No More Learning

A traveller has greater opportunities of
adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts;
and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing
miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so
poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of
guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own
mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile
as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the
crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions,
will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
of nature or of fortune.

The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage
the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge [75], whose
name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with
large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English
annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book,
the author is unknown.

Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published
a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the
attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland
with some difficulty [76]. The first printer to whom he offered it,
carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for
three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards
rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.

The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus [77], by
Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.

At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr.
Lushington [78], his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate,
in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was
very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was
incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf [79].

He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham [80], of a good family in Norfolk;
"a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her
worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they
seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism. "

This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits
[81] upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we
might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately
declared [82], that "the whole world was made for man, but only the
twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but
woman only the rib or crooked part of man. "

Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous
positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so
formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract
so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like
most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and
inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived
happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of
whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived
him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.

Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646
[83], he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work,
which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation
and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued
tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an
enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had
longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of
his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent
afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large
additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673,
the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with
explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of
disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered
from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour,
thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all
sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in
vain.

This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and,
not many years ago, into French. It might now be proper, had not the
favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly
emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the
last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has
committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and
Newton's philosophy.

He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles:
the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other,
instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the
pillars of Hercules. " That it continued motionless, will be easily
believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without
the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have
obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had
thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of
water.

Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy
to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth
but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was
then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was
confirmed by later observations.

The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
his name, a book called [84] Nature's Cabinet unlocked,--translated,
according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
honour thereof, as having no hand in that work [85]. "

In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him
occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of
sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the
funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment
of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could
have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small
importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which
threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when
the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the
bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what
oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were
distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of
these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and,
therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too
frequently recollected:

"All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being,
which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted
conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at.
Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men
could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest
mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions:
with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold
potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of
the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his
wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell
him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state
to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in
vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire
of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied
considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and
rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other
original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed
the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess
their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their
own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes
of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated
their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of
ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting
contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our
present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own
accomplishments. "

To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the
quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients,
artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he
begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and
deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of
antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we
actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author
is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in
the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
feeders on vegetables before the flood.

Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt
the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but
disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by
standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy
to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which
nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of
Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.

In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation
or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.

To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
it virtually contains two right in every one. "

The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
their seminal principles.

He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
generative societies. "

These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
fashion of great and curious writers. "

Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the
papers of Pierescius.

The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon
several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do
not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of
description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to
readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more
important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some
obscurity from precepts.

The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject
merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure
of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which
studious men have endeavoured to recover them.

The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his
Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no
determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed,
it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or
learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes
produced in the waters of Judea.

Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects;
and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first
of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of
animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious
observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed
much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in
their works there is mention of _aucupium_ and _piscatio_,
they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than
agriculture, or any other manual labour.

In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but
without any satisfactory determination; and of _rhopalick_, or
gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one
syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more
than the former; as,

"O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator. " AUSONIUS.

And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.

His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue.
He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that
shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].

The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between
the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very
rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
language, remain with us from the Saxon. "

To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
paternal language more than any modern European dialect.

There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of
artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an
interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia
Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William
Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne,
in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the
most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and
Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which
admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may,
if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have
their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments
may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth. "

In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he
determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other
concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
writers.

Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at
Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves
notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo. "

The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of
several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to
be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr.
Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and,
Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author
amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
either never in being or irrecoverably lost.

These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's
collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
which any of them were written.

Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind
with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into
amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same
mind has been successfully employed.

The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo,
London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and
Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes,
there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.

The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about
the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly
discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter
to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by
the author's son, in 1690.

There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing
Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here
offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.

To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently
embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at
Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince,
who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover
excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions,
at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious
and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and
greater popularity.

Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he
was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a
week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19,
1682 [87]. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to
the will of God, and fearlessness of death.

