The Anatomy of Melancholy Part 23

[1983] "And to this day is every scholar poor; Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor:"

Mercury can help them to knowledge, but not to money. The second is contemplation, [1984]"which dries the brain and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomach and liver are left dest.i.tute, and thence come black blood and crudities by defect of concoction, and for want of exercise the superfluous vapours cannot exhale," &c. The same reasons are repeated by Gomesius, _lib. 4, cap. 1, de sale_ [1985]Nymannus _orat. de Imag._ Jo. Voschius, _lib. 2, cap. 5, de peste_: and something more they add, that hard students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, [1986]crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part lean, dry, ill-coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and many times their lives, and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary studies. If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquinas's works, and tell me whether those men took pains? peruse Austin, Hierom, &c., and many thousands besides.

"Qui cupit optatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit, fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit."

"He that desires this wished goal to gain, Must sweat and freeze before he can attain,"

and labour hard for it. So did Seneca, by his own confession, _ep. 8._ [1987]"Not a day that I spend idle, part of the night I keep mine eyes open, tired with waking, and now slumbering to their continual task." Hear Tully _pro Archia Poeta_: "whilst others loitered, and took their pleasures, he was continually at his book," so they do that will be scholars, and that to the hazard (I say) of their healths, fortunes, wits, and lives. How much did Aristotle and Ptolemy spend? _unius regni precium_ they say, more than a king's ransom; how many crowns per annum, to perfect arts, the one about his History of Creatures, the other on his Almagest?

How much time did Thebet Benchorat employ, to find out the motion of the eighth sphere? forty years and more, some write: how many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizzards, neglecting all worldly affairs and their own health, wealth, _esse_ and _bene esse_, to gain knowledge for which, after all their pains, in this world's esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, a.s.ses, and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, doting, and mad. Look for examples in Hildesheim _spicel. 2, de mania et delirio_: read Trincavellius, _l. 3. consil. 36, et c. 17._ Monta.n.u.s, _consil. 233._ [1988]Garceus _de Judic. genit. cap. 33._ Mercurialis, _consil. 86, cap. 25._ Prosper [1989]Calenius in his Book _de atra bile_; Go to Bedlam and ask. Or if they keep their wits, yet they are esteemed scrubs and fools by reason of their carriage: "after seven years'

study"

------"statua, taciturnius exit, Plerumque et risum populi quat.i.t."------

"He becomes more silent than a statue, and generally excites people's laughter." Because they cannot ride a horse, which every clown can do; salute and court a gentlewoman, carve at table, cringe and make conges, which every common swasher can do, [1990]_hos populus ridet_, &c., they are laughed to scorn, and accounted silly fools by our gallants. Yea, many times, such is their misery, they deserve it: [1991]a mere scholar, a mere a.s.s.

[1992] "Obstipo capite, et figentes lumine terram, Murmura c.u.m sec.u.m, et rabiosa silentia rodunt, Atque experrecto trutinantur verba labello, Aegroti veteris meditantes somnia, gigni De nihilo nihilum; in nihilum nil posse reverti."

[1993] ------"who do lean awry Their heads, piercing the earth with a fixt eye; When, by themselves, they gnaw their murmuring, And furious silence, as 'twere balancing Each word upon their out-stretched lip, and when They meditate the dreams of old sick men, As, 'Out of nothing, nothing can be brought; And that which is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.'"

Thus they go commonly meditating unto themselves, thus they sit, such is their action and gesture. Fulgosus, _l. 8, c. 7_, makes mention how Th.

