English Essays

i. e., in the reason, man's mental eye.-26. impression=edition.27. an elemental life, i. e., a life inhering in the four material elements of medieval physics (Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry), in distinction from the fifth element, which was ethereal and the very essence of the thing (cf. quintessence ").

12.-7. those confused seeds: Venus, enraged with Psyche for having won the love of Cupid, set her the task of sorting a heap of many kinds of seeds, the whole to be done before evening; compassionate ants did it for her (see Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Books IV.-VI., for the whole story of Cupid and Psyche).-19. wayfaring traveling along the way; cf. 'thoroughfare." (Professor Hales reads “warfaring," on the strength of a written correction of the "y" to "r" in a copy presented by Milton to a friend; whether the correction is in Milton's hand is uncertain. Warfaring," as Professor Hales says, implies a more active resistance to evil; but "wayfaring goes better with the figure of a race, in the next sentence, which was perhaps suggested by it.)-28. blank colorless, neutral.-31. Scotus or Aquinas: famous schoolmen of the thirteenth century.-32. Guyon: The Faerie Queene, Book II.

13.-16. professors, i. e., professors of religion; here, as often, it means the Puritans, because of their strict and often loud professions of godliness.-17. lay Papist: Milton implies that the ignorant laity had more faith in Papist superstitions than the clergy had. Loretto: an Italian town, where were supposed to be the walls (moved from Palestine by angels) of the house in which the Virgin Mary lived.-20. mysteries-occupations, trades (Lat. ministerium, occupation").

14.-14. Alcoran the Koran, or Mohammedan Bible.-19. prelates: archbishops and bishops of the English church, which the Independents thought too like the Church of Rome.-29. Typhon: brother or son of Osiris, the Egyptian god; he dismembered Osiris and threw the pieces into the Nile; Isis, sister and wife of Osiris, sought the pieces far and wide, and whenever she found one buried it.

15.-2. feature shape (Lat. factura, "anything made," a work").-8. combust: an old astronomical term, applied to planets when near the sun.-18. economical-domestic.-19. Zuinglius: a Swiss religious reformer (1484-1531), one of the founders of Protestantism.-26. Syntagma-handbook, summary (literally, collection ").-37. ingenious possessed of great intellectual capacity, having genius.-38. invent-find out, discover (Lat. invenire, "to come upon ").-discourse argue, reason.

16.-5-6. Pythagoras the Persian wisdom: even if there is any truth in the old tradition that Greek and Persian philosophers learned wisdom from the British druids, it is aside from the point, for the ancient Britons were a totally different people from the English, who did not come to England until the fifth century A. D.; the same remark applies to the reference to Agricola.-10. Transylvanian: Transylvania, afterwards a part of Hungary, was then independent.-12. Hercynian wilderness: a rather vaguely defined mountainous region between Germany and Russia.-21. Wiclif: John Wiclif (1324?-1384), an English religious reformer, sometimes called "the morning-star of the

Reformation "; he denied the doctrine of transubstantiation and renounced his allegiance to the Pope; see pp. 347-349 for extracts from his translation of the Bible.-23. Huss: John Huss (1369-1415), a Bohemian religious reformer and disciple of Wiclif; he condemned the sale of indulgences, and was burned at the stake for heresy.-Jerome: Jerome of Prague (1365?-1416). a follower of Huss; he was burned at the stake for heresy.-26. demeaned managed.-27-28. of whom, i. e., of those whom.37. mansion house-dwelling-house, home, of some largeness and grandeur (Lat. manere, "to stay").

17.-14. the fields are white: John iv. 35.-17. fantastic_ fanciful.-34. Pyrrhus: king of Epirus, Greece, who defeated the Romans at Heraclea, 280 B. C.-35. Epirots=men of Epirus.38. sectaries sectarians, members of a sect.

18.-15-16. Moses .

glorious wish: Num. xi. 29.-27.

maniples small bodies of soldiers.

19.-7. derives-extends.-9-10. when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal: during the second Punic War (218-202 B. C.).—15. to-as to.-16. pertest-liveliest, most agile; cf. “the pert and nimble spirit of mirth" (A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Î. i. 13).-18. sprightly: used adverbially, modifying up." 26. methinks it seems to me (O. E. thyncan, "to appear"; a different word from thencan, "to think ")-29. mewing=renewing by changing her feathers (Lat. mutare, "to change ").—32. noise of birds: figurative for "noisy birds."-flocking: because afraid to fly alone, as Puritan England is doing.-38. engrossers monopolizers (from the practice of buying merchandise in gross, or large quantities, in order to get a monopoly; here the reference is to the press-censors).

