children at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief-what would become of man himself whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly 5 that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world? . . . Thus far, therefore, we have endeavoured in part to open of what nature and force laws are, according unto their several kinds: the that with us contentions are now at their highest float, and that the day will come (for what cause of despair is there) when the passions of former enmity being allayed, we shall with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfeignedly reconciled love, show ourselves each toward the other the same, which Joseph and the brethren of Joseph were at the time of their interview in Egypt. Our comfortable expectation and most thirsty desire, whereof what 10 law which God with Himself hath eternally set down to follow in His own works; the law which He hath made for His creatures to keep, the law of natural and necessary agents; the law which angels in heaven obey; the law man soever amongst you shall anyway help to satisfy (as we truly hope there is no one amongst you but some way or other will) the blessings of the God of peace, both in this world and in the world to come, be upon him more 15 whereunto, by the light of reason, men find than the stars of the firmament in number. THE DIVINE SOURCE OF LAW (From the same) themselves bound in that they are men; the law which they make, by composition, for multitudes and politic societies of men to be guided by; the law which belongeth unto each 20 nation, the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; and lastly the law which God Himself hath supernaturally revealed. . . Wherefore that here we may briefly end, of law there can be no less acknowledged, than the harmony of the world, all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power, both angels and men each in a different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy. John Lyly 1553-1606 A GOOD SCHOOLMASTER This world's first creation, and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a manifestation by execution what 25 that her seat is in the bosom of God, her voice the eternal law of God is concerning things natural? And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a law is once published it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto, 30 and creatures of what condition soever though even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world. Since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of His law upon it, heaven and earth have harkened unto His voice, and their labour hath been to do His 35 will. He made a law for the rain, He gave His decree unto the sea that the waters should not pass his commandment. Now if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for awhile, the 40 observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world whereof all things in this lower world are made should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our 45 be such an one as Phoenix was the instructor of heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant 50 doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by dis- 55 ordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as (From Euphues, 1579) A good and discreet schoolmaster should Achilles, whom Pelleus (as Homer reporteth) appointed to that end that he should be unto Achilles not only a teacher of learning, but an ensample of good living. But that is most principally to be looked for, and most diligently to be forseen, that such tutors be sought out for the education of a young child, whose life hath never been stained with dishonesty, whose good name hath never been called into question, whose manners hath been irreprehensible before the world. As husbandmen hedge in their trees, so should good schoolmasters with good manners hedge in the wit and disposition of the scholar, whereby the blossoms of learning may the sooner increase to a bud. It is good nurture that leadeth to virtue, and discreet demeanour that plaineth the path to felicity. If one have either the gifts of Fortune, as great riches, or of Nature, as 5 seemly personage, he is to be despised in respect of learning. To be a noble man it is most excellent, but that is our ancestors, as Ulysses said to Ajax, as for our nobility, our stock, our kindred, and whatsoever we our Many parents are in this to be misliked, which having neither trial of his honesty, nor experience of his learning to whom they commit the child to be taught, without any deep or due consideration, put them to one either ignorant or obstinate, the which if they themselves shall do of ignorance the folly cannot be excused, if of obstinacy their lewdness1 is to 10 selves have not done, I scarcely account ours. be abhorred. Riches are precious, but Fortune ruleth the roost, which oftentimes taketh away all from them that have much, and giveth them more that had nothing, glory is a thing worthy to vaile, so is it lost in a small time. Some fathers are overcome with the flattery of those fools who profess outwardly great knowledge, and show a certain kind of dissembling sincerity in their life, others at the 15 be followed, but as it is gotten with great traentreating of their familiar friends are content to commit their sons to one, without either substance of honesty or shadow of learning. By which their undiscreet dealing, they are like those sick men which reject the expert 20 and cunning physician, and at the request of their friends