Aquinas supping with king Lewis of France, upon a sudden knocked his fist upon the table, and cried, _conclusum est contra Manichaeos_, his wits were a wool-gathering, as they say, and his head busied about other matters, when he perceived his error, he was much [1994]abashed. Such a story there is of Archimedes in Vitruvius, that having found out the means to know how much gold was mingled with the silver in king Hieron's crown, ran naked forth of the bath and cried [Greek: heuraeka], I have found: [1995]"and was commonly so intent to his studies, that he never perceived what was done about him: when the city was taken, and the soldiers now ready to rifle his house, he took no notice of it." St. Bernard rode all day long by the Lemnian lake, and asked at last where he was, Marullus, _lib. 2, cap. 4._ It was Democritus's carriage alone that made the Abderites suppose him to have been mad, and send for Hippocrates to cure him: if he had been in any solemn company, he would upon all occasions fall a laughing. Theophrastus saith as much of Herac.l.i.tus, for that he continually wept, and Laertius of Menedemus Lampsacus, because he ran like a madman, [1996]saying, "he came from h.e.l.l as a spy, to tell the devils what mortal men did." Your greatest students are commonly no better, silly, soft fellows in their outward behaviour, absurd, ridiculous to others, and no whit experienced in worldly business; they can measure the heavens, range over the world, teach others wisdom, and yet in bargains and contracts they are circ.u.mvented by every base tradesman. Are not these men fools? and how should they be otherwise, "but as so many sots in schools, when" (as [1997]he well observed) "they neither hear nor see such things as are commonly practised abroad?" how should they get experience, by what means? [1998]"I knew in my time many scholars," saith Aeneas Sylvius (in an epistle of his to Gasper Scitick, chancellor to the emperor), "excellent well learned, but so rude, so silly, that they had no common civility, nor knew how to manage their domestic or public affairs." "Paglarensis was amazed, and said his farmer had surely cozened him, when he heard him tell that his sow had eleven pigs, and his a.s.s had but one foal." To say the best of this profession, I can give no other testimony of them in general, than that of Pliny of Isaeus; [1999]"He is yet a scholar, than which kind of men there is nothing so simple, so sincere, none better, they are most part harmless, honest, upright, innocent, plain-dealing men."

Now because they are commonly subject to such hazards and inconveniences as dotage, madness, simplicity, &c. Jo. Voschius would have good scholars to be highly rewarded, and had in some extraordinary respect above other men, "to have greater [2000]privileges than the rest, that adventure themselves and abbreviate their lives for the public good." But our patrons of learning are so far nowadays from respecting the muses, and giving that honour to scholars, or reward which they deserve, and are allowed by those indulgent privileges of many n.o.ble princes, that after all their pains taken in the universities, cost and charge, expenses, irksome hours, laborious tasks, wearisome days, dangers, hazards, (barred interim from all pleasures which other men have, mewed up like hawks all their lives) if they chance to wade through them, they shall in the end be rejected, contemned, and which is their greatest misery, driven to their s.h.i.+fts, exposed to want, poverty, and beggary. Their familiar attendants are,

[2001] "Pallentes morbi, luctus, curaeque laborque Et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas, Terribiles visu formae"------

"Grief, labour, care, pale sickness, miseries, Fear, filthy poverty, hunger that cries, Terrible monsters to be seen with eyes."

If there were nothing else to trouble them, the conceit of this alone were enough to make them all melancholy. Most other trades and professions, after some seven years' apprentices.h.i.+p, are enabled by their craft to live of themselves. A merchant adventures his goods at sea, and though his hazard be great, yet if one s.h.i.+p return of four, he likely makes a saving voyage. An husbandman's gains are almost certain; _quibus ipse Jupiter nocere non potest_ (whom Jove himself can't harm) ('tis [2002]Cato's hyperbole, a great husband himself); only scholars methinks are most uncertain, unrespected, subject to all casualties, and hazards. For first, not one of a many proves to be a scholar, all are not capable and docile, [2003]_ex omniligno non fit Mercurius_: we can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars: kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed; universities can give degrees; and _Tu quod es, e populo quilibet esse potest_; but he nor they, nor all the world, can give learning, make philosophers, artists, orators, poets; we can soon say, as Seneca well notes, _O virum bonum, o divitem_, point at a rich man, a good, a happy man, a prosperous man, _sumptuose vest.i.tum, Calamistratum, bene olentem, magno temporis impendio constat haec laudatio, o virum literarum_, but 'tis not so easily performed to find out a learned man. Learning is not so quickly got, though they may be willing to take pains, to that end sufficiently informed, and liberally maintained by their patrons and parents, yet few can compa.s.s it. Or if they be docile, yet all men's wills are not answerable to their wits, they can apprehend, but will not take pains; they are either seduced by bad companions, _vel in puellam impingunt, vel in poculum_ (they fall in with women or wine) and so spend their time to their friends' grief and their own undoings. Or put case they be studious, industrious, of ripe wits, and perhaps good capacities, then how many diseases of body and mind must they encounter? No labour in the world like unto study. It may be, their temperature will not endure it, but striving to be excellent to know all, they lose health, wealth, wit, life and all. Let him yet happily escape all these hazards, _aereis intestinis_ with a body of bra.s.s, and is now consummate and ripe, he hath profited in his studies, and proceeded with all applause: after many expenses, he is fit for preferment, where shall he have it? he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years' standing) at the first day of his coming to the University. For what course shall he take, being now capable and ready? The most parable and easy, and about which many are employed, is to teach a school, turn lecturer or curate, and for that he shall have falconer's wages, ten pound per annum, and his diet, or some small stipend, so long as he can please his patron or the parish; if they approve him not (for usually they do but a year or two) as inconstant, as [2004]they that cried "Hosanna" one day, and "Crucify him" the other; serving-man-like, he must go look a new master; if they do, what is his reward?

