250:

«O sweetest, fairest lily!»

251:

O you, kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up,
Of this child-changed father!
O my dear father! Restauration hang
Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!
Was this a face
To be exposed against the warring winds?
Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire....
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

252:

O, you're well met. The hoarded plague o' the gods
Requite your love!
If that I could for weeping, you should hear,
Nay, and you shall hear some.
I'll tell thee what.—Yet go.
Nay, but thou shall stay too.—I would my son
Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
His good sword in his hand.

Voyez aussi la scène III, acte I. C'est le triomphe naïf et abandonné d'une femme du peuple.

I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child, than now in first seeing he has proved himself a man.

253:

As I am an honest man, I had thought you had received some bodily wound. There is more offence in that than in reputation.

254:

It cannot be long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor, nor he his to her.... These Moors are changeable in their wills. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth. When she is sated with his body, she will find the errors of her choice.

255:

Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

256:

To suckle fools and chronicle small beer....
O gentle lady, do not put me to 't;
For I am nothing, if not critical.

257:

Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught.

258:

259: Voyez le même cynisme et le même scepticisme dans Richard III. Tous les deux commencent par diffamer la nature humaine, et sont misanthropes de parti pris.

260:

And what's he, then, that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free, I give, and honest,
Probal to thinking, and indeed the course
To win the Moor again.

261: Voyez sa conversation avec Brabantio, puis avec Roderigo, acte I.

262: Voyez encore dans Timon, et surtout dans Hotspur, l'exemple parfait de l'imagination véhémente et déraisonnable.

263:

264:

265:

266:

No more, I say;
For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled,
Or foil'd some debile wretch,—you shout me forth
In acclamations hyperbolical;
As if I loved my little should be dieted
In praises sauc'd with lies.

267:

I will go wash;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive,
Whether I blush, or no. Howbeit, I thank you,
I mean to stride your steed....

268:

Bid them wash their faces,
And keep their teeth clean....
To beg of Hob and Dick....

269:

What must I say?
I pray, sir.... Plague upon 't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace:—look, sir; my wounds;
I got them in my country's service, when
Some certain of your brethren roar'd, and ran
From the noise of our own drums.

270:

271:

Hence, old goat! Hence, rotten thing, or I shall
Shake thy bones out of thy garments.
.... You speak o' the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not a man
Of their infirmity.

272:

273:

.... The smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks; and school-boy's tears take up
The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue
Make motion through my lips; and my arm'd knees,
Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his
That has receiv'd an alms.
.... Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it.
And throw it against the wind....

274:

Pray, be content;
Mother, I am going to the market-place;
Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd
Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.

275:

276:

Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying; pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word;
Nor check my courage for what they can give,
To hav't with saying, Good morrow.

277:

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcases of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you.
.... Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.

278:

279:

.... Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus, with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design,
Moves like a ghost. (A bell rings.)
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

280:

What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!

281:

282:

Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder Sleep, the innocent Sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath!
Balm of hurt minds, chief nourisher in life's feast.
.... Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more—Macbeth shall sleep no more!

283:

To know my deed,—'twere best not know myself. (Knock.)
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, would thou couldst.

284:

Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace, is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.

285:

I am in blood,
Steep'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
.... But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fretful fever he sleeps well,
Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him farther!

286:

287:

Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave. Where nothing
But he who knows nothing, is once seen to smile,
Where ... the dead man's knell
Is scarce ask'd, for whom and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

288:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.—
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing....
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
.... They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.
.... I have supp'd full with horrors.
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.

289: Goethe, Wilhelm Meister.

290:

O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fye on 't! O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king....
So loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
.... And yet, within a month,
Let me not think on 't;—Frailty, thy name is woman!...
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body....
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married:—O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot, come to good;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

291:

Hold, hold, my heart;
And you my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up!—Remember thee?
Ay, poor Ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past.
And thy commandment all alone shall live.
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tablet;—meet it is, I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark:
So, uncle, there you are.

292:

293:

294:

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the sky, look you, this brave overhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, nor woman neither.

