1 EADMER.
The Saint must have been in a most satisfactory state of self-sufficiency when he thus reckoned upon his own ability for disposing of a question which he thought it doubtful whether any one who came after him would be able to solve. All other appetite had forsaken him; but that for unprofitable speculation and impossible knowledge clung to him to the last; so strong a relish had he retained of the forbidden fruit;
Letting down buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up2
So had the Saint lived beyond the allotted term of three-score years and ten, and his hand was still upon the windlass when the hand of death was upon him. One of our old Dramatists3 represented a seven years apprenticeship to such a craft as sufficient for bringing a man to a just estimate of it:—
I was a scholar; seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations
Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man;
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.
DELIGHT, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused leaves,
Toss'd o'er the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words; and still my spaniel slept.
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antick Donate; still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, an sit anima?
Then an it were mortal? O hold, hold; at that
They're at brain-buffets, fell by the ears amain
Pell-mell together: still my spaniel slept.
Then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixt,
Ex traduce, but whether't had free will
Or no, hot Philosophers
Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt,
I staggered, knew not which was firmer part,
But thought, quoted, read, observed and pryed,
Stufft noting-books; and still my spaniel slept.
At length he waked and yawn'd; and by yon sky,
For aught I know he knew as much as I.
In a more serious mood than that of this scholar, and in a humbler and holier state of mind than belonged to the Saint, our philosopher used to say, “little indeed does it concern us, in this our mortal stage, to enquire whence the spirit hath come,—but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither is it going!”
2 COWPER.
2 MARSTON.