admit the heedless practiser, which dangereth the patient, and bringeth the body to his bane:2 or not unlike unto those, which at the instant and importunate suit of 25 their acquaintance refuse a cunning pilot, and choose an unskilful mariner, which hazardeth the ship and themselves in the calmest sea. Beauty is such a thing as we commonly prefer before all things, yet it fadeth before we perceive it to flourish: health is that which all men desire, yet ever subject to any disease; strength is to be wished for, yet is it either abated with an ague, or taken away with age; whosoever therefore boasteth of force, is too beastly, seeing he is in that quality not to be compared with beasts, as the lion, the bull, the elephant. It is virtue, yea virtue, Gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the base born noble, the subject a sovereign, Good God, can there be any that hath the 30 the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the name of a father that will esteem more the fancy of his friend than the nurture of his son? It was not in vain that Crates would often say, that if it were lawful even in the market place weak strong, the most miserable, the most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason: the one commandeth, the other obey fortune can change, neither the deceitful calling of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish. he would cry out: Whether run you fathers, 35 eth; these things neither the whirling wheel of which have all your cark and care to multiply your wealth, nothing regarding your children unto whom you must leave all.. In this they resemble him which is very curious about the shoe and hath no care for the foot. Besides 40 this there be many fathers so inflamed with the love of wealth, that they be as it were incensed with hate against their children; which Arisippus seeing in an old miser did partly note it, this old miser asking of Arisippus 45 wherefore it was wisely answered in my opin what he would take to teach and bring up his son, he answered a thousand groats: a thousand groats, God shield, answered this old huddle, I can have two servants at that price. Unto It is only knowledge, which worn with years waxeth young, and when all things are cut away with the sickle of Time, knowledge flourisheth so high that Time cannot reach it. War taketh all things with it even as the whirlpool, yet must it leave learning behind it, ion, of Stilpo the Philosopher, for when Demetrius won the City, and made it even to the ground leaving nothing standing, he demanded of Stilpo whether he had lost anything of his no verily, for war getteth no spoil of virtue. whom he made answer, thou shalt have two 50 in this great spoil; unto whom he answered, servants and one son, and whether wilt thou sell? Is it not absurd to have so great a care of the right hand of the child to cut his Unto the like sense may the answer of Socmeat, that if he handle his knife in the left rates be applied, when Gorgias asked him hand we rebuke him severely, and to be 55 whether he thought the Persian king happy or sure of his nurture in discipline and learning? . . . not; I know not, said he, how much virtue or discipline he hath, for happiness doth not consist in the gifts of fortune, but in the grace of virtue. EUPHUES GLASS FOR EUROPE (From Euphues and His England, 1580) TO THE LADIES AND GENTLEWOMEN OF ITALY: study and enquiry, not meaning to write a chronicle, but to set down in a word what I heard by conference. Their air is very wholesome and pleasant, 5 their civility not inferior to those that deserve best, their wits very sharp and quick, although I have heard that the Italian and Frenchmen have accounted them but gross and dull pated, which I think came not to pass by the If I had brought (ladies) little dogs from Malta, or strange stones from India, or fine carpets from Turkey, I am sure that you would have either wooed me to have them, or wished 10 proof they made of their wits, but by the Engto see them. lishman's report. But I am come out of England with a glass, wherein you shall behold the things which you never saw, and marvel at the sights when But this is strange (and yet how true it is, there is none that ever travelled thither but can report) that it is always incident to an you have seen. Not a glass to make you beau- 15 Englishman, to think worst of his own nation, either in learning, experience, common reason, or wit, preferring always a stranger rather for the name, than for the wisdom. I for mine own part think, that in all Europe there are tiful, but to make you blush, yet not at your vices, but at others' virtues, not a glass to dress your hairs but to redress your harms, by the which if you every morning correct your manners, being as careful to amend faults in your 20 not lawyers more learned, divines more prohearts, as you are curious to find faults in your heads, you shall in short time be as much commended for virtue of the wise, as for beauty of the wanton. found, physicians more expert, than are in England. But that which most allureth a stranger is their courtesy, their civility and good enter Thus, fair ladies, hoping you will be as willing 25 tainment. I speak this by experience, that I to pry in this glass for amendment of manners, EUPHUES. There is an isle lying in the ocean sea, directly found more courtesy in England among those I never knew, in one year, than I have done in Athens or Italy among those I ever loved, in twenty. But having entreated of the country and their conditions, let