The works of John Dryden, Vol. XVII

THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH. — THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH. — TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ORMOND, &c. — THE LIFE OF PLUTARCH. — FOOTNOTES:

In 1683, appeared the first volume of a translation of Plutarch’s Lives, executed by several hands. Among the persons engaged in this undertaking, Mr Malone enumerates “Richard Duke, and Knightly Chetwood, Fellows of Trinity College, in Cambridge; Paul Rycaut, Esq.; Thomas Creech, of Wadham College, Oxford, the translator of Horace, &c.; Edward Brown, M.D. author of Travels in Germany, &c.; Dr Adam Littleton, author of the Latin Dictionary; John Caryl, Esq. I believe the friend of Pope; Mr Joseph Arrowsmith; Thomas Rymer, Esq.; Dr William Oldys; John Evelyn, Esq.; and Mr Somers, afterwards Lord Somers, who translated the Life of Alcibiades, though his name is not prefixed to it. Beside the persons here enumerated, twenty-nine others were engaged in this work: so that the total number of the translators was forty-one. Dryden translated none of the Lives.”

Dryden was induced to honour this work, so creditable to those who had undertaken it, with a Dedication, and Life of Plutarch. The Dedication is addressed to the great Duke of Ormond, whom Dryden had celebrated, in “Absalom and Achitophel,” under the name of Barzillai. The reader will find some account of that nobleman, in the note upon that passage, Vol. IX. p. 294. It is doing no injustice to the other great qualities of Ormond, to say, that his generous and unwearied protection of Dryden will not be the soonest forgotten. The poet’s feelings towards this noble family were expressed in the preface to the “Fables,” his last great work.

The publication and translation of “Plutarch’s Lives” was not completed until 1686, when the last volume appeared. The following remarkable advertisement was prefixed to the work; which, from internal evidence, Mr Malone ascribes to our author, although bearing the name, and written in the character, of Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the work.

“You have here the first volume of “Plutarch’s Lives” turned from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from the originals. You may expect the remainder in four more, one after another, as fast as they may conveniently be dispatched from the press. It is not my business, or pretence, to judge of a work of this quality; neither do I take upon me to recommend it to the world, any farther than under the office of a fair and careful publisher, and in discharge of a trust deposited in my hands for the service of my country, and for a common good. I am not yet so insensible of the authority and reputation of so great a name, as not to consult the honour of the author, together with the benefit and satisfaction of the bookseller, as well as of the reader, in this undertaking. In order to which ends, I have, with all possible respect and industry, besought, solicited, and obtained, the assistance of persons equal to the enterprize, and not only critics in the tongue, but men of known fame and abilities for style and ornament; but I shall rather refer you to the learned and ingenious translators of this first part, (whose names you will find in the next page,) as a specimen of what you may promise yourself from the rest.

“After this right done to the Greek author, I shall not need to say what profit and delight will accrue to the English reader from this version, when he shall see this illustrious piece in his own mother tongue, and the very spirit of the original transfused into the traduction; and in one word, “Plutarch’s Worthies” made yet more famous, by a translation that gives a farther lustre even to Plutarch himself.

“Now as to the bookseller’s part, I must justify myself, that I have done all that to me belonged; that is to say, I have been punctually faithful to all my commissions toward the correctness and decency of the work; and I have said to myself, that which I now say to the public,—It is impossible but a book that comes into the world with so many circumstances of dignity, usefulness, and esteem, must turn to account.”

MY LORD,

Lucretius, endeavouring to prove from the principles of his philosophy, that the world had a casual beginning from the concourse of atoms, and that men, as well as the rest of animals, were produced from the vital heat and moisture of their mother earth, from the same principles is bound to answer this objection,—why men are not daily formed after the same manner; which he tells us, is, because the kindly warmth and procreative faculty of the ground is now worn out; the sun is a disabled lover; and the earth is past her teeming time.

Though religion has informed us better of our origin, yet it appears plainly, that not only the bodies, but the souls of men, have decreased from the vigour of the first ages; that we are not more short of the stature and strength of those gigantic heroes, than we are of their understanding and their wit. To let pass those happy patriarchs who were striplings at fourscore, and had afterwards seven or eight hundred years before them to beget sons and daughters, and to consider man in reference only to his mind, and that no higher than the age of Socrates, how vast a difference is there betwixt the productions of those souls, and these of ours? How much better Plato, Aristotle, and the rest of the philosophers understood nature; Thucydides and Herodotus adorned history; Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander advanced poetry, than those dwarfs of wit and learning who succeeded them in after times? That age was most famous amongst the Greeks which ended with the death of Alexander; amongst the Romans, learning seemed again to revive and flourish in the century which produced Cicero, Varro, Sallust, Livy, Lucretius, and Virgil: and after a short interval of years, wherein nature seemed to take a breathing time for a second birth, there sprung up under the Vespasians, and those excellent princes who succeeded them, a race of memorable wits, such as were the two Plinies, Tacitus, and Suetonius; and, as if Greece was emulous of the Roman learning, under the same favourable constellation was born the famous philosopher and historian, Plutarch; than whom antiquity has never produced a man more generally knowing, or more virtuous; and no succeeding age has equalled him.

His Lives, both in his own esteem and that of others, accounted the noblest of his works, have been long since rendered into English; but as that translation was only from the French,⁠[1] so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible. For which reasons, and lest so useful a piece of history should lie oppressed under the rubbish of antiquated words, some ingenious and learned gentlemen have undertaken this task; and what would have been the labour of one man’s life, will, by the several endeavours of many, be accomplished in the compass of a year. How far they have succeeded in this laudable attempt, to me it belongs not to determine, who am too much a party to be a judge. But I have the honour to be commissioned from the translators of this volume to inscribe their labours and my own, with all humility, to your Grace’s name and patronage; and never was any man more ambitious of an employment of which he was so little worthy. Fortune has at last gratified that earnest desire I have always had to shew my devotion to your Grace, though I despair of paying you my acknowledgments. And of all other opportunities, I have happened on the most favourable to myself, who, having never been able to produce any thing of my own, which could be worthy of your view, am supplied by the assistance of my friends, and honoured with the presentation of their labours. The author they have translated, has been long familiar to you, who have been conversant in all sorts of history both ancient and modern, and have formed the idea of your most noble life from the instructions and examples contained in them, both in the management of public affairs, and in the private offices of virtue; in the enjoyment of your better fortune, and sustaining of your worse; in habituating yourself to an easy greatness; in repelling your enemies, in succouring your friends; and in all traverses of fortune, in every colour of your life, maintaining an inviolable fidelity to your Sovereign. It is long since that I have learned to forget the art of praising, but here the heart dictates to the pen; and I appeal to your enemies, (if so much generosity and good nature can have left you any,) whether they are not conscious to themselves that I have not flattered.

It is an age, indeed, which is only fit for satire, and the sharpest I have shall never be wanting to lance its villainies, and its ingratitude to the government. There are few men in it, who are capable of supporting the weight of a just and deserved commendation; but amongst those few there must always stand excepted the illustrious names of Ormond and of Ossory; a father and a son only worthy of each other. Never was one soul more fully infused into another’s breast; never was so strong an impression made of virtue as that of your Grace’s into him; but though the stamp was deep, the subject which received it was of too fine a composition to be durable. Were not priority of time and nature in the case, it might have been doubted which of you had been most excellent; but heaven snatched away the copy, to make the original more precious. I dare trust myself no farther on this subject; for after years of mourning, my sorrow is yet so green upon me, that I am ready to tax Providence for the loss of that heroic son: three nations had a general concernment in his death, but I had one so very particular, that all my hopes are almost dead with him; and I have lost so much, that I am past the danger of a second shipwreck. But he sleeps with an unenvied commendation; and has left your Grace the sad legacy of all those glories which he derived from you: an accession which you wanted not, who were so rich before in your own virtues, and that high reputation which is the product of them.

A long descent of noble ancestors was not necessary to have made you great, but heaven threw it in as overplus when you were born. What you have done and suffered for two royal masters has been enough to render you illustrious; so that you may safely wave the nobility of your birth, and rely on your actions for your fame. You have cancelled the debt which you owed to your progenitors, and reflect more brightness on their memory than you received from them.

Your native country, which Providence gave you not leave to preserve under one king, it has given you opportunity under another to restore. You could not save it from the chastisement which was due to its rebellion, but you raised it from ruin after its repentance; so that the trophies of war were the portion of the conqueror, but the triumphs of peace were reserved for the vanquished. The misfortunes of Ireland were owing to itself, but its happiness and restoration to your Grace. The rebellion against a lawful prince was punished by an usurping tyrant, but the fruits of his victory were the rewards of a loyal subject. How much that noble kingdom has flourished under your Grace’s government, both the inhabitants and the crown are sensible: the riches of Ireland are increased by it, and the revenues of England are augmented. That which was a charge and burden of the government, is rendered an advantage and support; the trade and interest of both countries are united in a mutual benefit; they conspire to make each other happy; the dependance of the one is an improvement of its commerce, the pre-eminence of the other is not impaired by the intercourse, and common necessities are supplied by both. Ireland is no more a scion, to suck the nourishment from the mother tree; neither is it overtopped, or hindered from growth by the superior branches; but the roots of England diving, if I may dare to say it, underneath the seas, rise at a just distance on the neighbouring shore, and there shoot up, and bear a product scarce inferior to the trunk from whence they sprung.

I may raise the commendation higher, and yet not fear to offend the truth; Ireland is a better penitent than England. The crime of rebellion was common to both countries, but the repentance of one island has been steady; that of the other, to its shame, has suffered a relapse; which shews the conversions of their rebels to have been real, that of ours to have been but counterfeit. The sons of guilty fathers there have made amends for the disloyalty of their families; but here the descendants of pardoned rebels have only waited their time to copy the wickedness of their parents, and, if possible, to outdo it. They disdain to hold their patrimonies by acts of grace and of indemnity; and by maintaining their old treasonable principles, make it apparent that they are still speculative traitors; for whether they are zealous sectaries, or prophane republicans, (of which two sorts they are principally composed,) both our reformers of church and state pretend to a power superior to kingship. The fanatics derive their authority from the Bible, and plead religion to be antecedent to any secular obligation; by virtue of which argument, taking it for granted that their own worship is only true, they arrogate to themselves the right of disposing the temporal power according to their pleasure,—as that which is subordinate to the spiritual; so that the same reasons and scriptures which are urged by popes for the deposition of princes, are produced by sectaries for altering the succession. The episcopal reformation has manumized kings from the usurpation of Rome, for it preaches obedience and resignation to the lawful secular power; but the pretended reformation of our schismatics, is to set up themselves in the papal chair, and to make their princes only their trustees; so that, whether they or the Pope were uppermost in England, the royal authority were equally depressed: the prison of our kings would be the same; the gaolers only would be altered. The broad republicans are generally men of atheistic principles, nominal Christians, who are beholding to the font only, that they are so called; otherwise Hobbists in their politics and morals. Every church is obliged to them that they own themselves of none, because their lives are too scandalous for any. Some of the sectaries are so proud, that they think they cannot sin; those commonwealth men are so wicked, that they conclude there is no sin. Lewdness, rioting, cheating, and debauchery, are their work-a-day practice; their more solemn crimes are unnatural lusts, and horrid murders.⁠[2] Yet these are the patrons of the nonconformists; these are the swords and bucklers of God’s cause, if His cause be that of separatists and rebels. It is not but these associates know each other at the bottom as well as Simeon knew Levi: the republicans are satisfied that the schismatics are hypocrites, and the schismatics are assured that the republicans are atheists; but their common principles of government are the chains that link them; for both hold kings to be creatures of their own making, and by inference to be at their own disposing; with this difference, notwithstanding, that the canting party face their pretences with a call from God, the debauched party with a commission from the people. So that if ever this ill-contrived and equivocal association should get uppermost, they would infallibly contend for the supreme right; and as it was formerly on their money, so now it would be in their interest; “God with us” would be set up on one side, and “The Commonwealth of England” on the other.⁠[3] But I the less wonder at the mixture of these two natures, because two savage beasts of different species and sexes shut up together, will forget their enmity, to satisfy their common lust; and it is no matter what kind of monster is produced betwixt them, so the brutal appetite be served. I more admire at a third party, who were loyal when rebellion was uppermost, and have turned rebels, (at least in principle,) since loyalty has been triumphant. Those of them whose services have not been rewarded, have some pretence for discontent; and yet they give the world to understand, that their honour was not their principle, but their interest. If they are old royalists, it is a sign their virtue is worn out, and will bear no longer; if sons to royalists, they have probably been grafted on whig stocks, and grown out of kind,—like China oranges in Portugal; their mother’s part has prevailed in them, and they are degenerated from the loyalty of their fathers.

But if they are such, as many of them evidently are, whose service has been not only fully but lavishly recompensed with honours and preferment, theirs is an ingratitude without parallel; they have destroyed their former merits, disowned the cause for which they fought, belied their youth, dishonoured their age; they have wrought themselves out of present enjoyments for imaginary hopes, and can never be trusted by their new friends, because they have betrayed their old. The greater and the stronger ties which some of them have had, are the deeper brands of their apostacy; for archangels were the first and most glorious of the whole creation; they were the morning work of God, and had the first impressions of his image, what creatures could be made; they were of kin to eternity itself, and wanting only that accession to be deities. Their fall was therefore more opprobrious than that of man, because they had no clay for their excuse; though I hope and wish the latter part of the allegory may not hold, and that repentance may be yet allowed them. But I delight not to dwell on so sad an object; let this part of the landscape be cast into shadows, that the heightenings of the other may appear more beautiful. For, as contraries, the nearer they are placed are brighter, and the Venus is illustrated by the neighbourhood of the lazar, so the unblemished loyalty of your Grace will shine more clearly, when set in competition with their stains.

When the malady which had seized the nobler parts of Britain threw itself out into the limbs, and the first sores of it appeared in Scotland, yet no effects of it reached your province; Ireland stood untainted with that pest; the care of the physician prevented the disease, and preserved the country from infection. When that ulcer was rather stopped than cured, (for the causes of it still remained,) and that dangerous symptoms appeared in England; when the royal authority was here trodden under foot; when one plot was prosecuted openly, and another secretly fomented, yet even then was Ireland free from our contagion. And if some venomous creatures were produced in that nation, yet it appeared they could not live there; they shed their poison without effect; they despaired of being successfully wicked in their own country, and transported their evidence to another, where they knew it was vendible; where accusation was a trade, where forgeries were countenanced, where perjuries were rewarded, where swearing went for proof, and where the merchandize of death was gainful. That their testimony was at least discredited, proceeded not from its incoherence, for they were known by their own party when they first appeared; but their folly was then managed by the cunning of their tutors; they had still been believed had they still followed their instructors; but when their witness fell foul upon their friends, then they were proclaimed villains, discarded and disowned by those who sent for them; they seemed then first to be discovered for what they had been known too well before; they were decried as inventors of what only they betrayed; nay their very wit was magnified, lest, being taken for fools, they might be thought too simple to forge an accusation.⁠[4] Some of them still continue here detested by both sides, believed by neither; (for even their betters are at last uncased;) and some of them have received their hire in their own country. For perjury, which is malice to mankind, is always accompanied with other crimes; and though not punishable by our laws with death, yet draws a train of vices after it. The robber, the murderer, and the sodomite, have often hung up the foresworn villain; and what one sin took on trust, another sin has paid. These travelling locusts are at length swallowed up in their own Red Sea. Ireland, as well as England, is delivered from that flying plague; for the sword of justice in your Grace’s hand, like the rod of Moses, is stretched out against them; and the third part of his Majesty’s dominions is owing for its peace to your loyalty and vigilance.

But what Plutarch can this age produce, to immortalize a life so noble? May some excellent historian at length be found, some writer not unworthy of his subject; but may his employment be long deferred! May many happy years continue you to this nation and your own; may your praises be celebrated late, that we may enjoy you living rather than adore you dead! And since yet there is not risen up amongst us any historian who is equal to so great an undertaking, let us hope that Providence has not assigned the workman, because his employment is to be long delayed; because it has reserved your Grace for farther proofs of your unwearied duty, and a farther enjoyment of your fortune; in which, though no man has been less envied, because no other has more nobly used it, yet some droppings of the age’s venom have been shed upon you. The supporters of the crown are placed too near it, to be exempted from the storm which was breaking over it. It is true, you stood involved in your own virtue, and the malice of your libellers could not sink through all those folds to reach you. Your innocence has defended you from their attacks, and your pen has so nobly vindicated that innocence, that it stands in need of no other second. The difference is as plainly seen betwixt sophistry and truth, as it is betwixt the style of a gentleman and the clumsy stiffness of a pedant. Of all historians, God deliver us from bigots; and of all bigots, from our sectaries! Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understandings are warped with enthusiasm; for they judge all actions, and their causes, by their own perverse principles, and a crooked line can never be the measure of a straight one. Mr Hobbes was used to say,—that a man was always against reason, when reason was against a man:—so these authors are for obscuring truth, because truth would discover them. They are not historians of an action, but lawyers of a party; they are retained by their principles, and bribed by their interests; their narrations are an opening of their cause; and in the front of their histories there ought to be written the prologue of a pleading,—“I am for the plaintiff,” or “I am for the defendant.”

We have already seen large volumes of state collections, and church legends, stuffed with detected forgeries in some parts, and gaping with omissions of truth in others; not penned, I suppose, with so vain a hope as to cheat posterity, but to advance some design in the present age; for these legerdemain authors are for telling stories to keep their trick undiscovered, and to make their conveyance the more clean. What calumny your Grace may expect from such writers, is already evident: but it will fare with them as it does with ill painters; a picture so unlike in all its features and proportions, reflects not on the original, but on the artist; for malice will make a piece more unresembling than ignorance; and he who studies the life, yet bungles, may draw some faint imitation of it, but he who purposely avoids nature, must fall into grotesque, and make no likeness. For my own part, I am of the former sort, and therefore presume not to offer my unskilfulness for so excellent a design as is your illustrious life. To pray for its prosperity and continuance is my duty, as it is my ambition to appear on all occasions,

Your Grace’s most obedient and devoted servant,

John Dryden.

I know not by what fate it comes to pass, that historians, who give immortality to others, are so ill requited by posterity, that their actions and their fortunes are usually forgotten; neither themselves encouraged while they live, nor their memory preserved entire to future ages. It is the ingratitude of mankind to their greatest benefactors, that they who teach us wisdom by the surest ways, (setting before us what we ought to shun or to pursue, by the examples of the most famous men whom they record, and by the experience of their faults and virtues,) should generally live poor and unregarded; as if they were born only for the public, and had no interest in their own well-being, but were to be lighted up like tapers, and to waste themselves for the benefit of others. But this is a complaint too general, and the custom has been too long established to be remedied; neither does it wholly reach our author. He was born in an age which was sensible of his virtue, and found a Trajan to reward him, as Aristotle did an Alexander. But the historians who succeeded him, have either been too envious, or too careless of his reputation; none of them, not even his own countrymen, having given us any particular account of him; or if they have, yet their works are not transmitted to us: so that we are forced to glean from Plutarch what he has scattered in his writings concerning himself and his original; which (excepting that little memorial that Suidas, and some few others, have left concerning him,) is all we can collect relating to this great philosopher and historian.

He was born at Chæronea, a small city of Bæotia, in Greece, between Attica and Phosis, and reaching to both seas. The climate not much befriended by the heavens, for the air is thick and foggy; and consequently the inhabitants partaking of its influence, gross feeders and fat-witted, brawny and unthinking,—just the constitution of heroes, cut out for the executive and brutal business of war; but so stupid in the designing part, that in all the revolutions of Greece they were never masters, but only in those few years when they were led by Epaminondas, or Pelopidas. Yet this foggy air, this country of fat wethers, as Juvenal calls it, produced three wits, which were comparable to any three Athenians; Pindar, Epaminondas, and our Plutarch; to whom we may add a fourth, Sextus Chæronensis, the preceptor of the learned Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the nephew of our author.

Chæronea, if we may give credit to Pausanias, in the ninth book of his description of Greece, was anciently called Arnè, from Arnè, the daughter of Æolus; but being situated to the west of Parnassus in that lowland country, the natural unwholesomeness of the air was augmented by the evening vapours cast upon it from that mountain, which our late travellers describe to be full of moisture and marshy ground inclosed in the inequality of its ascents; and being also exposed to the winds which blew from that quarter, the town was perpetually unhealthful; for which reason, says my author, Chæron, the son of Apollo and Thero, made it be rebuilt, and turned it towards the rising sun, from whence the town became healthful, and consequently populous; in memory of which benefit it afterwards retained his name. But as etymologies are uncertain, and the Greeks, above all nations, given to fabulous derivations of names, especially when they tend to the honour of their country, I think we may be reasonably content to take the denomination of the town from its delightful or cheerful standing, as the word Chæron sufficiently implies.

But to lose no time in these grammatical etymologies, which are commonly uncertain guesses, it is agreed that Plutarch was here born; the year uncertain; but without dispute in the reign of Claudius.

Joh. Gerrard Vossius has assigned his birth in the latter end of that Emperor; some other writers of his life have left it undecided whether then, or in the beginning of Nero’s empire; but the most accurate Rualdus (as I find it in the Paris edition of Plutarch’s Works) has manifestly proved him to be born in the middle time of Claudius, or somewhat lower; for Plutarch, in the inscription at Delphos, (of which more hereafter,) remembers, that Ammonius, his master, disputed with him and his brother Lamprias concerning it, when Nero made his progress into Greece, which was in his twelfth year; and the question disputed could not be managed with so much learning as it was, by mere boys; therefore he was then sixteen, or rather eighteen years of age.

Xylander has observed, that Plutarch himself, in the Life of Pericles, and that of Antony, has mentioned both Nero and Domitian as his contemporaries. He has also left it on record in his Symposiacks, that his family was ancient in Chæronea, and that for many descents, they had borne the most considerable offices in that petty commonwealth; the chiefest of which was known by the name of Archon amongst the Grecians, by that of Prætor Urbis among the Romans, and the dignity and power was not much different from that of our lord mayor of London. His great-grandfather, Nicarchus, perhaps enjoyed that office in the division of the empire betwixt Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony; and when the civil wars ensued betwixt them, Chæronea was so hardly used by Antony’s lieutenant or commissary there, that all the citizens, without exception, were servilely employed to carry on their shoulders a certain proportion of corn from Chæronea to the coast over against the island of Antycira, with the scourge held over them, if at any time they were remiss. Which duty, after once performing, being enjoined the second time with the same severity, just as they were preparing for their journey, the welcome news arrived that Mark Antony had lost the battle of Actium;⁠[5] whereupon both the officers and soldiers belonging to him in Chæronea immediately fled for their own safety; and the provisions, thus collected, were distributed among the inhabitants of the city.

This Nicarchus, the great-grandfather of Plutarch, among other sons, had Lamprias, a man eminent for his learning, and a philosopher, of whom Plutarch has made frequent mention in his Symposiacks, or Table Conversations; and amongst the rest there is this observation of him,—that he disputed best, and unravelled the difficulties of philosophy with most success, when he was at supper, and well warmed with wine. These table entertainments were part of the education of those times, their discourses being commonly the canvassing and solution of some question, either philosophical or philological, always instructive, and usually pleasant; for the cups went round with the debate, and men were merry and wise together, according to the proverb. The father of Plutarch is also mentioned in those discourses, whom our author represents as arguing of several points in philosophy; but his name is no where to be found in any part of the works remaining to us. But yet he speaks of him as a man not ignorant in learning and poetry, as may appear by what he says, when he is introduced disputing in the Symposiacks; where also his prudence and humanity are commended in this following relation: “Being yet very young,” says Plutarch, “I was joined in commission with another in an embassy to the Proconsul, and my colleague, falling sick, was forced to stay behind; so that the whole business was transacted by me alone. At my return, when I was to give account to the commonwealth of my proceedings, my father, rising from his seat, openly enjoined me not to name myself in the singular number,—I did thus, or thus I said to the Proconsul,—but, thus we did, and thus we said, always associating my companion with me, though absent in the management.” This was done to observe, as I suppose, the point of good manners with his colleague; that of respect to the government of the city, who had commissioned both, to avoid envy; and perhaps more especially, to take off the forwardness of a pert young minister, commonly too apt to overvalue his own services, and to quote himself on every inconsiderable occasion.

The father of Plutarch had many children besides him; Timon and Lamprias, his brothers, were bred up with him, all three instructed in the liberal sciences, and in all parts of philosophy. It is manifest from our author, that they lived together in great friendliness, and in great veneration to their grandfather and father. What affection Plutarch bore in particular to his brother Timon, may be gathered from these words of his: “As for myself, though fortune on several occasions has been favourable to me, I have no obligation so great to her as the kindness and entire friendship which my brother Timon has always borne, and still bears me; and this is so evident, that it cannot but be noted by every one of our acquaintance.” Lamprias, the youngest of the three, is introduced by him in his “Morals,” as one of a sweet and pleasant conversation, inclined to mirth and raillery; or, as we say in English, a well-humoured man, and a good companion.

The whole family being thus addicted to philosophy, it is no wonder if our author was initiated betimes in study, to which he was naturally inclined; in pursuit of which he was so happy to fall into good hands at first, being recommended to the care of Ammonius, an Egyptian, who, having taught philosophy with great reputation at Alexandria, and from thence travelling into Greece, settled himself at last in Athens, where he was well received, and generally respected. At the end of Themistocles his life, Plutarch relates, that being young, he was a pensioner in the house of this Ammonius; and in his Symposiacks he brings him in disputing with his scholars, and giving them instruction: for the custom of those times was very much different from these of ours, where the greatest part of our youth is spent in learning the words of dead languages. The Grecians, who thought all barbarians but themselves, despised the use of foreign tongues; so that the first elements of their breeding was the knowledge of nature, and the accommodation of that knowledge, by moral precepts, to the service of the public, and the private offices of virtue: the masters employing one part of their time in reading to, and discoursing with, their scholars, and the rest in appointing them their several exercises either in oratory or philosophy, and setting them to declaim and to dispute amongst themselves. By this liberal sort of education, study was so far from being a burden to them, that in a short time it became a habit; and philosophical questions and criticisms of humanity were their usual recreations at their meals. Boys lived then as the better sort of men do now; and their conversation was so well-bred and manly, that they did not plunge out of their depth into the world, when they grew up, but slid easily into it, and found no alteration in their company. Amongst the rest, the reading and quotations of poets were not forgotten at their suppers, and in their walks; but Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles, were the entertainment of their hours of freedom. Rods and ferulas were not used by Ammonius, as being properly the punishment of slaves, and not the correction of ingenuous freeborn men; at least to be only exercised by parents, who had the power of life and death over their own children; as appears by the example of this Ammonius, thus related by our author:

“Our master,” says he, “one time perceiving, at his afternoon lecture, that some of his scholars had eaten more largely than became the moderation of students, immediately commanded one of his freedmen to take his own son, and scourge him in our sight: because, said the philosopher, my young gentleman could not eat his dinner without poignant sauce, or vinegar; and at the same time he cast his eye on all of us; so that every criminal was given to understand, that he had a share in the reprehension, and that the punishment was as well deserved by all the rest, had the philosopher not known that it exceeded his commission to inflict it.”

Plutarch, therefore, having the assistance of such a master, in few years advanced to admiration in knowledge; and that without first travelling into foreign parts, or acquiring any foreign tongue; though the Roman language at that time was not only vulgar in Rome itself, but generally through the extent of that vast empire, and in Greece, which was a member of it, as our author has remarked towards the end of his Platonic Questions. For, like a true philosopher, who minded things, not words, he strove not even to cultivate his mother tongue with any great exactness; and himself confesses, in the beginning of Demosthenes his life, that during his abode in Italy, and at Rome, he had neither the leisure to study, nor so much as to exercise the Roman language, (I suppose he means to write in it, rather than to speak it,) as well by reason of the affairs he managed, as that he might acquit himself to those who were desirous to be instructed by him in philosophy: insomuch, that till the declination of his age, he began not to be conversant in Latin books; in reading of which it happened somewhat oddly to him, that he learnt not the knowledge of things by words, but by the understanding and use he had of things, attained to the knowledge of words which signified them: just as Adam (setting aside Divine illumination) called the creatures by their proper names, by first understanding of their natures. But for the delicacies of the tongue, the turns of the expressions, the figures and connections of words, in which consist the beauty of that language, he plainly tells us, that though he much admired them, yet they required too great labour for a man in age, and plunged in business, to attain perfectly; which compliment I should be willing to believe from a philosopher, if I did not consider that Dion Cassius, nay even Herodian and Appian after him, as well as Polybius before him, by writing the Roman History in the Greek language, had shewn as manifest a contempt of Latin, in respect of the other, as Frenchmen now do of English, which they disdain to speak while they live among us; but, with great advantage to their trivial conceptions, drawing the discourse into their own language, have learned to despise our better thoughts, which must come deformed and lame in conversation to them, as being transmitted in a tongue of which we are not masters. This is to arrogate a superiority in nature over us, as undoubtedly the Grecians did over their conquerors, by establishing their language for a standard; it being become so much a mode to speak and write Greek in Tully’s time, that with some indignation I have read his Epistles to Atticus, in which he desires to have his own consulship written by his friend in the Grecian language, which he afterwards performed himself; a vain attempt, in my opinion, for any man to endeavour to excel in a tongue which he was not born to speak. This, though it be digression, yet deserves to be considered at more leisure; for the honour of our wit and writings, which are of a more solid make than that of our neighbours, is concerned in it.

But to return to Plutarch. As it was his good fortune to be moulded first by masters the most excellent in their kind, so it was his own virtue to suck in with an incredible desire, and earnest application of mind, their wise instructions; and it was also his prudence so to manage his health by moderation of diet and bodily exercise, as to preserve his parts without decay to a great old age; to be lively and vigorous to the last, and to preserve himself to his own enjoyments, and to the profit of mankind: which was not difficult for him to perform, having received from nature a constitution capable of labour, and from the domestic example of his parents a sparing sobriety of diet, a temperance in other pleasures, and, above all, an habitude of commanding his passions in order to his health. Thus principled and grounded, he considered with himself, that a larger communication with learned men was necessary for his accomplishment; and therefore, having a soul insatiable of knowledge, and being ambitious to excel in all kinds of science, he took up a resolution to travel. Egypt was at that time, as formerly it had been, famous for learning; and probably the mysteriousness of their doctrine might tempt him, as it had done Pythagoras and others, to converse with the priesthood of that country, which appears to have been particularly his business by the treatise of “Isis and Osiris,” which he has left us; in which he shews himself not meanly versed in the ancient theology and philosophy of those wise men. From Egypt returning into Greece, he visited in his way all the academies or schools of the several philosophers, and gathered from them many of those observations with which he has enriched posterity.

Besides this, he applied himself with extreme diligence to collect not only all books which were excellent in their kind, and already published, but also all sayings and discourses of wise men, which he had heard in conversation, or which he had received from others by tradition; as likewise the records and public instruments preserved in cities which he had visited in his travels, and which he afterwards scattered through his works. To which purpose he took a particular journey to Sparta, to search the archives of that famous commonwealth, to understand thoroughly the model of their ancient government, their legislators, their kings, and their Ephori; digesting all their memorable deeds and sayings with so much care, that he has not omitted those even of their women, or their private soldiers; together with their customs, their decrees, their ceremonies, and the manner of their public and private living, both in peace and war. The same methods he also took in divers other commonwealths, as his Lives, and his Greek and Roman Questions, sufficiently testify. Without these helps, it had been impossible for him to leave in writing so many particular observations of men and manners, and as impossible to have gathered them without conversation and commerce with the learned antiquaries of his time. To these he added a curious collection of ancient statues, medals, inscriptions, and paintings, as also of proverbial sayings, epigrams, epitaphs, apophthegms, and other ornaments of history, that he might leave nothing unswept behind him. And as he was continually in company with men of learning, in all professions, so his memory was always on the stretch to receive and lodge their discourses; and his judgment perpetually employed in separating his notions, and distinguishing which were fit to be preserved, and which to be rejected.

By benefit of this, in little time he enlarged his knowledge to a great extent in every science. Himself, in the beginning of the treatise which he has composed of Content and Peace of Mind, makes mention of those collections, or common places, which he had long since drawn together for his own particular occasions; and it is from this rich cabinet that he has taken out those excellent pieces which he has distributed to posterity, and which give us occasion to deplore the loss of the residue, which either the injury of time, or the negligence of copiers, have denied to us. On this account, though we need not doubt to give him this general commendation, that he was ignorant of no sort of learning, yet we may justly add this farther,—that whoever will consider through the whole body of his works, either the design, the method, or the contexture of his discourses, whether historical or moral, or questions of natural philosophy, or solutions of problems mathematical; whether he arraigns the opinions of other sects, or establishes the doctrines of his own; in all these kinds there will be found both the harmony of order, and the beauty of easiness: his reasons so solid and convincing, his inductions so pleasant and agreeable to all sorts of readers, that it must be acknowledged he was master of every subject which he treated, and treated none but what were improvable to the benefit of instruction. For we may perceive in his writings the desire he had to imprint his precepts in the souls of his readers, and to lodge morality in families, nay even to exalt it to the thrones of sovereign princes, and to make it the rule and measure of their government. Finding that there were many sects of philosophers then in vogue, he searched into the foundation of all their principles and opinions; and not content with this disquisition, he traced them to their several fountains; so that the Pythagorean, Epicurean, Stoic, and Peripatetic philosophy, were familiar to him. And though it may be easily observed, that he was chiefly inclined to follow Plato, whose memory he so much reverenced, that annually he celebrated his birth-day, and also that of Socrates; yet he modestly contained himself within the bounds of the latter academy, and was content, like Cicero, only to propound and weigh opinions, leaving the judgment of his readers free, without presuming to decide dogmatically. Yet it is to be confessed, that in the midst of this moderation, he opposed the two extremes of the Epicurean and Stoic sects; both which he has judiciously combated in several of his treatises, and both upon the same account,—because they pretend too much to certainty in their dogmas, and to impose them with too great arrogance; which he, who, following the Academists, doubted more and pretended less, was no way able to support. The Pyrrhonians, or grosser sort of Sceptics, who bring all certainty in question, and startle even at the notions of common sense, appeared as absurd to him on the other side; for there is a kind of positiveness in granting nothing to be more likely on one part than on another, which his Academy avoided by inclining the balance to that hand where the most weighty reasons, and probability of truth, were visible. The moral philosophy, therefore, was his chiefest aim, because the principles of it admitted of less doubt; and because they were most conducing to the benefit of human life. For, after the example of Socrates, he had found, that the speculations of natural philosophy were more delightful than solid and profitable; that they were abstruse and thorny, and much of sophism in the solution of appearances:—that the mathematics, indeed, could reward his pains with many demonstrations, but though they made him wiser, they made him not more virtuous, and therefore attained not the end of happiness: for which reason, though he had far advanced in that study, yet he made it but his recreation, not his business. Some problem of it was his usual divertisement at supper, which he mingled also with pleasant and more light discourses; for he was no sour philosopher, but passed his time as merrily as he could, with reference to virtue. He forgot not to be pleasant while he instructed, and entertained his friends with so much cheerfulness and good humour, that his learning was not nauseous to them; neither were they afraid of his company another time. He was not so austere as to despise riches, but, being in possession of a large fortune, he lived, though not splendidly, yet plentifully; and suffered not his friends to want that part of his estate which he thought superfluous to a philosopher.

The religion he professed, to speak the worst of it, was heathen. I say, the religion he professed; for it is no way probable that so great a philosopher, and so wise a man, should believe the superstitions and fopperies of Paganism; but that he accommodated himself to the use and received customs of his country. He was indeed a priest of Apollo, as himself acknowledges; but that proves him not to have been a Polytheist.

I have ever thought, that the wise men in all ages have not much differed in their opinions of religion; I mean, as it is grounded on human reason: for reason, as far as it is right, must be the same in all men; and truth being but one, they must consequently think in the same train. Thus it is not to be doubted but the religion of Socrates, Plato, and Plutarch, was not different in the main; who doubtless believed the identity of one Supreme Intellectual Being, which we call God. But because they who have written the Life of Plutarch in other languages, are contented barely to assert that our author believed one God, without quoting those passages of his which would clear the point, I will give you two of them, amongst many, in his “Morals.” The first is in his book of the Cessation of Oracles; where arguing against the Stoics, (in behalf of the Platonists,) who disputed against the plurality of worlds with this argument,—“That if there were many worlds, how then could it come to pass that there was one only Fate, and one Providence to guide them all? (for it was granted by the Platonists that there was but one;) and why should not many Jupiters or gods be necessary for government of many worlds?” To this Plutarch answers,—“That this their captious question was but trifling; for where is the necessity of supposing many Jupiters for this plurality of worlds, when one excellent Being, endued with mind and reason, such as he is, whom we acknowledge to be the Father and Lord of all things, is sufficient to direct and rule these worlds; whereas if there were more Supreme Agents, their decrees must still be the more absurd and contradictious to one another.” I pretend not this passage to be translated word for word, but it is the sense of the whole, though the order of the sentence be inverted. The other is more plain; it is in his comment on the word ei, or those two letters inscribed on the gates of the temple at Delphos; where, having given the several opinions concerning it, as first, that ἐι signifies if, because all the questions which were made to Apollo began with If; as suppose they asked,—If the Grecians should overcome the Persians,—If such a marriage should come to pass, &c.; and afterwards, that ἐι might signify thou art; as the second person of the present tense of ἐιμὶ, intimating thereby the being or perpetuity of being belonging to Apollo, as a god (in the same sense that God expressed himself to Moses,—I am hath sent thee;) Plutarch subjoins, (as inclining to this latter opinion,) these following words:—“ἐι ἔν (says he) signifies, thou art one, for there are not many deities, but only one:” Continues, “I mean not one in the aggregate sense, as we say—one army, or one body of men, constituted of many individuals, but that which is, must of necessity be one; and to be, implies to be one. One is that which is a simple being, uncompounded, or free from mixture; therefore, to be one in this sense, is only consistent with a nature pure in itself, and not capable of alteration or decay.”

That he was no Christian, is manifest; yet he is no where found to have spoken with contumely of our religion, like the other writers of his age, and those who succeeded him. Theodoret says of him, “That he had heard of our holy gospel, and inserted many of our sacred mysteries in his works;” which we may easily believe, (because the Christian churches were then spread in Greece, and Pliny the younger was at the same time conversant amongst them in Asia,) though that part of our author’s works is not now extant, from whence Theodoret might gather those passages. But we need not wonder that a philosopher was not easy to embrace the divine mysteries of our faith. A modern God, as our Saviour was to him, was of hard digestion to a man, who probably despised the vanities and fabulous relations of all the old. Besides, a crucified Saviour of mankind; a doctrine attested by illiterate disciples; the author of it a Jew, whose nation at that time was despicable, and his doctrine but an innovation among that despised people, to which the learned of his own country gave no credit, and which the magistrates of his nation punished with an ignominious death; the scene of his miracles acted in an obscure corner of the world; his being from eternity, yet born in time; his resurrection and ascension; these, and many more particulars, might easily choke the faith of a philosopher, who believed no more than what he could deduce from the principles of nature; and that too with a doubtful academical assent, or rather an inclination to assent to probability, which he judged was wanting in this new religion. These circumstances considered, though they plead not an absolute invincible ignorance in his behalf, yet they amount at least to a degree of it: for either he thought them not worth weighing, or rejected them when weighed; and in both cases he must of necessity be ignorant, because he could not know without revelation, and the revelation was not to him.

But leaving the soul of Plutarch, with our charitable wishes, to his Maker, we can only trace the rest of his opinions in religion from his philosophy, which we have said in the general to be Platonic; though it cannot also be denied, that there was a tincture in it of the Electic sect, which was begun by Potamon under the empire of Augustus, and which selected from all the other sects what seemed most probable in their opinions, not adhering singularly to any of them, nor rejecting every thing. I will only touch his belief of spirits. In his two Treatises of Oracles, the one concerning the reason of their cessation, the other, inquiring why they were not given in verse, as in former times, he seems to assert the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration of souls. We have formerly shewn, that he owned the unity of a Godhead, whom, according to his attributes, he calls by several names; as Jupiter, from his almighty power; Apollo, from his wisdom, and so of the rest; but, under him, he places those beings whom he styles Genii, or Demons, of a middle nature betwixt divine and human: for he thinks it absurd, that there should be no mean betwixt the two extremes of an immortal and a mortal being; that there cannot be in nature so vast a flaw, without some intermedial kind of life, partaking of them both. As, therefore, we find the intercourse betwixt the soul and body to be made by the animal spirits, so, betwixt divinity and humanity, there is this species of demons, who, having first been men, and following the strict rules of virtue, had purged off the grossness and feculency of their earthly being, are exalted into these Genii, and are from thence either raised higher into an ethereal life, if they still continue virtuous, or tumbled down again into mortal bodies, and sinking into flesh, after they have lost that purity which constituted their glorious being. And this sort of Genii are those, who, as our author imagines, presided over oracles; spirits which have so much of their terrestrial principles remaining in them, as to be subject to passions and inclinations; usually beneficent, sometimes malevolent, to mankind, according as they refine themselves, or gather dross, and are declining into mortal bodies. The cessation, or rather the decrease of oracles, (for some of them were still remaining in Plutarch’s time,) he attributes either to the death of those demons, (as appears by the story of the Egyptian Thamus, who was commanded to declare that the great god Pan was dead,) or to their forsaking of those places where they formerly gave out their oracles, from whence they were driven by stronger genii into banishment for a certain revolution of ages. Of this last nature was the war of the giants against the gods; the dispossession of Saturn by Jupiter; the banishment of Apollo from heaven; the fall of Vulcan, and many others; all which, according to our author, were the battles of these Genii, or Demons, amongst themselves. But supposing, as Plutarch evidently does, that these spirits administered, under the Supreme Being, the affairs of men, taking care of the virtuous, punishing the bad, and sometimes communicating with the best, (as particularly the genius of Socrates always warned him of approaching dangers, and taught him to avoid them,) I cannot but wonder, that every one who has hitherto written Plutarch’s life, and particularly Rualdus, the most knowing of them all, should so confidently affirm, that these oracles were given by bad spirits, according to Plutarch. As Christians, indeed, we may think them so; but that Plutarch so thought, it is a most apparent falsehood. It is enough to convince a reasonable man, that our author, in his old age, (and that then he doted not we may see by the Treatise he has written, that old men ought to have the management of public affairs,) I say, that then he initiated himself in the sacred rites of Delphos, and died, for aught we know, Apollo’s priest. Now, it is not to be imagined that he thought the god he served a cacodemon, or, as we call him, a devil. Nothing could be farther from the opinion and practice of this holy philosopher than so gross an impiety. The story of the Pythias, or Priestess of Apollo, which he relates immediately before the ending of that Treatise concerning the Cessation of Oracles, confirms my assertion, rather than shakes it; for it is there delivered, “That going with great reluctation into the sacred place to be inspired, she came out foaming at the mouth, her eyes gogling, her breast heaving, her voice undistinguishable and shrill, as if she had an earthquake within her, labouring for vent; and, in short, that thus tormented with the god, whom she was not able to support, she died distracted in few days after.” For he had said before, “that the divineress ought to have no perturbations of mind, or impure passions, at the time when she was to consult the oracle; and if she had, she was no more fit to be inspired, than an instrument untuned to render an harmonious sound.” And he gives us to suspect, by what he says at the close of this relation, “that this Pythias had not lived chastely for some time before it.” So that her death appears more like a punishment inflicted for loose living by some holy power, than the mere malignancy of a spirit delighted naturally in mischief.—There is another observation, which indeed comes nearer to their purpose, which I will digress so far as to relate, because it somewhat appertains to our own country:—“There are many islands (says he) which lie scattered about Britain, after the manner of our Sporades. They are unpeopled, and some of them are called the Islands of the Heroes, or the Genii. One Demetrius was sent by the emperor [who, by computation of the time, must either be Caligula or Claudius] to discover those parts; and arriving at one of the islands, next adjoining to the fore-mentioned, which was inhabited by some few Britons, (but those held sacred and inviolable by all their countrymen,) immediately after his arrival, the air grew black and troubled, strange apparitions were seen, the winds raised a tempest, and fiery spouts, or whirlwinds, appeared dancing towards the earth. When these prodigies were ceased, the islanders informed him, that some one of the aërial beings, superior to our nature, then ceased to live. For as a taper, while yet burning, affords a pleasant harmless light, but is noisome and offensive when extinguished, so those heroes shine benignly on us, and do us good, but at their death turn all things topsyturvy; raise up tempests, and infect the air with pestilential vapours.” By those holy and inviolable men, there is no question but he means our Druids, who were nearest to the Pythagoreans of any sect; and this opinion of the Genii might probably be one of theirs. Yet it proves not that all demons were thus malicious; only those who were to be condemned hereafter into human bodies, for their misdemeanours in their aërial being.

But it is time to leave a subject so very fanciful, and so little reasonable as this. I am apt to imagine the natural vapours arising in the cave where the temple afterwards was built, might work upon the spirits of those who entered the holy place, (as they did on the shepherd Coretas, who first found it out by accident,) and incline them to enthusiasm and prophetic madness: that, as the strength of those vapours diminished, (which were generally in caverns, as that of Mopsus, of Trophonius, and this of Delphos,) so the inspiration decreased by the same measures; that they happened to be stronger when they killed the Pythias, who being conscious of this, was so unwilling to enter; that the oracles ceased to be given in verse, when poets ceased to be the priests; and that the genius of Socrates (whom he confessed never to have seen, but only to have heard inwardly, and unperceived by others) was no more than the strength of his imagination; or, to speak in the language of a Christian Platonist, his guardian angel.

I pretend not to an exactness of method in this Life, which I am forced to collect by patches from several authors, and therefore without much regard to the connection of times which are so uncertain.

I will, in the next place, speak of his marriage. His wife’s name, her parentage, and dowry, are no where mentioned by him, or any other, nor in what part of his age he married; though it is probable in the flower of it. But Rualdus has ingeniously gathered, from a convincing circumstance, that she was called Timoxena; because Plutarch, in a consolatory letter to her, occasioned by the death of their daughter, in her infancy, uses these words:—“Your Timoxena is deprived, by death, of small enjoyments; for the things she knew were of small moment, and she could be delighted only with trifles.” Now, it appears by the letter, that the name of this daughter was the same with her mother’s; therefore it could be no other than Timoxena. Her knowledge, her conjugal virtues, her abhorrency from the vanities of her sex, and from superstition, her gravity in behaviour, and her constancy in supporting the loss of children, are likewise celebrated by our author. No other wife of Plutarch is found mentioned, and therefore we may conclude he had no more, by the same reason for which we judge that he had no other master than Ammonius; because it is evident he was so grateful in his nature, that he would have preserved their memory.

The number of his children was at least five, so many being mentioned by him. Four of them were sons; of the other sex only Timoxena, who died at two years old, as is manifest from the epistle above mentioned. The French translator, Amiot, from whom our old English translation of the “Lives” was made, supposes him to have had another daughter, where he speaks of his son-in-law, Crato. But the word γαμβρὸς, which Plutarch there uses, is of a larger signification; for it may as well be expounded father-in-law, his wife’s brother, or his sister’s husband, as Budæus notes: this I the rather mention, because the same Amiot is tasked for an infinite number of mistakes by his own countrymen of the present age, which is enough to recommend this translation of our author into the English tongue, being not from any copy, but from the Greek original. Two other sons of Plutarch were already deceased before Timoxena; his eldest, Autobulus, mentioned in his Symposiacks, and another, whose name is not recorded. The youngest was called Charon, who also died in his infancy. The two remaining are supposed to have survived him: the name of one was Plutarch, after his own; and that of the other Lamprias, so called in memory of his grandfather. This was he, of all his children, who seems to have inherited his father’s philosophy; and to him we owe the Table, or Catalogue, of Plutarch’s writings, and perhaps also the Apophthegms. His nephew, but whether by his brother or sister remains uncertain, was Sextus Chæroneus, who was much honoured by that learned emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and who taught him the Greek tongue, and the principles of philosophy. This emperor professing Stoicism, (as appears by his writings,) inclines us to believe, that our Sextus Chæroneus was of the Stoic sect; and consequently, that the world has generally been mistaken in supposing him to have been the same man with Sextus Empiricus, the sceptic, whom Suidas plainly tells us to have been an African. Now, Empiricus could not but be a sceptic, for he opposes all dogmatists, and particularly them. But I heard it first observed by an ingenious and learned old gentleman, lately deceased, that many of Mr Hobbes his seeming new opinions, are gathered from those which Sextus Empiricus exposed. The book is extant, and I refer the curious to it, not pretending to arraign or to excuse him.

Some think the famous critic, Longinus, was of Plutarch’s family, descended from a sister of his; but the proofs are so weak, that I will not insert them: they may both of them rely on their proper merits, and stand not in want of a relation to each other.

It is needless to insist on his behaviour in his family. His love to his wife, his indulgence to his children, his care of their education, are all manifest in that part of his works, which is called his “Morals.” Other parts of his disposition have been touched already; as, that he was courteous and humane to all men, free from inconstancy, anger, and the desire of revenge; which qualities of his, as they have been praised by the authority of other writers, may also be recommended from his own testimony of himself:—“I had rather (says he) be forgotten in the memory of men, and that it should be said, there neither is, nor was, a man called Plutarch, than they should report,—this Plutarch was unconstant, changeable in his temper, prone to anger and revenge on the least occasions.”—What he was to his slaves, you may believe from this; that, in general, he accuses those masters of extreme hardness and injustice, who use men like oxen, sell them in their age when they can drudge no longer. “A man (says he) of a merciful disposition, ought not to retrench the fodder from his cattle, nor the provender from his horses, when they can work no longer, but to cherish them when worn out and old.” Yet Plutarch, though he knew how to moderate his anger, was not, on the contrary, subject to an insensibility of wrongs; not so remiss in exacting duty, or so tame in suffering the disobedience of his servants, that he could not correct, when they deserved it; as is manifest from the following story, which Aulus Gellius had from the mouth of Taurus the philosopher, concerning him: “Plutarch had a certain slave, a saucy, stubborn, kind of fellow; in a word, one of those pragmatical servants, who never make a fault, but they give a reason for it. His justifications one time would not serve his turn, but his master commanded him to be stripped, and that the law should be laid on his backside. He no sooner felt the smart, but he muttered that he was unjustly punished, and that he had done nothing to deserve the scourge. At last he began to bawl out louder; and leaving off his groaning, his sighs, and his lamentations, to argue the matter with more shew of reason; and, as under such a master he musts needs have gained a smattering of learning, he cried out, that Plutarch was not the philosopher he pretended himself to be; that he had heard him waging war against all the passions, and maintaining, that anger was unbecoming a wise man; nay, that he had written a particular treatise in commendation of clemency: that therefore he contradicted his precepts by his practices, since, abandoning himself over to his choler, he exercised such inhuman cruelty on the body of his fellow-creature. “How is this, Mr Varlet, (answered Plutarch,) by what signs and tokens can you prove I am in passion? Is it by my countenance, my voice, the colour of my face, by my words, or by my gestures, that you have discovered this my fury? I am not of opinion that my eyes sparkle, that I foam at mouth, that I gnash my teeth, or that my voice is more vehement, or that my colour is either more pale or more red than at other times; that I either shake or stamp with madness; that I say or do any thing unbecoming a philosopher. These, if you know them not, are the symptoms of a man in rage. In the mean, (turning to the officer who scourged him,) while he and I dispute this matter, mind you your business on his back.”

His love to his friends, and his gratitude to his benefactors, are every where observable in his dedications of his several works; and the particular treatises he has written to them on several occasions, are all suitable either to the characters of the men, or to their present condition, and the circumstances under which they were. His love to his country is from hence conspicuous, that he professes to have written the life of Lucullus, and to have preserved the memory of his actions, because of the favours he conferred on the city of Chæronea; which, though his country received so long before, yet he thought it appertained to him to repay them, and took an interest in their acknowledgment: as also, that he vindicated the Bæotians from the calumnies of Herodotus, the historian, in his book concerning the malignity of that author. In which it is observable, that his zeal to his country transported him too far; for Herodotus had said no more of them than what was generally held to be true in all ages, concerning the grossness of their wits, their voracity, and those other national vices which we have already noted on this account; therefore, Petrarch has accused our author of the same malignity for which he taxed Herodotus. But they may both stand acquitted on different accounts: Herodotus for having given a true character of the Thebans, and Plutarch for endeavouring to palliate the vices of a people from whom he was descended. The rest of his manners, without entering into particulars, were unblameable, if we excuse a little proneness to superstition, and regulating his actions by his dreams. But how far this will bear an accusation, I determine not; though Tully has endeavoured to shew the vanity of dreams in his “Treatise of Divinations,” whither I refer the curious.

On what occasion he repaired to Rome, at what time of his age he came thither, how long he dwelt there, how often he was there, and in what year he returned to his own country, are all uncertain. This we know, that when Nero was in Greece, which was in his eleventh and twelfth years, our author was at Delphos, under Ammonius, his master, as appears by the disputation then managed, concerning the inscription of the two letters, e, i. Nero not living long afterwards, it is almost indisputable that he came not to Rome in all his reign. It is improbable that he would undertake the voyage during the troublesome times of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius: and we are not certain that he lived in Rome in the empire of Vespasian. Yet we may guess, that the mildness of this emperor’s dominion, his fame, and the virtues of his son Titus, assumed into the empire afterwards by his father, might induce Plutarch, amongst other considerations, to take this journey in his time. It is argued from the following story, related by himself, that he was at Rome either in the joint reign of the two Vespasians, or at least in that of the survivor Titus. He says, then, in his last book concerning Curiosity,—“Reasoning, or rather reading once at Rome, Arulenus Rusticus, the same man whom afterwards Domitian put to death out of envy to his glory, stood hearkening to me amongst my auditors. It so happened, that a soldier, having letters for him from the emperor, [who was either Titus or his father Vespasian, as Rualdus thinks,] broke through the crowd, to deliver him those letters from the emperor. Observing this, I made a pause in my dissertation, that Rusticus might have the leisure to read the mandate which was sent him; but he absolutely refused to do it, neither would he be entreated to break the seals, till I had wholly made an end of my speech, and dismissed the company.” Now I suppose the stress of the argument, to prove that this emperor was not Domitian, lies only in this clause, “whom Domitian afterwards put to death;” but I think it rather leaves it doubtful; for they might be Domitian’s letters which he then received, and consequently he might not come to Rome till the reign of that emperor. This Rusticus was not only a learned, but a good man. He had been tribune of the people under Nero, was prætor in the time of Vitellius, and sent ambassador to the forces raised under the name of Vespasian, to persuade them to a peace. What offices he bore afterwards, we know not; but the cause of his death, besides the envy of Domitian to his fame, was, a certain book, or some Commentaries of his, wherein he had praised too much the sanctity of Thrasea Pætus, whom Nero had murdered; and the praise of a good citizen was insupportable to the tyrant; being, I suppose, exasperated farther by some reflections of Rusticus, who could not commend Thrasea, but at the same time he must inveigh against the oppressor of the Roman liberty.

That Plutarch was married in his own country, and that before he came to Rome, is probable. That the fame of him was come before him, by reason of some part of his works already published, is also credible, because he had so great resort of the Roman nobility to hear him read immediately, as we believe, upon his coming: that he was invited thither by the correspondence he had with Sossius Senecio, might be one reason of his undertaking that journey, is almost undeniable.⁠[6] It likewise appears he was divers times at Rome; and perhaps, before he came to inhabit there, might make acquaintance with this worthy man, Senecio, to whom he dedicated almost all these Lives of Greeks and Romans. I say almost all, because one of them, namely, that of Aratus, is inscribed in most express words to Polycrates, the Sicyonian, the great grandson of the said Aratus. This worthy patron and friend of Plutarch, Senecio, was four time consul; the first time in the short reign of Cocceius Nerva, a virtuous and a learned emperor; which opinion I rather follow than that of Aurelius Cassiodorus, who puts back his consulship into the last of Domitian, because it is not probable that vicious tyrant should exalt to that dignity a man of virtue. This year falls in with the year of Christ, ninety-nine.

But the great inducement of our author to this journey was certainly the desire he had to lay in materials for his Roman Lives: that was the design which he had formed early, and on which he had resolved to build his fame. Accordingly, we have observed, that he had travelled over Greece, to peruse the archives of every city, that he might be able to write properly not only the lives of his Grecian worthies, but the laws, the customs, the rites, and ceremonies of every place; which that he might treat with the same mastery of skill, when he came to draw his parallels of the Romans, he took the invitation of his friends, and particularly of our Sossius Senecio, to visit this mistress of the world, this imperial city of Rome; and, by the favour of many great and learned men then living, to search the records of the capitol, and the libraries, which might furnish him with instruments for so noble an undertaking. But that this may not seem to be my own bare opinion, or that of any modern author whom I follow, Plutarch himself has delivered it as his motive, in the Life of Demosthenes. The words are these: “Whosoever designs to write an history, (which it is impossible to form to any excellency from those materials that are ready at hand, or to take from common report, while he sits lazily at home in his own study, but must of necessity be gathered from foreign observations, and the scattered writings of various authors,) it concerns him to take up his habitation in some renowned and populous city, where he may command all sorts of books, and be acquainted also with such particulars as have escaped the pens of writers, and are only extant in the memories of men. Let him enquire diligently, and weigh judiciously, what he hears and reads, lest he publish a lame work, and be destitute of those helps which are required to its perfection.” It is then most probable, that he passed his days at Rome in reading philosophy of all kinds to the Roman nobility, who frequented his house, and heard him as if there were somewhat more than human in his words; and his nights, which were his only hours of private study, in searching and examining records concerning Rome. Not but that he was entrusted also with the management of public affairs in the empire, during his residence in the metropolis; which may be made out by what Suidas relates of him:—“Plutarch,” says he, “lived in the time of Trajan, and also before his reign. That emperor bestowed on him the dignity of consul; [though the Greek, I suppose, will bear, that he made him consul with himself, at least transferred that honour on him:] an edict was also made in favour of him, that the magistrates or officers of Illyria should do nothing in that province without the knowledge and approbation of Plutarch.” Now it is my particular guess, (for I have not read it any where,) that Plutarch had the affairs of Illyria, now called Sclavonia, recommended to him, because Trajan, we know, had wars on that side the empire with Decebalus, king of Dacia; after whose defeat and death, the province of Illyria might stand in need of Plutarch’s wisdom to compose and civilize it. But this is only hinted as what possibly might be the reason of our philosopher’s superintendency in those quarters, which the French author of his life seems to wonder at, as having no relation either to Chæronea or Greece.

