"I am borne sweet ladyTo a poore fortune that will keep myselfAnd Footman, as you see, to bear my swordIn Cuerpo after me."—Mayne's City Match, a Comedy, 4to, 1658.
"I am borne sweet ladyTo a poore fortune that will keep myselfAnd Footman, as you see, to bear my swordIn Cuerpo after me."
—Mayne's City Match, a Comedy, 4to, 1658.
"You shall see him in the morning in the gallery—first, at noon in the Bullion, in the evening in Quirpo."—Massinger's Fatal Dowry.
"Dr. Johnson explains querpo, which he says is corrupted from cuerpo (Spanish), as a dress close to the body. Dryden uses it."
On the same character he has a quotation from Religio Regis, 12mo, 1715: King James in his advice to his son Henry, Prince of Wales, says "hawking is not to be condemned, but nevertheless, give me leave to say, it is more uncertain than the others (hunting), and subject to mischances."
On the "She-precise Hypocrite" he has a note—on "Geneva."
Like a Geneva weaver in black, who leftThe loom and entered into the ministryFor Conscience Sake.—Mayne's City Match.
Like a Geneva weaver in black, who leftThe loom and entered into the ministryFor Conscience Sake.—Mayne's City Match.
On 'door-posts' in 'The Aldermen' he quotes, "a pair of such brothers were fitter for posts without dore indeed, to make a shew at a new-chosen magistrate's gate."—The Widow, 4to, 1652.
Of 'Paul's Walk' there is yet one more illustration. "Walk in the middle Ile in Paul's, and gentlemen's teeth walk not faster at ordinaries than there a whole day togeather about inquirie after newes."—Theeves falling out true men come by their good, or the Belman wanted a clapper,4to, Lond., 1615.
On the Pot-Poet he has a quotation fromWhimzies, a new cast of Characters, 8vo, Lond., 1633, an illustration of the "strange monster out of Germany." "Nor comes his invention farre short of his imagination: for want of truer relations, for a neede he can find a Sussex dragone, some sea or Inland monster, drawn out by some Shoe Lane man in a gorgon-like feature, to enforce more horror in the beholder."
At the end of the Characters there is an extract from a letter of Clarendon which mentions that the deanery of Westminster"was designed to a person of very known and confessed merit," (most probably Dr. John Earle)written below. He quotes Anthony Wood on the other side of this leaf for Earle's friendships, with Henry Cary, first Earle of Monmouth—with George Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Morley and Earle lived together at Antwerp till they were called to attend on the Duke of York in France. Two passages of Anthony Wood, which he does not quote, are worth recalling. Morley was sent by Charles II. to "thank Salmasius for his Apology for his Martyrd father, but not with a purse of gold as Joh. Milton, the impudent lyer, reported." Henry Cary was "well skill'd in the modern languages, and a general scholar"; and thus "was capacitated [by a forced retiredness in the troublesome times of Rebellion] to exercise himself in studies, while others of the nobility were fain to truckle to their inferiors for company sake."
I have only given two title-pages of editions in the year of publication. A table of editions is given on the next page.
[Title-page of first edition of 1628.]
Micro-cosmographie;or,A Peece ofThe Worlddiscovered;In Essayes andCharacters.[Here is inserted in MS.—"Written by John Earlesof Merton Coll."]Newly composed for the Northerne partsof this Kingdome.AT LONDON:Printed by W. S., for Ed. Blount.1628.
or,
[Here is inserted in MS.—"Written by John Earlesof Merton Coll."]
Newly composed for the Northerne partsof this Kingdome.
AT LONDON:Printed by W. S., for Ed. Blount.1628.
[Title-page of 3rd edition of 1628.]
Micro-cosmographie;or,A Peece ofThe Worlddiscovered;In Essayes andCharacters.LONDON:Printed by William Stansbury, forRobert Allot, 1628.[W. H. Allnutt, in a MS. note inserted in the Bodleian copy of Arber's Reprint of the Characters, states that Arber has mistaken the order of priority of the three 1628 edd. Arber places the ed. with the above title-page second, and that of which the title is copied on p. 330, third. The second ed., called by Arber the first, is not in the Bodleian.]
or,
LONDON:Printed by William Stansbury, forRobert Allot, 1628.