295:

Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.

296:

297:

298: Twelfth Night, As you like it, Tempest, Winter's Tale, etc., Cymbeline, Merchant of Venise, etc.

299:

300:

301:

302:

O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love....

303:

304:

305:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh, ho! sing heigh, ho! unto the green holly:—
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly!
Then, heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

306: Comparez Jacques à Alceste. C'est le contraste d'un misanthrope par raisonnement et d'un misanthrope par imagination.

307:

308:

A fool, a fool!—I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool!—a miserable world!—
As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms,—and yet a motley fool.
.... O noble fool! worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
.... O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

309:

310:

311:

312:

313:

Come, sit down on this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
So doth the wood-bine, the sweet honey-suckle,
Gently intwist,—the femal ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

314:

315:

These things seem small and extinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
.... I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

316:

My dainty Ariel....
... When the bee sucks, there suck I
In a cowslip's bell I lie....
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
.... I drink the air before me, and return
Or e'er your pulse twice beat.
.... We the globe may compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.

317: Même loi dans le monde organique et dans le monde moral. C'est ce que Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire appelle unité de composition.

318: Édition des œuvres complètes, t. I.

319: Voyez dans Corinne le jugement de lord Nevil sur les Italiens.

320: Tischreden, passim.

321: Voyez dans le Corpus historicorum medii ævi, par G. Eccard, t. II: Stephanus Infessuræ, p. 1995; Burchard, grand camérier d'Alexandre VI, p. 2134.—Guichardin, p. 211, édit. Panthéon littéraire.

322: Voyez, dans les Mémoires de Casanova, le tableau de cette pourriture.—Voyez les Mémoires de Scipion Rossi, sur les couvents de Toscane, à la fin du dix-huitième siècle.

323: D'Homère à Constantin, la cité antique est une association d'hommes libres qui a pour but la conquête et l'exploitation d'autres hommes libres.

324: Voyage de Misson, 1700. Mémoires de la margrave de Baireuth. Voyez encore aujourd'hui les mœurs des étudiants.

«Les Allemands sont, comme vous savez, d'étranges buveurs; il n'y a point de gens au monde plus caressants, plus civils, plus officieux; mais encore un coup ils ont de terribles coutumes sur l'article de boire. Tout s'y fait en buvant; on y boit en faisant tout. On n'a pas eu le temps de se dire trois paroles dans les visites, qu'on est tout étonné de voir venir la collation, ou tout au moins quelques brocs de vin accompagnés d'une assiette de croûtes de pain hachées avec du poivre et du sel: fatal préparatif pour de mauvais buveurs. Il faut vous instruire des lois qui s'observent ensuite, lois sacrées et inviolables. On ne doit jamais boire, sans boire à la santé de quelqu'un; aussitôt après avoir bu, on doit présenter du vin à celui à la santé de qui on a bu. Jamais il ne faut refuser le verre qui est présenté, et il faut naturellement vider jusqu'à la dernière goutte. Faites, je vous prie, quelques réflexions sur ces coutumes, et voyez par quel moyen il est possible de cesser de boire; aussi ne finit-on jamais. C'est un cercle perpétuel en Allemagne; boire en Allemagne, c'est boire toujours.» (Misson, Voyage en Italie.)

325: Voyez ses lettres et la sympathie qu'il y témoigne pour Luther.

326: Collection des gravures sur bois d'Albert Dürer. Remarquez la concordance de son Apocalypse et des conversations familières de Luther.

327: Calvin, le logicien de la Réforme, explique très-bien la filiation de toutes les idées protestantes (Institution chrétienne, liv. I). 1. L'idée du Dieu parfait, juge rigide. 2. L'alarme de la conscience. 3. L'impuissance et la corruption de la nature. 4. L'arrivée de la grâce gratuite. 5. Le rejet des pratiques et cérémonies.