When he was first made known to Trajan, is like the rest uncertain; or by what means, whether by Senecio, or any other, he was introduced to his acquaintance; but it is most likely that Trajan, then a private man, was one of his auditors, amongst others of the nobility of Rome. It is also thought, this wise emperor made use of him in all his councils; and that the happiness which attended him in his undertakings, together with the administration of the government, which in all his reign was just and regular, proceeded from the instructions which were given him by Plutarch. Johannes Sarisberiensis, who lived above six hundred years ago, has transcribed a letter, written, as he supposed, by our author to that emperor. Whence he had it, is not known, nor the original in Greek to be produced; but it passed for genuine in that age, and if not Plutarch’s, is at least worthy of him, and what might well be supposed a man of his character would write; for which reason I have here translated it.

PLUTARCH TO TRAJAN.

“I am satisfied that your modesty sought not the empire, which yet you have always studied to deserve by the excellency of your manners; and by so much the more are you esteemed worthy of this honour, by how much you are free from the ambition of desiring it. I therefore congratulate both your virtue and my own good fortune, if at least your future government shall prove answerable to your former merit; otherwise you have involved yourself in dangers, and I shall infallibly be subject to the censures of detracting tongues; because Rome will never support an emperor unworthy of her, and the faults of the scholar will be upbraided to the master. Thus Seneca is reproached, and his fame still suffers, for the vices of Nero. The miscarriages of Quintilian’s scholars have been thrown on him; and even Socrates himself is not free from the imputation of remissness on the account of his pupil, Alcibiades. But you will certainly administer all things as becomes you, if you still continue what you are; if you recede not from yourself, if you begin at home, and lay the foundation of government on the command of your own passions; if you make virtue the scope of all your actions, they will all proceed in harmony and order. I have set before you the force of laws and civil constitutions of your predecessors, which if you imitate and obey, Plutarch is then your guide of living; if otherwise, let this present letter be my testimony against you, that you shall not ruin the Roman empire under the pretence of the counsel and authority of Plutarch.”⁠[7]

It may be conjectured, and with some show of probability, from hence, that our author not only collected his materials, but also made a rough draft of many of these parallel Lives at Rome; and that he read them to Trajan for his instruction in government; and so much the rather I believe it, because all historians agree that this emperor, though naturally prudent and inclined to virtue, had more of the soldier than the scholar in his education, before he had the happiness to know Plutarch; for which reason the Roman Lives, and the inspection into ancient laws, might be of necessary use to his direction.

And now for the time of our author’s abode in the imperial city: if he came so early as Vespasian, and departed not till Trajan’s death, as is generally thought, he might continue in Italy near forty years. This is more certain, because gathered from himself,—that his Lives were almost the latest of his works; and therefore we may well conclude, that having modelled, but not finished them at Rome, he afterwards resumed the work in his own country; which perfecting in his old age, he dedicated to his friend Senecio still living, as appears by what he has written in the proem to his Lives.

The desire of visiting his own country, so natural to all men, and the approaches of old age, (for he could not be much less than sixty,) and perhaps also the death of Trajan, prevailed with him at last to leave Italy; or, if you will have it in his own words, “he was not willing his little city should be one the less by his absence.” After his return, he was, by the unanimous consent of his citizens, chosen Archon, or chief magistrate of Chæronea, and not long after admitted himself in the number of Apollo’s priests; in both which employments he seems to have continued till his death, of which we have no particular account, either as to the manner of it, or the year; only it is evident that he lived to a great old age,⁠[8] always continuing his studies. That he died a natural death, is only presumed, because any violent accident to so famous a man would have been recorded; and in whatsoever reign he deceased, the days of tyranny were overpassed, and there was then a golden series of emperors, every one emulating his predecessor’s virtues.

Thus I have collected from Plutarch himself, and from the best authors, what was most remarkable concerning him; in performing which, I have laboured under so many uncertainties, that I have not been able to satisfy my own curiosity, any more than that of others. It is the life of a philosopher, not varied with accidents to divert the reader; more pleasant for himself to live, than for an historian to describe. Those works of his, which are irrecoverably lost, are named in the catalogue made by his son, Lamprias, which you will find in the Paris edition, dedicated to King Louis the Thirteenth. But it is a small comfort to a merchant to peruse his bill of freight, when he is certain his ship is cast away; moved by the like reason, I have omitted that ungrateful task. Yet that the reader may not be imposed on in those which yet remain, it is but reasonable to let him know, that the Lives of Hannibal and Scipio, though they pass with the ignorant for genuine, are only the forgery of Donato Acciaiolo, a Florentine. He pretends to have translated them from a Greek manuscript, which none of the learned have ever seen, either before or since. But the cheat is more manifest from this reason, which is undeniable; that Plutarch did indeed write the Life of Scipio; but he compared him not with Hannibal, but with Epaminondas; as appears by the catalogue or nomenclature of Plutarch’s Lives, drawn up by his son Lamprias, and yet extant. But to make this out more clearly, we find the Florentine, in his Life of Hannibal, thus relating the famous conference betwixt Scipio and him:—“Scipio at that time being sent ambassador from the Romans to King Antiochus, with Publius Villius, it happened then that these two great captains met together at Ephesus; and amongst other discourse, it was demanded of Hannibal by Scipio,—whom he thought to have been the greatest captain? To whom he thus answered—In the first place, Alexander of Macedon; in the second, Pyrrhus of Epyrus; and in the third, himself. To which Scipio, smiling, thus replied:—And what would you have thought, had it been your fortune to have vanquished me? To whom Hannibal:—I should then have adjudged the first place to myself. Which answer was not a little pleasing to Scipio, because by it he found himself not disesteemed, nor put into comparison with the rest; but by the delicacy and gallantry of a well-turned compliment, set like a man divine above them all.”

Now this relation is a mere compendium of the same conference, from Livy; but if we can conceive Plutarch to have written the Life of Hannibal, it is hard to believe that he should tell the same story after so different, or rather so contrary a manner, in another place. For, in the Life of Pyrrhus, he thus writes:—“Hannibal adjudged the pre-eminence to Pyrrhus above all captains, in conduct, and military skill; next to Pyrrhus he placed Scipio; and after Scipio, himself; as we have declared in the Life of Scipio.” It is not that I would excuse Plutarch, as if he never related the same thing diversly; for it is evident, that, through want of advertency, he has been often guilty of that error, of which the reader will find too frequent examples in these Lives; but in this place he cannot be charged with want of memory or care, because what he says here is relating to what he had said formerly; so that he may mistake the story, as I believe he has done, (that other of Livy being much more probable,) but we must allow him to remember what he had before written.

From hence I might take occasion to note some other lapses of our author, which yet amount not to falsification of truth, much less to partiality, or envy, (both which are manifest in his countryman Dion Cassius, who writ not long after him,) but are only the frailties of human nature; mistakes not intentional, but accidental. He was not altogether so well versed either in the Roman language, or in their coins, or in the value of them; in some customs, rites, and ceremonies, he took passages on trust from others, relating both to them and the barbarians, which the reader may particularly find recited in the animadversions of the often-praised Rualdus on our author. I will name but one, to avoid tediousness, because I particularly observed it, when I read Plutarch in the library of Trinity College, in Cambridge, to which foundation I gratefully acknowledge a great part of my education. It is, that Plutarch, in the life of Cicero, speaking of Verres, who was accused by him, and repeating a miserable jest of Tully’s, says that Verres, in the Roman language, signifies a barrow-pig, that is, one which has been gelded. But we have a better account of the signification from Varro, whom we have more reason to believe; that the male of that kind, before he is cut, is called Verres; after cutting, Majalis, which is perhaps a diminutive of Mas, though generally the reason of the etymology is given from its being a sacrifice to the goddess Maja. Yet any man, who will candidly weigh this and the like errors, may excuse Plutarch, as he would a stranger mistaking the propriety of an English word; and besides the humanity of this excuse, it is impossible in nature, that a man of so various learning, and so covetous of engrossing all, should perfectly digest such an infinity of notions in many sciences; since to be excellent in one is so great a labour.

It may now be expected, that, having written the life of an historian, I should take occasion to write somewhat concerning history itself: but I think to commend it is unnecessary, for the profit and pleasure of that study are both so very obvious, that a quick reader will be beforehand with me, and imagine faster than I can write. Besides that the post is taken up already; and few authors have travelled this way, but who have strewed it with rhetoric as they passed. For my own part, who must confess it to my shame, that I never read any thing but for pleasure, it has always been the most delightful entertainment of my life; but they who have employed the study of it as they ought, for their instruction, for the regulation of their private manners, and the management of public affairs, must agree with me, that it is the most pleasant school of wisdom. It is a familiarity with past ages, and an acquaintance with all the heroes of them; it is, if you will pardon the similitude, a prospective glass carrying your soul to a vast distance, and taking in the farthest objects of antiquity. It informs the understanding by the memory; it helps us to judge of what will happen, by shewing us the like revolutions of former times. For mankind being the same in all ages, agitated by the same passions, and moved to action by the same interests, nothing can come to pass, but some precedent of the like nature has already been produced; so that having the causes before our eyes, we cannot easily be deceived in the effects, if we have judgment enough but to draw the parallel.

God, it is true, with his divine providence overrules and guides all actions to the secret end he has ordained them; but in the way of human causes, a wise man may easily discern that there is a natural connection betwixt them; and though he cannot foresee accidents, or all things that possibly can come, he may apply examples, and by them foretell, that from the like counsels will probably succeed the like events; and thereby in all concernments, and all offices of life, be instructed in the two main points on which depend our happiness; that is, what to avoid, and what to choose.

The laws of history, in general, are truth of matter, method, and clearness of expression. The first propriety is necessary, to keep our understanding from the impositions of falsehood; for history is an argument framed from many particular examples or inductions; if these examples are not true, then those measures of life which we take from them will be false, and deceive us in their consequence. The second is grounded on the former; for if the method be confused, if the words or expressions of thought are any way obscure, then the ideas which we receive must be imperfect; and if such, we are not taught by them what to elect or what to shun. Truth, therefore, is required as the foundation of history, to inform us; disposition and perspicuity, as the manner to inform us plainly; one is the being, the other the well-being of it.

History is principally divided into these three species; Commentaries, or Annals; History, properly so called; and Biographia, or the Lives of particular men.

Commentaries, or Annals, are (as I may so call them,) naked history, or the plain relation of matter of fact, according to the succession of time, devested of all other ornaments. The springs and motives of actions are not here sought, unless they offer themselves, and are open to every man’s discernment. The method is the most natural that can be imagined, depending only on the observation of months and years, and drawing, in the order of them, whatsoever happened worthy of relation. The style is easy, simple, unforced, and unadorned with the pomp of figures; councils, guesses, politic observations, sentences, and orations, are avoided; in few words, a bare narration is its business. Of this kind the “Commentaries of Cæsar” are certainly the most admirable, and after him the “Annals of Tacitus” may have place; nay, even the prince of Greek historians, Thucydides, may almost be adopted into the number. For, though he instructs every where by sentences, though he gives the causes of actions, the councils of both parties, and makes orations where they are necessary, yet it is certain that he first designed his work a Commentary; every year writing down, like an unconcerned spectator as he was, the particular occurrences of the time, in the order as they happened; and his eighth book is wholly written after the way of Annals; though, outliving the war, he inserted in his others those ornaments which render his work the most complete and most instructive now extant.

History, properly so called, may be described by the addition of those parts which are not required to Annals; and therefore there is little farther to be said concerning it; only, that the dignity and gravity of style is here necessary. That the guesses of secret causes inducing to the actions, be drawn at least from the most probable circumstances, not perverted by the malignity of the author to sinister interpretations, (of which Tacitus is accused,) but candidly laid down, and left to the judgment of the reader: That nothing of concernment be omitted; but things of trivial moment are still to be neglected, as debasing the majesty of the work: That neither partiality or prejudice appear, but that truth may every where be sacred: Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat historicus: That he neither incline to superstition, in giving too much credit to oracles, prophecies, divinations, and prodigies, nor to irreligion, in disclaiming the Almighty Providence; but where general opinion has prevailed of any miraculous accident or portent, he ought to relate it as such, without imposing his opinion on our belief. Next to Thucydides, in this kind, may be accounted Polybius, amongst the Grecians; Livy, though not free from superstition, nor Tacitus from ill-nature, amongst the Romans; amongst the modern Italians, Guicciardini, and Davila, if not partial; but above all men, in my opinion, the plain, sincere, unaffected, and most instructive Philip de Comines, amongst the French, though he only gives his History the humble name of Commentaries. I am sorry I cannot find in our own nation, though it has produced some commendable historians, any proper to be ranked with these. Buchanan, indeed, for the purity of his Latin, and for his learning, and for all other endowments belonging to an historian, might be placed amongst the greatest, if he had not too much leaned to prejudice, and too manifestly declared himself a party of a cause, rather than an historian of it. Excepting only that, (which I desire not to urge too far on so great a man, but only to give caution to his readers concerning it,) our isle may justly boast in him a writer comparable to any of the moderns, and excelled by few of the ancients.

Biographia, or the history of particular men’s lives, comes next to be considered; which in dignity is inferior to the other two, as being more confined in action, and treating of wars and counsels, and all other public affairs of nations, only as they relate to him whose life is written, or as his fortunes have a particular dependance on them, or connection to them. All things here are circumscribed, and driven to a point, so as to terminate in one; consequently, if the action or counsel were managed by colleagues, some part of it must be either lame or wanting, except it be supplied by the excursion of the writer. Herein, likewise, must be less of variety, for the same reason; because the fortunes and actions of one man are related, not those of many. Thus the actions and achievements of Sylla, Lucullus, and Pompey, are all of them but the successive parts of the Mithridatic war; of which we could have no perfect image, if the same hand had not given us the whole, though at several views, in their particular lives.

Yet though we allow, for the reasons above alleged, that this kind of writing is in dignity inferior to History and Annals, in pleasure and instruction it equals, or even excels, both of them. It is not only commended by ancient practice to celebrate the memory of great and worthy men, as the best thanks which posterity can pay them, but also the examples of virtue are of more vigour, when they are thus contracted into individuals. As the sunbeams, united in a burning-glass to a point, have greater force than when they are darted from a plain superficies, so the virtues and actions of one man, drawn together into a single story, strike upon our minds a stronger and more lively impression, than the scattered relations of many men, and many actions; and, by the same means that they give us pleasure, they afford us profit too. For when the understanding is intent and fixed on a single thing, it carries closer to the mark; every part of the object sinks into it; and, the soul receives it unmixed and whole. For this reason Aristotle commends the unity of action in a poem; because the mind is not capable of digesting many things at once, nor of conceiving fully any more than one idea at a time. Whatsoever distracts the pleasure, lessens it; and as the reader is more concerned at one man’s fortune than those of many, so likewise the writer is more capable of making a perfect work if he confine himself to this narrow compass. The lineaments, features, and colourings of a single picture may be hit exactly; but in a history-piece of many figures, the general design, the ordonnance or disposition of it, the relation of one figure to another, the diversity of the posture, habits, shadowings, and all the other graces conspiring to an uniformity, are of so difficult performance, that neither is the resemblance of particular persons often perfect, nor the beauty of the piece complete; for any considerable error in the parts renders the whole disagreeable and lame. Thus then, the perfection of the work, and the benefit arising from it, are both more absolute in biography than in history. All history is only the precepts of moral philosophy reduced into examples. Moral philosophy is divided into two parts, ethics and politics; the first instructs us in our private offices of virtue, the second in those which relate to the management of the commonwealth. Both of these teach by argumentation and reasoning, which rush as it were into the mind, and possess it with violence; but history rather allures than forces us to virtue. There is nothing of the tyrant in example; but it gently glides into us, is easy and pleasant in its passage, and in one word reduces into practice our speculative notions; therefore the more powerful the examples are, they are the more useful also; and, by being more known, they are more powerful. Now unity, which is defined, is in its own nature more apt to be understood than multiplicity, which in some measure participates of infinity. The reason is Aristotle’s.

Biographia, or the histories of particular lives, though circumscribed in the subject, is yet more extensive in the style than the other two; for it not only comprehends them both, but has somewhat superadded, which neither of them have. The style of it is various, according to the occasion. There are proper places in it for the plainness and nakedness of narration, which is ascribed to annals; there is also room reserved for the loftiness and gravity of general history, when the actions related shall require that manner of expression. But there is withal a descent into minute circumstances, and trivial passages of life, which are natural to this way of writing, and which the dignity of the other two will not admit. There you are conducted only into the rooms of state, here you are led into the private lodgings of the hero; you see him in his undress, and are made familiar with his most private actions and conversations. You may behold a Scipio and a Lælius gathering cockle-shells on the shore, Augustus playing at bounding-stones with boys, and Agesilaus riding on a hobby-horse among his children. The pageantry of life is taken away; you see the poor reasonable animal as naked as ever nature made him; are made acquainted with his passions and his follies, and find the demi-god, a man. Plutarch himself has more than once defended this kind of relating little passages; for, in the Life of Alexander, he says thus: “In writing the lives of illustrious men, I am not tied to the laws of history; nor does it follow, that, because an action is great, it therefore manifests the greatness and virtue of him who did it; but, on the other side, sometimes a word, or a casual jest, betrays a man more to our knowledge of him, than a battle fought wherein ten thousand men were slain, or sacking of cities, or a course of victories.” In another place, he quotes Xenophon on the like occasion: “The sayings of great men in their familiar discourses, and amidst their wine, have somewhat in them which is worthy to be transmitted to posterity.” Our author therefore needs no excuse, but rather deserves a commendation, when he relates, as pleasant, some sayings of his heroes, which appear (I must confess it) very cold and insipid mirth to us. For it is not his meaning to commend the jest, but to paint the man; besides, we may have lost somewhat of the idiotism of that language in which it was spoken; and where the conceit is couched in a single word, if all the significations of it are not critically understood, the grace and the pleasantry are lost.

But in all parts of biography, whether familiar or stately, whether sublime or low, whether serious or merry, Plutarch equally excelled. If we compare him to others, Dion Cassius is not so sincere; Herodian, a lover of truth, is oftentimes deceived himself with what he had falsely heard reported: then the time of his emperors exceeds not in all above sixty years; so that his whole history will scarce amount to three Lives of Plutarch. Suetonius and Tacitus may be called alike either authors of histories, or writers of lives; but the first of them runs too willingly into obscene descriptions, which he teaches, while he relates; the other, besides what has already been noted by him, often falls into obscurity; and both of them have made so unlucky a choice of times, that they are forced to describe rather monsters than men; and their emperors are either extravagant fools or tyrants, and most usually both. Our author, on the contrary, as he was more inclined to commend than to dispraise, has generally chosen such great men as were famous for their several virtues; at least such whose frailties or vices were overpoised by their excellencies; such from whose examples we may have more to follow than to shun. Yet, as he was impartial, he disguised not the faults of any man: an example of which is in the life of Lucullus; where, after he has told us that the double benefit which his countrymen, the Chæroneans, received from him, was the chiefest motive which he had to write his life, he afterwards rips up his luxury, and shews how he lost, through his mismanagement, his authority and his soldiers’ love.—Then he was more happy in his digressions than any we have named. I have always been pleased to see him, and his imitator, Montaigne, when they strike a little out of the common road; for we are sure to be the better for their wandering. The best quarry lies not always in the open field; and who would not be content to follow a good huntsman over hedges and ditches, when he knows the game will reward his pains? But if we mark him more narrowly, we may observe, that the great reason of his frequent starts is the variety of his learning; he knew so much of nature, was so vastly furnished with all the treasures of the mind, that he was uneasy to himself, and was forced, as I may say, to lay down some at every passage, and to scatter his riches as he went: like another Alexander or Adrian, he built a city, or planted a colony, in every part of his progress, and left behind him some memorial of his greatness. Sparta, and Thebes, and Athens, and Rome, the mistress of the world, he has discovered in their foundations, their institutions, their growth, their height; the decay of the three first, and the alteration of the last. You see those several people in their different laws, and policies, and forms of government, in their warriors, and senators, and demagogues. Nor are the ornaments of poetry, and the illustrations of similitudes, forgotten by him; in both which he instructs, as well as pleases; or rather pleases, that he may instruct.

This last reflection leads me naturally to say somewhat in general of his style; though after having justly praised him for copiousness of learning, integrity, perspicuity, and more than all this, for a certain air of goodness which appears through all his writings, it were unreasonable to be critical on his elocution. As on a tree which bears excellent fruit, we consider not the beauty of the blossoms,—for if they are not pleasant to the eye, or delightful to the scent, we know at the same time that they are not the prime intention of nature, but are thrust out in order to their product; so in Plutarch, whose business was not to please the ear, but to charm and to instruct the mind, we may easily forgive the cadences of words, and the roughness of expression. Yet, for manliness of eloquence, if it abounded not in our author, it was not wanting in him. He neither studied the sublime style, nor affected the flowery. The choice of words, the numbers of periods, the turns of sentences, and those other ornaments of speech, he neither sought nor shunned; but the depth of sense, the accuracy of judgment, the disposition of the parts, and contexture of the whole, in so admirable and vast a field of matter, and lastly, the copiousness and variety of words, appear shining in our author. It is, indeed, observed of him, that he keeps not always to the style of prose, but if a poetical word, which carries in it more of emphasis or signification, offer itself at any time, he refuses it not because Homer or Euripides have used it; but if this be a fault, I know not how Xenophon will stand excused. Yet neither do I compare our author with him, or with Herodotus, in the sweetness and graces of his style, nor with Thucydides in the solidity and closeness of expression; for Herodotus is acknowledged the prince of the Ionic, the other two of the Attic eloquence. As for Plutarch, his style is so particular, that there is none of the ancients to whom we can properly resemble him. And the reason of this is obvious; for, being conversant in so great variety of authors, and collecting from all of them what he thought most excellent, out of the confusion, or rather mixture, of all their styles, he formed his own, which, partaking of each, was yet none of them, but a compound of them all; like the Corinthian metal, which had in it gold, and brass, and silver, and yet was a species by itself. Add to this, that in Plutarch’s time, and long before it, the purity of the Greek tongue was corrupted, and the native splendour of it had taken the tarnish of barbarism, and contracted the filth and spots of degenerating ages: for the fall of empires always draws after it the language and eloquence of the people; they, who labour under misfortunes or servitude, have little leisure to cultivate their mother tongue. To conclude; when Athens had lost her sovereignty to the Peloponnesians, and her liberty to Philip, neither a Thucydides nor a Demosthenes were afterwards produced by her.

I have formerly acknowledged many lapses of our author, occasioned through his inadvertency; but he is likewise taxed with faults which reflect on his judgment in matters of fact, and his candour in the comparisons of his Greeks and Romans; both which are so well vindicated by Montaigne, that I need but barely to translate him:—“First, then, he is accused of want of judgment, in reporting things incredible; for proof of which is alleged the story he tells of the Spartan boy, who suffered his bowels to be torn out by a young fox which he had stolen, choosing rather to hide him under his garment till he died, than to confess his robbery. In the first place, this example is ill chosen, because it is difficult to set a bound to the force of our internal faculties; it is not defined how far our resolution may carry us to suffer. The force of bodies may more easily be determined, than that of souls. Then of all people, the Lacedemonians, by reason of their rigid institution, were most hardened to undergo labours, and to suffer pains. Cicero, before our author’s time, though then the Spartan virtue was degenerated, yet avows to have seen himself some Lacedemonian boys, who, to make trial of their patience, were placed before the altar of Diana, where they endured scourging till they were all over bloody, and that not only without crying, but even without a sigh or a groan: nay, and some of them so ambitious of this reputation, that they willingly resigned their lives under the hands of their tormentors.—The same may be said of another story, which Plutarch vouches with an hundred witnesses: that in the time of sacrifice, a burning coal by chance falling into the sleeve of a Spartan boy, who held the censer, he suffered his arm to be scorched so long without moving it, that the scent of it reeked up to the noses of the assistants.

“For my own part, who have taken in so vast an idea of the Lacedemonian magnanimity, Plutarch’s story is so far from seeming incredible to me, that I neither think it wonderful nor uncommon; for we ought not to measure possibilities or impossibilities by our own standard, that is, by what we ourselves could do or suffer. These, and some other slight examples, are made use of, to lessen the opinion of Plutarch’s judgment.—But the common exception against his candour is, that in his parallels of Greeks and Romans he has done too much honour to his countrymen, in matching them with heroes with whom they were not worthy to be compared. For instances of this, there are produced the comparisons of Demosthenes and Cicero, Aristides and Cato, Lysander and Sylla, Pelopidas and Marcellus, Agesilaus and Pompey. Now the ground of this accusation is most probably the lustre of those Roman names, which strikes on our imagination; for what proportion of glory is there betwixt a Roman consul or proconsul of so great a commonwealth, and a simple citizen of Athens? But he who considers the truth more nearly, and weighs not honours with honours, but men with men, which was Plutarch’s main design, will find in the balance of their manners, their virtues, their endowments and abilities, that Cicero and the elder Cato were far from having the over-weight against Demosthenes and Aristides. I might as well complain against him in behalf of his own countrymen; for neither was Camillus so famous as Themistocles, nor were Tiberius and Caius Gracchus comparable to Agis and Cleomenes, in regard of dignity; much less was the wisdom of Numa to be put in balance against that of Lycurgus, or the modesty and temperance of Scipio against the solid philosophy and perfect virtue of Epaminondas. Yet the disparity of victories, the reputation, the blaze of glory, in the two last, were evidently on the Roman side. But, as I said before, to compare them this way was the least of Plutarch’s aim; he openly declares against it; for, speaking of the course of Pompey’s fortune, his exploits of war, the greatness of the armies which he commanded, the splendour and number of his triumphs, in his comparison betwixt him and Agesilaus,—I believe, says he, that if Xenophon were now alive, and would indulge himself the liberty to write all he could to the advantage of his hero, Agesilaus, he would be ashamed to put their acts in competition. In his comparison of Sylla and Lysander, there is, says he, no manner of equality either in the number of their victories, or in the danger of their battles; for Lysander only gained two naval fights, &c. Now this is far from partiality to the Grecians. He who would convince him of this vice, must shew us in what particular judgment he has been too favourable to his countrymen; and make it out in general, where he has failed in matching such a Greek with such a Roman; which must be done by shewing how he could have paired them better, and naming any other in whom the resemblance might have been more perfect. But an equitable judge, who takes things by the same handle which Plutarch did, will find there is no injury offered to either party, though there be some disparity betwixt the persons; for he weighs every circumstance by itself, and judges separately of it; not comparing men at a lump, nor endeavouring to prove they were alike in all things, but allowing for disproportion of quality or fortune, shewing wherein they agreed or disagreed, and wherein one was to be preferred before the other.”

I thought I had answered all that could reasonably be objected against our author’s judgment; but casually casting my eye on the works of a French gentleman,⁠[9] deservedly famous for wit and criticism, I wondered, amongst many commendations of Plutarch, to find this one reflection:—“As for his comparisons, they seem truly to me very great; but I think he might have carried them yet farther, and have penetrated more deeply into human nature. There are folds and recesses in our minds, which have escaped him; he judges man too much in gross, and thinks him not so different as he is often from himself; the same person being just, unjust, merciful, and cruel; which qualities seeming to belie each other in him, he attributes their inconsistencies to foreign causes. In fine, if he had described Catiline, he would have given him to us, either prodigal or covetous: that alieni appetens, sui profusus, was above his reach. He could never have reconciled those contrarieties in the same subject, which Sallust has so well unfolded, and which Montaigne so much better understood.”

This judgment could not have proceeded but from a man who has a nice taste in authors; and if it be not altogether just, it is at least delicate: but I am confident, that if he please to consider this following passage, taken out of the Life of Sylla, he will moderate, if not retract, his censure:

“In the rest of his manners he was unequal, irregular different from himself: ἀνώμαλὸς τις ἔοικε, και διάφορος πρὸς ἑαυτὸν.He took many things by rapine, he gave more; honoured men immoderately, and used them contumeliously; was submissive to those of whom he stood in need, insulting over those who stood in need of him; so that it was doubtful, whether he were more formed by nature to arrogance or flattery. As to his uncertain way of punishing, he would sometimes put men to death on the least occasion; at other times he would pardon the greatest crimes: so that judging him in the whole, you may conclude him to have been naturally cruel, and prone to vengeance, but that he could remit of his severity, when his interests required it.”

Here, methinks, our author seems to have sufficiently understood the folds and doubles of Sylla’s disposition; for his character is full of variety and inconsistencies. Yet in the conclusion it is to be confessed, that Plutarch has assigned him a bloody nature; the clemency was but artificial and assumed, the cruelty was inborn: but this cannot be said of his rapine, and his prodigality; for here the alieni appetens, sui profusus, is as plainly described, as if Plutarch had borrowed the sense from Sallust; and, as he was a great collector, perhaps he did. Nevertheless he judged rightly of Sylla, that naturally he was cruel, for that quality was predominant in him; and he was oftener revengeful than he was merciful. But this is sufficient to vindicate our author’s judgment from being superficial; and I desire not to press the argument more strongly against this gentleman, who has honoured our country by his long residence amongst us.

It seems to me, I must confess, that our author has not been more hardly treated by his enemies, in his comparing other men, than he has been by his friends, in their comparing Seneca with him. And herein, even Montaigne himself is scarcely to be defended; for no man more esteemed Plutarch, no man was better acquainted with his excellencies; yet, this notwithstanding, he has done too great an honour to Seneca, by ranking him with our philosopher and historian; him, I say, who was so much less a philosopher, and no historian. It is a reputation to Seneca, that any one has offered at the comparison; the worth of his adversary makes his defeat advantageous to him; and Plutarch might cry out, with justice,

If I had been to find out a parallel for Plutarch, I should rather have pitched on Varro, the most learned of the Romans, if at least his works had yet remained; or Pomponius Atticus, if he had written. But the likeness of Seneca is so little, that except the one’s being tutor to Nero, and the other to Trajan, both of them strangers to Rome, yet raised to the highest dignities in that city, and both philosophers, though of several sects; (for Seneca was a Stoic, Plutarch a Platonician, at least an Academic, that is, half Platonist, half Sceptic;) besides some such faint resemblances as these, Seneca and Plutarch seem to have as little relation to one another as their native countries, Spain and Greece. If we consider them in their inclinations or humours, Plutarch was sociable and pleasant, Seneca morose and melancholy: Plutarch a lover of conversation, and sober feasts; Seneca reserved, uneasy to himself when alone, to others when in company. Compare them in their manners; Plutarch every where appears candid, Seneca often is censorious. Plutarch, out of his natural humanity, is frequent in commending what he can; Seneca, out of the sourness of his temper, is prone to satire, and still searching for some occasion to vent his gall. Plutarch is pleased with an opportunity of praising virtue; and Seneca, to speak the best of him, is glad of a pretence to reprehend vice. Plutarch endeavours to teach others, but refuses not to be taught himself; for he is always doubtful and inquisitive: Seneca is altogether for teaching others, but so teaches them, that he imposes his opinions, for he was of a sect too imperious and dogmatical, either to be taught or contradicted; and yet Plutarch writes like a man of a confirmed probity, Seneca like one of a weak and staggering virtue. Plutarch seems to have vanquished vice, and to have triumphed over it; Seneca seems only to be combating and resisting, and that too but in his own defence: therefore Plutarch is easy in his discourse, as one who has overcome the difficulty; Seneca is painful, as he who still labours under it. Plutarch’s virtue is humble and civilized; Seneca’s haughty and ill-bred: Plutarch allures you, Seneca commands you. One would make virtue your companion, the other your tyrant. The style of Plutarch is easy and flowing, that of Seneca precipitous and harsh: the first is even, the second broken. The arguments of the Grecian, drawn from reason, work themselves into your understanding, and make a deep and lasting impression in your mind; those of the Roman, drawn from wit, flash immediately on your imagination, but leave no durable effect: so this tickles you by starts with his arguteness, that pleases you for continuance with his propriety. The course of their fortunes seems also to have partaken of their styles; for Plutarch’s was equal, smooth, and of the same tenor,—Seneca’s was turbid, unconstant, and full of revolutions. The life of Plutarch was unblameable, as the reader cannot but have observed; and of all his writings, there is nothing to be noted as having the least tendency to vice, but only that little treatise which is entitled Ἐρωτικός, wherein he speaks too broadly of a sin to which the eastern and southern parts of the world are most obnoxious; but Seneca is said to have been more libertine than suited with the gravity of a philosopher, or with the austerity of a Stoic. An ingenious Frenchman esteems, as he tells us, his person rather than his works; and values him more as the preceptor of Nero, a man ambitious of the empire, and the gallant of Agrippina, than as a teacher of morality. For my part, I dare not push the commendation so far. His courage was perhaps praiseworthy, if he endeavoured to deliver Rome from such a monster of tyranny as Nero was then beginning to appear; his ambition too was the more excusable if he found in himself an ability of governing the world, and a desire of doing good to human kind; but as to his good fortunes with the empress, I know not what value ought to be set on a wise man for them: except it be that women generally liking without judgment, it was a conquest for a philosopher, once in an age, to get the better of a fool. However, methinks there is something of awkward in the adventure: I cannot imagine, without laughter, a pedant, and a Stoic, making love in a long gown; for it puts me in mind of the civilities which are used by the cardinals and judges in the dance of “The Rehearsal.” If Agrippina would needs be so lavish of her favours, since a sot grew nauseous to her, because he was her husband, and nothing under a wit could atone for Claudius, I am half sorry that Petronius was not the man. We could have borne it better from his character, than from one who professed the severity of virtue, to make a cuckold of his emperor and benefactor. But let the historian answer for his own relation; only, if true, it is so much the worse that Seneca, after having abused his bed, could not let him sleep quiet in his grave. The Apocolocynthisis, or mock deification of Claudius, was too sharp and insulting on his memory; and Seneca, though he could preach forgiveness to others, did not practise it himself in that satire. Where was the patience and insensibility of a Stoic, in revenging his banishment with a libel? Where was the morality of a philosopher, in defaming and exposing of an harmless fool? And where was common humanity, in railing against the dead? But the talent of his malice is visible in other places: he censures Mæcenas, and I believe justly, for the looseness of his manners, the voluptuousness of his life, and the effeminacy of his style; but it appears that he takes pleasure in so doing, and that he never forced his nature when he spoke ill of any man. For his own style, we see what it is; and if we may be as bold with him as he has been with our old patron, we may call it a shattered eloquence, not vigorous, not united, not embodied, but broken into fragments; every part by itself pompous, but the whole confused and unharmonious. His Latin, as Monsieur St Evremont has well observed, has nothing in it of the purity and elegance of Augustus his times; and it is of him and of his imitators that Petronius said,—pace vestrâ liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis. The controversiæ sententiis vibrantibus pictæ, and the vanus sententiarum strepitus, make it evident that Seneca was taxed under the person of the old Rhetorician. What quarrel he had to the uncle and the nephew, I mean Seneca and Lucan, is not known; but Petronius plainly points them out, one for a bad orator, the other for as bad a poet. His own Essay of the Civil War is an open defiance of the “Pharsalia;” and the first oration of Eumolpus as full an arraignment of Seneca’s false eloquence. After all that has been said, he is certainly to be allowed a great wit, but not a good philosopher; not fit to be compared with Cicero, of whose reputation he was emulous, any more than Lucan is with Virgil. To sum up all in few words:—consider a philosopher declaiming against riches, yet vastly rich himself; against avarice, yet putting out his money at great extortion here in Britain; against honours, yet aiming to be emperor; against pleasure, yet enjoying Agrippina, and in his old age married to a beautiful young woman; and after this, let him be made a parallel to Plutarch.

And now with the usual vanity of Dutch prefacers, I could load our author with the praises and commemorations of writers; for both ancient and modern have made honourable mention of him: but to cumber pages with this kind of stuff, were to raise a distrust in common readers that Plutarch wants them. Rualdus indeed has collected ample testimonies of them: but I will only recite the names of some, and refer you to him for the particular quotations. He reckons Gellius, Eusebius, Himerius the Sophister, Eunapius, Cyrillus of Alexandria, Theodoret, Agathias, Photius and Xiphilin, patriarchs of Constantinople, Johannes Sarisberiensis, the famous Petrarch, Petrus Victorius, and Justus Lipsius.

But Theodorus Gaza, a man learned in the Latin, tongue, and a great restorer of the Greek, who lived above two hundred years ago, deserves to have his suffrage set down in words at length; for the rest have only commended Plutarch more than any single author, but he has extolled him above all together.

It is said, that, having this extravagant question put to him by a friend,—that if learning must suffer a general shipwreck, and he had only his choice left him of preserving one author, who should be the man he would preserve? he answered, Plutarch; and probably might give this reason, that, in saving him, he should secure the best collection of them all.

The Epigram of Agathias deserves also to be remembered. This author flourished about the year five hundred, in the reign of the Emperor Justinian; the verses are extant in the “Anthologia,” and with the translation of them I will conclude the praises of our author; having first admonished you, that they are supposed to be written on a statue erected by the Romans to his memory:

SPECIMEN OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE. — HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE. — TO THE KING. — THE AUTHOR’S DEDICATION TO THE FRENCH KING.⁠ [16] — THE AUTHOR’S ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. — THE HISTORY OF THE LEAGUE. LIB. III. — THE POSTSCRIPT OF THE TRANSLATOR. — FOOTNOTES:

The reader must recal to his mind the state of parties during the last years of Charles the Second’s reign, to which so many allusions have been made in the notes upon “Absalom and Achitophel,” and “The Medal.” The flight of Shaftesbury, and the discovery of the Rye-house conspiracy, had been deep wounds to the credit of the Whigs. The wealthy part of the nation dreaded a party, whose chief support was in the riotous mob of London; and men of principle, while they felt the severity of a government, which seemed approaching towards despotism, abhorred the assassination which a part at least of the popular leaders had meditated as a remedy. The king, meanwhile, was anxious to keep the advantage he had gained, and to stigmatise his adversaries as leagued together against him upon principles inimical to all kingly governments. For this purpose, Dryden was employed to translate from the French of the Jesuit Maimbourg, the “History of the League,” a work undertaken in France under the auspices of Louis XIV. The evident intention of bringing out this translation at the time when it appeared, was, to increase the unpopularity of the Whigs, by ascribing to the association which Shaftesbury had proposed, the same motives and principles which actuated the members of the League, and plunged France into the long and bloody civil war between their kings and the house of Guise. Dryden had already drawn such a parallel in the play, called “The Duke of Guise,” which he wrote in conjunction with Lee. The intended parallel between the faction of the League in France, and that of the Solemn League and Covenant, and afterwards of the Whigs in England, was avowed in the first lines of the prologue,⁠[10] and more largely in the vindication of the play, which Dryden published shortly after its appearance.⁠[11] Maimbourg, on the other hand, from whose work the translation was made, was not only a zealous royalist, but a professed enemy of the Huguenots, and had written a history of their religion, calculated to place it in the most odious point of view. There was, therefore, to be found in his “History of the League,” not only an accurate and terrifying account of that famous combination, but many hints towards completing the parallel to be deduced betwixt the principles of the Guisards and those of the Calvinists. With this intention, and under the immediate auspices of the king, the work was translated and published.

The title page bears that the translation was made according to his majesty’s command: and the frontispiece represents Charles enthroned in state; Justice is seated upon one side, and upon the other is a view of a harbour, with two light-houses, and a fleet in sail. A hand from heaven is about to place on the king’s head an imperial crown, from which glances a ray of light, bearing the motto, Per me reges regnant. In front, are the lords temporal and spiritual, assembled before the throne, in a dutiful posture, and at their feet a scroll, on which is written, Sibi et successoribus suis legitimis, in allusion to the celebrated Exclusion Bill.

Sir,

Having received the honour of your Majesty’s commands to translate the “History of the League,” I have applied myself, with my utmost diligence, to obey them: First, by a thorough understanding of my author, in which I was assisted by my former knowledge of the French history in general, and, in particular, of those very transactions which he has so faithfully and judiciously related; then by giving his thoughts the same beauty in our language which they had in the original, and, which I most of all endeavoured, the same force and perspicuity: both of which, I hope, I have performed with some exactness, and without any considerable mistake. But of this your Majesty is the truest judge, who are so great a master of the original; and who, having read this piece when it was first published, can easily find out my failings, but, to my comfort, can more easily forgive them. I confess, I could never have laid hold on that virtue of your royal clemency at a more unseasonable time; when your enemies have so far abused it, that pardons are grown dangerous to your safety, and consequently to the welfare of your loyal subjects. But frequent forgiveness is their encouragement; they have the sanctuary in their eye before they attempt the crime; and take all measures of security, either not to need a pardon, if they strike the blow, or to have it granted, if they fail. Upon the whole matter, your Majesty is not upon equal terms with them; you are still forgiving, and they still designing against your sacred life; your principle is mercy, theirs inveterate malice; when one only wards, and the other strikes, the prospect is sad on the defensive side. Hercules, as the poets tell us, had no advantage on Antæus, by his often throwing him on the ground; for he laid him only in his mother’s lap, which, in effect, was but doubling his strength to renew the combat. These sons of earth are never to be trusted in their mother-element; they must be hoisted into the air, and strangled.⁠[12] If the experiment of clemency were new; if it had not been often tried without effect, or rather with effects quite contrary to the intentions of your goodness, your loyal subjects are generous enough to pity their countrymen, though offenders: but when that pity has been always found to draw into example of greater mischiefs; when they continually behold both your Majesty and themselves exposed to dangers; the church, the government, the succession, still threatened; ingratitude, so far from being converted by gentle means, that it is turned at last into the nature of the damned, desirous of revenge, and hardened in impenitence,—it is time, at length, for self-preservation to cry out for justice, and to lay by mildness, when it ceases to be a virtue. Almighty God has hitherto miraculously preserved you; but who knows how long the miracle will continue? His ordinary operations are by second causes; and then reason will conclude, that to be preserved, we ought to use the lawful means of preservation. If, on the other side, it be thus argued, that, of many attempts, one may possibly take place, if preventing justice be not employed against offenders; what remains, but that we implore the divine assistance to avert that judgment; which is no more than to desire of God to work another and another, and, in conclusion, a whole series of miracles. This, Sir, is the general voice of all true Englishmen; I might call it the loyal address of three nations infinitely solicitous of your safety, which includes their own prosperity. It is, indeed, an high presumption for a man so inconsiderable as I am to present it; but zeal and dutiful affection, in an affair of this importance, will make every good subject a counsellor. It is, in my opinion, the test of loyalty; and, to be either a friend or foe to the government needs no other distinction, than to declare at this time either for remissness or justice. I said at this time, because I look not on the storm as overblown. It is still a gusty kind of weather: there is a kind of sickness in the air; it seems, indeed, to be cleared up for some few hours; but the wind still blowing from the same corner, and when new matter is gathered into a body, it will not fail to bring it round, and pour upon us a second tempest. I shall be glad to be found a false prophet; but he was certainly inspired, who, when he saw a little cloud arising from the sea, and that no bigger than a hand, gave immediate notice to the king, that he might mount the chariot, before he was overtaken by the storm.⁠[13] If so much care was taken of an idolatrous king, an usurper, a persecutor, and a tyrant, how much more vigilant ought we to be in the concernments of a lawful prince, a father of his country, and a defender of the faith, who stands exposed by his too much mercy to the unwearied and endless conspiracies of parricides? He was a better prince than the former whom I mentioned out of the sacred history, and the allusion comes yet more close, who stopped his hand after the third arrow: Three victories were indeed obtained; but the effect of often shooting had been the total destruction of his enemies.⁠[14] To come yet nearer: Henry the Fourth, your royal grandfather,⁠[15] whose victories, and the subversion of the League, are the main argument of this history, was a prince most clement in his nature: he forgave his rebels, and received them all into mercy, and some of them into favour, but it was not till he had fully vanquished them: they were sensible of their impiety; they submitted, and his clemency was not extorted from him; it was his free gift, and it was seasonably given. I wish the case were here the same: I confess it was not much unlike it at your Majesty’s happy restoration; yet so much of the parallel was then wanting, that the amnesty you gave produced not all the desired effects. For our sects are of a more obstinate nature than were those leaguing Catholics, who were always for a king, and, yet more, the major part of them would have him of the royal stem; but our associators and sectaries are men of commonwealth principles; and though their first stroke was only aimed at the immediate succession, it was most manifest that it would not there have ended, for at the same time they were hewing at your royal prerogatives. So that the next successor, if there had been any, must have been a precarious prince, and depended on them for the necessaries of life. But of these and more outrageous proceedings, your Majesty has already shewn yourself justly sensible in your declaration, after the dissolution of the last Parliament, which put an end to the arbitrary encroachments of a popular faction. Since which time it has pleased Almighty God so to prosper your affairs, that, without searching into the secrets of Divine Providence, it is evident your magnanimity and resolution, next under Him, have been the immediate cause of your safety and our present happiness. By weathering of which storm, may I presume to say it without flattery, you have performed a greater and more glorious work than all the conquests of your neighbours. For it is not difficult for a great monarchy, well united, and making use of advantages, to extend its limits; but to be pressed with wants, surrounded with dangers, your authority undermined in popular assemblies, your sacred life attempted by a conspiracy, your royal brother forced from your arms; in one word, to govern a kingdom, which was either possessed or turned into a bedlam, and yet in the midst of ruin to stand firm, undaunted, and resolved, and at last to break through all these difficulties and dispel them,—this is indeed an action which is worthy the grandson of Henry the Great. During all this violence of your enemies, your Majesty has contended with your natural clemency to make some examples of your justice; and they themselves will acknowledge, that you have not urged the law against them, but have been pressed and constrained by it to inflict punishments in your own defence, and in the mean time to watch every opportunity of shewing mercy, when there was the least probability of repentance: so that they, who have suffered, may be truly said to have forced the sword of justice out of your hand, and to have done execution on themselves. But by how much the more you have been willing to spare them, by so much has their impudence increased; and if by this mildness they recover from the great frost, which has almost blasted them to the roots, if these venomous plants shoot out again, it will be a sad comfort to say they have been ungrateful, when it is evident to mankind that ingratitude is their nature. That sort of pity which is proper for them, and may be of use to their conversion, is to make them sensible of their errors; and this your Majesty, out of your fatherly indulgence, amongst other experiments which you have made, is pleased to allow them in this book, which you have commanded to be translated for the public benefit; that at least all such as are not wilfully blind may view in it, as in a glass, their own deformities: for never was there a plainer parallel than of the troubles of France and of Great Britain; of their leagues, covenants, associations, and ours; of their Calvinists and our Presbyterians: they are all of the same family; and Titian’s famous table of the Altar-piece, with the pictures of Venetian senators from great-grandfather to great-grandson, shews not more the resemblance of a race than this: for as there, so here, the features are alike in all; there is nothing but the age that makes the difference; otherwise the old man of an hundred, and the babe in swaddling clouts, that is to say, 1584 and 1684, have but a century and a sea betwixt them, to be the same. But I have presumed too much upon your Majesty’s time already, and this is not the place to shew that resemblance, which is but too manifest in the whole history. It is enough to say, your Majesty has allowed our rebels a greater favour than the law; you have given them the benefit of their clergy: if they can but read, and will be honest enough to apply it, they may be saved. God Almighty give an answerable success to this your royal act of grace; may they all repent, and be united as the body to their head! May that treasury of mercy which is within your royal breast have leave to be poured forth upon them, when they put themselves in a condition of receiving it! and, in the mean time, permit me to implore it humbly for myself, and let my presumption in this bold address be forgiven to the zeal which I have to your service and to the public good. To conclude: may you never have a worse meaning offender at your feet, than him, who, besides his duty and his natural inclinations, has all manner of obligations to be perpetually,

Sir,

Your Majesty’s most humble,
Most obedient, and most faithful
Subject and servant,

John Dryden.

SIR,

France, which being well united, as we now behold it, under the glorious reign of your Majesty, might give law to all the world, was upon the point of self-destruction, by the division which was raised in it by two fatal leagues of rebels; the one in the middle, and the other towards the latter end, of the last age.

Heresy produced the first against the true religion;⁠[17] ambition, under the masque of zeal, gave birth to the second, with pretence of maintaining what the other would have ruined: and both of them, though implacable enemies to each other, yet agreed in this, that each of them, at divers times, set up the standard of rebellion against our kings.

The crimes of the former I have set forth in the history of Calvinism, which made that impious League in France, against the Lord and his anointed; and I discover the wickedness of the latter in this work, which I present to your Majesty, as the fruit of my exact obedience to those commands with which you have been pleased to honour me. I have endeavoured to perform them with so much the greater satisfaction to myself, because I believed that, in reading this history, the falsehood of some advantages which the Leaguers and Huguenots have ascribed to themselves, may be easily discerned. These by boasting, as they frequently do, even at this day, that they set the crown on the head of King Henry IV.; those, that their League was the cause of his conversion. I hope the world will soon be disabused of those mistakes; and that it will be clearly seen, that they were the Catholics of the royal party, who, next under God, produced those two effects, so advantageous to France. We are owing for neither of them to those two unhappy Leagues, which were the most dangerous enemies to the prosperity of the kingdom; and it is manifest at this present time, that the glory of triumphing over both of them, was reserved, by the Divine Providence, to our kings of the imperial stem of Bourbon.

Henry IV. subdued and reduced the League of the false zealots, by the invincible force of his arms, and by the wonderful attractions of his clemency; Louis the Just disarmed that of the Calvinists, by the taking of Rochelle, and other places, which those heretics had moulded into a kind of commonwealth against their sovereign; and Louis the Great, without employing other arms than those of his ardent charity and incomparable zeal for the conversion of Protestants, accompanied by the justice of his laws,⁠[18] has reduced it to that low condition, that we have reason to believe, we shall behold its ruin, by the repentance of those, who, being deluded and held back by their ministers, continue still in their erroneous belief, rather through ignorance than malice. And this it is which, when accomplished, will surpass even all those other wonders which daily are beheld, under your most auspicious government.

Undoubtedly, Sir, your Majesty has performed, by your victorious arms, your generous goodness, and your more than royal magnificence, all those great and heroic actions, which will ever be the admiration of the world, and infinitely above the commendations which future ages, in imitation of the present, will consecrate to your immortal memory. I presume not to undertake that subject, because it has already drained the praises of the noblest pens, which yet have not been able to raise us to that idea of you, which we ought justly to conceive: I shall only say, that what you have done with so much prudence, justice, and glory, by extending the French monarchy to its ancient bounds, and rendering it, as it is at present, as flourishing, and as much respected by all the world, as it ever has been, under the greatest and most renowned of all our monarchs, is not so great in the sight of God, as what your Majesty performs daily, with so much piety, zeal, and good success, in augmenting the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and procuring the conversion of our Protestants, by those gentle and efficacious means which you have used.

This, Sir, is, without exception, the most glorious of all your conquests; and while you continue to enjoy on earth that undisputed glory which your other actions have acquired you, is preparing an eternal triumph for you in the heavens.

It is what is continually implored of God, in his most ardent prayers, who, enjoying the abundant favours of your Majesty, lives at this day the most happy of mankind, under your most powerful protection; and is most obliged to continue all his life, with all imaginable respect and zeal,

Sir,

Your Majesty’s most obedient
And most faithful subject and servant,

Louis Maimbourg.

Since perhaps there are some, who may think themselves concerned in this history, because they are the grand-children or descendants of those who are here mentioned, I desire them to consider, that writing like a faithful historian, I am obliged sincerely to relate either the good or ill which they have done. If they find themselves offended, they must take their satisfaction on those who have prescribed the laws of history: let them give an account of their own rules; for historians are indispensably bound to follow them; and the sum of our reputation consists in a punctual execution of their orders.

Thus, as I pretend not to have deserved their thanks in speaking well of their relations, so I may reasonably conclude, that they ought not to wish me ill, when I say what is not much to their advantage. I faithfully relate what I find written in good authors, or in particular memoirs, which I take for good, after I have thoroughly examined them.

I do yet more; for, considering that no man is bound to believe, when I say in general that I have had the use of good manuscripts, on whose credit I give you what is not otherwhere to be had; I sincerely and particularly point out the originals from whence I drew these truths; and am fully convinced, that every historian, who hopes to gain the belief of his reader, ought to transact in the same manner. For, if there were no more to be done, than barely to say, I have found such or such an extraordinary passage in an authentic manuscript, without giving a more particular account of it under pretence of being bound to secrecy, there is no kind of fable which by this means might not be slurred upon the reader for a truth. An author might tell many a lusty lie, but a reader, who were not a very credulous fool, or a very complaisant gentleman, would have a care of believing him. It is for this reason that I have always marked in my margins, the books, relations, and memoirs, whether printed or manuscripts, from whence I take the substance of my relations.

One of those writers, of whom I have made most use, is Monsieur Peter Victor Cayet, in his nine years chronology, containing the history of the wars of Henry the Fourth.⁠[19] Because he having always followed that prince, since he was placed in his service, together with Monsieur de la Gaucherie, who was his preceptor, it is exceeding probable, that he was better informed of the passages of those times, of which he was an eye-witness, than others who had not that advantage.

For what else concerns him, he was one of the most learned and able ministers which our Protestants have ever had; and in that quality served Madam Catharine, the king’s sister, till, about two years after the conversion of that great prince, he acknowledged the true Catholic religion, and made his solemn abjuration of heresy at Paris. He also published the motives of his conversion in a learned treatise, which was received with great applause both in France and in foreign countries; and his example, fortified with the strong reasons of a man so able as he was, to which no solid answer was ever given, was immediately followed by the conversion of a great number of Protestants, who by his means came to understand the falsehood of their religion pretendedly reformed.

This action so infinitely nettled his former brotherhood of ministers, that they grew outrageous against him. They ran down his reputation with full cry, and endeavoured to blacken it with a thousand horrible calumnies, with which they stuffed their libels; and, amongst others, that which they have inserted into the memoirs of the League, with the greatest villainy imaginable, taking no notice of the solid and convincing answers he made them. Which proceeding of theirs is sufficient to discover the falsity of all they have written to defame him, according to the libelling genius of presbytery.

For, of all heretics, none have been more cruel, or more foul-mouthed, than the Calvinists; none have revenged themselves of their pretended enemies more barbarously, either by open arms, or private mischiefs, when the power was in their hands; or more impudently with their pens, and by their libels, when they had no other way to shew their malice; murdering their reputations with all sorts of injuries and impostures, who have once declared themselves against their party.

In effect, what have they not said to defame the memory of Monsieur de Sponde, lieutenant-general in Rochelle; of Salette, counsellor to the king of Navarre; of Morlas, counsellor of state and superintendant of the magazines of France; as also of Du Fay, Clairville, Rohan, and a hundred others of their most celebrated ministers, who, after having been esteemed amongst them for good men, and looked on as the leaders of their consistory, are, by a strange sort of metamorphosis, become, on the sudden, profligate wretches, and the most infamous of mankind, only for renouncing Calvinism? By how many forgeries and calumnies have they endeavoured to ruin the repute of all such Catholics as have the most vigorously opposed their heresy, history will furnish us with abundant proofs: and we have but too many in the fragments which Monsieur le Laboreur has given us of their insolent satires, where they spare not the most inviolable and sacred things on earth, not even their anointed sovereigns.

For which reason, that writer, in a certain chapter of his book, wherein he mentions but a small parcel of those libels, after he has said, “that the most venomous satirists, and the greatest libertines, were those of the Huguenot party,” adds these memorable words: “I should have been ashamed to have read all those libels, for the blasphemies and impieties with which they are filled, if that very consideration had not been aiding to confirm me in the belief, that there was more wickedness, than either error or blindness, in their doctrine; and that their morals were even more corrupt than their opinions.”

He assures us in another place, that these new evangelists have made entire volumes of railing, of which he has seen above forty manuscripts; and that there needed no other arguments to decide the difference betwixt the two religions, and to elude the fair pretences of these reforming innovators.

So that all they have scribbled, with so much (I will not say violence, but) madness, against the Sieur Cayet, immediately upon his conversion, cannot do him the least manner of prejudice, no more than their ridiculous prediction, wherein they foretold, that it would not be long before he would be neither Huguenot nor Catholic, but that he would set up a third party betwixt the two religions. For he ever continued to live so well amongst the Catholics, that, after he had given on all occasions large proofs, both of his virtue and of his faith, he was thought worthy to receive the order of priesthood, and the degree of doctor in divinity, and was reader and professor royal of the Oriental tongues.

Now seeing, in the year 1605, ten years after his conversion, he had published his “Septennary Chronology,” of the peace which was made at Vervins in the year 1598; some of the greatest lords at court, who understood his merit, and had seen him with the king, (by whom he had the honour to be well known, and much esteemed,) obliged him to add to the history of the peace, that of the war, which that great prince made during nine years after his coming to the crown, till the peace of Vervins; which he performed in the three tomes of his “Nine Years Chronology,” printed at Paris in the year 1608; in which, before he proceeds to the reign of Henry the Fourth, he makes an abridgment of the most considerable passages in the League, to the death of Henry the Third. And it is partly from this author, and partly from such others as were eye-witnesses of what they wrote, whether in printed books, or particular memoirs, that I have drawn those things, which are related by me in this history. I am not therefore myself the witness, nor as an historian do I take upon me to decide the merit of these actions, whether they are blameable or praiseworthy; I am only the relater of them: and since, in that quality, I pretend not to be believed on my own bare word, and that I quote my authors, who are my warrantees, as I have done in all my histories, I believe myself to stand exempted from any just reproaches, which can be fastened on me for my writing.

On which subject I think it may be truly said, that if, instead of examining matters of fact, and enquiring whether they are truly or falsely represented, that consideration be laid aside, and the question taken up, whether such or such actions were good or bad, and matter of right pleaded, whether they deserved to be condemned or praised; it would be but loss of time in unprofitable discourses, in which an historian is no way concerned. For in conclusion, he is only answerable for such things as he reports, on the credit of those from whom he had them; taking from each of them some particulars, of which the rest are silent, and compiling out of all of them a new body of history, which is of a quite different mould and fashion from any of the authors who have written before him.