[2005] "Hoc quoque te manet ut pueros elementa docentem Occupet extremis in vicis alba senectus."

"At last thy snow-white age in suburb schools, Shall toil in teaching boys their grammar rules."

Like an a.s.s, he wears out his time for provender, and can show a stump rod, _togam tritam et laceram_ saith [2006]Haedus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his infelicity, he hath his labour for his pain, a modic.u.m to keep him till he be decrepit, and that is all. _Grammaticus non est felix_, &c. If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befell [2007]

Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some small rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if he offend his good patron, or displease his lady mistress in the mean time,

[2008] "Ducetur Planta velut ictus ab Hercule Cacus, Poneturque foras, si quid tentaverit unquam Hiscere"------

as Hercules did by Cacus, he shall be dragged forth of doors by the heels, away with him. If he bend his forces to some other studies, with an intent to be _a secretis_ to some n.o.bleman, or in such a place with an amba.s.sador, he shall find that these persons rise like apprentices one under another, and in so many tradesmen's shops, when the master is dead, the foreman of the shop commonly steps in his place. Now for poets, rhetoricians, historians, philosophers, [2009]mathematicians, sophisters, &c.; they are like gra.s.shoppers, sing they must in summer, and pine in the winter, for there is no preferment for them. Even so they were at first, if you will believe that pleasant tale of Socrates, which he told fair Phaedrus under a plane-tree, at the banks of the river Iseus; about noon when it was hot, and the gra.s.shoppers made a noise, he took that sweet occasion to tell him a tale, how gra.s.shoppers were once scholars, musicians, poets, &c., before the Muses were born, and lived without meat and drink, and for that cause were turned by Jupiter into gra.s.shoppers. And may be turned again, _In Tythoni Cicadas, aut Lyciorum ranas_, for any reward I see they are like to have: or else in the mean time, I would they could live, as they did, without any viatic.u.m, like so many [2010]manucodiatae, those Indian birds of paradise, as we commonly call them, those I mean that live with the air and dew of heaven, and need no other food; for being as they are, their [2011]"rhetoric only serves them to curse their bad fortunes," and many of them for want of means are driven to hard s.h.i.+fts; from gra.s.shoppers they turn humble-bees and wasps, plain parasites, and make the muses, mules, to satisfy their hunger-starved paunches, and get a meal's meat. To say truth, 'tis the common fortune of most scholars, to be servile and poor, to complain pitifully, and lay open their wants to their respectless patrons, as [2012]Cardan doth, as [2013]Xilander and many others: and which is too common in those dedicatory epistles, for hope of gain, to lie, flatter, and with hyperbolical eulogiums and commendations, to magnify and extol an illiterate unworthy idiot, for his excellent virtues, whom they should rather, as [2014]Machiavel observes, vilify, and rail at downright for his most notorious villainies and vices. So they prost.i.tute themselves as fiddlers, or mercenary tradesmen, to serve great men's turns for a small reward. They are like [2015]Indians, they have store of gold, but know not the worth of it: for I am of Synesius's opinion, [2016]"King Hieron got more by Simonides' acquaintance, than Simonides did by his;" they have their best education, good inst.i.tution, sole qualification from us, and when they have done well, their honour and immortality from us: we are the living tombs, registers, and as so many trumpeters of their fames: what was Achilles without Homer? Alexander without Arian and Curtius? who had known the Caesars, but for Suetonius and Dion?

[2017] "Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona Multi: sed omnes illachrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."