328: «Selon que l'orgueil est enraciné en nous, il nous semble toujours que nous sommes justes et entiers, sages et saints; sinon que nous soyons convaincus par arguments manifestes de notre injustice, souillure, folie et immondicité. Car nous n'en sommes pas convaincus si nous jetons l'œil sur nos personnes seulement, et que nous ne pensions pas aussi bien à Dieu, lequel est la seule règle à laquelle il nous faut ordonner et compasser ce jugement.... (Et alors) ce qui avait belle montre de vertu se découvrira n'être que fragilité.

«Voilà d'où est procédé l'horreur et étonnement duquel l'Écriture récite que les saints ont été affligés et abattus toutes et quantes fois qu'ils ont senti la présence de Dieu. Car nous voyons ceux qui étaient comme eslongnés de Dieu et se trouvaient assurés et allaient la tête levée, sitôt qu'il leur manifeste sa gloire, être ébranlés et effarouchés, en sorte qu'ils sont opprimés, voire engloutis en l'horreur de mort et qu'ils s'évanouissent.» (Calvin, Institution chrétienne, liv. I, p. 2.)

329: Mot de saint Augustin.

330: Mélanchthon, préface des Œuvres de Luther. «Manifestum est libros Thomæ, Scoti et similium prorsus mutos esse de justitia fidei, et multos errores continere de rebus maximis in Ecclesia. Manifestum conciones monachorum in templis fere ubique terrarum aut fabulas fuisse de Purgatorio et de Sanctis, aut fuisse qualemcumque legis doctrinam seu disciplinæ, sine voce Evangelii de Christo, aut fuisse nenias de discrimine ciborum, de feriis et aliis traditionibus humanis.... Evangelium purum, incorruptum, et non dilutum ethnicis opinionibus.» Voyez aussi Fox, Acts and monuments, t. II, p. 42.

331: Voyez Froude, History of England. La conduite de Henri VIII est présentée là sous un nouveau jour.

332: Froude, I, 175, 191. Petition of Commons. Cette récrimination publique et authentique montre tout le détail de l'organisation et de l'oppression cléricales.

333: Froude, I, 26, 193. Great and excessive fees. Voyez le détail, ib.

334: En mai 1528. Froude, I, 179, 85, 201; II, 435.

335: Hale's Criminal causes; Suppression of the monasteries, Camden Society's publications.

336: «Down with them.» (Latimer's Sermons.)

337: Horsyn Preste. Hale, 99.

338: Froude, I, 90. En 1514. Improbus animus.

339: Fox, Acts and Monuments. In-folio, t. II, 23. En 1521.

340: Voyez, passim, les estampes dans Fox.—Tous les détails qu'on va lire sont tirés des biographies. Voyez celles de Cromwell par Carlyle, de Fox le quaker, de Bunyan, et les procès rapportés tout au long par Fox.

341: Froude, II, 33, 1529. «Grâce à Dieu, disent les évêques, aucune personne notable de notre temps n'est tombée dans le crime d'hérésie.»

342: En 1536. Strype's memorials, appendix, 42. Froude, III, chap. xii.

343: Covenants.

344: 1549. Traduction de Tyndal (Bibliothèque impériale).

345: Le mot est de Stendhal; c'est son impression d'ensemble.

346: Voyez la traduction de Lemaistre de Sacy, si peu biblique.

347: Voy. Ewald, Geschichte des Volks Israel. Apostrophe d'Ewald au troisième rédacteur du Pentateuque: Erhabener Geist..., etc.

348: Comparez le psaume 104, dans l'admirable traduction de Luther et dans la traduction anglaise.

349: Le premier rudiment considérable est de 1545. Froude, V, 145 et 146. Le Prayer-Book subit plusieurs changements en 1552, d'autres sous Élisabeth, et quelques-uns enfin à la Restauration.

350: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy on us, miserable offenders; spare Thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore Thou them that are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu, our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly righteous and sober life.

351: Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, and doth forgive the sins of all them who are penitent; create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness.

352: Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy state of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?

I take thee to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.