He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with
this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of
the altar:

M. S.
Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M. D.
Et miles.
Anno 1605, Londini natus;
Generosa familia apud Upton
In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea
In Coll. Pembr.
Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
Haud leviter imbutus;
In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus;
Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI
Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque
Per orbem notissimus.
Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus;
Obijt Octob. 19, 1682.
Pie posuit moestissima conjux
Da. Doroth. Br.

Near the foot of this pillar
Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick,
Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books,
Who practised physick in this city 46 years,
And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age.
In memory of whom,
Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate
Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be
Erected.

Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three
daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.

He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the
classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.

Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
well bred as any of the court. "

Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to
sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr.
Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have
had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life. "
Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.

"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat
nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].

"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very
warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded
himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of
Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.

"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the
number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence
ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its
products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist,
that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
observations, equally useful as entertaining.

"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was
remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all
person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but
remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular
discourses and speeches.

"In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and
pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern,
wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and
expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.

"He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that
was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of
the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any
stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that
he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them.
The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and
concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration,
which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or
uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same
account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with
many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.

"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to
blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without
affectation.

"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
observable cause.

"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he
was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar.
Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much
improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to
spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any
diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he
would say, he could not do nothing.

"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were
vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the
derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.

"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared
in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his
Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of
England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned
Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was
not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his
parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could
hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In
his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring
great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much
patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical
apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or
suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor. '

"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto,
which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he
had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often
triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses
in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted
with a meek, rational, and religious courage.

"He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he
lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent
him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and
in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to
his lady and children, gained by his own industry.

"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and
modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been
said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place
of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an
extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the
famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.

"Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
which comes nearest it, he excelled, i. e. the stochastick, wherein he
was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
but not apt to discover any presages or superstition. "

It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the
books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse
from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the
repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude
proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer
experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary
of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and
desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least,
defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be
able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best
Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those
bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more
flexible and tender judgments. "

The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's
testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of
himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments
or visible qualities.

There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may,
sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes,
assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant
temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares
himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride. " A perusal
of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of
the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which
pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
himself.

As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own
humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that
"he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be
quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any
uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden
effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it
is, he mistook for settled resolution.

"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
desert him in the great hour of trial.

It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
"the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
temptation to flattery.

But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men;
for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and
scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.

His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes
obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his
decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up
immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping
another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel
or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral
considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives
delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his
mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point
originally in view.

"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures. "
This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.

He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet
poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
such as _commensality_, for the state of many living at the same
table; but many superfluous, as a _paralogical_, for an unreasonable
doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than
explain it, as _arthritical analogies_, for parts that serve some
animals in the place of joints.

His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and
expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and
was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any
language could supply a single term.

But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would
never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
very little fear of the shame of falling.

There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages
from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and
others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are
two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.

It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for
endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own
doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another
understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and
eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a
celebrated name [88].

The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility;
men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat
concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates
had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient,
in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so
watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for
favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour
of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of
inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly
their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences
or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately
repented.

The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply,
by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause
less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore,
not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot
should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of
excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding
strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a
great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority
of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the
addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that
argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.

Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all
may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly
dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous
persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with
knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity,
without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but
"hopeth all things," and "endureth all things.
"

Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by
the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no
difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of
christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have
hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret
into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a
phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to
be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently
testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with
such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried
reverence.

It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without
the pale of christianity, who declares, "that he assumes the
honourable style of a christian," not because it is "the religion of
his country," but because "having in his riper years and confirmed
judgment seen" and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the
principles of grace, and the law of his own reason, to embrace "no
other name but this;" who, to specify his persuasion yet more, tells
us, that "he is of the reformed religion; of the same belief our
Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and
the martyrs confirmed;" who, though "paradoxical in philosophy, loves
in divinity to keep the beaten road; and pleases himself that he has
no taint of heresy, schism, or errour:" to whom, "where the scripture
is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 'tis but a
comment;" and who uses not "the dictates of his own reason, but where
there is a joint silence of both: who blesses himself, that he lived
not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but
enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw
not. " He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who
"believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and
desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms that "this is not
much to believe;" that "we have reason to owe this faith unto
history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble
faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and
mystical types, could raise a belief. " Nor can contempt of the
positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts,
whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would
violate his own arm, rather than a church. "

The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his
practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these
testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be
obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a
zealous adherent to the faith of Christ; that he lived in obedience to
his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.




