matter, or penetrating body; between being and insensibility; between being and any other property which we ascribe to God; nor is there any clashing between those properties themselves: it is therefore impossible to shew that God cannot exist; and therefore it is unreasonable to disbelieve the testimonies (so many, so pregnant) that declare him to exist.

Men indeed, who affix themselves to things which their sense offers, may be indisposed to abstract their minds from such things, may be unapt to frame conceptions about any other sort of things; but to think there can be no other things than such as we see and feel, that nothing endued with other properties than such as these objected to our sense have can exist, implies a great dulness of apprehension, a greater shortness of reason and judgment; it is much like the simplicity of a rustic, who, because he never was above three miles from home, cannot imagine the world to reach ten miles farther; and will look upon all that is told him concerning things more distant to be false, and forged to abuse him. I add that these men's incredulity is hence more inexcusable, because the possibility of such a being's existence, the compatibility and concurrence of such properties in one thing, is (as we otherwhere have largely shewed) by a very plain instance declared, even by that being within every man, which in a degree partakes of all those properties.

I shall leave this head of discourse, with this one remark; that they are much mistaken who place a kind of wisdom in being very incredulous, and unwilling to assent to any testimony, how full and clear soever : for this indeed is not wisdom, but the worst kind of folly. It is folly, because it causes ignorance and mistake, with all the consequents of these; and it is very bad, as being accompanied with disingenuity, obstinacy, rudeness, uncharitableness, and the like bad dispositions; from which credulity itself, the other extreme sort of folly, is exempt. Compare we, I say, these two sorts of fools; the credulous fool, who yields his assent hastily upon any slight ground; and the suspicious fool, who never will be stirred by any the strongest reason or clearest testimony; we shall find the latter in most respects the worst of the two; that his folly arises from worse causes, hath worse adjuncts, produceth worse effects. Credulity may spring from an airy complexion, or from a modest opinion of one's self; suspiciousness hath its birth from an earthy temper of body, or from self-conceit in the mind: that carries with it being civil and affable, and apt to correct an error; with this a man is intractable, unwilling to hear, stiff and incorrigible in his ignorance or mistake: that begets speed and alacrity in action; this renders a man heavy and dumpish, slow and tedious in his resolutions and in his proceedings: both include want of judgment; but this pretending to more thereof, becomes thereby more dangerous. Forward rashness, which is the same with that, may sometimes, like an acute disease, undo a man sooner; but stupid dotage, little differing from this, is (like a chronical distemper) commonly more mischievous, and always more hard to cure. In fine, were men in their other affairs or in ordinary converse so diffident to plain testimony as some do seem to be in these matters concerning religion, they would soon feel great inconveniences to proceed thence; their business would stick, their conversation would be distasteful; they would be much more offensive, and no less ridiculous than the most credulous fool in the world. While men therefore so perversely distrustful affect to seem wise, they affect really to be fools; and practise according to the worst sort of folly.

(From Sermon, 'The Being of God proved from Supernatural Effects.')

What kind of Jesting Paul forbids. But however manifest it is that some kind thereof he doth earnestly forbid: whence, in order to the guidance of our practice, it is needful to distinguish the kinds, severing that which is allowable from that which is unlawful; that so we may be satisfied in the case, and not on the one hand ignorantly transgress our duty, nor on the other trouble ourselves with scruples, others with censures, upon the use of warrantable liberty therein.

And such a resolution seemeth indeed especially needful in this our age (this pleasant and jocular age), which is so infinitely addicted to this sort of speaking, that it scarce doth affect or prize any thing near so much; all reputation appearing now to veil and stoop to that of being a wit to be learned, to be wise, to be good, are nothing in comparison thereto; even to be noble and rich are inferior things, and afford no such glory. Many at least, to purchase this glory, to be deemed considerable in this faculty, and enrolled among the wits, do not only make shipwreck of conscience, abandon virtue, and forfeit all pretences to wisdom; but neglect their estates and prostitute their honour: so to the private damage of many particular persons, and with no small prejudice to the public, are our times possessed and transported with this humour. To repress the excess and extravagance whereof, nothing in way of discourse can serve better than a plain declaration when and how such a practice is allowable or tolerable; when it is wicked and vain, unworthy of a man endued with reason, and pretending to honesty or honour.

This I shall in some measure endeavour to perform.