353: Dearly beloved, know this that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining, as youth, strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness. Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness is, know you certainly, that it is God's visitation. And for what cause soever this sickness is sent unto you, whether it be to try your patience, for the example of others..., or else it be sent unto you to correct and amend in you whatsoever doth offend the eyes of your heavenly Father, know you certainly that, if you truly repent you of your sins and bear your sickness patiently, trusting in God's mercy.... submitting yourself wholly unto His will, it shall turn to your profit, and help you forward in the right way that leadeth unto everlasting life.

354: Lettre de Henri VIII à Cranmer. Froude, IV, 484. «Faire usage des paroles d'une langue étrangère, avec un simple sentiment de dévotion, quand l'esprit n'en retire aucun fruit, ne peut être ni agréable à Dieu, ni salutaire à l'homme. Celui qui ne comprend pas la force et l'efficacité de l'entretien qu'il a avec Dieu ressemble à une harpe ou à une flûte, qui a un son, mais ne comprend pas le bruit qu'elle fait. Un chrétien est plus qu'un instrument, et les sujets du roi doivent être capables de prier comme des hommes raisonnables dans leur propre langue.»

355: Sternhold, 1549.

356: On peut voir dans l'Oraison funèbre de la comtesse de Richmond, par John Fisher, les pratiques auxquelles cette religion succédait.

As for fasting, for age, and feebleness, albeit she were not bound, yet those days that by the church were appointed, she kept them diligently and seriously, and in especial the holy Lent throughout, that she restrained her appetite, till one meal of fish on the day; besides her other peculiar fasts of devotion, as St Anthony, St Mary Magdalene, St Catharine, with other; and throughout all the year, the Friday and Saturday she full truly observed. As to hard clothes wearing, she had her shirts and girdles of hair, which, when she was in health, every week she failed not certain days to wear, sometime the one, sometime the other, that full often her skin, as I heard say, was pierced therewith.

In prayer, every day at her uprising, which commonly was not long after five of the clock, she began certain devotions, and so after them, with one of her gentlewomen, the matins of our Lady; then she came into her closet, where then with her chaplain she said also matins of the day; and after that, daily heard four or five masses upon her knees; so continuing in her prayers and devotions unto the hour of dinner, which of the eating day, was ten of the clocks, and upon the fasting day eleven. After dinner full truly she would go her stations to three altars daily; daily her dirges and commendations she would say, and her even songs before supper, both of the day and of our Lady, beside many other prayers and psalters of David throughout the year; and at night before she went to bed, she failed not to resort unto her chapel, and there a large quarter of an hour to occupy her devotions. No marvel, though all this long time her kneeling was to her painful, and so painful that many times it caused in her back pain and disease. And yet nevertheless, daily when she was in health, she failed not to say the crown of our lady, which after the manner of Rome, containeth sixty and three aves, and at every ave, to make a kneeling. As for meditation, she had divers books in French, wherewith she would occupy herself when she was weary of prayer. Wherefore divers she did translate out of the French into English. Her marvellous weeping they can bear witness of, which here before have heard her confession, which be divers and many, and at many seasons in the year, lightly every third day. Can also record the same those that were present at any time when she was houshilde, which was full nigh a dozen times every year, what floods of tears there issued forth of her eyes!

357: A plowland must have sheepe, yea they must have sheepe, to dung their ground for bearing of corn; for if they have no sheepe to helpe to fat the ground, they shall have but bare corn and thin. They must have swine for their food, to make them veneries or bacon of. Their bacon is their venison. (For they shall now have hangum tuum if they get any other venison.) So that bacon is their necessary meate to feed on, which they may not lack. They must have other cattels, as horses to draw their plows, and for carriage of things to the markets, and kine for their milke and cheese, which they must live upon and pay their rents. These cattell must have pasture, which pasture if they lack, the rest must needs fail them. And pasture they cannot have, if the land be taken in, and inclosed from them. (Latimer's Sermons, édition 1635, p. 105.)

