On Ancient and Modern Learning  

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"On Ancient and Modern Learning" (1690) is an essay by Sir William Temple, where he incidentally repeated the commonplace, originally from Bernard of Chartres, that we see more only because we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants.

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

TEMPLE'S fame has waned since the days when the essays here reprinted were Pope's favourite prose; but these still maintain their historical importance, for they represent a turning point in the development of English style, and in them something of the tone and temper of the eighteenth-century essay are already apparent. Goldsmith need not have told us that Temple's style was 'the model by which the best prose writers in the reign of Queen Anne formed theirs ', nor Swift that Temple ' advanced our English tongue to as great perfection as it can well bear ' ; to read aloud a single essay is to discover for oneself this forgotten secret. Johnson suggested to Bos well at least one of the causes of this reforming power : ' Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose. Before his time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important v word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it was concluded.' But the charm was not merely the charm of cadence, nor that grace and musical eloquence which Temple had found in French prose and strove to

iv Introductory Note

naturalize in England ; it was not only finish of style, but the dignity and restraint of temper, the fastidious taste, which found merely a fitting garment in the outer technique of language. This is what Goldsmith meant when he said that Temple ' wrote always like a man of sense and a gentleman'; it was this fastidious taste and aloofness, rather than moral scruple, which kept him pure of speech in an age of licence.

The somewhat flimsy learning of the first of these two essays, or rather the trivial blunder that provoked the controversy on the authenticity of the Letters of Phalaris, has been his undoing. Macaulay, in some violent and ill-considered pages, has thought it a simple matter to dismiss Temple's every claim to a serious place, and classical scholars have been content to echo these sneers ; but the fact is that his real importance lies, not so much in the mere varnish of style, as in the regions of taste and ideas in criticism. In an age which failed to distinguish between classic art and neo-classic theory, Temple urged his genera tion alike to a defence of the ancients and to scorn of ancient rule. In a literary age which set store chiefly by dogmatic law, he urged the new criterion of critical 'taste'.

The history of seventeenth-century classicism is not to be written in a few introductory pages. All the world knows how the Italians of the later Renaissance passed on this legacy to the France of

Introductory Note v

Louis XIV, and how it passed thence to Stuart England. But it is not generally realized that the earliest reaction against its excesses, almost a century before the final romantic revolt, is represented by a school of wits and virtuosi for whom taste rather than formal precept served as the test of literary excellence. The alien Saint-fivremond was perhaps the chief standard-bearer of this movement in Temple's day ; Dryden, in some of his rarer moods, gave it his sanction ; but in Temple himself this new standard moves harmoniously, for the first time in English, in a medium of expression that illustrates the new theory by the very grace of its practice. He attacks all the ( rules that burdened the creative art of his period, praising English comedy as a natural and unhampered expression of English life. He seeks to substitute historical criticism for the abstract criticism of Rules. He is full of dicta and aper?us that hold the attention of later critics, full of phrases and ideas whose history begins, and only begins, with him. He attacks the moral licence of contemporary English literature and the excessive refinement of contemporary French style. He sets the seal of approval on English* humour, and distinguishes it from its continental analogues. He foresees the new modes of romantic interest in the unknown literatures of the far North and the far East. The blunder of Phalaris cannot override such claims as these.

vi Introductory Note

It is in order that students may know something at first hand of the claims of Temple in this dual aspect of stylist and critic, that these two essays, long inaccessible, have been reprinted from the third volume of my Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. The notes which accompany them in that collection appear here also, with a few trifling varia tions and excisions, but without any really substantial change.

J. E. SPINGARN.

I. AN ESSAY UPON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN LEARNING

II. OF POETRY

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE (1690)

I. AN ESSAY UPON THE ANCIENT AND MODERN LEARNING

T^ZHOEVER Converses much among the Old Books

• * will be something hard to please among the New ;

yet these must have their Part too in the leisure of an idle man, and have, many of them, their Beauties as well as / their Defaults. Those of Story, or Relations of Matter of 5 Fact, have a value from their Substance as much as from their Form, and the variety of Events is seldom without Entertainment or Instruction, how indifferently soever the Tale is told. Other sorts of Writings have little of esteem but what they receive from the Wit, Learning, or Genius 10 of the Authors, and are seldom met with of any excellency, because they do but trace over the Paths that have been beaten by the Ancients, or Comment, Critick, and Flourish upon them, and are at best but Copies after those Originals, unless upon Subjects never touched by them, such as are 15 all that relate to the different Constitutions of Religions, v Laws, or Governments in several Countries, with all mat ters of Controversie that arise upon them.

Two Pieces that have lately pleased me, abstracted from any of these Subjects, are, one in English upon the Antedi- 20 luvian World, and another in French upon the Plurality of Worlds one Writ by a Divine, and the other by a Gentle man, but both very finely in their several Kinds and upon their several Subjects, which would have made very poor

On Ancient and Modern Learning 3

work in common hands. I was so pleased with the last (I mean the Fashion of it rather than the Matter, which is old and beaten) that I enquired for what else I could of the same hand, till I met with a small Piece concerning Poesy, which 5 gave me the same exception to both these Authors, whom I should otherwise have been very partial to. For the first could not end his Learned Treatise without a Panegy- rick of Modern Learning and Knowledge in comparison of the Ancient : And the other falls so grosly into the

10 censure of the Old Poetry and preference of the New, that I could not read either of these Strains without some indignation, which no quality among men is so apt to raise in me as sufficiency, the worst composition out of the pride and ignorance of mankind. But these Two, being

15 not the only Persons of the Age that defend these Opinions, it may be worth examining how far either Reason or Experience can be allowed to plead or determin in their favour.

The Force of all that I have met with upon this Subject,

20 either in Talk or Writing is, First, as to Knowledge. That we must have more than the Ancients, because we have the Advantage both of theirs and our own, which is commonly illustrated by the Similitude of a Dwarfs standing upon a Gyants shoulders, and seeing more or farther than he.

25 Next, as to Wit or Genius, that Nature being still the same, these must be much at a Rate in all Ages, at least in the same Clymates, as the Growth and Size of Plants and Animals commonly are ; And if both these are allowed, they think the Cause is gained. But I cannot tell why we

30 should conclude that the Ancient Writers had not as much Advantage from the Knowledge of others that were Ancient to them, as we have from those that are Ancient to us. The Invention of Printing has not, perhaps, multiplied Books, but only the Copies of them ; and if we believe

35 there were Six Hundred Thousand in the Library of

B

4 Sir William Temple

Ptolomy, we shall hardly pretend to equal it by any of ours, nor, perhaps, by all put together; I mean so many Originals that have lived any time, and thereby given Testimony of their having been thought worth preserving. For the Scribblers are infinite, that like Mushrooms or Flys are 5 born and dye in small circles of time ; whereas Books, like Proverbs, receive their Chief Value from the Stamp and Esteem of Ages through which they have passed. Besides the account of this Library at Alexandria, and others very Voluminous in the lesser Asia and Rome, we have frequent 10 mention of Ancient Writers in many of those Books which we now call Ancient, both Philosophers and Historians. 'Tis true that besides what we have in Scripture concern ing the Original and Progress of the Jewish Nation, all that passed in the rest of our World before the Trojan 15 War is either sunk in the depths of time, wrapt up in the mysteries of Fables, or so maimed by the want of Testi monies and loss of Authors that it appears to us in too obscure a shade to make any Judgment upon it. For the Fragments of Manethon about the Antiquities of Egypt, 20 the Relations in Justin concerning the Scythian Empire, and many others in Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, as well as the Records of China, make such Excursions beyond the periods of time given us by the Holy Scriptures that we are not allowed to reason upon them. And this dis- 25 agreement it self, after so great a part of the World became Christian, may have contributed to the loss of many Ancient Authors. For Solomon tells us, even in his Time, of Writing many Books there was no end; and whoever considers the Subject and the Stile of Job, which by many 30 is thought more ancient than Moses, will hardly think it was written in an Age or Country that wanted either Books or Learning ; and yet he speaks of the Ancients then, and their Wisdome, as we do now.

But if any should so very rashly and presumptuously con- 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 5

' -.(*- U.^s

elude, That there were few Books before those we have either Extant or upon Record, yet that cannot argue there was no Knowledge or Learning before those periods of time, whereof they give us the short account. Bonks may be

5 helps to Learning and Knowledge, and make it more common and diffused ; but I doubt whether they are neces sary ones or no, or much advance any other Science beyond the particular Records of Actions or Registers of time ; and these, perhaps, might be as long preserved without

10 them, by the care and exactness of Tradition in the long Successions of certain Races of men with whom they were intrusted. So in Mexico and Peru, before the least use or mention of Letters, there was remaining among them the knowledge of what had passed in those mighty Nations

15 and Governments for many Ages. Whereas in Ireland, that is said to have flourished in Books and Learning before they had much Progress in Gaul or Britany, there are now hardly any Traces left of what passed there before the Conquest made of that Country by the English

20 in Henry the Second's Time. A strange but plain Demon stration how Knowledge and Ignorance, as well as Civility and Barbarism, may succeed each other in the several Countries of the World, how much better the Records of time may be kept by Tradition in one Country than Writing

25 in another, and how much we owe to those Learned Lan guages of Greek and Latin, without which, for ought I know, the World in all these Western Parts would hardly be known to have been above five or six Hundred Years old, nor any certainty remain of what passed in it before that time.

30 'Tis true, in the Eastern Regions, there seems to have been a general Custom of the Priests in each Country having been either by their own Choice, or by Design of the Governments, the perpetual Conservers of Knowledge and Story. Only in China this last was committed particu-

35 larly to certain Officers of State, who were appointed or

B 2

6 Sir William Temple

continued upon every accession to that Crown to Register distinctly the times and memorable Events of each Reign. In Ethiopia, Egypt, Caldea, Persia, Syria, Judea, these Cares were committed wholly to the Priests, who were not less diligent in the Registers of Times and Actions than 5 in the Study and Successive Propagation thereby of all Natural Science and Philosophy. Whether this was managed by Letters, or Tradition, or by both, 'tis certain the Ancient Colledges, or Societies of Priests, were mighty Reservoirs or Lakes of Knowledge, into which some 10 streams entred perhaps every Age from the Observations or Inventions of any great Spirits or transcendent Genius's that happened to rise among them : And nothing was lost out of these Stores, since the part of conserving what others have gained, either in Knowledge or Empire, is as common 15 and easy as the other is hard and rare among men.

In these Soyls were planted and cultivated those mighty growths of Astronomy, Astrology, Magick, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, and Ancient Story. From these Sources Or- s pheus, Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Plato, and others of 20 the Ancients are acknowledged to have drawn all those Depths of Knowledge or Learning which have made them so Renowned in all succeeding Ages. I make a Distinc tion between these Two, taking Knowledge to be properly- meant of things that are generally agreed to be true by 25 Consent of those that first found them out or have been since instructed in them, but Learning is the Knowledge of the different and contested Opinions of men in former Ages, and about which they have perhaps never agreed in any ; and this makes so much of one and so little of the 30 other in the World.

Now to judge, Whether the Ancients or Moderns can

(be probably thought to have made the greatest Progress in the Search and Discoveries of the vast Region of Truth and Nature, it will be worth inquiring, What Guides have 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 7

been used, and what Labours imploy'd, by the one and the other in these Noble Travels and Pursuits.

The Modern Scholars have their usual Recourse to the Universities of their Countries ; some few, it may be, to

5 those of their Neighbours; and this in quest of Books)) rather than Men for their Guides, though these are living ' and those in comparison but dead Instructors, which, like a Hand with an Inscription, can point out the straight way upon the Road, but can neither tell you the next Turnings,

10 resolve your Doubts, or answer your Questions, like a Guide that has traced it over, and perhaps knows it as well as his Chamber. And who are these dead Guides we seek in our Journey? They are at best but some few Authors that remain among us of a great many that wrote in Greek

15 and Latine from the Age of Hypocrates to that of Marcus Antoninus, which reaches not much above Six Hundred Years. Before that time I know none, besides some Poets, some Fables, and some few Epistles ; and since that time I know very few that can pretend to be Authors, rather

20 than Transcribers or Commentators of the Ancient Learn ing. Now, to consider at what Sources our Ancients drew their Water, and with what unwearied Pains, 'Tis evident < Thales and Pythagoras were the Two Founders of the~ Grecian Philosophy : the First gave Beginning to the

25 lonick Sect and the other to the Itallick, out of which all the others celebrated in Greece or Rome were derived or composed. Thales was the First of the Sophi, or Wise men, Famous in Greece, and is said to have learned his Astronomy, Geometry, Astrology, Theology, in his Travels

30 from his Country, Miletus, to jEgypt, Phoenicia, Crete, and Delphos. Pythagoras was the Father of Philosophers and of the Vertues, having in Modesty chosen the Name of a Lover of Wisdom rather than of Wise, and having first introduced the Names of the Four Cardinal Vertues, and

35 given them the Place and Rank they have held ever since

8 Sir William Temple

in the World. Of these Two Mighty men remain no Writings at all, for those Golden Verses that go under the Name of Pythagoras are generally rejected as spurious, like many other Fragments of Sybils or Old Poets, and some entire Poems that run with Ancient Names : Nor is 5 it agreed, Whether he ever left any thing written to his Scholars or Contemporaries or whether all that learn't of him did it not by the Ear and Memory, and all that remained of him for some succeeding Ages were not by Tradition. But whether these ever writ or no, they were 10 the Fountains out of which the following Greek Philoso phers drew all those Streams that have since watered the Studies of the Learned World, and furnished the Voluminous Writings of so many Sects as passed after wards under the common Name of Philosophers. 15

As there were Guides to those that we call Ancients, so there were others that were Guides to them, in whose Search they travelled far and laboured long.

There is nothing more agreed than, That all the Learning of the Greeks was deduced Originally from Egypt 20 or Phoenicia-, but, Whether theirs might not have flourished to that Degree it did by the Commerce of the Ethiopians, Chaldceans, Arabians, and Indians is not so evident, though I am very apt to believe it ; and to most of these Regions some of the Grecians travelled in Search of those Golden 25 Mines of Learning and Knowledge. Not to mention the Voyages of Orpheus, Musceus, Lycurgus, Thales, Solon, Democritus, Herodotus, Plato, and that vain Sophist, Apollonius, who was but an Ape of the AncientJPhjloso- phers, I shall only trace those of Pythagoras, who seems 30 of~all others to have gone the farthest upon this Design, and to have brought home the greatest Treasures. He went first to Egypt, where he spent Two and Twenty Years in Study and Conversation among the several Colledges of Priests in Memphis, Thebes, and Heliopolis, 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 9

(and) was initiated in all their several Mysteries, in order to gain Admittance and Instruction in the Learning and Sciences that were there in their highest Ascendent. Twelve Years he spent in Babylon and in the Studies and

5 Learning of the Priests or Magi of the Chaldceans. Besides these long abodes in those Two Regions, celebrated for ancient Learning, and where one Author, according to their Calculations, says, He gained the Observations of innumerable Ages, He Travelled likewise upon the same

10 sent in ^Ethiopia, Arabia, India, to Crete, to Delphos, and to all the Oracles that were Renowned in any of these Regions.

What sort of Mortals some of those may have been that he went so far to seek, I shall only endeavour to Trace

15 out by the most ancient Accounts that are given of the Indian Brachmans, since those of the Learned or Sages in tnlTother Countries occur more frequent in Story. These were all of one Race or Tribe, that was kept chast from any other mixture, and were dedicated wholly to the

20 Service of the Gods, to the Studies of Wisdom and Nature, and to the Councel of their Princes. There was not only particular care taken of their Birth and Nurture, but even from their Conception. For when a Woman among them was known to have Conceived, much thought

25 and diligence was imployed about her Diet and Entertain ments, so far as to furnish her with pleasant imaginations, to compose her mind and her sleeps with the best temper during the time she carried her Burthen. This I take to be a strain beyond all the Grecian Wit, or the Constitutions

30 even of their imaginary Law-givers, who began their cares of Mankind only after their Birth, and none before. Those of the Brachmans continued in the same Degree for their Education and Instruction, in which, and their Studies and Discipline of their Colledges, or separate abodes in Woods

35 and Fields, they spent Thirty Seven Years. Their

io Sir William Temple

Learning and Institutions were unwritten, and only traditional among themselves by a perpetual Succession. Their Opinions in Natural Philosophy were, That the World was round, That it had a Beginning and would have an end, but reckoned both by immense periods of time ; 5 That the Author of it was a Spirit or a Mind that pervaded the whole Universe and was diffused through all the Parts of it. They held the Transmigration of Souls, and some used discourses of Infernal Mansions, in many things like those of Plato. Their Moral Philosophy ro consisted chiefly in preventing all Diseases or Distempers of the Body, from which they esteemed the perturbation of mind in a great measure to arise. Then in composing the Mind, and exempting it from all anxious Cares, esteeming the troublesome and sollicitous thoughts about Past and 15 Future to be like so many Dreams, and no more to be regarded. They despised both lite and death, pleasure and pain, or at least thought them perfectly indifferent. Their Justice was exact and exemplary, their Temperance so great that they lived upon Rice or Herbs, and upon 20 nothing that had sensitive Life. If they fell sick, they counted it such a Mark of Intemperance that they would frequently dye out of Shame and Sullenness, but many lived a Hundred and Fifty, and some Two Hundred Years. 25

Their Wisdom was so highly esteemed that some of them were always imployed to follow the Courts of their Kings, to advise them upon all Occasions, and instruct them in Justice and Piety ; and upon this Regard Calanus and some others are said to have followed the Camp of 30 Alexander after his Conquest of one of their Kings. The Magical Operations reported of them are so wonderful that they must either be wholly disbelieved, or will make easie way for the credit of all those that we so often meet with in the later Relations of the Indies. Above all the 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning n

rest, their Fortitude was most admirable in their Patience and Endurance oFall Evils, of Pain, and of Death ; some standing, sitting, lying, without any Motion, whole dayes together in the scorching Sun ; others standing whole 5 nights upon one Leg, and holding up a heavy piece of Wood or Stone in both hands without ever moving, which might be done upon some sort of Penances usual among them. They frequently ended their Lives by their own Choice and not necessity, and most usually by Fire; some

10 upon Sickness, others upon Misfortunes, some upon meer satiety of Life ; so Calanus, in Alexander's time, burn't himself publickly upon growing old and infirm, Zormano- chages, in the time of Augustus, upon his constant Health and Felicity, and to prevent fiis living so long as to fall

15 into Diseases or Misfortunes. These were the Brachmans of India, by the most Ancient Relations remaining of them, and which, Compared with our Modern, since Navigation and Trade have discovered so much of those vast Countries, make it easie to conjecture that the present Bantams have

20 derived from them many of their Customs and Opinions, which are still very like them after the course of Two Thousand Years. For how long Nations, without the Changes introduced by Conquest, may continue in the same Customs, Institutions, and Opinions, will be easily observed

25 in the Stories of the Peruvians and Mexicans, of the Chineses and Scythians : These last being described by Herodotus to lodge always in Carts, and to feed commonly upon the Milk of Mares, as the Tartars are reported to do at this time in many Parts of those Vast Northern Regions.