ASCHAM [89].


It often happens to writers, that they are known only by their works;
the incidents of a literary life are seldom observed, and, therefore,
seldom recounted: but Ascham has escaped the common fate by the
friendship of Edward Grauut, the learned master of Westminster school,
who devoted an oration to his memory, and has marked the various
vicissitudes of his fortune. Graunt either avoided the labour of
minute inquiry, or thought domestick occurrences unworthy of his
notice; or, preferring the character of an orator to that of an
historian, selected only such particulars as he could best express or
most happily embellish. His narrative is, therefore, scanty, and I
know not by what materials it can now be amplified.

Roger Ascham was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, (or Kirby
Wicke,) a village near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above
the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family
of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at
a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were
regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very
conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have
been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not
recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the youngest, and some
daughters; but who can hope, that of any progeny more than one shall
deserve to be mentioned? They lived married sixty-seven years, and, at
last, died together almost on the same hour of the same day.

Roger, having passed his first years under the care of his parents,
was adopted into the family of Antony Wingfield, who maintained him,
and committed his education, with that of his own sons, to the care of
one Bond, a domestick tutor. He very early discovered an unusual
fondness for literature by an eager perusal of English books; and,
having passed happily through the scholastick rudiments, was put, in
1530, by his patron Wingfield, to St. John's college in Cambridge.

Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of
the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardour
or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had
driven the Greeks, with their language, into the interiour parts of
Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and
Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had
already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with
controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets
of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or
ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that
eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and
dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at
once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the
present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or
knowing, its benefactors.

Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the
bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the
college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous
for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion;
and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The
reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered
as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment,
and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually
losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable
enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally
conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by
teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read
lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of
instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of
great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any
monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and
scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek
learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him
in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would
gain more knowledge by explaining one of Æsop's fables to a boy, than
by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.

Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the
eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which,
according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of
remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen
fellow of the college, which election he considered as a second birth.
Dr. Metcalf, the master of the college, a man, as Ascham tells us,
"meanly learned himself, but no mean encourager of learning in
others," clandestinely promoted his election, though he openly seemed
first to oppose it, and afterwards to censure it, because Ascham was
known to favour the new opinions; and the master himself was accused
of giving an unjust preference to the northern men, one of the
factions into which this nation was divided, before we could find any
more important reason of dissension, than that some were born on the
northern, and some on the southern side of Trent. Any cause is
sufficient for a quarrel; and the zealots of the north and south lived
long in such animosity, that it was thought necessary at Oxford to
keep them quiet, by choosing one proctor every year from each.

He seems to have been, hitherto, supported by the bounty of Wingfield,
which his attainment of a fellowship now freed him from the necessity
of receiving. Dependance, though in those days it was more common and
less irksome, than in the present state of things, can never have been
free from discontent; and, therefore, he that was released from it
must always have rejoiced. The danger is, lest the joy of escaping
from the patron may not leave sufficient memory of the benefactor. Of
this forgetfulness, Ascham cannot be accused; for he is recorded to
have preserved the most grateful and affectionate reverence for
Wingfield, and to have never grown weary of recounting his benefits.

His reputation still increased, and many resorted to his chamber to
hear the Greek writers explained. He was, likewise, eminent for other
accomplishments. By the advice of Pember, he had learned to play on
musical instruments, and he was one of the few who excelled in the
mechanical art of writing, which then began to be cultivated among us,
and in which we now surpass all other nations. He not only wrote his
pages with neatness, but embellished them with elegant draughts and
illuminations; an art at that time so highly valued, that it
contributed much both to his fame and his fortune.