And it is this, in which consists a great part of the delicacy and beauty of these kinds of works, and which produces this effect; that, keeping always in the most exact limits of truth, yet an author may lawfully pretend to the glory of the invention; having the satisfaction of setting forth a new history, though, writing only the passages of a former age, he can relate almost nothing, but what has been written formerly, either in printed books, or manuscripts; which, though kept up in private, and little known, are notwithstanding, not the work of him who writes the history.

As to what remains, none ought to wonder, that I make but one single volume on this subject, though the matter of it is of vast extent. I take not upon me to tell all that has been done, on occasion of the League, in all the provinces, nor to describe all the sieges; the taking and surprising of so many places, which were sometimes for the king, and at other times for the League; or all those petty skirmishes, which have drawn (if I may have liberty so to express myself) such deluges of blood from the veins of France. All these particulars ought to be the ingredients of the general history of this nation, under the reigns of the two last Henries, which may be read in many famous historians; and principally in the last tome of the late Monsieur de Mezeray, who has surpassed himself, in that part of his great work.

I confine my undertaking within the compass of what is most essential in the particular history of the League, and have only applied myself to the discovery of its true origin, to unriddle its intrigues and artifices, and find out the most secret motives, by which the heads of that conspiracy have acted, to which the magnificent title of the Holy Union has been given with so much injustice; and, in consequence of this, to make an exact description of the principal actions, and the greatest and most signal events, which decided the fortune of the League; and this, in short, is the model of my work.

As for the end which I proposed to myself, in conceiving it, I may boldly say, that it was to give a plain understanding to all such as shall read this history, that all sorts of associations which are formed against lawful sovereigns, particularly when the conspirators endeavour to disguise them under the specious pretence of religion and piety, as did the Huguenots and Leaguers, are at all times most criminal in the sight of God, and most commonly of unhappy and fatal consequence to those, who are either the authors or accomplices of the crime.

If I intended to follow the example of Livy, the prince of Latin historians, who never suffers a prodigy to escape him, and describes it perhaps with as much superstition as exactness, I should here make long narrations how the sun was obscured on the sudden, without the interposition of any cloud appearing in the sky, with a flaming sword shooting out from the centre of the body; palpable darkness, like that of the Egyptians at noon-day; extraordinary tempests, earthquakes, fiery phantasms in the air, and an hundred other prodigies, which are said to have been produced and seen in this unhappy year of one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight, and which were fancied to be so many ominous presages of those horrible disorders that ensued in it.

But because I am not of the opinion, that much credit ought to be given to those sorts of signs, which are commonly the effects of natural causes, though very often unknown to us; nor to the predictions of astrologers, some of which verily believed they had found in the stars, that this year should be the conclusion of the world, I will only say, that the most sure presage of so many misfortunes then impending, was the minds of men too much exasperated on both sides, to live in peace with each other; and not rather to be searching out for means of making sure of those whom they suspected, and disposing of them according to their jealousies.

In order to this, the Duke of Guise, after he had made an end of ruining the county of Montbelliard, took his way to Nancy, whither he had invited all the princes of his house to assemble in the month of January, there to take their resolutions, in reference to the present condition of affairs; and of that happy success which they had in the war against the Reyters. Some of them there were, as it is reported, so swollen with that victory, and so blinded with their prosperity, that they proposed, in this conference, the most dangerous and most violent expedients; to which the Duke of Lorraine, a moderate and wary prince, would by no means listen. Howsoever it were, (for I find nothing to confirm these relations, not even in the memoirs of their greatest enemies, who have written most exactly of that assembly,) it is most undoubted, that if they proceeded not so far as to those terrible extremities, yet what was then concluded, passed in the world for a most unjust and unlawful undertaking, and was condemned by all those who were not blindly devoted to the League.

It was, that a request should be presented to the king, containing articles, which, under the ordinary pretence of their desire to preserve in France the Catholic religion, tended manifestly to despoil him of his authority and power, and to invest the heads of the League in both. For those scandalous articles bore this substance in them, that, for the service of God, and the maintenance and security of religion, the king should not only be most humbly petitioned, but also summoned, to establish the Holy Inquisition in his realm; to cause the council of Trent to be there published, suspending nevertheless that article which revokes the exemption pretended by some chapters and abbeys against the bishops; to continue the war against the Huguenots, and to cause the goods both of them and of their associates to be sold, with which to defray the charges of that war, and to pay the debts in which the heads of the League had been constrained to involve themselves for the prosecution of it; to refuse quarter to all prisoners who should be taken in that war, unless upon condition of paying the full value of their goods, and giving caution of living afterwards like good Catholics.

Behold here a most specious appearance of zeal for religion; but, in the next place, observe the venom which lies hidden under all these fair pretences: That the king shall unite himself more cordially, and more openly than before, to this holy League; thereby to keep exactly all its laws, to which men are obliged by this the most solemn and most inviolable of all oaths: That, besides the forces which he shall be obliged to set on foot to wage that war against the Huguenots, he shall maintain an army on the frontiers of Lorraine, to oppose the German Protestants, if they should determine once again to enter France: That, besides those places which the Leaguers already held for their security, there should be delivered to them other towns of more importance, which should be specified to him, where they might establish for governors those of their heads which they shall name, with power of introducing such garrisons, and making such fortifications, as they shall think fit, at the charges of the provinces in which they are situate: And, in conclusion, to secure them, that they shall be no more hindered, as till this present they have always been, in the executing of those things which have been promised them for the safety of religion, his Majesty shall displace from his council, and from the court, and shall deprive of their governments and offices, those who shall be named to him, as patrons of heretics, and enemies to religion and the state.

These were those extravagant demands which began to open the eyes of many good Catholics, who had suffered themselves to be innocently seduced by the appearances of true zeal, which being little illuminated, was not “according to knowledge,” as the apostle speaks. For they now more clearly saw into some of those articles; that the League to engage the Pope and the king of Spain in their interests, would be content to abandon those privileges and liberties, which our ancestors have always maintained with so much vigour and resolution; and to subject to the yoke of a Spanish inquisition, the French, who have never been able to undergo it. And in others of them, that they designed to bereave the king of all the solid and essential parts of royalty, to leave him only the shadow and appearance of it, and afterwards to dispose even of his person, as the heads of their party should think fit.

And accordingly when the request was presented to the king on the part of the associated princes, and the cardinal of Bourbon, whose simplicity and whose name they abused, and made it a cloak to their ambition, he conceived an extreme indignation against it, which immediately appeared in his eyes and countenance. Yet he thought it necessary at that time to dissemble, not finding himself then in a condition of returning such an answer to it, as was becoming a king justly provoked against his subjects, who stood on terms with him like lords and masters. For which reason, and withal to gain farther time, he contented himself to say, that he would examine those articles in his council, in order to his answer; which should be in such sort, that all good Catholics should have reason to be satisfied.

But in the mean time, the Duke of Guise, who took not fair words for payment, well understanding the king’s design, and resolving not to give the Duke of Espernon the leisure to conjure down that tempest which was raised against him, and to infuse into his master those vigorous resolutions which were necessary for him to take, pressed the king continually to give a precise answer to every particular in those articles. For he doubted not, that, in case it proved favourable, he should ingross all power in himself; and if it were otherwise, that it would be thought the king resolved to maintain the Huguenots, and that by consequence the Catholics would enter into a war against him.

On which considerations, being then retired into his government of Champaigne, to which place he went after the conference at Nancy, he plied the king incessantly with messages sent by gentlemen, one after another, to urge him to a speedy and punctual answer. And this he did with the more eagerness and importunity, because, on the one side, he found himself more powerful than ever, having a great part of the gentry, and almost all the people, and especially the Parisians, for him; and, on the other side, he observed the party of the Huguenots to be very low, and infinitely weakened, by the defeat of their great German succours, and by their late loss of the Prince of Conde, a person of all others the most strictly tied to their religion, and on whom they more relied than any man, not excepting the King of Navarre himself.

He deceased on the 5th of March, at St Jean de Angely, of an exceeding violent distemper, with which he was suddenly seized one evening after supper, and which carried him off in two days time. The sixteen, with infamous baseness, made a great rejoicing for it; and their preachers failed not to roar out in their sermons, that it was the effect of the excommunication, with which he had been thunderstruck by Pope Sixtus. But besides that the King of Navarre, who had been struck in the same manner by the bull, had his health never the worse for it, the king, to whom that poor creature the Cardinal of Bourbon had been telling the same story, and making wonderful exclamations in relating it, answered him with a smile, that it might very well be the occasion of his death, but withal there was something else which helped him on his journey. And truly the matter was put beyond all doubt, after the attestation of four physicians, and of two master chirurgeons, who deposed upon their oaths, that they had manifestly seen, in almost all the parts of his body, all the most evident signs and effects of a caustic poison, burning and ulcerating. A most execrable action, which could not be too rigorously punished; and yet the laws inflicted what was possible on the person of one of his domestic servants, who was drawn in pieces by four horses in the place of St Jean de Angely.

As to the rest, he was a prince, who, excepting only his obstinate adhering to a religion in which he was born, and whose falsehood he might have known in time, if he had not been too much prepossessed, had, at the age of five-and-thirty years, at which he died, all the perfections which can meet together in one man, to render him one of the greatest and most accomplished persons in the world; if at least there might not possibly be discerned in his carriage and customs some of those little failings, from which the most wise are not exempted, and which may easily be pardoned, without lessening the esteem which we have for them. And if fortune, which is not always propitious to merit, was not favourable to him on some occasions, wherein he had need of her assistance, yet in this she was his friend, that she gave him the greater opportunity of shewing his invincible courage in his adversities, in which he raised himself infinitely above her, by the vigour and greatness of his soul.

Accordingly, the death of this great prince was lamented, not only by those of his own party, who loved him passionately, but also by the Catholics, and even by the Duke of Guise himself; who, head as he was of an infamous and wicked faction, which he made subservient to his ends, had of his own stock, and the excellency of his nature, which was infinitely noble, all the generosity which is requisite to love and respect virtue, even in the person of his greatest and most formidable enemy.

All which, notwithstanding, he was content to make what advantage he could of so lamentable an accident, towards the compassing of his designs: And as he observed, not only by this, but by a multitude of concomitant accidents and misfortunes, that the Huguenot party decreased in strength and reputation, and his own grew more bold and undertaking, he set himself more vigorously to push his fortune, and to demand an entire satisfaction to all the articles of his request; which had so puffed up the spirits of the sixteen, that they forgot all manner of moderation, and grew daily more and more insupportable. It happened also at the same time, that the king received several advertisements of the resolution which had been taken in their council to seize his person, and to inclose him in a monastery. And the same lieutenant of the provost-ship of the Isle of Paris, Nicholas Poulain, who had formerly discovered the like conspiracy, to which belief was not given, told him so many particular circumstances in relation to this, that though he was very diffident of that double-dealing man, whose integrity he much suspected, yet his evidence concurring with the extreme insolence of the sixteen, which rendered his report more credible, could not but leave a strong impression on his soul; insomuch, that at last following the counsel of those who had so long advised him, to employ his power and justice against those mutineers, he took up a resolution, once for all, to take that thorn out of his side, to reduce Paris into that state of submission and obedience which belongs to subjects; and to extinguish the faction of sixteen, by the exemplary chastisement of the most seditious amongst them.

The preparations which of necessity he was to make to secure the success of this undertaking; the three thousand Swissers, whom he caused to be quartered at Lagny; the companies of guards, which were reinforced; the troops which were sent him from the Duke of Espernon, who was gone into his government of Normandy; and all the passages of the river, both above Paris and below it, being possessed by him,—were so many alarms to those mutineers, who, believing themselves already lost, implored the assistance of the Duke of Guise. That prince, who had advanced from Rheims as far as Soissons, in favour of the Duke of Aumale, his cousin, who met with trouble and resistance in his government of Picardy, satisfied himself at first with sending them some of his most experienced captains, to regulate and manage their militia in case of need. But some few days after, finding himself still pressed more eagerly by the solicitations of those people, who were now driven to despair, and believing that this foundation of the League, on which he had built his hopes, being once shaken, he himself must perish under its ruins, (for that being destroyed, the next design was certainly to fall on him, who was the head and protector of it;) he gave immediate notice to his friends and creatures to get into Paris, one after another, at several gates, and ordered some to assure the sixteen in his name, that he would suddenly be there in person to live and die with them.

The king, who was advertised of this resolution, and who was under great apprehensions of his coming, lest his presence might hinder the execution of his enterprise, and arm with a word speaking that great city, which was entirely at his devotion, sent the President de Bellievre, a man of great authority and known prudence, to tell the duke from him, that, in the present juncture of affairs, and just apprehension which he had, that his coming would produce great troubles in Paris, he thought good he should not come till he received new orders from him, for otherwise he would render himself guilty of all those disorders which might thence ensue.

To this the duke, who was never to be beaten off from any resolution which he had once taken, answered calmly, but in doubtful terms, that he was ready to obey the king; that he had never intended to go to Paris, but in the condition of a private man, and without a train; that he desired to justify himself from those aspersions with which he knew his enemies had basely charged him in his absence; that he had reason to believe there was a design on foot to oppress the good Catholics, whose protector he had declared himself; and that he humbly besought his Majesty to give him some security against so just an apprehension. Bellievre, who well knew that the king would stick at no manner of verbal satisfaction, in case that would prove sufficient to break his journey, promised he should have all the security he could possibly desire. In effect, the king was fully resolved to have given him all manner of assurances; but, as ill luck would have it, this was not done at the same time it was determined; insomuch that, without more delay, he got on horseback, and, crossing the country out of the common roads, that he might avoid the messengers which he knew would be sent with new orders to him, entered Paris on Monday the 9th of May, with eight more in his company, just about noon, by the gate of St Denis.

It may be said in one sort of meaning, that this day was the most unfortunate, and yet the most glorious of all his life. For whether it were that the people, who were made to believe by the sixteen that the city was to be sacked, were advertised by them of his arrival, or that the report was spread at an instant, when he was first seen to approach the Fauxbourg, it is most certain that he had no sooner passed it, but the whole town running together from all parts of it, crowded up the street, and all the rest through which he passed; the windows were filled, and even the tiles of houses; the air echoed with a thousand sorts of acclamations, and the loud cries of Vive Guise! were repeated with far higher peals than had been formerly of Vive le Roy! for those loyal shouts were grown out of date, and the League in a manner had abolished them.

There was a kind of madness in this transport, or rather in this furious torrent of their joy, which was so extravagant, that it passed even to idolatry. They haled and tore each other to get nearest to this prince; those who were borne off by the throng to a farther distance, stretched out their arms to him, with their hands clasped over their heads; they thought themselves happy, who could crowd so near as to touch any part of his cloak or boots. Some there were amongst them who kneeled to him, when he was passing by; and others who, when they could not reach him with their hands, endeavoured to touch him with their chaplets, which they kissed when they had received that honour, as the custom is in adoration at the shrines of saints. A thousand praises were given him, and a thousand blessings. He was called aloud the pillar of the church, the prop of faith, the protector of the Catholics, the saviour of Paris; and from all the windows, there fell upon him a shower of flowers and of greens, with redoubled acclamations of Vive Guise!

To conclude, no imaginable demonstrations and testimonies of love, honour, and veneration, but were shewn to the height at this tumultuous entry, by that sudden overflow of joy; and that wonderful dilatation of hearts and affections, which was to him a sort of triumph, more pleasing than any of the Cæsars. Accordingly he enjoyed the full gust of it, with all the satisfaction of extreme pleasure; passing on horseback very leisurely through that infinite press of people, bare-headed, beholding them with a smiling countenance, and with that courteous and engaging air, which was so natural to him; saluting on the right and on the left, bowing to those below in the streets, and to those above in the windows, not neglecting the very meanest, holding out his hand to the nearest, and casting his obliging glances on the more remote, he passed in this manner to the queen-mother’s palace, near St Eustache, where he alighted, and from thence to the Louvre, following her on foot, who had taken her chair to conduct him to the king, and was witness to those incredible transports of public joy, and acclamations of that innumerable herd of people, which beat her ears incessantly with the name of Guise, bellowed from more than an hundred thousand mouths.

In the mean time, the king, who had heard, with infinite rage, of this sudden arrival of the duke, was shut up in his closet, where he was in consultation on that prince’s life or death; who had been so blindly rash, as to precipitate himself, in his single person, into inevitable danger, from whence only his good fortune (of which he was not master) could deliver him. Some there were, and amongst others the Abbot d’Elbene, and Colonel Alphonso d’Ornano, with the most resolute of those Gascons, whom the Duke of Espernon had placed amongst the five-and-forty, to be always near the king’s person, who counselled that irresolute and wavering prince to dispatch him on the spot, having so fair a pretence, and the means so ready in his hand, to punish a rebellious subject; who, in opposition to his express orders, had audaciously presumed to come to Paris, as it were on purpose to let him know, that he was absolute master of it. The rest more moderate, and amongst them the Chancellor de Chiverny, and the Sieurs de Bellievre, de la Guiche, and de Villequier, governor of Paris, dissuaded him from that attempt, laying before him, besides the dangerous consequences which this terrible action might produce in such a juncture, that it always concerned him, both for his reputation, and for the maintenance of the most inviolable laws of natural equity, before he passed to extremities, to hear a man who came to put himself so freely into the hands of his king, and to be answerable for all that was alleged against him.

While these things were in debating, and the king in suspense betwixt his anger and his fear, uncertain which way to resolve, the duke (who had passed through the French guards commanded by Grillon, who loved him not, and through the Swissers, which stood ranked on both sides of the great stair-case, and afterwards had traversed the hall and the antichamber filled with people, who made no very ceremonious returns to his salutations and civilities) entered into the presence chamber, disguising a sudden fright which seized him, intrepid as he was, with the best face he could set upon the matter, which yet he could not act so well, but that it was easy to discern through that affectation of bravery, that he could have been well contented to have been in some other place, and not to have engaged himself so far, especially when a certain princess whispered him in the ear to have a care of himself, and that his life and death were under consideration in the closet. Yet immediately after, as his courage was usually raised at the sight of the greatest dangers, he resumed his wonted boldness, and was not able to hinder himself, perhaps by a sudden motion purely natural, and arising from the magnanimity of his heart, from laying his hand on the pommel of his sword, without his own perceiving it, and from stepping hastily two or three paces forward, with a haughty walk, as if he were putting himself into a posture of selling his life as dear as he was able to his enemies. But the king at that instant coming out of the closet with Bellievre, he changed posture suddenly, made a low reverence, and threw himself almost at his feet; protesting to him, that not believing his presence ought to be displeasing to him, he was come to bring him his head, and fully to justify his carriage against the calumnies of his enemies; and withal to assure his majesty, that he had not a more faithful servant than himself. But the king demanding, in a grave and serious tone of voice, who had bid him come, and if he had not received an express prohibition from him? the business was then brought to a scanning, and some little contest there was betwixt him and Bellievre, the last maintaining that he had delivered him the king’s commands, and the former, instead of answer, asking him if he had not engaged himself to return, with all possible speed, to Soissons, which he had not done, and protesting that he had never received those letters, which Bellievre justified he had written to him.

Then the queen, who, though she seemed to be in much affliction for the duke’s arrival, yet held a private correspondence with him, broke off the discourse, and, taking aside the king her son, she managed his mind so dexterously, that, whether she made him apprehend a general revolt of Paris, which she had seen so openly to own the Duke of Guise, or whether he himself were mollified by the submissive humble way of speaking which that prince had used, he contented himself for that time to tell him, that his innocence, which he was so desirous to prove, would be more manifest if his presence should cause no stirs in Paris; and thereupon he sate down to table, remitting till the afternoon what he had farther to say to him, and appointing the queen’s garden for the place. Then the duke bowing very low, retired, without being accompanied by any of the king’s servants, but as well attended by all the town, to the Hotel de Guise, as he had been from the gate of St Denis to the Louvre.

When he had made reflection on the danger into which he had so rashly thrown himself, and which now appeared more formidable, by considering it with cooler thoughts, than he could possibly in that agitation of spirits, and that anxiety wherein he was in spite of all his courage, when he found himself so far engaged; he resolved he would never hazard his life in that sort again, and took such order concerning it, that from the next day, and so onward, he had in his palace four hundred gentlemen, who assembling there from all parts of Paris, according to his orders, never afterwards abandoned him. Neither would he adventure to go that afternoon to the queen’s garden, but well accompanied by the bravest of his officers, amongst whom Captain St Paul, seeing that after his master was entered, he who kept the door was going to shut it on him, thrust him back roughly, and entered by force, followed by his companions, protesting and swearing, that if the game was there to be played, he was resolved to have his stake in it.

So that if the king had designed to have him murdered in that garden, which I believe not, though some have written it, it is easy to see that the presence of those brave men, who were fully resolved to defend their master, that of the queen, who made the third in this interview, the daring countenance of the duke, who from time to time was casting his eyes towards his sword, and to sum up all, that infinite multitude of Parisians which encompassed the queen’s palace, and many of which were got upon the walls, had hindered the execution of such a purpose.

For that which passed betwixt them at this conference, since I find nothing of it in the most exact memoirs of those times, I shall not offer to relate it, as Davila has done by a certain poetical licence which he and some other historians have used, to make men think and speak without their leave, whatever they please to put into their thoughts and mouths. What I can deliver for undoubted truth is this, that there was nothing concluded at this interview; and that the king, who had resolved beforehand to chastise the most seditious of the sixteen, and to make himself master of Paris, after a long consultation taken by night, with those in whom he most confided, continued firm to the same resolution, and set up his rest to stand by it, in spite of the arrival of the duke.

With this determination, he sent the next morning for the prevost of the merchants, and the sheriffs, and commanded them, in company of the lords De Villequier and Francis d’O. to make an exact search for all those strangers who were come to Paris some few days since, without any urgent occasion to call them thither, and to cause them forthwith to depart the town, without respect of persons. This was a manifest endeavour to weaken the Duke of Guise; to reduce him to those seven or eight gentlemen, who attended him into Paris; and consequently to give him occasion of believing, that after they had rid themselves of the others, they would attack him.

Perhaps the design was so laid, as some have conjectured with probability enough; but if this were really their intention, there are others, who believe that, according to the advice which was given by the abbot of Elbene, they had done more wisely to have begun with the Duke of Guise, when they had him single, and at their mercy, coopt up in the Louvre: and they ground this opinion on the meaning of that abbot’s words, who quoted the scripture to this purpose, “It is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the flock shall be scattered.” However it was intended, the Parisians immediately took the alarm, perceiving clearly that those strangers who were to be sent out of the city, were no others but those very men whom the Duke of Guise had conveyed into the town for their defence, and for his own. Insomuch that when they went about to execute that order, and to search their houses, every one opposed them; and the citizens set themselves with so much obstinacy to conceal their lodgers, that the deputies and commissaries, fearing a general insurrection through all the quarters, durst proceed no farther. And in the mean time, the Duke of Guise, who was the soul that actuated this great body, forbore not going to the Louvre, but well accompanied; and the very evening before the barricades he presented the napkin to the king.

But, as after the flashes of the lightning, and the rattling of the thunder, comes a furious tempest and lays waste the field; so after those mutual fears and jealousies, those nightly meetings, those murmurs and menaces, and those preparations which were made on both sides with so much tumult, either for assaulting or for defence, they came to the fatal day of the barricadoes, which was followed by that horrible deluge of misfortunes, with which all France was overflowed.

For at last the king, more incensed than ever by the resistance which was made to his orders, and fully resolved to make himself be obeyed one way or other, caused the French guards to enter Paris, with some other companies, and the Swissers, which in all made up six thousand men: this was done on Thursday the twelfth of May, just at day break; he being present himself to receive them on horseback, at the gate of Saint Honoré. And after having given out his orders to their officers, to post them according to his direction, he enjoined them above all things, to be no ways injurious to the citizens, but only to repress the insolence of such, who should go about to hinder the search for strangers: after which himself retiring to the Louvre, the marshals d’Aumont and Biron, who were at the head of the troops, went to post them with beat of drum, in the church-yard of St Innocent, and the adjoining places, on the Pont Notre Dame, on that of St Michael, on the Pont Au Change, at the town-house, at the Greve, and at the avenues of the place Maubert.

It appeared immediately by what followed, that this was in effect to give the signal of a mutiny and general revolt to all Paris. For a rumour being spread, that the king had determined to put to death a great number of the principal of the League, and a list being also forged of their names who were to be executed, and shewn openly to the people, the citizens, according to the order of their captains and overseers of their wards, were in a readiness to put themselves into a posture of defence, at the least motion that was made. For which reason, so soon as they heard the drums and fifes, and that they beheld the Swissers and the guards advancing through the street of Saint Honoré, they doubted not but the report, which was noised about by the sixteen, was true; and farther believed, (as they had been also assured,) that the town would be sacked and exposed to pillage. The alarm therefore was given round the city: they began by shutting up their shops, and the church doors on that side of the town: they rang the tocsin (or alarm, bell) first in one parish, and then in another; and immediately afterwards through all Paris, as if the whole city had been on fire.

Then the citizens came out in arms, under the overseers of their wards, and their captains, and other officers of the Duke of Guise, who had mingled themselves amongst them, to encourage and to marshal them. The Count of Brissac, who had placed himself at the quarter of the university towards the place Maubert, (where Crucè, one of the most hot-headed of the sixteen, caused the alarm to be sounded,) being himself encompassed with a multitude of students, a rabble of porters, watermen, and handicraftsmen, all armed, who waited only for the signal to assault the Swissers, was the first who gave orders to chain the streets, to unpave them, and erect the barricades, with great logs of timber, and barrels filled with earth and dung, at the avenues of the palace: and this word of barricades passing in a moment from mouth to mouth, from the university into the city, and from the city into the town, the same was done every where, and that with such exceeding haste, that before noon, these barricades, which were continued from street to street, at the distance of thirty paces from each other, well flanked and manned with musqueteers, were advanced within fifty paces of the Louvre; insomuch that the king’s soldiers found themselves so encompassed on every side, that they could neither march forward nor retreat, nor make the least motion, without exposing themselves unprofitably to the inevitable danger of the musquet shot, (which the citizens could fire upon them without missing, from behind their barricades,) or of being beaten down with a tempest of stones, which came pouring upon their heads from every window.

The marshals d’Aumont and Biron, and Villequier the governor of Paris, gained little by crying out to the citizens, that they intended them no harm, for they were too much enraged to give them the hearing; and were possessed with a belief of what Brissac, Bois Dauphin, and the other creatures of the Duke of Guise, had told them; who roared out, on purpose to envenom them against the royalists, that those troops which were entered into Paris were sent for to no other end, than to make a general massacre of all good Catholics, who were members of the Holy Union, and to give up to the soldiers, their houses, their money, and their wives. Upon this the musquet shot, and the stones from above, were redoubled on those miserable men, and more especially upon the Swissers, to whom the citizens were most inexorable.

More than threescore were either slain, or dangerously hurt, as well in St Innocent’s church-yard, as below on the place Maubert, without giving quarter, till Brissac (who with his sword in his hand was continually pushing forward the barricades) arriving there, and beholding those poor strangers, who cried out for mercy, with clasped hands, and both knees on the ground, and sometimes making the sign of the cross, in testimony of their being Catholics, stopped the fury of the citizens, and commanding them to cry out vive Guise! which they did as loud as they could for safe-guard of their lives, he satisfied himself with leading them disarmed and prisoners into the Boucherie of the new market, by the bridge of St Michael, which he had already mastered.

It cannot be denied, but that this count was he, amongst all the Leaguers, who acted with the most ardour against the royalists on that fatal day; as being infinitely exasperated, because the king had refused him the admiralty, and refused it in a manner so disobliging, as to say openly he was a man that was good for nothing either by sea or land, accusing him at the same time, that he had not done his duty in the battle of the Azores, where the navy of Philippo Strozzi was defeated by the marquis of Santa-Cruz, he burned inwardly with desire of revenge. And when he saw the soldiers inclosed on all sides, by the barricades, which were of his raising, and the Swissers at his mercy, it is reported, that he cried out, as insulting on the king, with a bitter scoff, and magnifying himself at the same time; “At least the king shall understand to day, that I have found my element; and though I am good for nothing, either at sea or land, yet I am some body in the streets.”

In this manner it was, that the people, making use of their advantage, still pushed their fortune more and more and seemed to be just upon the point of investing the Louvre; while the Duke of Guise, by whose secret orders all things were regularly managed amidst that horrible confusion, was walking almost unaccompanied in his own house, and coldly answering the queen, and those who came one on the neck of another, with messages to him from the king, intreating him to appease the tumult, that he was not master of those wild beasts which had escaped the toils; and that they were in the wrong to provoke them as they had done.

But at last, when he perceived that all things were absolutely at his command, he went himself from barricade to barricade, with only a riding switch in his hand, forbidding the people who paid a blind obedience to him, from proceeding any farther; and desiring them to keep themselves only on the defensive. He spoke also very civilly to the French guards, who at that time were wholly in his power, to be disposed of as he thought good, for life or death. Only he complained to their officers, of the violent counsels which his enemies had given the king to oppress his innocence, and that of so many good Catholics, who had united themselves on no other consideration than the defence and support of the ancient religion. After which, he gave orders to captain St Paul, to reconduct those soldiers to the Louvre; but their arms were first laid down, and their heads bare, in the posture of vanquished men, that he might give that satisfaction to the Parisians, who beheld the spectacle with joy, as the most pleasing effect of their present victory. He also caused the Swissers to be returned in the same manner by Brissac, and gave the king to understand, that, provided the Catholic religion were secured and maintained in France, in the condition it ought to be, and that himself and his friends were put in safety from the attempts of their enemies, they would pay him all manner of duty and service, which is owing from good subjects to their lord and sovereign.

This, in my opinion, makes it evident, that the duke had never any intention to seize the person of the king, and to inclose him in a monastery, as that Nicholas Poulain, who gave in so many false informations, and many writers, as well of the one religion as of the other, have endeavoured to make the world believe. For if that had been his purpose, what could have hindered him from causing the Louvre to be invested; as he might easily have done the same day, by carrying on the barricades close to it, while the tumult was at the height; and for what reason did he return the French guards and Swissers to the king, if his intention had been to have attacked him in the Louvre? This was not his business, nor his present aim, but to defend and protect his Leaguers with a high hand, and to avail himself of so favourable an opportunity, to obtain the thing which he demanded; and which, doubtless, had put him into a condition of mounting the throne after the king’s decease, and becoming absolute master of all affairs even during his life.

In effect, the queen having undertaken to make the reconcilement, as believing that thereby she might re-enter into the management of business, from which the favourites had removed her, and having asked him what were his pretensions, he proposed such extravagant terms, and with so much haughtiness and resolvedness, speaking like a conqueror, who took upon him to dispose, at his pleasure, of the vanquished, that, as dexterous as she was in the art of managing men’s minds, from the very beginning of the conference she despaired of her success. For, enhancing upon the articles of Nancy, he demanded, that, for the security of the Catholic religion in this realm, the king of Navarre, and all the princes of the house of Bourbon, who had followed him in these last wars, should be declared to have forfeited for ever their right of succeeding to the crown: That the duke of Espernon, La Valeite his brother, Francis d’O., the marshals of Retz and of Biron, colonel Alphonso d’Ornano, and all others who, like them, were favourers of the Huguenots, or were found to have held any correspondence with them, should be deprived of their governments and offices, and banished from the court, without hope of ever being restored again: That the spoils of all these should be given to the princes of his house, and to those lords who had engaged with him, of whom he made a long list: That the king should cashier his guard of five-and-forty, as a thing unknown in the time of his predecessors; protesting that otherwise he could place no manner of confidence in him, nor ever dare to approach his person: That it would please his majesty to declare him his lieutenant-general through all his estates, with the same authority which the late Duke of Guise his father had, under the reign of Francis the Second; by virtue of which he hoped to give him so good an account of Huguenots, that in a little time there should remain no other but the Catholic religion in all his kingdom. To conclude, that there should be called immediately an assembly of the three estates, to sit at Paris, where all this should be confirmed, and to hinder for the future, that the minions, who would dispose of all things at their pleasure, should not abuse their favour; that there should be established an unchangeable form of government, which it should not be in the power of the king to alter.

It is most evident, that demands so unreasonable, so arrogant, and so offensive, tended to put the government, and the power of it, into the duke’s hands, who, being master of the armies, the offices, and the governments of the most principal provinces, in his own person, by his relations, his creatures, and the estates, where he doubted not of carrying all before him, especially at Paris, would be the absolute disposer of affairs; insomuch that there would be nothing wanting to him but the crown itself, to which it is very probable that at this time he pretended, in case he should survive the king, to the exclusion of the Bourbons, whom he would have declared incapable of succeeding to it.

For which reason, the queen seeing that he would recede from no part of these articles, and beginning to fear that he would go farther than she desired, counselled the king to get out of Paris with all speed, while it was yet in his power so to do. And though some of his chief officers, as amongst others the chancellor de Chiverny, and the Sieurs of Villeroy and Villequier, who were of opinion that more would be gained by the negotiation, and who foresaw that the Huguenots and the Duke of Espernon, whom they had no great cause to love, would make their advantage of this retreat so unworthy of a king, endeavoured to dissuade him from it, yet a thousand false advertisements, which came every moment, that they were going to invest the Louvre, and his accustomed fear, together with the diffidence he had of the Duke of Guise, whom he considered at that time as his greatest enemy, caused him at the last to resolve on his departure.

Accordingly, about noon the next day, while the queen-mother went to the duke with propositions only to amuse him, the king making shew to take a turn or two in the Thuilleries, put on boots in the stables, and getting on horseback, attended by fifteen or sixteen gentlemen, and by ten or twelve lacqueys, having caused notice to be given to his guards to follow him, went out by the Pont Neuf, riding always on full gallop, for fear of being pursued by the Parisians, till, having gained the ascent above Challiot, he stopt his horse to look back on Paris. It is said, that then reproaching that great city, which he had always honoured, and enriched by his royal presence, and upbraiding its ingratitude, he swore he would not return into it but through a breach, and that he would lay it so low, that it should never more be in a condition of lifting up itself against the king. After this he went to lodge that night at Trappes, and the next morning arrived at Chartres; where his officers, those of his council, and the courtiers, came up to him, one after another, in great disorder; some on foot, others on horseback without boots, several on their mules, and in their robes, every man making his escape as he was best able, and in a great hurry, for fear of being stopped; in short, all of them in a condition not unlike the servants of David, at his departure from Jerusalem, travelling in a miserable equipage after their distressed master, when he fled before the rebel Absalom.

The Duke of Guise, who, on the one side, had been unwilling to push things to an extremity, to the end he might make his treaty with the king, and that it might not be said he was not at liberty; and on the other side, not believing that he would have gone away in that manner, as if he fled from his subjects, who, stopping short of the Louvre by fifty paces, seemed unwilling to pursue their advantage any farther, was much surprised at this retreat, which broke the measures he had taken; but as he was endued with an admirable presence of mind, and that he could at a moment’s warning accommodate his resolutions to any accident, how unexpected or troublesome soever, he immediately applied himself to put Paris in a condition of fearing nothing, to quiet all things there, and restore them to their former tranquillity, and withal to give notice to the whole kingdom how matters had passed at the barricades, as much to his own advantage as possibly he could.

To this effect he possessed himself of the strongest places in the city, of the Temple, of the Palace, of the town-house, of the two Chastelets, of the gates where he set guards, of the arsenal, and of the Bastille, which was surrendered to him too easily by the governor Testu; the government of which he gave to Bussy Le Clerc, the most audacious of the sixteen. He obliged the magistrates to proceed in the courts of judicature as formerly; he made a new provost of merchants, and sheriffs, a lieutenant civil, colonels, and captains of the several wards, all devoted to the League, in the room of those whom he suspected; he retook, without much trouble, all the places both above and below on the river, that the passages for provisions might be free; he wrote at last to the king, to the towns, and to his particular friends, and drew up manifests (or declarations) in a style, which had nothing in it but what was great and generous; while he endeavoured to justify his proceedings, and at the same time to preserve the respect which was owing to the king, protesting always that he was most ready to pay him an entire obedience, and that he proposed nothing to himself, but that provision should be made for the safety of religion, and of good Catholics, which were designed to be oppressed through the pernicious counsels of such as held intelligence with heretics, and projected nothing but the ruin of religion and the state.

These letters, together with those which the Parisians wrote to the other towns, exhorting all men to combine with them for their common preservation in the Catholic faith, and those of the king, which on the contrary were written in too soft a style, and where there appeared more of fear and of excuse than of resentment and just complaint for so sacrilegious an attempt, had this effect, that the greatest part of the people, far from being scandalized at the barricades, approved them, loudly praising the conduct of the Duke of Guise, whom they believed to be full of zeal for the Catholic faith, for the good of the kingdom, and for the service of the king. And as he desired nothing so much as to confirm them in that opinion, he was willing that the body of the city should send their deputies to the king, humbly to beseech his majesty, that he would forget what was passed, and return to his good town of Paris, where his most loyal subjects were ready to give him all the highest demonstrations of their obedience and devotion to his service.

He permitted that even processions should be made in the habit of penitents, to desire of God, that he would please to mollify the king’s heart; and this was performed with so much ardour, that there was one which went from Paris as far as Chartres, in a most extraordinary equipage, under the conduct of the famous friar Ange. This honest father was Henry de Joyeuse, Count of Bouchage, and brother to the late duke. He had given up himself to be a capuchin about a year before this time; having such strong impressions made upon him, by the death and good example of his wife, Catharine de Nogaret, sister to the Duke of Espernon, that he was inflamed with a desire of repentance; insomuch, that neither the tears of his brother, nor the intreaties and favours of the king, who loved him exceedingly, nor the ardent solicitations of all the court, were able to remove him from the resolution he had taken of leading so austere a life. This noble friar, having put a crown of thorns upon his head, and carrying an overgrown cross upon his shoulders, followed by his fraternity, and by a great number of penitents, and others who represented in their habits the several persons of the Passion, led on that procession, singing psalms and litanies. The march of these penitents was so well managed, that they entered the great church of Chartres, just as the king was there at vespers. As they entered, they began to sing the Miserere, in a very doleful tone; and at the same time, two swinging friars, armed with disciplines, laid lustily on poor friar Ange, whose back was naked. The application was not hard to make, nor very advantageous to the Parisians; for the charitable creature seemed evidently to desire the king, that he would please to pardon them, as Jesus Christ was willing to forgive the Jews for those horrible outrages which they had committed against him.

A spectacle so surprising produced different effects in the minds of the standers by; according to the variety of their tempers, some of them were melted into compassion, others were moved to laughter, and some even to indignation; and more than all the rest, the Marshal de Biron, who, having no manner of relish for this sort of devotion, and fearing, besides, that some dangerous Leaguers might have crowded in amongst them, with intention to preach the people into a mutiny, counselled the king to clap them up in prison every mother’s son. But that good prince, who, notwithstanding all his faults, had a stock of piety at the bottom, and much respect for all things that related to religion, rejected wholly this advice. He listened to them much more favourably than he had heard all the harangues of the former deputies; and promised to grant them the pardon they desired for the town, which he had so much favoured, on condition they would return to their obedience. And truly, it is exceeding probable, that he had so done from that very time, if they had not afterwards given him fresh provocations, by proposing the terms on which they insisted for the peace, which they desired.

For the Duke of Guise, to whom all these fair appearances were very serviceable, and could be no ways prejudicial, and who always pursued his designs in a direct line, knew so well to manage the disposition of the queen-mother, who had seemed at first to be much startled at his demands, that he recalled her with much dexterity into his interests, by working on those two passions which were rooted in her soul. She desired to raise to the throne, after the death of the king her son, her grandson Henry de Lorrain, Marquis du Pont; and believed that the Duke of Guise would contribute to it all that was in his power. But as cunning as she was, she saw not into the bottom of that prince, who fed her only with vain hopes of that succession for another, to which he personally aspired. She infinitely hated the Duke of Espernon; and believing he was the man, who, having possessed himself of the king’s soul, had rendered her suspected to him, longed to turn him out of court; promising herself, by that means, to be re-established in the management of affairs, from which the favourites had removed her. And the Duke of Guise, who had as little kindness as herself for the Duke of Espernon, concurred in the same design with at least as much earnestness, but for a much different end, for he desired to be absolute himself. In this manner, this subtle prince, always dissembling, and artificially hiding the true motives by which he acted, drew the queen at last to consent to all that he desired; and, above all, to give her allowance, that a request should be presented to the king, in the name of the cardinals, the princes, the peers of France, the lords, the deputies of Paris, and the other towns, and of all the Catholics united for the defence of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion.

This request, which, in the manner of its expressions, was couched in most respectful terms, contained, notwithstanding, in the bottom of it, certain propositions, at least as hard as the Articles of Nancy; and even as those, which, not long before, were proposed to the queen by the Duke of Guise. For after a protestation in the beginning of it, that in whatsoever had passed till that present time, there had been nothing done, but by a pure zeal for God’s honour, and for the preservation of his church, they demand of the king, that he would make war with the Huguenots, and that he would conclude no peace till all heresies were rooted out: That it would please him to use the service of the Duke of Guise, in so just and holy an undertaking: That he would drive out of the court, and despoil of all their offices, all those who held a secret correspondence with the Huguenots, and principally the Duke of Espernon, and his brother La Valette; against whom there are recited, in that request, all imaginable crimes that could be thought most capable of rendering them odious and insupportable to the whole kingdom: That he would deliver the nation from the just apprehensions it had, of falling one day under the power and dominion of heretics: And (that there might be given to the city of Paris a full assurance henceforth to enjoy a perfect tranquillity without fear of oppression,) he would not only please to confirm the new provosts and sheriffs, but that also the said city may have full and entire liberty for the future, to make choice of such as shall succeed in those places, and in those of city colonels and captains.

This request was extremely displeasing to the king, who saw but too clearly, that their intention was to give the law to him hereafter whom they had first so haughtily affronted. He therefore caused it to be examined in his council, where there was but small agreement, because the members of it were divided in their interests. There were but two methods to be taken on that subject; either for the king to join with the League against the Huguenots, as the request demanded, or to make war against the League with all his power, in conjunction with the Huguenots; for unless he espoused one of these interests, it was impossible for him to succeed. Those of the council who loved not the Duke of Espernon, who were many, and who feared that the acting of the king’s forces, in combination with the Huguenots, would prove of great prejudice to his reputation, and of greater to religion, were for the former proposition and council, that all differences should be accommodated in the best manner they could with the Duke of Guise,—which was also the desire of the queen-mother; but the rest, who, for the most part, consisted of those persons whose disgrace and banishment was demanded in the request, insisted strongly on the second, and gave their voice for a war to be made against the duke to the uttermost; fortifying their opinion by the number of forces which the king might raise promiscuously, both from Catholics and Protestants, because this was not a war of religion, but that the sovereign only armed himself to quell and chastise his rebellious subjects.

It would be a matter of much difficulty to tell precisely, what was the true resolution which the king took betwixt the extremes of these different counsels; but it may be told for a certain truth, that having a long time deliberated, and that much more in his own breast than with his council, he seemed at length, all on the sudden, to pitch upon the first; whether it were, that being, as he was, a good Catholic, and hating the Huguenots, he could not yet come to a resolution of uniting himself to them; or were it, that he thought not himself at that time strong enough, even with the king of Navarre’s assistance, to destroy the League, which was grown more powerful than ever since the barricades, and headed by a man so able, so bold, and so successful, as the Duke of Guise; or lastly, as many have believed, that being strongly persuaded he should never be in safety, nor be master in his kingdom, while that prince, whom he hated mortally, was living, he took up, from that very moment, a resolution within himself to dispatch him out of the world; and, that he might draw him into the net which he was spreading for him, was willing to grant in a manner whatsoever he desired, as if it were done in contemplation of a peace.

Whatsoever were his true motive, (for I desire not that random guesses should be taken for truths,) it is certain, that though the king was highly exasperated against the League, yet he answered their request with much gentleness and moderation, assuring them that he would assemble the three estates at Blois, in the month of September, there to advise of the means to give them satisfaction, and to deliver them from the jealousy they had of falling one day under the dominion of a Huguenot prince; that for what related to the Duke of Espernon, he would do them justice, like an equitable king, and would make it manifest that he preferred the public welfare before the consideration of any private person.

Accordingly, in the first place, that duke was despoiled of his government of Normandy, commanded to depart from court, and retire himself to Angouleme. Not long time afterwards, the king concluded a treaty with the lords of the League, to whom, besides the places which they had already in possession, the towns of Montreuil, Orleans, and Bourges, were given for six years. A publication of the Council of Trent was promised, with provision against that part of it which was contrary to the liberties of the Gallican church. There was given to the Duke of Guise, instead of the title of constable, that of head of the French Gendarmerie, which signifies the same thing. Two armies were promised to be raised against the Huguenots; one in Dauphine, under the command of the Duke of Mayenne; and the other in Saintonge and Poitou, which should be commanded by a general of the king’s own choice: For the new constable, under another name, would not be so far from court, lest his absence from thence might be of ill consequence to his party. In conclusion, the king caused to be published the famous edict of July, which he commanded to be called the Edict of the Reunion, where he did more in favour of the League, than the League itself desired from him.

For, after having declared in that edict, that he would have all his subjects united to himself; that, in like manner as their souls are redeemed with the same price, by the blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, so also they and their posterity should be one body with him,—he swears, that he will employ all his forces, without sparing his proper life, to exterminate from his realm all heresies condemned by councils, and principally by that of Trent, without ever making any peace or truce with heretics, or any edict in their favour. He wills, that all princes, lords, gentlemen, and inhabitants of towns, and, generally, all his subjects, as well ecclesiastical as secular, should take the same oath: That farther, they should swear and promise, for the time present, and for ever, after it shall have pleased God to dispose of his life, without having given him issue male, not to receive for king, any prince whatsoever who shall be a heretic, or a promoter of heresy. He declares rebels, and guilty of high treason, and to have forfeited all privileges which have formerly been granted to them, all persons and all towns which shall refuse to take this oath, and sign this union. He promises never to bestow any military employment, but on such as shall make a signal profession of the Roman Catholic religion; and prohibits, in express terms, that any man whosoever shall be admitted to the exercise of any office of judicature, or any employment belonging to the treasury, whose profession of the Roman Catholic religion appears not under the attestation of the bishop, or his substitutes, or at least of the curates or their vicars, together with the deposition of ten witnesses, all qualified and unsuspected persons. He also swears to hold for his good and loyal subjects, and to protect and defend, as well those who have always followed the League, as those others who have formerly united and associated themselves against the heretics; and that at this present he unites them to himself, to the end they may all act together in order to one common end: And that he holds for null, and as never done, that which seems to have been done against him, as well in the town of Paris as elsewhere; particularly since the twelfth of May to the day of the publication of this edict; without future molestation, or bringing into trouble any person whomsoever, for any thing relating to the premises. But he also wills, that all his subjects, of what quality soever, swear, that they will and do renounce all leagues and confederations, as well without as within the realm, which are contrary to this union, on pain of being punished as infringers of their oath, and guilty of high treason.

This edict was verified in parliament the one-and-twentieth of July, and published immediately after; being received with extraordinary transports of joy by the Leaguers, who believed, that by it they had obtained a clear victory against the king, whom they beheld entirely subjected to the will and good pleasure of their heads. He himself also, as it is reported, with profound dissimulation, endeavoured all he was able to confirm them in that opinion, by making public demonstrations of his joy and satisfaction for the peace. He was very solicitous to cause his edict to be signed by all the princes and lords who were then at court: He proclaimed the convention of the three estates at Blois, which was to be at the beginning of October following: He procured the letters patent for the Duke of Guise’s commission of intendant-general over all his armies, with the same power which is annexed to that of constable, to be verified in parliament: He received him at Chartres, with such particular tokens of esteem, affection, and trust, that it was believed the tender friendship which was betwixt them, when the king was then but Duke of Anjou, was once more renewed: He favoured all his creatures, on whom he bestowed considerable employments; and, at last, to satisfy him in that point which of all others was most nice, he caused the cardinal of Bourbon to be solemnly declared the next of blood to him, by allowing him all the privileges and prerogatives which belong to the heir presumptive of the crown. After all, as it is almost impossible that a violent passion in the soul, what care soever be taken to conceal it, should not discover itself by its consequences, and by some indications which break out even from the closest men; so this prince, as great a master as he was in the art of dissimulation, could not act his part so well, but that he gave occasion to those who were more clear-sighted, to believe, or at leastwise to suspect, that all which at that time was done by him, to testify his joy, was only to cover his indignation and his hatred, which urged him incessantly to revenge himself on those from whom he had received such unworthy usage.

For, being departed from Chartres, and going thence to Rouen, where he made the edict of reunion, he would never be persuaded to go to Paris at his return, what instance soever the deputies of the parliament, and those of the town, could make to him; always alleging faint excuses, which he grounded only on the preparations which he was to make in order to his meeting the estates at Blois. He still retained near his person his guard of the five-and-forty, which the Duke of Guise had requested him to dismiss. He gave the command of the army designed for Poitou to the Duke of Nevers, whom the Duke of Guise, his brother-in-law, could never endure since his renunciation of the League. He admitted none to his private friendship but the Marshal d’Aumont, the Lord Nicholas d’Angennes de Rambouillet, Colonel Alphonso d’Ornano, and some few others, who were no friends to the Duke of Guise.

In fine, that which made the greatest noise, was, that the Chancellor de Chiverny, the Presidents Bellievre and Brulart, and the Sieurs de Villeroy and Pinart, (the two secretaries of state, who had given him advice to accommodate matters with the Duke of Guise,) were absolutely disgraced. The queen-mother, who had managed that accommodation, had little or no part in business, and was wholly excluded from the cabinet council. The seals were given to Francis de Monthelon, a famous advocate, a man of rare integrity, and of inviolable fidelity to the king’s service, who raised him to that high employment, without his own seeking, at the recommendation of the Duke of Nevers, who was known to be on very ill terms with the Duke of Guise.

All this was sufficient, without doubt, to alarm that prince, and give him caution to look about him, or at least to suspect the king’s intentions towards him; but the flourishing condition wherein he was placed, the applauses which were given him both by the people and by the court itself, which admired both his conduct and his perpetual felicity, and regarded him as arbitrator and master of affairs, and the certain opinion which he had, that all things would go for him in the estates, had so far blinded him, that he believed it was not in the power of fortune to do him any prejudice, not so much as to shake him, or to give the smallest stop to the full career of his success. Thus he entered as it were in triumph into Blois at the end of September; and the king came thither about the same time, to order the preparations for the estates. He commanded, that all future proceedings should be as it were sanctified by two solemn and conspicuous acts of piety; which were a most devout and magnificent procession made on the first Sunday of October, the second day of that month, and by a general communion, taken by all the deputies on the Sunday following, the ninth of the same month; on which the king, in token of a perfect reconcilement, received, with the Duke of Guise, the precious body of Jesus Christ from the hands of the Cardinal de Bourbon, in the church of Saint Saviour. After which, all those who were expected being at length arrived, the assembly of the states was opened on Sunday the sixteenth of that month, in the great hall of the castle of Blois.

As it is not my business to say any thing of this assembly, which relates not precisely to the history of the League, I shall not trouble myself with every particular which passed in it. I shall only say, that the king, who was naturally eloquent, opened the assembly with an excellent oration; wherein, after he had, in a most majestic manner, and with most pathetic words, exhorted the deputies to their duty, he either could not, or would not, conceal from them, that he had not so far forgotten the past actions, but that he had taken up a firm resolution, to inflict an exemplary punishment on such who should persist in acting against his authority, and continue to be still possessed with that spirit of leaguing and caballing, which was upon the point of ruining the state; neither would he henceforth spare those who should have any other union than that which the members ought to have with their head, and subjects with their sovereign.

This touched so sensibly the Leaguers of that assembly, and principally their head, who looked on this speech as particularly addressed to himself, that they proceeded even to threatening, that they would break off the estates by their departure, if the king, who had commanded his speech to be printed, would not give order to suppress it, or at least correct that passage. There are some who affirm, that, after a rough dispute concerning it, the king permitted at last that something should be altered, and the harshness of his expressions a little mollified; but there are others, and even of their number, who heard it spoken, who assure us, that it came out in public in the same terms it was pronounced. However it were, it is certain, that this complaint of theirs much exasperated the king’s mind, who saw clearly by this proceeding, that the League, notwithstanding its reunion with him, had still a separate interest of its own, and extremely opposite to his.

I will adventure to say farther, that he was then fully persuaded of it, when he perceived, that the Duke of Guise, who was the true head of it, was evidently more powerful than himself in those estates. For besides, that the greatest part of the deputies had been elected by the factious intrigues of his dependants in the provinces, those who were chosen to preside over the several orders, that is to say, the Cardinals of Bourbon and of Guise for the clergy; the Count of Brissac and the Baron of Magnac for the nobility; and the provost of merchants, La Chapelle Martau, for the third order, were all of them entirely at the duke’s devotion.

Insomuch, that at the second session, after the edict of reunion had been solemnly confirmed, sworn to again, and passed into a fundamental law of the state, when the petitions of the three orders were read, he saw, that, under pretence of desiring to reform some abuses which were crept into the state, they were filled with an infinite number of propositions, which tended to the manifest diminution, or rather the annihilation, of the royal authority; and to reduce the government to that pass, that there should remain to the king no more than the empty name and vain appearance of a sovereign monarch; and that all the real and essential part of sovereignty should be in the League, which absolutely depended on the Duke of Guise.

Yet, farther, they were not satisfied barely to propose these things; leaving to the king, according to the ancient laws and constitution of the monarchy, the power of either passing or refusing them, according to his pleasure, after they had been well examined in his council; but they pretended, that after they had been received by the consent of the three orders, they should become laws of course, and be inviolable, so that the king should not have the power either to change or abrogate them in his council. Then they would have an abatement of taxes and imposts; but so much out of measure, that they took away from the king the means of making that war in which themselves had engaged him. They would also, that the council of Trent should be received absolutely, and without modification. And the famous attorney-general Jaques de Faye d’Espesses, who, in a great assembly held on that occasion, maintained, with strength of reason, against some decrees of that council, the prerogatives of the king (or regalia,) and the immunities of the Gallican church, was so ill treated there, though he had baffled the archbishop of Lyons, who undertook to destroy those privileges, that the king, who was affronted in the person of his attorney, was not a little displeased at their proceedings.

But above all things they were urgent with him, and pressed it with incredible obstinacy, that the king of Navarre, who at the same time had assembled the estates of his party at Rochelle, and from thence had sent to those at Blois, intimating his desire of a general council to be summoned, where all things might be accommodated, should from that time forward be declared incapable of ever succeeding to the crown. They had made a decree concerning this, by consent of the three orders, at the particular instance of the order of the clergy. And the king, who clearly foresaw the terrible consequences of this unparalleled injustice, and who was plyed incessantly to subscribe it, was not able to defend himself otherwise, than by amusing them with delays, and rubs which he dextrously caused to be thrown in their way, on sundry pretences. It was not doubted, but that the Duke of Guise, (who, having two thirds of the estates for him, was consequently the master there,) was author of all these propositions, so contrary to the true interests and authority of the king, especially when it was evident, that he employed all his managers, to cause himself to be declared in the estates, lieutenant-general through the whole kingdom, as if he would possess himself of that supreme command, without dependance on the king, and that he pretended his prince to be no more his master, as not having power to deprive him of a dignity which he was to hold, from a commission given him by others.

All these things, so unworthy of the majesty of a great king, at the length quite wearied out his patience; which, after so long dissembling his injuries, on the sudden broke out into the extremity of rage; insomuch, that those among his confidents, who ardently desired the destruction of the duke for their own advantage, found not the least trouble in passing on the king for truths, many reports, and oftentimes very groundless rumours, which ran of the duke; adding to them, that it was he, who underhand had drawn the Duke of Savoy to possess himself of the marquisate of Saluces, as he had lately done. And this they confidently affirmed, though the duke, by his own interest in the estates, had procured them to vote a war against the Savoyard. Thus, whether it were that the king had long since resolved to rid his hands of the Duke of Guise, in revenge of some ancient grudge and sense of the affronts he had received from him, particularly on that fatal day of the barricades; or were it, that, being sincerely reconciled to him, he had taken, or perhaps resumed, that resolution when he saw him act against him in the estates, of which he had made himself the master, and believing his own condition desperate, if he made not haste to prevent him, most certain it is, that he deliberated no more, but only concerning the manner of executing what he had determined.

He had only two ways to chuse; the one by justice, first committing him, and afterwards making his process; the other by fact, which was to have him slain. He managed this consultation with exceeding secrecy, admitting only four or five of his confidents, on whom he most relied. One of these was Beauvais Nangis, who, having served the king well, in his army against the Reyters, was restored so fully to his favour, that in recompence of the command of colonel of the French infantry, which the Duke of Espernon had got over his head, he made him afterwards admiral of France, though he never enjoyed that great dignity, which he had only under the signet.

This lord, who was as prudent and temperate in council, as prompt and daring in execution, concluded for the methods of justice, maintaining that they were not only the more honest, but also the more safe, because the fear alone which would possess the duke’s party, lest they should kill him, in case they attempted to deliver him by force, and by that means hinder the course of justice, would stop all manner of such proceeding, and restrain them within the terms of duty: That after all, if he were once made prisoner, which might be done without noise or tumult, it would be easy to give him such judges, as should soon dispatch his trial, and that afterwards he might be executed in prison, according to the laws. But if, on the contrary, they should enter crudely on so bloody an execution, there was danger lest that action, which was never to be well justified, and which the Leaguers would certainly cause to pass in the world for tyrannical and perfidious, might raise a rebellion in the greatest part of France, which had already declared so loudly for that prince, whom they regarded as the pillar of religion, and would afterwards look on as the martyr of it. But the rest, who believed it impossible on that occasion to observe the ordinary forms of law and justice, and thought that, the head being once cut off, the body of the League would immediately fall like a dead body, were of opinion, that he should be dispatched with all possible speed, which was easy to perform, especially in the castle, where the Duke was almost hourly in the king’s power, whom he had in no manner of distrust, as sufficiently appeared by his lodging there.