30 From these Famous Indians it seems to me mosf probable that Pythagoras learn't, and transported into Greece and Italy, the greatest part of his Natural and Moral Philosophy, rather than from the Egyptians, as is commonly supposed ; For I have not observed any mention of the Transmigration

35 of Souls held among the Egyptians more ancient tharTthe

i2 Sir William Temple

time of Pythagoras : On the contrary, Orpheus is said to have brought out of Egypt all his Mystical Theology, with the Stories of the Stygian Lake, Charon, the Infernal Judges, which were wrought up by the succeeding Poets (with a Mixture of the Cretan Tales or Traditions) into that 5 part of the Pagan Religion so long observed by the Greeks and Romans. Now, 'tis obvious that this was in all parts very different from the Pythagorean Opinion of Transmi gration, which, though it was preserved long among some of the succeeding Philosophers, yet never entered into the 10 vulgar Belief of Greece or Italy.

Nor does it seem unlikely that the Egyptians themselves might have drawn much of their Learning from the Indians, for they are observed in some Authors to have done it from the Ethiopians ; and Chronologers, I think, agree that 15 these were a Colony that came anciently from the River Indus, and planted themselves upon that Part of Africa which from their Name was afterward called Ethiopia, and in probability brought their Learning and their Customs with them. The Phoenicians are likewise said to have been 20 anciently a Colony that came from the Red Sea, and planted themselves upon the Mediterranean, and from thence spread so far the Fame of their Learning and their Navigations.

To strengthen this Conjecture of much Learning being derived from such remote and ancient Fountains as the 25 Indies and perhaps China, it may be asserted with great Evidence that, though we know little of the Antiquities of India beyond Alexander's time, yet those of China are the oldest that any where pretend to any fair Records : For these are agreed by the Missionary Jesuits to extend so 30 far above Four Thousand Years, and with such Appearance of clear and undeniable Testimonies, that those Religious Men themselves, rather than question their Truth by finding them contrary to the vulgar Chronology of the Scripture, are content to have recourse to that of the 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 13

Septuagint, and thereby to salve the Appearances in those Records of the Chineses. Now though we have been deprived the knowledge of what Course Learning may have held, and to what heights it may have soared, in that vast

5 Region, and during so great Antiquity of time, by reason of the Savage Ambition of one of their Kings, who, desirous to begin the Period of History from his own Reign, ordered all Books to be burnt, except those of Physick and Agri culture, so that what we have remaining besides of that

10 wise and ancient Nation is but what was either by chance or by private Industry rescued out of that publick Calamity, among which were a Copy of the Records and Successions of the Crown, yet it is observable and agreed that, as the Opinions of the Learned among them are at present, so

15 they were anciently divided into two Sects, whereof one held the Transmigration of Souls, and the other the Eternity of Matter, comparing the World to a great Mass of Metal out of which some Parts are continually made up into a Thousand various Figures, and after certain Periods

20 melted down again into the same Mass. That there were many Volumes written of old in Natural Philosophy among them. That near the Age of Socrates lived their Great and Renowned Confutius, who began the same Design of reclaiming men from the useless and endless Speculations

25 of Nature to those of Morality. But with this Difference, that the Bent of the Grecian seemed to be chiefly upon the Happiness of private Men or Families, but that of the Chinese upon the good Temperament and Felicity of such Kingdoms or Governments as that was, and is known to

30 have continued for several Thousands of Years, 'and may be properly called a Government of Learned men, since no other are admitted into Charges of the State.

For my own part, I am much inclined to believe that, in these Remote Regions, not only Pythagoras learn't the

35 first Principles both of his Natural and Moral Philosophy,

14 Sir William Temple

but that those of Democritus, who Travelled into Caldcea, and India, and whose Doctrines were after improved by Epicurus, might have been derived from the same Fountains, and that long before them both Lycurgus, who likewise Travelled into India, brought from thence 5 also the Chief Principles of his Laws and Politicks, so much Renowned in the World.

IFor whoever observes the Account already given of the Ancient Indian and Chinese Learning and Opinions will leasily find among them the Seeds of all these Grecian 10 JProductions and Institutions : As the Transmigration of Souls and the four Cardinal Vertues ; The long Silence enjoyned his Scholars, and Propagation of their Doctrines by Tradition rather than Letters, and Abstinence from all Meats that had Animal Life, introduced by Pythagoras] 15 The Eternity of Matter, with perpetual changes of Form, the Indolence of Body, and Tranquility of Mind, by Epicurus-, And among those of Lycurgus, the care of Education from the Birth of Children, the Austere Temperance of Diet, the patient endurance of Toil and 20 Pain, the neglect or contempt of Life, the use of Gold and Silver only in their Temples, the Defence of Commerce with Strangers, and several others, by him established among the Spartans, seem all to be wholly Indian, and different from any Race or Vein of Thought and Imagina- 25 tion that have ever appeared in Greece, either in that Age or any since.

I It may look like a Paradox to deduce Learning from ! I Regions accounted commonly so barbarous and rude. 1 1 And 'tis true the generality of People were always so in 30 !/ those Eastern Countries, and their lives wholly turned to jf Agriculture, to Mechanicks, or to Trades; but this does not hinder particular Races or Successions of Men, the design of whose thought and time was turned wholly to Learning and Knowledge, from having been what they are 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 15

reepresented and what they deserve to be esteemed, since among the Gauls, the Goths, and the Peruvians themselves, there have been such Races of Men under the Names of Druids, Bards, Amautas, Runers, and other barbarous

5 Appellations.

Besides, I know no Circumstances like to Contribute more to the advancement of Knowledge and Learning among men than exact Temperance in their Races, great pureness of Air, and equality of Clymate, long Tranquility

10 of Empire or Government : And all these we may justly allow to those Eastern Regions more than any others we are acquainted with, at least till the Conquests made by the Tartars upon both India and China in the later Centuries. However, it may be as pardonable to derive some Parts of

15 Learning from thence as to go so far for the Game of Chess, which some Curious and Learned men have deduced from India into Europe by Two several Roads, that is, by Persia into Greece, and by Arabia into Africk and Spain.

Thus much I thought might be allowed me to say, for

20 the giving some Idaea of what those Sages or Learned Men were, or may have been, who were Ancients to those that are Ancients to us. Now to observe what these have been is more easy and obvious. The most ancient Grecians that we are at all acquainted with after Lycurgus, who was

25 certainly a great Philosopher as well as Law-giver, were the seven Sages. Tho' the Court of Croesus is said to have been much resorted to by the Sophists of Greece, in the happy beginnings of his Reign. And some of these seven seem to have brought most of the Sciences out of

SosEgypt and Phoenicia into Greece, particularly v those of Astronomy, Astrology, Geometry, and Arithmetick. These were soon followed by Pythagoras, who seems to have introduced Natural and Moral Philosophy, and by several of his Followers, both in Greece and Italy. But of all these

35 there remains nothing in Writing now among us, so that

r6 Sir William Temple

Hyppocrates, Plato, and Xenophon are the first Philosophers whose works have escaped the injuries of time. But that we may not conclude the first Writers we have of the Grecians were the first Learned or Wise among them, We shall find upon inquiry that the more ancient Sages of 5 Greece appear, by the Characters remaining of them, to have been much the greater Men. They were generally Princes or Law-givers of their Countries, or at least offered and invited to be so, either of their own or of others, that desired them to frame or reform their several Institutions 10 of Civil Government. They were commonly excellent Poets and great Physicians; they were so learned in Natural Philosophy that they fore-told not only Eclypses in the Heavens, but Earthquakes at Land and Storms at Sea, great Drowths and great Plagues, much Plenty or 15 much Scarcity of certain sorts of "Fruits or Grain, not to mention the Magical Powers attributed to several of them to allay Storms, to raise Gales, to appease Commotions of People, to make Plagues cease, which qualities, whether upon any ground of Truth or no, yet if well believed must 20 have raised them to that strange height they were at, of common esteem and honour, in their own and succeeding Ages.

By all this may be determined whether our Moderns or our Ancients may have had the greater and^the better 25 Guides, and which of them have taken the greater pains, and with the more application in the pursuit of Knowledge. And I think it is enough to shew that the advantage we have from those we call the Ancients may not be greater I than what they had from those that were so to them. 30

But after all, I do not know whether the high flights of

jWit and Knowledge, like those of Power and of Empire

t // in the World, may not have been made by the pure Native

$ Force of Spirit or Genius in some single men, rather than

- by any derived strength among them, however encreased 31

On Ancient and Modern Learning 17

v, by Succession, and whether they may not have been the

ML Atchievements of Nature, rather than the improvements

^ of Art. Thus the Conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, of

Alexander and Tamerlane, which I take to have been the

5 greatest Recorded in Story, were at their heighth in those

Persons that began them, and so far from being encreased

by their Successors that they were not preserved in their

extent and vigour by any of them, grew weaker in every

hand they passed through, or were divided into many that

10 set up for great Princes out of several small ruins of the

First Empires, till they withered away in time, or were lost

by the change of Names and Forms of Families or of

Governments.

Just the same Fate seems to have attended the highest

15 flights of Learning and of Knowledge that are upon our Registers. Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus were the first mighty^Conquerors of Ignorance injpur World, and made greater progresses in the several J^mpires of Science than any of their

20 Successors have been since able to reach. These have hardly ever pretended more than to learn what the others taught, to remember what they invented; and not able to compass that it self, they have set up for Authors upon some parcels of those great Stocks, or else have contented

25 themselves only to comment upon those Texts, and make the best Copies they could after those Originals.

I have long thought that the different abilities of Men, which we call Wisdom or Prudence, for the conduct of Publick Affairs or Private Life, grow directly out of that

30 little grain of Intellect or Good Sense which they bring with them into the World, and that the defect of it in Men comes from some want in their Conception or Birth.

Dixitque semel Nascentibus Author,

35 Quicquid scire licet.

i8 Sir William Temple

And though this may be improved or impaired in some degree by* accidents of Education, of Study, and of Conversation or Business, yet it cannot go beyond the reach of its Native Force, no more than Life can beyond the period to which it was destined by the strength or 5 weakness of the seminal Vertue.

If these speculations should be true, then I know not what advantages we can pretend to modern Knowledge, by any we receive from the Ancients. Nay, 'tis possible, \r men may lose rather than gafn by them, may lessen the 10 I? Force and Growth of their own Genius by constraining \. and forming it upon that of others, may have less Know- v> ledge of their own for contenting themselves with that of those before them. So a Man that only Translates -shall never be a Poet, nor a Painter that only Copies, nor a 15 Swimmer that Swims always with Bladders. So People that trust wholly to others Charity, and without Industry of their own, will be always poor. Besides, who can tell whether Learning may not even weaken Invention in a man that has great Advantages from Nature and Birth, 20 whether the weight and number of so many other mens thoughts and notions may not suppress his own, or hinder the motion and agitation of them from which all Invention arises; As heaping on Wood, or too many Sticks, or too close together, suppresses and sometimes 25 quite extinguishes a little spark that would otherwise have grown up to a noble Flame. The strength of mind as well as of body grows more from the warmth of Exercise than of Cloaths ; nay, too much of this Foreign heat rather makes Men faint, and their Constitutions tender or 30 weaker than they would be without them. Let it come ' about how it will, if we are Dwarfs, we are still so, though we stand upon a Gyant's shoulders ; and even so placed, yet we see less than he, if we are naturally shorter sighted, , or if we do not look as much about us, or if we are dazled 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 19

with the height, which often happens from weakness either of Heart or Brain,

In the growth and stature of Souls as well as Bodies, the common productions are of indifferent sizes, that 5 occasion no gazing nor no wonder. But (tho'} there are or have been sometimes Dwarfs and sometimes Gyants in the World, yet it does not follow that there must be such in every Age nor in every Country. This we can no more conclude than that there never have been any,

10 because there are none now, at least in the compass of our present Knowledge or Inquiry. As I believe there may have been Gyants at some time and some place or other in the World, of such a stature as may not have been equalled perhaps again in several Thousands of

15 Years or in any other Parts, so there may be Gyants in Wit and Knowledge, of so over-grown a size as not to be equalled again in many successions of Ages or any compass of Place or Country. Such, I am sure, Lucretius esteems and describes Epicurus to have been, and to have risen like

20 a Prodigy of Invention and Knowledge, such as had not been before nor was like to be again ; and I know not why others of the Ancients may not be allowed to have been as great in their kinds, and to have built as high, though upon different Schemes or Foundations. Because

25 there is a Stag's head at Amboyse of a most prodigious size, and a large Table at Memorancy cut out of the thickness of a Vine-stock, is it necessary that there must be every Age such a Stag in every great Forest or such a Vine in every large Vineyard ; or that the Productions

30 of Nature in any kind must be still alike, or soirfething near it, because Nature is still the same? May there not many circumstances concur to one production that do not to any other in one or many Ages? In the growth of a Tree, there is the native strength of the seed, both from

35 the kind and from the perfection of its ripening, and

c

20 Sir William Temple

from the health and vigour of the Plant that bore it. There is the degree of strength and excellence in that Vein of Earth where it first took root ; There is a propriety of Soyl, suited to the kind of Tree that grows in it ; there is a great favour or dis- favour to its growth 5 from accidents of Water and of Shelter, from the kind ness or unkindness of Seasons, till it be past the need or the danger of them. All these, and perhaps many others, joyned with the propitiousness of Clymat to that sort of Tree, and the length of Age it shall stand and grow, 10 may produce an Oak, a Fig, or a Plane-tree, that shall deserve to be renowned in Story, and shall not perhaps be parallel'd in other Countrys or Times.

May not the same have happened in the production, growth, and size of Wit and Genius in the World, or 15 in some Parts or Ages of it, and from many more circum stances that contributed towards it than what may concur to the stupendious growth of a Tree or Animal ? May there not have been, in Greece or Italy of old, such prodigies of Invention and Learning in Philosophy, Mathematicks, 20 Physick, Oratory, Poetry, that none has ever since approached them, as well as there were in Painting, Statuary, Architecture, and yet their unparallel'd and , inimitable excellencies in these are undisputed ?

Science and Arts have runtheir circles, and had their 25 periods in the several Parts~of the World. They are generally agreed to have held their course from East to West, to have begun in Chaldcea and ^Egypt, to have been Transplanted from thence to Greece, from Greece to Rome, to have sunk there, and after many Ages to have revived 3 from those Ashes, and to have sprung up again, both in Italy and other more Western Provinces of Europe. . When Chaldcea and ^Egypt were Learned and Civil, Greece and Rome were as rude and barbarous as all AZgypt and Syria now are and have been long. When Greece and 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 21

Rome were at their heights in Arts and Science, Gaul, Germany, Britain were as ignorant and barbarous as any Parts of Greece or Turkey can be now. These and greater changes are made in the several

5 Countries of the World and courses of time by the Revolutions of Empire, the Devastations of Armies, the Cruelties of Conquering, and the Calamities of enslaved Nations, by the violent inundations of Water in some Countries, and the Cruel Ravages of Plagues in others.

10 These sorts of accidents sometimes lay them so waste that, when they rise again, 'tis from such low beginnings that they look like New-Created Regions, or growing out of the Original State of Mankind, and without any Records or Remembrances beyond certain short periods

15 of time. Thus that vast Continent of Norway is said to have been so wholly desolated by a Plague about Eight or Nine Hundred Years ago, that it was for some Ages following a very Desart, and since all over-grown with Wood ; And Ireland was so spoiled and wasted by the

20 Conquests of the Scutes and Danes, that there hardly remains any Story or Tradition what that Island was, how Planted or Governed, above Five Hundred Years ago. What changes have been made by Violent Storms and Inundations of the Sea in the Maritine Provinces of

25 the Low-Countrys is hard to know, or to believe what is told, nor how ignorant they have left us of all that passed there before a certain and short period of time.

The Accounts of many other Countries would, perhaps, as hardly and as late have waded out of the Depths of

3 o Time and Gulphs of Ignorance, had it not been "for the Assistance of those two Languages to which we owe all we have of Learning or Ancient Records in the World. For whether we have any thing of the Old Chaldaan, Hebrew, Arabian that is truly Genuine, or more Ancient

35 than the Augustan Age, I am much in doubt ; yet 'tis

c 2

22 Sir William Temple

probable the vast Alexandrian Library must have chiefly consisted of Books composed in those Languages, with the ^Egyptian, Syrian, and jEthiopick, or at least Trans lated out of them by the Care of the ^Egyptian Kings or Priests, as the Old Testament was, wherein the Septuagints 5 employed left their Name to that Famous Translation.

'Tis very true and just, All that is said of the mighty Progress that Learning and Knowledge have made ia-. these Western Parts of Europe within these hundred and fifty Years; but that does not conclude it must be at 10 greater H eighth than it had been in other Countries, where it was growing much longer Periods of Time ; it argues more how low it was then amongst us rather than how high it is now.

Upon the Fall of the Roman Empire, almost all Learn- 15 ing was buried in its Ruines : The Northern Nations that Conquered, or rather overwhelmed it by their Numbers, were too barbarous to preserve the Remains of Learning or Civility more carefully than they did those of Statuary or Architecture, which fell before their Brutish Rage. 20 The Saracens, indeed, from their Conquests of ^Egypt, Syria, and Greece carried home great Spoils of Learning as well as other Riches, and gave the Original of all that Knowledge which flourished for some time among the Arabians, and has since been copied out of many Authors 25 among them, as theirs had been out of those of the Countries they had subdued ; nor, indeed, do Learning, Civility, Morality seem any where to have made a greater Growth in so short a Time than in that Empire, nor to have flourished more than in the Reign of their Great 30 Almanzor, under whose Victorious Ensigns Spain was Conquered by the Moors ; but the Goths, and all the rest of those Scythian Swarms that from beyond the Danube and the Elb, under so many several Names, over-run all Europe, took very hardly and very late 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 23

any Tincture of the Learning and Humanity that had flourished in the several Regions of it, under the Protec tion and by the Example and Instructions of the Romans that had so long possessed them. Those Northern Nations 5 were indeed easier induced to embrace the Religion of those they had subdued, and by their Devotion gave great Authority and Revenues and thereby Ease to the Clergy, both Secular and Regular, through all their Conquests. Great Numbers of the better sort among the

10 Oppressed Natives, finding this vein among them, and no other way to be safe and quiet under such rough Masters, betook themselves to the Profession and Assemblies of Religious Orders and Fraternities, and among those onely were preserved all the poor Remainders of Learning

15 in these several Countries.

