Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century Part 7

Who G.o.d doth late and early pray More of His grace than gifts to lend; Who entertains the harmless day With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands, Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And having nothing he hath all.

AN ESSAY OF VALOUR.

I am of opinion that nothing is so potent either to procure or merit love as valour, and I am glad I am so, for thereby I shall do myself much ease, because valour never needs much wit to maintain it. To speak of it in itself, it is a quality which he that hath shall have least need of; so the best league between princes is a mutual fear of each other. It teacheth a man to value his reputation as his life, and chiefly to hold the lie insufferable, though being alone he finds no hurt it doth him. It leaves itself to other's censures; for he that brags of his own, dissuades others from believing it. It feareth a sword no more than an ague. It always makes good the owner; for though he be generally held a fool, he shall seldom hear so much by word of mouth, and that enlargeth him more than any spectacles, for it makes a little fellow to be called a tall man. It yields the wall to none but a woman, whose weakness is her prerogative; or a man seconded with a woman, as an usher which always goes before his betters. It makes a man become the witness of his own words, to stand to whatever he hath said, and thinketh it a reproach to commit his reviling unto the law. It furnisheth youth with action, and age with discourse, and both by futures; for a man must never boast himself in the present tense. And to come nearer home, nothing draws a woman like to it, for valour towards men is an emblem of an ability towards women, a good quality signifies a better. Nothing is more behoveful for that s.e.x, for from it they receive protection, and we free from the danger of it; nothing makes a shorter cut to obtaining, for a man of arms is always void of ceremony, which is the wall that stands betwixt Pyramus and Thisbe, that is, man and woman, for there is no pride in women but that which rebounds from our own baseness, as cowards grow valiant upon those that are more cowards, so that only by our pale asking we teach them to deny. And by our shamefacedness we put them in mind to be modest, whereas indeed, it is cunning rhetoric to persuade the hearers that they are that already which we would have them to be. This kind of bashfulness is far from men of valour, and especially from soldiers, for such are ever men without doubt forward and confident, losing no time lest they should lose opportunity, which is the best factor for a lover. And because they know women are given to dissemble, they will never believe them when they deny. Whilom before this age of wit and wearing black broke in upon us, there was no way known to win a lady but by tilting, tourneying, and riding through forests, in which time these slender striplings with little legs were held but of strength enough to marry their widows. And even in our days there can be given no reason of the inundation of serving-men upon their mistresses, but only that usually they carry their mistresses' weapons and his valour. To be counted handsome, just, learned, or well-favoured, all this carries no danger with it, but it is to be admitted to the t.i.tle of valiant acts, at least the venturing of his mortality, and all women take delight to hold him safe in their arms who hath escaped thither through many dangers. To speak at once, man hath a privilege in valour; in clothes and good faces we but imitate women, and many of that s.e.x will not think much, as far as an answer goes, to dissemble wit too. So then these neat youths, these women in men's apparel, are too near a woman to be beloved of her, they be both of a trade; but he of grim aspect, and such a one a gla.s.s dares take, and she will desire him for newness and variety. A scar in a man's face is the same that a mole in a woman's, is a jewel set in white to make it seem more white, for a scar in a man is a mark of honour and no blemish, for 'tis a scar and a blemish in a soldier to be without one. Now, as for all things else which are to procure love, as a good face, wit clothes, or a good body, each of them, I confess, may work somewhat for want of a better, that is, if valour be not their rival. A good face avails nothing if it be in a coward that is bashful, the utmost of it is to be kissed, which rather increaseth than quencheth appet.i.te. He that sends her gifts sends her word also that he is a man of small gifts otherwise, for wooing by signs and tokens employs the author dumb; and if Ovid, who writ the law of love, were alive (as he is extant), he would allow it as good a diversity that gifts should be sent as gratuities, not as bribes. Wit getteth rather promise than love. Wit is not to be seen, and no woman takes advice of any in her loving but of her own eyes and her waiting-woman's; nay, which is worse, wit is not to be felt, and so no good bedfellow. Wit applied to a woman makes her dissolve her simpering and discover her teeth with laughter, and this is surely a purge of love, for the beginning of love is a kind of foolish melancholy. As for the man that makes his tailor his means, and hopes to inveigle his love with such a coloured suit, surely the same deeply hazards the loss of her favour upon every change of his clothes. So likewise for the other that courts her silently with a good body, let me certify him, that his clothes depend upon the comeliness of his body, and so both upon opinion. She that hath been seduced by apparel let me give her to wit, that men always put off their clothes before they go to bed. And let her that hath been enamoured of her servant's body understand, that if she saw him in a skin of cloth, that is, in a suit made of the pattern of his body, she would see slender cause to love him ever after. There is no clothes sit so well in a woman's eye as a suit of steel, though not of the fas.h.i.+on, and no man so soon surpriseth a woman's affections as he that is the subject of all whispering, and hath always twenty stories of his own deeds depending upon him. Mistake me not; I understand not by valour one that never fights but when he is backed with drink or anger, or hissed on with beholders, nor one that is desperate, nor one that takes away a serving-man's weapons when perchance it cost him his quarter's wages, nor yet one that wears a privy coat of defence and therein is confident, for then such as made bucklers would be counted the Catilines of the commonwealth. I intend one of an even resolution grounded upon reason, which is always even, having his power restrained by the law of not doing wrong. But now I remember I am for valour, and therefore must be a man of few words.