In the meantime, it is most certain, that this secret was not kept so close, but that he received advertisement from more than one of his imminent danger, and that his death already was resolved. And he slighted not so much these informations, as intrepid as he was, or as he affected to appear, by replying continually, they dare not, but that two or three days before his death, he consulted on this affair, which so nearly concerned him, with the cardinal of Guise his brother, the archbishop of Lyons, the president de Neuilly, the provost of the merchants, and the Sieur de Mandrevile governor of St Menehoud, on whom he principally relied. In weighing those proofs which in a manner were indubitable, that a design was laid against him, they were unanimously of opinion, that the safest course was to be taken, and that under some pretence or other he should instantly retire. Excepting only the archbishop, who continued obstinate to the contrary, fortifying his opinion with this argument, that since he was upon the point of carrying all things in the estates according to his wish, he ran the hazard of loosing all by leaving them; and, that for the rest, it was not credible that the king should be so ill advised, as to incur the manifest danger of ruining himself, by striking that unhappy blow. To which Mandrevile replied, swearing, that for a man of sense, as he was, he was the worst arguer he ever knew. “For,” said he, “you talk of the king, as if he were a wary and cool-headed prince, looking before him at every step; and will not understand that he is only a hot-brained fool, who thinks no farther than how to execute what his two base passions, fear and hatred which possess him, have once made sink into his imagination, and never considers what a wise man ought to do on this occasion. It were a folly, therefore, for the duke to hazard himself in such a manner, and to be moved by so weak a reason, to lose all in a moment.”

It is wonderful to observe, that the most clear-sighted men, who have it in their power if they will use the means before them, to avoid that which is called their destiny, after the misfortune is happened, should suffer themselves to be dragged and hurried to it as it were by force, in spite of their understanding and their foresight, which their own rashness, and not a pretended fatality, renders unprofitable to them. It is reported, that the Duke of Guise confessed that this discourse of Mandrevile carried the greater force of reason; yet nevertheless, he added, that having gone so far forward as he then was, if he should see death coming in at the windows upon him, he would not give one step backward to the door, though by so doing, he were certain to avoid it. Nevertheless, it is very probable, that the encouragement he had to speak with so much loftiness and resolution, was the assurance, which he thought he had, that the king, whose genius he knew, particularly since the day when he entered into the Louvre, where the duke gave himself for lost, would never afterwards dare to take up so bold a resolution as to kill him.

It is certain, that when the Sieur de Vins, one of his greatest confidents, had written to him from Provence, that he should beware of keeping so near the king, and not rely on those large testimonies of his affection, which he said he had received; the duke answered him, that he reposed not the hopes of his own safety on the king’s virtue, whom he knew to be ill natured, and a hypocrite, but on his judgment and on his fear; because it was not credible, but he must needs understand, that he himself was ruined in case he made any attempt against his person. But he learned, at his own cost, by the unhappy experiment which he made, that it had been better for him to have followed the wise advice which was given him, and which he himself had approved, than a bare conjecture, and the impulse of his inborn generosity, which his bloody and lamentable death, as things are commonly judged by their event, has caused to pass in the world for an effect of the greatest rashness.

It ought not here to be expected, that I should dwell on an exact and long description of all the circumstances of that tragical action, which has been so unfortunate to France, and so ill received in the world. Besides that they are recounted, in very different manners, by the historians of one and the other religion, according to their different passions, and that the greatest part of them are either false, or have little in them worth observation; the thing was done with so great facility and precipitation, and withal in so brutal a manner, that it cannot be too hastily passed over; this then is the plain and succinct relation of it.

After that the brave Grillon, Maitre de Camp of the regiment of guards, had generously refused to kill the Duke of Guise, unless in single duel, and in an honourable way, the king had recourse to Lognac, the first gentleman of his chamber, and captain of the forty-five, who promised him eighteen or twenty of the most resolute amongst them, and for whom he durst be answerable. They were of the number of those whom the Duke of Guise, who had always a distrust of those Gascons, as creatures of the Duke of Espernon, had formerly demanded that they might be dismissed, from which request he had afterwards desisted; insomuch that it may be said he foresaw the misfortune that attended him, without being able to avoid it. For, on Friday the twenty-third of December, being entered about eight of the clock in the morning into the great hall, where the king had intimated on Thursday night, that he intended to hold the council very early, that he might afterwards go to Nostre dame de Clery; some came to tell him that his majesty expected him in the old closet, yet he was not there, but in the other which looks into the garden. Upon this, he arose from the fireside, where, finding himself somewhat indisposed, he had been seated; and passed through a narrow entry, which was on one side the hall, into the chamber, where he found Lognac, with seven or eight of the forty-five; the King himself having caused them to enter into that room very secretly before daybreak: the rest of them were posted in the old closet, and all of them had great poniards hid under their cloaks, expecting only the coming of the Duke of Guise, to make sure work with him, whether it were in the chamber or in the closet, in case he should retire thither for his defence.

There needed not so great a preparation for the killing of a single man, who came thither without distrust of any thing that was designed against him; and who, holding his hat in one hand, and with the other the lappet of his cloak, which he had wrapt under his left arm, was in no condition of defence. In this posture he advanced towards the old closet, saluting very civilly, as his custom was, those gentlemen who made show of attending him out of respect, as far as the door. And as in lifting up the hangings, with the help of one of them, he stooped to enter, he was suddenly seized by the arms, and by the legs; and at the same instant struck into the body before, with five or six poniards, and from behind, into the nape of the neck, and the throat, which hindered him from speaking one single word of all that he is made to say, or so much as drawing out his sword. All that he could do, was to drag along his murderers, with the last and strongest effort that he could make, struggling and striving till he fell down at the beds-feet, where some while after, with a deep groan, he yielded up his breath.

The cardinal of Guise, and archbishop of Lyons, who were in the council hall, rising up at the noise, with intention of running to his aid, were made prisoners by the marshals D’Aumont and de Retz; at the same time, the cardinal of Bourbon was also seized in the castle, together with Anne d’Este Duchess of Nemours, and mother of the Guises, and the Prince of Joinville, the Dukes of Elbeuf, and Nemours, Brissac, and Boisdauphin, with many other lords, who were confidents of the Duke, and Pericard his secretary. And in the meantime the grand prevost of the king’s house went with his archers to the chamber of the third estate, in the town-house, and there arrested the president Neuilly, the prevost of merchants, the sheriffs Compan and Cotte-Blanch, who were deputies for Paris, and some other notorious Leaguers.

This being done, the king himself brought the news of it to the queen-mother; telling her that now he was a real king, since he had cut off the Duke of Guise. At which that princess being much surprised and moved, asking him if he had made provision against future accidents, he answered her in an angry kind of tone, much differing from his accustomed manner of speaking to her, that she might set her heart at rest, for he had taken order for what might happen, and so went out surlily to go to mass; yet before he went, he sent particularly to cardinal Gondi, and to the cardinal Legat Morosini, and informed them both of what had passed, with his reasons to justify his proceedings.

That government, generally considered, is of divine authority, will admit of no dispute; for whoever will seriously consider, that no man has naturally a right over his own life, so as to murder himself, will find, by consequence, that he has no right to take away another’s life; and that no pact betwixt man and man, or of corporations and individuals, or of sovereigns and subjects, can intitle them to this right; so that no offender can lawfully, and without sin, be punished, unless that power be derived from God. It is He who has commissioned magistrates, and authorised them to prevent future crimes, by punishing offenders, and to redress the injured by distributive justice; subjects therefore are accountable to superiors, and the superior to Him alone. For, the sovereign being once invested with lawful authority, the subject has irrevocably given up his power, and the dependance of a monarch is alone on God. A king, at his coronation, swears to govern his subjects by the laws of the land, and to maintain the several orders of men under him, in their lawful privileges; and those orders swear allegiance and fidelity to him, but with this distinction, that the failure of the people is punishable by the king, that of the king is only punishable by the King of kings. The people then are not judges of good or ill administration in their king; for it is inconsistent with the nature of sovereignty that they should be so; and if at some times they suffer, through the irregularities of a bad prince, they enjoy more often the benefits and advantages of a good one, as God in his providence shall dispose, either for their blessing or their punishment. The advantages and disadvantages of such subjection, are supposed to have been first considered, and upon this balance they have given up their power without a capacity of resumption; so that it is in vain for a commonwealth party to plead, that men, for example, now in being, cannot bind their posterity, or give up their power; for if subjects can swear only for themselves, when the father dies the subjection ends, and the son, who has not sworn, can be no traitor or offender, either to the king or to the laws. And at this rate, a long-lived prince may outlive his sovereignty, and be no longer lawfully a king; but in the mean time, it is evident, that the son enjoys the benefit of the laws and government, which is an implicit acknowledgment of subjection. It is endless to run through all the extravagancies of these men, and it is enough for us that we are settled under a lawful government of a most gracious prince; that our monarchy is hereditary; that it is naturally poised by our municipal laws, with equal benefit of prince and people; that he governs, as he has promised, by explicit laws; and what the laws are silent in, I think I may conclude to be part of his prerogative; for what the king has not granted away, is inherent in him. The point of succession has sufficiently been discussed, both as to the right of it, and to the interest of the people: one main argument of the other side is, how often it has been removed from the right line? as in the case of King Stephen, and of Henry the Fourth, and his descendants of the house of Lancaster. But it is easy to answer them, that matter of fact, and matter of right, are different considerations: both those kings were but usurpers in effect, and the providence of God restored the posterities of those who were dispossessed. By the same argument, they might as well justify the rebellion and murder of the late king; for there was not only a prince inhumanly put to death, but a government overturned; and first an arbitrary commonwealth, then two usurpers set up against the lawful sovereign; but, to our happiness, the same providence has miraculously restored the right heir, and, to their confusion, as miraculously preserved him. In this present history, to go no further, we see Henry the Third, by a decree of the Sorbonne, divested, what in them lay, of his imperial rights: a parliament of Paris, such another as our first Long Parliament, confirming their decree; a pope authorising all this by his excommunication; and an Holy League and Covenant prosecuting this deposition by arms: yet an untimely death only hindered him from reseating himself in glory on the throne, after he was in manifest possession of the victory.⁠[20] We see also the same Sorbonists, the same pope, parliament, and league, with greater force opposing the undoubted right of King Henry the Fourth; and we see him in the end, surmounting all these difficulties, and triumphing over all these dangers. God Almighty taking care of his own anointed, and the true succession; neither the Papist nor Presbyterian Association prevailing at the last in their attempts, but both baffled and ruined, and the whole rebellion ending, either in the submission, or destruction of the conspirators.

It is true, as my author has observed in the beginning of his history, that before the Catholic League, or Holy Union, which is the subject of this book, there was a league or combination of Huguenots, against the government of France, which produced the conspiracy of Amboise; and the Calvinist preachers (as Mezeray, a most impartial historian, informs us) gave their opinion, that they might take up arms in their own defence, and make way for a free access to the king, to present their remonstrances. But it was ordered at the same time, that they should seize on the Duke of Guise, and the Cardinal of Lorraine, his brother, who were then chief ministers, that they might be brought to trial by process before the States; but he adds immediately, who could answer for them, that the prisoners should not have been killed out of hand, and that they would not have made themselves masters of the queen-mother’s person, and of the young king’s, which was laid afterwards to their charge? The concealed heads of this conspiracy, were Lewis Prince of Conde, and the famous Admiral de Coligny: who being discontented at court, because their enemies, the Guises, had the management of affairs under the Queen Regent, to their exclusion, and being before turned Calvinists, made use of that rebellious sect, and the pretence of religion, to cover their ambition and revenge. The same Mezeray tells us in one of the next pages, that the name of Huguenots or Fidnos, (from whence it was corrupted,) signifies, League or Association, in the Swiss language; and was brought, together with the sect, from Geneva into France. But from whencesoever they had their name, it is most certain that pestilent race of people cannot, by their principles, be good subjects; for whatever enforced obedience they pay to authority, they believe their class above the king; and how they would order him if they had him in their power, our most gracious sovereign has sufficiently experienced when he was in Scotland.⁠[21] As for their boast that they brought him in, it is much as true as that of the Calvinists, who pretend, as my author tells you in his preface, that they seated his grandfather, Henry IV. upon the throne. For both French and English Presbyterians were fundamentally and practically rebels; and the French have this advantage over ours, that they came in to the aid of Henry III. at his greatest need, or rather were brought over by the king of Navarre, their declared head, on a prospect of great advantage to their religion; whereas ours never inclined to the king’s restoration, till themselves had been trodden underfoot by the independent party, and till the voice of three nations called aloud for him, that is to say, when they had no possibility of keeping him any longer out of England. But the beginning of leagues, unions, and associations, by those who called themselves God’s people, for reformation of religious worship, and for the redress of pretended grievances in the state, is of a higher rise, and is justly to be dated from Luther’s time; and the private spirit, or the gift of interpreting scriptures by private persons without learning, was certainly the original cause of such cabals in the reformed churches; so dangerous an instrument of rebellion is the holy scripture in the hands of ignorant and bigotted men.

The Anabaptists of Germany led up the dance, who had always in their mouths, faith, charity, the fear of God, and mortifications of the flesh: prayers, fastings, meditations, contempt of riches and honours, were their first specious practices. From thence they grew up, by little and little, to a separation from other men, who, according to their pharisaical account, were less holy than themselves; and decency, civility, neatness of attire, good furniture, and order in their houses, were the brands of carnal-minded men. Then they proceeded to nick-name the days of the weeks, and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, &c. as heathen names, must be rejected for the first, second, and third days, distinguishing only by their numbers. Thus they began to play, as it were, at cross purposes with mankind; and to do every thing by contraries, that they might be esteemed more godly and more illuminated. It had been a wonder, considering their fanciful perfections, if they had stopped here. They were now knowing and pure enough to extend their private reformation to the church and state; for God’s people love always to be dealing as well in temporals as spirituals; or rather, they love to be fingering spirituals, in order to their grasping temporals. Therefore they had the impudence to pretend to inspiration in the exposition of scriptures; a trick which since that time has been familiarly used by every sect in its turn, to advance their interests. Not content with this, they assumed to themselves a more particular intimacy with God’s holy spirit; as if it guided them, even beyond the power of the scriptures, to know more of him than was therein taught. For now the Bible began to be a dead letter of itself; and no virtue was attributed to the reading of it, but all to the inward man, the call of the Holy Ghost, and the engrafting of the word, opening their understanding to hidden mysteries by faith. And here the mountebank way of canting words came first in use; as if there were something more in religion than could be expressed in intelligible terms, or nonsense were the way to heaven. This of necessity must breed divisions amongst them; for every man’s inspiration being particular to himself, must clash with another’s, who set up for the same qualification; the Holy Ghost being infallible in all alike, though he spoke contradictions in several mouths. But they had a way of licking one another whole; mistakes were to be forgiven to weak brethren; the failing was excused for the right intention; he who was more illuminated, would allow some light to be in the less, and degrees were made in contradictory propositions. But godfathers and godmothers, by common consent, were already set aside, together with the observation of festivals, which they said were of antichristian institution. They began at last to preach openly, that they had no other king but Christ, and by consequence earthly magistrates were out of doors. All the gracious promises in scripture they applied to themselves, as God’s chosen, and all the judgments were the portion of their enemies. These impieties were at first unregarded, and afterwards tolerated by their sovereigns; and Luther himself made request to the Duke of Saxony, to deal favourably with them, as honest-meaning men who were misled. But in the end, when, by these specious pretences, they had gathered strength, they who had before concluded, that Christ was the only king on earth, and at the same time assumed to themselves, that Christ was theirs; inferred by good consequence, that they were to maintain their king; and not only so, but to propagate that belief in others; for what God wills, man must obey; and for that reason, they entered into a league of association amongst themselves, to deliver their Israel out of Egypt; to seize Canaan, and to turn the idolaters out of possession. Thus you see by what degrees of saintship they grew up into rebellion, under their successive heads, Muncer, Phifer, John of Leyden, and Knipperdolling, where what violences, impieties, and sacrileges, they committed, those who are not satisfied may read in Sleidan.⁠[22] The general tradition is, that after they had been besieged in Munster, and were forced by assault, their ringleaders being punished, and they dispersed, two ships-lading of these precious saints was disembogued in Scotland, where they set up again, and broached anew their pernicious principles. If this be true, we may easily perceive on what a noble stock presbytery was grafted. From Scotland they had a blessed passage into England; or at least arriving here from other parts, they soon came to a considerable increase. Calvin, to do him right, wrote to King Edward VI. a sharp letter against these people; but our Presbyterians after him, have been content to make use of them in the late civil wars, where they and all the rest of the sectaries were joined in the good old cause of rebellion against his late Majesty; though they could not agree about dividing the spoils, when they had obtained the victory: and it is impossible they ever should, for all claiming to the spirit, no party will suffer another to be uppermost, nor indeed will they tolerate each other; because the scriptures, interpreted by each to their own purpose, is always the best weapon in the strongest hand: observe them all along, and Providence is still the prevailing argument. They who happen to be in power, will ever urge it against those who are undermost; as they who are depressed, will never fail to call it persecution. They are never united but in adversity, for cold gathers together bodies of contrary natures, and warmth divides them.

How Presbytery was transplanted into England, I have formerly related out of good authors.⁠[23] The persecution arising in Queen Mary’s reign, forced many Protestants out of their native country into foreign parts, where Calvinism having already taken root (as at Frankfort, Strasburg, and Geneva,) those exiles grew tainted with that new discipline; and returning in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, spread the contagion of it both amongst the clergy and laity of this nation.

Any man who will look into the tenets of the first sectaries, will find these to be more or less embued with them: Here they were supported underhand by great men for private interests. What trouble they gave that queen and how she curbed them, is notoriously known to all who are conversant in the histories of those times. How King James was plagued with them, is known as well to any man who has read the reverend and sincere Spottiswoode:⁠[24] And how they were baffled by the church of England, in a disputation which he allowed them at Hampton-Court,⁠[25] even to the conversion of Dr Sparks, who was one of the two disputants of their party, and afterwards writ against them; any one who pleases may be satisfied.

The agreement of their principles with the fiercest Jesuits, is as easy to be demonstrated, and has already been done, by several hands: I will only mention some few of them, to show how well prepared they came to that solemn covenant of theirs, which they borrowed first from the Holy League of France, and have lately copied out again in their intended association against his present majesty.

Bellarmine,⁠[26] as the author of this history has told you, was himself a preacher for the League in Paris during the rebellion there, in the reign of King Henry the Fourth. Some of his principles are these following:⁠[27]

“In the kingdoms of men, the power of the king is from the people, because the people make the king.” Observing that he says, “In the kingdoms of men;” there is no doubt but he restrains this principle to the subordination of the pope; for his Holiness, in that rebellion, as you have read, was declared Protector of the League: So that the pope first excommunicates, (which is the outlawry of the church,) and, by virtue of this excommunication, the people are left to their own natural liberty, and may, without farther process from Rome, depose him.

Accordingly, you see it practised, in the same instance: Pope Sixtus first thunderstruck King Henry the Third and the King of Navarre; then the Sorbonne make decrees, that they have successively forfeited the crown; the parliament verifies these decrees, and the pope is petitioned to confirm the sense of the nation, that is, of the rebels.

But I have related this too favourably for Bellarmine; for we hear him, in another place, positively affirming it as matter of faith, “If any Christian prince shall depart from the Catholic religion, and shall withdraw others from it, he immediately forfeits all power and dignity, even before the pope has pronounced sentence on him; and his subjects, in case they have power to do it, may and ought to cast out such an heretic from his sovereignty over Christians.”

Now, consonant to this is Buchanan’s principle, “That the people may confer the government on whom they please;” and the maxim of Knox, “That if princes be tyrants against God and his truth, their subjects are released from their oath of obedience.” And Goodman’s, “That when magistrates cease to do their duties, God gives the sword into the people’s hands: evil princes ought to be deposed by inferior magistrates; and a private man, having an inward call, may kill a tyrant.”⁠[28]

It is the work of a scavenger, to rake together and carry off all these dunghills; they are easy to be found at the doors of all our sects, and all our atheistical commonwealth’s men. And, besides, it is a needless labour; they are so far from disowning such positions, that they glory in them; and wear them like marks of honour, as an Indian does a ring in his nose, or a Soldanian a belt of garbage. In the meantime, I appeal to any impartial man, whether men of such principles can reasonably expect any favour from the government in which they live, and which, viper-like, they would devour.

What I have remarked of them is no more than necessary, to show how aptly their principles are suited to their practices; the history itself has sufficiently discovered to the unbiassed reader, that both the last rebellion, and this present conspiracy, (which is the mystery of iniquity still working in the three nations,) were originally founded on the French League: that was their model, according to which they built their Babel. You have seen how warily the first association in Picardy was worded; nothing was to be attempted but for the king’s service; and an acknowledgment was formally made, that both the right and power of the government was in him: but it was pretended, that, by occasion of the true Protestant rebels, the crown was not any longer in condition, either of maintaining itself, or protecting them; and that therefore, in the name of God, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, they joined together in their own defence, and that of their religion. But all this while, though they would seem to act by the king’s authority, and under him, the combination was kept as secret as possibly they could, and even without the participation of the sovereign; a sure sign, that they intended him no good at the bottom. Nay, they had an evasion ready too against his authority; for it is plain they joined Humieres, the governor of the province, in commission with him, and only named the king for show; but engaged themselves at the same time to his lieutenant, to be obedient to all his commands; levying men and money, without the king’s knowledge, or any law, but what they made amongst themselves. So that, in effect, the rebellion and combination of the Huguenots⁠[29] was only a leading card, and an example to the Papists to rebel on their side. And there was only this difference in the cause, that the Calvinists set up for their reformation, by the superior power of religion, and inherent right of the people, against the king and pope. The Papists pretended the same popular right for their rebellion against the king, and for the same end of reformation, only they faced it with church and pope.

Our sectaries, and long parliament of forty-one, had certainly these French precedents in their eye. They copied their methods of rebellion, at first with great professions of duty and affection to the king; all they did was in order to make him glorious; all that was done against him was pretended to be under his authority, and in his name; and even the war they raised was pretended for the king and parliament. But those proceedings are so notoriously known, and have employed so many pens, that it would be a nauseous work for me to dwell on them. To draw the likeness of the French transactions and ours, were in effect, to transcribe the history I have translated; every page is full of it; every man has seen the parallel of the Holy League and our Covenant; and cannot but observe, that, besides the names of the countries, France and England, and the names of religions, Protestant and Papist, there is scarcely to be found the least difference in the project of the whole, and in the substance of the articles. In the mean time, I cannot but take notice, that our rebels have left this eternal brand upon their memories, that, while all their pretence was for the setting up the Protestant religion, and pulling down of popery, they have borrowed from Papists both the model of their design, and their arguments to defend it; and not from loyal, well-principled Papists, but from the worst, the most bigotted, and most violent, of that religion; from some of the Jesuits, an order founded on purpose to combat Lutheranism and Calvinism. The matter of fact is so palpably true and so notorious, that they cannot have the impudence to deny it. But some of the Jesuits are the shame of the Roman church, as the sectaries are of ours. Their tenets in politics are the same; both of them hate monarchy, and love democracy; both of them are superlatively violent; they are inveterate haters of each other in religion, and yet agree in the principles of government. And if, after so many advices to a painter, I might advise a Dutch-maker of emblems,⁠[30] he should draw a Presbyterian in arms on one side, a Jesuit on the other, and a crowned head betwixt them; for it is perfectly a battle-royal. Each of them is endeavouring the destruction of his adversary; but the monarch is sure to get blows on both sides. But for those sectaries and commonwealth’s men of forty-one, before I leave them, I must crave leave to observe of them, that, generally, they were a sour sort of thinking men, grim, and surly hypocrites; such as could cover their vices with an appearance of great devotion and austerity of manners; neither profaneness nor luxury were encouraged by them, nor practised publicly, which gave them a great opinion of sanctity amongst the multitude; and by that opinion, principally, they did their business. Though their politics were taken from the Catholic League, yet their Christianity much resembled those Anabaptists, who were their original in doctrine; and these, indeed, were formidable instruments of a religious rebellion. But our new conspirators of these seven last years are men of quite another make: I speak not of their non-conformist preachers, who pretend to enthusiasm, and are as morose in their worship as were those first sectaries, but of their leading men, the heads of their faction, and the principal members of it: what greater looseness of life, more atheistical discourse, more open lewdness, was ever seen, than generally was and is to be observed in those men? I am neither making a satire nor a sermon here; but I would remark a little the ridiculousness of their management. The strictness of religion is their pretence; and the men who are to set it up, have theirs to choose. The long-parliament rebels frequented sermons, and observed prayers and fastings with all solemnity; but these new reformers, who ought, in prudence, to have trodden in their steps, because their end was the same, to gull the people by an outside of devotion, never used the means of insinuating themselves into the opinion of the multitude. Swearing, drunkenness, blasphemies, and worse sins than adultery, are the badges of the party: nothing but liberty in their mouths, nothing but licence in their practice.

For which reason, they were never esteemed by the zealots of their faction but as their tools; and had they got uppermost, after the royalists had been crushed, they would have been blown off as too light for their society. For my own part, when I had once observed this fundamental error in their politics, I was no longer afraid of their success. No government was ever ruined by the open scandal of its opposers. This was just a Catiline’s conspiracy, of profligate, debauched, and bankrupt men: The wealthy amongst them were the fools of the party, drawn in by the rest, whose fortunes were desperate; and the wits of the cabal sought only their private advantages. They had either lost their preferments, and consequently were piqued, or were in hope to raise themselves by the general disturbance; upon which account, they never could be true to one another. There was neither honour nor conscience in the foundation of their league, but every man, having an eye to his own particular advancement, was no longer a friend than while his interest was carrying on: So that treachery was at the bottom of their design, first against the monarchy, and, if that failed, against each other; in which, be it spoken to the honour of our nation, the English are not behind any other country. In few words, just as much fidelity might be expected from them in a common cause, as there is amongst a troop of honest murdering and ravishing bandits: while the booty is in prospect, they combine heartily and faithfully; but when a proclamation of pardon comes out, and a good reward into the bargain, for any one who brings in another’s head, the scene is changed, and they are in more danger of being betrayed, every man by his companion, than they were formerly by the joint forces of their enemies. It is true, they are still to be accounted dangerous, because, though they are dispersed at present, and without an head, yet time and lenity may furnish them again with a commander; and all men are satisfied, that the debauched party of them have no principle of godliness to restrain them from violence and murders; nor the pretended saints any principle of charity,—for it is an action of piety in them to destroy their enemies, having first pronounced them enemies of God. What my author says, in general, of the Huguenots, may justly be applied to all our sectaries: They are a malicious and bloody generation; they bespatter honest men with their pens when they are not in power; and when they are uppermost, they hang them up like dogs. To such kind of people all means of reclaiming, but only severity, are useless, while they continue obstinate in their designs against church and government; for though now their claws are pared, they may grow again to be more sharp. They are still lions in their nature, and may profit so much by their own errors in late managements, that they may become more sanctified traitors another time.

In the former part of our history, we see what Henry III. gained from them by his remisness and concessions. Though our last king was not only incomparably more pious than that prince, but also was far from being taxed with any of his vices; yet in this they may be compared, without the least manner of reflection, that extreme indulgence, and too great concessions, were the ruin of them both. And by how much the more a king is subject, by his nature, to this frailty of too much mildness, which is so near resembling the godlike attribute of mercy, by so much is he the more liable to be taxed with tyranny. A strange paradox, but which was sadly verified in the persons of those two princes. For a faction, appearing zealous for the public liberty, counts him a tyrant who yields not up whatever they demand, even his most undoubted and just prerogatives; all that distinguishes a sovereign from a subject; and the yielding up, or taking away, of which is the very subversion of the government.

Every point which a monarch loses or relinquishes, but renders him the weaker to maintain the rest; and, besides, they so construe it, as if what he gave up were the natural right of the people, which he, or his ancestors, had usurped from them; which makes it the more dangerous for him to quit his hold, and is truly the reason why so many mild princes have been branded with the names of tyrants by their encroaching subjects. I have not room to enlarge upon this matter as I would, neither dare I presume to press the argument more closely; but passing by, as I promised, all the remarkable passages in the late king’s reign, which resemble the transactions of the League, I will briefly take notice of some few particulars, wherein our late associators and conspirators have made a third copy of the League; for the original of their first politics was certainly no other than the French. This was first copied by the rebels in forty-one, and since recopied within these late years by some of those who are lately dead, and by too many others yet alive, and still drawing after the same design; in which, for want of time, many a fair blot shall be left unhit; neither do I promise to observe any method of times, or to take things in order as they happened.

As for the persons who managed the two associations, theirs and ours, it is most certain that in them is found the least resemblance: And it is well for us they were not like; for they had men of subtlety and valour to design, and then to carry on their conspiracy: Ours were but bunglers in comparison of them, who, having a faction not made by them, but ready formed and fashioned to their hands, (thanks to their fathers,) yet failed in every one of their projections, and managed their business with much less dexterity, though far more wickedness than the French. They had, indeed, at their head an old conspirator, witty and turbulent, like the Cardinal of Lorraine,⁠[31] and for courage in execution much such another. But the good sense and conduct was clearly wanting on the English side; so that, if we will allow him the contrivance of the plot, or at least of the conspiracy, which is an honour that no man will be willing to take from him, in all other circumstances he more resembled the old decrepit Cardinal of Bourbon, who fed himself with imaginary hopes of power, dreamed of outliving a king and his successor, much more young and vigorous than himself, and of governing the world after their decease. To die in prison, or in banishment, I think, will make no mighty difference; but this is a main one, that the one was the dupe of all his party, the other led after him, and made fools of all his faction. As for a Duke of Guise, or even so much as a Duke of Mayenne, I can find none in their whole cabal. I cannot believe that any man now living could have the vanity to pretend to it. It is not every age than can produce a Duke of Guise,—a man who, without the least shadow of a title, (unless we will believe the memoirs of the crack-brained advocate David, who gave him one from Charlemagne,) durst make himself head of a party, and was not only so in his own conceit, but really; presumed to beard a king, and was upon the point of being declared his lieutenant-general and his successor. None of these instances will hold in the comparison; and therefore I leave it to be boasted, it may be, by one party, but I am sure to be laughed at by another. Many hot-headed Chevaliers d’Aumale, and ambitious bravos, like Captain St Paul,⁠[32] may be found amongst them; intriguing ladies and gallants of the times, such as are described in the army of the League, at the battle of Yvry;⁠[33] and, besides them, many underling knaves, pimps, and fools; but these are not worthy to be drawn into resemblance.

Therefore, to pass by their persons, and consider their design, it is evident, that on both sides they began with a League, and ended with a conspiracy. In this they have copied, even to the word Association, which you may observe was used by Humieres, in the first wary League which was formed in Picardy; and we see to what it tended in the event: For when Henry III., by the assistance of the king of Navarre, had in a manner vanquished his rebels, and was just upon the point of mastering Paris, a Jacobin, set on by the preachers of the League, most barbarously murdered him; and, by the way, take notice, that he pretended enthusiasm, or inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, for the commission of his parricide. I leave my superiors to conclude from thence, the danger of tolerating nonconformists, who, (be it said with reverence,) under pretence of a whisper from the Holy Ghost, think themselves obliged to perpetrate the most enormous crimes against the person of their sovereign, when they have first voted him a tyrant and an enemy to God’s people. This, indeed, was not so impudent a method as what was used in the formal process of a pretended high court of justice, in the murder of King Charles I., and therefore I do not compare those actions; but it is much resembling the intended murder of our gracious king at the Rye, and other places: And, that the head of a college might not be wanting to urge the performance of this horrible attempt, instead of Father Edm. Bourgoing,⁠[34] let Father Ferguson⁠[35] appear, who was not wanting in his spiritual exhortations to our conspirators, and to make them believe, that to assassinate the king was only to take away another Holofernes. It is true, the Jacobin was but one; and there were many joined in our conspiracy, and more perhaps than Rumsey or West⁠[36] have ever named: but this, though it takes from the justness of the comparison, adds incomparably more to the guilt of it, and makes it fouler on our side of the water.

My author makes mention of another conspiracy against Henry IV., for the seizing of his person at Mante, by the young Cardinal of Bourbon, who was head of the third party, called at that time the Politics, that is to say, in modern English, Trimmers. This, too, was a limb of our conspiracy; and the more moderate party of our traitors were engaged in it.⁠[37] But had it taken effect, the least it could have produced, was to have overthrown the succession; and no reasonable man would believe, but they who could forget their duty so much as to have seized the king, might afterwards have been induced to have him made away, especially when so fair a provision was made by the House of Commons, that the Papists were to suffer for it.

But they have not only rummaged the French histories of the League for conspiracies and parricides of kings; I shall make it apparent, that they have studied those execrable times, for precedents of undermining the lawful authority of their sovereigns. Our English are not generally commended for invention; but these were merchants of small wares, very pedlers in policy; they must like our tailors, have all their fashions from the French, and study the French League for every alteration, as our snippers go over once a year into France, to bring back the newest mode, and to learn to cut and shape it.

For example: The first estates convened at Blois by Henry III. (the League being then on foot, and most of the three orders dipped in it,) demanded of that king, that the articles which should be approved by the three orders should pass for inviolable laws, without leaving to the king the power of changing any thing in them. That the same was designed here by the leading men of their faction, is obvious to every one: for they had it commonly in their mouths in ordinary discourse; and it was offered in print by Plato Redivivus,⁠[38] as a good expedient for the nation, in case his Majesty would have consented to it.

Both in the first and last estates at Blois, the bill of exclusion against the King of Navarre was pressed; and in the last carried by all the three orders, though the king would never pass it. The end of that bill was very evident; it was to have introduced the Duke of Guise into the throne, after the king’s decease: to which he had no manner of title, or at least a very cracked one, of which his own party were ashamed. Our bill of exclusion was copied from hence; but thrown out by the House of Peers, before it came to the king’s turn to have wholly quashed it.

After the Duke of Guise had forced the king to fly from Paris by the barricades, the queen-mother being then in the traitor’s interests, when he had outwitted her so far, as to persuade her to join in the banishment of the Duke of Espernon, his enemy, and to make her believe, that if the King of Navarre, whom she hated, were excluded, he would assist her in bringing her beloved grandchild of Lorraine, to the possession of the crown: it was proposed by him for the Parisians, that the lieutenancy of the city might be wholly put into their hands; that the new provost of merchants, and present sheriffs of the faction, might be confirmed by the king; and for the future, they should not only elect their sheriffs, but the colonels and captains of the several wards.

How nearly this was copied in the tumultuous meetings of the city for their sheriffs, both we and they have cause to remember; and Mr Hunt’s book, concerning their rights in the city charter, mingled with infamous aspersions of the government, confirms the notions to have been the same.⁠[39] And I could produce some very probable instances out of another libel, (considering the time at which it was written, which was just before the detection of the conspiracy,) that the author of it, as well as the supervisor, was engaged in it, or at least privy to it; but let villainy and ingratitude be safe and flourish.

By the way, an observation of Philip de Comines comes into my mind: That when the Dukes of Burgundy, who were Lords of Ghent, had the choice of the sheriffs of that city, in that year all was quiet and well governed; but when they were elected by the people, nothing but tumults and seditions followed.⁠[40]

I might carry this resemblance a little farther: for in the heat of the plot, when the Spanish pilgrims were coming over,⁠[41] nay more, were reported to be landed; when the representatives of the Commons were either mortally afraid, or pretended to be so, of this airy invasion, a request was actually made to the king, that he would put the militia into their hands; which how prudently he refused, the example of his father has informed the nation.

To shew how the heads of their party had conned over their lesson of the barricades of Paris, in the midst of Oates his Popish plot, when they had fermented the city with the leven of their sedition, and they were all prepared for a rising against the government; let it be remembered, that as the Duke of Guise and the council of sixteen forged a list of names, which they pretended to be of such as the king had set down for destruction; so a certain earl of blessed memory caused a false report to be spread of his own danger, and some of his accomplices, who were to be murdered by the Papists and the royal party; which was a design to endear themselves to the multitude, as the martyrs of their cause; and at the same time, to cast an odious reflection on the king and ministers, as if they sought their blood with unchristian cruelty, without the ordinary forms of justice. To which may be added, as an appendix, their pretended fear, when they went to the parliament at Oxford; before which some of them made their wills, and shewed them publicly; others sent to search about the places where the two houses were to sit, as if another gunpowder plot was contriving against them, and almost every man of them, according to his quality, went attended with his guard of Janizaries, like Titus:⁠[42] so that what with their followers, and the seditious townsmen of that city, they made the formidable appearance of an army; at least sufficient to have swallowed up the guards, and to have seized the person of the king, in case he had not prevented it by a speedy removal, as soon as he had dissolved that parliament.

I begin already to be tired with drawing after their deformities, as a painter would be, who had nothing before him in his table but lazars, cripples, and hideous faces, which he was obliged to represent: yet I must not omit some few of their most notorious copyings. Take for example their Council of Six, which was an imitation of the League, who set up their famous council, commonly called “Of the Sixteen:” And take notice, that on both sides they picked out the most heady and violent men of the whole party; nay, they considered not so much as their natural parts, but heavy blockheads were thrown in for lumber, to make up the weight. Their zeal for the party, and their ambition, atoned for their want of judgment, especially if they were thought to have any interest in the people. Loud roarers of aye and no in the parliament, without common sense in ordinary discourses, if they were favourites of the multitude, were made privy counsellors of their cabal; and fools, who only wanted a parti-coloured coat, a cap, and a bawble, to pass for such amongst reasonable men, were to redress the imaginary grievances of a nation, by murdering, or at least seizing of the king. Men of scandalous lives, cheats, and murderers, were to reform the nation, and propagate the Protestant religion; and the rich ideots to hazard their estates and expectations, to forsake their ease, honour, and preferments, for an empty name of heading a party; the wittiest man amongst them to encumber and vex his decrepit age, for a silly pique of revenge, and to maintain his character to the last, of never being satisfied with any government, in which he was not more a king than the present master. To give the last stroke to this resemblance, fortune did her part; and the same fate, of division amongst themselves, ruined both those councils which were contriving their king’s destruction. The Duke of Mayenne and his adherents, who were much the most honest of the Leaguers, were not only for a king, but for a king of the royal line, in case that duke could not cause the election to fall on himself, which was impossible, because he was already married. The rest were, some for this man, some for another, and all in a lump for the daughter of Spain; this disunited them, and in the end ruined their conspiracy. In our Council of Six, some were for murdering, and some for securing of the king; some for a rising in the west, and some for an insurrection of the Brisk Boys of Wapping: in short, some were for a mongrel kind of kingship, to the exclusion of the royal line, but the greater part for a bare-faced commonwealth. This raised a division in their council; that division was fomented into a mutual hatred of each other; and the conclusion was, that instead of one conspiracy, the machines played double, and produced two, which were carried on at the same time. A kind of spread eagle plot was hatched, with two heads growing out of the same body: such twin treasons are apt to struggle like Esau and Jacob in the womb, and both endeavouring to be first born, the younger pulls back the elder by the heel.

I promised to observe no order, and am performing my word before I was aware. After the barricades, and at many other times, the Duke of Guise, and Council of Sixteen, amongst the rest of the articles, demanded of the king to cashier his guards of the forty-five gentlemen, as unknown in the times of his predecessors, and unlawful; as also, to remove his surest friends from about his person, and from their places, both military and civil. I leave any man to judge, whether our conspirators did not play the second part to the same tune; whether his majesty’s guards were not alleged to be unlawful, and a grievance to the subjects; and whether frequent votes did not pass in the House of Commons at several times, for removing and turning out of office those, who, on all occasions, behaved themselves most loyally to the king, without so much as giving any other reason of their misdemeanors than public fame; that is to say, reports forged and spread by their own faction, or without allowing them the common justice of vindicating themselves from those calumnies and aspersions.

I omit the many illegal imprisonments of freeborn men, by their own representatives, who, from a jury, erected themselves into judges; because I find nothing resembling it in the worst and most seditious times of France. But let the history be searched, and I believe Bussy Le Clerc never committed more outrages in pillaging of houses, than Waller in pretending to search for Popish relics:⁠[43] Neither do I remember that the French Leaguers ever took the evidence of a Jew, as ours did of Faria.⁠[44] But this I wonder at the less, considering what Christian witnesses have been used, if at least the chief of them was ever christened. Bussy Le Clerc, it is true, turned out a whole parliament together, and brought them prisoners to the Bastile; and Bussy Oates was for garbling too, when he informed against a worthy and loyal member, whom he caused to be expelled the House, and sent prisoner to the Tower:⁠[45] But that which was then accounted a disgrace to him, will make him be remembered with honour to posterity.

I will trouble the reader but with one observation more, and that shall be to show how dully and pedantically they have copied even the false steps of the League in politics, and those very maxims which ruined the heads of it. The Duke of Guise was always ostentatious of his power in the states, where he carried all things in opposition to the king: but, by relying too much on the power he had there, and not using arms when he had them in his hand, I mean by not prosecuting his victory to the uttermost, when he had the king enclosed in the Louvre, he missed his opportunity, and fortune never gave it him again.

The late Earl of Shaftesbury, who was the undoubted head and soul of that party, went upon the same maxims; being (as we may reasonably conclude) fearful of hazarding his fortunes, and observing, that the late rebellion, under the former king, though successful in war, yet ended in the restoration of his present majesty, his aim was to have excluded his royal highness by an act of parliament; and to have forced such concessions from the king, by pressing the chimerical dangers of a popish plot, as would not only have destroyed the succession, but have subverted the monarchy; for he presumed he ventured nothing, if he could have executed his design by form of law, and in a parliamentary way. In the mean time, he made notorious mistakes: first, in imagining that his pretensions would have passed in the House of Peers, and afterwards by the king. When the death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey had fermented the people; when the city had taken the alarm of a popish plot, and the government of it was in fanatic hands; when a body of White Boys was already appearing in the west,⁠[46] and many other counties waited but the word to rise—then was the time to have pushed his business: but Almighty God, who had otherwise disposed of the event, infatuated his counsels, and made him slip his opportunity; which he himself observed too late, and would have redressed by an insurrection, which was to have begun at Wapping, after the king had been murdered at the Rye.

And now, it will be but justice, before I conclude, to say a word or two of my author.⁠[47] He was formerly a Jesuit. He has, amongst others of his works, written the history of Arianism, of Lutheranism, of Calvinism, the Holy War, and the Fall of the Western Empire. In all his writings, he has supported the temporal power of sovereigns, and especially of his master the French king, against the usurpations and encroachments of the papacy. For which reason, being in disgrace at Rome, he was in a manner forced to quit his order, and, from Father Maimbourg, is now become Monsieur Maimbourg. The great king, his patron, has provided plentifully for him by a large salary, and indeed he has deserved it from him. As for his style, it is rather Ciceronian, copious, florid, and figurative, than succinct: He is esteemed in the French court equal to their best writers, which has procured him the envy of some who set up for critics. Being a professed enemy of the Calvinists, he is particularly hated by them; so that their testimonies against him stand suspected of prejudice. This History of the League is generally allowed to be one of his best pieces.⁠[48] He has quoted everywhere his authors in the margin, to show his impartiality; in which, if I have not followed him, it is because the chiefest of them are unknown to us, as not being hitherto translated into English. His particular commendations of men and families, is all which I think superfluous in his book; but that, too, is pardonable in a man, who, having created himself many enemies, has need of the support of friends. This particular work was written by express order of the French king, and is now translated by our king’s command. I hope the effect of it in this nation will be, to make the well-meaning men of the other party sensible of their past errors, the worst of them ashamed, and prevent posterity from the like unlawful and impious design.

CONTROVERSY BETWEEN DRYDEN AND STILLINGFLEET, CONCERNING THE DUCHESS OF YORK’S PAPER. — CONTROVERSY BETWEEN DRYDEN AND STILLINGFLEET, CONCERNING THE DUCHESS OF YORK’S PAPER. — COPY OF A PAPER WRITTEN BY THE LATE DUCHESS OF YORK, &c. — AN ANSWER TO THE DUCHESS’S PAPER. BY THE REVEREND EDWARD STILLINGFLEET.⁠ [57] — A DEFENCE OF THE PAPER WRITTEN BY THE DUCHESS OF YORK, AGAINST THE ANSWER MADE TO IT. — AN ANSWER TO THE DEFENCE OF THE THIRD PAPER. — FOOTNOTES: — THE ART OF PAINTING; — ART OF PAINTING, &c. — TO Mr JERVAS , WITH FRESNOY’S ART OF PAINTING, TRANSLATED BY MR DRYDEN. — TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. — A PARALLEL OF POETRY AND PAINTING. — THE PREFACE OF MONSIEUR DE PILES, THE FRENCH TRANSLATOR. — DE ARTE GRAPHICA LIBER. — THE ART OF PAINTING. — OBSERVATIONS ON THE ART OF PAINTING OF CHARLES ALPHONSE DU FRESNOY. — †1. — †9. — †24. — †37. — †39. — †40. — †45. — †50. — †52. — †54. — †61. — †63. — †66. — †69. — †72. — †74. — †75. — †76. — †77. — †81. — †83. — †89. — †91. — †92. — †95. — †103. — †104. — †105. — †107. — †112. — †113. — †114. — †117. — †126. — †128. — †129. — †132. — †137. — †145. — †152. — †162. — †164. — †169. — †176. — †178. — †183. — †193. — †195. — †196. — †200. — †202. — †204. — †210. — †211. — †215. — †217. — †220. — †221. — †222. — †233. — †247. — †256. — †263. — †267. — †280. — †283. — †286. — †290. — †329. — †330. — †332. — †355. — †361. — †365. — †378. — †382. — †383. — †385. — †386. — †387. — †393. — †403. — †417. — †422. — †433. — †434. — †435. — †442. — †443. — †445. — †449. — †458. — †464. — †466. — †468. — †473. — †475. — †478. — †480. — †484. — †487. — †496. — †500. — †503. — †509. — †510. — †511. — †514. — †520. — †522. — †541. — †544. — THE JUDGMENT OF CHARLES ALPHONSE DU FRESNOY, ON THE WORKS OF THE PRINCIPAL AND BEST PAINTERS OF THE TWO LAST AGES. — FOOTNOTES:

One of the first acts of King James the Second’s reign, was the publication of two papers found in the strong box of his deceased brother Charles, assigning various reasons to prove, that the church of Rome was the only true church; with a copy of another written by his first duchess, Anne Hyde, stating the grounds of her conversion to the Catholic faith.⁠[49] These papers were announced to be published by his majesty’s command; and, thus authenticated, were industriously dispersed over the kingdom. The learned Stillingfleet stood forward as the champion of the church of England, in refutation of the arguments alleged in the papers of the royal proselytes.⁠[50] In answer, appeared “A Defence of the Papers written by the late King, of blessed Memory, and Duchess of York, against the Answer made to them. By Command. London, 1686.” This defence, like the answer of Stillingfleet, was divided into three parts, applying to the three papers; and it seems that these were drawn up by different hands.

Dryden informs us, that he was concerned in the last, which seems to exclude the idea of his having any share in the first and second parts of the Defence;⁠[51] which, indeed, are written in a style more approaching to polemic controversy than that assumed by Dryden. Stillingfleet returned to the conflict, and published a “Vindication of his Answer;” in which he is severely personal upon Dryden, “the brisk defender,” as he calls him, of the duchess’s paper, and the “new convert” to the church of Rome. Dryden, personally assaulted, made a personal retort, both directly upon Stillingfleet, and upon Burnet, his coadjutor in the controversy; and to this we probably owe the character of the Buzzard in “The Hind and Panther,” as well as the reflections upon the moderate clergy, or Low Church divines, with which that piece abounds.⁠[52]

In order to understand Dryden’s defence, it is necessary to prefix the duchess’s paper, and Stillingfleet’s answer to it.

It is so reasonable to expect, that a person always bred up in the church of England,⁠[53] and as well instructed in the doctrine of it, as the best divines and her capacity could make her, should be liable to many censures for leaving that, and making herself a member of the Roman Catholic church, to which, I confess, I was one of the greatest enemies it ever had;⁠[54] that I rather choose to satisfy my friends by reading this paper, than to have the trouble to answer all the questions that may be daily asked me. And first, I do protest, in the presence of Almighty God, that no person, man or woman, directly or indirectly, ever said any thing to me since I came into England, or used the least endeavour to make me change my religion: it is a blessing I wholly owe to Almighty God, and, I hope, the hearing of a prayer I daily made him ever since I was in France and Flanders; where, seeing much of the devotion of the Catholics, (though I had very little myself,) I made it my continual request to Almighty God, that, if I were not, I might, before I died, be in the true religion. I did not in the least doubt but that I was so, and never had any scruple till November last; when, reading a book called “The History of the Reformation,” by Dr Heylin,⁠[55] which I had heard very much commended, and have been told, if ever I had any doubt of my religion, that would settle me; instead of which, I found it the description of the horridest sacrileges in the world; and could find no reason why we left the church, but for three, the most abominable ones that were ever heard of among Christians. First, Henry VIII. renounces the Pope’s authority, because he would not give him leave to part with his wife, and marry another in her lifetime; secondly, Edward VI. was a child, and governed by his uncle, who made his estate out of church-lands; and then Queen Elizabeth, who, being no lawful heiress to the crown, could have no way to keep it but by renouncing a church that could never suffer so unlawful a thing to be done by one of her children. I confess I cannot think the Holy Ghost could ever be in such counsels; and it is very strange, that if the bishops had no design but (as they say) the restoring us to the doctrine of the primitive church, they could never think upon it, till Henry VIII. made the breach upon so unlawful a pretence. These scruples being raised, I began to consider of the difference between the Catholics and us, and examined them as well as I could by Holy Scripture, which though I do not pretend to be able to understand, yet there are some things I found so easy, that I cannot but wonder I had been so long without finding them out; as—the real presence in the blessed sacrament, the infallibility of the church, confession, and praying for the dead. After this I spoke severally to two of the bishops⁠[56] we have in England, who both told me, there were many things in the Romish church which were very much to be wished we had kept: as confession, which was no doubt commanded by God; that praying for the dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity; that, for their parts, they did it daily, though they would not own it. And afterwards, pressing one of them very much upon the other points, he told me,—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not change his religion; but that being of another church, (wherein he was sure were all things necessary to salvation,) he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he received his baptism.

All these discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a Catholic, and gave me the most terrible agonies in the world within myself: for all this, fearing to be rash in a matter of that weight, I did all I could to satisfy myself; made it my daily prayer to God, to settle me in the right; and so went on Christmas-day to receive in the king’s chapel: after which, I was more troubled than ever, and could never be at quiet till I had told my design to a Catholic, who brought a priest to me; and that was the first I ever did converse with, upon my word. The more I spoke to him, the more I was confirmed in my design; and as it is impossible for me to doubt the words of our blessed Saviour, who says,—the holy sacrament is his body and blood; so cannot believe, that he, who is the Author of all truth, and has promised to be “with his church to the end of the world,” would permit them to give that holy mystery to the laity but in one kind, if it were not lawful so to do.

I am not able, or if I were, would I enter into disputes with any body; I only, in short, say this for the changing of my religion, which I take God to witness I would never have done, if I had thought it possible to save my soul otherwise. I think I need not say, it is not any interest in this world leads me to it. It will be plain enough to every body, that I must lose all the friends and credit I have here by it; and have very well weighed which I could best part with,—my share in this world, or the next: I thank God, I found no difficulty in the choice.

My only prayer is, “That the poor Catholics of this nation may not suffer for my being of their religion; that God would but give me patience to bear them, and then send me any afflictions in this world, so I may enjoy a blessed eternity hereafter.”

St James’s, Aug. 20, 1670.

The third paper is said to be written by a great lady, for the satisfaction of her friends, as to the reasons of her leaving the communion of the church of England, and making herself a member of the Roman Catholic church. If she had written nothing concerning it, none could have been a competent judge of those reasons or motives she had for it, but herself; but since she was pleased to write this paper, to satisfy her friends, and it is thought fit to be published for general satisfaction, all readers have a right to judge of the strength of them; and those of the church of England, an obligation to vindicate the honour of it, so far as it may be thought to suffer by them.

I am sensible how nice and tender a thing it is, to meddle in a matter wherein the memory of so great a lady is so nearly concerned, and wherein such circumstances are mentioned which cannot fully be cleared, the parties themselves having been many years dead; but I shall endeavour to keep within due bounds, and consider this paper with respect to the main design of it, and take notice of other particulars, so far as they are subservient to it.

The way of her satisfaction must needs appear very extraordinary; for, towards the conclusion, she confesses she was not able, nor would she enter into disputes with any body. Now, where the difference between the two churches lies wholly in matters of dispute, how any one could be truly satisfied as to the grounds of leaving one church and going to the other, without entering into matter of dispute with any body, is hard to understand. If persons be resolved beforehand what to do, and therefore will hear nothing said against it, there is no such way as to declare they will enter into no dispute about it. But what satisfaction is to be had in this manner of proceeding? How could one, bred up in the church of England, and so well instructed in the doctrines of it, ever satisfy herself in forsaking the communion of it, without enquiring into, and comparing the doctrines and practices of both churches? It is possible for persons of learning, who will take the pains of examining things themselves, to do that without entering into disputes with any body; but this was not to be presumed of a person of her condition: For many things must fall in her way, which she could neither have the leisure to examine, nor the capacity to judge of, without the assistance of such who have made it their business to search into them. Had she no divines of the church of England about her, to have proposed her scruples to? None able and willing to give her their utmost assistance in a matter of such importance, before she took up a resolution of forsaking our church? This cannot be imagined, considering not only her great quality, but that just esteem they had for her, whilst she continued so zealous and devout in the communion of our church.

But we have more than this to say. One of the bishops,⁠[58] who had nearest relation to her for many years, and who owns in print,⁠[59] that he bred her up in the principles of the church of England, was both able and willing to have removed any doubts and scruples with respect to our church, if she would have been pleased to have communicated them to him. And however she endeavoured to conceal her scruples, he tells her in his letter⁠[60] to her, which he since printed for his own vindication, “that he had heard much discourse concerning her wavering in religion, and that he had acquainted her highness with it, the Lent before the date of this paper;” and was so much concerned at it, that he obtained a promise from her, that if any writing were put into her hands by those of the church of Rome, that she would send it either to him, or to the then bishop of Oxford, whom he left in attendance upon her.⁠[61] After which, he saith, “she was many days with him at Farnham; in all which time she spake not one word to him of any doubt she had about her religion.” And yet this paper bears date, August 20th, that year, wherein she declares herself changed in her religion; so that it is evident she did not make use of the ordinary means for her own satisfaction, at least as to those bishops who had known her longest.

But she saith, “that she spoke severally to two of the best bishops⁠[62] we have in England, who both told her, there were many things in the Roman church, which it were much to be wished we had kept; as confession, which was no doubt commanded of God; that praying for the dead, was one of the ancient things in Christianity; that, for their parts, they did it daily, though they would not own it. And afterwards, pressing one⁠[63] of them very much upon the other points, he told her, that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not change his religion; but that being of another church, wherein he was sure were all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he received his baptism. Which discourses,” she said, “did but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic.”

This, I confess, seems to be to the purpose; if there were not some circumstances and expressions very much mistaken in the representation of it: but yet suppose the utmost to be allowed, there could be no argument from hence drawn for leaving the communion of our church, if this bishop’s authority or example did signify any thing with her. For supposing he did say, “that if he had been bred in the communion of the church of Rome, he would not change his religion;” yet he added, “that being of another church, wherein were all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he had received his baptism.” Now, why should not the last words have greater force to have kept her in the communion of our church, than the former to have drawn her from it? For why should any person forsake the communion of our church, unless it appears necessary to salvation so to do; and yet this yielding bishop did affirm, “that all things necessary to salvation were certainly in our church; and that it was an ill thing to leave it.” How could this “add to her desire of leaving our church?” unless there were some other motive to draw her thither, and then such small inducements would serve to inflame such a desire. But it is evident from her own words afterwards, that these concessions of the bishop could have no influence upon her; for she declares, and calls God to witness, “that she would never have changed her religion, if she had thought it possible to save her soul otherwise.” Now what could the bishop’s words signify towards her turning, when he declares just contrary, viz. not only that it was possible for her to be saved without turning, “but that he was sure we had all things necessary to salvation; and that it was a very ill thing to leave our church?” There must therefore have been some more secret reason, which encreased her desire to be a Catholic after these discourses; unless the advantage were taken from the bishop’s calling the church of Rome the Catholic religion; “if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have changed his religion.” But if we take these words so strictly, he must have contradicted himself; for how could he be sure we had all things necessary to salvation, if we were out of the Catholic church? Was a bishop of our church, and one of the best bishops of our church, as she said, so weak as to yield, “that he was sure all things necessary to salvation were to be had out of the communion of the Catholic church?”

But again; there is an inconsistency in his saying, “that he thought it very ill to leave our church;” which no man of common sense would have said, if he had believed the Roman church to be the Catholic, exclusive of all others that do not join in communion with it.

The utmost then that can be made of all this, is, that there was a certain bishop of this church, who held both churches to be so far parts of the Catholic church, that there was no necessity of going from one church to another. But if he asserted that, he must overthrow the necessity of the Reformation, and consequently not believe our articles and homilies, and so could not be any true member of the church of England.

But the late bishop of Winchester hath made a shorter answer to all this; for he first doubts whether there ever were any such bishops who made such answers; and afterwards he affirms, that he believes there never was, in rerum naturâ,⁠[64] such a discourse as is pretended to have been between this great person, and two of the most learned bishops of England. But God be thanked, the cause of our church doth not depend upon the singular opinion of one or two bishops in it, wherein they apparently recede from the established doctrine of it. And I am sure those of the church of Rome take it ill from us, to be charged with the opinion of particular divines, against the known sentiments of their church. Therefore, supposing the matter of fact true, it ought not to have moved her to any inclination to leave the church of England.

