[18] One would willingly know a little more of this phrase ‘lucid interval,’ which had evidently about the time of the first of my quotations recently come into the language, but from what quarter, whether from the writings of physicians or naturalists, or from what other source, I am unable to say. Of its recent introduction I find evidence in the following passage:—‘The saints have their turbida intervalla, their ebbing and flowing, their full and their wane; but yet all their cloudings do but obscure their graces, not extinguish them. All the goodness of other men that seem to live, are but lucida intervalla, they are good but by fits.’ (Preston, Description of Spiritual Death and Life, 1636, p. 73.) No one would have used this Latin phrase in a sermon had ‘lucid interval’ been already familiar in English, or had ‘lucidum intervallum’ not already somewhere existed. The word ‘interval,’ it may be here remarked, was only coming into use at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Holland in his Pliny uses, but using explains it; while Chillingworth still regards it as Latin, and writes ‘intervalla.’
[19] Edward, George, Richard, and Edmund.
[20] ‘Taryinge, morosus.’—Catholicon.
[21] There is allusion here to the Latin proverb Medice vivere est misere vivere.
[22] In heaven.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in spelling and punctuation from the various sources cited have been left unchanged.