JOSEPH HALL'S

CHARACTERS OF VICES AND VIRTUES

_were published four years earlier than Overbury's, but Overbury's were posthumous, and in actual time of writing there can have been no very material difference. Hall's age was thirty-four when he first published his Characters. He was born on the 1st July 1574, at Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicesters.h.i.+re. His father was governor of this town under the Earl of Huntingdon, when he was President of the North. His mother, Winifred, was a devout Puritan, and he was from infancy intended for the Church.

In 1589, at the age of fifteen, Joseph Hall was sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was maintained at the cost of an uncle. He pa.s.sed all his degrees with applause, obtained a Fellows.h.i.+p of his college in 1595, and proceeded to M.A. in 1596, and having already obtained credit at Cambridge as an English poet, he published in 1597 "Virgidemiarum, Sixe Bookes, First Three Books of Toothlesse Satyrs, Poetical, Academical, Moral, followed in the next year by Three last Bookes of Byting Satyres." Of these Satires he said in their Prologue--_

"I first adventure, with foolhardy might, To tread the steps of perilous despite.

I first adventure, follow me who list, And be the second English satirist."

_He could only have meant by this to claim that he was the first in England to write Satires in the manner of the Latins. He would not bend, he said, to Lady or to Patron--_

"Rather had I, albe in careless rhymes, Check the misordered world and lawless times."

_Some of these Satires were, of course, of the nature of Characters, and I quote two or three in pa.s.sing._

A DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN.

A gentle squire would gladly entertain Into his house some trencher-chaplain; Some willing man that might instruct his sons, And that would stand to good conditions.

First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, Whilst his young master lieth o'er his head.

Secondly, that he do, on no default, Ever presume to sit above the salt.

Third, that he never change his trencher twice.

Fourth, that he use all common courtesies; Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait.

Last, that he never his young master beat But he must ask his mother to define How many jerks she would his breech should line.

All these observed, he could contented be, To give five marks and winter livery.

THE WITLESS GALLANT.

Seest thou how gaily my young master goes, Vaunting himself upon his rising toes; And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side; And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide?

'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day?

In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray.

Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer, Keeps he for every straggling cavalier.

An open house, haunted with great resort; Long service mixed with musical disport.

Many fair younker with a feathered crest, Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest, To fare so freely with so little cost, Than stake his twelve-pence to a meaner host.

Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say He touched no meat of all this live-long day.

For sure methought, yet that was but a guess, His eyes seem sunk for very hollowness, But could he have (as I did it mistake) So little in his purse, so much upon his back?

So nothing in his maw? yet seemeth by his belt, That his gaunt gut not too much stuffing felt.

Seest thou how side it hangs beneath his hip?

Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip.

Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by, All trapped in the new-found bravery.

The nuns of new-won Cales his bonnet lent, In lieu of their so kind a conquerment.

What needed he fetch that from farthest Spain, His grandam could have lent with lesser pain?

Tho' he perhaps ne'er pa.s.sed the English sh.o.r.e, Yet fain would counted be a conqueror.

His hair, French-like, stares on his frightened head, One lock amazon-like dishevelled, As if he meant to wear a native cord, If chance his fates should him that bane afford.

All British bare upon the bristled skin, Close notched is his beard both lip and chin; His linen collar labyrinthian set, Whose thousand double turnings never met: His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings, As if he meant to fly with linen wings.

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below, What monster meets mine eyes in human show?

So slender waist with such an abbot's loin, Did never sober nature sure conjoin.

Lik'st a strawn scare-crow in the new-sown field, Reared on some stick, the tender corn to s.h.i.+eld.