But these good men either contented themselves with their Devotion or with the Ease of quiet Lives, or else employed their Thoughts and Studies to raise and main tain the Esteem and Authority of that Sacred Order to

20 which they owed the Safety and Repose, the Wealth and Honour they enjoyed. And in this they so well succeeded, that the Conquerors were governed by those they had subdued, the Greatest Princes by the Meanest Priests, and the Victorious Franks and Lombard Kings

25 fell at the feet of the Roman Prelates.

Whilst the Clergy were busied in these Thoughts or Studies, the better sort among the Laity were wholly turned to Arms and to Honour, the meaner sort to Labour or to Spoil; Princes taken up with Wars among them-

30 selves, or in those of the Holy Land, or between the Popes and Emperors, upon Disputes of the Ecclesiastical and Secular Powers; Learning so little in use among them that few could write or read, besides those of the Long Robes. During this Course of Time, which lasted

35 many Ages in the Western Parts of Europe, The Greek

24 Sir IV tilt am Temple

Tongue was wholly lost, and the Purity of the Roman to that degree that what remained of it was onely a certain Jargon rather than Latin, that passed among the Monks and Fryers who were at all Learned, and among the Students of the several Universities, which served to 5 carry them to Rome in pursuit of Preferments or Causes depending there, and little else.

When the Turks took Constantinople about two hundred Years ago, and soon after possessed themselves of all ^Greece, the poor Natives, fearing the Tyranny of those 10 cruel Masters, made their Escapes in great Numbers to the Neighbouring parts of Christendom, some by the Austrian Territories into Germany, others by the Venetian into Italy and France; several that were Learned among these Grecians, and brought many Ancient Books with 15 them in that Language, began to teach it in these Countries, first to gain Subsistence, and afterwards Favour in some Princes or Great mens Courts, who began to take a Pleasure or Pride in countenancing Learned men. Thus began the Restoration of Learning 20 in these Parts with that of the Greek Tongue ; and soon after, Reuchlyn and Erasmus began that of the purer and ancient Latin. After them Buchanan carried it, I think, to the greatest Heighth of any of the Moderns before or since. The Monkish Latin, upon this Return, was 25 laughed out of doors, and remains only in the Inns of Germany or Poland', and with the Restitution of these two Noble Languages and the Books remaining of them, which many Princes and Prelates were curious to recover and collect, Learning of all sorts began to thrive in these 30 Western Regions, and since that time, and in the first succeeding Century, made perhaps a greater growth than in any other that we know of in such a compass of Time, considering into what Depths of Ignorance it was sunk before. 35

T

On Ancient and Modern Learning 25

But why from thence should be concluded, That it has out-grown all that was Ancient, I see no Reason. If a ' Strong and Vigorous man at Thirty Years old should fall into a Consumption, and so draw on till Fifty in the 5 extreamest Weakness and Infirmity, after that should begin to Recover Health till Sixty, so as to be again as Strong as men usually are at that Age, It might perhaps truly be said in that case that he had grown more in Strength that last Ten Years than any others of his

10 Life, but not that he was grown to more Strength and. Vigour than he had at Thirty Years old.

But what are the Sciences wherein we pretend to excel ? I know of no New Philosophers that have made Entries upon that Noble Stage for Fifteen Hundred Years past,

15 unless Des Cartes and Hobbs should pretend to it, ot whom I shall make no Critick here, but only say, That by what appears of Learned Mens Opinions in this Age, they have by no means eclypsed the Lustre of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, or others of the Ancients. For

20 Grammar or Rhetorick, no man ever disputed it with them, nor for Poetry, that ever I heard of, besides the New French Author I have mentioned, and against whose Opinion there could, I think, never have been given stronger Evidence than by his own Poems, Printed to-

25 gether with that Treatise.

There is nothing new in Astronomy to vye with the^ Ancients, unless it be the Copernican System; nor in Physick, unless Hervy's Circulation of the blood. But ^ whether either of these be modern discoveries, or derived

30 from old Fountains, is disputed : Nay, it is 'so, too, whether they are true or no; for though reason may seem to favour them more than the contrary Opinion, yet sense can very hardly allow them ; and to satisfie Mankind, both these must concur. But if they are true,

35 yet these two great discoveries have made no change

26 Sir William Temple

in the conclusions of Astronomy, nor in the practise of Physick, and so have been of little use to the World, though perhaps of much honour to the Authors.

What are become of the Charms of Musick, by which Men and Beasts, Fishes, Fowls, and Serpents were so 5 frequently Enchanted, and their very Natures changed ; By which the Passions of men were raised to the greatest heigth and violence, and then as suddenly appeased, so as they might be justly said to be turned into Lyons or Lambs, into Wolves or into Harts, by the Power and 10 f Charms of this admirable Art ? 'Tis agreed by the | Learned that the Science of Musick, so admired of the Ancients, is wholly lost in the World, and that what we have now is made up out of certain Notes that fell into the fancy or observation of a poor Fryar in chanting 15 his Mattins. So as those Two Divine Excellencies of Musick and Poetry are grown in a manner to be little more, but the one Fidling, and the other Rhyming ; and are indeed very worthy the ignorance of the Fryer and the barbarousness of the Goths that introduced them 20 among us.

What have we remaining of Magick, by which the Indians, the Chaldceans, the ^Egyptians were so renowned, and by which effects so wonderful and to common men so astonishing were produced, as made them have recourse 25 to Spirits or Supernatural Powers for some account of their strange Operations ? By Magick I mean some excelling knowledge of Nature and the various Powers and Qualities in its several productions, and the appli cation of certain Agents to certain Patients, which by 30 force of some peculiar qualities produce effects very different from what fall under vulgar Observation or Comprehension. These are by ignorant People called Magick and Conjuring, and such like Terms, and an Account of them much about as wise is given by the 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 27

common Learned, from Sympathies, Antipathies, Idiosyn- crasys, Talismans, and some scraps or Terms left us by the ^Egyptians or Grecians of the Ancient Magick ; but the Science seems, with several others, to be wholly lost. 5 What Traces have we left of that admirable Science or Skill in Architecture, by which such stupendious Fabricks have been raised of old and so many of the Wonders of the World been produced, and which are so little approached by our Modern Atchievements of

10 this sort, that they hardly fall within our Imagination ? Not to mention the Walls and Palace of Babylon, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Tomb of Mausolus, or Collosse of Rhodes, the Temples and Palaces of Greece and Rome : What can be more admirable in this kind than the Roman

15 Theatres, their Aqueducts, and their Bridges, among which that of Trajan over the Danube seems to have been the last Flight of the Ancient Architecture ? The stupendious Effects of this Science sufficiently evince at what Heighths the Mathematicks were among the Ancients ;

20 but if this be not enough, who-ever would be satisfied need go no further than the Siege of Syracuse, and that mighty Defence made against the Roman Power, more by the wonderful Science and Arts of Archimedes, and almost Magical Force of his Engines, than by all the

25 Strength of the City, or Number and Bravery of the Inhabitants.

The greatest Invention that I know of in later Agesr has been that of the Load-Stone, and consequently the> greatest Improvement has been made in the Art of Navi-

30 gation ; yet there must be allowed to have been something stupendious in the Numbers and in the Built of their Ships and Gallies of old ; and the Skill of Pylots, from the Observation of the Stars in the more serene Clymates, may be judged by the Navigations, so celebrated in Story,

35 of the Tynans and Carthagenians, not to mention other

28 Sir William Temple

Nations. However, 'tis to this we owe the Discovery and Commerce of so many vast Countries which were very little if at all known to the Ancients, and the experimental Proof of this Terrestrial Globe, which was before only Speculation, but has since been surrounded 5 by the Fortune and Boldness of several Navigators. From this great though fortuitous Invention, and the t consequence thereof, it must be allowed that Geography , is mightily advanced in these latter Ages. The Vast Continents of China, the East and West Indies, the long 10 Extent and Coasts of Africa, with the numberless Islands belonging to them, have been hereby introduced into our Acquaintance and our Maps, and great Increases of Wealth and Luxury, but none of Knowledge, brought among us, further than the Extent and scituation of 15 Country, the customs and manners of so many original Nations, which we call Barbarous, and I am sure have treated them as if we hardly esteem them to be a part of Mankind. I do not doubt but many Great and more Noble Uses would have been made of such Conquests 20 or Discoveries, if they had fallen to the share of the Greeks and Romans in those Ages when Knowledge and Fame were in as great Request as endless Gains and 'Wealth are among us now; and how much greater Discoveries might have been made by such Spirits as 25 theirs is hard to guess. I am sure ours, though great, yet look very imperfect, as to what the Face of this Terrestrial Globe would probably appear, if they had been pursued as far as we might justly have expected from the Progresses of Navigation since the Use of the 30 Compass, which seems to have been long at a stand. How little has been performed of what has been so often and so confidently promised of a North-West Passage to the East of Tartary and North of China ! How little do we know of the Lands on that side of the 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 29

Magellan Straits that lye towards the South Pole, which may be vast Islands or Continents for ought any can yet aver, though that Passage was so long since found out! Whether Japan be Island or Continent, with some Parts

5 of Tartary on the North side, is not certainly agreed. The Lands of Yedso upon the North-East Continent have been no more than Coasted, and whether they may not joyn to the Northern Continent of America is by some doubted.

10 But the Defect or Negligence seems yet to have been greater towards the South, where we know little beyond Thirty Five Degrees, and that only by the Necessity of doubling the Cape of Goodhope in our East-India Voyages ; yet a Continent has been long since found out within

15 Fifteen Degrees to South, and about the Length of Java, which is marked by the Name of New Holland in the Maps, and to what Extent none knows, either to the South, the East, or the West ; yet the Learned have been of Opinion, That there must be a Ballance of Earth on

20 that side of the Line, in some Proportion to what there is on the other, and that it cannot be all Sea from Thirty Degrees to the South-Pole, since we have found Land to above Sixty Degrees towards the North. But our Navigators that way have been confined to the Roads of

25 Trade, and our Discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain Degree of Gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch that their East-India-Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest Penalties, any further Attempts of discovering that

30 Continent, having already more Trade in those Parts than they can turn to Account, and fearing some more Populous Nation of Europe might make great Establish ments of Trade in some of those unknown Regions which might ruine or impair what they have already in the

35 Indies.

30 Sir William Temple

Thus we are lame still in Geography it self, which we might have expected to run up to so much greater Per fection by the Use of the Compass ; and it seems to have been little advanced these last Hundred Years. So far have we been from improving upon those Advantages we 5 have received from the Knowledge of the Ancients, that since the late Restoration of Learning and Arts among us, our first Flights seem to have been the highest, and a sudden Damp to have fallen upon our Wings, which has hindered us from rising above certain Heights. The 10 Arts of Painting and Statuary began to revive with Learn ing in Europe, and made a great but short Flight, so as for these last Hundred Years we have not had One Master in either of them who deserved a Rank with those that flourished in that short Period after they began 15 among us.

were too great a Mortification to think, That the

me Fate has happened to us, even in our Modern ing, as if the Growth of that, as well as of Natural Bodies, had some short Periods beyond which it could 20 not reach, and after which it must begin to decay. It falls in one Country or one Age, and rises again in others, but never beyond a certain Pitch. One Man or one Country at a certain Time runs a great Length in some certain Kinds of Knowledge, but lose as much 25 Ground in others that were perhaps as useful and as valuable. There is a certain Degree of Capacity in the greatest Vessel, and when 'tis full, if you pour in still, it must run out some way or other; and the more it runs out on one side, the less runs out at the other. So the 30 greatest Memory, after a certain Degree, as it learns or retains more of some Things or Words, loses and forgets as much of others. The largest and deepest Reach of Thought, the more it pursues some certain Subjects, the more it neglects others. 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 31

Besides, few men or none excel in all Faculties of Mind. A great Memory may fail of Invention, both may want Judgment to Digest or Apply what they Remember or Invent. Great Courage may want Caution, great 5 Prudence may want Vigour, yet all are necessary to make a great Commander. But how can a man hope to excel in all qualities, when some are produced by the heat, others by the coldness, of Brain and Temper? The abilities of man must fall short on one side or other,

10 like too scanty a Blanket when you are a Bed : if you pull it upon your Shoulders, you leave your Feet bare ; if you thrust it down upon your Feet, your Shoulders are uncovered.

But what would we have, unless it be other Natures

15 and Beings than God Almighty has given us? The heigth of our Statures may be six or seven Foot, and we would have it sixteen ; the length of our Age may reach to a hundred Years, and we would have it a thousand. We are born to grovel upon the Earth, and

ao we would fain soar up to the Skies. We cannot compre hend the growth of a Kernel or Seed, the Frame of an Ant or Bee-, we are amazed at the Wisdom of the one and Industry of the other, and yet we will know the Substance, the Figure, the Courses, the Influences of all

25 those Glorious Ccelestial Bodies, and the end for which they were made ; we pretend to give a clear Account how Thunder and Lightning (that great Artillery of God Almighty) is produced, and we cannot comprehend how the Voice of a man is Framed, that poor little noise we make

30 every time we speak. The motion of the Sun is plain and evident to some Astronomers, and of the Earth to others, yet we none of us know which of them moves, and meet with many seeming impossibilities in both, and beyond the fathom of human reason or comprehension. Nay,

35 we do not so much as know what Motion is, nor how a

32 Sir William Temple

stone moves from our hand when we throw it cross the Street. Of all these that most Ancient and Divine Writer ' gives the best Account in that short Satyr, Vain man would fain be wise, when he is born like a wild Asses Colt.

But God be thanked, his Pride is greater than his 5 ignorance ; and what he wants in Knowledge he supplies / by Sufficiency. When he has looked about him as far as 1 he can, he concludes there is no more to be seen ; when ( he is at the end of his Line, he is at the bottom of the Ocean ; when he has shot his best, he is sure none ever 10 did nor ever can shoot better or beyond it. His own Reason is the certain measure of truth, his own Know ledge, of what is possible in Nature, though his mind and his thoughts change every seven Years as well as his strength and his features ; nay, though his Opinions 15 change every Week or every Day, yet he is sure, or at least confident, that his present thoughts and conclusions are just and true, and cannot be deceived ; And among all the miseries to which mankind is born and subjected in the whole course of his life, he has this one Felicity to 20 Comfort and Support him, That in all ages, in all things, > every man is always in the right. A Boy of fifteen is wiser than his Father at forty, the meanest Subject than his Prince or Governours; and the modern Scholars, because they have for a Hundred Years past learned their 25 Lesson pretty well, are much more knowing than the Ancients, their Masters.

But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, Is it so by experience too? 'Have the Studies, the Writings, the Productions of Gresham Colledge, or the late Academies of 30 Paris, outshined or eclypsed the Lycaeum of Plato, the Academy of Aristotle, the Stoa of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus ? J3as Hervy outdone Hippocrates, or Wilkins, Archimedes? :Are D'avila's and Strada's Histories beyond those of Herodotus and Livy ? Are Sleyden's Commen- 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 33

taries beyond those of Ccesart The Flights of Boilcau above those of Virgil? If all this must be allowed, I will then yield Gondibert to have excelled Homer, as it pre tended, and the modern French Poetry, all that of the

5 Ancients. And yet, I think, it may be as reasonably said, That the Plays in Moor-Fields are beyond the Olympick Games ; A Welsh or Irish Harp excels those of Orpheus and Arion ; The Pyramid in London, those of Memphis ; and the French Conquests in Flanders are greater than

10 those of Alexander and Ccesar, as their Opera's and Panegy- ricks would make us believe.

But the Consideration of Poetry ought to be a Subject ) J by it self. For the Books we have in Prose, Do any of j^ the modern we Converse with appear of such a Spirit and

15 Force as if they would live longer than the Ancient have done? If our Wit and Eloquence, our knowledge or. Inventions would deserve it, yet our Languages would not; there is no hope of their lasting long, nor of any/

thing in them ; they change every Hundred Years so as

20 to be hardly known for the same, or any thing of the former Styles to be endured by the later ; so as they can no more last like the Ancients, than excellent Carvings in Wood like those in Marble or Brass.

The three modern Tongues most esteemed are Italian,

25 Spanish, and French, all imperfect Dialects of the Noble Roman : first mingled and corrupted with the harsh Words and Terminations of those many different and barbarous Nations by whose Invasions and Excursions the Roman Empire was long infested, They were afterwards

30 made up into these several Languages, by long and popular use, out of those ruins and corruptions of Latin and the prevailing Languages of those Nations to which these several Provinces came in time to be most and longest subjected, as the Goths and Moors in Spain, the

35 Goths and Lombards in Italy, the Franks in Gaul, besides

34 Sir William Temple

a mingle of those Tongues which were Original to Gaul and to Spain before the Roman Conquests and Establish ments there. Of these there may be some Remainders in Biscay or the Asturias ; but I doubt whether there be any of the old Gallick in France, the Subjection there having 5 been more Universal, both to the Romans and Franks. But I do not find the Mountainous Parts on the North of Spain were ever wholly subdued or formerly Governed either by the Romans, Goths, or Saracens, no more than Wales by Romans, Saxons, or Normans, after their Con- 10 quests in our Islands : which has preserved the ancient Biscayn and British more entire than any Native Tongue of other Provinces where the Roman and Gothick or Northern Conquests reached and were for any time Established. 15

J Tis easy to imagine how imperfect Copies these modern Languages, thus composed, must needs be of so excellent an Original, being patcht up out of the Conceptions as well as Sounds of such barbarous or enslaved People. Whereas the Latin was framed or cultivated by the thoughts and 20 uses of the Noblest Nation that appears upon any Record of Story, and enriched only by the Spoyls of Greece, which alone could pretend to contest it with them. 'Tis obvious enough what rapport there is, and must ever be, between the thoughts and words, the Conceptions and Languages 25 of every Country, and how great a difference this must make in the Comparison and Excellence of Books, and how easy and just a preference it must decree to those of the Greek and Latin before any of the modern Languages.