But after all, she protests, in the presence of Almighty God, that no person, man or woman, directly or indirectly, ever said any thing to her since she came into England, or used the least endeavour to make her change her religion; and that it is a blessing she wholly owes to Almighty God. So that the bishops are acquitted from having any hand in it, by her own words; and, as far as we can understand her meaning, she thought herself converted by immediate divine illumination. We had thought the pretence to a private spirit had not been at this time allowed in the church of Rome; but I observe, that many things are allowed to bring persons to the church of Rome, which they will not permit in those who go from it; as the use of reason in the choice of a church; the judgment of sense; and here, that which they would severely condemn in others as a private spirit, or enthusiasm, will pass well enough if it doth but lead one to their communion: any motive or method is good enough which tends to that end; and none can be sufficient against it. But why may not others set up for the change, as to other opinions, upon the same grounds, as well as this great person does, as to the change from our church to the church of Rome? and we have no pretenders to enthusiasm among us, but do as solemnly ascribe the blessing wholly to Almighty God, and look on it as the effect of such prayers as she made to him in France and Flanders.

But I wonder a person, who owed her change so wholly to Almighty God, should need the direction of an infallible church; since the utmost they can pretend to, is no more than to have such an immediate conduct; and the least that can be meant by it is, that she had no assistance from any other persons, which may not exclude her own endeavours: but supposing them to be employed, and an account to be here given of them, yet there is no connection between any of the premises, and the conclusion she drew from them; and therefore it must be immediate impulse, or some concealed motive, which determined her choice.

The conclusion was, “that she would never have changed, if she could have saved her soul otherwise.” If this were true, she had good reason for her change; if it were not true, she had none, as it is most certain it was not. Now let us examine how she came to this conclusion, and I will suppose it to have been just in the method she sets it down in.

First, she saith, she never had any scruples till the November before; and then they began upon reading Dr Heylin’s “History of the Reformation,” which was commended to her as a book to settle her; and there she found such abominable sacrilege upon Henry the Eighth’s divorce, King Edward’s minority, and Queen Elizabeth’s succession, that she could not believe the Holy Ghost could ever be in such counsels.

This was none of the best advices given to such a person, to read Dr Heylin’s History for her satisfaction:⁠[65] For there are two distinct parts in the history of our Reformation; the one ecclesiastical, the other political: the former was built on scripture and antiquity, and the rights of particular churches; the other on such maxims which are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage. And it is strange to me, that a person of so great understanding, should not distinguish these two. Whether Henry VIII. were a good man or not, whether the Duke of Somerset raised his estate out of the church-lands, doth not concern our present enquiry; which is, whether there was not sufficient cause for a reformation in the church? and if there was, whether our church had not sufficient authority to reform itself? and if so, whether the proceedings of our Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture, and the ancient church? These were the proper points for her to have considered, and not the particular faults of princes, or the miscarriages of ministers of state. Were not the vices of Alexander the Sixth, and many other heads of the church of Rome, for a whole age together, by the confession of their own greatest writers, as great at least as those of Henry the Eighth? And were these not thought sufficient to keep her from the church of Rome; and yet the others were sufficient to make her think of leaving our church? But Henry the Eighth’s church was, in truth, the church of Rome under a political head, much as the church of Sicily is under the king of Spain. All the difference is, Henry the Eighth took it as his own right; the king of Spain pretends to have it from the pope, by such concessions, which the popes deny. And suppose the king of Spain’s pretence were unlawful to that jurisdiction which he challengeth in the kingdom of Sicily, were this a sufficient ground to justify the thoughts of separation from the church of Rome?

But the Duke of Somerset raised his estate out of church lands, and so did many courtiers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Are there not miscarriages of the like nature in the church of Rome? What is the pope’s making great estates out of the church lands, for their nephews to be princes and dukes? a thing not unheard of in our age: And is it not so much worse to be done by the head of the church?

These, she confesses, were but scruples, but such as occasioned her examining the points in difference by the holy scripture. Now she was in the right way for satisfaction, provided she made use of the best helps and means for understanding it, and took in the assistance of her spiritual guides. But it seems, contrary to the doctrine of the church of Rome, she found some things so easy there, that she wondered she had been so long without finding them out. And what were these? No less than the real presence in the blessed sacrament, the infallibility of the church confession, and praying for the dead.

These were great discoveries to be made so easily; considering how those of the church of Rome, who have been most versed in these matters, have found it so difficult to make them out from thence.

(1.) As to the real presence, as it is in the dispute between us and the church of Rome, it implies the real and substantial change of the elements into the body and blood of Christ. But where do our Saviour’s words, in calling the sacrament his body and blood, imply any such thing? The wisest persons of the church of Rome have confessed, that the bare words of our Saviour can never prove it; but there needs the authority of the church to interpret them in that sense. How then could she so easily find out that, which their most learned men could not? But there is nothing goes so far in such discoveries as a willing mind.

(2.) As to confession, no doubt the word is often used in scripture, and therefore easily found. But the question between us is not about the usefulness, or advantage, of confession in particular cases; but the necessity of it in all cases, in order to remission of sins. And I can hardly believe any bishop of our church would ever say to her, that confession, in this sense, was ever commanded by God; for then he must be damned himself, if he did not confess every known sin to a priest. But some general expressions might be used, that confession of sin was commanded by God; “confess your sins one to another:” but here is nothing of a particular confession to a priest necessary, in order to forgiveness of sin.

(3.) As to praying for the dead, it is hard to find any place of scripture which seems to have any tendency that way, unless it be with respect to the day of judgment, and that very doubtfully. But how came this great person to think it not possible to be saved in our church, unless we prayed for the dead? How did this come to be a point of salvation? And, for the practice of it, she saith, the bishops told her they did it daily. Whether they did it or not, or in what sense they did it, we cannot now be better informed; but we are sure this could be no argument for her to leave the communion of our church, because she was told by these bishops they did it, and continued in the communion of it.

(4.) Lastly; as to the infallibility of the church; if this, as applied to the Roman church, could be any where found in scripture, we should then indeed be to blame not to submit to all the definitions of it. But where is this to be found? Yes, Christ hath promised to be with his church to the end of the world; not with his church, but with his apostles: And if it be restrained to them, then the end of the world is no more than always. But suppose it be understood of the successors of the apostles; were there none but at Rome? How comes this promise to be limited to the church of Rome; and the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria, and all the other eastern churches (where the bishops as certainly succeeded the apostles as at Rome itself) not to enjoy the equal benefit of this promise? But they who can find the infallibility of the church of Rome in scripture, need not despair of finding whatever they have a mind to there.

But from this promise she concludes, that our Saviour would not permit the church to give the laity the communion in one kind, if it were not lawful so to do. Now, in my opinion, the argument is stronger the other way: the church of Rome forbids the doing of that, which Christ enjoined; therefore it cannot be infallible, since the command of Christ is so much plainer than the promise of infallibility to the church of Rome.

But, from all these things laid together, I can see no imaginable reason of any force to conclude, that she could not think it possible to save her soul otherwise, than by embracing the communion of the church of Rome: And the public will receive this advantage by these papers, that thereby it appears, how very little is to be said by persons of the greatest capacity, as well as place, either against the church of England, or for the church of Rome.

I dare appeal to all unprejudiced readers, and especially to those who have any sense of piety, whether, upon perusal of the Paper written by her late highness the Duchess, they have not found in it somewhat which touched them to the very soul; whether they did not plainly and perfectly discern in it the spirit of meekness, devotion, and sincerity, which animates the whole discourse; and whether the reader be not satisfied, that she who writ it has opened her heart without disguise, so as not to leave a scruple, that she was not in earnest. I am sure I can say, for my own particular, that when I read it first in manuscript, I could not but consider it as a discourse extremely moving; plain, without artifice, and discovering the piety of the soul from which it flowed. Truth has a language to itself, which it is impossible for hypocrisy to imitate: dissimulation could never write so warmly, nor with so much life. What less than the spirit of primitive Christianity could have dictated her words? The loss of friends, of worldly honours and esteem, the defamation of ill tongues, and the reproach of the cross,—all these, though not without the strugglings of flesh and blood, were surmounted by her; as if the saying of our Saviour were always sounding in her ears, “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul!”

I think I have amplified nothing in relation either to this pious lady, or her discourse: I am sure I need not. And now let any unbiassed and indifferent reader compare the spirit of the answerer with hers. Does there not manifestly appear in him a quite different character? Need the reader be informed, that he is disingenuous, foul-mouthed, and shuffling; and that, not being able to answer plain matter of fact, he endeavours to evade it by suppositions, circumstances, and conjectures; like a cunning barreter of law, who is to manage a single cause, the dishonesty of which he cannot otherwise support than by defaming his adversary? Her only business is, to satisfy her friends of the inward workings of her soul, in order to her conversion, and by what methods she quitted the religion in which she was educated. He, on the contrary, is not satisfied, unless he question the integrity of her proceedings, and the truth of her plain relations, even so far as to blast, what in him lies, her blessed memory, with the imputation of forgery and deceit; as if she had given a false account, not only of the passages in her soul, and the agonies of a troubled conscience, only known to God and to herself, but also of the discourses which she had with others concerning those disquiets. Everywhere the lie is to be cast upon her, either directly, in the words of the bishop of Winchester, which he quotes; or indirectly, in his own, in which his spiteful diligence is most remarkable.

In his answer to the two former papers, there seems to have been some restraint upon the virulence of his genius, though even there he has manifestly past the bounds of decency and respect; but so soon as he had got loose from disputing with crowned heads, he shews himself in his pure naturals, and is as busy in raking up the ashes of their next relations, as if they were no more of kin to the crown than the new church of England is to the old reformation of their great-grandfathers. But God forbid that I should think the whole episcopal clergy of this nation to be of his latitudinarian stamp; many of them, as learned as himself, are much more moderate; and such, I am confident, will be as far from abetting his irreverence to the royal family, as they are from the juggling designs of his faction to draw in the nonconformists to their party, by assuring them they shall not be prosecuted (as indeed, upon their principles, they cannot be by them); but, in the mean time, this is to wrest the favour out of the king’s hands, and take the bestowing it into their own, and to re-assume to themselves that headship of the English church which their ancestors gave away to king Henry VIII. And now let any loyal subject but consider, whether this new way of their proceeding does not rather tend to bring the church of England into the fanatics, than the fanatics into the church of England.

These are the arts which are common to him and his fellow-labourers; but his own peculiar talent is that of subtle calumny and sly aspersion, by which he insinuates into his readers an ill opinion of his adversaries, before he comes to argument; and takes away their good name rather by theft than open robbery. He lays a kind of accumulative dishonesty to their charge, and touches them here and there with circumstances, instead of positive proofs, till at last he leaves a bad impression of them; like a painter who makes blotches of hard colouring in several parts of the face, which he smooths afterwards into a likeness. After this manner he, or one of his brethren in iniquity, has used Monsieur de Condom,⁠[66] by picking up stories against him in his Preface, which he props up with little circumstances, but seldom so positive, that he cannot come off when their falsity shall be detected. In the mean time, his cause goes forward with the common reader, who, prepossessed by the Preface, is made partial to his answer. The same kind of artifice, with some little variation, has been used in other of their books, besides this present libel against the duchess.

But the cloven foot of this our answerer appears from underneath the cassock, even in the first step he makes towards his answer to the present paper; “which,” he tells us, “is said to be written by a great lady.” How doubtfully he speaks, as if there were no certainty of the author! But surely it is more than barely said, for it is published by the same authority which ordered the two other papers written by his late majesty, to the press; and the original of it is still remaining in the hands of the present king. Indeed, the bishop of Winchester may seem to have given him some encouragement for this in the Preface to his Treatises, where he tell us,—that “Maimbourg, the Jesuit, recites something which,” he says, “was written by the late duchess,” and which he afterwards calls,—“the papers pretended to be written by her.” But if that bishop had lived to see what our answerer has seen, her paper printed and published by his majesty, I cannot think he would have been so incredulous as to have made that doubt. It may be allowed him to suspect a stranger of forgery; but with what face can this son of the church of England suspect the integrity of his king? In the mean time, observe what an excellent voucher he has got of this dead bishop, and what an excellent argument he has drawn from him. Because he would not believe what he did not think she said, we must not believe what we know she did say. Let our author, therefore, come out of his mists and ambiguities, or give us some better authority for his unreasonable doubts; for, at this rate, if it be already suspected, whether what she writes be matter of fact, and, indeed, whether she writ at all, it may be doubted hereafter, whether she changed, and, perhaps, whether there were ever such a woman.

After he had thus begun, that “this paper was said to be written by a great lady, for the satisfaction of her friends,” he shuffles in commodious words for an answerer, and which afford him elbow-room; for he talks of the reasons and motives which she had for her leaving the communion of the church of England, &c. and of the right which all readers have to judge of the strength of them. Now, as luck will have it, none of those motives and reasons are to be found in the paper of her highness. She expresses herself clearly to write for the satisfaction of her friends, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, but as to the censures which she might expect from them for so doing; and her whole paper shews this was her only design: So that, against the law of all romances, he first builds the enchanted castle, and then sets up to be the doughty knight who conquers it. It seems, he found that a bare denial, which is the proper answer to matter of fact, was a dry business, and would make no sport; and therefore he would be sure to cut himself out sufficient work. But it is not every man’s talent to force a trade; for a customer may choose whether he will buy or not.

This great person changed not lightly, nor in haste; but after all the endeavours which could be used by a soul which was true to itself, and to its eternal interest. She was sensible, as I before hinted, that she should lose her friends and credit; and, what to her condition at that time was more sharply piercing, expose the Catholics of England to the danger of suffering for her sake. On these considerations, she makes a plain relation of all the passages in her change; and, expecting severe censures from the world, took care to satisfy her friends concerning it. As for the reasons of it, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last. What a wonderful art has this gentleman, to turn a bare narrative into motives and inducements? When he is arrived to the perfection of calling down a saint from heaven, he may examine her concerning them; in the mean time, he must be content with the relation which she has left behind her here on earth; and if he will needs be mistaking her scruples for her motives, who can help it?

His design, as he tells us a little after the beginning, is, “to vindicate the honour of the church of England, so far as it may be thought to suffer by the paper of her late highness.” I might here tell him, that he has an obligation antecedent to the honour of his community, which is that to God and his own conscience. But the honour of the church of England is no farther concerned in the paper of her highness, than in relation to the persons of two or three prelates; and those he leaves at last to shift for themselves as they are able, with this melancholy farewell, that—“God be thanked, the cause of our church does not depend upon the singular opinion of one or two bishops in it, wherein they apparently recede from the established doctrine of it.”

In the next place, “he is sensible how nice and tender a thing it is to meddle in a matter wherein the memory of so great a lady is concerned.”

Here he is sensible, once for all; for, after this one civility, you hear no more of his good manners, to the end of the chapter; but the honour of the church of England so wholly takes up his thoughts, that he forgets the respect which is due to her sex, her quality, her memory, her relations, and confutes her as coarsely as the parson did Bellarmine.⁠[67]

He goes on to inform us, how hard a task he has undertaken in answering these papers, “wherein such circumstances are mentioned as cannot fully be cleared, the parties themselves having been many years dead; yet he shall endeavour to keep within due bounds,” &c.

These due bounds either are, or ought to be, respect to the great lady, and caution in regard of circumstances, which I hope he will not put upon his readers for arguments, the parties being dead so long ago.

But let the reader here take notice, that in this very place he is clapping his cups together, and shuffling his balls from hand to hand, to lay the foundation of his juggling, and to prepare the way for all the tricks which he is to play hereafter.

For, the parties being dead long since, that is, the duchess, in the first place, not being alive to justify the several conferences which she had with the bishops; nor they, in the second, to answer, as in the sight of God, whether she had such discourse with them, the field is open for him, as he vainly imagines, by laying circumstances of time and place together, and racking her own paper till it seemingly speaks against her, to render it suspected to his good friends, the rabble, that she has falsified the whole matter.

Well, we shall see what he builds upon this foundation: let him speak for himself.

“The way of her satisfaction was very extraordinary; for, towards the conclusion, she confesses she was not able, nor would she enter into disputes with any body.”

Commend me to him for a man of quick dispatch. At the first dash, he is bringing the two ends of her paper together; for he says,—“towards the conclusion she confesses.” It was well searched of him, however, to hunt counter, and run to the end of her discourse for the beginning of his own. He will lose no advantages, I warrant him. Press that home, doctor. She modestly owns, that she was neither able nor willing to enter into disputes; therefore she had no other way to satisfy herself: when the whole drift of this pious and sincere discourse is to inform her friends of the methods by which God Almighty brought her into his church; her paper being a plain and short history of her conversion.

The answerer is of opinion, there is nothing to be done, no satisfaction to be had in matters of religion, without dispute; that is his only recipe, his nostrum for attaining a true belief. But doctors differ in this point: For another witty gentleman of his church⁠[68] desired no other epitaph upon his tomb than this: “Here lies the author of this sentence, Disputandi pruritus, scabies ecclesiæ;” the itch of disputation is the scab or tetter of the church. Now, if the learned avail themselves so little of dispute, that it is as rare as a prodigy for one of them to convince another, what shall become of the ignorant, when they are to deal with those fencers of divinity, who can hit them in tierce and quart at pleasure, while they are ignorant how to stand upon their guard? And yet such poor people have souls to save, as precious in the sight of God as the grim logician’s. Must they be damned unless they can make a regular approach to heaven in mood and figure? Is there no entering there without a syllogism? or ergoteering it with a nego, concedo, et distinguo? The best on it is, our Saviour’s disciples were but poor fishermen, and we read but of one of his apostles who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel. I would beseech our answerer to consider, whether he has argued upon his own principles, in affirming, that none can be satisfied as to the grounds of leaving one church and going to the other, without entering into dispute? Has he not allowed, that every man is to interpret the Scripture for himself, in reference to his own salvation? With what face then can he positively say,—“That this lady,” who had not only read the Scriptures, but found them in her judgment plainly to decide the great controversy betwixt Catholics and Protestants, “might not leave his church, and enter into that of Christ, by interpreting ‘this is my body,’ in the literal and obvious meaning?” If, from a Catholic, she had become a Protestant, by expounding those words in a figurative sense, he would have applauded her for not discerning the Lord’s body, and said, she was in the right to interpret for herself. But she, it seems, must be an exception to his general rule, and not have that privilege allowed her, which he dare not deny to any sectary of the nonconformists. The fanatics think the Scripture is clear in all matters of salvation; and if so, what need, say they, of those spiritual directors? Even the pillars of the church by law established, from their own concessions, are found to be but broken staffs; for, after all their undertaking to heal a wounded conscience, when the arrows of the Almighty are stuck into it, they leave their proselytes finally to the Scripture, as our physicians, when they have emptied the pockets of their patients without curing them, send them at last to Tunbridge waters, or the air of Montpellier.

“But if persons be resolved beforehand what to do, (says our answerer,) there is no such way as to declare—they will not enter into dispute.”

Here he would make us believe, that she swallowed a new religion without chewing it, because she disputed not. I have shewed already what is the common fate of disputation. But had she no other way of satisfying her conscience? (as he immediately infers she had not.) If he were not obstinately blind, or rather had not an intention to blind his reader, he might have observed the methods and gradations of her change, and that, though she disputed not, yet she discoursed (which is entering into matter of dispute) with some of the ablest of the English clergy, even with him particularly who was left by the bishop of Winchester to be her spiritual director; by which it plainly appears, notwithstanding all the jugglings and glosses of our answerer, that the better part even of his own prescription was put in practice by her, though without effect, as to her satisfaction. Why, then, does he ask so many idle questions? “Had she no divines of the church of England about her? none able and willing to afford her their utmost assistance?” when she takes care to inform the world that she had such divines, that she imparted her scruples, and, after all, remained unsatisfied with their answers.

“Persons of learning,” indeed, he says, “may possibly be satisfied without entering into disputes of matters which she had neither the leisure to examine, nor the capacity to judge of.”

Then, as I said before, the kingdom of heaven is chiefly, if not only, for the wise and learned of this world, though our Saviour was not of this judgement. But is not every man to be satisfied pro modulo suo, according to the measure of his own understanding? Can an ignorant person enter into the knowledge of the mysteries of our faith, when even the most learned cannot understand them? Can the answerer himself unriddle the secrets of the incarnation, fathom the undivided Trinity, or the consubstantiality of the Eternal Son, with all his readings and examinations? From whence comes it then, that he believes them, since neither the scripture is plain about them, nor the wit of man can comprehend them? As for her comparing the doctrines of both churches, no question she did it to the best of her ability; for if he will believe her in any thing, she both read the scriptures, and conferred with the most learned Protestants, before she had any discourses with a Catholic priest. But if she had not, as he rudely says, the capacity of judging in deep controversies, it is very probable she might want that of understanding the instructions of her guides; for, if I may similize in my turn, a dull fellow might ask the meaning of a problem in Euclid from the bishop of Salisbury,⁠[69] without being ever the better for his learned solution of it. So then her capacity will break no squares, at least from the doctrine of the English church, and the Presbyterians, put them both together, as they now stand united; for, either the scriptures are clear, and then a mean capacity will serve to understand them, or, though they are never so obscure, yet the upshot of all is, that every man is to interpret for himself.

What farther quarrel he can have against the lady in this particular, I know not, unless it be upon the bishop of Winchester’s account; namely, that she refused to advise with him, and admitted the two others⁠[70] to a conference; and what reason she had for so doing, if I were as penetrating as my author, I should undertake to demonstrate by the infallible evidence of circumstances and inferences: but since the parties are dead, and so long since, I will not give my own opinion why she refused him, and of what principles she might possibly have thought him. At present I will not trouble myself farther with that prelate of rich memory, whom I warrant you our author would not commend so much for his great abilities and willingness to resolve the lady’s doubts, if he had not some journey-work for him to do hereafter; neither will I meddle much with the long impertinent story of his letter to the duchess, and her silence at Farnham, where she would not consult him in any of her doubts. Whatever great matters are made of these by our answerer, she had a very sufficient reason for not asking his advice, as will instantly be made appear. But now our author is at another of his dodging tricks, comparing times and dates of letters, the bishop’s bearing date the 24th of January, that very year in which she changed; but that he may not puzzle himself too much in reckoning, I will unriddle the matter of fact to him, which I have from a most authentic hand. The duke and duchess were at Farnham in the beginning of September, where they continued about three days, in the year 1670. Her highness’s paper bears date the 20th of August, 1670; by which it is manifest, that it was written twelve or fourteen days before her visit to the bishop. Now where, I beseech you, is the wonder, that she spoke nothing to him concerning any points of a religion in which she was already satisfied? Would any man ask another—what’s o’clock, after he had been just looking upon a sun-dial? So that all his aggravations dwindle at length into this poor inference, that it is evident she did not make use of the ordinary means for her own satisfaction; at least (mark how he mollifies, for fear of being trapped) as to those bishops who had known her longest.

Now this is so pitiful, that it requires no answer; for it amounts to no more than that she liked not the bishop, and therefore, from the beginning, concealed her scruples from him; and she changed her religion the same year, (though before he writ to her,) because she was satisfied of another. But does it follow from hence, as he infers, that, in the mean while, she did not use the ordinary means for her satisfaction? Supposing she had liked the other two bishops as little as she did him, had she no other ordinary means but by those two, or even by any other bishops? Satisfied, to be sure, she was, or she had not changed; and if the means had been wholly extraordinary, from the inspirations of God’s holy spirit only, she had thereby received the greater favour; but not omitting to give God thanks for his supernatural assistance, she used also the ordinary means.

It appears that her first emotions were from her observing the devotions of the Catholics in France and Flanders; and this is no news to any traveller. Ask even our Protestant gentlemen at their return from Catholic countries, and they cannot but confess that the exercises of their devotion, their mortifications, their austerities, their humility, their charity, and in short, all the ways of good living, are practised there in a far greater measure than they are in England; but these are the virtues from which we are blessedly reformed by the example and precept of that lean, mortified apostle, St Martin Luther.

Her first scruples were raised in her by reading Doctor Heylin’s “History of the Reformation,” and what she found in it we shall see hereafter. It appears, that history had given her some new apprehensions; and to satisfy them, she considered of the matters in difference betwixt the Catholics and Protestants; and so considered them, as to examine them the best she could by scripture, which she found to speak clearly for the Catholics; and she, upon our author’s principles, was judge of this: after which, she spoke with two of the best bishops in England, and their doubtful or rather favourable answers, did but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic. All these ordinary ways she took, before she could persuade herself to send for a priest, whose endeavours it pleased the Almighty so to bless, that she was reconciled to his church, and her troubled conscience was immediately at rest.

I have been forced to recapitulate these things, and to give them the reader at one view; for our answerer is so cunning at his trade, that he shews them only in parcels, and by retail, that it might not be thought she used the ordinary means. One thing I had omitted, which was, that the bishop affirms in his letter to her Highness, that she had made him a promise, in case any writing were put into her hand by those of the Roman church, she would send it either to him or the bishop of Oxford.⁠[71]

Why does our author put down that promise thus at large? If he means any thing more by it, besides a justification of his bishop for having done his part, which signifies just nothing, he would tacitly insinuate that she broke her word, by not sending any such writing to him. If so, he is at his legerdemain again. He would have it thought she kept not her promise, but does not positively affirm it; but since it is manifest, by the order of time in her paper, that she neither sent for any priest, nor conferred with any learned Catholic, till after she had done with the two bishops, it may, and ought to be supposed, that she received no writings from any of that religion; for if she had, she would certainly have mentioned them.

If then the bishop of Winchester would insinuate, that she had such papers, which she sent not to him, according to her engagement, I may at least answer with my author, that the lady was dead long before the bishop published his letter, so that the circumstances therein mentioned cannot be so fully cleared.

But to return to our answerer. He has brought us at length to the several discourses which her Highness had with the two bishops, his Grace of Canterbury, and the bishop of Worcester; and since he has thought fit to put all that concerned this matter into one long paragraph, quoted from the Duchess, I must follow his example. These are her words:—“After this, I spoke severally to two of the best bishops we have in England, who both told me there were many things in the Roman church, which it were very much to be wished we had kept; as confession, which was no doubt commanded of God; that praying for the dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity; that for their parts, they did it daily, though they would not own it. And afterwards, pressing one of them very much upon the other points, he told me—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not change his religion; but that being of another church, wherein he was sure were all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he had received his baptism. All these discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a Catholic, and gave me the most terrible agonies in the world,” &c.

“This (he confesses) seems to be to the purpose;” and where he confesses the least advantage on our side, the reader may swear there is somewhat more than ordinary in the matter. But he retrenches immediately, and kicks down the pail, by adding this restriction—“if there were not some circumstances and expressions very much mistaken in the representation of it.” Yet in the next line again, as if he were ashamed of his own fearfulness, he is for making a bold sally, and putting all to the push; for, “supposing the utmost to be allowed (says he) there could be no argument from hence drawn for leaving the communion of our church;” but he restrains that too with this caution—“if the bishop’s authority and example did signify any thing with her.” Thus, from yielding at first, he comes to modify his concession, and from thence to strike out magnanimously.

But then he retreats again with another if. It is a sign he is uneasy, when he tosses and turns so often in a breath; and that he is diffident of his cause, when he shifts his plea. It is evident that the Duchess laid a great stress on these concessions: and well she might; for what a startle would it give to a doubting soul, which already had taken the alarm, to hear two bishops, whereof one was primate of all England, renouncing and condemning two of the established articles of their church? But it is well known, that those two prelates were not, nor, if they were now living, would be, the only clergymen of the church of England who are of opinion they have over-reformed themselves in casting off prayers for the dead, and consequently, the doctrine of a third place. But these are church of England men of the old stamp; betwixt whom, and the faction of this answerer, there is just as much difference as betwixt a true episcopal man and a latitudinarian; and this latter, in plain terms, is no otherwise different from a presbyterian, than by whatsoever titles and dignities he is distinguished. So that our answerer was much in the right to skip over the first half of this paragraph without answering in this place, and to gallop to the last sentence of it, which begins with Bishop Blandford’s saying,—“That if he had been bred in the communion of the Roman church, he would not change his religion:” whither, as in duty bound, I follow him.

To overbalance the weight of these concessions, our author would have us think, that the subsequent words of the bishop ought to have had greater force to have kept her in the communion of the Protestant church, than the former to have drawn her from it; for the bishop comes off with this excuse,—“That being of another church, wherein he was sure were all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave that church wherein he received his baptism.”

First, take notice, that the Duchess says, the bishop was pressed by her very much before he made the concession—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have changed; which shews, that a truth was forced out of him, which he would willingly have concealed. For, both in regard to his own credit, and the retaining of so great a person in his church, it was not his interest to have yielded—that a Catholic might be saved, at least on as easy terms as a Protestant. But he goes farther, when he confesses—that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have altered his religion; for therein he seems even to regret his being bred a Protestant, at least he yields, that all things necessary to salvation were in the Roman Catholic church; for otherwise, had he been educated in it, he ought, in conscience, to have changed, which he owns he would not have done. Now this is manifestly more than what he said for the church of England; for his following words are rather an excuse for his continuance in his church, than an argument to dissuade her Highness from turning Catholic:—“He thought it very ill to give that scandal to leave the church wherein he was baptized.” Now the word scandal, plainly relates to his own person, and signifies no more than that he was ashamed to change; for it was impossible for him to think he should sin against his conscience in changing, who had declared—that he would not have changed, in case he had been bred a Catholic. And the reason he gives is made of the same yielding metal, viz. that he had his baptism in the Protestant church; for that argument in itself is of no weight, since the right reverend well knew that the baptism even of heretics is good; so that, if he had been christened in the Lutheran, the Abyssine, or the Russian church, he must for that reason have continued in it. But he timorously pleads his fear of giving scandal, which is, as I said, no justification of himself, no dissuasive to her, but only a mean, interested apology for his not changing.

As for his intimating,—that all things necessary to salvation were to be had in the church of England, let any reasonable man be judge whether he could possibly have said less in defence of himself for continuing in it; for this only shewed, that he thought salvation was to be had in both churches, as even this author himself is forced to confess afterwards, in these words: “The utmost that can be made of this is, that a certain bishop of our church” [who in the mean time has proved himself an uncertain one,] “held both churches so far parts of the Catholic church, that there was no necessity of going from one church to another.”

That which he calls—the utmost we can make of it, is in truth the least which the bishop’s words will naturally bear; and I may safely put the cause upon this issue,—whether such a discourse might not reasonably add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic?

Let us hear now what he has to answer; and I will reply briefly, because I have taken away the strength of his argument already.

First, he says in effect, That the bishop’s authority and example ought to have prevailed with her on the one side, more than his concessions on the other.

I reply—Not his authority, because he spoke more for the church of Rome than against it: nor his example, for he gave her no encouragement to follow it, by saying, that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have changed. His example of praying daily for the dead shewed his opinion at the bottom; but his not publicly owning that he did so, has proved him little better than a black bishop, who has entered privately into the white one’s walk.⁠[72]

Our author asks, in the second place,—Why any person should forsake the communion of the Protestant church, wherein the bishop affirmed were all things necessary to salvation? And I enquire, How she could be bound to believe him, since confession, and prayers for the dead, are wanting in it? one of which he had before acknowledged to be commanded of God; the other, to be one of the ancient things in Christianity!

Thirdly, he urges, That the bishop had told her, it was an ill thing to leave the church of England. And I reply, That the answerer has falsified his words. “The bishop only thought it very ill to give that scandal, as to leave the church wherein he was baptized.” First, he spoke of himself only, not of her. Mark that fallacy. And then he said not,—it was ill to leave the church; but—very ill to give that scandal, as to leave the church; relating again to his own particular.

Fourthly, he says, It is evident that the bishops could have no influence upon her; though she positively says those discourses, in which were those concessions, did but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic. This is full upon the vizor⁠[73]; but the dead are to take all things patiently. Well! How, if he can convince her of falsity from her own words? why then he will carry his argument, as well as his good manners, to the height; and how broad soever the word may be which he has slily given her, yet he will tell you, that freedom ought to be permitted him, as sustaining the honour of the church of England.

His argument is this: “She declares afterwards, that she would not have changed, if she had thought it possible otherwise to have saved her soul; but the bishop had told her, that all things necessary for salvation were in the English church; therefore the bishop contributed nothing to her change.”

So the mitre be safe in its reputation, no matter what becomes of the ducal coronet. Now I can be very well content that the bishop should have no part in the honour of her conversion; for it is plain that he desired it not; and why should he do good against his will?

I wish my author would have furnished me with an argument to have brought him wholly off; but I will bring him on his way as far as by the help of the answerer’s scarf I can fairly drag him. I say therefore, that though her Highness changed not her belief upon the concessions of the bishop, yet his concessions were an occasion of her farther scruples, in order to her change; for, she says, “they added to the desire she had to be a Catholic.”

The bishop did indeed tell her, that all things necessary to salvation were in the English church; but tell me, Sir, I beseech you, was that all he told her? By your favour, you have left out the better half of what he said; for he told her also, “that if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not have changed.” And she had reason to believe what he said to the advantage of a church of which he was no member, as being sure he would say no more than scanty truth. And he acknowledges into the bargain, that “confession was commanded of God;” and, that “praying for the dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity.” What a shameful way of arguing is this, to make a general negative conclusion from half the premises? or, in other words, to maintain, that the bishop’s concessions could have no influence upon her, because they had not the greatest influence? And you in a manner confess it before you were aware, in the close of your argument, where you say, “There must therefore have been some more secret reason, which increased her desire to be a Catholic, after these discourses.” Now some more secret reason does not hinder the bishop’s concessions from being one; nay, it argues, that they were one of the reasons, though not the most prevalent, because there was one more secret. You have now contradicted yourself so plainly, that you have wholly justified the Duchess; and the broad word, without naming it, is fairly brought back to your own door.

After this, our answerer does but piddle, and play at small game, as if her Highness might possibly take encouragement from the bishop’s calling the church of Rome the Catholic religion; but she was too much in earnest to lay hold upon a word. Neither is more advantage to be taken from his calling the church of Rome the Catholic religion, than we receive disadvantage from the playing upon the word of Roman Catholic.

Next, for want of a quarrel, he is falling upon his late dear friend the bishop: “Was he,” says our answerer, “so weak, to mean the word Catholic in the strictest sense, he must then have contradicted himself; there was an inconsistency in his words,”—and so forth.

From the inconsistency of the bishop’s words in this and other places, our answerer, perhaps, would make a secret inference, that he never said them; and obliquely draw the Duchess into the statute of coining; so that the two spiritual hectors may make a sham-duel of it, for aught we know. For it is a common trick with robbers to clash their swords together in the dark, to draw company together, and then some third person pays for it. Take it in this manner, and then the argument against her Highness will stand thus: the sayings which she relates are inconsistent, and therefore she must not be believed, though she affirms she heard them. Why, do not as many as have ears hear inconsistent things said every day? and must every body needs lie, who reports them again? That inconsistency of the words is, in truth, an argument, that these things were said; for what bids fairer for adding to the desire she had of being a Catholic, and of giving her the terrible agonies she felt? But after all, if the answerer’s quarrel be in earnest with the bishop, it is pity they should fall out for such a trifle. As weak as the bishop was, and as strong as our answerer makes his inconsistencies appear, I dare answer for him, he meant nothing less than to convert her.

You do ill therefore, to play the bully with a peaceable old gentleman, who only desired to possess his conscience and his bishopric in peace, without offence to any man, either of the Catholic church, or that of England.

But if he held, that both churches were so far parts of the Catholic, that there was no necessity of going from one church to another to be saved, if he asserted that you say, he must overthrow the necessity of your Reformation; and then down goes his belief of your homilies and articles, (thirty-nine at a tip,) and consequently he could be no true member of the church of England.

And now what can I do more for the poor bishop? for most certainly he did imply thus much in saying, that “if he had been bred a Catholic, he would not change his religion.” Therefore, Take him, Topham!⁠[74] there’s no help, but he must be turned out of the church of England, even so long after he has been dead.

In the mean time, let us a little examine this proposition. Our answerer affirms, “That he cannot be a true member of the church of England, who asserts both churches to be so far parts of the Catholic church, that there is no necessity of going from one church to another to be saved.” If this be true, then, to be a member of the church of England, one must assert,—that either both churches are not parts of the Catholic, or that they are so parts, that there is a necessity of going from one to another. Of these two, the first is not for the honour of one of the churches, and the second is direct nonsense. A necessity of change consists not with their being both parts; for parts constitute one whole, and leave not one and another, to go to or from. There is no church in France or Italy, to which a Spanish Catholic can go, but what he left in Spain; nor can he leave his own, by going to either of them. He may be under other governors in the same church; but let him go wheresoever he shall please, he cannot be of another, so long as he remains a Catholic. In short, necessity of change makes it absolutely impossible for both churches to be parts of the Catholic, and forces the church of England to maintain—either that she is a part, and the Roman Catholic none, or else that it is no matter whether she be a part or no; to which I wish they may not, with the pretence of zeal for her honour, desire to drive her, who have nothing better to say in their own behalf.

But though our answerer has laid one bishop flat, I warrant you he has another in reserve; for now the bishop of Winchester (who, as I said formerly, was not commended so much for nothing,) is brought back in triumph from his palace of Farnham, to make a short end of the dispute. At first he doubts, whether ever there were any such bishops who made such answers; and then affirms, that he believes there never was in rerum naturâ such a discourse as is pretended to have been betwixt this great person and two of the most learned bishops in England.

This is downright indeed; for our answerer, to do him justice, has often collaterally accused the Duchess for her good invention at making stories: but here is plain English upon the point. What pity is it, in the mean time, that my Lord of Winton gives not so much as one single reason, either for his doubt, or his contrary belief? So that having only his lordship’s opinion, and her highness’s affirmation before me, I might say, with at least as much good manners as that prelate, that I believe as little of his pretended letter sent to the Duchess so long after her decease, as he does of her pretended discourse with the two bishops.

In the mean time, what use would my gentleman here make of his lordship’s doubts, his belief, or his affirmation? Are the embers too hot for him, that he uses the bishop’s foot to pull out the chesnut? Suppose our prelate had believed there were no Antipodes, is this a time of day to give him credit? But I wonder the less why our author attributes so much to his ipse dixit upon all occasions; for the whole body of his answer to this paper is in effect a transcript from the bishop’s preface. He purloins his arguments, without altering, sometime, so much as the property of his words. He has quoted him five times only in the margin, and ought to have quoted him in almost every line of his pamphlet. In short, if the master had not eaten, the man (saving reverence) could not have vomited. But it is easy to be seen through all the grimaces of that bishop, that he found himself aggrieved he was not thought on, when her Highness spoke of the two best or most learned bishops of England; and that his opinion was not consulted, when, indeed, he had offered it, though unasked.

I know his defender will reply, that his lordship has modestly disclaimed any such pretence to learning, in his preface, where he says, “No, I am not, I know I am not, I am sure I am not the most learned bishop.” See, how he mounts in his expressions at three several bounds. It is true, all these asseverations, like his three nolos,⁠[75] needed not; for any reasonable man, who had read his works, would have taken his bare word, without repetition. Yet this notwithstanding, he might have some inward grudgings, that his pupil thought him not so great a doctor.⁠[76]

But it is not fit that a matter of such importance should end in a bare Ay and No on either side; for though the parties have been so long dead, yet there is a witness still alive, and such a one, that all loyal subjects are bound to join with me in prayers for the long continuance of his life, and even for his continuance in the true religion, as far as the English liturgy can oblige them.

The Duchess thought herself bound to make his Royal Highness acquainted with every one of these several conferences which she had either with archbishop Sheldon, or bishop Blandford; and that account was the very same in substance with what she communicates to her friends in this present paper, as he is pleased to permit me to assure the world, after having had the honour to hear him solemnly affirm it, which puts an end to the whole matter of dispute; and this which follows is as authentic.

The day it pleased Almighty God to call her to his mercy, some relations of hers, who are yet living,⁠[77] were desirous that she should speak with the bishop of Worcester; which the Duchess did not absolutely refuse upon their importunity, but requested the then Duke to stop the bishop a little in the antechamber, and prepare him, according to her directions, before he entered the bedchamber. Accordingly his Highness, having met the bishop, acquainted him, “that she was actually reconciled to the Catholic church:” he then enquired, “whether she were fully satisfied in all points of the doctrine which she had embraced?” and the Duke answered, “that she was entirely satisfied in the doctrine of the Catholic church.” At length the bishop asked, “whether she had already received the last sacraments of the church?” naming particularly those of the blessed Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction; and it being replied by the Duke, that she had received them, the bishop answered, “That then he doubted not but that her soul was in a very safe condition.” Before they parted, his Royal Highness told him, “That it was the desire of the Duchess, he would not trouble her with any matter of dispute, nor offer to pray with her; but if he had any spiritual counsel fitting for a person in her condition, in order to prepare her for her death, he might freely tender it:” upon this he was admitted to her bedchamber, and made her a brief exhortation; after which, his stay there was very short.⁠[78]

This being matter of fact, and of unquestionable truth, I hope the answerer will acquiesce in it. What he will think of his bishop, concerns not me; but as a Protestant, he has reason for his thanking God, that the cause of his church does not depend on the singular opinion of one bishop in it. It appears plainly by this relation, that the bishop of Worcester was ignorant, almost to the last, of her conversion; so that if that will serve our author’s turn, he is acquitted from intending any such act of charity; but that he contributed to it without any such intention, is apparent.

Yet our author will not so sit down; he will condemn her Highness from her own words again; and prove, from her saying,—“that she owed the blessing of her conversion to God Almighty,” that therefore the bishop could have no hand in it.

What obligation has he to defend the honour of his church by a piece of sophistry? She owed it wholly to Almighty God; for “of ourselves we can do nothing.” But, as the answerer confesses, this excluded not her own endeavours; God inspired her with a desire of being reconciled to his church, in answer to her frequent prayers,—not by immediate illumination, or shewing her the right belief miraculously, but by affording her the ordinary means, and conducting her by his good spirit in the use of them. If she had been immediately enlightened, she needed not to have recourse to any of the bishops; but it pleased God, who often works good out of evil, that the arguments they used, or rather the answers which they made, produced a contrary effect, and added more to the desire she had to be a Catholic: in this sense, therefore, it may be said, that the bishops sent her to the priest; for an unresistable, overruling power made them contribute to her change, by opposing it; and the very hands which laboured to hold her fast in the Protestant persuasion, carried her half seas over, and put her into other hands, which carried her the other half. Truly they would have received hard measure, if they had been found guilty on the statute of persuasion, who, far from endeavouring to make her change, dissuaded her from changing, though the Protestant flints happened to strike Catholic fire; so that I cannot but think there was an extraordinary hand of Providence in her case, and of which she had reason to be extraordinary sensible. But we must have, I perceive, a care of praying, and owning benefits from God; for that, or nothing, made her pass for an enthusiast with the answerer; she did nothing besides praying, which our author does not acknowledge it her duty to have done. She read the history which was put into her hands, to confirm her in her first belief; she examined the scripture; she conferred with her divines; and yet he can make an obstinate woman of her, for doing that very thing to which he would advise her. “But,” says our author, “all pretenders to enthusiasm do as solemnly and wholly ascribe the blessing to Almighty God, and look on it as the effects of such prayers as she made to him in France and Flanders.”

They ascribe it indeed wholly to God in our author’s sense, but not in her’s; for she meant not immediate illumination by the word wholly, as I have already proved; they may look on their false light as the effect of their prayers; but she looks on her conversion as the effect of her’s, after having used the means.

“He had thought,” he says, “that the pretence to a private spirit, or enthusiasm,” (for he joins them both afterwards,) “had not been at this time allowed in the church of Rome.”

Somebody once thought otherwise, or he had never diverted the young gallants of the town with his merry book, concerning the fanaticism of the church of Rome.

He next enquires, what need she had of an infallible church, if she owed her change so wholly to Almighty God?

Wholly is already explained to him, and then his argument is of no more force against her, than against all Catholics who have once been Protestants; which is a new subject of dispute, and foreign to the argument in hand.

“Her conclusion,” as he tells us, “is, that she would never have changed, if she could have saved her soul otherwise;” whereupon he infers, “if this were true, she had good reason for her change; if it were not true, (as most certainly it was not,) she had none.”

But her words (which he hath falsified in this place) are these: “I would never have changed, if I had thought it possible to have saved my soul otherwise.” He never misquotes without design. Now by altering these words—if I had thought it possible to save my soul, into these—if I could have saved my soul, he would shuffle off her true meaning; which was, that her conscience obliged her to this change. And that is a point he would not willingly have touched; for he cannot deny, upon his own principles, but that, after having examined the scriptures, as she professes to have done as well as she was able, concerning the points in dispute, and afterwards using the assistance of her spiritual guides, the two bishops, she was to judge for herself in the last resort; and the judgment she made, according to her conscience, was, that the scripture spoke clearly in behalf of the Catholic church, or church of Rome, as he calls it: therefore, according to his principles, and her conscience, she was to be of that church, of whose truth she was thus convinced; so that whether she could be otherwise saved or no, was not the proposition to be advanced, but whether she thought it possible to be otherwise saved. And therefore, though it were true that she could otherwise be saved, yet she had a sufficient reason for her change, (though he says she had none,) which was, her conscience; and supposing that were erroneous, yet, upon his principles, she must be the judge of it without appeal.

“Her scruples began upon reading Dr Heylin’s ‘History of the Reformation;’ and there she found such abominable sacrilege upon Harry the Eighth’s divorce, King Edward’s minority, and Queen Elizabeth’s succession, that she could not believe the Holy Ghost could ever be in such councils.” Thus he compendiously quotes her paper, as being, it seems, ashamed of the particulars therein mentioned; but for once I will follow him his own way.

To read Dr Heylin’s history, in order to settle her, he confesses, was none of the best advices given to such a person. He is much in the right on’t, as appears by the success; and I add, nor any other, either Protestant or Catholic writer then extant; for no paint is capable of making lovely the hideous face of the pretended Reformation. “But,” says he, “there are two distinct parts in the history of it, the one ecclesiastical, the other political; the first built on scripture, antiquity, and the rights of particular churches; the other on such maxims as are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”

But why might not her Highness consider it her own way, which is that of nature, in the causes which produced it, and the effects which it produced; though I doubt not but she considered it his way too, because a child could not have missed it, that very distinction being inserted into the history by the author himself. Now the immediate cause which produced the separation of Harry the Eighth from the church of Rome, was the refusal of the Pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage. Neither the answerer, nor I, nor any man, can carry it so high as the original cause with any certainty; for the king only knew whether it was conscience and love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce. But this we may say, that if conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened, and perhaps had slept on till doomsday, if Anne Bolleyn, or some other fair lady, had not given her a jog: so the satisfying of an inordinate and a brutal passion cannot be denied to have had a great share at least in the production of that schism, which led the very way to our pretended Reformation; for breaking the unity of Christ’s church was the foundation of it.

I pass over the manner of those first proceedings, and the degrees by which they came to terminate in schism, though I doubt not but her Highness was sufficiently scandalized in both, and could not also but observe some of the concomitant causes, as revenge, ambition, and covetousness; all which, and others, drew with a strong bias towards it. But the immediate effects, even of this schism, were sacrilege, and a bloody persecution of such as denied the king’s supremacy in matters wholly spiritual; which no layman, no king of Israel, ever exercised, as is observed by my Lord Herbert⁠[79]. As for the Reformation itself, what that produced is full as obvious in the sequel of history, where we find that chanteries and hospitals, undevoured by Henry the Eighth, were left only to be morsels for Edward the Sixth, or rather for his ministers of state; and the reason was given, that the revenues of them were fruitlessly spent on those who said prayers for the dead. Now this was as naturally produced from the Reformation, as an effect is from the cause; so that, as it is observed by some, had that young king reigned any considerable time longer, the church of England had been left the poorest of any one in Christendom; the rich bishopric of Durham having been much retrenched by him, and it is probable those of Rochester and Westminster. Harry the Eighth had indeed eaten so much of the church’s bread out of his son’s mouth beforehand, that even Calvin complains of it in a letter to Cranmer, (concerning the paucity of good pastors in England,) in these words: Unum apertum obstaculum esse intelligo, quod prædæ expositi sunt ecclesiæ redditus; “one open obstacle I find to this, (he meaneth the increase of good pastors,) is, that your church revenues are exposed to rapine.”

Besides these things, what an usurpation this change of religion caused is most notorious; that of the Lady Jane Gray being evidently grounded on the testament of Edward the Sixth, by which she was made his successor, because she was of the Protestant religion.

As for the title of Queen Elizabeth to the crown, the histories lie open; and I shall not be over-forward to meddle with the rights of princes, especially since the answerer has avoided that dispute. It is enough in general to say, that her interest carried her against the Pope, whose power if good, she was illegitimate. She had also been informed by the English resident at Rome, that the Pope expected she should acknowledge her crown from him, and not take upon her to be queen without his leave. These were strong solicitations, in a new unsettled succession, for her to shake off a religion, whereof his Holiness is head on earth. What matter of conscience was in the case, I say not; but her temporal interest lies bare-faced and uppermost to view, in reassuming of the supremacy, and (to make the breach yet wider) in subverting the foundations of the faith. For the affront is the same, to turn round a man’s hat, and to strike him on the face; but the advantage is the greater in a lusty blow.

But the handle by which our answerer would have the Reformation taken, is not by the causes and effects, the means and management, and indeed the whole series of history: these are nothing to concern his present enquiry, though they raised such scruples in the Duchess, and will do in any other conscientious reader; he will have the Reformation considered his own way, that is, in the political part of it, and the ecclesiastical. Now the political part (if you observe him,) he gives for gone at the first dash: “It was grounded,” he says, “on such maxims as are common to statesmen at all times, and in all churches, who labour to turn all revolutions and changes to their own advantage.”

That is, it is common for statesmen to be atheists at the bottom; to be seemingly of that religion which is most for their interest; to crush and ruin that from which they have no future prospect of advantage, and to join with its most inveterate enemies, without consideration of their king’s interest: and this was the case of the Duke of Somerset. All which together amounts to this; that it is no matter by what means a Reformation be compassed, by what instruments it be brought to pass, or with what design, though all these be never so ungodly; it is enough if the Reformation itself be made by the legislative power of the land. The matter of fact then is given up, only it is faced with recriminations; that Alexander the Sixth, for example, was as wicked a Pope as King Henry was a king: as if any Catholic denied, that God Almighty, for causes best known to his divine wisdom, has not sometimes permitted impious men to sit in that supreme seat, and even to intrude into it by unlawful means. That Alexander the Sixth was one of the worst of men, I freely grant; which is more than I can in conscience say of Henry the Eighth, who had great and kingly virtues mingled with his vices. That the Duke of Somerset raised his estate out of church lands, our author excuses no other ways than by retorting, that Popes are accustomed to do the like in consideration of their nephews, whom they would greaten. But though it is a wicked thing for a Pope to mispend the church revenues on his relations, it is to be considered he is a secular prince, and may as lawfully give out of his temporal incomes what he pleases to his favourite, as another prince to his. But as our author charges this miscarriage home upon some late Popes of the former and the present age, so I hope he will exempt his present Holiness⁠[80] from that note. No common father of God’s church, from St Peter even to him, having ever been more bountiful, in expending his revenues for the defence of Christendom; or less interested, in respect of his relations, whom he has neither greatened, nor so much as suffered to enter into the least administration of the government.

But after all, what have these examples to do with this lady’s conversion? Why, our author pretends, that these bad Popes, and their ill proceedings, ought as reasonably to have hindered the Duchess from entering into the Catholic church, as the like proceedings under Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and Queen Elizabeth, might move her Highness to leave the Protestant.

The subject in hand was the pretended Reformation: the Duchess observed the scandalous and abominable effects of it;—that an inordinate lust was one principal cause of the separation; that the Reformation itself was begun by worldly interests in the Duke of Somerset, and carried on by the ambition of Queen Elizabeth. Have the examples produced by our author on the contrary side any thing to do with a Reformation? Suppose, in the first place, that she had never read nor heard any of those things concerning Pope Alexander, or the advancing of nephews by profusion of the church treasure; the first is very possible, and she might interpret candidly the latter. But make the worst of it; on the one side there was only a male administration of a settled government, from which no state, either spiritual or temporal, can always be exempt; on the other side, here is a total subversion of the old church in England, and the setting up a new; a changing of received doctrines, and the direction of God’s holy spirit pretended for the change; so that she might reasonably judge that the Holy Ghost had little to do with the practices of ill popes, without thinking the worse of the established faith: but she could never see a new one erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation, without great scruples whether the spirit of God were assisting in those counsels.

As for his method of enquiry, “Whether there was not a sufficient cause for the Reformation in the church? Whether the church of England had not sufficient authority to reform itself?” and, “Whether the proceedings of the Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture and the ancient church?” I may safely join issue with him upon all three points, and conclude in the negative,—that there was no sufficient cause to reform the church in matters of faith, because there neither were, nor can be, any such errors embraced and owned by it. The church of England has no authority of reforming herself, because the doctrine of Christ cannot be reformed, nor a national synod lawfully make any definitions in matters of faith, contrary to the judgment of the church universal of the present age, shewn in her public liturgies; that judgment being equivalent to that of a general council of the present age. And, for the third point, the proceedings of the Reformation were not justifiable by the rule of scripture, according to the right interpretation of it by the fathers and councils, which are the true judges of it; nor, consequently, by the rules of the ancient church. But Calvin’s excuse must be your last refuge; Nos discessionem a toto mundo facere coacti sumus: “We are compelled to forsake the communion, or to separate from all the churches of the world.”

“These,” says our author, “she confesses, were but scruples.” According to his mannerly way of arguing with the king, I might ask him, “These” what? Does he mean—these scruples were but scruples? for the word these begins a paragraph. But I am ashamed of playing the pedant, as he has done. I suppose he means—these passages of Heylin only raised some scruples in her, which occasioned her to examine the points in difference by the holy scripture. “And now,” says he, “she was in the right way of satisfaction, provided she made use of the best helps and means for understanding it, and took in the assistance of her spiritual guides.”

That she did take in those guides, is manifest by her own papers, though both of them (the more the pity) did but help to mislead her into the enemy’s country; but then, for our comfort, neither of them were church of England men, though they were both bishops, and one of them no less than primate of all England.

And now, for a relishing bit before we rise, he has kept in store for us the four points, which, about the midst of her paper, the Duchess told us she found so easy in the scripture, that she wondered she had been so long without finding them. He will needs fall into dispute with her about them, though he knows beforehand that she will not dispute with him. This is a kind of petition to her, that she will permit him to make that difficult which she found easy; for every thing becomes hard by chopping logic upon it. I am sure enough, that the wall before me is white, and that I can go to it; but put me once upon unriddling sophisms, I shall not be satisfied of what colour the wall is, nor how it is possible for me to stir from the place in which I am. Alas! if people would be as much in earnest as she was, and read the scriptures with the same disposition, the same unprejudiced sincerity in their hearts, and docility in their understanding, seeking to bend their judgments to what they find, not what they find to their judgments, more, I believe, would find things as easy as she did, and give the answerer more frequent occasion for his derision of a willing mind.

But not to dilate on that matter, I presume he will not pretend, by his disputing, to make any thing plainly appear against her; if he can, let him do it, and end controversy in a moment; for every one can see plain things, and all Christians must be concluded by the scripture. But he knows well enough there is no such thing to be performed. A mist may be raised, and interposed, through which the eye shall not discern what otherwise it would, if nothing but the due medium were betwixt, and the object before it. And that is all the fruit of this sort of disputation, and all the assistance, for which the answerer was so earnest. Upon the whole, his mortal quarrel to the Duchess is, that she would not become an experiment of the perfection to which the art of learned obscurity is improved in this our age; and the honour he has done to the church of England is, that he has used her name to countenance the defamation of a lady. I suspected whither he would bring it, when I saw that honour pretended in the beginning of his pamphlet. If he thinks his bishops have reflected a scandal on his church by their discourses with the Duchess, he ought to have proceeded a more reasonable way than to insinuate, that she forged them, without proving it. If she had been living, and he had subscribed his name to so infamous a libel, he knows the English of a scandalum magnatum; for an inuendo is considered in that case; and three indirect insinuations will go as far in law towards the giving a downright lie, as three foils will go towards a fall in wrestling.

To conclude: I leave it to the judgment of the impartial reader what occasion our answerer has had for his song of triumph at the end of his scurrilous saucy pamphlet. I have treated him as one single answerer, though, properly speaking, his name is Legion;⁠[81] but though the body be possessed with many evil spirits, it is but one of them who talks. Let him disguise his defeat by the ringing of his bells: it was an old Dutch policy, when the Duke⁠[82] had beaten them, to make bonfires; for that kept the populace in heart. Our author knows he has all the common people on his side, and they only read the gazettes of their own writers; so that every thing which is called an answer, is with them a confutation, and the Turk and Pope are their sworn enemies, ever since Robin Wisdom⁠[83] was inspired to join them together in a godly ballad. In the mean time, the spirit of meekness and humble charity would become our author better than his boasts for this imaginary victory, or his reflection upon God’s anointed; but it is the less to be admired that he is such a stranger to that spirit, because, among all the volumes of divinity written by the Protestants, there is not one original treatise, at least that I have seen or heard of, which has handled distinctly, and by itself, that Christian virtue of humility.⁠[84]

I have now done as to matter of reason and argument:⁠[85] the third paper chiefly relates to matter of fact; which, if I were mistaken in, even the brisk defender of it doth me that right to say, the bishop of Winchester did mislead me: For “the whole body of my answer,” he saith, “is in effect a transcript from the bishop’s preface; that I purloin his arguments without altering sometime so much as the property of his words; that I have quoted him five times only in the margin, and ought to have quoted him in almost every leaf of my pamphlet; in short, if the master had not eaten, the man (saving reverence) could not have vomited.” This is a taste of the decency and cleanliness of his style, especially in writing for princes and great ladies, who are not accustomed to such a sort of courtship to others, in their presence; but, as coarse as the compliment is, it clears me from being the author of any mistakes, and lays the blame on the bishop, who is not able to answer for himself: yet, as if I had been the sole contriver and inventor of all, he bestows those civil and obliging epithets upon me, of “disingenuous, foul-mouthed, and shuffling;” one of “a virulent genius, of spiteful diligence, and irreverence to the royal family, of subtle calumny and sly aspersion;” and he adds to these ornaments of speech, “that I have a cloven foot, and my name is Legion;”⁠[86] and that my answer is an “infamous libel, a scurrilous saucy pamphlet.” Is this, indeed, the spirit of a new convert? Is this the meekness and temper you intend to gain proselytes by, and to convert the nation? He tells us in the beginning, that “truth has a language peculiar to itself:” I desire to be informed, whether these be any of the characters of it, and how the language of reproach and evil speaking may be distinguished from it? But zeal in a new convert is a terrible thing; for it not only burns, but rages like the eruptions of Mount Ætna: it fills the air with noise and smoke, and throws out such a torrent of liquid fire, that there is no standing before it. The answerer alone was too mean a sacrifice for such a Hector in controversy: all that standeth in his way must fall at his feet. He calls me Legion, that he may be sure to have number enough to overcome. But he is a great proficient indeed, if he be such an exorcist to cast out a whole legion already. But he hopes it may be done “without fasting and prayer.”