[W. H. Allnutt, in a MS. note inserted in the Bodleian copy of Arber's Reprint of the Characters, states that Arber has mistaken the order of priority of the three 1628 edd. Arber places the ed. with the above title-page second, and that of which the title is copied on p. 330, third. The second ed., called by Arber the first, is not in the Bodleian.]
The last written page of the Durham MS. has by way of Colophon
Finis.December anno DoThis 14th miniday 1627.
"This little volume in calf binding, about 12mo size, is doubtless one of those referred to by Ed. Blount in his address to the Reader. The MS. is written in an exceedingly neat and small hand on the pages of the previously bound book, with margin lines ruled in red. At the top of the first page is written in a different hand, 'Edw. Blunt, Author.' The MS. contains 46 Characters in all, and is free from some evident blunders in the first printed copies, as if they had been done from dictation."
This MS. in the Durham Cathedral Library is entered in the catalogue (of the Hunter MSS.) as "Characters by Edward Blunt," and dated "about 1636," the datein the MS.having been overlooked.
Dr. Fowler inNotes and Queries, Nov. 4th, 1871.
EARLE'S MICROCOSMOGRAPHY.
Edition.Bliss, 1811Bliss, 1812-57.Bliss Sale, 1858.British MuseumBodleian"W. Stansby for Edward Blount,"[EV]1628(a)NoYesYesYesYes"W. Stansby for Robert Allot,"1628 (b)[EW]NoYesYesYesNo"W. S. for Ed. Blount,"1628 (c)[EX]YesYesYesYes4thNoNoNoNoNo5th1629YesYesYesYes6th1630NoNoNoYesNo"6th"1633YesYesYesYes7th1638YesYesYesYes(A reprint of one of the first four)1650YesYesYesYes(Very doubtful)1659No"Mr. Gilchrist" told him he possessed a copy by the same printers as in 1669 but with "1659."NoNoNo8th1664NoYesYesYesNo9th1669NoYesYesYesNo(1669 edition, with new title)1676NoYesYesNoNo(Reprint of 1633 edition)1732YesYesYesYes(1732 edition, with new title and small changes)1740YesYesYesYes(Reprint of 1650 edition)1786YesYesYesNo(Bliss's edition)1811YesYesYes(Arber's edition)1868 or 1869YesYesBritish Museum.Bodleian.Bliss.As to the three 1628 editions—A is regarded as1st2nd3rdB is regarded as2nd3rd2ndC is regarded as3rd1st1st
C has "Newly composed for the Northerne parts of this Kingdome."
F. Madan,Sub-Librarian Bodleian Library,
February 11th, 1897.
This table was compiled for me most kindly by Mr.Madan. It answers the question, what editions Bliss knew of atvarious times.
The following passage from Evelyn's Diary adds one more testimony to Earle.Nov. 30th, 1662."Invited by the Deane of Westminster (Dr. Earle) to his consecration dinner and ceremony on his being made Bishop of Worcester. Dr. Bolton preached in the Abbey Church—then followed the consecration.... After this was one of the most plentiful and magnificent dinners that in my life I ever saw. It cost neere £600.... Here were the Judges, Nobility, Clergy, and gentlemen innumerable, this Bishop being universally belov'd for his sweete and gentle disposition. He was author of those characters which go under the name of Blount. He translated his late Majesty's Icon into Latine, was Clerk of his Closet, Chaplaine, Deane of Westminster, and yet a most humble, meeke, but cheerful man, anexcellent scholar,[EY]and rare preacher. I had the honour to be loved by him. He married me at Paris, during his Majesties and the Churches exile. When I tooke leave of him he brought me to the Cloysters in his episcopal habit." He elsewhere speaks of "going to St. Germans to desire of Dr. Earle," then in attendance at the Prince of Wales' Court, that he would marry him "at the chapel of his Majesty's Resident at the Court of France," June 10th, 1647. A sermon of Earle's, "my deare friend now Deane of Westminster" is mentioned on Christmas Day 1660. It was one "condoling the breachemade in the public joy by the lamented death of the Princess of Orange." My attention was drawn to these passages by a friend who claims descent from Bishop Earle—Mr. W. B. Alt, of New College, Oxford.