"Before great Agamemnon reign'd, Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave, Whose huge ambition's now contain'd In the small compa.s.s of a grave:"

"In endless night, they sleep, unwept, unknown, No bard they had to make all time their own."

they are more beholden to scholars, than scholars to them; but they undervalue themselves, and so by those great men are kept down. Let them have that encyclopaedian, all the learning in the world; they must keep it to themselves, [2018]"live in base esteem, and starve, except they will submit," as Budaeus well hath it, "so many good parts, so many ensigns of arts, virtues, be slavishly obnoxious to some illiterate potentate, and live under his insolent wors.h.i.+p, or honour, like parasites," _Qui tanquam mures alienum panem comedunt_. For to say truth, _artes hae, non sunt Lucrativae_, as Guido Bonat that great astrologer could foresee, they be not gainful arts these, _sed esurientes et famelicae_, but poor and hungry.

[2019] "Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinia.n.u.s honores, Sed genus et species cogitur ire pedes:"

"The rich physician, honour'd lawyers ride, Whilst the poor scholar foots it by their side."

Poverty is the muses' patrimony, and as that poetical divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter's daughters were each of them married to the G.o.ds, the muses alone were left solitary, Helicon forsaken of all suitors, and I believe it was, because they had no portion.

"Calliope longum caelebs cur vixit in aevum?

Nempe nihil dotis, quod numeraret, erat."

"Why did Calliope live so long a maid?

Because she had no dowry to be paid."

Ever since all their followers are poor, forsaken and left unto themselves.

Insomuch, that as [2020]Petronius argues, you shall likely know them by their clothes. "There came," saith he, "by chance into my company, a fellow not very spruce to look on, that I could perceive by that note alone he was a scholar, whom commonly rich men hate: I asked him what he was, he answered, a poet: I demanded again why he was so ragged, he told me this kind of learning never made any man rich."

[2021] "Qui Pelago credit, magno se faenore tollit, Qui pugnas et rostra pet.i.t, praecingitur auro: Vilis adulator picto jacet ebrius ostro, Sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis."

"A merchant's gain is great, that goes to sea; A soldier embossed all in gold; A flatterer lies fox'd in brave array; A scholar only ragged to behold."

All which our ordinary students, right well perceiving in the universities, how unprofitable these poetical, mathematical, and philosophical studies are, how little respected, how few patrons; apply themselves in all haste to those three commodious professions of law, physic, and divinity, sharing themselves between them, [2022]rejecting these arts in the mean time, history, philosophy, philology, or lightly pa.s.sing them over, as pleasant toys fitting only table-talk, and to furnish them with discourse. They are not so behoveful: he that can tell his money hath arithmetic enough: he is a true geometrician, can measure out a good fortune to himself; a perfect astrologer, that can cast the rise and fall of others, and mark their errant motions to his own use. The best optics are, to reflect the beams of some great man's favour and grace to s.h.i.+ne upon him. He is a good engineer that alone can make an instrument to get preferment. This was the common tenet and practice of Poland, as Cromerus observed not long since, in the first book of his history; their universities were generally base, not a philosopher, a mathematician, an antiquary, &c., to be found of any note amongst them, because they had no set reward or stipend, but every man betook himself to divinity, _hoc solum in votis habens, opimum sacerdotium_, a good parsonage was their aim. This was the practice of some of our near neighbours, as [2023]Lipsius inveighs, "they thrust their children to the study of law and divinity, before they be informed aright, or capable of such studies." _Scilicet omnibus artibus antistat spes lucri, et formosior est c.u.mulus auri, quam quicquid Graeci Latinique delirantes scripserunt. Ex hoc numero deinde veniunt ad gubernacula reipub. intersunt et praesunt consiliis regum, o pater, o patria_? so he complained, and so may others. For even so we find, to serve a great man, to get an office in some bishop's court (to practise in some good town) or compa.s.s a benefice, is the mark we shoot at, as being so advantageous, the highway to preferment.

Although many times, for aught I can see, these men fail as often as the rest in their projects, and are as usually frustrate of their hopes. For let him be a doctor of the law, an excellent civilian of good worth, where shall he practise and expatiate? Their fields are so scant, the civil law with us so contracted with prohibitions, so few causes, by reason of those all-devouring munic.i.p.al laws, _quibus nihil illiteratius_, saith [2024]