If the people continue stedfast to their religion, they are the rabble, and the only friends I can perceive he allows us. “My good friends the rabble,” in one place, and in another, “our author knows he has all the common people of his side.” What! nothing of honour, or dignity, or wit, or sense, or learning, left of our side? Not so much as a poet, unless it be Robin Wisdom. I pray, sir, when was it that all our friends degenerated into the rabble? Do you think that heresy, as you call it, doth ipse facto degrade all mankind, and turn all orders of men, even the House of Lords itself, to a mere rabble? If all the common people be of our side, we have no reason to be troubled at it. But there is another thing of our side which you like worse, and that is common sense, which is more useful to the world than school divinity. But methinks he should not be angry with the common people, when he takes such pains to prove, “that the kingdom of heaven is not only for the wise and learned,”⁠[87] and that “our Saviour’s disciples were but poor fishermen; and we read but of one of his apostles who was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, and that poor people have souls to save, as precious in the sight of God as the grim logicians.” Would not any one take this for an apology for the common people, rather than for the Duchess of York, whose wit and understanding put her far beyond the need of such a mean defence? Could she be vindicated in no other manner than by putting her into the rank of the persons of the meanest capacities? But this is another part of the decency of this defence. He had several pretty sayings, as he thought, upon this subject; and therefore out they come, without regarding the reflection implied in them on a person of her capacity, as well as dignity. And so he goes on, in his plea for the ignorant, i.e. for the common people, as I am resolved to understand it. “Must they be damned unless they can make a regular approach to heaven in mood and figure? Is there no entering there without a syllogism? or ergoteering it with a nego, concedo, et distinguo?”⁠[88] This may pass for wit and eloquence among those I think he pleads for; and so I am content to let it go, for the sake of my friends, the common people. But this is somewhat an unusual way of defending, to plead for those he professes to despise, and in such a manner as to reproach the person he undertakes to defend.

From the common people we come to churchmen, to see how he uses them. And he hath soon found out a faction among them, whom he charges with “juggling designs;”⁠[89] but romantic heroes must be allowed to make armies of a field of thistles, and to encounter wind-mills for giants. He would fain be the instrument to divide our clergy, and to fill them with suspicions of one another; and to this end he talks of men of a “latitudinarian stamp:” For it goes a great way towards the making divisions, to be able to fasten a name of distinction among brethren,—this being to create jealousies of each other. But there is nothing should make them more careful to avoid such names of distinction, than to observe how ready their common enemies are to make use of them, to create animosities by them; which hath made this worthy gentleman to start this different character of churchmen among us, as though there were any who were not true to the principles of the church of England, as by law established. If he knows them, he is better acquainted with them than the answerer is, for he professes to know none such. But who then are these men of the “latitudinarian stamp?” To speak in his own language, they are a sort of “ergoteerers, who are for a concedo rather than a nego.” And now I hope they are well explained: Or, in other words of his, “they are,” saith he, “for drawing the nonconformists to their party,” i.e. they are for having no nonconformists. And is this their crime? “But they would take the headship of the church out of the king’s hands.” How is that possible? They would (by his own description) be glad to see differences lessened, and all that agree in the same doctrine to be one entire body. But this is that which their enemies fear, and this politician hath too much discovered; for then such a party would be wanting, which might be played upon the church of England, or be brought to join with others against it. But how this should touch the king’s supremacy, I cannot imagine. As for his desiring loyal subjects to consider this matter, I hope they will, and the more for his desiring it; and assure themselves, that they have no cause to apprehend “any juggling designs of their brethren,” who, I hope, will always show themselves to be loyal subjects, and dutiful sons of the church of England.

The next he falls upon, is the worthy answerer of the bishop of Condom’s exposition, and him he charges “with picking up stories against him, and wrapping them up with little circumstances.”⁠[90] How many fields doth he range for game, to find matter to fill up an answer, and make it look big enough to be considered? But that author hath so well acquitted himself in his defence, as to all the little objections made against him, that I can do the reader no greater kindness than to refer him to it.

I must not say, the poor bishop of Winchester is used unmercifully by him, for he calls him “that prelate of rich memory;”⁠[91] as though, like some popes, he had been considerable for nothing but for leaving a rich nephew. But as he was a person of known loyalty, piety, and learning, so he was of great charity, and a public spirit, which he showed, both in his lifetime, and at his death. Could nothing be said of him, then, but “that prelate of rich memory?” or, had he a mind to tell us he was no poet? or, that he was out of the temptation of changing his religion for bread?

The bishop of Worcester is charged with downright prevarication, i.e. being in his heart for the church of Rome, but for mean reasons continuing in the communion of the church of England. “Therefore,” saith he, “take him, Topham; and now what can I do more for the poor bishop?”⁠[92] The most he will allow him is, “that he was a peaceable old gentleman, who only desired to possess his conscience and his bishopric in peace, without offence to any man, either of the Catholic church, or that of England.” Yet he hath so much kindness left for the poor bishop, that for his sake he goes about to defend, “that a man may be a true member of the church of England, who asserts both churches to be so far parts of the Catholic church, that there is no necessity of going from one church to another to be saved.”⁠[93]

This is a very surprising argument from a new convert. Why might he not then have continued still in the communion of this church, though he might look on the church of Rome as part of the Catholic church? The reason I gave against it was, that every true member of this church must own the doctrine of it contained in the Articles and Homilies, which charge the church of Rome with such errors and unlawful practices, as no man who believes them to be such, can continue in the communion of that church; and therefore he must believe a necessity of the forsaking of one communion for the other; and that no true member of this church can, with a good conscience, leave this church, and embrace the other.

Let us now see what a talent he hath at ergoteering: “If this be true,” saith he, “then to be a member of the church of England, one must assert, that either both churches are not parts of the Catholic, or that they are so parts, that there is a necessity of going from one to another.” He would be a strange member of the church of England, who should hold, that both churches are not parts of the Catholic, for then he must deny that parts are parts; for every true church is so far a part of the Catholic church. Therefore, I say, he must hold, though it be in some respects a part of the Catholic church, yet it may have so many errors and corruptions mixed with it, as may make it necessary for salvation to leave it. “The second,” he saith, “is nonsense.” How nonsense? He doth well to hope, that men may be saved that do not understand controversy, nor approach heaven in mood and figure. “A necessity of a change,” saith he, “consists not with their being parts, for parts constitute one whole, and leave not one and another to go to or from.” We are not speaking of the parts leaving one another, but of a person leaving one part to go to another. Suppose a pestilential disease rage in one part of the city, and not in another, may it not be necessary to leave one part, and go to the other, though they are both parts of the same city, and do not remove from one to the other? But he saith, with great assurance, “that necessity of change makes it absolutely impossible for both churches to be parts of the Catholic,” which plainly shews he never understood the terms of communion with both churches; for no church in the world can lay an obligation upon a man to be dishonest, i.e. to profess one thing, and to do another, which is dissimulation and hypocrisy; and no church can oblige a man to believe what is false, or to do what is unlawful; and rather than do either, he must forsake the communion of that church.

Thus I have given a sufficient taste of the spirit and reasoning of this gentleman.

As to the main design of the third paper, I declared that I considered it, as it was supposed, to contain the reasons and motives of the conversion of so great a lady to the church of Rome.

But this gentleman hath now eased me of the necessity of further considering it on that account: for he declares, “that none of those motives or reasons are to be found in the paper of her Highness,”⁠[94] which he repeats several times. “She writ this paper, not as to the reasons she had herself for changing, &c. As for the reasons of it, they were only betwixt God and her own soul, and the priest with whom she spoke at last.”⁠[95]

And so my work is at an end as to her paper; for I never intended to ransack the private papers, or secret narratives, of great persons; and I do not in the least question the relation now given, from so great authority as that he mentions, of the passages concerning her; and therefore I have nothing more to say as to what relates to the person of the Duchess.

But I shall take notice of what this defender saith, which reflects on the honour of the church of England.

(1.) “The pillars of the church established by law,” saith he, “are to be found but broken staffs by their own concessions.”⁠[96] What! is the church of England felo de se? But how, I pray: “for after all their undertaking to heal a wounded conscience, they leave their proselytes finally to the scripture; as our physicians when they have emptied the pockets of their patients, without curing them, send them at last to Tunbridge waters, or the air of Montpellier.” As though the scripture were looked on by us as a mere help at a dead lift, when we have nothing to say. One would think he had never read the Articles of the church of England; for there he might have seen, that the scripture is made the rule and ground of our faith. And, I pray, whither should any persons be directed under trouble of mind, but to the word of God? Can any thing else give real satisfaction? Must they go to an infallible church? But whence should they know it to be infallible, but from the scriptures? So that on all hands persons must go to the scriptures, if they will have satisfaction. But this gentleman talks like a mere novice as to matters of faith, as though believing were a new thing to him, and he did not yet know that true faith must be grounded on divine revelation, which the pillars of our church have always asserted to be contained only in the scripture; and therefore whither can they send persons but to the scripture? But it seems he is got no farther than the collier’s faith; he believes as the church believes, and the church believes as he believes, and by this he hopes to be too hard for “a legion of devils.”

(2.) He saith, “we are reformed from the virtues of good living,”⁠[97] i.e. from the devotions, mortifications, austerities, humility, and charity, which are practised in Catholic countries, by the example and precept of that lean, mortified apostle, St Martin Luther.

He knows we pretend not to canonize saints; and he may know, that a very great man in the church of Rome once said, “that the new saints they canonized would make one question the old ones.” We neither make a saint nor an apostle of Martin Luther, and we know of no authority he ever had in this church. Our church was reformed by itself, and neither by Luther nor Calvin, whom he had mentioned as well as the other, but for his lean and mortified aspect. But after all, Luther was as lean and mortified an apostle as Bishop Bonner; but a man of far greater worth, and fit for the work he undertook, being of an undaunted spirit. What a strange sort of calumny is this to upbraid our church, as if it followed the example and precept of Martin Luther? He knows how very easy it is for us to retort such things with mighty advantage; when for more than an age together that church was governed by such dissolute and profane heads of the church, that it is a shame to mention them; and all this by the confession of their own writers. But as to Luther’s person, if his crimes were his corpulency, what became of all the fat abbots and monks? “But they were no apostles, or reformers:” I easily grant it; but must God choose instruments, as some do horses, by their fatness to run races. As to Luther’s conversation, it is justified by those who best knew him, and are persons of undoubted reputation; I mean, Erasmus, Melancthon, and Camerarius. And as to matters in dispute, if he acted according to his principles, his fault lay in his opinions, and not in acting according to them.

But whether our church follow Luther or not, it is objected, “that we have reformed away the virtues of good living.” God forbid; but I dare not think there is any church in the world, where the necessity of good living is more earnestly pressed: but I confess, we of the church of England do think, the examples and precepts of Christ, and his apostles, are to be our rules for the virtues of good living; and, according to them, I doubt not, but there are as great examples of devotion, mortification, humility, and charity, as in any place whatsoever. But I am afraid this gentleman’s acquaintance did not lie much that way, nor doth he seem to be a very competent judge of the ways of good living, if he did not know how to distinguish between outward appearances and true Christian virtues. And, according to his way of judging, the disciples of the Pharisees did very much outdo those of our blessed Saviour, as appears by a book we esteem very much, called the New Testament: but if I mention it to him, I am afraid he should think I am “like the physicians, who send their patients to Tunbridge wells, or the air of Montpellier.”

(3.) “That two of our bishops, whereof one was primate of all England, renounced and condemned two of the established articles of our church.”

But what two articles were these? It seems “they wished we had kept confession, which, no doubt, was commanded of God, and praying for the dead, which was one of the ancient things of Christianity.” But which of our thirty-nine articles did they renounce hereby? I think I have read and considered them, as much as this gentleman, and I can find no such articles against confession, and praying for the dead. Our church, as appears by the office of the visitation of the sick, doth not disallow of confession in particular cases; but the necessity of it, in order to forgiveness, in all cases: And if any bishop asserted this, then he exceeded the doctrine of our church, but he renounced no article of it. As to the other point, we have an article against the Romish doctrine of purgatory, article 22d, but not a word concerning praying for the dead, without respect to it: But he, out of his great skill in controversy, believes, that prayer for the dead, and the Romish doctrine of purgatory, are the same; whereas, this relates to the deliverance of souls out of purgatory, by the suffrages of the living, which makes all the gainful trade of masses for the dead, &c; but the other related to the day of judgment, as is known to all who are versed in the writings of the ancient church. But this our church wisely passes over, neither condemning it, because so ancient, nor approving it because not grounded on scripture, and therefore not necessary to be observed.

(4.) But his great spite is at the reformation of this church, “which,” he saith, “was erected on the foundation of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation: and that no paint is capable of making lovely the hideous face of the pretended Reformation.”

These are severe sayings, and might be requited with sharper, if such hard words and blustering expressions had any good effect on mankind: But instead thereof, I shall gently wipe off the dirt he hath thrown in the face of our church, that it may appear in its proper colours.

And now this gentleman sets himself to ergoteering, and looks and talks like any “grim logician, of the causes which produced it, and the effects which it produced. The schism led the way to the Reformation, for breaking the unity of Christ’s church, which was the foundation of it; but the immediate cause of this, which produced the separation of Henry VIII. from the church of Rome, was the refusal of the Pope to grant him a divorce from his first wife, and to gratify his desires in a dispensation for a second marriage.”

Ergo, the first cause of the Reformation was “the satisfying an inordinate and brutal passion.” But is he sure of this? If he be not, it is a horrible calumny upon our church, upon King Henry VIII., and the whole nation, as I shall presently show. No, he confesses he cannot be sure of it: for, saith he, “no man can carry it so high as the original cause with any certainty:” and at the same time, he undertakes to demonstrate, “the immediate cause to be Henry the Eighth’s inordinate and brutal passion:” And afterwards affirms, as confidently as if he had demonstrated it, that “our Reformation was erected on the foundations of lust, sacrilege, and usurpation. Yet,” saith he, “the king only knew whether it was conscience or love, or love alone, which moved him to sue for a divorce.”⁠[98] Then, by his favour, the king only could know what was the immediate cause of that which he calls the schism. Well! but he offers at some probabilities, that lust was the true cause. Is ergoteering come to this already? “But this we may say, if conscience had any part in it, she had taken a long nap of almost twenty years together before she awakened.” Doth he think that conscience doth not take a longer nap than this in some men, and yet they pretend to have it truly awakened at last? What thinks he of late converts? Cannot they be true, because conscience hath slept so long in them? Must we conclude in such cases, that “some inordinate passion gives conscience a jog at last? so that it cannot be denied,” he saith, “that an inordinate and brutal passion had a great share, at least, in the production of the schism.” How, cannot be denied! I say, from his own words, it ought to be denied; for he confesses “none could know but the king himself;” he never pretends that the king confessed it; how then cannot it be denied? yea, how dare any one affirm it? especially when the king himself declared, in a solemn assembly, in these words, saith Hall, (as near, saith he, as I could carry them away,) speaking of the dissatisfaction of his conscience—“For this only cause, I protest before God, and in the word of a prince, I have asked counsel of the greatest clerks in Christendom; and for this cause I have sent for this legate, as a man indifferent, only to know the truth, and to settle my conscience, and for none other cause, as God can judge.” And both then, and afterwards, he declared, that his scruples began upon the French ambassador’s making a question about the legitimacy of the marriage, when the match was proposed between the Duke of Orleans and his daughter; and he affirms, that he moved it himself in confession to the bishop of Lincoln, and appeals to him concerning the truth of it in open court. Sanders⁠[99] himself doth not deny, that the French ambassador (whom he calls the bishop of Tarbe, afterwards Cardinal Grammont; others say it was Anthony Vesey, one of the presidents of the parliament of Paris) did start this difficulty in the debate about this marriage of the king’s daughter; and he makes a set speech for him, wherein he saith, “that the king’s marriage had an ill report abroad;” but then he adds, “that this was done by the king’s appointment, and that Cardinal Wolsey put him upon it;” but he produces no manner of proofs concerning it, but only, “that it was so believed by the people at that time, who cursed the French ambassador.” As though the suspicions of the people were of greater authority than the solemn protestation of the king himself.

But I think it may be demonstrated, as far as such things are capable of it, from Sanders his own story, that the king’s first scruples, or the jogging of his conscience, as our author styles it, could not come from an inordinate passion to Ann Bolleyn; for he makes Cardinal Wolsey the chief instrument in the intrigue. Let us then see what accounts he gives of his motives to undertake it: he not only takes notice of the great discontent he took at the emperor Charles V., the queen’s nephew, but how studious he was upon the first intimation of the king’s scruples, to recommend to him the Duchess of Alençon, the King of France’s sister; and that, when there were none present but the king, Wolsey, and the confessor. Afterwards Wolsey was sent on a very splendid embassy into France, and had secret instructions to carry on the match with the King of France’s sister. But when he was at Calais, he received orders from the king to manage other matters as he was appointed, but not to say a word of that match. “At which,” saith Sanders,⁠[100] “he was in a mighty rage, because he carried on the divorce for nothing more than to oblige the most Christian king wholly to himself by this marriage.” How could this be, if from the beginning of his scruples he knew the king designed to marry Ann Bolleyn? But Sanders thinks to come off with saying, “that Wolsey knew of the king’s love, but he thought he designed her only for his concubine.” But this is plainly to contradict himself; for before he said,⁠[101] “that Wolsey knew from the beginning whom he intended to marry.” Besides, what reason could there be, if the king had only a design to corrupt her, that he should put himself and the world to so much trouble to sue out a divorce? for the divorce was the main thing aimed at in all the negociations at Rome; other applications had been more proper, if his design was only upon having her for a concubine; “but she would not be corrupted.” If this were the reason, he must again contradict himself, for he makes her a lewd vicious woman. And it doth not seem so probable, if she had been such a person as he describes her, that she would have put the king to so much trouble, and such a tedious method of proceeding, by so many forms of law. But again, Sanders saith,⁠[102] “when she returned from France, and was at court, she found out what Wolsey designed;” which makes it evident, by Sanders his own words, that the design of the divorce was before the thoughts of Ann Bolleyn: and it seems very probable, that Cardinal Wolsey might carry on a public design by it, to draw the king off from the emperor, and to unite him with France. And the Pope at that time being highly displeased with the Emperor, he might think it no difficult thing to procure a dispensation, the King of France’s interest being joined with our king’s. Some have written, “that the Pope himself was in this intrigue at first;”⁠[103] but seeing no proof of it, I dare not affirm it: It is sufficient for my purpose, that the first design was laid quite another way. I confess afterwards, when Wolsey, upon his return from France, saw how things were like to go, he struck in with the king’s humour, as appears by the letters of Ann Bolleyn to him; but yet carried himself so coldly afterwards in the matter of the divorce, that it proved one occasion of his fall. Thuanus, being an historian of great judgment, saw the inconsistencies of Sanders his relations; and therefore concludes, that Wolsey was surprised with the business of Ann Bolleyn, after he went into France, having notice sent him by his friends; and that Wolsey wholly aimed at the French match. Mezeray saith, “the cardinal could not foresee the love of Ann Bolleyn, but his design was to be revenged on the emperor;” and he questions whether the king were smitten with her, till Wolsey was sent into France; when the king so unexpectedly forbade him to proceed in that match, cum summo eras dolore, as Sanders confesses.⁠[104] From all this we see plainly, that since Sanders makes Cardinal Wolsey the great contriver and manager of this business, the immediate cause of the schism could not be the love of Ann Bolleyn.

But we have other kind of proofs concerning this matter, besides Sanders his inconsistencies; and those shall be from some of the greatest and most active men of that time, and some remarkable circumstances.

The first is a person of unquestionable integrity, and accounted a martyr for his conscience at that time, I mean Sir Thomas More, then lord chancellor; who, after he had delivered to the House of Commons the original papers of the universities in favour of the divorce, he then said, “that all men should clearly perceive, that the king hath not attempted this matter of will and pleasure, as strangers say, but only for the discharge of his conscience, and the security of the succession to the crown.” Which was a reason alleged by the king himself, and seems to have been built on the grounds which Charles V. assigned for breaking his oath, which he made to marry the Lady Mary, by the first article of the treaty at Windsor. Lord Herbert owns,⁠[105] that the emperor, to avoid the force of this treaty, had alleged something against the marriage between the king and his aunt. But another author, who lived much nearer the time, doth affirm,⁠[106] “that, when the match was debated in the Spanish council, it was then said, that although the match between the king and his brother’s relict were not yet disputed, yet, if the king should die without issue male, rather than the kingdom should pass to foreigners, the English nation would dispute the validity of the marriage;” and to confirm this, in Sir Henry Spelman’s Manuscript Register of the proceedings of the Legatine Court about the divorce, subscribed by the three notaries there present, the witnesses deposed, “that at the time of the marriage, the people said commonly, that it was unfit one brother should marry the other brother’s wife.” And archbishop Warham, then upon oath, declared, “that he told King Henry VII., that the marriage seemed to him neither honourable nor well pleasing to God;” and he confesses the people then murmured at it, but that the murmuring was quieted by the Pope’s dispensation: So that all the satisfaction that was given about it, arose from the Pope’s extraordinary dispensing power with the laws of God, which was a thing vehemently opposed by many in the church of Rome; and the university of Bononia itself afterwards declared, “that the match was abominable, and that the Pope himself could not dispense with it;” and this they say was “after they had read Cardinal Cajetan’s defence of the marriage.” The like was done by the university of Padua, besides many others which I shall not mention, and are easily to be seen.

So that the succession to the crown by this match must depend upon an extravagant power in the Pope, which the Roman church itself never owned, and the wisest statesmen thought by no means fit to depend upon.

The notice of this debate in the Spanish council being sent over to Cardinal Wolsey, seems to have been the first occasion taken of starting the question about the lawfulness of the king’s marriage; which Wolsey, out of a private grudge to the Emperor, as well as for other reasons, was not wanting to carry on till he saw which way it was like to end. And the Pope himself was willing enough to grant the bull for the divorce, till he made a secret peace with the Emperor; and it is easy to see, that the Pope went forwards and backwards in the whole affair, merely as politic considerations moved him; which being fully known to so discerning a prince as Henry VIII., it gave him just occasion to question, whether that authority were so divine as was pretended, which, in so great a matter, did not govern itself by any rule of conscience, but by political measures.

One remarkable circumstance in this matter ought not to be omitted, viz. that the king’s agent at Rome sent him word, “that the Pope’s advice was, that if the king’s conscience were satisfied, he should presently marry another wife, and then prosecute the suit; and that this was the only way for the king to attain his desires;”⁠[107] but the king refused to do it. And when Cardinal Wolsey sent a message to the king to the same purpose, the king replied, “if the bull be naught, let it be so declared; and if it be good, it shall never be broken by any by-ways for me.” And when he objected the tediousness of the suit, he answered, “since he had patience eighteen years, he would stay yet four or five more, since the opinion of all the clerks of his kingdom (besides two) were lately declared for him;” adding, “that he had studied the matter himself, and writers of it, and that he found it was unlawful de jure divino, and undispensible.”

Thus we have found the king himself declaring, in public and private, his real dissatisfaction in point of conscience; and that it was no inordinate affection to Ann Bolleyn which put him upon it; and the same attested by Sir Thomas More, and the circumstances of affairs. I now proceed to another witness.

The next is Bishop Bonner himself, in his preface to Gardiner’s book of “True Obedience;” for thus he begins: “Forasmuch as there be some doubtless now at this present, which think the controversy between the king’s royal majesty and the bishop of Rome, consisteth in this point, for that his majesty hath taken the most excellent and most noble lady Ann to his wife; whereas in very deed, notwithstanding the matter is far otherwise, and nothing so.” So that, if Bishop Bonner may be believed, there was no such immediate cause of the schism, as the love to Ann Bolleyn. And withal he adds, “that this book was published, that the world might understand what was the whole voice and resolute determination of the best and greatest learned bishops, with all the nobles and commons of England, not only in the cause of matrimony, but also in defending the gospel’s doctrine, i.e. against the Pope’s usurped authority over the church.” Again he saith, “that the king’s marriage was made by the ripe judgment, authority, and privilege, of the most and principal universities of the world; and then with the consent of the whole church of England; and that the false pretended supremacy of the bishop of Rome was most justly abrogated: and that if there were no other cause but this marriage, the bishop of Rome would content himself, i.e. if he might enjoy his power and revenues still, which,” he saith, “were so insupportable, that there lay the true cause of the breach: For his revenues here were near as great as the king’s; and his tyranny was cruel and bitter, which he had exercised here under the title of the Catholic church, and the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul, when notwithstanding he was a very ravening wolf, dressed in sheep’s cloathing, calling himself the servant of servants.” These are Bonner’s words, as I have transcribed them out of two several translations, whereof one was published while he was bishop of London.

Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, in his book, not only affirms the king’s former marriage to be unlawful, and the second to be just and lawful, but that he had the consent of the nation, and the judgment of his church, as well as foreign learned men for it; and afterwards he strenuously argues against the Pope’s authority here, as a mere usurpation. And the whole clergy not only then owned the king’s supremacy, (Fisher excepted,) but in the book published by authority, called “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man,” &c., the Pope’s authority was rejected as an usurpation, and confuted by Scripture and antiquity. King James I. declares, “that there was a general and catholic conclusion of the whole church of England in this case;” and when some persons suspected, that it all came from the king’s marriage, Bishop Bonner, we see, undertakes to assure the world it was no such thing.⁠[108]

The separation was made, then, by a general consent of the nation; the king, and church, and people all concurring: and the reasons inducing them to cast off the Pope’s usurpation were published to the world at that time; and those reasons have no relation at all to the king’s marriage: and if they are good, as they thought they were, and this gentleman saith not a word to disprove them, then the foundation of the disunion between the church of Rome and us, was not laid in the king’s inordinate passion, but on just and sufficient reasons.

Thus it appears, that this gentleman hath by no means proved two parts of his assertion, viz. “That our Reformation was erected on the foundations of lust and usurpation.”

But our grim logician proceeds from immediate and original, to concomitant causes; which, he saith, “were revenge, ambition, and covetousness.”⁠[109] But the skill of logicians used to lie in proving; but this is not our author’s talent, for not a word is produced to that purpose. If bold sayings, and confident declarations, will do the business, he is never unprovided; but if you expect any reason from him, he begs your pardon; he finds how ill the character of a grim logician suits with his inclination. However, he takes a leap from causes to effects; and here he tells us, “the immediate effects of this schism, were sacrilege, and a bloody persecution, of such as denied the king’s supremacy in matters wholly spiritual, which no layman, no king of Israel ever exercised.”⁠[110]

What the supremacy was, is best understood by the book published by the king’s order, and drawn up by the bishops of that time. By which it appears, that the main thing insisted on was, rejecting the Pope’s authority; and as to the positive part, it lies in these things: 1. In defending and protecting the church. 2. In overseeing the bishops and priests in the execution of their office. 3. In reforming the church to the old limits and pristine estate of that power which was given to them by Christ, and used in the primitive church. “For it is out of doubt,” saith that book, “that Christ’s faith was then most pure and firm, and the Scriptures of God were then best understood, and virtue did then most abound and excel; and therefore it must needs follow, that the customs and ordinances then used and made, be more conform and agreeable unto the true doctrine of Christ, and more conducing unto the edifying and benefit of the church of Christ, than any custom or laws used or made by the bishop of Rome, or any other addicted to that see and usurped power since that time.”

This book was published with the king’s declaration before it; and therefore we have reason to look on the supremacy to be taken as it is there explained. And what is there now “so wholly spiritual, that no layman, or king of Israel, ever exercised in this supremacy?” But this writer never took the pains to search into these things, and therefore talks so at random about them.

As to the persecutions that followed, it is well known that both sides blame King Henry the Eighth for his severity; and therefore this cannot be laid to the charge of his separation. For the other effect of sacrilege, I do not see how this follows from the Reformation; for although some uses might cease by the doctrines of it, as monks to pray the dead out of purgatory; yet there were others to have employed the church lands about, as some of them were in founding new bishoprics, &c. And I have nothing to say in justification of any abuses committed that way; only that the king and parliament could not discern the difference between greater and lesser, as to the point of sacrilege; and since the Pope had shewed them the way, by granting bulls for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, they thought, since the Pope’s power was taken away, they might, with as little sacrilege, dissolve the rest. I will shut up this with the words of archbishop Laud: “But if there have been any wilful and gross errors, not so much in opinion as fact, (sacrilege too often pretending to reform superstition,) that’s the crime of the reformers, not of the Reformation, and they are long since gone to God to answer it, to whom I leave them.”⁠[111]

The method I proposed for satisfaction of conscience about the Reformation, was to consider, whether there were not sufficient cause for it? Whether there were not sufficient authority? And, whether the proceedings of our Reformation were not justifiable by the rules of scripture, and the ancient church? He tells me, “he may safely join issue with me upon all three points, and conclude in the negative.” But upon second thoughts, he finds he may much more safely let it alone: and very fairly would have me take it for granted, “That the church of Rome cannot err in matters of faith;” (for that he must mean by the church there,) “and that our church hath no authority of reforming herself; and that our proceedings were not justifiable, according to the right interpretation of scriptures by the fathers and councils.” But if I will not allow his affirmations for proofs, for his part he will act the grim logician no longer; and in truth, it becomes him so ill, that he doth well to give it over. When he will undertake to prove, that the church of Rome is the one Catholic and infallible church of Christ, and answer what I have produced in the former discourses, I will ease him of any farther trouble; for then I will grant that our Reformation cannot be justified. But till then, I shall think it no want of humility to conclude the victory to be on our side. And I would desire him not to end with such a bare-faced assertion of a thing so well known to be false, viz. “That there is not one original treatise written by a Protestant, which hath handled distinctly, and by itself, that Christian virtue of humility.” Since within a few years, (besides what hath been printed formerly,) such a book hath been published in London. But he doth well to bring it off with, “at least that I have seen or heard of;” for such books have not lain much in the way of his enquiries. Suppose we had not such particular books, we think the Holy Scripture gives the best rules and examples of humility of any book in the world; but I am afraid he should look on his case as desperate, if I send him to the scripture, since he saith, “Our divines do that, as physicians do with their patients whom they think incurable, send them at last to Tunbridge-waters, or to the air of Montpellier.”

BY
C. A. DU FRESNOY.

WITH REMARKS.

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH;
WITH AN ORIGINAL PREFACE, CONTAINING
A PARALLEL BETWEEN PAINTING AND POETRY.
FIRST PRINTED IN QUARTO IN 1695.

Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, as we learn from his life by Mason, was born in Paris in the year 1611. He studied the art of painting in Rome and Venice, and afterwards practised it in France with great reputation. Meanwhile, he did not neglect the sister pursuit of poetry; and combining it with the studies of an artist, he composed his poem on the Art of Painting. It did not appear till after the author’s death, in 1658, when it was published with the French version, and remarks of De Piles. The first edition was printed in 1661. This poem, as containing, in elegant and perspicuous language, the most just rules for artists and amateurs, has been always held in esteem by the admirers of the art which it professes to teach.

The version of Dryden first appeared in 4to, in 1695, and was republished by Richard Graham in 1716, by whom it is inscribed to Lord Burlington. The editor of 1716, informs us, that Mr Jervas had undertaken to correct such passages of the translation as Dryden had erred in by following, too closely, the French version of De Piles. To Graham’s edition is prefixed the epistle from Pope to Jervas, with Dryden’s version; an honourable and beautiful testimony from the living to the dead poet, which I have retained with pleasure, as also the epistle from Mason to Sir Joshua Reynolds, which contains some remarks on Dryden’s version.

The late Mr Mason, as a juvenile exercise, executed a poetical version of Fresnoy’s poem, which has had the honour to be admitted into the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. iii. and might have superseded the necessity of here reprinting the prose of Dryden. But there is something so singular in a great poet undertaking to render into prose the admired poem of a foreign bard, that, as a specimen of such an uncommon task, as well as on account of its brevity, I have retained this translation.

Being no judge of the art to which the poem refers, I follow the readings of Jervas, as published by Graham in 1716.

Mason has retained the Parallel between Painting and Poetry, in his edition of Fresnoy, with the following note:

“It was thought proper to insert in this place the pleasing preface, which Mr Dryden printed before his translation of M. Du Fresnoy’s poem. There is a charm in that great writer’s prose, peculiar to itself; and though, perhaps, the parallel between the two arts, which he has here drawn, be too superficial to stand the test of strict criticism, yet it will always give pleasure to readers of taste, even when it fails to satisfy their judgment.”

It may be reasonably expected that I should say something on my own behalf, in respect to my present undertaking. First, then, the reader may be pleased to know, that it was not of my own choice that I undertook this work. Many of our most skilful painters, and other artists, were pleased to recommend this author to me, as one who perfectly understood the rules of painting; who gave the best and most concise instructions for performance, and the surest to inform the judgment of all who loved this noble art: that they who before, were rather fond of it, than knowingly admired it, might defend their inclination by their reason; that they might understand those excellencies which they blindly valued, so as not to be farther imposed on by bad pieces, and to know when nature was well imitated by the most able masters. It is true indeed, and they acknowledge it, that beside the rules which are given in this treatise, or which can be given in any other, to make a perfect judgment of good pictures, and to value them more or less, when compared with one another, there is farther required a long conversation with the best pieces, which are not very frequent either in France or England; yet some we have, not only from the hands of Holbein, Rubens, and Vandyck, (one of them admirable for history-painting, and the other two for portraits,) but of many Flemish masters, and those not inconsiderable, though for design not equal to the Italians. And of these latter also, we are not unfurnished with some pieces of Raphaell, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, and others.

But to return to my own undertaking of this translation. I freely own that I thought myself incapable of performing it, either to their satisfaction, or my own credit. Not but that I understood the original Latin, and the French author, perhaps as well as most Englishmen; but I was not sufficiently versed in the terms of art; and therefore thought that many of those persons who put this honourable task on me, were more able to perform it themselves,—as undoubtedly they were. But they, assuring me of their assistance in correcting my faults where I spoke improperly, I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might not be wanting in what I could, to satisfy the desires of so many gentlemen, who were willing to give the world this useful work. They have effectually performed their promise to me, and I have been as careful, on my side, to take their advice in all things; so that the reader may assure himself of a tolerable translation,—not elegant, for I proposed not that to myself, but familiar, clear, and instructive: in any of which parts if I have failed, the fault lies wholly at my door. In this one particular only, I must beg the reader’s pardon. The prose translation of this poem is not free from poetical expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are not fustian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this being a fault in the first digestion, (that is, the original Latin,) was not to be remedied in the second, viz. the translation. And I may confidently say, that whoever had attempted it must have fallen into the same inconvenience, or a much greater, that of a false version.

When I undertook this work, I was already engaged in the translation of Virgil,⁠[113] from whom I have borrowed only two months; and am now returning to that which I ought to understand better. In the mean time I beg the reader’s pardon, for entertaining him so long with myself: it is an usual part of ill manners in all authors, and almost in all mankind, to trouble others with their business; and I was so sensible of it beforehand, that I had not now committed it, unless some concernments of the reader’s had been interwoven with my own. But I know not, while I am atoning for one error, if I am not falling into another; for I have been importuned to say something farther of this art; and to make some observations on it, in relation to the likeness and agreement which it has with poetry, its sister. But before I proceed, it will not be amiss, if I copy from Bellori, (a most ingenious author yet living,) some part of his idea of a painter,⁠[114] which cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are conversant in the philosophy of Plato; and, to avoid tediousness, I will not translate the whole discourse, but take and leave as I find occasion.

“God Almighty, in the fabric of the universe, first contemplated himself, and reflected on his own excellencies; from which he drew and constituted those first forms which are called ideas; so that every species which was afterwards expressed, was produced from that first idea, forming that wonderful contexture of all created beings. But the celestial bodies above the moon being incorruptible, and not subject to change, remained for ever fair, and in perpetual order. On the contrary, all things which are sublunary are subject to change, to deformity, and to decay. And though nature always intends a consummate beauty in her productions, yet through the inequality of the matter, the forms are altered; and in particular, human beauty suffers alteration for the worse, as we see to our mortification, in the deformities and disproportions which are in us. For which reason, the artful painter and the sculptor, imitating the Divine Maker, form to themselves, as well as they are able, a model of the superior beauties; and reflecting on them, endeavour to correct and amend the common nature, and to represent it as it was at first created, without fault, either in colour, or in lineament.

“This idea, which we may call the goddess of painting and of sculpture, descends upon the marble and the cloth, and becomes the original of those arts; and being measured by the compass of the intellect, is itself the measure of the performing hand; and being animated by the imagination, infuses life into the image. The idea of the painter and the sculptor is undoubtedly that perfect and excellent example of the mind, by imitation of which imagined form all things are represented which fall under human sight: such is the definition which is made by Cicero in his book of the “Orator” to Brutus:—‘As therefore in forms and figures there is somewhat which is excellent and perfect, to which imagined species all things are referred by imitation, which are the objects of sight, in like manner we behold the species of eloquence in our minds, the effigies or actual image of which we seek in the organs of our hearing.’ This is likewise confirmed by Proclus in the dialogue of Plato, called “Timæus.” ‘If, says he, you take a man as he is made by nature, and compare him with another, who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautiful, because art is more accurate than nature.’ But Zeuxis, who, from the choice which he made of five virgins, drew that wonderful picture of Helena, which Cicero, in his “Orator” before-mentioned, sets before us as the most perfect example of beauty, at the same time admonishes a painter, to contemplate the ideas of the most natural forms, and to make a judicious choice of several bodies, all of them the most elegant which he can find; by which we may plainly understand, that he thought it impossible to find in any one body all those perfections which he sought for the accomplishment of a Helena, because nature in any individual person makes nothing that is perfect in all its parts. For this reason Maximus Tyrius also says, that the image which is taken by a painter from several bodies, produces a beauty which it is impossible to find in any single natural body, approaching to the perfection of the fairest statues. Thus nature on this account is so much inferior to art, that those artists who propose to themselves only the imitation and likeness of such or such a particular person, without election of those ideas before-mentioned, have often been reproached for that omission. Demetrius was taxed for being too natural; Dionysius was also blamed for drawing men like us, and was commonly called ανθρωπόγραφος, that is, a painter of men. In our times, Michael Angelo da Caravaggio was esteemed too natural. He drew persons as they were; and Bamboccio, and most of the Dutch painters, have drawn the worst likeness. Lysippus of old upbraided the common sort of sculptors, for making men such as they were found in nature; and boasted of himself, that he made them as they ought to be: which is a precept of Aristotle, given as well to poets as to painters. Phidias raised an admiration, even to astonishment, in those who beheld his statues, with the forms which he gave to his gods and heroes, by imitating the idea, rather than nature. And Cicero, speaking of him, affirms, that figuring Jupiter and Pallas, he did not contemplate any object from whence he took the likeness, but considered in his own mind a great and admirable form of beauty; and according to that image in his soul, he directed the operation of his hand. Seneca also seems to wonder, that Phidias, having never beheld either Jove or Pallas, yet could conceive their divine images in his mind. Apollonius Tyanæus says the same in other words,—that the fancy more instructs the painter, than the imitation; for the last makes only the things which it sees, but the first makes also the things which it never sees.

“Leon Battista Alberti tells us, that we ought not so much to love the likeness as the beauty, and to choose from the fairest bodies severally the fairest parts. Leonardo da Vinci instructs the painter to form this idea to himself; and Raffaelle, the greatest of all modern masters, writes thus to Castiglione, concerning his Galatea: ‘To paint a fair one, it is necessary for me to see many fair ones; but because there is so great a scarcity of lovely women, I am constrained to make use of one certain idea, which I have formed to myself in my own fancy.’ Guido Rheni sending to Rome his St Michael, which he had painted for the church of the Capuchins, at the same time wrote to Monsignor Massano, who was Maestro di Casa, (or Steward of the House,) to Pope Urban the Eighth, in this manner: ‘I wish I had the wings of an angel, to have ascended into Paradise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits, from which I might have copied my archangel. But not being able to mount so high, it was in vain for me to search his resemblance here below; so that I was forced to make an introspection into my own mind, and into that idea of beauty which I have formed in my own imagination. I have likewise created there the contrary idea of deformity and ugliness; but I leave the consideration of it, till I paint the devil; and in the mean time, shun the very thought of it as much as possibly I can, and am even endeavouring to blot it wholly out of my remembrance.’

“There was not any lady in all antiquity, who was mistress of so much beauty as was to be found in the Venus of Gnidus, made by Praxiteles, or the Minerva of Athens, by Phidias; which was therefore called the beautiful form. Neither is there any man of the present age equal in the strength, proportion, and knitting of his limbs, to the Hercules of Farnese, made by Glycon; or any woman, who can justly be compared with the Medicean Venus of Cleomenes. And upon this account, the noblest poets and the best orators, when they desired to celebrate any extraordinary beauty, are forced to have recourse to statues and pictures and to draw their persons and faces into comparison. Ovid, endeavouring to express the beauty of Cyllarus, the fairest of the Centaurs, celebrates him as next in perfection to the most admirable statues:

In another place he sets Apelles above Venus:

Thus varied:

“The idea of this beauty is indeed various, according to the several forms which the painter or sculptor would describe; as one in strength, another in magnanimity: and sometimes it consists in cheerfulness, and sometimes in delicacy; and is always diversified by the sex and age.

“The beauty of Jove is one, and that of Juno another; Hercules and Cupid are perfect beauties, though of different kinds; for beauty is only that which makes all things as they are in their proper and perfect nature, which the best painters always choose by contemplating the forms of each. We ought farther to consider, that a picture being the representation of a human action, the painter ought to retain in his mind the examples of all affections and passions, as a poet preserves the idea of an angry man, of one who is fearful, sad, or merry, and so of all the rest; for it is impossible to express that with the hand, which never entered into the imagination. In this manner, as I have rudely and briefly shewn you, painters and sculptors, choosing the most elegant natural beauties, perfectionate the idea, and advance their art even above nature itself in her individual productions; which is the utmost mastery of human performance.

“From hence arises that astonishment, and almost adoration, which is paid by the knowing to those divine remainders of antiquity. From hence Phidias, Lysippus, and other noble sculptors, are still held in veneration; and Apelles, Zeuxis, Protogenes, and other admirable painters, though their works are perished, are and will be eternally admired; who all of them drew after the ideas of perfection, which are the miracles of nature, the providence of the understanding, the exemplars of the mind, the light of the fancy; the sun, which, from its rising, inspired the statue of Memnon, and the fire, which warmed into life the image of Prometheus. It is this, which causes the Graces and the Loves to take up their habitations in the hardest marble, and to subsist in the emptiness of light and shadows. But since the idea of eloquence is as far inferior to that of painting, as the force of words is to the sight, I must here break off abruptly, and having conducted the reader, as it were, to a secret walk, there leave him in the midst of silence, to contemplate those ideas which I have only sketched, and which every man must finish for himself.”

In these pompous expressions, or such as these, the Italian has given you his idea of a Painter; and though I cannot much commend the style, I must needs say, there is somewhat in the matter. Plato himself is accustomed to write loftily, imitating, as the critics tell us, the manner of Homer; but surely that inimitable poet had not so much of smoke in his writing, though not less of fire. But, in short, this is the present genius of Italy. What Philostratus tells us in the proem of his Figures,⁠[115] is somewhat plainer; and therefore I will translate it almost word for word:—“He who will rightly govern the art of painting, ought of necessity first to understand human nature. He ought likewise to be endued with a genius to express the signs of their passions, whom he represents; and to make the dumb, as it were, to speak. He must yet further understand what is contained in the constitution of the cheeks, in the temperament of the eyes, in the naturalness (if I may so call it) of the eyebrows; and in short, whatsoever belongs to the mind and thought. He, who thoroughly possesses all these things, will obtain the whole; and the hand will exquisitely represent the action of every particular person. If it happen that he be either mad or angry, melancholic or cheerful, a sprightly youth or a languishing lover; in one word, he will be able to paint whatsoever is proportionable to any one. And even in all this there is a sweet error, without causing any shame; for the eyes and minds of the beholders being fastened on objects which have no real being, as if they were truly existent, and being induced by them to believe them so, what pleasure is it not capable of giving? The ancients, and other wise men, have written many things concerning the symmetry which is in the art of painting,—constituting, as it were, some certain laws for the proportion of every member; not thinking it possible for a painter to undertake the expression of those motions which are in the mind, without a concurrent harmony in the natural measure; for that which is out of its own kind and measure, is not received from nature, whose motion is always right. On a serious consideration of this matter, it will be found, that the art of painting has a wonderful affinity with that of poetry; and that there is betwixt them a certain common imagination. For, as the poets introduce the gods and heroes, and all those things which are either majestical, honest, or delightful, in like manner the painters, by the virtue of their outlines, colours, lights, and shadows, represent the same things and persons in their pictures.”

Thus, as convoy-ships either accompany or should accompany their merchants,⁠[116] till they may prosecute the rest of their voyage without danger; so Philostratus has brought me thus far on my way, and I can now sail on without him. He has begun to speak of the great relation betwixt painting and poetry, and thither the greatest part of this discourse, by my promise, was directed. I have not engaged myself to any perfect method, neither am I loaded with a full cargo; it is sufficient if I bring a sample of some goods in this voyage. It will be easy for others to add more, when the commerce is settled; for a treatise twice as large as this of painting, could not contain all that might be said on the parallel of these two sister arts. I will take my rise from Bellori, before I proceed to the author of this book.

The business of his preface is to prove, that a learned painter should form to himself an idea of perfect nature. This image he is to set before his mind in all his undertakings, and to draw from thence, as from a storehouse, the beauties which are to enter into his work; thereby correcting nature from what actually she is in individuals, to what she ought to be, and what she was created. Now, as this idea of perfection is of little use in portraits, or the resemblances of particular persons, so neither is it in the characters of comedy and tragedy, which are never to be made perfect, but always to be drawn with some specks of frailty and deficience; such as they have been described to us in history, if they were real characters, or such as the poet began to shew them at their first appearance, if they were only fictitious or imaginary. The perfection of such stage-characters consists chiefly in their likeness to the deficient faulty nature, which is their original; only, as it is observed more at large hereafter, in such cases there will always be found a better likeness and a worse, and the better is constantly to be chosen; I mean in tragedy, which represents the figures of the highest form amongst mankind. Thus in portraits, the painter will not take that side of the face, which has some notorious blemish in it; but either draw it in profile, (as Apelles did Antigonus, who had lost one of his eyes,) or else shadow the more imperfect side; for an ingenious flattery is to be allowed to the professors of both arts, so long as the likeness is not destroyed. It is true, that all manner of imperfections must not be taken away from the characters; and the reason is, that there may be left some grounds of pity for their misfortunes. We can never be grieved for their miseries, who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves. Such men are the natural objects of our hatred, not of our commiseration. If, on the other side, their characters were wholly perfect, (such as, for example, the character of a saint or martyr in a play,) his or her misfortunes would produce impious thoughts in the beholders; they would accuse the heavens of injustice, and think of leaving a religion where piety was so ill requited. I say, the greater part would be tempted so to do, I say not that they ought; and the consequence is too dangerous for the practice. In this I have accused myself for my own St Catharine;⁠[117] but let truth prevail. Sophocles has taken the just medium in his “Œdipus.” He is somewhat arrogant at his first entrance, and is too inquisitive through the whole tragedy; yet these imperfections being balanced by great virtues, they hinder not our compassion for his miseries; neither yet can they destroy that horror, which the nature of his crimes has excited in us. Such in painting are the warts and moles, which, adding a likeness to the face, are not therefore to be omitted; but these produce no loathing in us; but how far to proceed, and where to stop, is left to the judgment of the poet and the painter. In comedy there is somewhat more of the worse likeness to be taken, because that is often to produce laughter, which is occasioned by the sight of some deformity; but for this I refer the reader to Aristotle. It is a sharp manner of instruction for the vulgar, who are never well amended, till they are more than sufficiently exposed.

That I may return to the beginning of this remark concerning perfect ideas, I have only this to say,—that the parallel is often true in epic poetry. The heroes of the poets are to be drawn according to this rule. There is scarce a frailty to be left in the best of them, any more than is to be found in a divine nature; and if Æneas sometimes weeps, it is not in bemoaning his own miseries, but those which his people undergo. If this be an imperfection, the Son of God, when he was incarnate, shed tears of compassion over Jerusalem; and Lentulus⁠[118] describes him often weeping, but never laughing; so that Virgil is justified even from the holy scriptures. I have but one word more, which for once I will anticipate from the author of this book. Though it must be an idea of perfection, from which both the epic poet and the history-painter draws, yet all perfections are not suitable to all subjects; but every one must be designed according to that perfect beauty which is proper to him. An Apollo must be distinguished from a Jupiter, a Pallas from a Venus; and so, in poetry, an Æneas from any other hero; for piety is his chief perfection. Homer’s Achilles is a kind of exception to this rule; but then he is not a perfect hero, nor so intended by the poet. All his gods had somewhat of human imperfection, for which he has been taxed by Plato, as an imitator of what was bad; but Virgil observed his fault, and mended it. Yet Achilles was perfect in the strength of his body, and the vigour of his mind. Had he been less passionate, or less revengeful, the poet well foresaw that Hector had been killed, and Troy taken, at the first assault; which had destroyed the beautiful contrivance of his Iliads, and the moral of preventing discord amongst confederate princes, which was his principal intention. For the moral (as Bossu observes,⁠[119]) is the first business of the poet, as being the groundwork of his instruction. This being formed, he contrives such a design, or fable, as may be most suitable to the moral; after this he begins to think of the persons whom he is to employ in carrying on his design; and gives them the manners which are most proper to their several characters. The thoughts and words are the last parts, which give beauty and colouring to the piece.

When I say that the manners of the hero ought to be good in perfection, I contradict not the Marquis of Normanby’s opinion, in that admirable verse,⁠[120] where, speaking of a perfect character, he calls it

for that excellent critic intended only to speak of dramatic characters, and not of epic.

Thus at least I have shewn, that in the most perfect poem, which is that of Virgil, a perfect idea was required and followed; and consequently that all succeeding poets ought rather to imitate him, than even Homer. I will now proceed as I promised, to the author of this book.

He tells you almost in the first lines of it, that “the chief end of painting is, to please the eyes; and it is one great end of poetry to please the mind.” Thus far the parallel of the arts holds true; with this difference, that the principal end of painting is to please, and the chief design of poetry is to instruct. In this the latter seems to have the advantage of the former; but if we consider the artists themselves on both sides, certainly their aims are the very same; they would both make sure of pleasing, and that in preference to instruction.—Next, the means of this pleasure is by deceit; one imposes on the sight, and the other on the understanding. Fiction is of the essence of poetry, as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one, of human bodies, things, and actions, which are not real; and in the other, of a true story by a fiction; and as all stories are not proper subjects for an epic poem or a tragedy, so neither are they for a noble picture. The subjects both of the one and of the other, ought to have nothing of immoral, low, or filthy in them; but this being treated at large in the book itself, I wave it, to avoid repetition. Only I must add, that though Catullus,⁠[121] Ovid, and others, were of another opinion,—that the subject of poets, and even their thoughts and expressions, might be loose, provided their lives were chaste and holy, yet there are no such licences permitted in that art, any more than, in painting, to design and colour obscene nudities. Vita proba est, is no excuse; for it will scarcely be admitted, that either a poet or a painter can be chaste, who give us the contrary examples in their writings and their pictures. We see nothing of this kind in Virgil; that which comes the nearest to it, is the Adventure of the Cave, where Dido and Æneas were driven by the storm; yet even there the poet pretends a marriage before the consummation, and Juno herself was present at it. Neither is there any expression in that story, which a Roman matron might not read without a blush. Besides, the poet passes it over as hastily as he can, as if he were afraid of staying in the cave with the two lovers, and of being a witness to their actions. Now I suppose that a painter would not be much commended, who should pick out this cavern from the whole Æneids, when there is not another in the work. He had better leave them in their obscurity, than let in a flash of lightning to clear the natural darkness of the place, by which he must discover himself, as much as them. The altar-pieces, and holy decorations of painting, shew, that art may be applied to better uses, as well as poetry; and amongst many other instances, the Farnesian gallery, painted by Annibale Caracci, is a sufficient witness yet remaining; the whole work being morally instructive, and particularly the Herculis Bivium, which is a perfect triumph of virtue over vice; as it is wonderfully well described by the ingenious Bellori.

Hitherto I have only told the reader, what ought not to be the subject of a picture or of a poem. What it ought to be on either side, our author tells us: it must in general be great and noble; and in this the parallel is exactly true. The subject of a poet, either in tragedy or in an epic poem, is a great action of some illustrious hero. It is the same in painting; not every action, nor every person, is considerable enough to enter into the cloth. It must be the anger of an Achilles, the piety of an Æneas, the sacrifice of an Iphigenia, for heroines as well as heroes are comprehended in the rule; but the parallel is more complete in tragedy, than in an epic poem. For as a tragedy may be made out of many particular episodes of Homer or of Virgil, so may a noble picture be designed out of this or that particular story in either author. History is also fruitful of designs both for the painter and the tragic poet: Curtius throwing himself into a gulph, and the two Decii sacrificing themselves for the safety of their country, are subjects for tragedy and picture. Such is Scipio restoring the Spanish bride,⁠[122] whom he either loved, or may be supposed to love; by which he gained the hearts of a great nation to interest themselves for Rome against Carthage. These are all but particular pieces in Livy’s History; and yet are full complete subjects for the pen and pencil. Now the reason of this is evident. Tragedy and Picture are more narrowly circumscribed by the mechanic rules of time and place, than the epic poem. The time of this last is left indefinite. It is true, Homer took up only the space of eight-and-forty days for his Iliads; but whether Virgil’s action was comprehended in a year, or somewhat more, is not determined by Bossu. Homer made the place of his action, Troy, and the Grecian camp besieging it. Virgil introduces his Æneas sometimes in Sicily, sometimes in Carthage, and other times at Cumæ, before he brings him to Laurentum; and even after that, he wanders again to the kingdom of Evander, and some parts of Tuscany, before he returns to finish the war by the death of Turnus. But tragedy, according to the practice of the ancients, was always confined within the compass of twenty-four hours, and seldom takes up so much time. As for the place of it, it was always one, and that not in a larger sense, (as for example, a whole city, or two or three several houses in it,) but the market, or some other public, place, common to the chorus and all the actors; which established law of theirs I have not an opportunity to examine in this place, because I cannot do it without digression from my subject; though it seems too strict at the first appearance, because it excludes all secret intrigues, which are the beauties of the modern stage; for nothing can be carried on with privacy, when the chorus is supposed to be always present.—But to proceed; I must say this to the advantage of painting, even above tragedy, that what this last represents in the space of many hours, the former shews us in one moment.⁠[123] The action, the passion, and the manners of so many persons as are contained in a picture are to be discerned at once, in the twinkling of an eye; at least they would be so, if the sight could travel over so many different objects all at once, or the mind could digest them all at the same instant, or point of time. Thus, in the famous picture of Poussin, which represents the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament, you see our Saviour and his twelve disciples, all concurring in the same action, after different manners, and in different postures; only the manners of Judas are distinguished from the rest. Here is but one indivisible point of time observed; but one action performed by so many persons, in one room, and at the same table; yet the eye cannot comprehend at once the whole object, nor the mind follow it so fast; it is considered at leisure, and seen by intervals. Such are the subjects of noble pictures; and such are only to be undertaken by noble hands.

There are other parts of nature, which are meaner, and yet are the subjects both of painters and of poets. For, to proceed in the parallel; as comedy is a representation of human life in inferior persons, and low subjects, and by that means creeps into the nature of poetry, and is a kind of juniper, a shrub belonging to the species of cedar, so is the painting of clowns, the representation of a Dutch kermis,⁠[124] the brutal sport of snick-or-snee, and a thousand other things of this mean invention; a kind of picture which belongs to nature, but of the lowest form. Such is a lazar in comparison to a Venus: both are drawn in human figures; they have faces alike, though not like faces. There is yet a lower sort of poetry and painting, which is out of nature; for a farce is that in poetry, which grotesque is in a picture. The persons and action of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false, that is, inconsisting with the characters of mankind. Grotesque painting is the just resemblance of this; and Horace begins his “Art of Poetry” by describing such a figure, with a man’s head, a horse’s neck, the wings of a bird, and a fish’s tail; parts of different species jumbled together, according to the mad imagination of the dauber; and the end of all this, as he tells you afterward, to cause laughter: a very monster in a Bartholomew-fair, for the mob to gape at for their two-pence. Laughter is indeed the propriety of a man, but just enough to distinguish him from his elder brother with four legs. It is a kind of bastard-pleasure too, taken in at the eyes of the vulgar gazers, and at the ears of the beastly audience. Church-painters use it to divert the honest countryman at public prayers, and keep his eyes open at a heavy sermon; and farce scribblers make use of the same noble invention, to entertain citizens, country-gentlemen, and Covent-Garden fops. If they are merry, all goes well on the poet’s side. The better sort go thither too, but in despair of sense and the just images of nature, which are the adequate pleasures of the mind; but the author can give the stage no better than what was given him by nature; and the actors must represent such things as they are capable to perform, and by which both they and the scribbler may get their living. After all, it is a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness. Beasts can weep when they suffer, but they cannot laugh. And as Sir William D’Avenant observes in his Preface to “Gondibert,” “It is the wisdom of a government to permit plays, (he might have added—farces,) as it is the prudence of a carter to put bells upon his horses, to make them carry their burthens cheerfully.”

I have already shewn, that one main end of poetry and painting is to please, and have said something of the kinds of both, and of their subjects, in which they bear a great resemblance to each other. I must now consider them, as they are great and noble arts; and as they are arts, they must have rules, which may direct them to their common end.