A testimony from anotherhand[EZ]is quoted in Bliss's annotated copy. "How well he understood the world in his younger days appears by his smart characters; how little he valued it was seen in the careless indifference of his holy contemplative life."
In Burnet's History of his own Times we are told that Charles II. "who had a secret pleasure in finding out anything that lessened a man esteemed eminent for piety, yet had a value for him (Earle) beyond all the men of his order." (See Arber's Reprint.) On the other hand the Parliament in 1645 had named him as one to be summoned to the Assembly of Divines, but he declined to come.[FA]
In 1654 there was printed at the Hague an Elzevir volume—"morum exemplar,"Latincharacters by one Louis du Moulin. He aspires he says in the preface to be the Virgil or Seneca to Earle's Theocritus or Menander.
This is his testimony to the characters.
"Et sane salivam primum mihi movit vester Earles cujus characteribus, non puto quicquam exstare vel severius ubi seria tractat, vel festivius quandsinnoxiejocatur: ant pictorem unquam penicillo propius ad nativam speciem expressisse hominis vultus, quam ille ejus mores patria lingua descripserit."
It may be of interest to mention in connection with the titleof Earle's book that the phrase of Menenius Agrippa in Coriolanus.—"TheMapof my Microcosm" actually occurs as a title of a book of characters by H. Broune, 1642, the alternative description being "a morall description of man newly compiled into Essays.
Bliss's MS. book illustrates what I have said in the preface of the change in the character-sketch. The essay and the pamphlet gradually usurp the place of social studies. The great mass of the "characters" of the last half of the seventeenth century are political or religious. On the other hand, while the onlyprosecharacter in Bliss of the sixteenth century deals with the criminal classes, "a discoverie of ten English leapers verie noisome and hurtfull to the Church and Commonwealth," quoted in his MS. notebook, mixes such characters with "the Simoniacke," "the murmurer," "the covetous man." The date is 1592. (The Tincker of Torvey (1630) also exhibits this mixture.)
It may be worth while to add a few titles of books of characters, as illustrating the range of this class of literature, or as being in themselves interesting. They are from Bliss's own notes in his own copy of his book or in the MS. note book before referred to.
1. "The Coffee-House—a character."
Prefatory verses.{When coffee once was vended here,The Alc'ran shortly did appear,... reformers were such widgeons,New liquors brought in new religions.
2. Also a character of coffee and coffee-houses. "It was first brought into England when the palats of the English were as fanaticall as their brains.... The Englishmanwill be a la mode de France. With the barbarous Indian he smooks tobacco: with the Turk he drinks coffee."
3. News from the new Exchange. The commonwealth of ladies. Printed in theyear of women with out Grace, 1650.
4. There are many countries characterized—Italy, Spain, Holland, Scotland. 'Holland' is in verse. It bears out Earle's contemptuous references to the Dutch. It is here called "The offscouring of the British land."
"This indigested vomit of the seaFell to the Dutch by just propriety."
"This indigested vomit of the seaFell to the Dutch by just propriety."
1672. [It will be found among Marvell's satires, but Bliss does not mention this.]
5. "Scotland characteriz'd: in a letter to a young gentleman to dissuade him from an intended journey thither, 1701."
6. "The noble cavalier characterized," "& a rebellious caviller cauterized," 1644or5. An answer to Wither's Campo Musæ. A vigorous preface says—"To begin roundly, soundly, and profoundly, the Cavalier is a gentleman." By John Taylor.
7. Lucifer's Lacky: the true character of a dissembling Brownist, 1641.
8. "The Tincker of Torvey: a scholler, a cobler, a tincker, a smith; with Bluster, a seaman, travel from Billingsgate to Gravesend." 1650.
9. "The interpreter," 1622, deals with "three principall terms of state—a puritan, a Protestant, a papist."