It may, perhaps, be further affirmed in Favour of the 30 Ancients, that the oldest Books we have are still in their kind the best. The two most ancient that I know of in Prose, among those we call prophane Authors, are ^Esop's Fables and Phalaris's Epistles, both living near the same time, which was that of Cyrus and Pythagoras. As the 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 35

first has been agreed by all Ages since for the greatest Master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his Original, /iso I think the Epistles of Phalaris to have more Race, more Spirit, more Force of 5 Wit and Genius, than any others I have ever seen, either ancient or modern. I know several Learned men (or that usually pass for such, under the Name of Criticks) have not esteemed them Genuine, and Politian with some others have attributed them to Lucian. But I think he

10 must have little skill in Painting, that cannot find out this to be an Original ; such diversity of Passions upon such variety of Actions and Passages of Life and Government, such Freedom of Thought, such Boldness xrf Expression, such Bounty to his Friends, such Scorn of his Enemies,

15 such tjonour_of Learned men, such esteem of Good, such Knowledge^oTXIfe, such Contempt of Death, with such Fierceness of Nature and Cruelty of Revenge, could never be represented but by him that possessed them ; and I esteem Lucianto have been no more Capable of Writing

20 than of Acting what Phalaris did. In all one Writ you find the Scholar or the Sophist ; and in all the other, the Tyrant and the Commander.

The next to these in Time are Herodotus, Thucidides, Hippocrates, Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, of whom I

25 shall say no more than what I think is allowed by all, that they are in their several kinds inimitable. So are Ccesar, Salust, and Cicero in theirs, who are the Ancientest of the Latin (I speak still of Prose), unless it be some little of old Cato upon Rustick Affairs. v

30 The Height and Purity of the Roman Style, as it began towards the Time of Lucretius, which was about that of the Jugurthin War, so it ended about that of Tyberius ; and the last strain of it seems to have been Velleius Paterculus. The Purity of the Greek lasted a great deal longer, and

35 must be allowed till Trajan's Time, when Plutarch wrote,

36 Sir William Temple

whose Greek is much more esteemable than the Latin of Tacitus, his Contemporary. After this last, I know none that deserves the Name of Latin, in comparison of what went before them, especially in the Augustan Age ; If any, 'tis the little Treatise of Minutius Fcelix. All Latin Books 5 that we have till the end of Trajan, and all Greek till the

' end of Marcus Antoninus, have a true and very esteemable Value. All written since that time seem to me to have little more than what conies from the Relation of Events

</we are glad to know, or the Controversy of Opinions in 10 Religion or Laws, wherein the busie World has been so much imployed.

The great Wits among the moderns have been, in my Opinion, and in their several kinds, of the Italians, Boccace, Machiavel, and Padre Paolo-, among the Spaniards, Cer- 15 vantes, that writ Don Quixot, and Guevara] among the French, Rablais and Montagne ; among the English, Sir Philip Sidney, Bacon, and Selden. I mention nothing of what is written upon the Subject of Divinity, wherein the Spanish and English Pens have been most Conversant and 20 most Excelled. The Modern French are Voiture, Rock- faucalfs Memoirs, Bussy's Amours de Gaul, with several other little Relations or Memoirs that have run this Age, which are very pleasant and entertaining, and seem to have Refined the French Language to a degree that 25 cannot be well exceeded. I doubt it may have happened there, as it does in all Works, that the more they are filed and polished, the less they have of weight and of strength ; and as that Language has much more fineness and smoothness at this time, so I take it to have had much 30 more force, spirit, and compass in Montagne's Age.

Since those accidents which contributed to the Restora tion of Learning, almost extinguished in the Western Parts of Europe, have been observed, it will be just to mention some that may have hindred the advancement of 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 37

it, in proportion to what might have been expected from the mighty growth and progress made in the first Age after its recovery. One great reason may have been that very soon after the entry of Learning upon the Scene 5 of Christendom, another was made by many of the New- Learned men into the inquiries and contests about matters of Religion, the manners and maxims and institutions introduced by the Clergy for seven or eight Centuries past, The Authority of Scripture and Tradition,

10 Of Popes and of Councels, Of the ancient Fathers and of the later School-men and Casuists, Of Ecclesiastical and Civil Power. The humour of ravelling into all these mystical or entangled Matters, mingling with the Inter ests and Passions of Princes and of Parties, and thereby

15 heightned or inflamed, produced Infinite Disputes, raised violent Heats throughout all Parts of Christendom, and soon ended in many Defections or Reformations from the Roman Church, and in several new Institutions, both Ecclesiastical and Civil, in diverse Countries, which have

20 been since Rooted and Established in almost all the North- West Parts. The endless Disputes and litigious Quarrels upon all these Subjects, favoured and encouraged by the Interests of the several Princes engaged in them, either took up wholly or generally imployed the Thoughts, the

25 Studies, the Applications, the endeavours of all or most of the finest Wits, the deepest Scholars, and the most Learned Writers that the Age produced. Many excellent Spirits, and the most penetrating Genys, that might have made admirable Progresses and Advances in many other Scjences,

30 were sunk and overwhelmed in the abyss of Disputes about matters of Religion, without ever turning their Looks or Thoughts any other way. To these Disputes of the Pen succeeded those of the Sword ; and the Ambition ^ of great Princes and Ministers, mingled with the Zeal or

35 covered with the pretences of Religion, has for a Hundred

D 2

38 Sir William Temple

Years past infested Christendom with almost a perpetual Course or Succession either of Civil or of Foreign Wars : the noise and disorders thereof have been ever the most capital Enemies of the Muses, who are seated by the ancient Fables upon the top of Parnassus, that is, in a 5 place of safety and of quiet from the reach of all noises and disturbances of the Regions below.

Another circumstance that may have hindred the advancement of Learning has been a want or decay of Favour in great Kings and Princes to encourage or 10 applaud it. Upon the first return or recovery of this fair Stranger among us, all were fond of seeing her, apt to applaud her : she was lodged in Palaces instead of Cells, and the greatest Kings and Princes of the Age took either a pleasure in courting her or a vanity in admiring her 15 and in favouring all her Train. The Courts of Italy and Germany, of England, of France, of Popes and of Emperors thought themselves Honoured and Adorned by the Num ber and Qualities of Learned men, and by all the improve ments of Sciences and Arts wherein they excelled. They 20 were invited from all Parts, for the Use and Entertainment of Kings, for the Education and Instruction of Young Princes, for Advice and Assistance to the greatest Mini sters; and in short, the Favour of Learning was the humour and mode of the Age. Francis the First, Charles 25 the Fifth, and Henry the Eighth, those three great Rivals, agreed in this, though in nothing else. Many Nobles pursued this Vein with great Application and Success, among whom Picus de Mirandula, a Sovereign Prince in Italy, might have proved a Prodigy of Learning, if 30 his Studies and Life had lasted as long as those of the Ancients : For I think all of them that writ much of what we have now remaining lived old, whereas he dyed about Three and Thirty, and left the World in admiration of so much knowledge in so much youth. Since those Reigns 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 39

I have not observed in our modern Story any Great Princes much Celebrated for their Favour of Learning, further than to serve their turns, to justifie their Pre tensions and Quarrels, or flatter their Successes. The 5 Honour of Princes has of late struck Sale to their Interest, whereas of old their Interests, Greatness, and Conquests were all Dedicated to their Glory and Fame.

How much the Studies and Labours of Learned men must have been damped for want of this influence and

10 kind aspect of Princes may be best conjectured from what happened on the contrary about the Augustan Age, when the Learning of Rome was at its height, and perhaps owed it in some Degree to the Bounty and Patronage of that Emperor, and Meccenas, his Favourite, as well as to the

15 Felicity of the Empire and Tranquility of the Age.

The humour of Avarice and greediness of Wealth have been ever and in all Countries where Silver and Gold have been in Price and of current use. But if it be true in parti cular Men, that as Riches encrease, the desires of them do

20 so too, May it not be true of the general Vein and Humour of Ages ? May they not have turned more to this pursuit of insatiable gains, since the Discoveries and Plantations of the West-Indies, and those vast Treasures that have flowed in to these Western Parts of Europe almost every Year

25 and with such mighty Tides for so long a course of time? Where few are rich, few care for it ; where many are so, many desire it ; and most in time begin to think it necessary. Where this Opinion grows generally in a( N Countrey, the Temples of Honour are soon pulled down,

30 and all mens Sacrifices are made to those of Fortune : The Souldier as well as the Merchant, the Scholar as well as the Plough-man, the Divine and the States-man as well as the Lawyer and Physician.

Now I think that nothing is more evident in the World

35 than that Honour is a much stronger Principle, both of

40 5Vr William Temple

Action and Invention, than gain can ever be. That all the Great and Noble Productions of Wit and of Courage have been inspired and exalted by that alone. That the Charming Flights and Labours of Poets, the deep Specu lations and Studies of Philosophers, the Conquests of 5 Emperors and Atchievements of Heroes, have all flowed from this one Source of Honour and Fame. The last Farewel that Horace takes of his Lyrick Poems, Epicurus of his Inventions in Philosophy, Augustus of his Empire and Government, are all of the same strain ; and as their 10 Lives were entertained, so their Age was relieved and their Deaths softned, by the Prospect of lying down upon the Bed of Fame.

Avarice is, on the other side, of all Passions the most sordid, the most clogged and covered with dirt and with 15 dross, so that it cannot raise its Wings beyond the smell of the Earth. 'Tis the Pay of common Soldiers, as Honour is of Commanders ; and yet among those themselves none ever went so far upon the hopes of prey or of spoils as those that have been spirited by Honour or Religion. 20 'Tis no wonder, then, that Learning has been so little advanced since it grew to be mercenary, and the Progress of it has been fettered by the cares of the World, and disturbed by the Desires of being Rich or the fears of being Poor, from all which the ancient Philosophers, the 25 Brachmans of India, the Chaldaan Magi, and Egyptian Priests were disintangled and free.

But the last maim giving to Learning has been by the scorn of Pedantry, which the shallow, the superficial, and the sufficient among Scholars first drew upon themselves, 30 and very justly, by pretending to more than they had, or to more esteem than what they had could deserve, by broach ing it in all places, at all times, upon all occasions, and by living so much among themselves, or in their Closets and Cells, as to make them unfit for all other business, and 35

On Ancient and Modern Learning 41

ridiculous in all other Conversations. As an Infection that rises in a Town first falls upon Children or weak Consti tutions or those that are subject to other Diseases, but, spreading further by degrees, seizes upon the most healthy,

5 vigorous, and strong, and when the Contagion grows very general, all the Neighbours avoid coming into the Town, or are afraid of those that are well among them as much as of those that are sick : Just so it fared in the Commonwealth of Learning ; some l poor weak Constitutions were first

10 infected with Pedantry, the Contagion spread in time upon some that were stronger ; Foreigners that heard there was a Plague in the Countrey grew afraid to come there, and avoided the commerce of the Sound as well as of the Diseased. This dislike or apprehension turned, like all

15 fear, to hatred, and hatred to scorn. The rest of the Neighbours began first to rail at Pedants, then to ridicule them ; the Learned began to fear the same Fate, and that the Pidgeons should be taken for Daws, because they were all in a Flock : And because the poorest and meanest of the

20 Company were proud, the best and the richest began to be ashamed.

An Ingenious Spaniard at Brussels would needs have it that the History of Don Quixot had ruined the Spanish Monarchy : For before that time Love and Valour were all

25 Romance among them ; every young Cavalier that entred the Scene Dedicated the Services of his Life to his Honour first, and then to his Mistris. They Lived and Dyed in this Romantick Vein ; and the old Duke of Alva, in his last Portugal expedition, had a young Mistress tp whom

30 the Glory of that Atchievement was Devoted, by which he hoped to value himself, instead of those qualities he had lost with his youth. After Don Quixot appeared, and with that inimitable Wit and Humour turned all this Romantick Honour and Love into Ridicule, the Spaniards, he said,

35 began to grow ashamed of both, and to laugh at Fighting

42 Sir William Temple

and Loving, or at least otherwise than to pursue their Fortune or satisfy their Lust; and the consequences of this, both upon their Bodies and their Minds, this Spaniard would needs have pass for a great Cause of the Ruin of Spain, or of its Greatness and Power. 5

Whatever effect the Ridicule of Knight- Errantry might have had upon that Monarchy, I believe that of Pedantry has had a very ill one upon the Commonwealth of Learn ing ; and I wish the Vein of Ridiculing all that is serious and good, all Honour and Virtue as well as Learning and 10 Piety, may have no worse effects on any other State : 'Tis the Itch of our Age and Clymat, and has over run both the Court and the Stage, enters a House of Lords and Commons as boldly as a Co^-House, Debates of Council as well as private Conversation ; and I have known in my 15 Life more than one or two Ministers of State that would rather have said a Witty thing than done a Wise one, and made the Company Laugh rather than the Kingdom Rejoyce. But this is enough to excuse the imperfections of Learning in our Age, and to censure the Sufficiency 2 o of some of the Learned ; and this small Piece of Justice I have done the Ancients will not, I hope, be taken any more than 'tis meant, for any Injury to the Moderns.

I shall conclude with a Saying of Alphonsus, Sirnamed the Wise, King of Aragon, 2 5

That among so many things as are by Men possessed or pursued in the Course of their Lives, all the rest are Bawbles, Besides Old Wood to Burn, Old Wine to Drink, Old Friends to Converse with, and Old Books to Read.

43

II. OF POETRY

Two common Shrines, to which most Men offer -** up the Application of their Thoughts and their Lives, are Profit and Pleasure ; and by their Devotions to either of these, they are vulgarly distinguished into Two Sects, 5 and called either Busie or Idle Men. Whether these Terms differ in meaning or only in sound, I know very well may be disputed, and with appearance enough, since the Covetous Man takes perhaps as much Pleasure in his Gains as the Voluptuous does in his Luxury, and would

10 not pursue his Business unless he were pleased with it, upon the last Account of what he most wishes and desires, nor would care for the encrease of his Fortunes unless he proposed thereby that of his Pleasures too, in one kind or other, so that Pleasure may be said to be his end,

15 whether he will allow to find it in his pursuit or no. Much ado there has been, many Words spent, or (to speak with more respect to the antient Philosophers) many Disputes have been raised upon this Argument, I think to little purpose, and that all has been rather an Exercise of Wit

20 than an Enquiry after Truth, and all Controversies that can never end had better perhaps never begin. The best is to take Words as they are most commonly spoken and meant, like Coyn as it most currantly passes, without raising scruples upon the weight or the allay, unless the

25 cheat or the defect be gross and evident. Few Things in the World, or none, will bear too much refining ; a Thred too fine Spun will easily break, and the Point of a Needle too finely Filed. The usual acceptation takes Profit and Pleasure for two different Things, and not only calls the

30 Followers or Votaries of them by several Names of Busie and of Idle Men, but distinguishes the Faculties of the mind that are Conversant about them, calling the Opera-

44 Sir William Temple

tions of the first, Wisdom, and of the other, Wit, which is a Saxon Word that is used to express what the Spaniards and Italians call Ingenio, and the French, Esprit, both from the Latin-, but I think Wit more peculiarly signifies that of Poetry, as may occur upon 5 Remarks of the Runick Language. To the first of these are Attributed the Inventions or Productions of things generally esteemed the most necessary, useful, or profit able to Human Life, either in private Possessions or publick Institutions ; To the other, those Writings or 10 Discourses which are the most Pleasing or Entertaining to all that read or hear them : Yet, according to the Opinion of those that link them together, As the Inventions of ^t Sages and Law-givers themselves do please as well as

-S profit those who approve and follow them, so those of 15

, J Poets Instruct and Profit as well as Please such as are

^ Conversant in them ; and the happy mixture of both these

makes the excellency in both those compositions, and has given occasion for esteeming or at least for calling Heroick Virtue and Poetry Divine. 20

The Names given to Poets, both in Greek and Latin, express the same Opinion of them in those Nations: The Greek signifying Makers or Creators, such as raise admir able Frames and Fabricks out of nothing, which strike with wonder and with pleasure the Eyes and Imaginations 25 of those who behold them ; The Latin makes the same Word common to Poets and to Prophets. Now, as Creation is the first Attribute and highest Operation of Divine Power, so is Prophecy the greatest Emanation of y^A Divine Spirit in the World. As the Names in those Two 30

Learned Languages, so the Causes of Poetry, are by the ^ Writers of them made to be Divine, and to proceed from a Ccelestial Fire or Divine Inspiration ; and by the vulgar Opinions, recited or related to in many Passages of those Authors, the Effects of Poetry were likewise thought Divine 35

Of Poetry 45

and Supernatural, and Power of Charms and Enchant ments were ascribed to it.

Carmina vel Ccelo possunt deducere Lunam, Carminibus Circe Socios mutavit Ulyssis, 5 Frigidus in prat(s cantando rumpitur Anguis.

But I can easily admire Poetry, and yet without adoring it : I can allow it to arise from the greatest Excellency of natural Temper or the greatest Race of Native Genius, without exceeding the reach of what is Human, or giving

10 it any Approaches of Divinity, which is, I doubt, debased or dishonoured by ascribing to it any thing that is in the compass of our Action or even Comprehension, unless it be raised by an immediate influence from it self. I cannot allow Poetry to be more Divine in its effects than in its

15 causes, nor any Operation produced by it to be more than purely natural, or to deserve any other sort of wonder than those of Musick or of Natural Magick, however any of them have appeared to minds little Versed in the Speculations of Nature, of occult Qualities, and the Force

20 of Numbers or of Sounds. Whoever talks of drawing down the Moon from Heaven by force of Verses or of Charms, either believes not himself, or too easily believes what others told him, or perhaps follows an Opinion begun by the Practise of some Poet upon the facility of some

25 People, who, knowing the time when an Eclypse would happen, told them he would by his Charms call down the Moon at such an hour, and was by them thought to have performed it.