Erasmus, an illiterate and a barbarous study, (for though they be never so well learned in it, I can hardly vouchsafe them the name of scholars, except they be otherwise qualified) and so few courts are left to that profession, such slender offices, and those commonly to be compa.s.sed at such dear rates, that I know not how an ingenious man should thrive amongst them. Now for physicians, there are in every village so many mountebanks, empirics, quacksalvers, Paracelsians, as they call themselves, _Caucifici et sanicidae_ so [2025]Clenard terms them, wizards, alchemists, poor vicars, cast apothecaries, physicians' men, barbers, and good wives, professing great skill, that I make great doubt how they shall be maintained, or who shall be their patients. Besides, there are so many of both sorts, and some of them such harpies, so covetous, so clamorous, so impudent; and as [2026]he said, litigious idiots,

"Quibus loquacis affatim arrogantiae est Pentiae parum aut nihil, Nec ulla mica literarii salis, Crumenimulga natio: Loquuteleia turba, litium strophae, Maligna litigantium cohors, togati vultures,"

"Lavernae alumni, Agyrtae," &c.

"Which have no skill but prating arrogance, No learning, such a purse-milking nation: Gown'd vultures, thieves, and a litigious rout Of cozeners, that haunt this occupation,"

that they cannot well tell how to live one by another, but as he jested in the Comedy of Clocks, they were so many, [2027]_major pars populi arida reptant fame_, they are almost starved a great part of them, and ready to devour their fellows, [2028]_Et noxia callidilate se corripere_, such a mult.i.tude of pettifoggers and empirics, such impostors, that an honest man knows not in what sort to compose and behave himself in their society, to carry himself with credit in so vile a rout, _scientiae nomen, tot sumptibus partum et vigiliis, profiteri dispudeat, postquam_, &c.

Last of all to come to our divines, the most n.o.ble profession and worthy of double honour, but of all others the most distressed and miserable. If you will not believe me, hear a brief of it, as it was not many years since publicly preached at Paul's cross, [2029]by a grave minister then, and now a reverend bishop of this land: "We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar-school, which Austin calls _magnam tyrannidem, et grave malum_, and compares it to the torments of martyrdom; when we come to the university, if we live of the college allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, [Greek: pan ton endeis plaen limou kai phobou], needy of all things but hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, do expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and degrees, before we come to any perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this price of the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are ours by law, and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage, or a vicarage of 50_l._ per annum, but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life (a spent and out-worn life) either in annual pension, or above the rate of a copyhold, and that with the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments, in _esse_ and _posse_, both present and to come. What father after a while will be so improvident to bring up his son to his great charge, to this necessary beggary? What Christian will be so irreligious, to bring up his son in that course of life, which by all probability and necessity, _cogit ad turpia_, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony and perjury, when as the poet said, _Invitatus ad haec aliquis de ponte negabit_: a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits a begging, if he knew the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it." This being thus, have not we fished fair all this while, that are initiate divines, to find no better fruits of our labours, [2030]

_hoc est cur palles, cur quis non prandeat hoc est_? do we macerate ourselves for this? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long?

[2031]"Leaping" (as he saith) "out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we had heard a thunderclap." If this be all the respect, reward and honour we shall have, [2032]_frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos_: let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life; to what end should we study? [2033]_Quid me litterulas stulti docuere parentes_, what did our parents mean to make us scholars, to be as far to seek of preferment after twenty years' study, as we were at first: why do we take such pains? _Quid tantum insanis juvat impallescere chartis_? If there be no more hope of reward, no better encouragement, I say again, _Frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos_; let's turn soldiers, sell our books, and buy swords, guns, and pikes, or stop bottles with them, turn our philosopher's gowns, as Cleanthes once did, into millers' coats, leave all and rather betake ourselves to any other course of life, than to continue longer in this misery. [2034]_Praestat dentiscalpia radere, quam literariis monumentis magnatum favorem emendicare_.