To all arts and sciences, but more particularly to these, may be applied what Hippocrates says of physic, as I find him cited by an eminent French critic: “Medicine has long subsisted in the world. The principles of it are certain, and it has a certain way; by both which there has been found, in the course of many ages, an infinite number of things, the experience of which has confirmed its usefulness and goodness. All that is wanting to the perfection of this art will undoubtedly be found, if able men, and such as are instructed in the ancient rules, will make a farther inquiry into it; and endeavour to arrive at that which is hitherto unknown, by that which is already known. But all who, having rejected the ancient rules, and taken the opposite ways, yet boast themselves to be masters of this art, do but deceive others, and are themselves deceived; for that is absolutely impossible.”

This is notoriously true in these two arts; for the way to please being to imitate nature, both the poets and the painters in ancient times, and in the best ages, have studied her; and from the practice of both these arts the rules have been drawn, by which we are instructed how to please, and to compass that end which they obtained, by following their example; for nature is still the same in all ages, and can never be contrary to herself. Thus, from the practice of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Aristotle drew his rules for tragedy, and Philostratus for painting. Thus, amongst the moderns, the Italian and French critics, by studying the precepts of Aristotle and Horace, and having the example of the Grecian poets before their eyes, have given us the rules of modern tragedy; and thus the critics of the same countries in the art of painting, have given the precepts of perfecting that art.

It is true that poetry has one advantage over painting in these last ages, that we have still the remaining examples both of the Greek and Latin poets; whereas the painters have nothing left them from Apelles, Protogenes, Parrhasius, Xeuxis, and the rest, but only the testimonies which are given of their incomparable works. But instead of this, they have some of their best statues, bass-relievos, columns, obelisks, &c. which were saved out of the common ruin, and are still preserved in Italy; and by well distinguishing what is proper to sculpture, and what to painting, and what is common to them both, they have judiciously repaired that loss. And the great genius of Raffaelle, and others, having succeeded to the times of barbarism and ignorance, the knowledge of painting is now arrived to a supreme perfection, though the performance of it is much declined in the present age. The greatest age for poetry amongst the Romans was certainly that of Augustus Cæsar: and yet we are told that painting was then at its lowest ebb; and perhaps sculpture was also declining at the same time. In the reign of Domitian, and some who succeeded him, poetry was but meanly cultivated, but painting eminently flourished. I am not here to give the history of the two arts; how they were both in a manner extinguished by the irruption of the barbarous nations, and both restored about the times of Leo the Tenth, Charles the Fifth, and Francis the First; though I might observe, that neither Ariosto, nor any of his contemporary poets, ever arrived at the excellency of Raffaelle, Titian, and the rest, in painting. But in revenge, at this time, or lately, in many countries, poetry is better practised than her sister-art. To what height the magnificence and encouragement of the present king of France may carry painting and sculpture, is uncertain; but by what he has done before the war in which he is engaged, we may expect what he will do after the happy conclusion of a peace, which is the prayer and wish of all those who have not an interest to prolong the miseries of Europe. For it is most certain, as our author, amongst others, has observed, that reward is the spur of virtue, as well in all good arts, as in all laudable attempts; and emulation, which is the other spur, will never be wanting, either amongst poets or painters, when particular rewards and prizes are proposed to the best deservers.

But to return from this digression, though it was almost necessary. All the rules of painting are methodically, concisely, and yet clearly delivered in this present treatise, which I have translated. Bossu has not given more exact rules for the epic poem, nor Dacier for tragedy, in his late excellent translation of Aristotle, and his notes upon him, than our Fresnoy has made for painting; with the parallel of which I must resume my discourse, following my author’s text, though with more brevity than I intended, because Virgil calls me.

The principal and most important part of painting is, to know what is most beautiful in nature, and most proper for that art. That which is the most beautiful is the most noble subject: so in poetry, tragedy is more beautiful than comedy; because, as I said, the persons are greater whom the poet instructs, and consequently the instructions of more benefit to mankind: the action is likewise greater and more noble, and thence is derived the greater and more noble pleasure.

To imitate nature well in whatsoever subject, is the perfection of both arts; and that picture, and that poem, which comes nearest to the resemblance of nature, is the best. But it follows not, that what pleases most in either kind is therefore good, but what ought to please. Our depraved appetites, and ignorance of the arts, mislead our judgments, and cause us often to take that for true imitation of nature, which has no resemblance of nature in it. To inform our judgments, and to reform our tastes, rules were invented, that by them we might discern—when nature was imitated, and how nearly. I have been forced to recapitulate these things, because mankind is not more liable to deceit, than it is willing to continue in a pleasing error, strengthened by a long habitude. The imitation of nature is therefore justly constituted as the general, and indeed the only, rule of pleasing, both in poetry and painting. Aristotle tells us, that imitation pleases, because it affords matter for a reasoner to inquire into the truth or falsehood of imitation,⁠[125] by comparing its likeness, or unlikeness, with the original; but by this rule, every speculation in nature, whose truth falls under the inquiry of a philosopher, must produce the same delight, which is not true. I should rather assign another reason. Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie, than the will can choose an apparent evil. As truth is the end of all our speculations, so the discovery of it is the pleasure of them; and since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must of necessity produce a much greater: for both these arts, as I said before, are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature, of that which is wrought up to a nobler pitch. They present us with images more perfect than the life in any individual; and we have the pleasure to see all the scattered beauties of nature united by a happy chemistry, without its deformities or faults. They are imitations of the passions, which always move, and therefore consequently please; for without motion there can be no delight, which cannot be considered but as an active passion. When we view these elevated ideas of nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.

This foregoing remark, which gives the reason why imitation pleases, was sent me by Mr Walter Moyle, a most ingenious young gentleman, conversant in all the studies of humanity much above his years. He had also furnished me, according to my request, with all the particular passages in Aristotle and Horace, which are used by them to explain the art of poetry by that of painting; which, if ever I have time to retouch this Essay, shall be inserted in their places.

Having thus shewn that imitation pleases, and why it pleases in both these arts, it follows, that some rules of imitation are necessary to obtain the end; for without rules there can be no art, any more than there can be a house without a door to conduct you into it.

The principal parts of painting and poetry next follow. Invention is the first part, and absolutely necessary to them both; yet no rule ever was or ever can be given, how to compass it. A happy genius is the gift of nature: it depends on the influence of the stars, say the astrologers; on the organs of the body, say the naturalists; it is the particular gift of heaven, say the divines, both Christians and heathens. How to improve it, many books can teach us; how to obtain it, none; that nothing can be done without it, all agree:

Without invention, a painter is but a copier, and a poet but a plagiary of others. Both are allowed sometimes to copy, and translate; but, as our author tells you, that is not the best part of their reputation. “Imitators are but a servile kind of cattle,” says the poet; or at best, the keepers of cattle for other men: they have nothing which is properly their own: that is a sufficient mortification for me, while I am translating Virgil. But to copy the best author, is a kind of praise, if I perform it as I ought; as a copy after Raffaelle is more to be commended than an original of any indifferent painter.

Under this head of Invention is placed the disposition of the work,—to put all things in a beautiful order and harmony, that the whole may be of a piece. The compositions of the painter should be conformable to the text of ancient authors, to the customs, and the times. And this is exactly the same in poetry; Homer and Virgil are to be our guides in the epic; Sophocles and Euripides in tragedy: in all things we are to imitate the customs and the times of those persons and things which we represent: not to make new rules of the drama, as Lopez de Vega has attempted unsuccessfully to do,⁠[126] but to be content to follow our masters, who understood nature better than we. But if the story which we treat be modern, we are to vary the customs, according to the time and the country where the scene of action lies; for this is still to imitate nature, which is always the same, though in a different dress.

As in the composition of a picture the painter is to take care that nothing enter into it, which is not proper or convenient to the subject, so likewise is the poet to reject all incidents which are foreign to his poem, and are naturally no parts of it; they are wens, and other excrescences, which belong not to the body, but deform it. No person, no incident, in the piece, or in the play, but must be of use to carry on the main design. All things else are like six fingers to the hand, when nature, which is superfluous in nothing, can do her work with five. A painter must reject all trifling ornaments; so must a poet refuse all tedious and unnecessary descriptions. A robe which is too heavy is less an ornament than a burthen.

In poetry Horace calls these things—versus inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ; there are also the lucus et ara Dianæ, which he mentions in the same “Art of Poetry.” But since there must be ornaments both in painting and poetry, if they are not necessary, they must at least be decent; that is, in their due place, and but moderately used. The painter is not to take so much pains about the drapery, as about the face, where the principal resemblance lies; neither is the poet, who is working up a passion, to makes similes, which will certainly make it languish. My Montezuma dies with a fine one in his mouth;⁠[127] but it is ambitious, and out of season. When there are more figures in a picture than are necessary, or at least ornamental, our author calls them “figures to be let;” because the picture has no use of them. So I have seen in some modern plays above twenty actors, when the action has not required half the number.⁠[128] In the principal figures of a picture, the painter is to employ the sinews of his art; for in them consists the principal beauty of his work. Our author saves me the comparison with tragedy; for he says, that herein he is to imitate the tragic poet, who employs his utmost force in those places, wherein consists the height and beauty of the action.

Du Fresnoy, whom I follow, makes design, or drawing, the second part of painting; but the rules which he gives concerning the posture of the figures, are almost wholly proper to that art, and admit not any comparison, that I know, with poetry. The posture of a poetic figure is, as I conceive, the description of his heroes in the performance of such or such an action; as of Achilles, just in the act of killing Hector, or of Æneas, who has Turnus under him. Both the poet and the painter vary the posture, according to the action or passion which they represent, of the same person; but all must be great and graceful in them. The same Æneas must be drawn a suppliant to Dido, with respect in his gestures, and humility in his eyes; but when he is forced, in his own defence, to kill Lausus, the poet shews him compassionate, and tempering the severity of his looks with a reluctance to the action which he is going to perform. He has pity on his beauty and his youth, and is loth to destroy such a masterpiece of nature. He considers Lausus rescuing his father at the hazard of his own life, as an image of himself, when he took Anchises on his shoulders, and bore him safe through the rage of the fire, and the opposition of his enemies; and therefore, in the posture of a retiring man, who avoids the combat, he stretches out his arm in sign of peace, with his right foot drawn a little back, and his breast bending inward, more like an orator than a soldier; and seems to dissuade the young man from pulling on his destiny, by attempting more than he was able to perform. Take the passage as I have thus translated it:

And afterwards:

But beside the outlines of the posture, the design of the picture comprehends, in the next place, the forms of faces, which are to be different; and so in a poem or a play must the several characters of the persons be distinguished from each other. I knew a poet, whom out of respect I will not name, who, being too witty himself, could draw nothing but wits in a comedy of his; even his fools were infected with the disease of their author. They overflowed with smart repartees, and were only distinguished from the intended wits by being called coxcombs,⁠[129] though they deserved not so scandalous a name. Another, who had a great genius for tragedy,⁠[130] following the fury of his natural temper, made every man, and woman too, in his plays, stark raging mad; there was not a sober person to be had for love or money. All was tempestuous and blustering; heaven and earth were coming together at every word; a mere hurricane from the beginning to the end,—and every actor seemed to be hastening on the day of judgment.⁠[131]

“Let every member be made for its own head,” says our author; not a withered hand to a young face. So, in the persons of a play, whatsoever is said or done by any of them, must be consistent with the manners which the poet has given them distinctly; and even the habits must be proper to the degrees and humours of the persons, as well as in a picture. He who entered in the first act a young man, like Pericles, Prince of Tyre,⁠[132] must not be in danger in the fifth act, of committing incest with his daughter; nor an usurer, without great probability and causes of repentance, be turned into a cutting Morecraft.⁠[133]

I am not satisfied, that the comparison betwixt the two arts in the last paragraph is altogether so just as it might have been; but I am sure of this which follows:

“The principal figure of the subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest, which are only its attendants.” Thus, in a tragedy, or an epic poem, the hero of the piece must be advanced foremost to the view of the reader, or spectator: he must outshine the rest of all the characters; he must appear the prince of them, like the sun in the Copernican system, encompassed with the less noble planets: because the hero is the centre of the main action; all the lines from the circumference tend to him alone: he is the chief object of pity in the drama, and of admiration in the epic poem.

As in a picture, besides the principal figures which compose it, and are placed in the midst of it, there are less groups or knots of figures disposed at proper distances, which are parts of the piece, and seem to carry on the same design in a more inferior manner; so, in epic poetry there are episodes, and a chorus in tragedy, which are members of the action, as growing out of it, not inserted into it. Such in the ninth book of the “Æneids” is the episode of Nisus and Euryalus. The adventure belongs to them alone; they alone are the objects of compassion and admiration; but their business which they carry on, is the general concernment of the Trojan camp, then beleaguered by Turnus and the Latins, as the Christians were lately by the Turks. They were to advertise the chief hero of the distresses of his subjects occasioned by his absence, to crave his succour, and solicit him to hasten his return.

The Grecian tragedy was at first nothing but a chorus of singers; afterwards one actor was introduced, which was the poet himself, who entertained the people with a discourse in verse, betwixt the pauses of the singing. This succeeding with the people, more actors were added, to make the variety the greater; and, in process of time, the chorus only sung betwixt the acts, and the Coryphæus, or chief of them, spoke for the rest, as an actor concerned in the business of the play.

Thus tragedy was perfected by degrees; and being arrived at that perfection, the painters might probably take the hint from thence of adding groups to their pictures. But as a good picture may be without a group, so a good tragedy may subsist without a chorus, notwithstanding any reasons which have been given by Dacier to the contrary.

Monsieur Racine has, indeed, used it in his “Esther;” but not that he found any necessity of it, as the French critic would insinuate. The chorus at St Cyr was only to give the young ladies an occasion of entertaining the king with vocal music, and of commending their own voices. The play itself was never intended for the public stage, nor, without disparagement to the learned author, could possibly have succeeded there; and much less the translation of it here. Mr Wycherley, when we read it together, was of my opinion in this, or rather I of his; for it becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet, and so great a judge. But since I am in this place, as Virgil says, spatiis exclusus iniquis, that is, shortened in my time, I will give no other reason, than that it is impracticable on our stage. A new theatre, much more ample and much deeper, must be made for that purpose, besides the cost of sometimes forty or fifty habits, which is an expence too large to be supplied by a company of actors. It is true, I should not be sorry to see a chorus on a theatre more than as large and as deep again as ours, built and adorned at a king’s charges; and on that condition, and another, which is, that my hands were not bound behind me, as now they are,⁠[134] I should not despair of making such a tragedy as might be both instructive and delightful, according to the manner of the Grecians.

To make a sketch, or a more perfect model of a picture, is, in the language of poets, to draw up the scenery of a play; and the reason is the same for both; to guide the undertaking, and to preserve the remembrance of such things, whose natures are difficult to retain.

To avoid absurdities and incongruities, is the same law established for both arts. The painter is not to paint a cloud at the bottom of a picture, but in the uppermost parts; nor the poet to place what is proper to the end or middle, in the beginning of a poem. I might enlarge on this; but there are few poets or painters, who can be supposed to sin so grossly against the laws of nature and of art. I remember only one play, and for once I will call it by its name, “The Slighted Maid,”⁠[135] where there is nothing in the first act, but what might have been said or done in the fifth; nor any thing in the midst, which might not have been placed as well in the beginning, or the end. To express the passions which are seated in the heart, by outward signs, is one great precept of the painters, and very difficult to perform. In poetry, the same passions and motions of the mind are to be expressed; and in this consists the principal difficulty, as well as the excellency of that art. This, says my author, is the gift of Jupiter; and, to speak in the same heathen language, we call it the gift of our Apollo,—not to be obtained by pains or study, if we are not born to it; for the motions which are studied, are never so natural as those which break out in the height of a real passion. Mr Otway possessed this part as thoroughly as any of the ancients or moderns. I will not defend every thing in his “Venice Preserved;” but I must bear this testimony to his memory,—that the passions are truly touched in it,⁠[136] though perhaps there is somewhat to be desired, both in the grounds of them, and in the height and elegance of expression; but nature is there, which is the greatest beauty.

“In the passions,” says our author, “we must have a very great regard to the quality of the persons, who are actually possessed with them.” The joy of a monarch for the news of a victory, must not be expressed like the ecstacy of a Harlequin on the receipt of a letter from his mistress:—this is so much the same in both the arts, that it is no longer a comparison. What he says of face-painting, or the portrait of any one particular person,—concerning the likeness,—is also as applicable to poetry. In the character of an hero, as well as in an inferior figure, there is a better or worse likeness to be taken: the better is a panegyric, if it be not false, and the worse is a libel. Sophocles, says Aristotle, always drew men as they ought to be, that is, better than they were; another, whose name I have forgotten,⁠[137] drew them worse than naturally they were: Euripides altered nothing in the character, but made them such as they were represented by history, epic poetry, or tradition. Of the three, the draught of Sophocles is most commended by Aristotle. I have followed it in that part of “Œdipus” which I writ,⁠[138] though perhaps I have made him too good a man. But my characters of Antony and Cleopatra, though they are favourable to them, have nothing of outrageous panegyric. Their passions were their own, and such as were given them by history; only the deformities of them were cast into shadows, that they might be objects of compassion: whereas if I had chosen a noon-day light for them, somewhat must have been discovered, which would rather have moved our hatred than our pity.

The Gothic manner, and the barbarous ornaments, which are to be avoided in a picture, are just the same with those in an ill-ordered play. For example, our English tragi-comedy must be confessed to be wholly Gothic, notwithstanding the success which it has found upon our theatre, and in the “Pastor Fido” of Guarini; even though Corisca and the Satyr contribute somewhat to the main action. Neither can I defend my “Spanish Friar,” as fond as otherwise I am of it, from this imputation: for though the comical parts are diverting, and the serious moving, yet they are of an unnatural mingle: for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed for decent, than a gay widow laughing in a mourning habit.

I had almost forgotten one considerable resemblance. Du Fresnoy tells us, “That the figures of the groups must not be all on a side, that is, with their face and bodies all turned the same way; but must contrast each other by their several positions.” Thus in a play, some characters must be raised, to oppose others, and to set them off the better; according to the old maxim, contraria juxta se posita, magis elucescunt. Thus, in “The Scornful Lady,” the usurer is set to confront the prodigal: thus, in my “Tyrannic Love,” the atheist Maximin is opposed to the character of St Catherine.

I am now come, though with the omission of many likenesses, to the Third Part of Painting, which is called the Cromatic, or Colouring. Expression, and all that belongs to words, is that in a poem, which colouring is in a picture. The colours well chosen in their proper places, together with the lights and shadows which belong to them, lighten the design, and make it pleasing to the eye. The words, the expressions, the tropes and figures, the versification, and all the other elegancies of sound, as cadences, turns of words upon the thought, and many other things, which are all parts of expression, perform exactly the same office both in dramatic and epic poetry. Our author calls Colouring, lena sororis; in plain English, the bawd of her sister, the design or drawing: she clothes, she dresses her up, she paints her, she makes her appear more lovely than naturally she is; she procures for the design, and makes lovers for her: for the design of itself is only so many naked lines. Thus in poetry, the expression is that which charms the reader, and beautifies the design, which is only the outlines of the fable. It is true, the design must of itself be good; if it be vicious, or, in one word, unpleasing, the cost of colouring is thrown away upon it: it is an ugly woman in a rich habit set out with jewels;—nothing can become her; but granting the design to be moderately good, it is like an excellent complexion with indifferent features: the white and red well mingled on the face, make what was before but passable, appear beautiful. Operum colores is the very word which Horace uses, to signify words and elegant expressions, of which he himself was so great a master, in his Odes. Amongst the ancients, Zeuxis was most famous for his colouring; amongst the moderns, Titian and Correggio. Of the two ancient epic poets, who have so far excelled all the moderns, the invention and design were the particular talents of Homer. Virgil must yield to him in both; for the design of the Latin was borrowed from the Grecian: but the dictio Virgiliana, the expression of Virgil, his colouring, was incomparably the better; and in that I have always endeavoured to copy him. Most of the pedants, I know, maintain the contrary, and will have Homer excel even in this part. But of all people, as they are the most ill-mannered, so they are the worst judges. Even of words, which are their province, they seldom know more than the grammatical construction, unless they are born with a poetical genius, which is a rare portion amongst them. Yet some I know may stand excepted; and such I honour. Virgil is so exact in every word, that none can be changed but for a worse; nor any one removed from its place, but the harmony will be altered. He pretends sometimes to trip; but it is only to make you think him in danger of a fall, when he is most secure: like a skilful dancer on the ropes, (if you will pardon the meanness of the similitude,) who slips willingly, and makes a seeming stumble, that you may think him in great hazard of breaking his neck, while at the same time he is only giving you a proof of his dexterity. My late Lord Roscommon was often pleased with this reflection, and with the examples of it in this admirable author.

I have not leisure to run through the whole comparison of lights and shadows with tropes and figures; yet I cannot but take notice of metaphors, which like them have power to lessen or greaten any thing. Strong and glowing colours are the just resemblances of bold metaphors: but both must be judiciously applied; for there is a difference betwixt daring and fool-hardiness. Lucan and Statius often ventured them too far; our Virgil never. But the great defect of the “Pharsalia” and the “Thebais” was in the design: if that had been more perfect, we might have forgiven many of their bold strokes in the colouring, or at least excused them: yet some of them are such as Demosthenes or Cicero could not have defended. Virgil, if he could have seen the first verses of the “Sylvæ,”⁠[139] would have thought Statius mad, in his fustian description of the statue on the brazen horse. But that poet was always in a foam at his setting out, even before the motion of the race had warmed him. The soberness of Virgil, whom he read, it seems, to little purpose, might have shewn him the difference betwixt

and

But Virgil knew how to rise by degrees in his expressions: Statius was in his towering heights at the first stretch of his pinions. The description of his running horse, just starting in the Funeral Games for Archemorus, though the verses are wonderfully fine, are the true image of their author:

which would cost me an hour, if I had the leisure to translate them, there is so much of beauty in the original.

Virgil, as he better knew his colours, so he knew better how and where to place them. In as much haste as I am, I cannot forbear giving one example. It is said of him, that he read the Second, Fourth, and Sixth Books of his Æneids to Augustus Cæsar. In the Sixth, (which we are sure he read, because we know Octavia was present, who rewarded him so bountifully for the twenty verses which were made in honour of her deceased son, Marcellus,)⁠[141]—in this Sixth Book, I say, the poet, speaking of Misenus, the trumpeter, says,

and broke off in the hemistic, or midst of the verse; but in the very reading, seized as it were with a divine fury, he made up the latter part of the hemistic with these following words,

How warm, nay, how glowing a colouring is this! In the beginning of his verse, the word æs, or brass, was taken for a trumpet, because the instrument was made of that metal,—which of itself was fine; but in the latter end, which was made extempore, you see three metaphors, martemque,—accendere,—cantu. Good heavens! how the plain sense is raised by the beauty of the words! But this was happiness, the former might be only judgment: this was the curiosa felicitas, which Petronius attributes to Horace; it is the pencil thrown luckily full upon the horse’s mouth, to express the foam which the painter with all his skill could not perform without it. These hits of words a true poet often finds, as I may say, without seeking; but he knows their value when he finds them, and is infinitely pleased. A bad poet may sometimes light on them, but he discerns not a diamond from a Bristol-stone; and would have been of the cock’s mind in Æsop,—a grain of barley would have pleased him better than the jewel.

The lights and shadows which belong to colouring, put me in mind of that verse in Horace,

Some parts of a poem require to be amply written, and with all the force and elegance of words; others must be cast into shadows, that is, passed over in silence, or but faintly touched. This belongs wholly to the judgment of the poet and the painter. The most beautiful parts of the picture, and the poem, must be the most finished, the colours and words most chosen; many things in both, which are not deserving of this care, must be shifted off; content with vulgar expressions, and those very short, and left, as in a shadow, to the imagination of the reader.

We have the proverb, manum de tabulâ, from the painters; which signifies, to know when to give over, and to lay by the pencil. Both Homer and Virgil practised this precept wonderfully well, but Virgil the better of the two. Homer knew, that when Hector was slain, Troy was as good as already taken; therefore he concludes his action there: for what follows in the funerals of Patroclus, and the redemption of Hector’s body, is not, properly speaking, a part of the main action. But Virgil concludes with the death of Turnus; for after that difficulty was removed, Æneas might marry, and establish the Trojans, when he pleased. This rule I had before my eyes in the conclusion of the “Spanish Friar,” when the discovery was made that the king was living, which was the knot of the play untied; the rest is shut up in the compass of some few lines, because nothing then hindered the happiness of Torrismond and Leonora. The faults of that drama are in the kind of it, which is tragi-comedy. But it was given to the people: and I never writ any thing for myself but “Antony and Cleopatra.”

This remark, I must acknowledge, is not so proper for the colouring, as the design; but it will hold for both. As the words, &c. are evidently shown to be the cloathing of the thought, in the same sense as colours are the cloathing of the design, so the painter and the poet ought to judge exactly, when the colouring and expressions are perfect, and then to think their work is truly finished. Apelles said of Protogenes,—that he knew not when to give over. A work may be over-wrought, as well as under-wrought; too much labour often takes away the spirit by adding to the polishing, so that there remains nothing but a dull correctness, a piece without any considerable faults, but with few beauties; for when the spirits are drawn off, there is nothing but a caput mortuum. Statius never thought an expression could be bold enough; and if a bolder could be found, he rejected the first. Virgil had judgment enough to know daring was necessary; but he knew the difference betwixt a glowing colour and a glaring. As, when he compared the shocking of the fleets at Actium to the jostling of islands rent from their foundations, and meeting in the ocean, he knew the comparison was forced beyond nature, and raised too high; he therefore softens the metaphor with a credas: “you would almost believe—that mountains or islands rushed against each other:”

But here I must break off without finishing the discourse.

Cynthius aurem vellit, et admonuit, &c. The things which are behind are of too nice a consideration for an essay, begun and ended in twelve mornings; and perhaps the judges of painting and poetry, when I tell them how short a time it cost me, may make me the same answer which my late Lord Rochester made to one, who, to commend a tragedy, said it was written in three weeks: “How the devil could he be so long about it?” For that poem was infamously bad; and I doubt this Parallel is little better; and then the shortness of the time is so far from being a commendation, that it is scarcely an excuse. But if I have really drawn a portrait to the knees, or an half-length, with a tolerable likeness, then I may plead, with some justice, for myself, that the rest is left to the imagination. Let some better artist provide himself of a deeper canvas, and, taking these hints which I have given, set the figure on its legs, and finish it in the invention, design, and colouring.

Among all the beautiful and delightful arts, that of painting has always found the most lovers; the number of them almost including all mankind. Of whom great multitudes are daily found, who value themselves on the knowledge of it: either because they keep company with painters, or that they have seen good pieces; or, lastly, because their gusto is naturally good. Which notwithstanding, that knowledge of theirs (if we may so call it) is so very superficial, and so ill grounded, that it is impossible for them to describe in what consists the beauty of those works, which they admire; or the faults, which are in the greatest part of those which they condemn. And truly it is not hard to find, that this proceeds from no other cause, than that they are not furnished with rules by which to judge; nor have any solid foundations, which are as so many lights set up to clear their understanding, and lead them to an entire and certain knowledge. I think it superfluous to prove, that this is necessary to the knowledge of painting. It is sufficient, that painting be acknowledged for an art; for that being granted, it follows, without dispute, that no arts are without their precepts. I shall satisfy myself with telling you, that this little treatise will furnish you with infallible rules of judging truly; since they are not only founded upon right reason, but upon the best pieces of the best masters, which our author hath carefully examined, during the space of more than thirty years; and on which he has made all the reflections which are necessary, to render this treatise worthy of posterity; which, though little in bulk, yet contains most judicious remarks; and suffers nothing to escape, that is essential to the subject which it handles. If you will please to read it with attention, you will find it capable of giving the most nice and delicate sort of knowledge, not only to the lovers, but even to the professors of that art.

It would be too long to tell you the particular advantages, which it has above all the books that have appeared before it, in this kind; you need only read it, and that will convince you of this truth. All that I will allow myself to say, is only this, that there is not a word in it which carries not its weight; whereas in all others, there are two considerable faults, which lie open to the sight, viz. that saying too much, they always say too little. I assure myself, that the reader will own it is a work of general profit: to the lovers of painting, for their instruction how to judge knowingly, from the reason of the thing; and to the painters themselves, by removing their difficulties, that they may work with pleasure; because they may be in some manner certain, that their productions are good. It is to be used like spirits, and precious liquors: the less you drink of it at a time, it is with the greater pleasure. Read it often, and but little at once, that you may digest it better; and dwell particularly on those passages which you find marked with an asterism *. For the observations which follow such a note, will give you a clearer light on the matter which is there treated. You will find them by the numbers which are on the side of the translation, from five to five verses, by searching for the like number in the remarks which are at the end of it, and which are distinguished from each other by this note †. You will find in the latter pages of this book, the judgment of the author on those painters, who have acquired the greatest reputation in the world; amongst whom, he was not willing to comprehend those who are now living. They are undoubtedly his, as being found among his papers, written in his own hand.

As for the prose translation, which you will find on the other side of the Latin poem, I must inform you on what occasion, and in what manner, it was performed. The love which I had for painting, and the pleasure which I found in the exercise of that noble art, at my leisure hours, gave me the desire of being acquainted with the late Monsieur du Fresnoy, who was generally reputed to have a thorough knowledge of it. Our acquaintance at length proceeded to that degree of intimacy, that he entrusted me with his poem, which he believed me capable both of understanding, and translating; and accordingly desired me to undertake it. The truth is, we had conversed so often on that subject, and he had communicated his thoughts of it so fully to me, that I had not the least remaining difficulty concerning it. I undertook therefore to translate it, and employed myself in it with pleasure, care, and assiduity; after which, I put it into his hands, and he altered in it what he pleased; till at last, it was wholly to his mind. And then he gave his consent that it should be published; but his death preventing that design, I thought it a wrong to his memory, to deprive mankind any longer of this translation, which I may safely affirm to be done according to the true sense of the author, and to his liking: since he himself has given great testimonies of his approbation to many of his friends. And they, who are acquainted with him, know his humour to be such, that he would never constrain himself so far, as to commend what he did not really approve. I thought myself obliged to say thus much, in vindication of the faithfulness of my work, to those who understand not the Latin; for as to those who are conversant in both the tongues, I leave them to make their own judgment of it.

The remarks which I have added to his work, are also wholly conformable to his opinions; and I am certain that he would not have disapproved them. I have endeavoured in them to explain some of the most obscure passages, and those which are most necessary to be understood: and I have done this according to the manner wherein he used to express himself, in many conversations which we had together. I have confined them also to the narrowest compass I was able, that I might not tire the patience of the reader, and that they might be read by all persons. But if it happens, that they are not to the taste of some readers, (as doubtless it will so fall out,) I leave them entirely to their own discretion; and shall not be displeased that another hand should succeed better. I shall only beg this favour from them, that in reading what I have written, they will bring no particular gusto along with them, or any prevention of mind; and that whatsoever judgment they make, it may be purely their own, whether it be in my favour, or in my condemnation.

The passages which you see marked with an asterism * are more amply explained in the remarks.

Painting and Poesy are two sisters, which are so like in all things, that they mutually lend to each other, both their name and office. One is called a dumb poesy, and the other a speaking picture. The poets have never said any thing, but what they believed 5. would please the ears. And it has been the constant endeavour of the painters to give pleasure to the eyes. In short, those things which the poets have thought unworthy of their pens, the painters have judged to be unworthy of their pencils. * For both “those arts, that they might advance the sacred honours of religion,” have raised themselves to heaven; and, having found a free admission into 10. the palace of Jove himself, have enjoyed the sight and conversation of the gods; whose “awful majesty they observe, and whose dictates they communicate to mankind;” whom at the same time they inspire with those celestial flames, which shine so gloriously in their works. From heaven they take their passage through the world; and “with concurring studies” collect whatsoever they find worthy of them. * They dive (as I may say) into 15. all past ages; and search their histories, for subjects which are proper for their use: with care avoiding to treat of any but those which, by their nobleness, or by some remarkable accident, have deserved to be consecrated to eternity; whether on the seas, or earth, or in the heavens. And by this their care and study, it comes to pass, that the 20. glory of heroes is not extinguished with their lives; and that those admirable works, those prodigies of skill, which even yet are the objects of our admiration, are still preserved. * So much these divine arts have been almost honoured; and such authority they preserve amongst mankind. It will not here 25. be necessary to implore the succour of Apollo, and the muses, for the gracefulness of the discourse, or for the cadence of the verses; which, containing only precepts, have not so much need of ornament, as of perspicuity.

I pretend not in this treatise to tie the hands of 30. artists, “whom practice only directs;” neither would I stifle the genius, by a jumbled heap of rules; nor extinguish the fire of a vein which is lively and abundant. But rather to make this my business, that art being strengthened by the knowledge of things, may at length pass into nature by slow degrees; and so in process of time, may be 35. sublimed into a pure genius, which is capable of choosing judiciously what is true; and of distinguishing betwixt the beauties of nature, and that which is low and mean in her; and that this original genius, by long exercise and custom, may perfectly possess all the rules and secrets of that art.

* The principal and most important part of painting, is to find out, and thoroughly to understand, what nature has made most beautiful, and most proper to this art; * and that a choice of it may be made according to the taste and manner of the 40. ancients; * without which, all is nothing but a blind and rash barbarity; which rejects what is most beautiful, and seems, with an audacious insolence, to despise an art, of which it is wholly ignorant; which has occasioned these words of the ancients: “That no man is so bold, so rash, and so overweening of his own works, as an ill painter, and a bad poet, who are not conscious to themselves of their own ignorance.”

* We love what we understand; we desire what 45. we love; we pursue the enjoyment of those things which we desire; and arrive at last to the possession of what we have pursued, if we warmly persist in our design. In the mean time, we ought not to expect, that blind fortune should infallibly throw into our hands those beauties; for though we may light by chance on some which are true and natural, yet they may prove either not to be decent, or not to be ornamental. Because it is not sufficient to imitate nature in every circumstance, 50. dully, and as it were literally, and minutely; but it becomes a painter to take what is most beautiful, * as being the sovereign judge of his own art; “what is less beautiful, or is faulty, he shall freely correct by the dint of his own genius,” * and permit no transient beauties to escape his observation.

* In the same manner, that bare practice, destitute of the lights of art, is always subject to fall into a precipice, like a blind traveller, without being 55. able to produce any thing which contributes to a solid reputation; so the speculative part of painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to that perfection which is its object, but slothfully languishes as in a prison; for it was not with his tongue that Apelles performed his noble works. Therefore, 60. though there are many things in painting, of which no precise rules are to be given, * (because the greatest beauties cannot always be expressed for want of terms,) yet I shall not omit to give some precepts, which I have selected from among the most considerable which we have received from nature, that exact school-mistress, after having examined her most secret recesses, as well as * those master-pieces of antiquity, which were the chief examples of this art; and it is by this means, that the mind and the natural disposition 65. are to be cultivated, and that science perfects genius; * and also moderates that fury of the fancy which cannot contain itself within the bounds of reason; but often carries a man into dangerous extremes. For there is a mean in all things; and certain limits or bounds wherein the good and the beautiful consist, and out of which they never can depart.

This being premised, the next thing is to make choice of * a subject beautiful and noble; which being of itself capable of all the charms and graces, 70. that colours, and the elegance of design, can possibly give, shall afterwards afford, to a perfect and consummate art, an ample field of matter wherein to expatiate itself; to exert all its power, and to produce somewhat to the sight, which is excellent, judicious, * and ingenious; and at the same time proper to instruct, and to enlighten the understanding.

“At length I come to the work itself; and at 75. first, find only a bare strained canvas, on which the sketch is to be disposed by the strength of a happy imagination;” * which is what we properly call invention. *

* Invention is a kind of muse, which, being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters, and being warmed by the fire of Apollo, is raised higher than the rest, and shines with a more glorious and brighter flame.

* It is the business of a painter, in his choice of attitudes, to foresee the effect and harmony of the lights and shadows, with the colours which are to enter into the whole; taking from each of them, that which will most conduce to the production of 80. a beautiful effect.

* Let “there be a genuine and lively expression of the subject,” conformable to the text of ancient authors, to customs, and to times.

“Whatever is trivial, foreign, or improper, ought by no means to take up the principal part of the picture.” * But herein imitate the sister of painting, Tragedy; which employs the whole forces of her art in the main action. 85.

* This part of painting, so rarely met with, is neither to be acquired by pains or study, nor by the precepts or dictates of any master. For they alone who have been inspired at their birth with 90. some portion of that heavenly fire, * which was stolen by Prometheus, are capable of receiving so divine a present.

Painting in Egypt was at first rude and imperfect, till being brought into Greece, * and being cultivated by the study and sublime genius of that 95. nation, * it arrived at length to that height of perfection, that it seemed to surpass even original nature.

Amongst the academies, which were composed by the rare genius of those great men, these four are reckoned as the principal: namely, the Athenian school, that of Sicyon, that of Rhodes, and that of Corinth. These were little different from each other, only in the manner of their work; as it may 100. be seen by the ancient statues, which are the rule of beauty and gracefulness; and to which succeeding ages have produced nothing that is equal; “or indeed that is not very much inferior, both in science, and in the manner of its execution.”

* An attitude therefore must be chosen, according to their taste: * the parts of it must be great and large, * “contrasted by contrary motions; the 105. most noble parts foremost in sight, and each figure carefully poised on its own centre.”

* “The parts must be drawn with flowing, gliding outlines, large and smooth, rising gradually, not swelling suddenly, but which may be just felt in the statues, or cause a little relievo in painting. 110. Let the muscles have their origin and insertion, * according to the rules of anatomy; let them not be subdivided into small sections, but kept as entire as possible, * in imitation of the Greek forms, and expressing only the principal muscles.” In fine, * let there be a perfect relation betwixt the parts and the whole, that they may be entirely of a piece. 115.

Let the part which produces another part, be more strong than that which it produces; and let the whole be seen by one point of sight. * Though perspective cannot be called a perfect ruler “for designing,” yet it is a great succour to art, and facilitates the “dispatch of the work:” though frequently 120. falling into error, it makes us behold things under a false aspect; for bodies are not always represented according to the geometrical plane, but such as they appear to the sight.

Neither the shape of faces, nor the age, nor the colour, ought to be alike in all figures, any more 125. than the hair; because men are as different from each other, as the regions in which they are born are different.

* Let every member be made for its own head, and agree with it; and let all together compose but one body, with the draperies which are proper and suitable to it. And, above all, * let the figures to which art cannot give a voice, imitate the mutes in their actions.

* Let the principal figure of the subject appear in the middle of the piece, under the strongest light, 130. that it may have somewhat to make it more remarkable than the rest; and that the figures which accompany it, may not steal it from our sight.

* Let the “parts be brought together, and the figures disposed in groups:” and let those groups be separated by a void space, to avoid a confused 135. heap; which proceeding from parts that are dispersed without any regularity, and entangled one within another, divides the sight into many rays, and causes a disagreeable confusion.

* The figures in the groups ought not to “have the same inflections of the body, nor the same motions; nor should they lean all one way, but break 140. the symmetry, by proper oppositions and contrasts.

“To several figures seen in front oppose others with the back toward the spectator; that is, the shoulders of some opposed to the breasts of others, and right limbs to left, whether the piece consists of many figures, or but of few.” 145.

* One side of the picture must not be void, while the other is filled to the borders; but let matters be so well disposed, that if “any thing rises high on one side of the piece, you may raise 150. something to answer it on the other,” so that they shall appear in some sort equal.

* As a play is seldom very good, in which there are too many actors; so it is very seldom seen, and almost impossible to perform, that a picture should be perfect, in which there are too great a 155. number of figures. How “should they excel in putting several figures together, who can scarce excel in a single one?”

“Many dispersed objects breed confusion, and take away from the picture that solemn majesty, and agreeable repose, which give beauty to the piece, and satisfaction to the sight. But if you are 160. constrained by the subject to admit of many figures, you must then make the whole to be seen together, and the effect of the work at one view; and not every thing separately, and in particular.”

* The extremities of the joints must be seldom hidden; and the extremities or end of the feet never.

* The figures which are behind others, have neither grace nor vigour, unless the motions of the hands accompany those of the head. 165.

Avoid “all odd aspects or positions, and all ungraceful or forced actions and motions.” Show no parts which are unpleasing to the sight, as all foreshortenings usually are.

* Avoid all those lines and outlines which are equal; which make parallels, or other sharp-pointed and geometrical figures; such as are squares and 170. triangles: all which by being too exact, give to the eye a certain displeasing symmetry, which produces no good effect. But, as I have already told you, the principal lines ought to contrast each other: for which reason, in these outlines, you ought to have a special regard to the whole together: for it 175. is from thence that the beauty and force of the parts proceed.

* Be not so strictly tied to nature, that you allow nothing to study, and the bent of your own genius. But on the other side, believe not that your genius alone, and the remembrance of those things which you have seen, can afford you wherewithal to furnish out a beautiful piece, without the succour of that incomparable school-mistress, Nature; * whom you must have always present as a witness to the truth. “Errors are infinite,” and, amongst many ways which 180. mislead a traveller, there is but one true one, which conducts him surely to his journey’s end; as also there are many several sorts of crooked lines; but there is one only which is straight.

Our business is to imitate the beauties of nature, as the ancients have done before us, and as the object and nature of the thing require from us. And for 185. this reason, we must be careful in the search of ancient medals, statues, gems, vases, paintings, and basso relievos: * And of all other things which discover to us the thoughts and inventions of the Grecians; because they furnish us with great ideas, and make our productions wholly beautiful. And 190. in truth, after having well examined them, we shall therein find so many charms, that we shall pity the destiny of our present age, without hope of ever arriving at so high a point of perfection.

* If you have but one single figure to work upon, you ought to make it perfectly finished, and diversified with many colours.

* Let the draperies be nobly spread upon the body; let the folds be large, * and let them follow 195. the order of the parts, that they may be seen underneath, by means of the lights and shadows; notwithstanding that the parts should be often traversed (or crossed) by the flowing of the folds, which loosely encompass them, * without sitting too straight upon them; but let them mark the 200. parts which are under them, so as in some manner to distinguish them, by the judicious ordering of the lights and shadows. * And if the parts be too much distant from each other, so that there be void spaces, which are deeply shadowed, we are then to take occasion to place in those voids some fold to make a joining of the parts. 205. “* And as those limbs and members which are expressed by few and large muscles, excel in majesty and beauty,” in the same manner the beauty of the draperies consists not in the multitude of the folds, but in their natural order, and plain simplicity. The quality of the persons is also to be considered in the drapery. * As supposing them to be magistrates, their draperies ought to be large and ample; if country clowns, or slaves, they ought to be coarse and short; * if ladies, or damsels, light and 210. soft. It is sometimes requisite to draw out, as it were from the hollows and deep shadows, some fold, and give it a swelling, that so receiving the light, it may contribute to extend the clearness to those places where the body requires it; and by this means we shall disburthen the piece of those hard shadowings, which are always ungraceful.

* The marks or ensigns of virtues contribute not 215. little, by their nobleness, to the ornament of the figures. Such, for example, as are the decorations belonging to the liberal arts, to war, or sacrifices.

* But let not the work be too much enriched with gold or jewels; “for the abundance of them makes them look cheap; their value arising from the scarcity.”

* It is very expedient to make a model of those things, which we have not in our sight, and whose 220. nature is difficult to be retained in the memory.

* We are to consider the places where we lay the scene of the picture; the countries where they were born, whom we represent; the manner of their actions, their laws, and customs, and all that is properly belonging to them.

* Let a nobleness and grace be remarkable through all your work. But, to confess the truth, this is a most difficult undertaking; and a very rare present, which the artist receives rather from the hand of Heaven, than from his own industry and studies.

In all things you are to follow the order of nature; for which reason you must beware of drawing or painting clouds, winds, and thunder, towards the bottom of your piece, and hell, and waters, in the 225. uppermost parts of it; you are not to place a stone column on a foundation of reeds, but let every thing be set in its proper place.

Besides all this, you are to express the motions 230. of the spirits, and the affections or passions, whose centre is the heart; in a word, to make the soul visible, by the means of some few colours; * this is that in which the greatest difficulty consists. Few there are, whom Jupiter regards with a favourable eye in this undertaking; so that it appertains only to those few, who participate somewhat of divinity itself, to work these mighty wonders. It is the business of rhetoricians, 235. to treat the characters of the passions; and I shall content myself, with repeating what an excellent master has formerly said on this subject, that a “true and lively expression of the passions, is rather the work of genius, than of labour and study.”

We are to have no manner of relish for Gothic ornaments, 240. as being in effect so many monsters, which barbarous ages have produced; during which, when discord and ambition, caused by the too large extent of the Roman empire, had produced wars, plagues, and famine, through the world, then I say, the stately buildings and colosses fell to ruin, and the nobleness of all beautiful arts was totally extinguished. Then it was that the admirable, and 245. almost supernatural, works of painting were made fuel for the fire; but that this wonderful art might not wholly perish, * some relicts of it took sanctuary under ground, “in sepulchres and catacombs,” and thereby escaped the common destiny. And in the same profane age, sculpture was for a long time buried under the same ruins, with all its beautiful productions and admirable statues. The empire, in the mean time, under the weight of its proper crimes, and undeserving to enjoy the day, was enveloped 250. with a hideous night, which plunged it into an abyss of errors, and covered with a thick darkness of ignorance those unhappy ages, in just revenge of their impieties. From hence it comes to pass, that the works of those great Grecians are wanting to us; nothing of their painting and colouring now remains to assist our modern artists, either in the invention, or the manner, of those ancients. Neither is there any man who is able to restore * the 255. chromatic part, or colouring, or to renew it to that point of excellency, to which it had been carried by Zeuxis; who by this part, which is so charming, so magical, and which so admirably deceives the sight, made himself equal to the great Apelles, that prince of painters; and deserved that height 260. of reputation, which he still possesses in the world.

And as this part, which we may call the utmost perfection of painting, is a deceiving beauty, but withal soothing and pleasing; so she has been accused of procuring lovers for * her sister, and artfully engaging us to admire her. But so little have 265. this prostitution, these false colours, and this deceit, dishonoured painting, that, on the contrary, they have only served to set forth her praise, and to make her merit farther known; and therefore it will be profitable to us, to have a more clear understanding of what we call colouring.

* The light produces all kinds of colours, and the shadow gives us none. The more a body is nearer to the eyes, and the more directly it is opposed to them, the more it is enlightened. Because the light languishes and lessens, the farther it removes from its proper source.

The nearer the object is to the eyes, and the more 270. directly it is opposed to them, the better it is seen; because the sight is weakened by distance.

It is therefore necessary, “that those parts of round bodies which are seen directly opposite to the spectator, should have the light entire;” and that the extremities turn, in losing themselves insensibly and confusedly, without precipitating the light all on the sudden into the shadow, or the shadow into 275. the light. But the passage of one into the other, must be common and imperceptible, that is, by degrees of lights into shadows, and of shadows into lights. And it is in conformity to these principles, that you ought to treat a whole group of figures, though it be composed of several parts, in the same 280. manner as you would do a single head: “or if the wideness of the space, or largeness of the composition, requires, that you should have two groups or three, * (which should be the most,) let the lights and shadows be so discreetly managed, * that light bodies may have a sufficient mass or breadth of shadow to sustain them, and that dark bodies may 285. have a sudden light behind to detach them from the ground.

* “As in a convex mirror, the collected rays strike stronger and brighter in the middle than upon the natural object, and the vivacity of the colours is increased in the parts full in your sight; * while the goings off are more and more broken and faint as they approach to the extremities, in the same manner 290. bodies are to be raised and rounded.”

Thus the painter and the sculptor are to work with one and the same intention, and with one and the same conduct. For what the sculptor strikes off, and makes round with his tool; the painter performs with his pencil, casting behind that which he makes less visible, by the diminution and breaking 295. of his colours: “That which is foremost and nearest to the eye, must be so distinctly expressed, as to be sharp, or almost cutting to the sight. Thus shall the colours be disposed upon a plane, which from a proper place and distance will seem so natural 300. and round, as to make the figures appear so many statues.

“Solid bodies subject to the touch, are not to be 305. painted transparent; and even when such bodies are placed upon transparent grounds, as upon clouds, waters, air, and the like vacuities, they must be preserved opaque,⁠[142] that their solidity be not destroyed among those light, aërial, transparent species; and must therefore be expressed sharper and rougher than what is next to them, more distinct by a firm light and shadow, and with more solid and 310. substantial colours; that, on the contrary, the smoother and more transparent may be thrown off to a farther distance.”

We are never to admit two equal lights in the same picture, but the greater light must strike forcibly on the middle; and there extend its greatest clearness on those places of the picture, where the principal figures of it are, and where the 315. strength of the action is performed; diminishing by degrees as it comes nearer and nearer to the borders; and after the same manner, that the light of the sun languishes insensibly, in its spreading from the east, from whence it begins, towards the west, where it decays and vanishes; so the light of the picture being distributed over all the colours, will become less sensible the farther it is removed 320. from its original.

The experience of this is evident in those statues, which we see set up in the midst of public places, whose upper parts are more enlightened than the lower; and therefore you are to imitate them in the distribution of your lights.

Avoid strong shadows on the middle of the limbs, lest the great quantity of black which composes those shadows should seem to enter into them, and to cut them: rather take care to place 325. those shadowings round about them, thereby to heighten the parts; and take such advantageous lights, that after great lights great shadows may succeed. And therefore Titian said, with reason, that he knew no better rule for the distribution of the lights and shadows, than his observations drawn from a * bunch of grapes.

* Pure, or unmixed white, either draws an object 330. nearer, or carries it off to farther distance; it draws it nearer with black, and throws it backward without it. * But as for pure black, there is nothing which brings the object nearer to the sight.

The light being altered by some colour, never fails to communicate somewhat of that colour to the bodies on which it strikes; and the same effect is performed by the medium of air, through which it passes.

The bodies which are close together, receive from 335. each other that colour which is opposite to them; and reflect on each other that, which is naturally and properly their own.

It is also consonant to reason, that the greatest part of those bodies which are under a light, which is extended, and distributed equally through all, should participate of each others colours. The Venetian school having a great regard for that maxim, (which the ancients called the breaking of colours,) in the quantity of figures, with which 340. they fill their pictures, have always endeavoured the union of colours; for fear, that being too different, they should come to encumber the sight: “therefore they painted each figure with one colour, 345. or with colours of near affinity, though the habit were of different kinds, distinguishing the upper garment from the under, or from the loose and flowing mantle, by the tints, or degrees, harmonizing and uniting the colours, with whatever was next to them.”

The less aërial space which there is betwixt us 350. and the object, and the more pure the air is, by so much the more the species are preserved and distinguished; and, on the contrary, the more space of air there is, and the less pure it is, so much the more the object is confused and embroiled.

Those objects which are placed foremost to the view, ought always to be more finished, than those which are cast behind; and ought to have dominion over those things which are confused and transient. * But let this be done relatively, viz. one 355. thing greater and stronger, casting the less behind, and rendering it less sensible by its opposition.

Those things which are removed to a distant view, though they are many, yet ought to make but one mass; as for example, the leaves on the trees, and the billows in the sea.

Let not the objects which ought to be contiguous 360. be separated; and let those which ought to be separated, be apparently so to us; but let this be done by a small and pleasing difference.

* Let two contrary extremities never touch each other, either in colour or in light; but let there always be a medium partaking both of the one and of the other.

Let the bodies every where be of different tints and colours; that those which are behind may be tied in friendship together; and that those which are foremost may be strong and lively.

* It is labour in vain to paint a high-noon, or 365. mid-day light, in your picture; because we have no colours which can sufficiently express it; but it is better counsel, to choose a weaker light; such as is that of the evening with which the fields are gilded by the sun; or a morning light, whose whiteness is allayed; or that which appears after a shower of rain, which the sun gives us through the breaking of a cloud; or during thunder, when the clouds 370. hide him from our view, and make the light of a fiery colour.

Smooth bodies, such as crystals, polished metals, wood, bones, and stones; those which are covered with hair, as skins, the beard, or the hair of the head; as also feathers, silks, and the eyes, which are of a watery nature; and those which are liquid, as waters, and those corporeal species, 375. which we see reflected by them; and in fine, all that which touches them, or is near them, ought to be “carefully painted flat, in flowing colours; then touched up with sprightly lights, and the true lines of the drawing restored, which were lost, or confused, in working the colours together.”

* Let the field, or ground of the picture, be pleasant, free, transient, light, and well united with colours, which are of a friendly nature to each other; and of such a mixture, as there may be 380. something in it of every colour that composes your work, as it were the contents of your palette. “And let those bodies that are back in the ground be painted with colours allied to those of the ground itself.”

* Let your colours be lively, and yet not look (according to the painters’ proverb) as if they had been rubbed or sprinkled with meal; that is to say, let them not be pale.

* Let the parts which are nearest to us, and most raised, be strongly coloured, and as it were sparkling; and let those parts which are more remote from sight, and towards the borders, be more faintly touched.

* Let there be so much harmony, or consent, in 385. the masses of the picture, that all the shadowings may appear as if they were but one.

* “Let the whole picture be of one piece, as if it were painted from one palette.”

* The looking-glass will instruct you in many beauties, which you may observe from nature; so will also those objects which are seen in an evening in a large prospect.

If there be a half figure, or a whole one, to be set before the other figures, and placed nearer to the view, and next the light; or if it is to be painted in a great place, though at a distance from the eye; be sure on these occasions not to be sparing of great 390. lights, the most lively colours, nor the strongest shadows.

* As for a portrait, or pictures by the life, you are to work precisely after nature, and to express what she shows you, working at the same time on those parts which are resembling to each 395. other: as for example, the eyes, the cheeks, the nostrils, and the lips: so that you are to touch the one, as soon as you have given a stroke of the pencil to the other, lest the interruption of time cause you to lose the idea of one part, which nature has produced to resemble the other; and thus imitating feature for feature, with a just and harmonious composition of the lights and shadows, and of the colours; and giving to the picture that liveliness, which the freedom and force of the pencil make appear, it may seem, the living hand of nature.

The works which are painted to be seen near, in little or narrow places, must be very tender and well united with tints and colours; “let those which are to be seen at a distance, be varied with fiercer colours and stronger tints.

“Very large figures must have room enough, 400. and strong, or rather fierce colouring.”

* You are to “take the utmost care, that broad lights may be joined to a like breadth of shadows.”

If the picture be set in a place which receives but little light, the colours must be very clear; as, on the contrary, very brown, if the place be 405. strongly enlightened, or in the open air.

Remember to avoid objects which are full of hollows, broken in pieces, little, and which are separated, or in parcels; shun also those things which are barbarous, shocking to the eye, and party-coloured, and which are all of an equal force of light and shadow; as also all things which are obscene, 410. impudent, filthy, unseemly, cruel, fantastical, poor, and wretched; and those things which are sharp to the feeling; in short, all things which corrupt their natural forms, by a confusion of their parts which are entangled in each other: “For the eyes have a horror for those things, which the hands will not condescend to touch.”

But while you endeavour to avoid one vice, be cautious lest you fall into another; for “extremes are always vicious.” 415.

Those things which are beautiful in the utmost degree of perfection, according to the axiom of ancient painters, * ought to have somewhat of greatness in them, and their outlines to be noble; they must be disentangled, pure, and without alteration, clean, and knit together; composed of great parts, yet those but few in number. In fine, distinguished by bold colours; but of such as are related and 420. friendly to each other. And as it is a common saying, that “he who has begun well, has already performed half his work;” * so there is nothing more pernicious to a youth who is yet in the elements of painting, than to engage himself under the discipline of an ignorant master; who depraves his taste, by an infinite number of mistakes, of which his wretched works are full and thereby 425. makes him drink the poison, which infects him through all his future life.

Let him, who is yet but a beginner, not make so much haste to study after nature, every thing which he intends to imitate, as not in the mean time to learn proportions, the connection of the joints, and their outlines: and let him first have 430. well examined the excellent originals, and have thoroughly studied all the pleasing deceptions of his art; which he must be rather taught by a knowing master, than by practice; and by seeing him perform, without being contented only to hear him speak.

* Search whatsoever is aiding to your art, and convenient; and avoid those things which are repugnant to it.

* Bodies of divers natures, which are aggrouped (or combined) together, are agreeable and pleasant to the sight; * as also those things which seem to be slightly touched, and performed with ease; because 435. they are ever full of spirit, and appear to be animated with a kind of celestial fire. But we are not able to compass these things with facility, till we have for a long time weighed them in our judgment, and thoroughly considered them: by this means the painter shall be enabled to conceal the pains and study which his art and work have cost him, under a pleasing sort of deceit; for the greatest secret which belongs to art, is to hide it from the discovery of spectators.

Never give the least touch with your pencil, till 440. you have well examined your design, and have settled your outlines; * nor till you have present in your mind a perfect idea of your work.

* Let the eye be satisfied in the first place, even against and above all other reasons, which beget difficulties in your art, which of itself suffers none; and let the compass be rather in your eyes, than in your hands.

* Profit yourself by the counsels of the knowing; 445. and do not arrogantly disdain to learn the opinion of every man concerning your work. All men are blind as to their own productions, and no man is capable of judging in his own cause. * But if you have no knowing friend to assist you with his advice, yet 450. length of time will never fail; it is but letting some weeks pass over your head, or at least some days, without looking on your work; and that intermission will faithfully discover to you the faults and beauties. Yet suffer not yourself to be carried away by the opinions of the vulgar, who often speak without knowledge; neither give up yourself altogether to them, and abandon wholly your own genius, so as lightly to change that which you have made; for he who has a windy head, and flatters himself with the empty hope of deserving the praise of the common people, (whose opinions are inconsiderate and changeable,) does but injure himself, and pleases no man.

Since every painter paints himself in his own 455. works, (so much is nature accustomed to produce her own likeness,) it is advantageous to him to know himself; * to the end that he may cultivate those talents which make his genius, and not unprofitably lose his time, in endeavouring to gain that, which she has refused 460. him. As neither fruits have the taste, nor flowers the beauty which is natural to them, when they are transplanted into an unkindly or foreign soil, and are forced to bear before their season, by an artificial heat; so it is in vain for the painter to sweat over his works, in spite of nature and of genius; for without them, it is impossible for him to succeed.