When I read that Charming Description m^Virgtfs

30 Eighth Ecclogue of all sorts of Charms and Fascinations by Verses, b}' Images, by Knots, by Numbers, by Fire, by Herbs, imployed upon occasion of a violent Passion from a jealous or disappointed Love, I have recourse to the strong Impressions of Fables and of Poetry, to the easy

35 mistakes of Popular Opinions, to the Force of Imagi-

46 Sir William Temple

nation, to the Secret Virtues of several Herbs, and to the Powers of Sounds : And I am sorry the Natural History or Account of Fascination has not imployed the Pen of some Person of such excellent Wit and deep Thought and Learning as Casaubon, who Writ. that curious and useful 5 Treatise of Enthusiasm, and by it discovered the hidden or mistaken Sources of that Delusion, so frequent in all Regions and Religions of the World, and which had so fatally spread over our Country in that Age in which this Treatise was so seasonably published. 'Tis much to be 10 lamented, That he lived not to compleat that Work in the Second Part he promised, or that his Friends neglected the publishing it, if it were left in Papers, though loose and unfinished. I think a clear Account of Enthusiasm and Fascination from their natural Causes would very 15 much deserve from Mankind in general as well as from the Common-wealth of Learning, might perhaps prevent many publick disorders, and save the Lifes of many innocent deluded or deluding People, who suffer so frequently upon Account of Witches and Wizards. I 20 have seen many miserable Examples of this kind in my youth at home; and tho' the Humor or Fashion be a good deal worn out of the World within Thirty or Forty Years past, yet it still remains in several remote parts 01 Germany, Sweden, and some other Countries. 25

But to return to the Charms of Poetry, if the forsaken Lover in that Ecclogue of Virgil had expected only from the Force of her Verses or her Charms, what is the Burthen of the Song, to bring Daphnis home from the Town where he was gone and engaged in a new Amour ; 30 if she had pretended only to revive an old fainting Flame, or to damp a new one that was kindling in his Breast, she might, for ought I know, have compassed such Ends by the Power of such Charms, and without other than very Natural Enchantments. For there is no Question but 35

Of Poetry 47

true Poetry may have the Force to raise Passions and to allay them, to change and to extinguish them, to temper Joy and Grief, to raise Love and Fear, nay, to turn Fear into Boldness, and Love into Indifference and into

5 Hatred it self; and I easily believe, That the disheart- ned Spartans were new animated, and recovered their lost Courage, by the Songs of Tyrtceus, that the Cruelty and Revenge of Phalaris were changed by the Odes of Stesichorus into the greatest Kindness and Esteem, and

10 that many men were as passionately Enamoured by the Charms of Sappho's Wit and Poetry as by those of Beauty in Flora or Thais ; for 'tis not only Beauty gives Love, but Love gives Beauty to the Object that raises it ; and if the possession be strong enough, let it come from what it will,

1 5 there is always Beauty enough in the Person that gives it. Nor is it any great Wonder that such Force should be found in Poetry, since in it are assembled all the Powers of Eloquence, of Musick, and of Picture, which are all allowed to make so strong Impressions upon Humane Minds. How

20 far Men have been affected with all or any of these needs little Proof or Testimony. The Examples have been known enough in Greece and Italy, where some have fallen down right in Love with the Ravishing Beauties of a lovely Object drawn by the Skill of an admirable Painter ; nay,

25 Painters themselves have fallen in Love with some of their own Productions, and doated on them as on a Mistress or a fond Child, which distinguishes among the Italians the several Pieces that are done by the same Hand into several Degrees of those made Con Studio, Con Djligenza,

30 or Con Amore, whereof the last are ever the most excelling. But there needs no more Instances of this Kind than the Stories related and believed by the best Authors as known and undisputed ; Of the two young Grcecians, one whereof ventured his Life to be lock'd up all Night in the Temple,

35 and satisfie his Passion with the Embraces and Enjoyment

48 Sir William Temple

of a Statue of Venus, that was there set up and designed for another sort of Adoration ; The other pined away and dyed for being hindred his perpetually gazing, admiring, and embracing a Statue at Athens.

The Powers of Musick are either felt and known by all 5 Men, and are allowed to work strangely upon the Mind and the Body, the Passions and the Blood, to raise Joy and Grief, to give Pleasure and Pain, to cure Diseases and the Mortal Sting of the Tarantula, to give Motions to the Feet as well as the Heart, to Compose disturbed Thoughts, 10 to assist and heighten Devotion it self. We need no Recourse to the Fables of Orpheus or Amphion, or the Force of their Musick upon Fishes and Beasts; 'tis enough that we find the Charming of Serpents, and the Cure or Allay of an evil Spirit or Possession, attributed to 15 it in Sacred Writ.

For the Force of Eloquence that so often raised and appeased the Violence of Popular Commotions and caused such Convulsions in the Athenian State, no Man need more to make him Acknowledge it than to consider Ccesar, 20 one of the greatest and wisest of mortal Men, come upon the Tribunal full of Hatred and Revenge, and with a determined Resolution to Condemn Labienus, yet upon the Force of Cicero's Eloquence, in an Oration for his Defence, begin to change Countenance, turn pale, shake to that 25 degree that the Papers he held fell out of his hand, as it he had been frighted with Words that never was so with Blows, and at last change all his Anger into Clemency, and acquit the brave Criminal instead of condemning him. 30

Now if the Strength of these three mighty Powers be united in Poetry, we need not Wonder that such Virtues and such Honours have been attributed to it, that it has been thought to be inspired, or has been called Divine; and yet I think it will not be disputed that the Force of 35

Of Poetry 49

Wit and of Reasoning, the Height of Conceptions and Expressions, may be found in Poetry as well as in Oratory, the Life and Spirit of Representation or Picture as much as in Painting, and the Force of Sounds as well as in

5 Musick; and how far these three natural Powers together may extend, and to what Effect, even such as may be mistaken for Supernatural or Magical, I leave it to such Men to consider whose Thoughts turn to such Specu lations as these, or who by their native Temper and

10 Genius are in some degree disposed to receive the Impressions of them. For my part, I do not wonder that the famous Doctor Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, should sometimes throw him down upon the Table, and say he had a Devil, nor that the learned Meric Casaubon

15 should find such Charming Pleasures and Emotions as he describes, upon the reading some Parts of Lucretius ; that so many should cry, and with down-right Tears, at some Tragedies of Shake-spear, and so many more should feel such Turns or Curdling of their Blood upon the reading

20 or hearing some excellent Pieces of Poetry, nor that Octavia fell into a Swound at the recital made by Virgil ot those Verses in the Sixth of his jEneides.

This is enough to assert the Powers of Poetry, and discover the Ground of those Opinions of old which

35 derived it from Divine Inspiration, and gave it so great a share in the supposed Effects of Sorcery or Magick. But as the Old Romances seem to lessen the Honour of true Prowess and Valour in their Knights by giving such a part in all their Chief Adventures to Enchantment^so the

30 true excellency and just esteem of Poetry seems rather debased than exalted by the Stories or Belief of the Charms performed by it, which among the Northern Nations grew so strong and so general that about Five or Six Hundred Years ago all the Runick Poetry came to be

35 decryed, and those ancient Characters in which they were

50 Sir William Temple

Written to be abolished by the Zeal of Bishops and even by Orders and Decrees of State, which has given a great Maim, or rather an irrecoverable Loss, to the Story of those Northern Kingdoms, the Seat of our Ancestors in all the Western parts of Europe. 5

The more true and natural Source of Poetry may be discovered by observing to what God this Inspiration was ascribed by the Antients, which was Apollo, or the Sun, esteemed among them the God of Learning in general, but more particularly of Musick and of Poetry. The 10 Mystery of this Fable means, I suppose, that a certain Noble and Vital Heat of Temper, but especially of the Brain, is the true Spring of these Two Arts or Sciences. This was that Ccelestial Fire which gave such a pleasing Motion and Agitation to the minds of those Men that have 15 been so much admired in the World, that raises such infinite images of things so agreeable and delightful to Mankind. By the influence of this Sun are produced those Golden and Inexhausted Mines of Invention, which has furnished the World with Treasures so highly 20 esteemed and so universally known and used in all the Regions that have yet been discovered. From this arises that Elevation of Genius which can never be produced by any Art or study, by Pains or by Industry, which cannot be taught by Precepts or Examples, and therefore is 2 5 agreed by all to be the pure and free Gift of Heaven or of Nature, and to be a Fire kindled out of some hidden spark of the very first Conception.

But tho j Invention be the Mother of Poetry, yet this Child is like all others born naked, and must be Nourished 30 with Care, Cloathed with Exactness and Elegance, Educated with Industry, Instructed with Art, Improved by Applica tion, Corrected with Severity, and Accomplished with Labour and with Time, before it Arrives at any great Perfection or Growth. 'Tis certain that no Composition 35

Of Poetry 51

requires so many several Ingredients, or of more different sorts than this, nor that to excel in any qualities there are necessary so many Gifts of Nature and so many improvements of Learning and of Art. For there must

5 be an universal Genius, of great Compass as well as great Elevation. There must be a spritely Imagination or Fancy, fertile in a thousand Productions, ranging over infinite Ground, piercing into every Corner, and by the Light of that true Poetical Fire discovering a thousand

10 little Bodies or Images in the World, and Similitudes among them, unseen to common Eyes, and which could not be discovered without the Rays of that Sun.

Besides the heat of Invention and liveliness of Wit, there must be the coldness of good Sense and soundness

15 of Judgment, to distinguish between things and con ceptions which at first sight or upon short glances seem alike, to choose among infinite productions of Wit and Fancy which are worth preserving and cultivating, and which are better stifled in the Birth, or thrown away when

20 they are born, as not worth bringing up. Without the

' Forces of Wit all Poetry is flat and languishing ; without

the succors of Judgment 'tis wild and extravagant. The

true wonder of Poesy is, That such contraries must meet

to compose it : a Genius both Penetrating and Solid ; in

25 Expression both Delicacy and Force ; and the Frame or Fabrick of a true Poem must have something both Sublime and Just, Amazing and Agreeable. There must be a great Agitation of Mind to Invent, a great Calm to Judge and correct; there must be upon the same Tree, and tit the

30 same Time, both Flower and Fruit. To work up this Metal into exquisite Figure, there must be imploy'd the Fire, the Hammer, the Chizel, and the File. There must be a General Knowledge both of Nature and of Arts ; and to go the lowest that can be, there are required Genius,

35 Judgment, and Application ; for without this last all the

52 Sir William Temple

rest will not serve turn, and none ever was a great Poet that applyed himself much to any thing else.

When I speak of Poetry, I mean not an Ode or an Elegy, a Song or a Satyr, nor by a Poet the Composer of any of these, but of a just Poem ; And after all I have 5 said, 'tis no wonder there should be so few that appeared in any Parts or any Ages of the World, or that such as have should be so much admired, and have almost Divinity ascribed to them and to their Works.

Whatever has been among those who are mentioned 10 with so much Praise or Admiration by the Antients, but are lost to us, and unknown any further than their Names, I think no Man has been so bold among those that remain to question the Title of Homer and Virgil, not only to the first Rank, but to the supream Dominion in this State, and 15 from whom, as the great Law-givers as well as Princes, all the Laws and Orders of it are or may be derived. Homer was without Dispute the most Universal Genius that has been known in the World, and Virgil the most accomplish't. To the first must be allowed the most fertile Invention, the 20 richest Vein, the most general Knowledge, and the most lively Expression : To the last, The noblest Idea's, the justest Institution, the wisest Conduct, and the choycest Elocution. To speak in the Painters Terms, we find in the Works of Homer the most Spirit, Force, and Life ; in 25 those of Virgil, the best Design, the truest Proportions, and the greatest Grace : The Colouring in both seems equal, and, indeed, in both is admirable. Homer had more Fire and Rapture, Virgil more Light and Swiftness ; or at least the Poetical Fire was more raging in one, but clearer 3 in the other, which makes the first more amazing and the latter more agreeable. The Oare was richer in one, but in t'other more refined, and better allay' d to make up excellent Work. Upon the whole, I think it must be confessed that Homer was of the two, and perhaps of all 35

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others, the vastest, the sublimest, and the most wonderful Genius', and that he has been generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater Testimony given than what has been by some observed, that not only the Greatest Masters have

5 found in his Works the best and truest Principles of all their Sciences or Arts, but that the noblest Nations have derived from them the Original of their several Races, though it be hardly yet agreed, Whether his Story be True or Fiction. In short, these two immortal Poets must be

10 allowed to have so much excelled in their kinds as to have exceeded all Comparison, to have even extinguished Emu lation, and in a Manner confined true Poetry not only to their two Languages, but to their very Persons. And I am apt to believe so much of the true Genius of Poetry in

i 5 general, and of its Elevation in these two Particulars, that I know not whether of all the Numbers of Mankind that live within the Compass of a Thousand Years, for one Man that is born capable of making such a Poet as Homer or Virgil, there may not be a Thousand born Capable of

20 making as great Generals of Armies or Ministers of State as any the most Renowned in Story.

I do not here intend to make a further Critick upon Poetry, which were too great a Labour, nor to give Rules for it, which were as great a Presumption. Besides, there

25 has been so much Paper blotted upon these Subjects in this Curious and Censuring Age, that 'tis all grown tedious or Repetition. The Modern French Wits (or Pretenders) have been very severe in their Censures and exact in their Rules, I think to very little Purpose ; For I know not why they

3 o might not have contented themselves with those given by Aristotle and Horace, and have Translated them rather than Commented upon them, for all they have done has been no\ more, so as they seem, by their Writings of this kind, rather 1 to have valued themselves than improved any body else. 7

3 5 The Truth is, there is something in the Genius of Poetry too

E 2

54 Sir William Temple

Libertine to be confined to so many Rules; and whoever goes about to subject it to such Constraints loses both its Spirit and Grace, which are ever Native, and never learnt, even of the best Masters. 'Tis as if, to make excellent Honey, you should cut off the Wings of your Bees, confine 5 them to their Hive or their Stands, and lay Flowers before them, such as you think the sweetest and like to yield the finest Extraction ; you had as good pull out their Stings, and make arrant Drones of them. They must range through Fields as well as Gardens, choose such Flowers as 10 they please, and by Proprieties and Scents they only know and distinguish. They must work up their Cells with Admirable Art, extract their Honey with infinite Labour, and sever it from the Wax with such Distinction and Choyce as belongs to none but themselves to perform or 15 to judge.

It would be too much Mortification to these great Arbi trary Rulers among the French Writers or our own to Observe the worthy Productions that have been formed by their Rules, the Honour they have received in the 20 World, or the Pleasure they have given Mankind. But to comfort them, I do not know there was any great Poet in Greece after the Rules of that Art layd down by Aristotle, nor in Rome after those by Horace, which yet none of our Moderns pretend to have out-done. Perhaps Theocritus 25 and Lucan may be alledg'd against this Assertion ; but the first offered no further than at Idils or Eclogues ; and the jast, though he must be avowed for a true and a happy Genius, and to have made some very high Flights, yet he is so unequal to himself, and his Muse is so young, that his Faults 30 are too noted to allow his Pretences. Fceliciter audet is the true Character of Lucan, as of Ovid, Lusit amabiliter. After all, the utmost that can be atchieved or, I think, pretended by any Rules in this Art is but to hinder some men from being very ill Poets, but not to make any man 35

Of Poetry 55

a very good one. To judge who is so, we need go no further for Instruction than three Lines of Horace :

Ilk meum qui Pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 5 Ut Magus, 6 modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.

He is a Poet,

Who vainly anguishes my Breast, Provokes, allays, and with false Terror fills, Like a Magician, and now sets me down I0 In Thebes, and now in Athens.

Whoever does not affect and move the same present Passions in you that he represents in others, and at other times raise Images about you, as a Conjurer is said to do Spirits, Transport you to the Places and to the Persons he

15 describes, cannot be judged to be a Poet, though his Measures are never so just, his Feet never so smooth, or his Sounds never so sweet.

But instead of Critick or Rules concerning Poetry, I shall rather turn my Thoughts to the History of it, and

20 observe the Antiquity, the Uses, the Changes, the Decays, that have attended this great Empire of Wit.

It is, I think, generally agreed to have been the first sort of Writing that has been used in the World, and in several Nations to have preceded the very Invention or

25 Usage of Letters. This last is certain in America, where the first Spaniards met with many strains of Poetry, and left several of them Translated into their Language, which seem to have flowed from a true Poetick Vein before any Letters were known in those Regions. The same is

30 probable of the Scythians, the Grecians, and the Germans. Aristotle says the Agathyrsi had their Laws all in Verse ; and Tacitus, that the Germans had no Annals nor Records but what were so ; and for the Grecian Oracles delivered in them, we have no certain Account when they began, but

35 rather reason to believe it was before the Introduction of

56 Sir William Temple

Letters from Phoenicia among them. Pliny tells it, as a thing known, that Pherecides was the first who Writ Prose in the Greek Tongue, and that he lived about the time of Cyrus, whereas Homer and Hesiod lived some Hundreds of Years before that Age, and Orpheus, Linus, Musceus, some Hun- 5 dreds before them : And of the Sybils, several were before any of those, and in times as well as places whereof we have no clear Records now remaining. What Solon and Pythagoras Writ is said to have been in Verse, who were something older than Cyrus; and before them were Archi- 10 locus, Simonides, Tyrtceus, Sappho, Stesichorus, and several other Poets famous in their times. The same thing is reported of Chaldcea, Syria, and China ; among the ancient Western Goths, our Ancestors, the Runick Poetry seems to have been as old as their Letters; and their Laws, 15 their Precepts of Wisdom as well as their Records, their Religious Rites as well as their Charms and Incantations, to have been all in Verse.