20.-27-28. for cote and conduct and his four nobles of Danegelt: to resist illegal taxation for clothing and conveyance [="conduct"] of troops and also for the provision of a navy.... Danegelt Dane-money, was the name of an ancient land-tax levied to provide means for bribing off or for repelling the Danes.... Upon this highly dubious precedent the King's [Charles I.'s] advisers greatly relied in their advocacy and exaction of ship-money (Areopagitica, ed. by J. W. Hales, Oxford, 1894).-35. controversal-turned in opposite directions; Janus had two faces, one looking east and the other west.-36. Set open: the temple of Janus, at Rome, was open only in time of war; Milton refers to the battle then raging between Truth and Falsehood.

21.-6-7. discipline of Geneva: the ecclesiastical system of the Presbyterians, who followed the teachings of John Calvin of Geneva.-11. the Wise Man: Solomon; Prov. ii. 1-4.-15. equipage equipment.-16. battle-army.-19. dint: apparently used in the literal sense of "blow"; cf. the martial figure throughout the passage.-29. Proteus: a Greek sea-god, who could turn himself into many shapes; cf. "Protean."-32. Micaiah, etc.: 1 Kings xxii. 15-18.-37-38. ordinances, etc.: "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, . . . nailing it to his cross (Col. ii. 14).

22.-8. linen decency: "the shallow decorum of surplices and vestments" (Hales); the reference is to the ritual of the Church

of England and to its ideals of uniformity in religion.-12-13. we care not to keep we care not if we keep, i. e., we are careless about it.-17. wood and hay and stubble, etc.: 1 Cor. iii. 12.-19. subdichotomies minor divisions.-34. neighboring= near, comparatively slight.-37. unity of spirit, etc.: Eph. iv. 3. 23.-31. old Convocation house: the Convocation of the English Church had been held in the chapter-house at Westminster; the Presbyterian Assembly of Divines now met in Henry VII.'s chapel, Westminster.

24.-1. his liege tombs, i. e., the tombs of his lieges.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

VANITY OF EARTHLY MONUMENTS.

25.-Hydriotaphia-urn-burial

(Grk. ὑδρία, water-pot," urn," and rapń, burial").-1. These dead bones: "In a field of Old Walsingham [in Norfolk], not many months past were digged up between forty and fifty urns, some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh bones and teeth. . . . That these were the urns of the Romans, from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture, not far from a Roman garrison (Hydriotaphia, Chap. II.).—2. in a yard underground: Browne says the urns were buried "not a yard deep."-3. thin walls of clay, i. e., the clay urns.- -specious extremely fair or showy (Lat. species, form," appearance"; cf. "sightly ").-5. three conquests: the English in the fifth century, the Danish in the ninth and tenth centuries, the Normans in the eleventh century.-6. diuturnity long duration.-7. "Sic ego," etc." Thus I should wish to be buried when I am turned to bones" (Tibullus, Elegies, III. 2, 26).—10. visible conservatories: such as tombs and monuments.-16. propension inclination, desire for reunion with.-24. Archimedes: a famous Greek geometrician (287 ?-212 B. C.).-25. counters round pieces of metal or other material, used in reckoning; cf. Troilus and Cressida, II. ii. 28-29: “will you with counters sum the past proportion of his infinite?' Moses his man-Moses's man; Ps. xc. 10: "The days of our years are three score years and ten."

26.-1. one little finger, i. e., a century; in an old system of counting on the fingers, crooking the right little finger signified a hundred.-10. Alcmena's nights: when Zeus visited Alcmena, who became by him the mother of Hercules, he delayed the rising of the sun and made the night thrice as long as usual.-19. the persons of these ossuaries, i. e., the persons whose bones are in these urns (Low Lat. ossuarium,“ a receptacle for the bones of the dead").-21. wide solution, i. e., a solution with wide limits.-25. the provincial guardians: the spirits guarding the province, or region, where the bones were buried.-tutelary observators: guardian watchers of the dead.-35. Atropos: the Fate who cuts the thread of human life.

27.-6-8. the prophecy of Elias, etc.: there was a Jewish tradition that Elijah, or Elias, prophesied that the world would

end two thousand years after the coming of the Messiah; Charles the Fifth, king of Spain and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, died in 1558; therefore, if the world is to end in 2000 A. D., Charles cannot be remembered on earth more than five hundred years, or two thousand years (twice Methuselah's age) less than Hector's fame had already lasted.-13. Janus: see note on 20, 34; here Browne thinks of the god's two faces as looking to the long past and to the short future of the world.-27. mortal right-lined circle, i. e., death; O, the first letter of 0тo á vas, the Greek word for death," which came to be used on ancient tombstones as a sign for death, may be described as made up of a circle and a right, or straight, line.-34. Gruter: a Dutch scholar (1560-1627), editor of a book of Roman inscriptions.