He became master of arts in March, 1537, in his twenty-first year, and
then, if not before, commenced tutor, and publickly undertook the
education of young men. A tutor of one-and-tweuty, however
accomplished with learning, however exalted by genius, would now gain
little reverence or obedience; but in those days of discipline and
regularity, the authority of the statutes easily supplied that of the
teacher; all power that was lawful was reverenced. Besides, young
tutors had still younger pupils.

Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every
incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have
taken care, at once, to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their
minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great
eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished,
that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court, as a proper
master of languages for the lady Elizabeth.

There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university,
therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him
out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then
reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by
king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain
Greek authors in his own college.

He was at first an opponent of the new pronunciation introduced, or
rather of the ancient restored, about this time, by Cheke and Smith,
and made some cautious struggles for the common practice, which the
credit and dignity of his antagonists did not permit him to defend
very publickly, or with much vehemence: nor were they long his
antagonists; for either his affection for their merit, or his
conviction of the cogency of their arguments, soon changed his opinion
and his practice, and he adhered ever after to their method of
utterance.

Of this controversy it is not necessary to give a circumstantial
account; something of it may be found in Strype's Life of Smith, and
something in Baker's Reflections upon Learning; it is sufficient to
remark here, that Cheke's pronunciation was that which now prevails in
the schools of England. Disquisitions not only verbal, but merely
literal, are too minute for popular narration.

He was not less eminent, as a writer of Latin, than as a teacher of
Greek. All the publick letters of the university were of his
composition; and, as little qualifications must often bring great
abilities into notice, he was recommended to this honourable
employment, not less by the neatness of his hand, than the elegance of
his style.

However great was his learning, he was not always immured in his
chamber; but, being valetudinary, and weak of body, thought it
necessary to spend many hours in such exercises as might best relieve
him after the fatigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery,
in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time,
that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and,
perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did
not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing
learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.

To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he
published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of
Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery.
He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an
example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used
by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling
exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains,
that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by
arrogance and temerity.

He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently
vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal
diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown,
by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the
mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art,
practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole:
precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow
excellence.

The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have
forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained
the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English
yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler
of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms,
which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they
are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for
prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy,
gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to
skilful use than any other instrument of offence.

Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had
been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with
hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon
after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to
imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from
the account given by the ingenious author of the Exercise for the
Norfolk Militia.

"The first muskets were very heavy, and could not be fired without a
rest; they had matchlocks, and barrels of a wide bore, that carried a
large ball and charge of powder, and did execution at a greater
distance.

"The musketeers on a march carried only their rests and ammunition,
and had boys to bear their muskets after them, for which they were
allowed great additional pay.

"They were very slow in loading, not only by reason of the
unwieldiness of the pieces, and because they carried the powder and
balls separate, but from the time it took to prepare and adjust the
match; so that their fire was not near so brisk as ours is now.
Afterwards a lighter kind of matchlock musket came into use, and they
carried their ammunition in bandeliers, which were broad belts that
came over the shoulder, to which were hung several little cases of
wood covered with leather, each containing a charge of powder; the
balls they carried loose in a pouch; and they had also a priming-horn
hanging by their side.

"The old English writers call those large muskets calivers; the
harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest.
The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the
serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down
with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was
a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of
firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the
match properly to the cock, so as to come down exactly true on the
priming, to blow the ashes from the coal, and to guard the pan from
the sparks that fell from it. A great deal of time was also lost in
taking it out of the cock, and returning it between the fingers of the
left hand every time that the piece was fired; and wet weather often
rendered the matches useless. "

While this was the state of firearms, and this state continued among
us to the civil war, with very little improvement, it is no wonder
that the long-bow was preferred by sir Thomas Smith, who wrote of the
choice of weapons in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when the use of the
bow still continued, though the musket was gradually prevailing. Sir
John Haward, a writer yet later, has, in his History of the Norman
Kings, endeavoured to evince the superiority of the archer to the
musketeer: however, in the long peace of king James, the bow was
wholly forgotten. Guns have from that time been the weapons of the
English, as of other nations, and, as they are now improved, are
certainly more efficacious.