Among the Hebrews, and even in Sacred Writ, the most antient is by some Learned Men esteemed to be the Book 20 of Job, and that it was Written before the time of Moses, and that it was a Translation into Hebrew, out of the old Chaldcean or Arabian Language. It may probably be conjectured that he was not a Jew, from the place of his abode, which appears to have been Seated between 25 the Chaldceans of one Side and the Sabceans (who were of Arabia) on the other; and by many Passages of that admirable and truly inspired Poem, the Author seems to have lived in some Parts near the Mouth of Euphrates, or the Persian Gulf, where he contemplated the Wonders 30 of the Deep as well as the other Works of Nature common to those Regions. Nor is it easy to find any Traces of the Mosaical Rites or Institutions, either in the Divine Worship or the Morals related to in those Writings : For not only Sacrifices and Praises were much more antient in Religious 35

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Service than the Age of Moses ; But the Opinion of one Deity, and Adored without any Idol or Representation, was Professed and Received among the antient Persians and Hetruscans and Chalda'ans. So that if Job was an 5 Hebrew, 'tis probable he may have been of the Race of Heber, who lived in Chaldcea, or of Abraham , who is supposed to have left that Country for the Profession or Worship of one God, rather than from the Branch of Isaac and Israel, who lived in the Land of Canaan. Now I

10 think it is out of Controversy that the Book of Job was Written Originally in Verse, and was a Poem upon the Subject of the Justice and Power of God, and in Vindi cation of his Providence against the common Arguments of Atheistical Men, who took occasion to dispute it from the

15 usual Events of Human things, by which so many ill and impious Men seem Happy and Prosperous in the course of their Lives, and so many Pious and Just Men seem Miserable or Afflicted. TheSpam'sh Translation of the Jews in Ferrara, which pretends to render the Hebrew, as near as could be,

20 word for word, and for which all Translators of the Bible since have had great Regard, gives us the Two first Chapters and the Last from the seventh Verse in Prose, as an Historical Introduction and Conclusion of the Work, and all the rest in Verse, except the Transitions from one

25 Part or Person of this Sacred Dialogue to another.

But if we take the Books of Moses to be the most antient in the Hebrew Tongue, yet the Song of Moses may probably have been Written before the rest ; as that of Deborah, before the Book of Judges, being Praises sung to Gqd upon

30 the Victories or Successes of the Israelites, related in both. And I never read the last without observing in it as True and Noble Strains of Poetry and Picture as in any other Language whatsoever, in spight of all Disadvantages from Translations into so different Tongues and common

35 Prose. If an Opinion of some Learned Men, both Modern

58 Sir William Temple

and Antient, could be allowed, that Esdras was the Writer or Compiler of the first Historical Parts of the Old Testa ment, though from the same Divine Inspiration as that of Moses and the other Prophets, then the Psalms of David would be the first Writings we find in Hebrew ; and next 5 to them, the Song of Solomon, which was written when he was young, and Ecclesiastes when he was old. So that from all sides, both Sacred and Prophane, It appears that Poetry was the first sort of Writing known and used in the several Nations of the World. 10

It may seem strange, I confess, upon the first thought, that a sort of Style so regular and so difficult should have grown in use before the other so easy and so loose : But if we consider what the first end of Writing was, it will appear probable from Reason as well as Experience; For 15 the true and General End was but the Help of Memory in preserving that of Words and of Actions, which would otherwise have been lost and soon vanish away with the Transitory Passage of Human Breath and Life. Before the Discourses and Disputes of Philosophers began to 20 busie or amuse the Grcecian Wits, there was nothing Written in Prose, but either Laws, some short Sayings of Wise men, or some Riddles, Parables, or Fables, wherein were couched by the Antients many Strains of Natural or Moral Wisdom and Knowledge, and besides these some 25 short Memorials of Persons, Actions, and of Times. Now 'tis obvious enough to conceive how much easier all such Writings should be Learnt and Remembred in Verse than in Prose, not only by the Pleasure of Measures and of Sounds, which gives a great Impression to Memory, but by 30 the order of Feet, which makes a great Facility of Tracing one Word after another, by knowing what sort of Foot or Quantity must necessarily have preceded or followed the Words we retain and desire to make up.

This made Poetry so necessary before Letters were 35

Of Poetry 59

invented, and so convenient afterwards ; and shews that the great Honor and general Request wherein it has always been has not proceeded only from the Pleasure and Delight, but likewise from the Usefulness and Profit of 5 Poetical Writings.

This leads me naturally to the Subjects of Poetry, which have been generally Praise, Instruction, Story, Love, Grief, and Reproach. Praise was the Subject of all the Songs and Psalms mentioned in Holy Writ, of the Hymns

10 of Orpheus, of Homer, and many others ; Of the Carmina Secularia in Rome, Composed all and Designed for the Honor of their Gods ; Of Pindar, Stesichorus, and Tyrtceus, in the Praises of Virtue or Virtuous Men. The Subject of Job is Instruction concerning the Attributes of

15 God and the Works of Nature. Those of Simonides, Phocillides, Theognis, and several other of the smaller Greek Poets, with what passes for Pythagoras, are In structions in Morality; The first Book of Hesiod and Virgils Georgicks, in Agriculture, and Lucretius in the

20 deepest natural Philosophy. Story is the proper Subject of Heroick Poems, as Homer and Virgil in their inimitable Iliads and ^Eneids ; And Fable, which is a sort of Story, in the Metamorphosis of Ovid. The Lyrick Poetry has been chiefly Conversant about Love, tho* turned often

2 5 upon Praise too ; and the Vein of Pastorals and Eclogues has run the same course, as may be observed in Theocrytus, Virgil, and Horace, who was, I think, the first and last of true Lyrick Poets among the Latins. Grief has been always the Subject of Elegy, and Reproach that of Satyr.

30 The Dramatick Poesy has been Composed of all these, but the chief end seems to have been Instruction, and under the disguise of Fables or the Pleasure of Story to shew the Beauties and the Rewards of Virtue, the Deformities and Misfortunes or Punishment of Vice; By Examples of

35 both, to Encourage one, and Deter Men from the other; to

60 Sir William Temple

Reform ill Customs, Correct ill Manners, and Moderate all violent Passions. These are the general Subjects of both Parts, tho' Comedy give us but the Images of common Life, and Tragedy those of the greater and more extraordinary Passions and Actions among Men. To go further upon 5 this Subject would be to tread so beaten Paths, that to Travel in them only raises Dust, and is neither of Pleasure nor of Use.

For the Changes that have happened in Poetry, I shall observe one Ancient, and the others that are Modern will 10 be too Remarkable, in the Declines or Decays of this great Empire of Wit. The first Change of Poetry was made by Translating it into Prose, or Cloathing it in those loose Robes or common Veils that disguised or covered the true Beauty of its Features and Exactness of its Shape. 15 This was done first by jEsop in Greek, but the Vein was much more antient in the Eastern Regions, and much in Vogue, as we may observe in the many Parables used in the old Testament as well as in the New. And there is a Book of Fables, of the Sort of </sop's, Translated out of 20 Persian, and pretended to have been so into that Language out of the antient Indian But though it seems Genuine of the Eastern Countries, yet I do not take it to be so old nor to have so much Spirit as the Greek. The next Suc cession of Poetry in Prose seems to have been in the 25 Miletian Tales, which were a sort of little Pastoral Ro mances; and though much in request in old Greece and Rome, yet we have no Examples that I know of them, unless it be the Longi Pastoralia, which gives a Tast of the great Delicacy and Pleasure that was found so generally 30 in those sort of Tales. The last Kind of Poetry in Prose is that which in latter Ages has over-run the World under the Name of Romances, which tho' it seems Modern and a Production of the Gothick Genius, yet the Writing is antient. The Remainders of Petronius Arbiter seem to 35

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be of this Kind, and that which Lucian calls his True History. But the most antient that passes by the Name is Heliodorus, Famous for the Author's chusing to lose his Bishoprick rather than disown that Child of his Wit.

5 The true Spirit or Vein of antient Poetry in this Kind seems to shine most in Sir Philip Sidney, whom I esteem both the greatest Poet and the Noblest Genius of any that have left Writings behind them and published in ours or any other modern Language, a Person born capable not

10 only of forming the greatest Ideas, but of leaving the noblest Examples, if the length of his Life had been equal to the excellence of his Wit and his Virtues.

With him I leave the Discourse of antient Poetry, and to discover the Decays of this Empire must turn to that

15 of the modern, which was introduced after the Decays or rather Extinction of the old, as if, true Poetry being dead, an Apparition of it walked about. This mighty Change arrived by no smaller Occasions nor more ignoble Revolutions than those which destroyed the antient Em-

20 pire and Government of Rome, and Erected so many New ones upon their Ruins, by the Invasions and Conquests or the general Inundations of the Goths, Vandals, and other Barbarous or Northern Nations, upon those Parts of Europe that had been subject to the Romans. After

25 the Conquests made by Caesar upon Gaul and the nearer Parts of Germany, which were continued and enlarged in the times of Augustus and Tiberius by their Lieutenants or Generals, great Numbers of Germans and Gauls resorted to the Roman Armies, and to the City it self, and habituated

30 themselves there, as many Spaniards, Syrians, Grecians had done before upon the Conquest of those Countries. This mixture soon Corrupted the Purity of the Latin Tongue, so that in Lucan, but more in Seneca, we find a great and harsh Allay entered into the Style of the

35 Augustan Age. After Trajan and Adrian had subdued

62 Sir William Temple

many German and Scythian Nations on both sides of the Danube, the Commerce of those barbarous People grew very frequent with the Romans] and I am apt to think that the little Verses ascribed to Adrian were in Imitation of the Runick Poetry. The Scythicas Pati Pruinas of 5 Florus shews their Race or Clymate, and the first Rhyme that ever I read in Latin, with little Allusions of Letters or Syllables, is in that of Adrian at his Death :

O Animula vagula, blandula,

Quce nunc abibis in loca ? 10

Pallidula, lurida, timidula,

Nee, ut soles, dabis joca.

Tis probable, the old Spirit of Poetry being lost or frighted away by those long and bloody Wars with such barbarous Enemies, this New Ghost began to appear in T 5 its room even about that Age, or else that Adrian, who affected that piece of Learning as well as others, and was not able to reach the old Vein, turned to a new one, which his Expeditions into those Countries made more allowable in an Emperor, and his Example recommended to others. 20 In the time of Boetius, who lived under Theodorick in Rome, we find the Latin Poetry smell rank of this Gothick Imitation, and the old vein quite seared up.

After that Age Learning grew every day more and more obscured by that Cloud of Ignorance which, coming 25 from the North and increasing with the Numbers and Successes of those barbarous People, at length over shadowed all Europe for so long together. The Roman Tongue began it self to fail or be disused, and by its Cor ruption made way for the Generation of three New 30 Languages, in Spain, Italy, and France. The Courts of the Princes and Nobles, who were of the Conquering Nations, for several Ages used their Gothick, or Franc, or Saxon Tongues, which were mingled with those of Germany, where some of the Goths had sojourned long, 35

Of Poetry 63

before they proceeded to their Conquests of the more Southern or Western Parts. Whereever the Roman Colonies had long remained and their Language had been generally spoken, the common People used that still, but

5 vitiated with the base allay of their Provincial Speech. This in Charlemam's time was called in France, Rustica Romana, and in Spain, during the Gothick Reigns there, Romance; but in England, from whence all the Roman Souldiers, and great Numbers of the Britains most accus-

10 tomed to their Commerce and Language, had been drained for the Defence of Gaul against the barbarous Nations that invaded it about the time of Valentinian, that Tongue (being wholly extinguish't, as well as their own) made way for the intire use of the Saxon Language. With these

15 Changes the antient Poetry was wholly lost in all these Countries, and a new sort grew up by degrees, which was called by a new Name of Rhimes, with an easy Change of the Gothick Word Runes, and not from the Greek Rythmes, as is vulgarly supposed.

20 Runes was properly the Name of the Antient Gothick Letters or Characters, which were Invented first or intro duced by Odin, in the Colony or Kingdom of the Getes or Goths, which he Planted in the North-West Parts and round the Baltick Sea, as has been before related. But

25 because all the Writings they had among them for many Ages were in Verse, it came to be the common Name of all sorts of Poetry among the Goths, and the Writers or Composers of them were called Runers, or Rymers. They had likewise another Name for them, or for some

30 sorts of them, which was Vuses, or Wises ; and because the Sages of that Nation expressed the best of their Thoughts, and what Learning and Prudence they had, in these kind of Writings, they that succeeded best and with most Applause were termed Wise-men, the good

35 Sense or Learning or useful Knowledge contained in

64 Sir William Temple

them was called Wisdom, and the pleasant or facetious Vein among them was called Wit, which was applied to all Spirit or Race of Poetry, where it was found in any Men, and was generally pleasing to those that heard or read them. 5

Of these Runes there were in use among the Goths above a hundred several sorts, some Composed in longer, some in shorter Lines, some equal and others unequal, with many different Cadencies, Quantities, or Feet, which in the pronouncing make many different sorts of Original 10 or Natural Tunes. Some were Framed with Allusions of Words or Consonance of Syllables or of Letters, either in the same Line, or in the Dystick, or by alternate Suc cession and Resemblance, which made a sort of Gingle that pleased the ruder Ears of that People. And because 15 their Language was composed most of Monosyllables and of so great Numbers, many must end in the same Sound; another Sort of Runes were made with the Care and Study of ending two Lines, or each other of four Lines, with Words of the same sound, which being the easiest, re- 20 quiring less Art and needing less Spirit, because a certain Chime in the Sounds supplied that want and pleased common Ears, this in time grew the most general among all the Gothick Colonies in Europe, and made Rhymes or Runes pass for the modern Poetry in these Parts of the 25 World.

This was not used only in their modern Languages, but, during those ignorant Ages, even in that barbarous Latin which remained, and was preserved among the Monks and Priests, to distinguish them by some shew of 3 o Learning from the Laity, who might well admire it, in what Degree soever, and Reverence the Professors, when they themselves could neither write nor read, even in their own Language; I mean not only the vulgar Lay men, but even the Generality of Nobles, Barons, and 35

Of Poetry 65

Princes among them; and this lasted till the antient Learning and Languages began to be restored in Europe about Two Hundred Years ago.

The common vein of the Gothick Runes was what is

5 Termed Dithyrambick, and was of a raving or rambling >rt of Wit or Invention, loose and flowing, with little irt or Confinement to any certain Measures or Rules; yet some of it wanted not the true Spirit of Poetry in some Degree, or that natural Inspiration which has been said

10 to arise from some Spark of Poetical Fire wherewith par ticular Men are born. And such as it was, it served the turn, not only to please, but even to charm the Ignorant and Barbarous Vulgar, where it was in use. This made the Runers among the Goths as much in request and

15 admired as any of the antient and most celebrated Poets were among the Learned Nations; for among the blind, he that has one Eye is a Prince. They were as well as the others thought inspired, and the Charms of their Runick Conceptions were generally esteemed Divine, or Magical

20 at least.

The subjects of them were various, but commonly the same with those already observed in the true antient Poetry. Yet this Vein was chiefly imployed upon the Records of Bold and Martial Actions, and the Praises

25 of Valiant Men that had Fought Successfully or Dyed Bravely ; and these Songs or Ballads were usually sung at Feasts, or in Circles of Young or Idle Persons, and served to inflame the Humour of War, of Slaughter, and of Spoils among them. More refined Honour 6Y Love

30 had little part in the Writings, because it had little in the Lives or Actions of those fierce People and bloody Times. Honour among them consisted in Victory, and Love in Rapes and in Lust.

But as the true Flame of Poetry was rare among them,

35 and the rest was but Wild Fire that Sparkled or rather

66 Sir William Temple

Crackled a while, and soon went out with little Pleasure or Gazing of the Beholders, Those Runers who could not raise Admiration by the Spirit of their Poetry endeavoured to do it by another, which was that of Enchantments : iThis came in to supply the Defect of that sublime and 5 I Marvellous, which has been found both in Poetry and |Prose among the Learned Antients. The Gothick Runers, to Gain and Establish the Credit and Admiration of their Rhymes, turned the use of them very much to Incantations and Charms, pretending by them to raise Storms, to Calm 10 the Seas, to cause Terror in their Enemies, to Transport themselves in the Air, to Conjure Spirits, to Cure Diseases, and Stanch Bleeding Wounds, to make Women kind or easy, and Men hard or invulnerable, as one of their most antient Runers affirms of himself and his own Atchiev- 15 ments, by Force of these Magical Arms. The Men or Women who were thought to perform such Wonders or Enchantments were, from Vuses, or Wises, the Name of those Verses wherein their Charms were conceived, called Wizards or Witches. 20

Out of this Quarry seem to have been raised all those Trophees of Enchantment that appear in the whole Fabrick of the old Spanish Romances, which were the Productions of the Gothick Wit among them during their Reign ; and after the Conquests of Spain by the Saracens, they were 25 applied to the long Wars between them and the Christians. From the same perhaps may be derived all the visionary Tribe of Faries, Elves, and Goblins, of Sprites and of Bui-beggars, that serve not only to fright Children into whatever their Nurses please, but sometimes, by lasting 30 Impressions, to disquiet the sleeps and the very Lives of Men and Women, till they grow to Years of Discretion; and that, God knows, is a Period of time which some People Arrive to but very late, and perhaps others never. At least, this belief prevailed so far among the Goths and 35

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their Races, that all sorts of Charms were not only Attributed to their Runes or Verses, but to their very Characters ; so that, about the Eleventh Century, they were forbidden and abolished in Sweden, as they had 5 been before in Spain, by Civil and Ecclesiastical Com mands or Constitutions ; and what has been since recovered of that Learning or Language has been fetcht as far as Ysland it self. How much of this Kind and of this Credulity remained

10 even to our own Age may be observed by any Man that Re flects, so far as Thirty or Forty Years, how often Avouched, and how generally Credited, were the Stories of Fairies, Sprites, Witchcrafts, and Enchantments. In some Parts of France, and not longer ago, the common People believed

15 certainly there were Lougaroos, or Men turned into Wolves ; and I remember several Irish of the same mind. The Remainders are woven into our very Language : Mara, in old Runick, was a Goblin that seized upon Men asleep in their Beds, and took from them all Speech and

20 Motion ; Old Nicka was a Sprite that came to strangle People who fell into the Water ; Bo was a fierce Gothick Captain, Son of Odin, whose Name was used by his Souldiers when they would Fright or Surprise their Enemies ; and the Proverb of Rhyming Rats to Death

25 came, I suppose, from the same Root.

There were, not longer since than the time I have men tioned, some Remainders of the Runick Poetry among the Irish. The Great Men of their Septs, among the many Offices of their Family, which continued always Jn the

30 same Races, had not only a Physician, a Hunts-man, a Smith, and such like, but a Poet and a Tale-teller. The first Recorded and Sung the Actions of their Ancestors, and Entertained the Company at Feasts : The latter Amuzed them with Tales when they were Melancholy and

35 could not sleep. And a very Gallant Gentleman of the

68 Sir William Temple

North of Ireland has told me of his own Experience, That, in his Wolf-Huntings there, when he used to be abroad in the Mountains three or four Days together, and lay very ill a Nights, so as he could not well sleep, they would bring him one of these Tale-tellers, that, when he lay down, 5 would begin a Story of a King, or a Gyant, a Dwarf and a Damosel, and such rambling stuff, and continue it all Night long in such an even Tone that you heard it going on whenever you awaked; and he believed nothing any Physitians give could have so good and so innocent effect, 10 to make Men Sleep in any Pains or Distempers of Body or Mind. I remember, in my youth, some Persons of our Country to have said Grace in Rhymes, and others their constant Prayers ; and 'tis vulgar enough that some Deeds or Conveyances of Land have been so since the 15 Conquest.