Yea, but methinks I hear some man except at these words, that though this be true which I have said of the estate of scholars, and especially of divines, that it is miserable and distressed at this time, that the church suffers s.h.i.+pwreck of her goods, and that they have just cause to complain; there is a fault, but whence proceeds it? If the cause were justly examined, it would be retorted upon ourselves, if we were cited at that tribunal of truth, we should be found guilty, and not able to excuse it That there is a fault among us, I confess, and were there not a buyer, there would not be a seller; but to him that will consider better of it, it will more than manifestly appear, that the fountain of these miseries proceeds from these griping patrons. In accusing them, I do not altogether excuse us; both are faulty, they and we: yet in my judgment, theirs is the greater fault, more apparent causes and much to be condemned. For my part, if it be not with me as I would, or as it should, I do ascribe the cause, as [2035]Cardan did in the like case; _meo infortunio potius quam illorum sceleri_, to [2036]mine own infelicity rather than their naughtiness: although I have been baffled in my time by some of them, and have as just cause to complain as another: or rather indeed to mine own negligence; for I was ever like that Alexander in [2037]Plutarch, Cra.s.sus his tutor in philosophy, who, though he lived many years familiarly with rich Cra.s.sus, was even as poor when from, (which many wondered at) as when he came first to him; he never asked, the other never gave him anything; when he travelled with Cra.s.sus he borrowed a hat of him, at his return restored it again. I have had some such n.o.ble friends' acquaintance and scholars, but most part (common courtesies and ordinary respects excepted) they and I parted as we met, they gave me as much as I requested, and that was--And as Alexander ab Alexandro _Genial. dier. l. 6. c. 16._ made answer to Hieronymus Ma.s.sainus, that wondered, _quum plures ignavos et ign.o.biles ad dignitates et sacerdotia promotos quotidie videret_, when other men rose, still he was in the same state, _eodem tenore et fortuna cui mercedem laborum studiorumque deberi putaret_, whom he thought to deserve as well as the rest. He made answer, that he was content with his present estate, was not ambitious, and although _objurgabundus suam segnitiem accusaret, c.u.m obscurae sortis homines ad sacerdotia et pontificatus evectos_, &c., he chid him for his backwardness, yet he was still the same: and for my part (though I be not worthy perhaps to carry Alexander's books) yet by some overweening and well-wis.h.i.+ng friends, the like speeches have been used to me; but I replied still with Alexander, that I had enough, and more peradventure than I deserved; and with Libanius Sophista, that rather chose (when honours and offices by the emperor were offered unto him) to be _talis Sophista, quam tails Magistratus_. I had as lief be still Democritus junior, and _privus privatus, si mihi jam daretur optio, quam talis forta.s.se Doctor, talis Dominus.--Sed quorsum haec_? For the rest 'tis on both sides _facinus detestandum_, to buy and sell livings, to detain from the church, that which G.o.d's and men's laws have bestowed on it; but in them most, and that from the covetousness and ignorance of such as are interested in this business; I name covetousness in the first place, as the root of all these mischiefs, which, Achan-like, compels them to commit sacrilege, and to make simoniacal compacts, (and what not) to their own ends, [2038]that kindles G.o.d's wrath, brings a plague, vengeance, and a heavy visitation upon themselves and others. Some out of that insatiable desire of filthy lucre, to be enriched, care not how they come by it _per fas et nefas_, hook or crook, so they have it. And others when they have with riot and prodigality embezzled their estates, to recover themselves, make a prey of the church, robbing it, as [2039]Julian the apostate did, spoil parsons of their revenues (in keeping half back, [2040]as a great man amongst us observes:) "and that maintenance on which they should live:" by means whereof, barbarism is increased, and a great decay of Christian professors: for who will apply himself to these divine studies, his son, or friend, when after great pains taken, they shall have nothing whereupon to live? But with what event do they these things?

[2041] "Opesque totis viribus venamini At inde messis accidit miserrima."

They toil and moil, but what reap they? They are commonly unfortunate families that use it, accursed in their progeny, and, as common experience evinceth, accursed themselves in all their proceedings. "With what face"

(as [2042]he quotes out of Aust.) "can they expect a blessing or inheritance from Christ in heaven, that defraud Christ of his inheritance here on earth?" I would all our simoniacal patrons, and such as detain t.i.thes, would read those judicious tracts of Sir Henry Spelman, and Sir James Sempill, knights; those late elaborate and learned treatises of Dr.