358: Now after I had been acquainted with him, I went with him to visit the prisoners in the tower at Cambridge, for he was ever visiting prisoners and sick folk. So we went together, and exhorted them as well as we were able to do; minding them to patience, and to acknowledge their faults. Among other prisoners, there was a woman which was accused that she had killed her child, which act she plainly and steadfastly denied, and could not be brought to confess the act; which denying gave us occasion to search for the matter, and so we did; and at length we found that her husband loved her not, and therefore he sought means to make her out of the way. The matter was thus:—

A child of hers had been sick by the space of a year, and so decayed, as it were, in a consumption. At length it died in harvest time; she went to her neighbours and other friends to desire their help to prepare the child for burial; but there was nobody at home, every man was in the field. The woman, in a heaviness and trouble of spirit, went, and being herself alone, prepared the child for burial. Her husband coming home, not having great love towards her, accused her of the murder, and so she was taken and brought to Cambridge. But as far forth as I could learn, through earnest inquisition, I thought in my conscience the woman was not guilty, all the circumstances well considered.

Immediately after this, I was called to preach before the king, which was my first sermon that I made before His Majesty, and it was done at Windsor; where His Majesty, after the sermon was done, did most familiarly talk with me in a gallery. Now, when I saw my time, I kneeled down before His Majesty, opening the whole matter, and afterwards most humbly desired His Majesty to pardon that woman. For I thought in my conscience she was not guilty, or else I would not for all the world sue for a murderer. The king most graciously heard my humble request, insomuch that I had a pardon ready for her at my returning homeward. In the mean season, that woman was delivered of a child in the tower of Cambridge, whose godfather I was, and Mistress Cheak was godmother. But all that time I hid my pardon, and told her nothing of it, only exhorting her to confess the truth. At length the time came when she looked to suffer; I came as I was wont to do, to instruct her; she made great moan to me, and most earnestly required me that I would find the means that she might be purified before her suffering. For she thought she would have been damned if she should suffer without purification. So we travailed with this woman till we brought her to a good opinion; and at length showed her the king's pardon, and let her go.

This tale I told you by this occasion, that though some women be very unnatural, and forget their children, yet when we hear any body so report, we should not be too hasty in believing the tale, but rather suspend our judgments till we know the truth.

359: Dépêche de Noailles, ambassadeur français et catholique. Pictorial history, II, 524.

360: John Fox, History of the acts and monuments of the Church.

In the mean time William's father and mother came to him, and desired heartily of God that he might continue to the end in that good way which he had begun, and his mother said to him, that she was glad that ever she was so happy to bear such a child, which could find in his heart to lose his life for Christ's name's sake.

Then William said to his mother, 'For my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me, mother (said he), a crown of joy: may you not be glad of that, mother?' With that his mother kneeled down on her knees, saying, 'I pray God strengthen thee, my son, to the end: yea, I think thee as well-bestowed as any child that ever I bare....'

Then William Hunter plucked up his gown, and stepped over the parlour grounsel, and went forward cheerfully, the sheriff's servant taking him by one arm, and his brother by another; and thus going in the way, he met with his father according to his dream, and he spake to his son, weeping, and saying, 'God be with thee, son William;' and William said, 'God be with you, good father, and be of good comfort, for I hope we shall meet again, when we shall be merry.' His father said, 'I hope so, William,' and so departed. So William went to the place where the stake stood, even according to his dream, whereas all things were very unready. Then William took a wet broom faggot, and kneeled down thereon, and read the 51st psalm, till he came to these words, 'The sacrifice of God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and a broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise....'

Then said the sheriff, 'Here is a letter from the queen: if thou wilt recant, thou shalt live; if not, thou shalt be burned.' 'No,' quoth William, 'I will not recant, God willing.' Then William rose, and went to the stake, and stood upright to it. Then came one Richard Pond, a bailiff, and made fast the chain about William.

Then said Master Brown, 'Here is not wood enough to burn a leg of him.' Then said William, 'Good people, pray for me; and make speed, and dispatch quickly; and pray for me while ye see me alive, good people, and I will pray for you likewise.' 'How?' quoth Master Brown, 'pray for thee? I will pray no more for thee than I will pray for a dog....'

