Part 10 (1/2)
Ambition is a proud covetousness, a dry thirst of honour, the longing disease of reason, an aspiring and gallant madness. The ambitious climbs up high and perilous stairs, and never cares how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall. Having once cleaved like a burr to some great man's coat, he resolves not to be shaken off with any small indignities, and, finding his hold thoroughly fast, casts how to insinuate yet nearer. And therefore he is busy and servile in his endeavours to please, and all his officious respects turn home to himself. He can be at once a slave to command, an intelligencer to inform, a parasite to soothe and flatter, a champion to defend, an executioner to revenge anything for an advantage of favour. He hath projected a plot to rise, and woe be to the friend that stands in his way. He still haunteth the court, and his unquiet spirit haunteth him, which, having fetched him from the secure peace of his country rest, sets him new and impossible tasks, and, after many disappointments, encourages him to try the same sea in spite of his s.h.i.+pwrecks, and promise better success. A small hope gives him heart against great difficulties, and draws on new expense, new servility, persuading him like foolish boys to shoot away a second shaft, that he may find the first. He yieldeth, and now secure of the issue, applauds himself in that honour, which he still affecteth, still misseth; and, for the last of all trials, will rather bribe for a troublesome preferment than return void of a t.i.tle. But now, when he finds himself desperately crossed, and at once spoiled both of advancement and hope, both of fruition and possibility, all his desire is turned into rage, his thirst is now only of revenge, his tongue sounds of nothing but detraction and slander. Now the place he fought for is base, his rival unworthy, his adversary injurious, officers corrupt, court infectious; and how well is he that may be his own man, his own master, that may live safely in a mean distance, at pleasure, free from starving, free from burning? But if his designs speed well, ere he be warm in that feat, his mind is possessed of an higher. What he hath is but a degree to what he would have. Now he scorneth what he formerly aspired to. His success doth not give him so much contentment as provocation; neither can he be at rest so long as he hath one, either to overlook, or to match, or to emulate him. When his country friend comes to visit him, he carries him up to the awful presence, and now in his sight, crowding nearer to the chair of state, desires to be looked on, desires to be spoken to by the greatest, and studies how to offer an occasion, lest he should seem unknown, unregarded; and if any gesture of the least grace fall happily upon him, he looks back upon his friend, lest he should carelessly let it pa.s.s, without a note; and what he wanteth in sense he supplies in history. His disposition is never but shamefully unthankful, for unless he have all he hath nothing. It must be a large draught, whereof he will not say that those few drops do not slake but inflame him. So still he thinks himself the worse for small favours. His wit so contrives the likely plots of his promotion, as if he would steal it away without G.o.d's knowledge, besides His will. Neither doth he ever look up, and consult in his forecasts with the supreme Moderator of all things, as one that thinks honour is ruled by fortune, and that heaven meddleth not with the disposing of these earthly lots; and therefore it is just with that wise G.o.d to defeat his fairest hopes, and to bring him to a loss in the hottest of his chase, and to cause honour to fly away so much the faster, by how much it is more eagerly pursued. Finally, he is an importunate suitor, a corrupt client, a violent undertaker, a smooth factor, but untrusty, a restless master of his own, a bladder puffed up with the wind of hope and self-love. He is in the common body as a mole in the earth, ever unquietly casting; and, in one word, is nothing but a confused heap of envy, pride, covetousness.
OF THE UNTHRIFT.
He ranges beyond his pale, and lives without compa.s.s. His expense is measured, not by ability, but will. His pleasures are immoderate, and not honest. A wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, a gamesome hand, have impoverished him. The vulgar sort call him bountiful, and applaud him when he spends; and recompense him with wishes when he gives, with pity when he wants. Neither can it be denied that he raught true liberality, but overwent it. No man could have lived more laudably, if, when he was at the best, he had stayed there. While he is present, none of the wealthier guests may pay aught to the shot without much vehemence, without danger of unkindness. Use hath made it unpleasant to him not to spend. He is in all things more ambitious of the t.i.tle of good fellows.h.i.+p than of wisdom. When he looks into the wealthy chest of his father, his conceit suggests that it cannot be emptied; and while he takes out some deal every day, he perceives not any diminution; and when the heap is sensibly abated, yet still flatters himself with enough. One hand cozens the other, and the belly deceives both. He doth not so much bestow benefits as scatter them. True merit doth not carry them, but smoothness of adulation. His senses are too much his guides and his purveyors, and appet.i.te is his steward. He is an impotent servant to his l.u.s.ts, and knows not to govern either his mind or his purse.