10. "The Joviall Crew; or the Devill turn'd Ranter." 1651.
11.τα διαφεροντα; or divine characters, in two parts, will have an interest for Bristol readers; it is "by that late burningand shining lamp, Master Samuel Crook, B.D., late Pastor of Wrington in Somerset, who being dead yet speaketh." 1658.
12. "A character of the Religion and manners of Phanatiques in Generall," 1660, includes in the list "Seekers and Enthusiasts." The last sounds strange asa species.
13. "The character of an Ignoramus Doctor," 1681, recalls The Microcosmography.
14. The captive Captain, or the restrained Cavalier," 1665, also, in part, suggests Earle. "Of a Prison," "The anatomy of a Jayler," "The lean Prisoner," "The restrained Cavalier and his melancholy."
15. Bliss also mentions "The character of a learned man," and gives some choice extracts. "Our sottish and idle enthusiasts are to be reproved who call learning but asplendidum peccatum." "Alexander commanded his soldiers neither to damnify Pindarus, the poet, nor any of his family."
16. "A wandering Jew telling fortunes to Englishmen." 1640.
17. "The spiritual navigators bound for the Holy Land." 1615.
18. "The picture of a modern Whig: a dialogue between Whiglove and Double, at Tom's Coffee-House." 1715.
19. In 1671 "Le vice ridicule" appeared. A sort of translation of Earle's characters.
20. Pictures of Passions, Fancies, and Affections, poetically deciphered in variety of characters (no date).
21. Characters of gentlemen that have put in to the Ladies Invention. This begins—"A little Beau of the city strain."
22. Characters of several ingenious designing gentlewomen, who have lately put in to the Ladies Invention, which is intended to be drawn as soon as full. (There is no date to either of these.)
One or two extracts may be added from Anthony Wood.
"Lord Falkland, when he became one of the gentlemen of His Majesty's Privy Chamber, had frequent retirements to Great Tew and sometimes to Oxon, for the company of and conversation with learned and witty men. William Chillingworth (author of the Religion of Protestants), Joh. Earle,[FB]Charles Gataker (son of Thomas Gataker [the Editor of Marcus Aurelius] and Anthony Wood thinks Chaplain to Lord Falkland); Thomas Triplet, a very witty man of Christ Church; Hugh Cressey, and others.[FC]Cressey wrote a number of theological works, and in one of them occurs the testimony to Earle given in Bliss."
The saturnine Anthony Wood is amusingly illustrated in two passages from his notice of Earle. "John Earle received his first being in this vain and transitory world within the city of York.... His elegy on Beaumont was printed at the end of the quarto edition of Beaumont's poems—put out with a poetical epistle before them, subscribed by aPresbyterian bookbinder—afterwards an informer to the Court of Sequestration ...and a beggar defunct in prison"! In the notice of Morley he tells us that "his banishment was made less tedious to him by the company ofDr. Joh. Earle, his dearest friend." It is sad to find that the translation of Hooker which was "to make the learned of all nations happy" was "utterly destroyed"—the loose papers being taken by the servants after Earle's death "to light their fires or else to put under their bread and pies." This translation "was Earle's entertainment during a part of his exile at Cologne." See the Bodleian letters quoted in Arber's Reprint. To that Reprint I have been much indebted for help of various kinds.
My warmest thanks are due to Professor Rowley, of University College, Bristol, whom I have constantly consulted while preparing this issue of Dr. Bliss's edition. If one may be allowed a slight twist of a Shakspearian phrase, I would say of such help as his—"Ripeness is all." It is this quality that makes one at least of Professor Rowley's friends so grateful and so importunate.