Then there was a gentleman which said, 'I pray God have mercy upon his soul.' The people said, 'Amen, Amen.'

Immediately fire was made. Then William cast his psalter right into his brother's hand, who said, 'William, think on the holy Passion of Christ, and be not afraid of death.' And William answered, 'I am not afraid.' Then lift he up his hands to heaven, and said, 'Lord, Lord, Lord, receive my spirit!' And casting down his head again into the smothering smoke, he yielded up his life for the truth, sealing it with his blood to the praise of God.

361: Neal, History of the puritans, I, 69, 72.

362: Dépêche de Renard à Charles-Quint.

363: «Ô éloquente, juste et puissante mort! Celui que personne n'osait avertir, tu l'as persuadé. Ce que personne n'osait faire, tu l'as fait. Celui que tout le monde a flatté, toi seule tu l'as jeté hors du monde et méprisé. Ta as ramassé ensemble toute la grandeur si fort tendue, tout l'orgueil, la cruauté, l'ambition de l'homme, et couvert tout ensemble de ces deux mots étroits: Hic jacet.»

364: The Ecclesiastical policy, 1594. In-folio.

365: That which doth assign unto each thing the kinde, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term Law....

Now, if Nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the forme of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should losen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions; if the prince of the Light of Heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing sickness, begin to stand and to rest himself.... what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly, that obedience of Creature unto the law of Nature is the stay of the whole world?...

Between men and beasts there is no possibility of sociable communion, because the well-spring of that communion is a natural delight which man hath to transfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others into himself, specially those things wherein the excellency of this kinde doth most consist. The chiefest instrument of humane communion therefore is speech, because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceits of our reasonable understanding. And for that cause, seeing beasts are not hereof capable, for so much as with them we can use no such conference, they being in degree, although above other creatures on earth to whom Nature has denied sense, yet lower than to be sociable companions of man to whom Nature has given reason: it is of Adam said, that among the beasts he found not for himself any meet companion. Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any private kind of solitary living, because in society this good of mutual participation is so much larger than otherwise. Herewith notwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet (if it might be) to have a kind of society and fellowship, even with all mankind.

366: For if the natural thought of man's wit may by experience and studie attain into such ripeness in the knowledge of things humane, that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgment, what reason have we to think but that, even in matters Divine, the like wits furnished with necessary helps, exercised in Scripture with like diligence, and assisted with the grace of Almighty God, may grow into a such perfection of knowledge that men shall have just cause, when any thing pertinent unto faith and religion is doubted of, the more willingly to incline their minds toward that which the sentence of so grave, wise, and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound? (Liv. II, p. 54.)

367: Voyez les Dialogues de Galilée; c'est la même idée qui, en même temps, est poursuivie à Rome par l'Église et défendue en Angleterre par l'Église.

368: For more comfort it were for us (so small is the joy we take in these strifes) to labor under the same yoke, as men that look for the same eternal reward of their labours, to be conjoined with you in bands of indissoluble love and amity, to live as if our persons being many, our souls were but one, rather than in such dismembered sort, to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious prosecuting of wearisome contentions.

369: Témoignage de Clarendon.

370: Voyez dans J. Taylor (Liberty of prophesying) les mêmes doctrines, 1647.

371: «I have learned from the ancient fathers of the Church that nothing is more against religion than to force religion.... If protestants did offer violence to other men's conscience and compell them to embrace their Reformation, I excuse them not.»

372: And what can we complain of the weakness of our strength or the pressure of diseases, when we see a poor soldier stand in a breach, almost starved with cold and hunger, and his cold apt to be relieved only by the heats of anger, a fever, or a fired musket, and his hunger slacked by a greater pain and a huge fear? This man shall stand in his arms and wounds, patiens luminis atque solis, pale and faint, weary and watchfull; and at night shall have a bullet pulled out of his flesh, and shivers from his bones, and endure his mouth to be sewed up from a violent rent to its own dimensions; and all this for a man whom he never saw, or, if he did, was not noted by him, but one that shall condemn him to the gallows, if he runs from all this misery. (Holy dying, sect. IV, chap. 3.)