Ascham had yet another reason, if not for writing his book, at least
for presenting it to king Henry. England was not then, what it may be
now justly termed, the capital of literature; and, therefore, those
who aspired to superiour degrees of excellence, thought it necessary
to travel into other countries. The purse of Ascham was not equal to
the expense of peregrination; and, therefore, he hoped to have it
augmented by a pension. Nor was he wholly disappointed; for the king
rewarded him with a yearly payment of ten pounds.

A pension of ten pounds granted by a king of England to a man of
letters, appears, to modern readers, so contemptible a benefaction,
that it is not unworthy of inquiry what might be its value at that
time, and how much Ascham might be enriched by it. Nothing is more
uncertain than the estimation of wealth by denominated money; the
precious metals never retain long the same proportion to real
commodities, and the same names in different ages do not imply the
same quantity of metal; so that it is equally difficult to know how
much money was contained in any nominal sum, and to find what any
supposed quantity of gold or silver would purchase; both which are
necessary to the commensuration of money, or the adjustment of
proportion between the same sums at different periods of time.

A numeral pound, in king Henry's time, contained, as now, twenty
shillings; and, therefore, it must be inquired what twenty shillings
could perform. Bread-corn is the most certain standard of the
necessaries of life. Wheat was generally sold, at that time for one
shilling, the bushel; if, therefore, we take five shillings the bushel
for the current price, ten pounds were equivalent to fifty. But here
is danger of a fallacy. It may be doubted whether wheat was the
general bread-corn of that age; and if rye, barley, or oats, were the
common food, and wheat, as I suspect, only a delicacy, the value of
wheat will not regulate the price of other things. This doubt,
however, is in favour of Ascham; for if we raise the worth of wheat,
we raise that of his pension.

But the value of money has another variation, which we are still less
able to ascertain: the rules of custom, or the different needs of
artificial life, make that revenue little at one time which is great
at another. Men are rich and poor, not only in proportion to what they
have, but to what they want. In some ages, not only necessaries are
cheaper, but fewer things are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of
the elegancies and expenses of our present fashions were unknown:
commerce had not yet distributed superfluity through the lower classes
of the people, and the character of a student implied frugality, and
required no splendour to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning
together the wants which he could supply, and the wants from which he
was exempt, may be estimated, in my opinion, at more than one hundred
pounds a year; which, added to the income of his fellowship, put him
far enough above distress.

This was a year of good fortune to Ascham. He was chosen orator to the
university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was
made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains
admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility,
and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the
ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly
pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time,
employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand;
and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess
Elizabeth, and prince Edward.

Henry the eighth died two years after, and a reformation of religion
being now openly prosecuted by king Edward and his council, Ascham,
who was known to favour it, had a new grant of his pension, and
continued at Cambridge, where he lived in great familiarity with
Bucer, who had been called from Germany to the professorship of
divinity. But his retirement was soon at an end; for, in 1548, his
pupil Grindal, the master of the princess Elizabeth, died, and the
princess, who had already some acquaintance with Ascham, called him
from his college to direct her studies.

He obeyed the summons, as we may easily believe, with readiness, and,
for two years, instructed her with great diligence; but then, being
disgusted either at her, or her domesticks, perhaps eager for another
change of life, he left her, without her consent, and returned to the
university. Of this precipitation he long repented; and, as those who
are not accustomed to disrespect cannot easily forgive it, he probably
felt the effects of his imprudence to his death.

After having visited Cambridge, he took a journey into Yorkshire, to
see his native place, and his old acquaintance, and there received a
letter from the court, informing him, that he was appointed secretary
to sir Richard Morisine, who was to be despatched as ambassadour into
Germany. In his return to London he paid that memorable visit to lady
Jane Gray, in which he found her reading the Phasdo in Greek, as he
has related in his Schoolmaster.