Improvidence is ever the companion of unthriftiness. This man cannot look beyond the present, and neither thinks nor cares what shall be, much less suspects what may be; and while he lavishes out his substance in superfluities, thinks he only knows what the world is worth, and that others overprize it. He feels poverty before he sees it, never complains till he be pinched with wants; never spares till the bottom, when it is too late either to spend or recover. He is every man's friend save his own, and then wrongs himself most when he courteth himself with most kindness. He vies time with the slothful, and it is a hard match whether chases away good hours to worse purpose, the one by doing nothing, or the other by idle pastime. He hath so dilated himself with the beams of prosperity that he lies open to all dangers, and cannot gather up himself, on just warning, to avoid a mischief. He were good for an almoner, ill for a steward. Finally, he is the living tomb of his forefathers, of his posterity; and when he hath swallowed both, is more empty than before he devoured them.
OF THE ENVIOUS.
He feeds on others' evils, and hath no disease but his neighbour's welfare. Whatsoever G.o.d do for him, he cannot be happy with company; and if he were put to choose whether he would rather have equals in a common felicity, or superiors in misery, he would demur upon the election. His eye casts out too much, and never returns home, but to make comparisons with another's good. He is an ill prizer of foreign commodity; worse of his own, for that he rates too high, this under value. You shall have him ever inquiring into the estates of his equals and betters, wherein he is not more desirous to hear all than loth to hear anything over good; and if just report relate aught better than he would, he redoubles the question, as being hard to believe what he likes not, and hopes yet, if that be averred again to his grief, that there is somewhat concealed in the relation, which, if it were known, would argue the commended party miserable, and blemish him with secret shame. He is ready to quarrel with G.o.d, because the next field is fairer grown, and angrily calculates his cost, and time, and tillage. Whom he dares not openly backbite, nor wound with a direct censure, he strikes smoothly with an over cold praise; and when he sees that he must either maliciously impugn the just praise of another (which were unsafe), or approve it by a.s.sent, he yieldeth; but shows withal that his means were such, both by nature and education, that he could not, without much neglect, be less commendable. So his happiness shall be made the colour of detraction.
When an wholesome law is propounded, he crosseth it either by open or close opposition, not for any incommodity or inexpedience, but because it proceeded from any mouth besides his own. And it must be a cause rarely plausible that will not admit some probable contradiction. When his equal should rise to honour, he strives against it unseen, and rather with much cost suborneth great adversaries; and when he sees his resistance vain, he can give an hollow gratulation in presence, but in secret disparages that advancement. Either the man is unfit for the place, or the place for the man; or if fit, yet less gainful, or more common than opinion; whereto he adds that himself might have had the same dignity upon better terms, and refused it. He is witty in devising suggestions to bring his rival out of love into suspicion. If he be courteous, he is seditiously popular; if bountiful, he binds over his clients to a faction; if successful in war, he is dangerous in peace; if wealthy, he lays up for a day; if powerful, nothing wants but opportunity of rebellion. His submission is ambitious hypocrisy; his religion, politic insinuation; no action is safe from a jealous construction. When he receives a good report of him whom he emulates, he saith, ”Fame is partial, and is wont to blanche mischiefs;” and pleaseth himself with hope to find it worse; and if ill-will have dispersed any more spiteful narration, he lays hold on that, against all witnesses, and broacheth that rumour for truest because worst; and when he sees him perfectly miserable, he can at once pity him, and rejoice. What himself cannot do, others shall not; he hath gained well if he have hindered the success of what he would have done, and could not. He conceals his best skill, not so as it may not be known that he knows it, but so as it may not be learned, because he would have the world miss him. He attained to a foreign medicine by the secret legacy of a dying empiric, whereof he will leave no heir lest the praise shall be divided. Finally, he is an enemy to G.o.d's favours, if they fall beside himself; the best nurse of ill-fame, a man of the worst diet, for he consumes himself, and delights in pining; a thorn-hedge covered with nettles, a peevish interpreter of good things, and no other than a lean and pale carcase quickened with a fiend.