In such poor wretched Weeds as these was Poetry cloathed, during those shades of Ignorance that over spread all Europe for so many Ages after the Sun-set of the Roman Learning and Empire together, which were 20 Succeeded by so many New Dominions or Plantations of the Gothick Swarms, and by a New Face of Customs, Habit, Language, and almost of Nature. But upon the dawn of a New Day, and the Resurrection of other Sciences, with the Two Learned Languages, among us, 25 This of Poetry began to appear very early, tho' very unlike it self, and in shapes as well as Cloaths, in Humor and in Spirit, very different from the Antient. It was now all in Rhyme, after the Gothick fashion ; for indeed none of the several Dialects of that Language or Allay would bear the 3 Composure of such Feet and Measures as were in use among the Greeks and Latins', and some that attempted it soon left it off, despairing of Success. Yet, in this new Dress, Poetry was not without some Charms, especially those of Grace and Sweetness, and the Oar begun to shine 35

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in the Hands and Works of the first Refiners. Petrach, Ronsard, Spencer met with much Applause upon the Subjects of Love, Praise, Grief, Reproach. Ariosto and Tasso entred boldly upon the Scene of Heroick Poems, 5 but, having not Wings for so high Flights, began to Learn of the old Ones, fell upon their Imitations, and chiefly of Virgil, as far as the Force of their Genius or Dis advantage of New Languages and Customs would allow. The Religion of the Gentiles had been woven into the

10 Contexture of all the antient Poetry with a very agreable mixture, which made the Moderns affect to give that of Christianity a place also in their Poems. But the true Religion was not found to become Fiction so well as a false had done, and all their Attempts of this kind

15 seemed rather to debase Religion than to heighten Poetryy Spencer endeavoured to Supply this with Morality, and to make Instruction instead of Story the Subject of an Epick Poem. His Execution was Excellent, and his Flights of Fancy very Noble and High, but his Design

20 was Poor, and his Moral lay so bare that it lost the Effect: 'tis true, the Pill was Gilded, but so thin that the Colour and the Taste were too easily discovered.

After these three, I know none of the Moderns that have made any Atchievments in Heroick Poetry worth Record-

2 5 ing. The Wits of the Age soon left off such bold Adven tures, and turned to other Veins, as if, not worthy to sit down at the Feast, they contented themselves with the Scraps, with Songs and Sonnets, with Odes and Elegies, with Satyrs and Panegyricks, and what we call Copies of

30 Verses upon any Subjects or Occasions, wanting either Genius or Application for Nobler or more Laborious Productions, as Painters that cannot Succeed in great Pieces turn to Miniature.

But the modern Poets, to value this small Coyn, and

35 make it pass, tho' of so much a baser Metal than the old,

F a

70 Sir William Temple

gave it a New Mixture from Two Veins which were little known or little esteemed among the Ancients. There were indeed certain Fairyes in the old Regions of Poetry, called Epigrams, which seldom reached above the Stature of Two or Four or Six Lines, and which, Being so short, 5 were all turned upon Conceit, or some sharp Hits of Fancy or Wit. The only Ancient of this kind among the Latins were the Priapeia, which were little Voluntaries or Extern- poraries Written upon the ridiculous Woodden Statues of Priapus among the Gardens of Rome. In the decays 10 of the Roman Learning and Wit as well as Language, Martial, Ausonius, and others fell into this Vein, and applied it indifferently to all Subjects, which was before Restrained to one, and Drest it something more cleanly than it was Born. This Vein of Conceit seemed proper for 15 such Scraps or Splinters into which Poetry was broken, and was so eagerly followed, as almost to over-run all that was Composed in our several modern Languages. The Italian, the French, the Spanish, as well as English, were for a great while full of nothing else but Conceit. It was an Ingredient 20 that gave Taste to Compositions which had little of them selves ; 'twas a Sauce that gave Point to Meat that was Flat, and some Life to Colours that were Fading ; and, in short, those who could not furnish Spirit supplied it with this Salt, which may preserve Things or Bodys that are 25 Dead, but is, for ought I know, of little use to the Living, or necessary to Meats that have much or pleasing Tasts of their own. However it were, this Vein first over-flowed our modern Poetry, and with so little Distinction or Judgment that we would have Conceit as well as Rhyme 30 in every Two Lines, and run through all our long Scribbles as well as the short, and the whole Body of the Poem, whatever it is. This was just as if a Building should be nothing but Ornament, or Cloaths nothing but Trim ming ; as if a Face should be covered over with black 35

Of Poetry 71

Patches, or a Gown with Spangles; which is all I shall say of it.

Another Vein which has entred and helpt to Corrupt our modern Poesy is that of Ridicule, as if nothing pleased

5 but what made one Laugh, which yet come from Two very different Affections of the Mind; for as Men have no Disposition to Laugh at things they are most pleased with, so they are very little pleased with many things they Laught at.

TO But this mistake is very general, and such modern Poets as found no better way of pleasing thought they could not fail of it by Ridiculing. This was Encouraged by finding Conversation run so much into the same Vein, and the Wits in Vogue to take up with that Part of it which

15 was formerly left to those that were called Fools, and were used in great Families only to make the Company Laugh. What Opinion the Romans had of this Character appears in those Lines of Horace :

Absentem qui rodit amicum,

20 Qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos

Qui captat risus hominmn famamque dicacis, Fingere qui non visa potest, Commissa tacere Qui nequit, Hie Niger est, Hunc tu, Romane, caveto ;

And 'tis pity the Character of a Wit in one Age should

25 be so like that of a Black in another.

Rablais seems to have been Father of the Ridicule, a Man of Excellent and Universal Learning as well as Wit; and tho' he had too much Game given him for Satyr in that Age, by the Customs of Courts and of Convents, of

30 Processes and of Wars, of Schools and of Camps, of Romances and Legends, Yet he must be Confest to have kept up his Vein of Ridicule by saying many things so Mali cious, so Smutty, and so Prophane, that either a Prudent, a Modest, or a Pious Man could not have afforded, tho' he

72 Sir William Temple

had never so much of that Coyn about him ; and it were to be wished that the Wits who have followed his Vein had not put too much Value upon a Dress that better Under standings would not wear, at least in publick, and upon a compass they gave themselves which other Men would 5 not take. The Matchless Writer of Don Quixot is much more to be admired for having made up so excellent a Composition of Satyr or Ridicule without those Ingredients, and seems to be the best and highest Strain that ever was or will be reached by that Vein. 10

It began first in Verse with an Italian Poem, called La Secchia Rapita, was pursued by Scarron in French with his Virgil Travesty, and in English by Sir John Mince, Hudibras, and Cotton, and with greater height of Burlesque in the English than, I think, in any other Language. But 15 let the Execution be what it will, the Design, the Custom, and Example are very pernicious to Poetry, and indeed to all Virtue and Good Qualities among Men, which must be disheartened by finding how unjustly and undistinguish't they fall under the lash of Raillery, and this Vein of 20 Ridiculing the Good as well as the 111, the Guilty and the Innocent together. J Tis a very poor tho' common Pretence to merit, to make it appear by the Faults of other Men. A mean Wit or Beauty may pass in a Room, where the rest of the Company are allowed to have none ; 'tis something 25 to sparkle among Diamonds, but to shine among Pebbles is neither Credit nor Value worth the pretending.

Besides these two Veins brought in to supply the Defects of the modern Poetry, much Application has been made to the Smoothness of Language or Style, which has 30 at the best but the Beauty of Colouring in a Picture, & can never make a good one without Spirit and Strength. The Academy set up by Cardinal Richlieu to amuse the Wits of that Age and Country, and divert them from raking into his Politicks and Ministery, brought this in 35

Of Poetry 73

Vogue; and the French Wits have for this last Age been in a manner wholly turned to the Refinement of their Language, and indeed with such Success that it can hardly be excelled, and runs equally through their Verse and their

5 Prose. The same Vein has been likewise much Cultivated in our modern English Poetry; and by such poor Recruits have the broken Forces of this Empire been of late made up ; with what Success, I leave to be judged by such as consider it in the former Heights and the present Declines

ro both of Power and of Honour; but this will not discourage, however it may affect, the true Lovers of this Mistriss, who must ever think her a Beauty in Rags as well as in Robes.

Among these many Decays, there is yet one sort of

15 Poetry that seems to have succeeded much better with our Moderns than any of the rest, which is Dramatick, or that of the Stage. In this the Italian, the Spanish, and the French have all had their different Merit, and received their just Applauses. Yet I am deceived if our English

20 has not in some kind excelled both the Modern and the Antient, which has been by Force of a Vein Natural perhaps to our Country, and which with us is called Humour, a Word peculiar to our Language too, and hard to be expressed in any other ; nor is it, that I know of,

25 found in any Foreign Writers, unless it be Moliere, and yet his it self has too much of the Farce to pass for the same with ours. Shakespear was the first that opened this Vein upon our Stage, which has run so freely and so pleasantly ever since, that I have often wondered to find it

30 appear so little upon any others, being a Subject so proper for them, since Humour is but a Picture of particular Life, as Comedy is of general ; and tho j it represents Dispositions and Customs less common, yet they are not less natural than those that are more frequent among Men;

35 for if Humour it self be forced, it loses all the Grace ;

74 Sir William Temple

which has been indeed the Fault of some of our Poets most Celebrated in this kind.

It may seem a Defect in the antient Stage that the Characters introduced were so few, and those so common, as a Covetous Old Man, an Amorous Young, a Witty Wench, 5 a Crafty Slave, a Bragging Soldier. The Spectators met nothing upon the Stage, but what they met in the Streets and at every Turn. All the Variety is drawn only from different and uncommon Events, whereas if the Characters are so too, the Diversity and the Pleasure must needs be 10 the more. But as of most general Customs in a Country there is usually some Ground from the Nature of the People or the Clymat, so there may be amongst us for this Vein of our Stage, and a greater variety of Humor in the Picture, because there is a greater variety in the Life. 15 This may proceed from the Native Plenty of our Soyl, the unequalness of our Clymat, as well as the Ease of our Government, and the Liberty of Professing Opinions and Factions, which perhaps our Neighbours may have about them, but are forced to disguise, and thereby they may 20 come in time to be extinguish't. Plenty begets Wantonness and Pride: Wantonness is apt to invent, and Pride scorns to imitate. Liberty begets Stomach or Heart, and Stomach will not be Constrained. Thus we come to have more Originals, and more that appear what they are ; we have 25 more Humour, because every Man follows his own, and takes a Pleasure, perhaps a Pride, to shew it.

On the contrary, where the People are generally poor, and forced to hard Labour, their Actions and Lives are all of a Piece ; where they serve hard Masters, they must 30 follow his Examples as well as Commands, and are forced upon Imitation in small Matters as well as Obedience in great : So that some Nations look as if they were cast all by one Mould, or Cut out all by one Pattern, at least the common People in one, and the Gentlemen in another : 35

Of Poetry 75

They seem all of a sort in their Habits, their Customs, and even their Talk and Conversation, as well as in the Applica tion and Pursuit of their Actions and their Lives.

Besides all this, there is another sort of Variety amongst 5 us, which arises from our Clymat, and the Dispositions it Naturally produces. We are not only more unlike one another than any Nation I know, but we are more unlike our selves too at several times, and owe to our very Air some ill Qualities as well as many good. We may allow

10 some Distempers Incident to our Clymat, since so much Health, Vigor, and Length of Life have been generally Ascribed to it ; for among the Greek and Roman Authors themselves, we shall find the Britains observed to Live the longest, and the ^Egyptians the shortest, of any Nations

15 that were known in those Ages. Besides, I think none will Dispute the Native Courage of our Men and Beauty of our Women, which may be elsewhere as great in Particulars, but no where so in General ; they may be (what is said of Diseases) as Acute in other Places, but with us they are

20 Epidemical. For my own Part, who have Conversed much with Men of other Nations, and such as have been both in great Imployments and Esteem, I can say very impartially that I have not observed among any so much true Genius as among the English : No where more Sharpness of Wit,

25 more Pleasantness of Humour, more Range of Fancy, more Penetration of Thought or Depth of Reflection among the better Sort : No where more Goodness of Nature and of Meaning, nor more Plainness of Sense and of Life than among the common Sort of Country ^People,

30 nor more blunt Courage and Honesty than among our Sea-men.

But, with all this, our Country must be confest to be what a great Foreign Physitian called it, The Region of Spleen, which may arise a good deal from the great un-

35 certainty and many suddain Changes of our Weather in all

76 Sir William Temple

Seasons of the Year. And how much these Affect the Heads and Hearts, especially of the finest Tempers, is hard to be Believed by Men whose Thoughts are not turned to such Speculations. This makes us unequal in our Humours, inconstant in our Passions, uncertain in our 5 Ends, and even in our Desires. Besides, our different Opinions in Religion, and the Factions they have Raised or Animated for Fifty Years past, have had an ill Effect upon our Manners and Customs, inducing more Avarice, Am-, bition, Disguise, with the usual Consequences of them, than T0 were before in our Constitution. From all this it may happen that there is no where more true Zeal in the many different Forms of Devotion, and yet no where more Knavery under the Shews and Pretences. There are no where so many Disputers upon Religion, so many Reason- 15 ers upon Government, so many Refiners in Politicks, so many Curious Inquisitives, so many Pretenders to Business and State- Imployments, greater Porers upon Books, nor Plodders after Wealth. And yet no where more Abandoned Libertines, more refined Luxurists, Extrava- 20 gant Debauches, Conceited Gallants, more Dabblers in Poetry as well as Politicks, in Philosophy, and in Chymistry. I have had several Servants far gone in Divinity, others in Poetry ; have known, in the Families of some Friends, a Keeper deep in the Rosycrucia Principles, and a Laun- 25 dress firm in those of Epicurus. What Effect soever such a Composition or Medly of Humours among us may have upon our Lives or our Government, it must needs have a good one upon our Stage, and has given admirable Play to our Comical Wits : So that in my Opinion there is no Vein 30 of that sort, either Antient or Modern, which Excels or Equals the Humour of our Plays. And for the rest, I can not but observe, (to) the Honour of our Country, that the good Qualities amongst us seem to be Natural, and the ill ones more Accidental, and such as would be easily Changed 35

Of Poetry 77

by the Examples of Princes, and by the Precepts of Laws ; such, I mean, as should be Designed to Form Manners, to Restrain Excesses, to Encourage Industry, to Prevent Mens Expences beyond their Fortunes, to Countenance Virtue,

5 and Raise that True Esteem due to Plain Sense and Common Honesty.

But to Spin off this Thread which is already Grown too long : What Honour and Request the antient Poetry has Lived in may not only be Observed from the Universal /^^^

10 Reception and Use in all Nations (from China to Peru} from Scythia to Arabia, but from the Esteem of the Best and the Greatest Men as well as the Vulgar. Among the Hebrews, David and Solomon, the Wisest Kings, Job and Jeremiah, the Holiest Men, were the best Poets of their Nation and

15 Language. Among the Greeks, the Two most renowned Sages and Law-givers were Lycurgus and Solon, whereof the Last is known to have excelled in Poetry, and the first was so great a Lover of it, That to his Care and Industry we are said by some Authors to owe the Collection

20 and Preservation of the loose and scattered Pieces of Homer in the Order wherein they have since appeared. Alexander is reported neither to have Travelled nor Slept without those admirable Poems always in his Company. Phalaris, that was Inexorable to all other Enemies, Relented

25 at the Charms of Stesichorus his Muse. Among the Romans, the Last and Great Scipio passed the soft Hours of his Life in the Conversation of Terence, and was thought to have a Part in the composition of his Comedies. Ccesar was an Excellent Poet as well as Orator, and Composed a

30 Poem in his Voyage from Rome to Spain, Relieving the Tedious Difficulties of his March with the Entertainments of his Muse. Augustus was not only a Patron, but a Friend and Companion of Virgil and Horace, and was him self both an Admirer of Poetry and a pretender too, as far

35 as his Genius would reach or his busy Scene allow. 'Tis

78 Sir William Temple

true, since his Age we have few such Examples of great Princes favouring or affecting Poetry, and as few perhaps of great Poets deserving it. Whether it be that the fierce ness of the Gothick Humors, or Noise of their perpetual Wars, frighted it away, or that the unequal mixture of the 5 Modern Languages would not bear it, Certain it is, That the great H eighths and Excellency both of Poetry and Musick fell with the Roman Learning and Empire, and have never since recovered the Admiration and Applauses that before attended them. Yet such as they are amongst us, they 10 must be confest to be the Softest and Sweetest, the most General and most Innocent Amusements of common Time and Life. They still find Room in the Courts of Princes and the Cottages of Shepherds. They serve to Revive and Animate the dead Calm of poor or idle Lives, and to Allay 15 or Divert the violent Passions and Perturbations of the greatest and the busiest Men. And both these Effects are of equal use to Humane Life ; for the Mind of Man is like the Sea, which is neither agreable to the Beholder nor the Voyager in a Calm or in a Storm, but is so to both 20 when a little Agitated by gentle Gales; and so the Mind, when moved by soft and easy Passions or Affections. I know very well that many, who pretend to be Wise by the Forms of being Grave, are apt to despise both Poetry and Musick as Toys and trifles too light for the Use or Enter- 25 tainment of serious Men. But whoever find themselves wholly insensible to these Charms would, I think, do well to keep their own Counsel, for fear of Reproaching their own Temper, and bringing the Goodness of their Natures, if not of their Understandings, into Question. It may be 30 thought at least an ill Sign, if not an ill Constitution, since some of the Fathers went so far as to esteem the Love of Musick a Sign of Predestination, as a thing Divine, and Reserved for the Felicities of Heaven it self. While this World lasts, I doubt not but the Pleasure and Request 35

Of Poetry 79

of these Two Entertainments will do so too ; and happy those that content themselves with these or any other so Easy and so Innocent, and do not trouble the World or other Men, because they cannot be quiet themselves, 5 though no body hurts them !

When all is done, Human Life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward Child, that must be Play'd with and Humor'd a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the Care is over.

NOTES

THE essays 'Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning' and 'Of Poetry' were published in the second part of Temple's Miscellanea, which appeared in November, 1690. The third edition, containing the author's final revision, has been used as the basis of the present text (Miscellanea, the Second Part, in Four Essays : I. Upon Ancient and Modern Learning. II. Upon the Gardens of Epicurus. III. Upon Heroick Virtue. IV. Upon Poetry. By Sir William Temple, Baronet. Juvat antiques accedere Fontes. The Third Edition, Corrected and Augmented by the Author, London, 1692). Temple's posthumous 'Defence of the Essay upon Antient and Modern Learning', published by Swift in Miscellanea, The Third Part, 1701, should also be consulted by the student.