S. T. I.Clifton, April, 1897.
FOOTNOTES:[EI]In a later hand.[EJ]Arcana in margin.[EK]Th. in margin,i.e., Th[omas].[EL]In a later hand.[EM]In the later hand.[EN]A fellow of Merton with Earle. His testimony to Earle is quoted by Bliss. Anthony Wood says of him, "that when he lost his most beloved Lord Falkland, at Newbury Fight, he travelled as a tutor, and upon a freight that the Church of England would terminate through the endeavours of the peevish and restless Presbyterians, began to think of settling himself in the Church of Rome." He recanted his errors publicly at Rome in 1646.[EO]Poetical?[EP]This epithet with Clarendon's "wary and cultivated" must be set against what Clarendon tells us of his "negligence in dress, habit and mien." Earle can never have been awkward. His courtesy was born with him, and he can never have needed (like "the downright scholar") "brushing over with good company."[EQ]Memoirs, vol. I, p. 81, ed. C. Firth.[ER]I ought to say that Mr. Madan, who was kind enough to look at my copy, does not think many of the notes are in Bliss's hand-writing.[ES]"More care, attention, accuracy and valuable enlargement from an inexhaustible stock of materials has rarely been witnessed than in the editorial labours of Dr. Bliss."—Dibdin, speaking of Bliss's edition of the Athenæ Oxonienses.[ET]Cowper's Letters, June 12th, 1782.[EU]Some of the MS. notes in my copy are the same as those in the printed volume.[EV]To Bliss's notice of {Blount Blunt}; it may be added that "Pericles" was printed for him in 1609; and the first edition of Marlow's "Hero and Leander" in 1598 ["printed for Edward Blunt by Adam Islip" (Philemon Holland's printer)]. Marlow's "First Book of Lucan" (1600) has a humorous and complimentary dedication to Blunt from another bookseller, Thomas Thorpe. See "Earlier History of English Bookselling." (Sampson and Low.)[EW]The second folio Shakespeare (1632) was printed for him.[EX]The 1613 edition of Hero and Leander was printed by W. Stansby for Ed. Blunt. He also published some of Ben Jonson's works.[EY]Sir Henry Savile, Provost of Eton, and editor of the famous Chrysostom, recognised Earle's scholarship. "When a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt,—Out upon him! I'll have nothing to do with him—he would say, give me the plodding student. If I would look for witts, I would go to Newgate—There be the witts! and John Earle was the only scholar that ever he took as recommended for a witt."—Aubrey.[EZ]David Lloyd, "Memoirs," 1668, folio.[FA]"The very Parliament naming him as worthy ... though he thought not it worthy of him."—Ib.[FB]Aubrey calls him "an ingeniose young gent, but no writer."[FC]"Ben Jonson, Edmund Waller, Esq., Mr. Th. Hobbes, and all the excellent witts of that peaceable time."—Aubrey.
[EI]In a later hand.
[EI]In a later hand.
[EJ]Arcana in margin.
[EJ]Arcana in margin.
[EK]Th. in margin,i.e., Th[omas].
[EK]Th. in margin,i.e., Th[omas].
[EL]In a later hand.
[EL]In a later hand.
[EM]In the later hand.
[EM]In the later hand.
[EN]A fellow of Merton with Earle. His testimony to Earle is quoted by Bliss. Anthony Wood says of him, "that when he lost his most beloved Lord Falkland, at Newbury Fight, he travelled as a tutor, and upon a freight that the Church of England would terminate through the endeavours of the peevish and restless Presbyterians, began to think of settling himself in the Church of Rome." He recanted his errors publicly at Rome in 1646.
[EN]A fellow of Merton with Earle. His testimony to Earle is quoted by Bliss. Anthony Wood says of him, "that when he lost his most beloved Lord Falkland, at Newbury Fight, he travelled as a tutor, and upon a freight that the Church of England would terminate through the endeavours of the peevish and restless Presbyterians, began to think of settling himself in the Church of Rome." He recanted his errors publicly at Rome in 1646.
[EO]Poetical?
[EO]Poetical?
[EP]This epithet with Clarendon's "wary and cultivated" must be set against what Clarendon tells us of his "negligence in dress, habit and mien." Earle can never have been awkward. His courtesy was born with him, and he can never have needed (like "the downright scholar") "brushing over with good company."
[EP]This epithet with Clarendon's "wary and cultivated" must be set against what Clarendon tells us of his "negligence in dress, habit and mien." Earle can never have been awkward. His courtesy was born with him, and he can never have needed (like "the downright scholar") "brushing over with good company."