me come to the glass I promised, being the court.1 Is not this a glass, fair ladies, for all other countries to behold, where there is not only against that part of France, which containeth 35 an agreement in faith, religion, and counsel, but in friendship, brotherhood, and living? By whose good endeavours vice is punished, virtue rewarded, peace established, foreign broils repressed, domestical cares appeased? what dominion, yet excepted hath so much? when neither courage can prevail against their counsel, nor both joined in one be of force to undermine their country, when you have dazzled your eyes with this glass, behold here is another. It was my fortune to be acquainted with certain English gentlemen, which brought me to the court, where when I came, I was driven into a maze to behold the lusty and Picardy and Normandy, called now England, heretofore named Britain, it hath Ireland upon the west side, on the north the main sea, on the east side the German Ocean. This Island is in circuit 1720 miles, in form like unto a 40 what nation can of counsellors desire more? triangle, being broadest in the south part, and gathering narrower and narrower till it come to the farthest point of Caithness, northward where it is narrowest, and there endeth in manner of a promontory. To repeat the an- 45 cient manner of this island or what sundry nations have inhabited there, to set down the giants, which in bigness of bone have passed the ordinary size, and almost common credit, to rehearse what diversity of languages have 50 brave gallants, the beautiful and chaste ladies, been used, into how many kingdoms it hath been divided, what religions have been followed before the coming of Christ, although it would breed great delight to your ears, yet might it happily seem tedious: for that honey 55 so often as they desired my company, I began taken excessively cloyeth the stomach though it be honey. But my mind is briefly to touch such things as at my being there I gathered by mine own the rare and godly orders, so as I could not tell whether I should most commend virtue or bravery. At the last coming oftener thither, than it beseemed one of my degree, yet not to pry after their manners, natures, and lives, and that which followeth I saw, whereof whoso doubteth, I will swear. 1i. e. the glass in which he will picture the court. the street, which although they are nothing so noble, yet are they much more necessary. Let not your robes hinder your devotion, learn of the English ladies, that God is worthy to be 5 worshipped with the most price, to whom you ought to give all praise, then shall ye be like stars to the wise, who now are but staring stocks to the foolish, then shall you be praised of most, who are now pointed at of all, then shall The ladies spend the morning in devout prayer, not resembling the gentlewomen in Greece and Italy, who begin their morning at mid-noon, and make their evening at midnight, sing sonnets for psalms, and pastimes for prayers, reading the Epistle of a Lover, when they should peruse the Gospel of our Lord, drawing wanton lines when death is before their face, as Archimedes did triangles and circles when the enemy was at his back.2 Be- 10 God bear with your folly, who now abhorreth hold, ladies, in this glass, that the service of God is to be preferred before all things, imitate the English damoselles who have their books tied to their girdles, not feathers; who are as cunning in the scriptures, as you are in Ariosto 15 or Petrarch or any book that liketh you best, and becometh you most. your pride. Sir Philip Sydney 1554-1586 THE PREEMINENCE OF POETRY (From The Defense of Poesy, c. 1581) For bravery I cannot say that you exceed them, for certainly it is the most gorgeous court that ever I have seen, read, or heard of, 20 but yet do they not use their apparel so nicely as you in Italy, who think scorn to kneel at service, for fear of wrinkles in your silks, who dare not lift up your head to heaven, for fear of rumpling the ruff in your neck, yet your 25 hands I confess are holden up, rather I think, to show your rings, than to manifest your righteousness. The bravery they use is for the honour of their Prince, the attire you wear for the alluring of your prey, the rich apparel 30 taste you may long to pass further. He be maketh their beauty more seen, your disguising causeth your faces to be more suspected, they resemble in their raiment the Ostrich who being gazed on, closeth her wings and Now therein of all sciences-I speak still of human, and according to the human conceitis our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that ginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent' with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness. But he cometh to you with words set in delightful hideth her feathers, you in your robes are not 35 proportion, either accompanied with, or pre pared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner, and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste,—which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or rhubarb they should receive, would sooner take their physic at their ears than at their mouth. So it is in men, most of which are childish in the best things, till they be cradled unlike the peacock, who being praised spreadeth her tail, and betrayeth her pride. Velvets and silks in them are like gold about a pure diamond, in you like a green hedge, about a filthy dunghill. Think not, ladies, that be- 40 cause you are decked with gold, you are endued with