that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no 'mine' and 'thine' distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it, consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason. The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the Laws of Nature: whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters. (From Leviathan.) in this time, that men call not only for peace, but also for truth, to offer such doctrines as I think true, and that manifestly tend to peace and loyalty, to the consideration of those that are yet in deliberation, is no more but to offer new wine to be put into new casks, that both may be preserved together. And I suppose that then, when novelty can breed no trouble nor disorder in a state, men are not generally so much inclined to the reverence of antiquity as to prefer ancient errors before new and well-proved truth. There is nothing I distrust more than my elocution [i.e. power of literary expression, style], which nevertheless I am confident, excepting the mischances of the press, is not obscure. That I have neglected the ornament of quoting ancient poets, orators, and philosophers, contrary to the custom of late time, whether I have done well or ill in it, proceedeth from my judgment, grounded on many reasons. For first, all truth of doctrine dependeth either upon reason or upon Scripture, both which give credit to many, but never receive it from any writer. Secondly, the matters in question are not of fact, but of right, wherein there is no place for witnesses. There is scarce any of those old writers that contradicteth not sometimes both himself and others; which makes their testimonies insufficient. Fourthly, such opinions as are taken only upon credit of antiquity are not intrinsically the judgment of those that cite them, but words that pass, like gaping, from mouth to mouth. Fifthly, it is many times with a fraudulent design that men stick their corrupt doctrine with the cloves of other men's wit. Sixthly, I find not that the ancients they cite took it for an ornament to do the like with those that wrote before them. Seventhly, it is an argument of indigestion, when Greek and Latin sentences unchewed come up again, as they use to do, unchanged. Lastly, though I reverence those men of ancient time that either have written truth perspicuously, or set us in a better way to find it out ourselves: yet to the antiquity itself I think nothing due. For if we will reverence the age, the present is the oldest. If the antiquity of the writer, I am not sure that generally they to whom such honour is given were more ancient when they wrote than I am that am writing. But if it be well considered, the praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living. To conclude, there is nothing in this whole discourse, nor in that I writ before of the same subject in Latin, as far as I can perceive, contrary either to the Word of God or to good manners; or to the disturbance of the public tranquillity. Therefore I think it may be profitably printed, and more profitably taught in the universities, in case they also think so to whom the judgment of the same belongeth. For seeing the universities are the fountains of civil and moral doctrine, from whence the preachers and the gentry, drawing such water as they find, use to sprinkle the same (both from the pulpit and in their conversation) upon the people, there ought certainly to be great care taken to have it pure, both from the venom of heathen politicians and from the incantation of deceiving spirits. And by that means the most men, knowing their duties, will be the less subject to serve the ambition of a few discontented persons in their purposes against the state, and be the less grieved with the contributions necessary for their peace and defence; and the governors themselves have the less cause to maintain at the common charge any greater army than is necessary to make good the public liberty against the invasions and encroachments of foreign enemies. And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civil and Ecclesiastical Government, occasioned by the disorders of the present time, without partiality, without application, and without other design than to set before men's eyes the mutual relation between protection and obedience; of which the condition of human nature and the laws divine, both natural and positive, require an inviolable observation. And though in the revolution of states there can be no very good constellation for truths of this nature to be born under (as having an angry aspect from the dissolvers of an old government, and seeing but the backs of them that erect a new), yet I cannot think it will be condemned at this time either by the public judge of doctrine or by any that desires the continuance of public peace. And in this hope I return to my interrupted speculation of bodies natural, wherein, if God give me health to finish it, I hope the novelty will as much please as in the doctrine of this artificial body it useth to offend. For such truth as opposeth no man's profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome. (From the conclusion of Leviathan.) Pity and Indignation. Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of another man's calamity. But when it lighteth on such as we think have not deserved the same, the compassion is greater, because then there appeareth more probability that the same may happen to us; for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen to every man. But when we see a man suffer for great crimes, which we cannot easily think will fall upon ourselves, the pity is the less. And therefore men are apt to pity those whom they love; for whom they love they think worthy of good, and therefore not worthy of calamity. Thence it is also that men pity the vices of some persons at the first sight only, out of love to their aspect. The contrary of pity is hardness of heart, proceeding either from slowness of imagination, or some extreme great opinion of their own exemption from the like calamity, or from hatred of all or most men. Indignation is that grief which consisteth in the conception of good success happening to them whom they think unworthy thereof. Seeing therefore men think all those unworthy whom they hate, they think them not only unworthy of the good-fortune they have, but also of their own virtues. And of all the passions of the mind, these two, indignation and pity, are most raised and increased by eloquence; for the aggravation of the calamity, and extenuation of the fault, augmenteth pity; and the extenuation of the worth of the person, together with the magnifying of his success, which are the parts of an orator, are able to turn these two passions into fury. (From Human Nature.) Emulation and Envy. Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self exceeded or excelled by his concurrent, together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come, by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him. (From Human Nature.) Laughter. Also men There is a passion that hath no name; but the sign of it is that distortion of the countenance which we call laughter, which is always joy: but what joy, what we think, and wherein we triumph when we laugh, is not hitherto declared by any. That it consisteth in wit, or, as they call it, in the jest, experience confuteth; for men laugh at mischances and indecencies, wherein there lieth no wit nor jest at all. And forasmuch as the same thing is no more ridiculous when it groweth stale or usual, whatsoever it be that moveth laughter, it must be new and unexpected. Men laugh often-especially such as are greedy of applause from everything they do well-at their own actions performed never so little beyond their own expectations; as also at their own jests and in this case it is manifest that the passion of laughter proceedeth from a sudden conception of some ability in himself that laugheth. Also, men laugh at the infirmities of others by comparison wherewith their own abilities are set off and illustrated. laugh at jests the wit whereof always consisteth in the elegant discovering and conveying to our minds some absurdity of another; and in this case also the passion of laughter proceedeth from the sudden imagination of our own odds and eminency; for what is else the recommending of ourselves to our own good opinion, by comparison with another man's infirmity or absurdity? For when a jest is broken upon ourselves, or friends, of whose dishonour we participate, we never laugh thereat. I may therefore conclude that the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly; for men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonour. It is no wonder, therefore, that men take heinously to be laughed at or derided that is, triumphed over. Laughing without offence must be at absurdities and infirmities abstracted from persons, and when all the company may laugh together; for laughing to one's self putteth all the rest into jealousy and examination of themselves. Besides, it is vain-glory, and an argument of little worth, to think the infirmity of another sufficient matter for his triumph. (From Human Nature.) The Necessity of the Will. The question is not, whether a man be a free agent, that is to say, whether he can write or forbear, speak or be silent, according to his will; but whether the will to write, and the will to forbear, come upon him according to his will, or according to anything else in his own power. I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do if I will; but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech. [In answer to Bishop Bramhall's assertion, that the doctrine of free-will is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature.']—It is true, very few have learned from tutors, that a man is not free to will; nor do they find it much in books. That they find in books, that which the poets chant in the theatres, and the shepherds on the mountains, that which the pastors teach in the churches, and the doctors in the universities, and that which the common people in the markets and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto, is the same that I assent unto-namely, that a man hath freedom to do if he will; but whether he hath freedom to will is a question which it seems neither the bishop nor they ever thought on. A wooden top that is lashed by the boys, and runs about sometimes to one wall, sometimes to another, sometimes spinning, sometimes hitting men on the shins, if it were sensible of its own motion, would think it proceeded from its own will, unless it felt what lashed it. And is a man any wiser when he runs to one place for a benefice, to another for a bargain, and troubles the world with writing errors and requiring answers, because he thinks he does it without other cause than his own will, and seeth not what are the lashings that cause that will? (From Of Liberty and Necessity.) On Precision in Language. Seeing that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he useth stands for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words as a bird in lime-twigs -the more he struggles, the more belimed. And therefore in geometry, which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind, men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge to examine the definitions of former authors; and either to correct them where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid without reckoning anew from the beginning, in which lies the foundation of their errors. From whence it happens that they which trust to books do as they that cast up many little sums into a greater, without considering whether those little sums were rightly cast up or not; and at last, finding the error visible, and not mistrusting their first grounds, know not which way to clear themselves, but spend time in fluttering over their as 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 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 Of Thetis' son brought to the Greeks; what souls Of heroes down to Erebus it sent, Leaving their bodies unto dogs and fowls; Apollo; who, incensed by the wrong To his priest Chryses by Atrides done, Şent 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 it— in 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 Caesar'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 ȧmódoтe, 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 irrepexoúraus) 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 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 1674. How 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 unbaptizèd 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, Whose silv'rie feet did tread, And with dishevell'd haire Adorn'd this smoother mead. Like unthrifts, having spent |