English Essays

OF NATURE IN MEN.

4.-18. doctrine-instruction.-19. importune=importunate. 5.-3-4. "Optimus," etc." He is the best liberator of the soul who bursts the chains galling his breast and ceases from grief at once (Ovid, Remedia Amoris, 293); animi should be fuit. -14. lay: so in the original.-25. "Multum," etc.=" My soul has long been a sojourner."-converse-live.-26. affect-take to, like.-29. so as so that.

OF YOUTH AND AGE.

6.-10. Septimius Severus: a Roman Emperor (146-211 a. D.). -11-12"Juventum," etc." He passed a youth full of errors, nay rather of fury" (Spartian, Severus, ii.); Bacon quoted apparently from memory, and very inaccurately; Spartian wrote, "Juventum plenam furorum, nonnunquam criminum, habuit” ("He had a youth full of fury and sometimes of crimes "). 14. Cosmos: one of the famous de Medici family who ruled Florence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.-Gaston: a French general (1489-1512), who won a great victory over the Spaniards at the age of twenty-three.-20. abuseth-deceives.28. care not are not cautious.-31. unready, i. e., not ready for use, ill-trained; the Latin version has male domitus.

7.-1. compound employments of both, i. e., employ both together.-5. extern accidents external effects, i. e., results coming (“falling upon ") from without-as in this case, from the disposition of the populace toward age and youth.-8-10. "Your young men," etc.: Joel ii. 28.-18. Hermogenes: a famous Greek teacher of rhetoric, of the second century A. D., "who became a master at fifteen and an idiot at five-and-twenty (Saintsbury, A History of Criticism, I. 90).-23. Tully: Marcus Tullius Cicero. Hortensius: a Roman orator (114-50 B. C.).-24. "Idem," etc.— "He remained the same, but the same was not becoming' (Cicero, Brutus, 95); Cicero's exact words are, "Remanebat idem nec decebat idem."-25. magnanimous=great-souled.— 26-27. Scipio Africanus: a Roman General (234?-183? B. C.), who won great victories in Africa over Hannibal when little more than thirty years old. 27.-Livy: the Roman historian (59 B. C.-17 A. D.).-27-28. Ultima," " etc." His last deeds were inferior to his first"; Livy's exact words are, "Memorabilior prima pars vitæ quam postrema fuit" ("The first part of his life was more memorable than the last part ").

OF NEGOTIATING.

8.-10-11. will help the matter in report for satisfaction sake, i. e., such agents will make a more favorable report than truth allows, in order to satisfy their employer.-11. affect take to, like.-19. prescription=former record.-24-25. the start, or first performance, is all, i. e., the negotiator who imposes the first and fundamental condition controls the whole situation.-29. All practice is to discover or to work, i. e., the object in all practical handling of men is either to discover their natures and purposes, or to make them do something.-33, fashions=ways, habits.

OF STUDIES.

9.-7. expert men: experienced, practical men, in distinction from learned men.-12. humor-mood, habit of mind.-17. admire wonder at.-25. curiously carefully (Lat. cura, care "). -28. arguments-subjects.-29. else, i. e., in other cases.-flashy insipid.-30. conference_intercourse and conversation.-33. present wit: a mind, or wits, always ready for use on the instant (cf. presence of mind ").

10.—2. witty: clever, quick-minded, and full of bright notions. 4. "Abeunt," etc.=" Studies pass over into manners (Ovid).5. wit-mind.-13. schoolmen: the theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages, who excelled in analysis and subtle distinctions.―cymini sectores=" splitters of cummin " (cummin were small seeds); cf. hair-splitters."-15. illustrate throw light upon, clear up.

JOHN MILTON.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

Areopagitica, selections from which are here printed, was published as a pamphlet, unlicensed, in November, 1644. It was occasioned by an order of Parliament, on June 14, 1643, that no 'Book, Pamphlet, paper, nor part of any such Book, Pamphlet, or paper, shall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched or put to sale by any person or persons whatsoever, unless the same be first approved of and licensed under the hands of such person or persons as both, or either of the said Houses [of Parliament] shall appoint for the licensing of the same." The order merely renewed the substance of previous decrees by the "Star Chamber "; but Milton and other lovers of freedom had expected more liberal things from the reform Parliament, which was waging war against the king on behalf of popular liberty. In form Areopagitica is a speech addressed to Parliament. Its name is derived from the Abyos 'Apeoπaɣiтikós of Isocrates, the Greek orator (436-338 B. c.), who in this oration argued for the restoration of its former powers to the Court of Areopagus (so called from the place of session, Areopagus, or Mars Hill") as a bulwark of Athenian liberty, then menaced by Philip of Macedon. The outline of Areopagitica, in Milton's own words, is as follows:-"First, the inventors of it [restriction of the press] to be those whom he will loath to own [i. e., Roman Catholics]; next, what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and that this order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed; last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of truth."

11.—3. thereafter, i. e., after they have shown themselves to be bad books.-10. dragon's teeth: Jason, directed by Medea, sowed the teeth of the dragon of Colchis, and from them sprang up armed men (see Ovid's Metamorphoses, VII. 121 ff., and William Morris's Life and Death of Jason, VIII.).—15. in the eye,

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.

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, I. 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 I 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

« Zurück Weiter »