Or if that semblance suit not every dale, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel Despised nature suit them once aright, Their body to their coat, both now misdight.

Their body to their clothes might shapen be, That nil their clothes shape to their body.

Meanwhile I wonder at so proud a back, Whilst, the empty guts loud rumbling for long lack, The belly envieth the back's bright glee, And murmurs at such inequality.

The back appears unto the partial eyne, The plaintive belly pleads they bribed been; And he, for want of better advocate, Doth to the ear his injury relate.

The back, insulting o'er the belly's need, Says, thou thyself, I others' eyes must feed.

The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain The back's great pride, and their own secret pain.

Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts, That sets such discord 'twixt agreeing parts, Which never can be set at onement more, Until the maw's wide mouth be stopped with store.

_Joseph Hall obtained in 1601 the living of Halsted in Suffolk, and married in 1603. In an autobiographical sketch of "Some Specialities in the Life of Joseph Hall," he thus tells us himself the manner of his marrying_:--

"Being now, therefore, settled in that sweet and civil country of Suffolk, near to St. Edmundsbury, my first work was to build up my house, which was extremely ruinous; which done, the uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme incommodity of that single housekeeping, drew my thoughts, after two years, to condescend to the necessity of a married estate, which G.o.d no less strangely provided for me; for, walking from the church on Monday in the Whitsun-week, with a grave and reverend minister, Mr. Grandidge, I saw a comely and modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were invited to a wedding dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether he knew her. Yes (quoth he), I know her well, and have bespoken her for your wife. When I farther demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr. George Winniff, of Bretenham; that out of an opinion had of the fitness of that match for me, he had already treated with her father about it, whom he found very apt to entertain it, advising me not to neglect the opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of modesty, piety, good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly presence. I listened to the motion as sent from G.o.d, and at last, upon due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of that meet help for the s.p.a.ce of forty-nine years."

_In 1605 Joseph Hall published at Frankfort in Latin a witty satire on the weak side of the world, which had been written several years earlier, ent.i.tled "Mundus Alter et Idem." Of this book I have given a description in the volume of "Ideal Commonwealths," which forms one of the series of the "Universal Library." Hall had obtained reputation as a divine, by publis.h.i.+ng two centuries of religious "Meditations," which united wit with piety. Prince Henry, having sought an opportunity of hearing him preach, made Hall his chaplain, and the Earl of Norwich gave him the living of Waltham in Ess.e.x. At the same time, 1608, a translation of Hall's Latin Satire, printed twice abroad, was published in London as "The Discovery of a New World;" he himself published also two volumes of Epistles, and this book of "Characters." There was a long career before him as a leader among churchmen fallen upon troubled days.

He became Bishop of Exeter and was translated to Norwich. He was committed to the Tower, released, and ejected from his see, and after ten years of retirement, living upon narrow means at the village of Higham near Norwich, he died in the Commonwealth time at the age of eighty-two, on the 8th of September 1656. He took a conspicuous part in the controversy of 1641 about the bishops, but twenty years before that date a collection of his earlier works had formed a substantial folio of more than eleven hundred pages. His "Characters of Virtues and Vices,"

written in early manhood, follow next in our collection._

CHARACTERS OF VIRTUES AND VICES.

_IN TWO BOOKS._

BY JOSEPH HALL.

A PREMONITION or THE t.i.tLE AND USE OF CHARACTERS.

Reader,--The divines of the old heathens were their moral philosophers.

These received the acts of an inbred law, in the Sinai of nature, and delivered them with many expositions to the mult.i.tude. These were the overseers of manners, correctors of vices, directors of lives, doctors of virtue, which yet taught their people the body of their natural divinity, not after one manner: while some spent themselves in deep discourses of human felicity and the way to it in common, others thought it best to apply the general precepts of goodness or decency to particular conditions and persons. A third sort in a mean course betwixt the two other, and compounded of them both, bestowed their time in drawing out the true lineaments of every virtue and vice, so lively, that who saw the medals might know the face; which art they significantly termed Charactery. Their papers were so many tables, their writings so many speaking pictures, or living images, whereby the ruder mult.i.tude might even by their sense learn to know virtue and discern what to detest. I am deceived if any course could be more likely to prevail, for herein the gross conceit is led on with pleasure, and informed while it feels nothing but delight; and if pictures have been accounted the books of idiots, behold here the benefit of an image without the offence. It is no shame for us to learn wit of heathens, neither is it material in whose school we take out a good lesson. Yea, it is more shame not to follow their good than not to lead them better.