JOHN STEPHENS,
_The younger, a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, published in 1615 ”Satyrical Essayes, Characters, and others, or accurate and quick Descriptions fitted to the life of their Subjects.” He had published two years before a play called ”Cinthia's Revenge, or Maenander's Extasie,” which Langbaine described as one of the longest he had ever read, and the most tedious. Somebody seems to have attacked him and his Characters. A second edition, in 1631, was ent.i.tled ”New Essays and Characters, with a new Satyre in defence of the Common Law, and Lawyers: mixt with Reproofe against their enemy Ignoramus.”_
JOHN EARLE
_Is the next of our Character writers. His ”Microcosmography, or a Piece of the World discovered, in Essays and Characters” was first printed in 1628. John Earle was born in the city of York, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, probably in the year 1601. His father, who was Registrar of the Archbishop's Court, sent him to Oxford in 1619, and he was said to be eighteen years old when he matriculated, that year, as a commoner at Christchurch. He graduated as Master of Arts in 1624. He was a Fellow of Merton, and wrote in his younger days several occasional poems that won credit before he published anonymously, still as an Oxford man, when he was about twenty-seven years old, his famous Characters. But he remembered York when adding to their t.i.tle that they were ”newly composed for the northern part of this Kingdom.” This first edition contained fifty-four characters, which precede the others in the following collection. In the next year, 1629, the book reached a fifth edition, printed for Robert Allot, in which the number of the characters was increased to seventy-six. Two more characters--a Herald, and a Suspicious or Jealous Man--were added in the sixth edition, which was printed for Allot in 1633. The seventh edition was printed for Andrew Coolie in 1638, the eighth in 1650. Other editions followed in 1669, 1676, 1732, and at Salisbury in 1786. In 1811 the little book was edited carefully by Dr. Philip Bliss, and it was edited again by Professor Edward Arber in 1868, in his valuable series of English Reprints.
John Earle, after the production of his ”Microcosmography,” wrote in April 1630 a short poem upon the death of William, third Earl of Pembroke, son of Sidney's sister. The third Earl's younger brother Philip succeeded as fourth Earl, and was Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He was then, or thereafter became, Earle's patron, and made him his chaplain. About the same time, in 1631, Earle acted as proctor of the University. In 1639 the Earl of Pembroke presented John Earle to the living of Bishopston in Wilts.h.i.+re, as successor to Chillingworth.
Pembroke being Lord Chamberlain was ent.i.tled also to a residence at Court for his chaplain, and thus Earle was brought under the immediate notice of Charles I., who appointed him to be his own chaplain, and made him tutor to Prince Charles in 1641, when Dr. Brian Duppa, the preceding tutor, had been made Bishop of Salisbury. In 1642 Earle proceeded to the degree of D.D. In 1643 he was elected Chancellor of the Cathedral at Salisbury, but he was presently deprived by the Parliament of that office, and of his living at Bishopston. He then lived in retirement abroad, made a translation into Latin of Hooker's ”Ecclesiastical Polity” which his servants negligently used, after his death, as waste paper, and of the ”Eikon Basilike” which was published in 1649. After the Restoration, Dr. Earle was made Dean of Westminster; then, in 1662, Bishop of Worcester. He was translated to Salisbury in 1663, died in November 1665, and was buried near the altar in Merton College Church.
Earle was a man so gentle and liberal, that while Clarendon described him as ”among the few excellent men who never had and never could have an enemy,” Baxter wrote in the margin of a kindly letter from him, ”O, that they were all such!” and Calamy described him as ”a man that could do good against evil, forgive much out of a charitable heart.” The Parliament, even just before depriving him as a malignant, had put him to the trouble of declining its nomination as one of the Westminster a.s.sembly of Divines. As a Bishop in the early days of Charles the Second he did all he could to oppose the persecuting spirit of the first Conventicle Act and of the Five Mile Act.
Dr. Philip Bliss, who died in 1857, after a life marked by many services to English Literature, chose Bishop Earle's ”Characters” for one of his earlier studies, published in 1811, when his own age was twenty-four.
His book[2] included an account of Bishop Earle himself, a list of his writings, publication for the first time of some of his early verses, his correspondence with Baxter, and a Chronological List of Books of Characters from 1567 to 1700, which was the first contribution to a study of this feature in our Seventeenth Century Literature. Bliss took his text of Earle from the edition of 1732, collated with the first impression in 1628. As the Characters which now follow are given with Bliss's text and notes, I add what the editor himself says of his method. The variations of the 1732 text from the first impressions in 1628 are thus distinguished: ”Those words or pa.s.sages which have been added since the first edition are contained between brackets_ [and printed in the common type]; _those which have received some alteration are printed in italic; and the pa.s.sages, as they stand in the first edition, are always given in a note.”_
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
OR,
A PIECE OF THE WORLD CHARACTERIZED.
A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write this character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper[3] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith, at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils to come, by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not come to his task of melancholy. [4][All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums, rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see what innocence he hath out-lived. The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from G.o.d; and, like his first father, much worse in his breeches.[5] He is the Christian's example, and the old man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the other falls into his simplicity.
Could he put off his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another.
A YOUNG RAW PREACHER