In September, 1550, he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over
great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared
worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of
learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but
Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw
each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham undertook to
improve Morisine in Greek, and, for four days in the week, explained
some passages in Herodotus every morning, and more than two hundred
verses of Sophocles, or Euripides, every afternoon. He read with him,
likewise, some of the orations of Demosthenes. On the other days he
compiled the letters of business, and in the night filled up his
diary, digested his remarks, and wrote private letters to his friends
in England, and particularly to those of his college, whom he
continually exhorted to perseverance in study. Amidst all the
pleasures of novelty which his travels supplied, and in the dignity of
his publick station, he preferred the tranquillity of private study,
and the quiet of academical retirement. The reasonableness of this
choice has been always disputed; and in the contrariety of human
interests and dispositions, the controversy will not easily be
decided.

He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his
Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was
desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the
scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.

In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in
Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the
German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts
many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history,
in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly
mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine
English.

By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped,
Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end.
He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment
and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the
deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his
support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the
assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that
he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support
him at Cambridge. " There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account
either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his
fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him
plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the
college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation.
But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too
long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return
with a good will to academical poverty.

He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented
his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had,
during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king
Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was
instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of
twenty pounds a year.

Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an
extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing
and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven
letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.

How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the
favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen
Mary's court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well
known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared,
cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of
queen Mary's reign must have been well enough remembered, declares,
that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and
that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner
against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet
he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and
compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the
Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his
innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack
a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could
not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was
never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are
we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who
suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so
necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with
another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to
examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the
inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last,
to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct,
caprice, accident, and private affections.

At that time, if some were punished, many were forborne; and of many
why should not Ascham happen to be one? He seems to have been calm and
prudent, and content with that peace which he was suffered to enjoy: a
mode of behaviour that seldom fails to produce security. He had been
abroad in the last years of king Edward, and had, at least, given no
recent offence. He was certainly, according to his own opinion, not
much in danger; for in the next year he resigned his fellowship,
which, by Gardiner's favour, he had continued to hold, though not
resident; and married Margaret Howe, a young gentle-woman of a good
family.

He was distinguished in this reign by the notice of cardinal Pole, a
man of great candour, learning, and gentleness of manners, and
particularly eminent for his skill in Latin, who thought highly of
Ascham's style; of which it is no inconsiderable proof, that when Pole
was desirous of communicating a speech made by himself as legate, in
parliament, to the pope, he employed Ascham to translate it.

He is said to have been not only protected by the officers of state,
but favoured and countenanced by the queen herself, so that he had no
reason of complaint in that reign of turbulence and persecution: nor
was his fortune much mended, when, in 1558, his pupil, Elizabeth,
mounted the throne. He was continued in his former employment, with
the same stipend; but though he was daily admitted to the presence of
the queen, assisted her private studies, and partook of her
diversions; sometimes read to her in the learned languages, and
sometimes played with her at draughts and chess; he added nothing to
his twenty pounds a year but the prebend of Westwang, in the church of
York, which was given him the year following. His fortune was,
therefore, not proportionate to the rank which his offices and
reputation gave him, or to the favour in which he seemed to stand with
his mistress. Of this parsimonious allotment it is again a hopeless
search to inquire the reason. The queen was not naturally bountiful,
and, perhaps, did not think it necessary to distinguish, by any
prodigality of kindness, a man who had formerly deserted her, and whom
she might still suspect of serving rather for interest than affection.
Graunt exerts his rhetorical powers in praise of Ascham's
disinterestedness and contempt of money; and declares, that, though he
was often reproached by his friends with neglect of his own interest,
he never would ask any thing, and inflexibly refused all presents
which his office or imagined interest induced any to offer him.
Camden, however, imputes the narrowness of his condition to his love
of dice and cockfights: and Graunt, forgetting himself, allows that
Ascham was sometimes thrown into agonies by disappointed expectations.
It may be easily discovered, from his Schoolmaster, that he felt his
wants, though he might neglect to supply them; and we are left to
suspect, that he showed his contempt of money only by losing at play.
If this was his practice, we may excuse Elizabeth, who knew the
domestick character of her servants, if she did not give much to him
who was lavish of a little.

However he might fail in his economy, it were indecent to treat with
wanton levity the memory of a man who shared his frailties with all,
but whose learning or virtues few can attain, and by whose
excellencies many may be improved, while himself only suffered by his
faults.

