O do not die, for I shall hate
All women so, when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate,
When I remember thou wast one.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge and you, w'are met,
And cloyster'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that selfe murder added be,
And sacriledge, three sins in killing three.
Aussi Suckling l'appelle the Great lord of witt.
[346]: 1608-1667. J'ai sous les yeux la onzième édition de 1710.
[347]: Par exemple: The Spring (The Mistress, tome 1er, page 72).
[348]: Shakspeare: Tempest, Measure for measure, Hamlet; Beaumond and Flechter: Thierry and Theodoret, acte 4e. Voyez aussi Webster, passim.
[349]: This roving humour (though not with like success) I have ever had, and, like a ranging spaniel, that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, I have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly, qui ubique est, nusquam est, which Gesner did in modesty: that I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want of good method; I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our libraries with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgment. I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of cosmography. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, etc., and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conjunction with mine ascendent; both fortunate in their houses, etc. I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world, et tanquam in specula positus (as he said) in some high place above you all, like stoicus sapiens, omnia sæcula præterita præsentiaque videns, uno velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and country. Far from those wrangling law-suits, aulæ vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, "only secure, lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for;" a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day: and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets; spectrums, prodigies, apparitions; of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms—a vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances—are daily brought to our ears: new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, etc. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts, and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies, in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters. To-day we hear of new lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred: one is let loose, another imprisoned: one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, etc. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news.
[350]: For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optic, astronomy, architecture, sculptura, pictura, of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late written: in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, etc., with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, etc., they afford great tomes, or those studies of antiquity, etc., et quid subtilius arithmeticis inventionibus? quid jucundius musicis rationibus? quid divinius astronomicis? quid rectius geometricis demonstrationibus? What so sure, what so pleasant? he that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garizenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburgh, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument? Archimedis cochlea, and rare devises to corrivate waters, music instruments, and trisyllable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, etc.? Their names alone are the subject of whole volumes: we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, etc. Methinks it would well please any man to look upon a geographical map (suavi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucunditatem et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare) chorographical, topographical delineations; to behold, as it were, all the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits of his study; to measure, by the scale and compass, their extent, distance, examine their site. Charles the great (as Platina writes) had three fair silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole world; and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius, Mercator, Hondius, etc., to peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus, and Hogenbergius? to read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus, Leander Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Gerbelius, etc.? those famous expeditions of Christopher Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Marcus Polus the Venitian, Vertomannus, Aloysius Cadamustus, etc.? those accurate diaries of Portugals, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver à Nort, etc., Hacluit's voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's relations, those Hodœporicons of Jod. à Meggen, Brocarde the Monk, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sands, etc., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Polonus, etc., to read Bellonius's observations, P. Gillius his surveys; those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres à Bry? to see a well cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetals, expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Besler of Noremberge; wherein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, etc., all creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, etc., as hath been accurately performed by Ælian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonus, Rondoletius, Hippolytus Salvianus, etc.
[351]: Anatomy of melancoly, 1621.