Tilslye, and Mr. Montague, which they have written of that subject. But though they should read, it would be to small purpose, _clames licet et mare coelo Confundas_; thunder, lighten, preach h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation, tell them 'tis a sin, they will not believe it; denounce and terrify, they have [2043]cauterised consciences, they do not attend, as the enchanted adder, they stop their ears. Call them base, irreligious, profane, barbarous, pagans, atheists, epicures, (as some of them surely are) with the bawd in Plautus, _Euge, optime_, they cry and applaud themselves with that miser, [2044]_simul ac nummos contemplor in arca_: say what you will, _quocunque modo rem_: as a dog barks at the moon, to no purpose are your sayings: Take your heaven, let them have money. A base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout: for my part, let them pretend what zeal they will, counterfeit religion, blear the world's eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their greatness with church spoils, s.h.i.+ne like so many peac.o.c.ks; so cold is my charity, so defective in this behalf, that I shall never think better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones are full of epicurean hypocrisy, and atheistical marrow, they are worse than heathens. For as Dionysius Halicarna.s.saeus observes, _Antiq. Rom. lib. 7._ [2045]_Primum loc.u.m_, &c. "Greeks and Barbarians observe all religious rites, and dare not break them for fear of offending their G.o.ds;" but our simoniacal contractors, our senseless Achans, our stupefied patrons, fear neither G.o.d nor devil, they have evasions for it, it is no sin, or not due _jure divino_, or if a sin, no great sin, &c. And though they be daily punished for it, and they do manifestly perceive, that as he said, frost and fraud come to foul ends; yet as [2046]Chrysostom follows it _Nulla ex poena sit correctio, et quasi adversis malitia hominum provocetur, crescit quotidie quod puniatur_: they are rather worse than better,--_iram atque animos a crimine sumunt_, and the more they are corrected, the more they offend: but let them take their course, [2047]_Rode caper vites_, go on still as they begin, 'tis no sin, let them rejoice secure, G.o.d's vengeance will overtake them in the end, and these ill-gotten goods, as an eagle's feathers, [2048]

will consume the rest of their substance; it is [2049]_aurum Tholosanum_, and will produce no better effects. [2050]"Let them lay it up safe, and make their conveyances never so close, lock and shut door," saith Chrysostom, "yet fraud and covetousness, two most violent thieves are still included, and a little gain evil gotten will subvert the rest of their goods." The eagle in Aesop, seeing a piece of flesh now ready to be sacrificed, swept it away with her claws, and carried it to her nest; but there was a burning coal stuck to it by chance, which unawares consumed her young ones, nest, and all together. Let our simoniacal church-chopping patrons, and sacrilegious harpies, look for no better success.

A second cause is ignorance, and from thence contempt, _successit odium in literas ab ignorantia vulgi_; which [2051]Junius well perceived: this hatred and contempt of learning proceeds out of [2052]ignorance; as they are themselves barbarous, idiots, dull, illiterate, and proud, so they esteem of others. _Sint Mecaenates, non deerunt Flacce Marones_: Let there be bountiful patrons, and there will be painful scholars in all sciences.

But when they contemn learning, and think themselves sufficiently qualified, if they can write and read, scramble at a piece of evidence, or have so much Latin as that emperor had, [2053]_qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere_, they are unfit to do their country service, to perform or undertake any action or employment, which may tend to the good of a commonwealth, except it be to fight, or to do country justice, with common sense, which every yeoman can likewise do. And so they bring up their children, rude as they are themselves, unqualified, untaught, uncivil most part. [2054]_Quis e nostra juventute legitime inst.i.tuitur literis? Quis oratores aut Philosophos tangit? quis historiam legit, illam rerum agendarum quasi animam? praecipitant parentes vota sua_, &c. 'twas Lipsius'

complaint to his illiterate countrymen, it may be ours. Now shall these men judge of a scholar's worth, that have no worth, that know not what belongs to a student's labours, that cannot distinguish between a true scholar and a drone? or him that by reason of a voluble tongue, a strong voice, a pleasing tone, and some trivially polyanthean helps, steals and gleans a few notes from other men's harvests, and so makes a fairer show, than he that is truly learned indeed: that thinks it no more to preach, than to speak, [2055]"or to run away with an empty cart;" as a grave man said: and thereupon vilify us, and our pains; scorn us, and all learning. [2056]

Because they are rich, and have other means to live, they think it concerns them not to know, or to trouble themselves with it; a fitter task for younger brothers, or poor men's sons, to be pen and inkhorn men, pedantical slaves, and no whit beseeming the calling of a gentleman, as Frenchmen and Germans commonly do, neglect therefore all human learning, what have they to do with it? Let mariners learn astronomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic; surveyors get them geometry; spectacle-makers optics; land-leapers geography; town-clerks rhetoric, what should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig; or they with learning, that have no use of it? thus they reason, and are not ashamed to let mariners, apprentices, and the basest servants, be better qualified than themselves. In former times, kings, princes, and emperors, were the only scholars, excellent in all faculties. Julius Caesar mended the year, and writ his own Commentaries,