In the reign of Elizabeth, nothing remarkable is known to have
befallen him, except that, in 1563, he was invited, by sir Edward
Sackville, to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, upon an
occasion which he relates in the beginning of the book.

This work, though begun with alacrity, in hopes of a considerable
reward, was interrupted by the death of the patron, and afterwards
sorrowfully and slowly finished, in the gloom of disappointment, under
the pressure of distress. But of the author's disinclination or
dejection there can be found no tokens in the work, which is conceived
with great vigour, and finished with great accuracy; and, perhaps,
contains the best advice that was ever given for the study of
languages.

This treatise he completed, but did not publish; for that poverty
which, in our days, drives authors so hastily in such numbers to the
press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. The
printers gave little for a copy, and, if we may believe the tale of
Raleigh's history, were not forward to print what was offered them for
nothing. Ascham's book, therefore, lay unseen in his study, and was,
at last, dedicated to lord Cecil by his widow.

Ascham never had a robust or vigorous body, and his excuse for so many
hours of diversion was his inability to endure a long continuance of
sedentary thought. In the latter part of his life he found it
necessary to forbear any intense application of the mind from dinner
to bedtime, and rose to read and write early in the morning. He was,
for some years, hectically feverish; and, though he found some
alleviation of his distemper, never obtained a perfect recovery of his
health. The immediate cause of his last sickness was too close
application to the composition of a poem, which he purposed to present
to the queen, on the day of her accession. To finish this, he forbore
to sleep at his accustomed hours, till, in December, 1568, he fell
sick of a kind of lingering disease, which Graunt has not named, nor
accurately described. The most afflictive symptom was want of sleep,
which he endeavoured to obtain by the motion of a cradle. Growing
every day weaker, he found it vain to contend with his distemper, and
prepared to die with the resignation and piety of a true Christian.
He was attended on his death-bed by Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre,
and Dr. Nowel, the learned dean of St. Paul's, who gave ample
testimony to the decency and devotion of his concluding life. He
frequently testified his desire of that dissolution which he soon
obtained. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nowel.

Roger Ascham died in the fifty-third year of his age, at a time when,
according to the general course of life, much might yet have been
expected from him, and when he might have hoped for much from others:
but his abilities and his wants were at an end together; and who can
determine, whether he was cut off from advantages, or rescued from
calamities? He appears to have been not much qualified for the
improvement of his fortune. His disposition was kind and social; he
delighted in the pleasures of conversation, and was probably not much
inclined to business. This may be suspected from the paucity of his
writings. He has left little behind him; and of that little, nothing
was published by himself but the Toxophilus, and the account of
Germany. The Schoolmaster was printed by his widow; and the epistles
were collected by Graunt, who dedicated them to queen Elizabeth, that
he might have an opportunity of recommending his son, Giles Ascham, to
her patronage. The dedication was not lost: the young man was made, by
the queen's mandate, fellow of a college in Cambridge, where he
obtained considerable reputation. What was the effect of his widow's
dedication to Cecil, is not known: it may be hoped that Ascham's works
obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did
not, in his life, very plenteously procure them.

Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot
now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less
merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any
country; and, among us, it may justly call for that reverence which
all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and
kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners, nothing can
be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries.
Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy,
benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety, we have
not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his
writings.

That his English works have been so long neglected, is a proof of the
uncertainty of literary fame. He was scarcely known, as an author, in
his own language, till Mr. Upton published his Schoolmaster, with
learned notes. His other pieces were read only by those few who
delight in obsolete books; but as they are now collected into one
volume, with the addition of some letters never printed before, the
publick has an opportunity of recompensing the injury, and allotting
Ascham the reputation due to his knowledge and his eloquence.






[1] From the Gentleman's Magazine, 1742.

[2] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 41. 1756.

[3] The first part of this review closed here. What follows did not
appear until seven months after. To which delay the writer alludes
with provoking severity.

[4] Literary Magazine, vol. i. p, 89. 1756.

[5] From the Literary Magazine, vol. ii. p.