373: I have seen the little purls of a spring sweat through the bottom of a bank, and intenerate the stubborn pavement, till it hath made it fit for the impression of a child's foot; and it was despised, like the descending pearls of a misty morning, till it had opened its way and made a stream large enough to carry away the ruins of the undermined strand, and to invade the neighbouring gardens: but then the despised drops were grown into an artificial river, and an intolerable mischief. So are the first entrances of sin, stopped with the antidotes of a hearty prayer, and checked into sobriety by the eye of a reverend man, or the counsels of a single sermon: but when such beginnings are neglected, and our religion hath not in it so much philosophy as to think anything evil as long as we can endure it, they grow up to ulcers and pestilential evils; they destroy the soul by their abode, who at their first entry might have been killed with the pressure of a little finger.

374: Apples of Sodom. We have already opened this dung-hill covered with snow, which was indeed on the outside white as the spots of leprosy, but it was not better, etc.

375: For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air, about his ministries here below. So is the prayer of a good man.

376: «Lorsque Jésus-Christ est né, il a pleuré et crié comme un autre enfant. Marie a dû le soigner et veiller sur lui, l'allaiter, lui donner à manger, l'essuyer, le tenir, le porter, le coucher, etc., tout comme une mère fait pour son enfant. Ensuite il a été soumis à ses parents; il leur a souvent porté du pain, de la boisson et autres objets. Marie lui aura dit: «Mon petit Jésus, où as-tu été? Ne peux-tu donc pas rester tranquille?» Et lorsqu'il aura grandi, il aura aidé Joseph dans son état de charpentier.» (Tischreden.)

Paroles à Carlostad: «Tu crois apparemment que l'ivrogne Christ, ayant trop bu à souper, a étourdi ses disciples de paroles superflues.»

377: «The unknown country.»

378: Holy dying, chap. I, sect. i.

379: All the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the world, and every contingency to every man, and to every creature, doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls us to look and see how the old sexton, Time, throws up the earth, and digs a grave, where we must lay our sins or our sorrows, and sow our bodies till they rise again in a fair or an intolerable eternity. Every revolution which the sun makes about the world divides between life and death; and death possesses both those portions by the next morrow; and we are dead to all those months which we have already lived, and we shall never live them over again: and still God makes little periods of our age. First we change our world, when we come from the womb to feel the warmth of the sun. Then we sleep and enter into the image of death in which state we are unconcerned in all the changes of the world: and if our mothers, or our nurses die, or a wild boar destroys your vineyards, or our king be sick, we regard it not, but, during that state, are as disinterested as if our eyes were closed with the clay that weeps in the bowels of the earth. At the end of seven years our teeth fall and die before us, representing a formal prologue to the tragedy; and still, every seven years it is odds but we shall finish the last scene: and when nature, or chance, or vice, takes our body in pieces, weakening some parts and loosening others, we taste the grave and the solemnities of our own funerals, first, in those parts that ministered to vice, and, next, in them that served for ornament; and, in a short time, even they that served for necessity become useless and entangled like the wheels of a broken clock. Baldness is but a dressing to our funerals, the proper ornament of mourning, and of a person entered very far into the regions and possession of death: and we have many more of the same signification—gray hairs, rotten teeth, dim eyes, trembling joints, short breath, stiff limbs, wrinkled skin, short memory, decayed appetite. Every day's necessity calls for a reparation of that portion which death fed on all night, when we lay in his lap, and slept in his outer chambers. The very spirits of a man pray upon the daily portion of bread and flesh, and every meal is a rescue for one death, and lays up for another, and while we think a thought, we die; and the clock strikes, and reckons on our portion of eternity: we form our words with the breath of our nostrils—we have the less to live upon for every word we speak.