The first, and in fact both, of the essays were provoked by the so-called controversy of Ancients and Moderns, which had been precipitated, or rather given a new turn, by Charles Perrault, who read a poem on the superiority of the moderns, Le Siecle de Louis le Grand, at a meeting of the French Academy on January 27, 1687 ; and in the following year Fontenelle published his Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes, and Perrault the first volume of his elaborate defence, the Parallels des Anciens et des Modernes. In the controversy that ensued, Boileau, Dacier, and others espoused the cause of the ancients against Perrault and Fontenelle. Temple's essay focussed English attention on the controversy, and resulted not only in a general discussion, in which William Wotton, Rymer, and others took part, but more especially in a bitter quarrel on the authenticity of the Letters of Phalaris, which Temple had mentioned as an illustration of the literary superiority of the ancients (cf. note to 34. 30 sq.). Rigault's Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, 1856, is still the best account of the whole matter, for England as well as for France: cf. Brunetiere, Evolution des Genres, ch. iv ; Spingarn, Critical Essays of the

Notes to pp. 2-15 81

Seventeenth Century, vol. i, p. Ixxxviii sq. ; Vial and Denise, Ide'es et Doctrines litte'raires du XVII* siecle, pp. 247-90 ; Daniels, Saint- Evremond en Angleterre, 1907; Jebb, Life of Bentley ; Macaulay, Essay on Temple; andD.N.B. s.v. Temple and Bentley.

PAGE 2. 20. The Antediluvian World, i.e. Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth, the first part of which, describing Paradise and the Deluge, appeared in an English dress in 1684, three years after the Latin original ; the second part was published in 1689.

21. The Plurality of Worlds, i. e. Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes, 1686, translated into English by John Glanvill in 1688.

PAGE 3. 4. A small Piece concerning Poesy. In 1688, Fonte- nelle published a volume of Poesies Pastorales, which contained, in addition to the very tame pastorals themselves, a Discours sur la Nature de VEglogm and the highly significant Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes.

PAGE 4. 20. The fragments of the Egyptian priest Manetho (B. c. 283-246) on the history of Egypt are collected by Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec., 1856.

21. Justin, Hist. Philippi, ii. i. 5.

22. Herodotus, bks. iii, iv, passim ; Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. Hist. xix. 73.

PAGE 9. 16. Temple's account of the Brahmans of India is almost wholly derived from Strabo, Geog. xv. i. 59-73 : on Calanus (10. 29), see ibid. xv. i. 64; on Zormanochages, i.e. Zarmanochegas (11. 12), ibid. xv. i. 73.

PAGE 11. 26. Herodotus, iv. 2.

PAGE 12. 30. Missionary Jesuits. Temple seems to have in mind two Portuguese Jesuits, from whose works his account of China (to 13. 32) is for the most part derived : Alvaro Semmedo, author of the Imperio de la China (Engl. transl., The History of the Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655 ; v cf. pp. 31-58, 86-96), and Gabriel de Magalhaens, author of the Doze Excellencias da China (Engl. transl., New History of China, 1688) ; cf. also the work of the Belgian Jesuit, Philippe Couplet, Confucius, Sinarum Philosophus, sive Scientia Sinica Latine exposita, 1687.

PAGE 15. 4. Amautas, the sages of the Peruvian Incas ; cf.

82 Notes to pp. 15-34

Garcilaso de la Vega's Commentaries Reales de los Yncas, 1609 (abridged version by Sir Paul Rycaut, The Royal Commentaries of Peru, 1688), bk. ii, ch. 27, on 'the poetry of the Yncas Amautas, who are philosophers, and Haravicus or poets'.

PAGE 19. 25-6. The ' Stag's head at Amboyse ' is described by Evelyn, Diary, May 2, 1644. The * large Table at Memorancy ' has been identified by M. Pierre de Nolhac as the sixteenth- century table, with decorations by Jean Bullant, once owned by the constable Anne de Montmorency at the Chateau d'Ecouen, but now at Chantilly.

PAGE 20. 25 sq. Science and Arts have run their circles, and had their periods. On the idea of progress, see Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, vol. i, pp. Ixxxix sq., ci sq. The theory of cycles of culture was first widely diffused between the time of Bouhours's Entretiens d'Ariste et d' Eugene, 1671, and Fontenelle's Dialogues des Morts, 1683; cf. Dryden's Essays, ed. Ker, i. 36, ii. 25, and infra, 30. 17 sq.

PAGE 24. 22. John Reuchlin (1455-1522), the famous German humanist.

23. George Buchanan (1506-1582), the Scottish historian and scholar.

PAGE 25. 22. The New French Author, c. See supra, note to 3. 4.

PAGE 32. 33. John Wilkins (1614-1672), bishop of Chester.

34. D'Avila. Enrico Caterino Davila's Historiadelle Guerre cimli di Francia appeared in 1630.

34. Famianus Strada (1572-1649), author of the Prolusiones ', his De Bello Belgico, 1632-47, was translated into English by Sir R. Stapylton in 1650.

35. The German historian Sleidanus (John Philippson, 1506-1556) published his De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii at Strassburg in 1555 ; it was translated in 1560 as Sleidanes Commentaries.

PAGE 34. 3086. 22. This is the passage which precipitated the Bentley-Boyle controversy. The letters ascribed without foundation to the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris had been widely diffused during the Renaissance ; they had been translated into Latin and into Italian before the end of the fifteenth century, twice into French before the end of the sixteenth, and into

Notes to pp. 34-41 83

English by W. D. in 1634 ; they were again translated by J. S. in 1699. Bentley's Dissertation settled the question of their spuriousness ; for a list of the controversial pamphlets in the dispute, see Dyce's edition of the Dissertation, 1836, vol. i, pp. xi-xviii.

PAGE 35. 8. Politian, i.e. Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494), the famous Italian humanist. The passage to which Temple refers occurs in Poliziano's first Epistle (Angeli Politiani Opera, Lyons,

i539> P- 2).

33. The allusion to the Roman History of Velleius Pater- culus (written under Tiberius) as a model of Latin style is an instance of Temple's casual and uncritical judgements, not unlike that on the Phalaris Letters.

PAGE 36. 5. The ' little Treatise ' of Minucius Felix is the Octavius, a charming dialogue in the Ciceronian manner, written in defence of Christianity in the age of Marcus Aurelius.

I 3-3 I - This list of great writers has been ridiculed by Macaulay because of the omission of Dante, Tasso, Shakespeare, Milton, Moliere, and other poets ; but Temple has specifically limited the discussion to prose (supra, 33. 12-13 : ' But tne Consideration of Poetry ought to be a subject by it self. For the Books we have in Prose,' &c.). Macaulay's censure is therefore unfounded.

15. Padre Paolo, i. e. Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623), historian of the Council of Trent ; the Istoria del Concilio Tridentino was published at London in 1619.

16. Antonio de Guevara (1495 ?-i545), author of the Relox de Principes, o Marco Aurelio, 1529, and other works ; they were translated by North, Hellowes, and Fenton, and the Letters by Savage as late as 1657. Their inflated style was once thought to have exercised an influence on Lyly's Euphuism.

22. The Histoire amoureuse des Gaules of Roger de ^.abutin, comte de Bussy (1618-1693), was published c. 1665 5 ' a pretty libel against the amours of the Court of France ' (Pepys, Diary, May i, 1666).

PAGE 38. 3-7. Ovid first enunciated the theory that peace is essential to poetry ; see Tristia, i. i. 39.

PAGE 41. 22 sq. The theory that 'Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away' (Byron, Don Juan, xiii. n) has persisted in

84 Notes to pp. 41-53

English literature since Temple first gave expression to it in this passage ; cf. Steele, in the Tatter, no. 219, Defoe's Memoirs of Captain Carleton, Motteux's preface to Don Quixote, 1700 (Becker, Don Quixote in der englischen Literatur, p. 26 sq.). Rapin (Reflexions sur la Poetique, ii. 28) ascribes Cervantes's satire on chivalry to personal pique.

PAGE 42. 24. Temple apparently refers, not to Alfonso X, the Learned (el Sabio], King of Castile from 1252 to 1284, but to Alfonso V of Aragon, I of Naples and Sicily (1385-1458), the hero of Panormita's De Dictis et Factis Regis Alphonsi. The passage which Temple cites is paraphrased from Melchior de Santa Cruz's Floresta Espanola de Apothegmas, from which Bacon had also borrowed his 97th Apophthegm.

PAGE 45. 3. Virgil, Eel. viii. 69-71.

PAGE 46. 5. Meric Casaubon's Treatise concerning Enthusiasme, as it is an Effect of Nature, but is mistaken by many for either Divine Inspiration or Diabolical Possession was published in 1655.

PAGE 53. 2255. 17. The long campaign against the critical rules of neoclassicism was inaugurated in the first half of the sixteenth century by Aretino (cf. Vossler, ' Pietro Aretino's kiinstlerisches Bekenntnis', in the Neue Heidelberger Jahrbucher, 1900), and was continued by Giordano Bruno, Marino, and others (see Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, vol. i, p. Ixxv) ; but Saint- vremond led the vanguard in Temple's day. His essays are filled with attacks on the Rules ; cf. (Euvres melees, ed. Giraud, Paris, 1865, ii. 414 : ' Vous avez raison, Messieurs, vous avez raison de vous moquer des songes d'Aristote et d' Horace, des reveries de Heinsius et de Grotius, des caprices de Corneille et de Ben Johnson, des fantaisies de Rapin et de Boileau. La seule regie des honnetes gens, c'est la mode. Que sert une raison qui n'est point re$ue, et qui peut trouver a redire a une extravagance qui plait ? ' (cf. ibid. ii. 321, 387, 501-2, &c.). The influence of Saint-Evremond's critical work at this time was very great. The first English versions, Mixt Essays . . . written originally in French by the Sieur de Saint Evremont, 1685, and Miscellanea, or Various Discourses, trans lated by F. Spence, 1686, were probably the first volumes of critical essays that had ever appeared in England ; these were followed by the Miscellaneous Essays, 1692-94, in two volumes,

Notes to pp. 53-60 85

translated by various hands, by the Works, 1700, in two volumes, and by a three-volume collection 'with the Author's Life by Mr. Des Maizeaux ', 1714 (2nd ed. 1728). In addition to these, Silvestre and Des Maizeaux published at least two editions of the French originals in London, the (Euvres mesle'es, 1705, in two volumes, and the Veritables (Euvres, 1706, in three. Gildon, in the Complete Art of Poetry, 1718, i. 117 sq., answers Temple's attack on the .Rules, as well as that in Farquhar's Discourse upon Comedy, 1702.

PAGE 54. 17. // would be too much Mortification to these great Arbitrary Rulers . . . to Observe the worthy Productions that have been formed by their Rules. Cf. Dryden's prologue to Love Triumphant, 1694 (Works, ed. Scott-Saintsbury, viii. 379) :

'To Shakespeare's critic [i.e. Rymer] he [i.e. Dryden]

bequeathes the curse,

To find his faults, and yet himself make worse ; A precious reader in poetic schools, Who by his own examples damns his rules.'

Cf. also Saint-^vremond's anecdote of the Abbe d'Aubignac ((Euvres melees, ii. 320), and Fontenelle ((Euvres, ed. 1764, iii. 80) : ' Ces regies qui ne sont pas encore faites, ou que tout le monde ne sait pas, voila apparemment 1'art de plaire, voila en quoi consiste la magie.'

31. Fosliciter audet. Horace, Epist. ii. i. 166.

32. Lusit amabiliter. Ibid. ii. i. 148. PAGE 55. 3. Ibid. ii. i. 211-13.

31. Aristotle, Probl. xix. 28.

32. Tacitus, Germ. ii.

PAGE 56. i. Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 57. 14.

PAGE 57. 18. The Spanish Translation of the Jews in Ferrara. This version of the Old Testament, begun in the ^fifteenth century, was completed in the sixteenth by Abraham Usque (E. Pinhel) and Yom Tob Athias (Jeronimo de Vargas), and published at Ferrara in 1553 as the Biblia en Lengua Espanola traduzida palabra por palabra de la verdad Hebrayca por muy excelentes Letrados.

PAGE 60. 20. Book of Fables, c. This refers to Le Livre des Lumieres, ou la Conduite des Roys, compose par le sage Pilpay,

86 Notes to pp. 60-69

Indien, traduit en fran^ois par David Sahid dlspahan, Paris, 1644. It was virtually what it professed to be, a translation of a Persian form of the Arabic Kalilah wa Dimnah, which in its turn goes back to the original Indian fables of Bidpai, or Pilpay. La Fontaine borrowed some of his best fables from this source. 29. Longi Pastomtia, i.e. the famous Greek pastoral romance of Daphnis and Chloe, ascribed to Longus.

PAGE 62. 6. Florus, the ' Florus poeta ' (probably P. Annius Florus) whose verses to Hadrian, in which this phrase occurs, are preserved by Aelius Spartianus, Adrian, xv.

9. These verses of Hadrian are also to be found in the same book of Aelius Spartianus.

PAGE 63. 20 sq. Wotton (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, 3rd ed., 1705, p. 509) points out that Temple's 'Runic* knowledge is chiefly derived from two Danish scholars, Olaus Wormius and Thomas Bartholin the younger. Wormius published his Literatura Runica in 1636, Danicorum Monumen- torum libri sex in 1643, and other works on Scandinavian anti quities ; Bartholin's Antiquitates Danicae appeared at Copenhagen in 1689. For an account of these and other works accessible to Temple, including Robert Sheringham's De Anglorum Gentis Origine Disceptatio, 1670, see F. E. Farley's Scandinavian Influ ences in the English Romantic Movement, Boston, U. S. A., 1903.

PAGE 67. 15. Lougaroos, i. e. 'loups-garous.'

18 sq. On these imaginary derivations of * mare ' or ' night mare ' from Mara, of ' bo ' or ' bogle-bo ' from Bo, and ' Old Nick ' from Nicka, see Olaus Wormius, Dan. Mon. i. 4, Brand's Popular Antiquities, ed. Ellis, ii. 515, 519, and N. E. D. s. v. On

• rhyming rats to death ', see the notes of the commentators on

As You Like It, in. ii. 187-8.

PAGE 69. 9-15. Boileau's authority (Art Poetique, iii. 193 sq.) had given a setback to the argument in favour of Christian machinery in heroic poetry ; cf. Dryden's Essays, ed. Ker, i. 32, and note.

20. His Moral lay so bare that it lost the Effect. Cf. Addison, Account of the greatest English Poets, 1694, on Spenser : ' While the dull moral lies too plain below.' 27 sq. They contented themselves with the Scraps, with Songs and Sonnets, &c. Temple inherited this contempt for the lyric

Notes to pp. 69-73 87

from Bacon and Hobbes ; cf. Rapin, Reflexions sur la Poetique, i. 3 (Rymer's transl.) : ' Thus an ignorant person shall start up, and be thought a Poet in the world for a lucky hit in a Song or Catch, where is only the empty flash of an imagination heated perhaps by a debauch, and nothing of that celestial fire which only is the portion of an extraordinary Genius ... A Sonnet, Ode, Elegy, Epigram, and those little kind of Verses that often make so much noise in the world, are ordinarily no more than the meer productions of imagination ; a superficial wit, with a little conversation of the world, is capable of these things.'

PAGE 71. 19. Horace, Sat. i. 4. 81-5.

PAGE 72. 12. La Secchia Rapita, Alessandro Tassoni's mock heroic poem on the war declared by the Bolognese on the Modenese in order to recover a bucket, was published in 1622.

12. The Virgile Travesti of Paul Scarron (1610-1660) was published in 1648-52, and was paraphrased by Charles Cotton (Scarronides, 1664).

13. Sir John Mennes, or Mince (1599-1671), is referred to here as co-author of Wits Recreations, 1640, and Musarum Deliciae, 1655, which owed their inspiration to the Muses Gaillardes, the Parnasse Satyrique, the Cabinet Satyrique, and similar collections of French verse written more or less in imitation of the Priapeia.

14. Cotton. See supra, note to 1. 12.

30 sq. Temple's complaint that ' smoothness of language or style ' had taken the place of ' spirit and strength ' had been anticipated by La Bruyere, Rapin, and other French critics ; cf. Reflexions sur la Poetique, i. 31 (Rymer's transl.) : * Of late some have fallen into another extremity by a too scrupulous care of purity of language : they have begun to take from Poesie all its nerves and all its majesty by a too timorous reservedness and false modesty, which some thought to make the Character of the French Tongue, by robbing it of all those wise and judicious boldnesses that Poesie demands,' &c. It is these occasional elements of freedom in Rapin's theory that made his book popular in England. Cf. Bouhours, La Maniere de bien penser, ed. 1695, p. 415.

PAGE 73. 14 sq. Saint- Evrernond's praise of English comedy in his essay ' De la Comedie angloise', 1677 ((Euvres melees,

88 Notes to pp. fj-JJ

ed. 1865, " 3 8 3 : ' H n'y a point de comedie qui se confonne plus a celle des anciens que 1'angloise, pour ce .qui regarde les moeurs,' &c.), counted for much in determining English opinion ; and Rymer, Dennis, and Congreve agreed with Temple in thinking that in this genre their countrymen had ' excelled both the Modern and the Ancient'. Temple here ascribes the superiority of English comedy to its humour, and his statement that humour is 'a Word peculiar to our Language' became a commonplace of English criticism (see Spingarn, op. tit., vol. i, p. Ix sq.). He accounted for this fact on the ground of the greater freedom of English manners and government, and this argument was repeated by Congreve (1696) and many others from the i44th Guardian in 1713 to Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles- Lettres in 1783.

25. Moliere's influence in England was then at its height ; for an early list of English plays imitated or borrowed from him, see Giles Jacob's Poetical Register, 1719, pp. 292-5.

PAGE 76. 25. Rosycrucia Principles. The Rosicrucian mysteries, first enunciated in Germany in the Fama Fraternitatis, 1614, were expounded in England by Robert Fludd and John Heydon (see D.N.B. s. v.), but the Comte de Gabalis, ou Entretiens sur les Sciences secretes, 1670, by the Abbe de Villars, had given them a wider popularity at about this time ; the book was translated twice in 1680, by Lovell and by Ayres, and again in 1714.

PAGE 77. 10. All Nations from China to Peru, another of the many phrases and commonplaces due to Temple. Dr. Johnson, Thomas Warton, and others repeat the phrase, as Temple him self may have been thinking of Boileau's ' De Paris au Perou, du Japon jusqu'a Rome.'

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