grace, imagine not that shining like the sun in earth, ye shall climb the sun in heaven, look diligently into this English glass, and then shall you see that the more costly your ap- 45 parel is, the greater your courtesy should be, that you ought to be as far from pride, as you are from poverty, and as near to princes in beauty, as you are in brightness. Because you are brave, disdain not those that are base, 50 in their graves,-glad they will be to hear the think with yourselves that russet coats have their Christendom, that the sun when he is at his height shineth as well upon coarse kersey, as cloth of tissue, though you have pearls in your ears, jewels in your breasts, precious stones 55 on your fingers, yet disdain not the stones in When the Romans surprised and captured Syracuse, the native city of Archimedes, the great mathematician is said to have been found in the public square, poring over geometrical figures which he had drawn in the sand. tales of Hercules, Cyrus, Æneas; and, hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valor, and justice; which, if they had been barely, that is to say philosophically, set out, they would swear they be brought to school again. That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to nature of all other; inso1 Margin. much that, as Aristotle saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made in poetical imitation delightful. Truly, I have known men, that even with reading Amadis de Gaule,2 which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a perfect poesy, have found their hearts moved to the exercise of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who readeth Æneas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not it 10 and yet are nothing compared to the day in such sort think, I say, that our poor eyes were so enriched as to behold; and our low hearts so exalted as to love, a maid, who is such, that as the greatest thing the world 5 can show, is her beauty, so the least thing that may be praised in her, is her beauty. Certainly as her eyelids are more pleasant to behold, than two white kids climbing up a fair tree, and browsing on his tenderest branches, were his fortune to perform so excellent an act? Whom do not those words of Turnus move, the tale of Turnus having planted his image in his imagination? Fugientem haec terra videbit? shining stars contained in them; and as her breath is more sweet than a gentle South-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of 15 the summer, and yet is nothing, compared to the honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry: no more all that our eyes can see of her (though when they have seen her, what else they shall ever see is but dry stubble after clover's grass) is to be matched with the flock of unspeakable virtues laid up delightfully in that best builded fold. But indeed as we can best consider the sun's beauty, by marking how he gilds these waters and mountains, than by Where the philosophers, as they scorn to delight, so must they be content little to move-20 saving wrangling whether virtue be the chief or the only good, whether the contemplative or the active life do excel-which Plato and Boethius well knew, and therefore made Mistress Philosophy very often borrow the mask- 25 looking upon his own face, too glorious for our ing raiment of Poesy. For even those hard hearted evil men who think virtue a schoolname, and know no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the 30 inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted, which is all the goodfellow poet seemeth to promise; and so steal to see the form of goodness-which, seen, they cannot but love ere themselves be 35 aware, as if they took a medicine of cherries. CLAIUS DESCRIBES URANIA (From The Arcadia, 1590) Who can choose that saw her but think where she stayed, where she walked, where she turned, weak eyes: so it may be our conceits (not able to bear her sun staining excellency) will better weigh it by her works upon some meaner subject employed. And alas, who can better witness that than we, whose experience is grounded upon feeling? Hath not the only love of her made us (being silly ignorant shepherds) raise up our thoughts above the ordinary level of the world, so as great clerks do not disdain our conference? Hath not the desire to seem worthy in her eyes, made us, when others were sleeping, to sit viewing the course of the heavens? When others were running at Base, to run over learned writings? When 40 others mark their sheep, we to mark ourselves? Hath not she thrown reason upon our desires, and, as it were, given eyes unto Cupid? Hath in any, but in her, love-fellowship maintained friendship between rivals, and beauty taught 1 where she spoke? But what is all this? Truly 45 the beholders chastity? A DESCRIPTION OF ARCADIA Amadis of Gaul, like Arthur and Charlemagne, was a famous hero of medieval romance. A French version of the story (which had been previously told in Spanish) appeared in 1540 and became widely popular. Shall this land see (Turnus] flying? Is it always so bitter a thing to die?" (Eneid, XII. 245-46. 4 Whereas. "Indulge your natural inclinations (let us grasp pleasures]." Persius, Sat. 5, 151. (From the same) There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble valleys, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers: meadows, enamelled 55 with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed so to, by the cheerful disposi 1 An exercise much used by the country people called Prison-base, |