MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

Sir Thomas Wyat, 1503-1541.

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life, ye know since whan,
The suit, the service none tell can;
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet the great essays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!

To his Mistress.

John Knox, 1505-1572. Rule of Women over Men repugnant to Justice.

In probation of the last point, to wit, that the empire of a woman is a thing repugnant to justice, and the destruction of everie common welth where it is recived, because the matter is more then evident, I will use fewe wordes. First I say if justice be a constant and perpetuall will to give to everie person their own right (as the moste lerned in all ages have defined it to be) then to geve or to will to geve to any person that whiche is not their right must repugne to justice. But to reigne above man can never be the right of woman, because it is a thing denied unto her by God, as is before declared. Therfore to promote her to that estat or dignitie can be no more els but repugnancie to Justice. If I shulde speake no more, this were sufficient. For except that either they can improve the definition of justice or els that they can intreate God to revoke and call back his sentence pronounced against woman, they shal be compelled to admit my conclusion. If any find faute with Justice as it is defined, he may well accuse others, but me he shall not hurt, for I have the shield, the weapon, and the warrant of Him who assuredly will defend this quarel, and he commandeth me to crie: What soever repugneth to the will of God, expressed in his most sacred Worde, repugneth to Justice: but that women have authoritie over men repugneth to the will of God expressed in his Worde: and therefore mine Author commandeth me to conclude, without feare, that all suche authoritie repugneth to Justice!

The first blast against the Regiment of Women. Works, iv. p. 400

Henry Smith, 1550-1600. Vain Inquiries.

Paul rebuked them which troubled their heads about genealogies; how would he reprove men and women of our days, if he did see how they busy their heads about vain questions! tracing upon the pinnacles where they may fall, while they might walk upon the pavement without danger. Some have a great deal more desire to learn where Hell is, than to know any way how they may escape it; to hear what God did purpose before the world began, rather than learn what he will do when the world is ended; to understand whether they shall know one another in heaven, than to know whether they belong to heaven. . . . . Commonly the simplest men busy themselves about the highest matters; so that they meet with a rough and crabbed question, like a knob in the tree; and while they hack and hew at it with their own wits to make it plain their saw sticks fast in the cleft and cannot get out again. Therefore it is good to leave off learning where God leaves off teaching; for they which have an ear where God hath no tongue, hearken not unto God but unto the tempter, as Eve did to the Serpent. Sermons.

Christopher Marlowe, 1563-1593.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place; but where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.
And to be short, when all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell, that are not heaven. Faustus.

• Cool.

b Run.

• Tumbling.

d Which.

Richard Bernard, 1566-1641. Scrupulosity.

This is an unsocial and snappish fellow: he maketh sins to himself more than the law condemneth, and liveth upon fault-finding. Weaker Apprehension is his father, and Mrs. Understanding his mother, and an uncharitable heart his nurse. Isle of Man, p. 16. Full of wit, and with curious allusions to the times.

Sir H. Wotton, 1568-1639.

O thou great Power! in whom we move,
By whom we live, in whom we die,
Behold me through thy beams of love,
While on this couch of tears I lie,
And cleanse my sordid soul within,
By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin.
No hallowed oils, no gums I need,

No new-born drams of purging fire;
One rosy drop from David's seed

Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire;
O precious ransom! which once paid,
That consummatum est was said.

And said by him, that said no more,

But sealed it with his sacred breath;
Thou, then, that has dispurged our score,

And dying wert the death of death,

Be now, while on thy name we call,

Our life, our strength, our joy, our all! A Meditation.

Sir John Beaumont, 1582-1628.

Can I, who have for others oft compiled

The songs of death, forget my sweetest child? ...
We have this sign of joy, that many days
While on the earth his struggling spirit stays,
The name of Jesus in his mouth contains
His holy food, his sleep, his ease from pains.
Oh may that sound be rooted in my mind
Of which in him such strong effect I find!
Dear Lord, receive my son, whose winning love
To me was like a friendship, far above

The course of nature, or his tender age;
Whose looks could all my bitter griefs assuage;
Let his pure soul-ordained seven years to be
In that frail body, which was part of me-
Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show
How to this port at every step I go.

John Preston, 1587-1627.

On my dear Son.

The cause of the destruction of a Land is chiefly the sinnes of the godly. When they grow cold and dead, and lose their love, then God (as Rev. ii.) will remove the candlesticke from among them and take away his Gospell. Indeed the carnalnesse of dead men, their prophanenesse in contemning of God's Saints and his Gospel, etc., hasten God's Iudgements on a Land, but chiefly the lukewarmnesse of Professors doe it. . . . . Let us therefore rectifie our Lives, renew our repentance, quicken our zeale, else shall wee be guiltie of the destruction of God's Church by our sinnes. A Liveles Life. Lond. 1633.

....

Sir W. Waller, the Parliamentary General, 1597-1668. Books.

Here is the best solitary company in the world, and in this particular chiefly excelling any other, that in my study I am sure to converse with none but wise men; but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools. . . . . Yet we have a generation of people that are so far from putting themselves upon the hazard of knowing too much, that they affect a kind of Socratical knowledge (though it be the clear contrary way), a knowledge of knowing nothing. They hate learning and wisdom and understanding, with that perfect hatred, that if

one could fancy such things to be in Paradise, one would think (if I may speak it as I mean it without profaneness) that the devil could not tempt them to come near the tree of knowledge. . . . . In opposition to these extremes, I meet with another sort of people that delight themselves in reading, but it is in such a desultory way-running from one book to another as birds skip from one bough to another, without design-that it is no marvel if they get nothing but their labour for their pains. . . . . Lord, take me off from the curiosity of knowing only to know; from the vanity of knowing only to be known; and from the folly of pretending to know more than I do know; and let it be my wisdom to study to know Thee, who art life eternal.

Divine Meditations.

I am sorry to see how small a piece of religion will make a cloak. Vindication, p. 10.

Edward Reynolds, 1599-1676.

'He was a copious subject,' what Aristotle describes as amp TETράywvos, a four-square man, that had in every capacityplace him how and where you would—'a basis of honesty and integrity to fix upon.' And yet no rough diamond, no angular sharpness about him; but teres atque rotundus in his virtue, in his disposition made up of love and sweetness; of a balsamic nature; all for healing and helpfulness.’ Works, iv. p. 474.

Edmund Waller, 1605-1687.

The seas are quiet when the winds are o'er ;
So calm are we when passions are no more!
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries;
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks which time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home;

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,

That stand upon the threshold of the new.