[EQ]Memoirs, vol. I, p. 81, ed. C. Firth.
[EQ]Memoirs, vol. I, p. 81, ed. C. Firth.
[ER]I ought to say that Mr. Madan, who was kind enough to look at my copy, does not think many of the notes are in Bliss's hand-writing.
[ER]I ought to say that Mr. Madan, who was kind enough to look at my copy, does not think many of the notes are in Bliss's hand-writing.
[ES]"More care, attention, accuracy and valuable enlargement from an inexhaustible stock of materials has rarely been witnessed than in the editorial labours of Dr. Bliss."—Dibdin, speaking of Bliss's edition of the Athenæ Oxonienses.
[ES]"More care, attention, accuracy and valuable enlargement from an inexhaustible stock of materials has rarely been witnessed than in the editorial labours of Dr. Bliss."—Dibdin, speaking of Bliss's edition of the Athenæ Oxonienses.
[ET]Cowper's Letters, June 12th, 1782.
[ET]Cowper's Letters, June 12th, 1782.
[EU]Some of the MS. notes in my copy are the same as those in the printed volume.
[EU]Some of the MS. notes in my copy are the same as those in the printed volume.
[EV]To Bliss's notice of {Blount Blunt}; it may be added that "Pericles" was printed for him in 1609; and the first edition of Marlow's "Hero and Leander" in 1598 ["printed for Edward Blunt by Adam Islip" (Philemon Holland's printer)]. Marlow's "First Book of Lucan" (1600) has a humorous and complimentary dedication to Blunt from another bookseller, Thomas Thorpe. See "Earlier History of English Bookselling." (Sampson and Low.)
[EV]To Bliss's notice of {Blount Blunt}; it may be added that "Pericles" was printed for him in 1609; and the first edition of Marlow's "Hero and Leander" in 1598 ["printed for Edward Blunt by Adam Islip" (Philemon Holland's printer)]. Marlow's "First Book of Lucan" (1600) has a humorous and complimentary dedication to Blunt from another bookseller, Thomas Thorpe. See "Earlier History of English Bookselling." (Sampson and Low.)
[EW]The second folio Shakespeare (1632) was printed for him.
[EW]The second folio Shakespeare (1632) was printed for him.
[EX]The 1613 edition of Hero and Leander was printed by W. Stansby for Ed. Blunt. He also published some of Ben Jonson's works.
[EX]The 1613 edition of Hero and Leander was printed by W. Stansby for Ed. Blunt. He also published some of Ben Jonson's works.
[EY]Sir Henry Savile, Provost of Eton, and editor of the famous Chrysostom, recognised Earle's scholarship. "When a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt,—Out upon him! I'll have nothing to do with him—he would say, give me the plodding student. If I would look for witts, I would go to Newgate—There be the witts! and John Earle was the only scholar that ever he took as recommended for a witt."—Aubrey.
[EY]Sir Henry Savile, Provost of Eton, and editor of the famous Chrysostom, recognised Earle's scholarship. "When a young scholar was recommended to him for a good witt,—Out upon him! I'll have nothing to do with him—he would say, give me the plodding student. If I would look for witts, I would go to Newgate—There be the witts! and John Earle was the only scholar that ever he took as recommended for a witt."—Aubrey.
[EZ]David Lloyd, "Memoirs," 1668, folio.
[EZ]David Lloyd, "Memoirs," 1668, folio.
[FA]"The very Parliament naming him as worthy ... though he thought not it worthy of him."—Ib.
[FA]"The very Parliament naming him as worthy ... though he thought not it worthy of him."—Ib.
[FB]Aubrey calls him "an ingeniose young gent, but no writer."
[FB]Aubrey calls him "an ingeniose young gent, but no writer."
[FC]"Ben Jonson, Edmund Waller, Esq., Mr. Th. Hobbes, and all the excellent witts of that peaceable time."—Aubrey.
[FC]"Ben Jonson, Edmund Waller, Esq., Mr. Th. Hobbes, and all the excellent witts of that peaceable time."—Aubrey.