But first it may be demanded what the thing we speak of is, or what this facetiousness doth import? To which question I might reply as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, It is that which we all see and know: any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being sometimes it riseth from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose: often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is in short a

:

manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar: it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed ẻmidéžio, dexterous men; and трожо, men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure); by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters otherwise distasteful or insipid with an unusual and thence grateful tang.

(From SermonAgainst Foolish Talking and Jesting.') There is an edition of Barrow's Theological Works by Napier, with a Memoir by Whewell (9 vols. 1859).

Robert South, D.D. (1634–1716), the wittiest of English divines, was born a London merchant's son at Hackney, educated for four years under Busby at Westminster, and elected student of Christ Church, together with Locke, in 1651. Three years later he took his bachelor's degree, and wrote a Latin copy of verses congratulating the Protector Cromwell on his peace with the Dutch. In 1658 he received orders from a deprived bishop, and was appointed in 1660 public orator to the university. During his tenure of this office occurred many striking occasions for his eloquence—the installation of Clarendon as chancellor in 1661; the burial of Juxon and the translation of Laud in July 1663; the visit of the king and queen, and the presentation of Monmouth for a degree, in September 1663; the foundation of the Sheldonian Theatre in 1664, and its formal opening in 1669. His vigorous sermons, full of sarcastic mockery of the Puritans, were delightful to the restored royalists. He became domestic chaplain to Clarendon, and further preferment followed quickly. In 1663 he was made prebendary of Westminster, canon of Christ Church in 1670, and rector of Islip in Oxfordshire in 1678. He went as chaplain with Clarendon's son, Laurence Hyde, afterwards Earl of Rochester, on his embassy to congratulate John Sobieski on mounting the throne of Poland (1677), and in December wrote from Danzig his impressions in the long and interesting Account sent to Pocock, the Oxford professor of Hebrew. It is supposed that South might have been a bishop if he would, and there is one story on record of his preaching

South

in 1681 before the king on 'The lot is cast into the lap' (Prov. xvi. 33). Speaking of the strange accidents of fortune, he said, ‘And who, that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow as Cromwell, first entering the Parliament-house with a threadbare, torn cloak and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them paid for), could have suspected that in the space of so few years he should, by the murder of one king and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king but the changing of his hat into a crown?' At these words the king fell into a violent fit of laughter, and turning to Lord Rochester, said, 'Ods fish, Lory, your chaplain must be a bishop, therefore put me in mind of him at the next death.' Unfortunately for the story, this sermon-one of those published by South himself—is inscribed as 'Preached at Westminster Abbey, February 22, 1684-85,' a fortnight after Charles's death. suppressed his disapproval of James II.'s Declaration of Indulgence, ‘acquiesced in' the Revolution, but blazed out with anger against the proposed scheme of Comprehension. In 1693 began his great controversy with Sherlock, Dean of St Paul's, who, in defending the Trinity against the Socinians, had used language capable of a heterodox interpretation. South flung his Animadversions anonymously into the fray, but the bitter irony and fierce sarcasms quickly betrayed his hand. Not content with demolishing Sherlock's learning, he abused his style, his orthography, the errors of the press, and even descended so low as to sneer at him as a henpecked husband. Sherlock published a Defence, to which South rejoined, and still anonymously, in his no less vigorous Tritheism charged upon Dr Sherlock's new notion of the Trinity. The controversy became the talk of the town, until the king himself interposed by an injunction addressed to the archbishops and bishops to the effect that no preacher should advance views on the Trinity other than those contained in Scripture, and agreeable to the three Creeds and the Thirty-nine Articles. One of the last things recorded of South is his activity in making interest on Dr Sacheverell's behalf, and he is said to have refused the see of Rochester and deanery of Westminster on the death of Dr Sprat (1713). He survived till eighty-three, and was buried in Westminster.

South's sermons are masterpieces of clear thought expressed in direct, vigorous English, sometimes rising to splendid eloquence, and often seasoned with a wit and sarcasm altogether unusual in the pulpit, and at times far beyond the limits of propriety. A masculine intellect, a mastery of arrangement and analysis, and an uncompromising strength of conviction and of confidence in his own opinions were qualities enough to make a great preacher, but the one supreme gift of the orator, that of genuine and quickening enthusiasm, was denied him. Still