28.-3. Cardan: an Italian mathematician and astrologer (15011576); he wrote in his autobiography, Cuperem notum esse quod sim, non opto ut sciatur qualis sim" ("I could desire it to be known that I am, I do not wish it to be known what I am "). -7. entelechia complete, actual being (in distinction from merely latent, potential being).-8. exceeds, i. e., better than. 9-10. Čanaanitish woman Herodias: Matt. xv. 22-28, and xiv. 6-11.-11. good thief Pilate: Luke xxiii.-13. to-as to.-17. Adrian's: Adrian, or Hadrian, the Roman emperor (76-138 A. D.), erected a pillar, with an epitaph, to a favorite horse; his own moles, or mausoleum, a huge circular tower on the banks of the Tiber, in Rome, was remodeled and put to other uses; the inscription to him, however, still remains in the interior, but it had not been discovered in Browne's day.-19. Thersites: a deformed scoffer and reviler among the Greeks at the siege of Troy.-26. hired-bribed.-33. current arithmetic: the arithmetic of current, or "running," time.-35. Lucina: the goddess who presided over child-birth.-37. right descensions: an astronomical term, signifying here, like "winter arches," that the sun does not go through the zenith but traverses a shorter arc nearer the horizon.

29.-1. light in ashes: According to the custom of the Jews, who place a lighted wax-candle in a pot of ashes by the corpse (Leo).-18. subsistency-continued existence.-28. contriving their bodies in sweet consistencies, i. e., contriving for their bodies a sweet rigidity and permanence by the use of embalming gums and spices.-29. vanity—emptiness, i. e., futility. -31. Cambyses: Cambyses III., son of Cyrus the Great, conquered Egypt in the sixth century B. C.-32. Mummy is become merchandise, etc.: a substance supposed to be made of mummies was in Browne's day sold as medicine.-Mizraim: the Hebrew name for Egypt.

30.-5. perspectives telescopes (Lat. perspicerc, "to look through ").-6. with Phaeton's favor, i. e., if Phaeton would drive the chariot of the sun near the earth, as he did in the old Greek myth.-17. only: the word goes with "Who."-24. bravery show, splendor.-infamy: Southey conjectured that Browne wrote infimy" (Lat. infimus), i. e., lowness, inferiority; this reading harmonizes better with the context, in which the reference is not to the moral qualities of man, but to his mortality.— 29. Sardanapalus: king of Assyria in the seventh century B. C.,

who, besieged by rebels in his palace, chose to die on a pyre of precious woods and spices heaped about his throne; see Byron's Sardanapalus, Act V.-33. Gordianus: a Roman Emperor who was killed in 244 A. D. while warring against Persia; an inscription in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian, and Arabic, was placed on the monument erected to his memory at the spot where he died, but it was erased in less than a century by the Emperor Licinius, who claimed relationship with the murderer.—34. mau of God, etc.: Deut. xxxiv. 6.

31.-3. decretory term decreed ending.-16. Alaricus: the Goth, who sacked Rome in 410 A. D. (“" By the labor of a captive multitude they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washed the walls of Consentia [in southern Italy]. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel; and the secret spot. . . was forever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the work."-Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. 31.) 17. Sylla: Sulla, the Roman dictator, who died in 78 B. C.; by his bloody deeds he incurred the lasting hatred of millions of his countrymen.-23. taunt of Isaiah: Isa. xiv. 10-17.-30. angles of contingency: angles formed by tangents to a curve at consecu tive points; they are infinitesmal.-35-36. Christian annihilation, etc.: Christian mysticism, in which the soul, while still on earth, transcends the limits of individuality and rapturously mingles with the Infinite Soul: thus "annihilation" refers to the destruction of individual existence, as when a drop of water is annihilated as a separate drop and melts into the sea; "ecstasies " apparently has both the meaning of “raptures and of "standing-out-of (Grk. ex and σráσis ), i. e., escape from the limits of finite being; "exolution" (Lat. exsolutum, freed from," "released ") and liquefaction express much the same thought; the " 'spouse," is Christ, the heavenly bridegroom;

"gustation "-tasting.

32.-4. predicament of chimæras, i. e., in the state or class of fabulous creatures, talked of but hardly believed in-mere fables and myths.-9. St. Innocent's churchyard: “in Paris, where bodies soon consume (Wilkin).--13-14. tabesne," etc.= "Whether decay or the funeral pyre consumes dead bodies, matters not " (Lucan, Pharsalia, VII. 809-810).

JOHN DRYDEN.

PREFACE TO THE FABLES.

34.-2. Sandys: George Sandys, a part of whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses was made in Virginia, where he lived as Colonial treasurer in 1621-1624.--16. Godfrey of Bulloigne: another name for Jerusalem Delivered, by Tasso (1544-1595), the Italian epic poet.

35.-2. Hobbes: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), an English philosopher, who made much of the association of ideas.—3. Boccace

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