* While you meditate on these truths, and observe them diligently, by making necessary reflections on them; let the labour of the hand accompany the study of the brain; let the former second and support the latter; yet without blunting the 465. sharpness of your genius, and abating of its vigour by too much assiduity.

* The morning is the best and most proper part of the day for your business; employ it therefore in the study and exercise of those things which require the greatest pains and application.

* Let no day pass over you, without a line.

Observe, as you walk the streets, the airs of heads; the natural postures and expressions; which are always 470. the most free, the less they seem to be observed.

* Be ready to put into your table-book (which you must always carry about you) whatsoever you judge worthy of it: whether it be upon the earth, or in the air, or upon the waters, while the species of them is yet fresh in your imagination.

* Wine and good cheer are no great friends to 475. painting; they serve only to recreate the mind, when it is opprest and spent with labour; then indeed it is proper to renew your vigour by the conversation of your friends. Neither is a true painter naturally pleased with the fatigue of business, and particularly of the law, * but delights in the liberty which belongs to the bachelor’s estate. * Painting naturally withdraws from noise and tumult, and pleases itself in the enjoyment of a country retirement; because silence and solitude set an edge 480. upon the genius, and cause a greater application to work and study; and also serve to produce the ideas, which, so conceived, will be always present in the mind, even to the finishing of the work; the whole compass of which, the painter can at that time more commodiously form to himself, than at any other.

* Let not the covetous design of growing rich, 485. induce you to ruin your reputation, but rather satisfy yourself with a moderate fortune; and let your thoughts be wholly taken up with acquiring to yourself a glorious name, which can never perish, but with the world; and make that the recompense of your worthy labours.

* The qualities requisite to form an excellent painter, are, a true discerning judgment, a mind which is docible, a noble heart, a sublime sense of things, and fervour of soul; after which follow, health of body, a convenient share of fortune, the 490. flower of youth, diligence, an affection for the art, and to be bred under the discipline of a knowing master.

And remember, that whatsoever your subject be, whether of your own choice, or what chance or good fortune shall put into your hand, if you have not that genius, or natural inclination, which your art requires, you shall never arrive to perfection in it, even with all those great advantages which I have mentioned. For the wit and the manual operation are things vastly distant from each other. It is the influence of your stars, and the happiness of your genius, to which you must be obliged for the greatest beauties of your art.

Nay, even your excellencies sometimes will not 495. pass for such in the opinion of the learned, but only as things which have less of error in them; for no man sees his own failings; * and life is so short, that it is not sufficient for so long an art. Our strength fails us in our old age, when we begin to know somewhat; age oppresses us by the same degrees that it instructs us; and permits not, that our mortal members, which are frozen with our years, should retain the vigour and spirits of our youth.

* Take courage therefore, O ye noble youths! 500. you legitimate offspring of Minerva, who are born under the influence of a happy planet, and warmed with a celestial fire, which attracts you to the love of science! exercise, while you are young, your whole forces, and employ them with delight in an art, which requires a whole painter. Exercise them, I say, while your boiling youth supplies 505. you with strength, and furnishes you with quickness, and with vigour; while your mind, yet pure, and void of error, has not taken any ill habitude to vice; while yet your spirits are inflamed with the thirst of novelties, and your mind is filled with the first species of things which present themselves to young imagination, which it gives in keeping to your memory; and which your memory retains for length of time, by reason of the moisture wherewith at that age the brain abounds. * You will do well * to begin with geometry, and after having made some progress in it, * set yourself on designing after the ancient Greeks: * and cease 510. not day or night from labour, till, by your continual practice, you have gained an easy habitude of imitating them in their invention, and in their manner. * And when afterwards your judgment shall grow stronger, and come to its maturity with years, it will be very necessary to see and examine one after the other, and part by part, those works which have given so great a reputation to the masters of 515. the first form in pursuit of that method, which we have taught you here above, and according to the rules which we have given you; such are the Romans, the Venetians, the Parmesans, and the Bologneses. Amongst those excellent persons, Raphael 520. had the talent of invention for his share, by which he made as many miracles as he made pictures. In which is observed * a certain grace which was wholly natural and peculiar to him, and which none since him have been able to appropriate to themselves. Michael Angelo possessed powerfully the part of design, above all others. * Julio Romano (educated from his childhood among the muses) has opened to us the treasures of Parnassus: and in the poetry of painting has discovered to our eyes the most sacred mysteries of Apollo, and all 525. the rarest ornaments which that god is capable of communicating to those works that he inspires; which we knew not before, but only by the recital that the poets made of them. He seems to have painted those famous wars “in which fortune has crowned her triumphant heroes;” and those other glorious events which she has caused in all ages, even with more magnificence and nobleness, than when they were acted in the world.

“The shining eminence of Correggio consists in 530. his laying on ample broad lights encompassed with friendly shadows, and in a grand style of painting, with a delicacy in the management of colours.” And Titian understood so well the union of the masses, and the bodies of colours, the harmony of the tints and the disposition of the whole together, that he has deserved those honours and that wealth which were heaped upon him, together with that attribute of being sirnamed the divine painter. The laborious and diligent Annibal Caracci has taken from all those great persons already mentioned 535. whatsoever excellencies he found in them, and, as it were, converted their nourishment into his own substance.

It is a great means of profiting yourself, to copy diligently those excellent pieces, and those beautiful designs; but Nature, which is present before your eyes, is yet a better mistress; for she augments the force and vigour of the genius, and she it is from whom art derives her ultimate perfection, 540. by the means of sure experience; * I pass in silence many things which will be more amply treated in the ensuing commentary.

And now considering that all things are subject to the vicissitude of time, and that they are liable to destruction by several ways, I thought I might reasonably take the boldness * to intrust to the muses (those lovely and immortal sisters of painting) these few precepts, which I have here made and collected of that art.

I employed my time in the study of this work at 545. Rome, while the glory of the Bourbon family, and the just avenger of his injured ancestors, the victorious Louis XIII. was darting his thunder on the Alps, and causing his enemies to feel the force of his unconquerable arms; while he, like another Gallic Hercules, born for the benefit and honour of his country, was griping the Spanish Geryon by the 550. throat, and at the point of strangling him.

The number at the head of every observation serves to find in the text the particular passage on which the observation was made.

Painting and Poesy are two sisters, &c. It is a received truth, that the arts have a certain relation to each other. “There is no art, (said Tertullian, in his Treatise of Idolatry,) which is not either the father, or the near relation of another.” And Cicero, in his oration for Archias the poet, says, “That the arts, which have respect to human life, have a kind of alliance amongst themselves, and hold each other (as we may say) by the hand.” But those arts, which are the nearest related, and claim the most ancient kindred with each other, are painting and poetry; and whosoever shall thoroughly examine them, will find them so much resembling one another, that he cannot take them for less than sisters.

They both follow the same bent, and suffer themselves to be rather carried away, than led by their secret inclinations, which are so many seeds of the Divinity. “There is a god within us, (says Ovid, in the beginning of his sixth book De Fastis, there speaking of the poets,) who by his agitation warms us.” And Suidas says, “That the famous sculptor Phidias, and Zeuxis that incomparable painter, were both of them transported by the same enthusiasm which gave life to all their works.” They both of them aim at the same end, which is imitation. Both of them excite our passions, and we suffer ourselves willingly to be deceived, both by the one and by the other; our eyes and souls are so fixed to them, that we are ready to persuade ourselves, that the painted bodies breathe, and that the fictions are truths. Both of them are set on fire by the great actions of heroes; and both endeavour to eternize them. Both of them, in short, are supported by the strength of their imagination, and avail themselves of those licences, which Apollo has equally bestowed on them, and with which their genius has inspired them:

As Horace tells us, in his “Art of Poetry.”

The advantage which painting possesses above poesy is this; that, amongst so great a diversity of languages, she makes herself understood by all the nations of the world; and that she is necessary to all other arts, because of the need which they have of demonstrative figures, which often give more light to the understanding than the clearest discourses we can make:

Horace in the same “Art of Poetry.”

“For both those arts that they might advance,” &c. Poetry, by its hymns and anthems; and Painting, by its statues, altar-pieces, and by all those decorations which inspire respect and reverence for our sacred mysteries, have been serviceable to religion. Gregory of Nice, after having made a long and beautiful description of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, says these words:—“I have often cast my eyes upon a picture, which represents this moving object, and could never withdraw them without tears. So well did the picture represent the thing itself, even as if the action were then passing before my sight.”

“So much these divine arts have been always honoured,” &c. “The greatest lords, whole cities, and their magistrates of old, (says Pliny, lib. xxxv.) took it for an honour to obtain a picture from the hands of those great ancient painters.” But this honour is much fallen of late amongst the French nobility: and if you will understand the cause of it, Vitruvius will tell you, that it comes from their ignorance of the charming arts, “Propter ignorantiam artis, virtutes obscurantur;” (in the Preface to his Fifth Book.) Nay more, we should see this admirable art fall into the last degree of contempt, if our mighty monarch, who yields in nothing to the magnanimity of Alexander the Great, had not shown as much love for painting as for valour in the wars; we daily see him encouraging this noble art, by the considerable presents which he makes to his chief painter.⁠[143] And he has also founded an academy for the progress and perfectionating of painting, which his first minister⁠[144] honours with his protection, his care, and frequent visits; insomuch that we might shortly see the age of Apelles reviving in our country, together with all the beauteous arts, if our generous nobility, who follow our incomparable king with so much ardour and courage in those dangers, to which he exposes his sacred person, for the greatness and glory of his kingdom, would imitate him in that wonderful affection, which he bears to all who are excellent in this kind. Those persons, who were the most considerable in ancient Greece, either for birth or merit, took a most particular care, for many ages, to be instructed in the art of painting; following that laudable and profitable custom, begun and established by the great Alexander, which was to learn how to design. And Pliny, who gives testimony to this, in the tenth chapter of his thirty-fifth book, tells us farther, (speaking of Pamphilius, the master of Apelles,) “That it was by the authority of Alexander, that, first at Sicyon, and afterwards through all Greece, the young gentlemen learned, before all other things, to design upon tablets of boxen-wood; and that the first place, among all the liberal arts, was given to painting.” And that which makes it evident, that they were very knowing in this art, is the love and esteem which they had for painters. Demetrius gave high testimonies of this, when he besieged the city of Rhodes; for he was pleased to employ some part of that time, which he owed to the care of his arms, in visiting Protogenes, who was then drawing the picture of Ialysus. “This Ialysus (says Pliny,) hindered King Demetrius from taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should burn the pictures; and not being able to fire the town on any other side, he was pleased rather to spare the painting, than to take the victory, which was already in his hands.” Protogenes, at that time, had his painting-room in a garden out of the town, and very near the camp of the enemies, where he was daily finishing those pieces which he had already begun, the noise of soldiers not being capable of interrupting his studies. But Demetrius causing him to be brought into his presence, and asking him, what made him so bold as to work in the midst of enemies? he answered the king, “That he understood the war which he made was against the Rhodians, and not against the arts.” This obliged Demetrius to appoint him guards for his security, being infinitely pleased that he could preserve that hand, which by this means he saved from the barbarity and insolence of soldiers. Alexander had no greater pleasure than when he was in the painting-room of Apelles, where he commonly was found. And that painter once received from him a sensible testimony of love and esteem which that monarch had for him; for, having caused him to paint naked (by reason of her admirable beauty,) one of his concubines, called Campaspe, who had the greatest share in his affections, and perceiving that Apelles was wounded with the same fatal dart of beauty, he made a present of her to him. In that age, so great a deference was paid to painting, that they, who had any mastery in that art, never painted on any thing but what was portable from one place to another, and what could be secured from burning. “They took a particular care (says Pliny, in the place above cited,) not to paint any thing against a wall, which could only belong to one master, and must always remain in the same place, and for that reason could not be removed in case of an accidental fire. Men were not suffered to keep a picture, as it were in prison, on the walls. It dwelt in common in all cities, and the painter himself was respected as a common good to all the world.” See this excellent author, and you shall find, that the tenth chapter of his thirty-fifth book is filled with the praises of this art, and with the honours which were ascribed to it. You will there find, that it was not permitted to any but those of noble blood to profess it. Francis the First (as Vasari tells us,) was in love with painting to that degree, that he allured out of Italy all the best masters, that this art might flourish in his own kingdom: and, amongst others, Leonardo da Vinci, who, after having continued for some time in France, died at Fontainbleau in the arms of that great king, who could not behold his death without shedding tears over him. Charles the Fifth has adorned Spain with the noblest pictures which are now remaining in the world. Ridolphi, in his Life of Titian, says, “That emperor one day took up a pencil which fell from the hand of that artist, who was then drawing his picture; and upon the compliment which Titian made him on this occasion, he said these words:—“Titian has deserved to be served by Cæsar.” And in the same Life, it is remarkable, “That the emperor valued himself not so much in subjecting kingdoms and provinces, as that he had been thrice made immortal by the hand of Titian.” If you will but take the pains to read this famous Life in Ridolphi, you will there see the relation of all those honours which he received from Charles the Fifth. It would take up too much time here to recount all the particulars; I will only observe, that the greatest lords, who composed the court of that emperor, not being able to refrain from some marks of jealousy, upon the preference which he made of the person and conversation of Titian, to that of all his other courtiers, he freely told them, “That he could never want a court, or courtiers; but he could not have Titian always with him.” Accordingly, he heaped riches on him; and whensoever he sent him money, which, ordinarily speaking, was a great sum, he always did it with this obliging testimony, “That his design was not to pay him the value of his pictures, because they were above any price.” After the example of the worthies of antiquity, who bought the rarest pictures with bushels of gold, without counting the weight or the number of the pieces. “In nummo aureo, mensurâ accepit, non numero,” says Pliny, speaking of Apelles. Quinctilian infers from hence, “that there is nothing more noble than the art of painting;” because other things, for the most part, are merchandize, and bought at certain rates: “Most things for this very reason (says he,) are vile, because they have a price;” “Pleraque hoc ipso possunt videri vilia, quod pretium habent.” (See the 34th, 35th, and 36th Books of Pliny.) Many great persons have loved it with an extreme passion, and have exercised themselves in it with delight. Amongst others, Lælius Fabius, one of those famous Romans, who, (as Cicero relates,) after he had tasted painting, and had practised it, would be called Fabius Pictor; as also Turpilius, a Roman knight; Labeo, prætor and consul; Quintus Pedius; the poets Ennius and Pacuvius; Socrates, Plato, Metrodorus, Pyrrho, Commodus, Nero, Vespasian, Alexander, Severus, Antoninus, and many other kings and emperors, who thought it not below their majesty to employ some part of their time in this honourable art.

“The principal and most important part of painting, is to find out, and thoroughly to understand, what nature hath made most beautiful, and most proper to this art,” &c. Observe here the rock on which the greatest part of the Flemish painters have split: most of that nation know how to imitate nature, at least as well as the painters of other countries; but they make a bad choice in nature itself; whether it be, that they have not seen the ancient pieces, to find those beauties; or that a happy genius, and the beautiful nature, is not of the growth of their country. And to confess the truth, that which is naturally beautiful is so very rare, that it is discovered by few persons; it is difficult to make a choice of it, and to form to ourselves such an idea of it, as may serve us for a model.

“And that a choice of it may be made according to the gust and manner of the ancients,” &c. That is to say, according to the statues, the basso-relievos, and the other ancient pieces, as well of the Grecians as of the Romans. Ancient (or antic) is that which has been made from the time of Alexander the Great, till that of Phocas; during whose empire the arts were ruined by war. These ancient works from their beginning have been the rule of beauty: and in effect, the authors of them have been so careful to give them that perfection, which is still to be observed in them, that they made use not only of one single body, whereby they formed them, but of many, from which they took the most regular parts to compose from them a beautiful whole. “The sculptors,” says Maximus Tyrius, in his 7th dissertation, “with admirable artifice, chose out of many bodies those parts which appeared to them the most beautiful; and out of that diversity made but one statue: but this mixture is made with so much prudence and propriety, that they seem to have taken but one only perfect beauty. And let us not imagine that we can ever find one natural beauty, which can dispute with statues that art, which has always somewhat more perfect than nature.” It is also to be presumed, that in the choice which they made of those parts, they followed the opinion of the physicians, who at that time were very capable of instructing them in the rules of beauty; since beauty and health ordinarily follow each other. “For beauty,” says Galen, “is nothing else but a just accord, and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution. And men,” says the same author, “commend a certain statue of Polycletus, which they call the rule, and which deserves that name, for having so perfect an agreement in all its parts, and a proportion so exact, that it is not possible to find a fault in it.” From what I have quoted, we may conclude, that the ancient pieces are truly beautiful, because they resemble the beauties of nature; and that nature will ever be beautiful which resembles those beauties of antiquity. It is now evident upon what account none have presumed to contest the proportion of those ancient pieces; and that, on the contrary, they have always been quoted as models of the most perfect beauty. Ovid, in the twelfth book of his “Metamorphoses,” where he describes Cyllarus, the most beautiful of all the Centaurs, says, “That he had so great a vivacity in his countenance, his neck, his shoulders, his hands, and stomach, were so fair, that it is certain the manly part of him was as beautiful as the most celebrated statues.” And Philostratus, in his “Heroics,” speaking of Protesilaus, and praising the beauty of his face, says, “That the form of his nose was square, as if it had been of a statue.” And in another place, speaking of Euphorbus, he says, “That his beauty had gained the affections of all the Greeks; and that it resembled so nearly the beauty of a statue, that one might have taken him for Apollo.” Afterwards also, speaking of the beauty of Neoptolemus, and of his likeness to his father Achilles, he says, “That, in beauty, his father had the same advantage over him, as statues have over the beauty of living men.”

This ought to be understood of the fairest statues; for amongst the multitude of sculptors which were in Greece and Italy, it is impossible but some of them must have been bad workmen, or rather less good; for though their works were much inferior to the artists of the first form, yet somewhat of greatness is to be seen in them, and somewhat of harmonious in the distribution of their parts, which makes it evident, that, at that time, they wrought on common principles; and that every one of them availed himself of those principles, according to his capacity and genius. Those statues were the greatest ornaments of Greece. We need only open the book of Pausanias to find the prodigious quantity of them, whether within or without their temples, or in the crossing of streets, or in the squares and public places, or even the fields, or on the tombs. Statues were erected to the muses, to the nymphs, to heroes, to great captains, to magistrates, philosophers, and poets; in short, they were set up to all those who had made themselves eminent, either in defence of their country, or for any noble action which deserved a recompence; for it was the most ordinary and most authentic way, both amongst the Greeks and Romans, thus to testify their gratitude. The Romans, when they had conquered Græcia, transported from thence not only their most admirable statues, but also brought along with them the most excellent of their sculptors, who instructed others in their art, and have left to posterity the immortal examples of their knowledge, which we see confirmed by those curious statues, those vases, those basso-relievos, and those beautiful columns called by the names of Trajan and Antonine. These are those beauties which our author proposes to us for our models, and the true fountains of science, out of which both painters and statuaries are bound to draw for their own use, without amusing themselves with dipping in streams which are often muddy, at least troubled; I mean the manner of their masters, after whom they creep, and from whom they are unwilling to depart, either through negligence, or through the meanness of their genius. “It belongs only to heavy minds,” says Cicero, “to spend their time on streams, without searching for the springs, from whence their materials flow in all manner of abundance.”

“Without which, all is nothing but a blind and rash barbarity,” &c. All that has nothing of the ancient gusto, is called a barbarous or Gothic manner, which is not conducted by any rule, but only follows a wretched fancy, which has nothing in it that is noble. We are here to observe, that painters are not obliged to follow the antique as exactly as the sculptors; for then the picture would savour too strongly of the statue, and would seem to be without motion. Many painters, and some of the ablest amongst them, believing they do well, and taking that precept in too literal a sense, have fallen thereby into great inconveniencies. It therefore becomes the painters to make use of those ancient patterns with discretion, and to accommodate the nature to them in such a manner, that their figures, which must seem to live, may rather appear to be models for the antique, than the antique a model for their figures.

It appears, that Raphael made a perfect use of this conduct; and that the Lombard school have not precisely searched into this precept any farther, than to learn from thence how to make a good choice of the nature, and to give a certain grace and nobleness to all their works, by the general and confused idea which they had of what is beautiful. As for the rest, they are sufficiently licentious, excepting only Titian, who, of all the Lombards, has preserved the greatest purity in his works. This barbarous manner, of which I spoke, has been in great vogue from the year 611 to 1450. They who have restored painting in Germany (not having seen any of those fair relics of antiquity,) have retained much of that barbarous manner. Amongst others, Lucas van Leyden, a very laborious man, who, with his scholars, has infected almost all Europe with his designs for tapestry, which, by the ignorant, are called ancient hangings, (a greater honour than they deserve;) these, I say, are esteemed beautiful by the greatest part of the world. I must acknowledge, that I am amazed at so gross a stupidity, and that we of the French nation should have so barbarous a taste as to take for beautiful those flat, childish, and insipid tapestries. Albert Durer, that famous German, who was contemporary to that Lucas, has had the like misfortune to fall into that absurd manner, because he had never seen any thing that was beautiful. Observe what Vasari tells us, in the Life of Marc Antonio, (Raphael’s graver,) having first commended Albert for his skill in graving, and his other talents:—“And in truth,” says he, “if this so excellent, so exact, and so universal a man, had been born in Tuscany, as he was in Germany, and had formed his studies according to those beautiful pieces which are seen at Rome, as the rest of us have done, he had proved the best painter of all Italy, as he was the greatest genius, and the most accomplished which Germany ever bore.”

“We love what we understand,” &c. This period informs us, that though our inventions are never so good, though we are furnished by nature with a noble genius, and though we follow the impulse of it, yet this is not enough, if we learn not to understand what is perfect and beautiful in nature; to the end, that, having found it, we may be able to imitate it, and by this instruction we may be capacitated to observe those errors which she herself has made, and to avoid them, so as not to copy her in all sorts of subjects, such as she appears to us, without choice or distinction.

“As being the sovereign judge of his own art,” &c. This word, sovereign judge, or arbiter of his own art, presupposes a painter to be fully instructed in all the parts of painting; so that being set as it were above his art, he may be the master and sovereign of it, which is no easy matter. Those of that profession are so seldom endowed with that supreme capacity, that few of them arrive to be good judges of painting; and I should many times make more account of their judgment, who are men of sense, and yet have never touched a pencil, than of the opinion which is given by the greatest part of painters. All painters, therefore, may be called arbiters of their own art; but to be sovereign arbiters, belongs only to knowing painters.

“And permit no transient beauties to escape his observation,” &c. Those fugitive or transient beauties, are no other than such as we observe in nature, with a short and transient view, and which remain not long in their subjects. Such are the passions of the soul. There are of this sort of beauties which last but for a moment; as the different airs of an assembly upon the sight of an unexpected and uncommon object, some particularity of a violent passion, some graceful action, a smile, a glance of an eye, a disdainful look, a look of gravity, and a thousand other such-like things; we may also place in the catalogue of these flying beauties, fine clouds, such as ordinarily follow thunder, or a shower of rain.

“In the same manner that bare practice, destitute of the lights of art,” &c. We find in Quinctilian, that Pythagoras said, “The theory is nothing without the practice.” “And what means,” says the younger Pliny, “have we to retain what has been taught us, if we put it not in practice?” We would not allow that man to be an orator, who had the best thoughts imaginable, and who knew all the rules of rhetoric, if he had not acquired, by exercise, the art of using them, and of composing an excellent discourse. Painting is a long pilgrimage, what avails it to make all the necessary preparatives for our voyage, or to inform ourselves of all the difficulties in the road? If we do not actually begin the journey, and travel at a round rate, we shall never arrive at the end of it. And as it would be ridiculous to grow old in the study of every necessary thing in an art, which comprehends so many several parts; so, on the other hand, to begin the practice without knowing the rules, or at least with a light tincture of them, is to expose ourselves to the scorn of those who can judge of painting, and to make it apparent to the world that we have no care of our reputation. Many are of opinion, that we need only work, and mind the practical part, to become skilful and able painters; and that the theory only encumbers the mind, and ties the hand. Such men do just like the squirrel, who is perpetually turning the wheel in her cage; she runs apace, and wearies herself with her continual motion, and yet gets no ground. “It is not enough for doing well to walk apace,” says Quinctilian, “but it is enough for walking apace to do well.” It is a bad excuse to say, I was but a little while about it. That graceful easiness, that celestial fire which animates the work, proceeds not so much from having often done the like, as from having well understood what we have done. See what I shall farther say, on the 60th rule, which concerns easiness. Others there are, who believe precepts and speculation to be of absolute necessity; but as they were ill instructed, and what they knew, rather entangled, than cleared their understanding, so they oftentimes turn short; and if they perform a work, it is not without anxiety and pain. And in truth, they are so much the more worthy of compassion, because their intentions are right; and if they advance not in knowledge as far as others, and are sometimes cast behind, yet they are grounded upon some sort of reason; for it is belonging to good sense, not to go over fast, when we apprehend ourselves to be out of the way, or even where we doubt which way we ought to take. Others, on the contrary, being well instructed in good maxims, and in the rules of art, after having done fine things, yet spoil them all, by endeavouring to make them better, which is a kind of overdoing; and they are so intoxicated with their work, and with an earnest desire of being above all others, that they suffer themselves to be deceived with the appearance of an imaginary good. “Apelles, one day admiring the prodigious labour which he saw in a picture of Protogenes, and knowing how much sweat it must have cost him, said, that Protogenes and himself were of equal strength; nay, that he yielded to him, in some parts of painting; but in this he surpassed him, that Protogenes never knew when he had done well, and could never hold his hand. He also added, in the nature of a precept, that he wished all painters would imprint this lesson deeply in their memory, that with overstraining and earnestness of finishing their pieces, they often did them more harm than good.”⁠[145] “There are some,” says Quinctilian, “who never satisfy themselves, never are contented with their first notions and expressions, but are continually changing all, till nothing remains of their first ideas. Others there are,” continues he, “who dare never trust themselves, nor resolve on any thing; and who being, as it were, entangled in their own genius, imagine it to be a laudable correctness, when they form difficulties to themselves in their own work. And, to speak the truth, it is hard to discern, whether of the two is in the greatest error; he, who is enamoured of all he does; or he, whom nothing of his own can please. For it has happened to young men, and often even to those of the greatest wit, to waste their spirits, and to consume themselves with anxiety and pain of their own giving, so far as even to doze upon their work with too much eagerness of doing well. I will now tell you, how a reasonable man ought to carry himself on this occasion. It is certain, that we ought to use our best endeavour to give the last perfection to our works; yet it is always to be understood, that we attempt no more than what is in the compass of our genius, and according to our vein. For, to make a true progress, I grant that diligence and study are both requisite; but this study ought to have no mixture, either of self-opinion, obstinacy, or anxiety; for which reason, if it blows a happy gale, we must set up all our sails, though in so doing it sometimes happens, that we follow those motions where our natural heat is more powerful than our care and our correctness, provided we abuse not this license, and suffer not ourselves to be deceived by it; for all our productions cannot fail to please us at the moment of their birth, as being new to us.”⁠[146]

“Because the greatest beauties cannot always be expressed for want of terms,” &c. I have learned from the mouth of Monsieur du Fresnoy, that he had oftentimes heard Guido say, “that no man could give a rule of the greatest beauties; and that the knowledge of them was so abstruse, that there was no manner of speaking which could express them.” This comes just to what Quinctilian says,⁠[147] “That things incredible wanted words to express them; for some of them are too great, and too much elevated, to be comprehended by human discourse.” From hence it proceeds, that the best judges, when they admire a noble picture, seem to be fastened to it; and when they come to themselves, you would say, they had lost the use of speech.

“Pausiacâ torpes, insane, tabellâ,” says Horace;⁠[148] and Symmachus says,⁠[149] “that the greatness of astonishment hinders men from giving a just applause.” The Italians say, “Opera da stupire,” when a thing is wonderfully good.

“Those master-pieces of antiquity, which were the chief examples of this art,” &c. He means the most knowing and best painters of antiquity; that is to say, from the last two ages to our times.

“And also moderates that fury of the fancy,” &c. There is in the Latin text, “which produces only monsters,” that is to say, things out of all probable resemblance. Such things as are often found in the works of Pietro Testa. “It often happens,” says Dionysius Longinus, a grave author, “that some men, imagining themselves to be possessed with a divine fury, far from being carried into the rage of Bacchanalians, often fall into toys and trifles, which are only puerilities.”

“A subject beautiful and noble,” &c. Painting is not only pleasing and divertising, but is also a kind of memorial of those things which antiquity has had the most beautiful and noble in their kinds, replacing the history before our eyes; as if the thing were at this very time effectually in action; even so far, that, beholding the pictures wherein those noble deeds are represented, we find ourselves stung with a desire of endeavouring somewhat, which is like that action, there expressed, as if we were reading it in the history. The beauty of the subject inspires us with love and admiration for the pictures, as the fair mixture causes us to enter into the subject which it imitates, and imprints it the more deeply into our imagination, and our memory. These are two chains which are interlinked, which contain, and are at the same time contained, and whose matter is equally precious and estimable.

“And ingenious,” &c. Aliquid salis, somewhat that is well seasoned, fine, and picquant, extraordinary, of a high relish, proper to instruct, and to clear the understanding. “The painters ought to do like the orators,” says Cicero;⁠[150] “let them instruct, let them divertise, and let them move us;” this is what is properly meant by the word salt.

“On which the sketch, as it may be called, of the picture is to be disposed,” &c. It is not without reason, nor by chance, that our author uses the word machina. A machine is a just assembling or combination of many pieces, to produce one and the same effect. And the disposition in a picture is nothing else but an assembling of many parts, of which we are to foresee the agreement with each other, and the justness to produce a beautiful effect, as you shall see in the 4th precept, which is concerning the economy. This is also called the composition, by which is meant the distribution and orderly placing of things, both in general, and in particular.

“Which is what we properly call invention,” &c. Our author establishes three parts of painting; the invention; the design, or drawing; and the colouring, which in some places he also calls the cromatic. Many authors who have written of painting, multiply the parts according to their pleasure; and without giving you, or myself, the trouble of discussing this matter, I will only tell you, that all the parts of painting which others have named, are reducible into these three which are mentioned by our author.

For which reason, I esteem this division to be the justest: and as these three parts are essential to painting, so no man can be truly called a painter, who does not possess them all together: in the same manner that we cannot give the name of man to any creature which is not composed of body, soul, and reason, which are the three parts necessarily constituent of a man. How therefore can they pretend to the quality of painters, who can only copy and purloin the works of others, who therein employ their whole industry, and with that only talent would pass for able painters? And, do not tell me, that many great artists have done this; for I can easily answer you, that it had been their better course to have abstained from so doing; that they have not thereby done themselves much honour, and that copying was not the best part of their reputation. Let us then conclude, that all painters ought to acquire this part of excellence; not to do it, is to want courage, and not dare to shew themselves. It is to creep and grovel on the ground; it is to deserve this just reproach, O imitatores, servum pecus! It is with painters, in reference to their productions, as it is with orators: a good beginning is always costly to both; much sweat and labour is required, but it is better to expose our works, and leave them liable to censure for fifteen years, than to blush for them at the end of fifty. On this account, it is necessary for a painter to begin early to do somewhat of his own, and to accustom himself to it by continual exercise; for so long as, endeavouring to raise himself, he fears falling, he shall be always on the ground. See the following observation.

“Invention is a kind of Muse, which being possessed of the other advantages common to her sisters,” &c. The attributes of the Muses are often taken for the Muses themselves; and it is in this sense, that Invention is here called a Muse. Authors ascribe to each of them in particular, the sciences which they have, say they, invented; and in general the Belles Lettres, because they contain almost all the others. These sciences are those advantages of which our author speaks, and with which he would have a painter furnish himself sufficiently: and in truth, there is no man, though his understanding be very mean, who knows not, and who finds not of himself, how much learning is necessary to animate his genius, and to complete it. And the reason of this is, that they who have studied, have not only seen and learned many excellent things, in their course of studies; but also they have acquired, by that exercise, a great facility of profiting themselves, by reading good authors. They who will make profession of painting, must heap up treasures out of their reading: and there they will find many wonderful means of raising themselves above others, who can only creep upon the ground; or if they elevate themselves, it is only to fall from a higher place, because they serve themselves of other men’s wings, neither understanding their use, nor their virtue. It is true, that it is not the present mode for a painter to be so knowing: and if any of them, in these times, be found to have either a great wit, or much learning, the multitude would not fail to say, that it was great pity; and that the youth might have come to somewhat in the practical part of the law, or it may be in the treasury, or in the families of some noblemen. So wretched is the destiny of painting in these latter ages. By learning, it is not so much the knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongue, which is here to be understood; as the reading of good authors, and understanding those things of which they treat: for translations being made of the best authors, there is not any painter who is not capable, in some sort, of understanding those books of humanity, which are comprehended under the name of the Belles Lettres. In my opinion, the books which are of the most advantage to those of the profession, are these which follow:

The Bible.

The History of Josephus.

The Roman History of Coeffeteau, for those who understand the French; and that of Titus Livius, in Latin.

Homer, whom Pliny calls the fountain-head of invention and noble thoughts.

Virgil, and in him particularly his Æneis.

The Ecclesiastical History of Godeau, or the Abridgment of Baronius.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The Pictures of Philostratus.⁠[151]

Plutarch’s Lives.

Pausanias, who is wonderful for giving of great ideas; and chiefly for such as are to be placed at a distance, or cast behind, and for the combining of figures. This author, in conjunction with Homer, makes a good mingle of what is pleasing, and what is perfect.

The Religion of the Ancient Romans, by Du Choul; and in English, Godwin’s Roman Antiquities.

Trajan’s Pillar, with the discourse which explains the figures on it, and instructs a painter in those things with which he is indispensably to be acquainted. This is one of the most principal and most learned books, which we have for the modes, the customs, the arms, and the religion of the Romans. Julio Romano made his chief studies on the marble itself.

The books of medals.

The Bass-Reliefs of Perrier, and others, with their explanations at the bottom of the pages, which give a perfect understanding of them.

Horace’s Art of Poetry, because of the relation which there is betwixt the rules of poetry, and those of painting.

And other books of the like nature, the reading of which are profitable to warm the imagination; such as in English, are Spenser’s Fairy Queen; the Paradise Lost of Milton; Tasso, translated by Fairfax; and the History of Polybius, by Sir Henry Shere.

Some romances also are very capable of entertaining the genius, and of strengthening it, by the noble ideas which they give of things: but there is this danger in them, that they almost always corrupt the truth of history.

There are also other books which a painter may use upon some particular occasions, and only when he wants them: Such are, The Mythology of the Gods; The Images of the Gods; The Iconology; The Tables of Hyginus; The Practical Perspective; and some others not here mentioned.

Thus it is necessary, that they who are desirous of a name in painting, should read at leisure times these books with diligence; and make their observations of such things as they find for their purpose in them, and of which they believe they may some time or other have occasion. Let the imagination be employed in this reading, and let them make sketches, and light touches of those ideas which that reading forms in their imagination. Quinctilian, Tacitus, or whoever was the author of that dialogue, which is called in Latin De Causis corruptæ Eloquentiæ, says, “That painting resembles fire, which is fed by the fuel, inflamed by motion, and gathers strength by burning; for the power of the genius is only augmented by the abundance of matter to supply it; and it is impossible to make a great and magnificent work, if that matter be wanting, or not disposed rightly.” And therefore a painter, who has a genius, gets nothing, by long thinking, and taking all imaginable care to make a noble composition, if he be not assisted by those studies which I have mentioned. All that he can gain by it is only to weary his imagination, and to travel over many vast countries, without dwelling on any one thing, which can give him satisfaction.

All the books which I have named may be serviceable to all sorts of persons, as well as to painters. As for those books which were of particular use to them, they were unfortunately lost in those ages which were before the invention of printing. The copiers neglecting (probably out of ignorance) to transcribe them, as not finding themselves capable of making the demonstrative figures.⁠[152] In the mean times, it is evidently known, by the relation of authors, that we have lost fifty volumes of them at the least. See Pliny in his 35th book; and Franc Junius, in his 3d chapter of the 2d book of the “Painting of the Ancients.” Many moderns have written of it with small success, taking a large compass, without coming directly to the point; and talking much, without saying any thing; yet some of them have acquitted themselves successfully enough. Amongst others, Leonardo da Vinci (though without method); Paulo Lomazzo, whose book is good for the greatest part, but whose discourse is too diffusive and very tiresome; John Baptist Armenini, Franciscus Junius, and Monsieur de Cambray, to whose preface I rather invite you, than to his book. We are not to forget what Monsieur Felebien has written of the historical piece of Alexander, by the hand of Monsieur Le Brun: besides that the work itself is very eloquent, the foundations which he establishes for the making of a good picture are wonderfully solid. Thus I have given you very near the library of a painter, and a catalogue of such books as he ought either to read himself, or have read to him; at least if he will not satisfy himself with possessing painting as the most sordid of all trades, and not as the noblest of all arts.

“It is the business of a painter, in his choice of attitudes,” &c. See here the most important precept of all those which relate to painting. It belongs properly to a painter alone, and all the rest are borrowed either from learning, or from physic, or from the mathematics, or, in short, from other arts; for it is sufficient to have a natural wit and learning to make that which we call in painting, a good invention: for the design, we must have some insight into anatomy: to make buildings, and other things in perspective, we must have knowledge in the mathematics: and other arts will bring in their quotas, to furnish out the matter of a good picture. But for the economy, or ordering of the whole together, none but only the painter can understand it; because the end of the artist is pleasingly to deceive the eyes, which he can never accomplish if this part be wanting to him. A picture may have an ill effect, though the invention of it be truly understood, the design of it correct, and the colours of it the most beautiful and fine that can be employed in it. And, on the contrary, we may behold other pictures ill invented, ill designed, and painted with the most common colours, which shall have a very good effect, and which shall more pleasingly deceive. “Nothing pleases a man so much as order,” says Xenophon;⁠[153] and Horace, in his “Art of Poetry,” lays it down as a rule,

This precept is properly the use and application of all the rest; for which reason it requires much judgment. You are therefore in such manner to foresee things, that your picture may be painted in your head, before it comes upon the canvas. “When Menander,” says a celebrated author,⁠[154] “had ordered the scenes of his comedy, he held it to be, in a manner, already made; though he had not begun the first verse of it.” It is an undoubted truth, that they who are endued with this foresight, work with incredible pleasure and facility; others, on the contrary, are perpetually changing, and rechanging their work, which, when it is ended, leaves them but anxiety for all their pains. It seems to me, that these sorts of pictures remind us of those old Gothic castles, made at several times; and which hold together only as it were by rags and patches.

It may be inferred from that which I have said, that the invention and the disposition are two several and distinct parts. In effect, though the last of them depends upon the first, and is commonly comprehended under it; yet we are to take great care, that we do not confound them. The invention simply finds out the subjects, and makes a choice of them suitable to the history which we treat; and the disposition distributes those things which are thus found, each to its proper place, and accommodates the figures and the groupes in particular, and the tout ensemble (or whole together) of the picture in general; so that this economy produces the same effect in relation to the eyes, as a concert of music to the ears.

There is one thing of great consequence to be observed in the economy of the whole work, which is, that at the first sight we may be given to understand the quality of the subject; and that the picture, at the first glance of the eye, may inspire us with the principal passion of it: for example, if the subject which you have undertaken to treat be of joy, it is necessary that every thing which enters into your picture should contribute to that passion, so that the beholders shall immediately be moved with it. If the subject be mournful, let every thing in it have a stroke of sadness; and so of the other passions and qualities of the subjects.

“Let there be a genuine and lively expression of the subject, conformable to the text of ancient authors,” &c. Take care that the licences of painters be rather to adorn the history, than to corrupt it. And though Horace gives permission to painters and poets⁠[155] to dare every thing, yet he encourages neither of them to make things out of nature or verisimility; for he adds immediately after,

The thoughts of a man endued with good sense, are not of kin to visionary madness; men in fevers are only capable of such dreams. Treat then the subjects of your pictures with all possible faithfulness, and use your licences with a becoming boldness; provided they be ingenious, and not immoderate and extravagant.

“Take care that whatsoever makes nothing to your subject,” &c. Nothing deadens so much the composition of a picture, as figures which are not appertaining to the subject: we may call them pleasantly enough, figures to be let.

“This part of painting so rarely met with,” &c. That is to say, invention.

“Which was stolen by Prometheus,” &c. The poets feign, that Prometheus formed out of clay so fair a statue, that Minerva one day, having long admired it, said to the workman, that if he thought there was any thing in heaven which could add to its perfection, he might ask it of her; but he being ignorant of what might be most beautiful in the habitation of the gods, desired leave that he might be carried thither, and being there, to make his choice. The goddess bore him thither upon her shield, and so soon as he had perceived, that all celestial things were animated with fire, he stole a parcel of it, which he carried down to earth, and applying it to the stomach of his statue, enlivened the whole body.

“That it happens not to every one to see Corinth,” &c. This is an ancient proverb, which signifies, that every man has not the genius, nor the disposition, that is necessary for the sciences; neither yet a capacity fit for the undertaking of things which are great and difficult. Corinth was heretofore the centre of all arts, and the place whither they sent all those whom they would render capable of any thing. Cicero calls it the light of all Græcia.⁠[156]

“It arrived at length to that height of perfection,” &c. This was in the time of Alexander the Great, and lasted even to Augustus, under whose reign painting fell to great decay. But under the emperors, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, it appeared in its primitive lustre; which lasted to the time of Phocas the emperor, when vices prevailing over the arts, and war being kindled through all Europe, and especially in Lombardy, (occasioned by the irruption of the Huns,) painting was totally extinguished. And if some few, in the succeeding ages, strained themselves to revive it, it was rather in finding out the most glaring, gaudy, and costly colours, than in imitating the harmonious simplicity of those illustrious painters who preceded them. At length, in the fourteenth century, some there were, who began to set it again on foot. And it may truly be said, that about the end of the fifteenth age, and the beginning of our sixteenth, it appeared in much splendour, by means of many knowing men in all parts of Italy, who were in perfect possession of it. Since those happy times, which were so fruitful of the noble arts, we have also had some knowing painters, but very few in number, because of the little inclination which sovereign princes have had for painting: but thanks to the zeal of our great monarch, and to the care of his first minister, Monsieur Colbert, we may shortly behold it more flourishing than ever.

“An attitude therefore must be chosen, according to their taste,” &c. This is the second part of painting, which is called design, or drawing. As the ancients have sought as much as possible whatsoever contributes to the making of a perfect body; so they have diligently examined in what consists the beauty of good attitudes, as their works sufficiently inform us.

“The parts of it must be great,” &c. Yet not so great as to exceed a just proportion. But he means, that in a noble attitude, the greatest parts of the body ought to appear foremost, rather than the less, for which reason, in another passage, he vehemently forbids the foreshortenings, because they make the parts appear little, though of themselves they are great. “And large,” &c. To avoid the dry manner, such as is most commonly the nature which Lucas van Leyden and Albert Durer have imitated.

“Contrasted by contrary motions, the most noble parts foremost in sight, and each figure carefully poised on its own centre,” &c. The motions are never natural, when the members are not equally balanced on their centre; and these members cannot be balanced on their centre in an equality of weight, but they must contrast each other. A man who dances on the rope, makes a manifest demonstration of this truth. The body is a weight balanced on its feet, as upon two pivots. And though one of the feet most commonly bears the weight, yet we see that the whole weight rests centrally upon it. Insomuch, that if, for example, one arm is stretched out, it must of necessity be either, that the other arm, or the leg, be cast backward, or the body somewhat bowed on the opposite side, so as to make an equilibrium, and be in a situation which is unforced. It may be, though seldom, if it be not in old men, that the feet bear equally; and for that time half the weight is equally distributed on each foot. You ought to make use of the same prudence, if one foot bears three parts in four of the burthen, and that the other foot bears the remaining part. This, in general, is what may be said of the balance, and the libration of the body. In particular, there may many things be said which are very useful and curious, of which you may satisfy yourselves in Leonardo da Vinci. He has done wonderfully well on that subject; and one may truly say, that the ponderation is the best and soundest part of all his book of painting. It begins at the 181st chapter, and concludes at the 273d. I would also advise you to read Paulo Lomazzo, in his 6th book, chapter 4th, Del moto del corpo humano, that is, the motion of a human body. You will there find many things of great profit. For what concerns the contrast, I will only say, in general, that nothing gives so much grace and life to figures. See the 13th precept, and what I say upon it in the remarks.

“The parts must be drawn with flowing, glideing outlines,” &c. The reason of this proceeds from the action of the muscles, which are so many well-buckets: when one of them acts and draws, it is necessary that the other must obey; so that the muscles which act, drawing always towards their principal, and those which obey stretching in length, and on the side of their insertion; it must needs follow, that the parts must be designed in waves; but beware, lest in giving this form to the parts, you do not break the bones which sustain them, and which always must make them appear firm.

This maxim is not altogether so general, but that actions may be found, where the masses of the muscles are situate one over against another; but that is not very common. The outlines, which are in waves, give not only a grace to the parts, but also to the whole body, when it is only supported on one leg. As we see in the figures of Antinous, Meleager, the Venus of Medicis, that of the Vatican, the two others of Borghese, and that of Flora, of the goddess Vesta, the two Bacchus’s of Borghese, and that of Ludovisio, and in fine, of the greatest number of the ancient figures, which are standing, and which always rest more upon one foot than the other. Besides, that the figures and their parts ought almost always to have a serpentine and flaming form naturally; these sorts of outlines have, I know not what of life and seeming motion in them, which very much resembles the activity of the flame, and of the serpent.

“According to the rules of anatomy,” &c. This part is nothing known at present amongst our modern painters. I have shewn the profit, and even the necessity of it, in the preface of a little epitome which I have made, and which Monsieur Torrebat has published. I know, there are some, who think this science a kind of monster, and believe it to be of no advantage, either because they are mean spirited, or that they have not considered the want which they have of it; nor reflected, as they ought, on its importance; contenting themselves with a certain tract, to which they have been used. But certain it is, that whoever is capable of such a thought, will never be capable of becoming a great designer.

“In imitation of the Greek forms,” &c. That is to say, according to the ancient statues, which for the most part come from Greece.

“Let there be a perfect relation betwixt the parts and the whole,” &c., or let them agree well together, which is the same thing. His meaning in this place is, to speak of the justness of proportions, and of the harmony which they make with one another. Many famous authors have thoroughly treated this matter. Amongst others, Paulo Lomazzo, whose first book speaks of nothing else; but there are so many sub-divisions, that a reader must have a good brain not to be turned with them. See those which our author has remarked in general, on the most beautiful statues of the ancients. I believe them to be so much the better, as they are more conformable to those which Vitruvius gives us in the first chapter of his third book; and which he tells us, that he learned from the artists themselves; because in the preface to his seventh book, he makes his boast to have had them from others, and particularly from architects and painters.

The Measures of a Human Body.

The ancients have commonly allowed eight heads to their figures, though some of them have but seven. But we ordinarily divide the figures into ten faces;⁠[157] that is to say, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot; in the following manner:

From the crown of the head to the forehead, is the third part of a face.

The face begins at the root of the lowest hairs, which are upon the forehead, and ends at the bottom of the chin.

The face is divided into three proportionable parts; the first contains the forehead, the second the nose, and the third the mouth and the chin.

From the chin to the pit betwixt the collar-bones, are two lengths of a nose.

From the pit betwixt the collar-bones to the bottom of the breast, one face.

⁠[158] From the bottom of the breasts to the navel, one face.

⁠[159] From the navel to the genitories, one face.

From the genitories to the upper part of the knee, two faces.

The knee contains half a face.

From the lower part of the knee to the ankle, two faces.

From the ankle to the sole of the foot, half a face.

A man, when his arms are stretched out, is, from the longest finger of his right hand, to the longest of his left as broad as he is long.

From one side of the breasts to the other, two faces.

The bone of the arm, called humerus, is the length of two faces from the shoulder to the elbow.

From the end of the elbow to the root of the little finger, the bone called cubitus, with part of the hand, contains two faces.

From the box of the shoulder-blade to the pit betwixt the collar-bones, one face.

If you would be satisfied in the measures of breadth, from the extremity of one finger to the other, so that this breadth should be equal to the length of the body, you must observe, that the boxes of the elbows with the humerus, and of the humerus with the shoulder-blade, bear the proportion of half a face, when the arms are stretched out.

The sole of the foot is the sixth part of the figure.

The hand is the length of a face.

The thumb contains a nose.

The inside of the arm, from the place where the muscle disappears, which makes the breast, (called the pectoral muscle,) to the middle of the arm, four noses.

From the middle of the arm to the beginning of the hand, five noses.

The longest toe is a nose long.

The two utmost parts of the teats, and the pit betwixt the collar bones of a woman, make an equilateral triangle.

For the breadth of the limbs, no precise measures can be given; because the measures themselves are changeable, according to the quality of the persons, and according to the movement of the muscles.

If you would know the proportions more particularly, you may see them in Paulo Lomazzo; it is good to read them, once at least, and to make remarks on them; every man according to his own judgment, and according to the occasion which he has for them.

“Though perspective cannot be called a perfect rule,” &c. That is to say, purely of itself, without prudence and discretion. The greatest part of those who understand it, desiring to practise it too regularly, often make such things as shock the sight, though they are within the rules. If all those great painters, who have left us such fair platforms, had rigorously observed it in their figures, they had not wholly found their account in it. They had indeed made things more regularly true, but withal very unpleasing. There is great appearance, that the architects and statuaries of former times have not found it to their purpose always; nor have followed the geometrical part so exactly as perspective ordains. For he who would imitate the frontispiece of the Rotunda according to perspective, would be grossly deceived; since the columns which are at the extremities have more diameter than those which are in the middle. The cornish of the Palazzo Farnese, which makes so beautiful an effect below, when viewed more nearly, will be found not to have its just measures. In the pillar of Trajan, we see that the highest figures are greater than those below; and make an effect quite contrary to perspective, increasing according to the measure of their distance. I know there is a rule which teaches a way of making them in that manner; and which, though it is to be found in some books of perspective, yet notwithstanding is no rule of perspective; because it is never made use of, but only when we find it for our purpose: for if, for example, the figures which are at the top of Trajan’s pillar were but as great as those which are at the bottom, they would not be for all that against perspective: and thus we may say, with more reason, that it is a rule of decorum in perspective, to ease the sight, and to render objects more agreeable. It is on this general observation, that we may establish in perspective, the rules of decorum, or convenience, whensoever occasion shall offer. We may also see another example in the base of the Farnesian Hercules; which is not upon the level, but on an easy declivity on the advanced part, that the feet of the figure may not be hidden from the sight, to the end that it may appear more pleasing; which the noble authors of these things have done, not in contempt of geometry and perspective, but for the satisfaction of the eyes, which was the end they proposed to themselves in all their works.

We must therefore understand perspective as a science which is absolutely necessary, and which a painter must not want; yet without subjecting ourselves so wholly to it, as to become slaves of it. We are to follow it, when it leads us in a pleasing way, and shews us pleasing things; but for some time to forsake it, if it leads us through mire, or to a precipice. Endeavour after that which is aiding to your art, and convenient, but avoid whatsoever is repugnant to it; as the 59th rule teaches.

“Let every member be made for its own head,” &c. That is to say, you ought not to set the head of a young man on the body of an old one; nor make a white hand for a withered body. Not to habit a Hercules in taffata, nor an Apollo in coarse stuff. Queens, and persons of the first quality, whom you would make appear majestical, are not to be too negligently dressed, or en dishabillee, no more than old men; the nymphs are not to be overcharged with drapery. In fine, let all that which accompanies your figures, make them known for what effectively they are.

“Let the figures to which art cannot give a voice, imitate the mutes in their actions,” &c. Mutes having no other way of speaking, or expressing their thoughts, but only by their gestures, and their actions, it is certain, that they do it in a manner more expressive, than those who have the use of speech: for which reason, the picture which is mute, ought to imitate them, so as to make itself understood.

“Let the principal figure of the subject,” &c. It is one of the greatest blemishes of a picture, not to give knowledge, at the first sight, of the subject which it represents. And truly nothing is more perplexing, than to extinguish, as it were, the principal figure, by the opposition of some others, which present themselves to us at the first view, and which carry a greater lustre. An orator, who had undertaken to make a panegyric on Alexander the Great, and who had employed the strongest figures of his rhetoric in the praise of Bucephalus, would do quite the contrary to that which was expected from him; because it would be believed, that he rather took the horse for his subject, than the master. A painter is like an orator in this. He must dispose his matter in such sort, that all things may give place to his principal subject. And if the other figures, which accompany it, and are only as accessories there, take up the chief place, and make themselves most remarkable, either by the beauty of their colours, or by the splendour of the light, which strikes upon them, they will catch the sight, they will stop it short, and not suffer it to go farther than themselves, till after some considerable space of time, to find out that which was not discerned at first. The principal figure in a picture, is like a king among his courtiers, whom we ought to know at the first glance, and who ought to dim the lustre of all his attendants. Those painters who proceed otherwise, do just like those, who, in the relation of a story, engage themselves so foolishly in long digressions, that they are forced to conclude quite another way than they began.

“Let the parts be brought together, and the figures disposed in groupes,” &c. I cannot better compare a groupe of figures, than to a concert of voices, which, supporting themselves altogether by their different parts, make a harmony, which pleasingly fills the ears, and flatters them; but if you come to separate them, and that all the parts are equally heard as loud as one another, they will stun you to that degree, that you would fancy your ears were torn in pieces. It is the same of figures; if you so assemble them, that some of them sustain the others, and make them appear, and that altogether they make but one entire whole, then your eyes will be fully satisfied; but if, on the contrary, you divide them, your eyes will suffer by seeing them altogether dispersed, or each of them in particular. Altogether, because the visual rays are multiplied by the multiplicity of objects. Each of them in particular; because, if you fix your sight on one, those which are about it will strike you, and attract your eyes to them, which extremely pains them in this sort of separation and diversity of objects. The eye, for example, is satisfied with the sight of one single grape; and is distracted, if it carries itself at one view to look upon many several grapes, which lie scattered on a table. We must have the same regard for the members; they aggroupe, and contrast each other in the same manner as the figures do. Few painters have observed this precept as they ought, which is a most solid foundation for the harmony of a picture.

“The figures in the groupes ought not to have the same inflections of the body,” &c. Take heed in this contrast, to do nothing that is extravagant; and let your postures be always natural. The draperies, and all things that accompany the figures, may enter into the contrast with the members, and with the figures themselves; and this is what our poet means in these words of his verses, cætera frangant.

“One side of the picture must not be void, while the other is filled,” &c. This sort of symmetry, when it appears not affected, fills the picture pleasingly, keeps it in a kind of balance, and infinitely delights the eyes, which thereby contemplate the work with more repose.

“As a play is seldom good, in which there are too many actors,” &c. Annibal Caracci did not believe that a picture could be good, in which there were above twelve figures. It was Albano who told our author this, and from his mouth I had it. The reasons which he gave were, first, that he believed there ought not to be above three great groupes of figures in any picture; and secondly, that silence and majesty were of necessity to be there, to render it beautiful; and neither the one nor the other could possibly be in a multitude and crowd of figures. But nevertheless, if you are constrained by the subject, (as for example, if you painted the day of judgment, the massacre of the innocents, a battle, &c.) on such occasions, you are to dispose things by great masses of lights and shadows, and union of colours, without troubling yourself to finish every thing in particular, independently one of the other, as is usual with painters of a little genius, and whose souls are incapable of embracing a great design, or a great composition.

Says Horace in his “Art of Poetry.”

“The extremities of the joints must be seldom hidden, and the extremities or end of the feet never,” &c. These extremities of the joints are as it were the hafts, or handles of the members. For example, the shoulders, the elbows, the thighs, and the knees. And if a drapery should be found on these ends of the joints, it is the duty of science, and of decorum, to mark them by folds, but with great discretion; for what concerns the feet, though they should be hidden by some part of the drapery, nevertheless, if they are marked by folds, and their shape be distinguished, they are supposed to be seen. The word never, is not here to be taken in the strictest sense; he means but this,—so rarely, that it may seem we should avoid all occasions of dispensing with the rule.

“The figures which are behind others, have neither grace nor vigour,” &c. Raphael and Julio Romano have perfectly observed this maxim; and Raphael especially in his last works.

“Avoid also those lines and outlines which are equal, which make parallels,” &c. He means principally to speak of the postures so ordered, that they make together those geometrical figures which he condemns.

“Be not so strictly tied to nature,” &c. This precept is against two sorts of painters; first, against those who are so scrupulously tied to nature, that they can do nothing without her; who copy her, just as they believe they see her, without adding, or retrenching any thing, though never so little, either for the nudities, or for the draperies. And secondly, against those who paint every thing by practice, without being able to subject themselves to retouch any thing, or to examine by the nature. These last, properly speaking, are the libertines of painting; as there are libertines of religion, who have no other law but the vehemence of their inclinations, which they are resolved not to overcome: and in the same manner the libertines of painting have no other model but a rhodomontado genius, and very irregular, which violently hurries them away. Though these two sorts of painters are both of them in vicious extremes, yet nevertheless the former sort seems to be the more supportable; because though they do not imitate nature, as she is accompanied by all her beauties, and her graces; yet at least they imitate that nature, which we know, and daily see. Instead of which, the others shew us a wild or savage nature, which is not of our acquaintance, and which seems to be of a quite new creation.

“Whom you must have always present, as a witness to the truth,” &c. This passage seems to be wonderfully well said. The nearer a picture approaches to the truth, the better it is; and though the painter, who is its author, be the first judge of the beauties which are in it, he is nevertheless obliged not to pronounce it, till he has first consulted Nature, who is an irreproachable evidence, and who will frankly, but withal truly, tell you its defects and beauties, if you compare it with her work.

“And of all other things which discover to us the thoughts and inventions of the Grecians,” &c. As good books, such as are Homer and Pausanias. The prints which we see of the antiquities, may also extremely contribute to form our genius, and to give us great ideas; in the same manner as the writings of good authors are capable of forming a good style, in those who are desirous of writing well.

“If you have but one single figure to work upon,” &c. The reason of this is, that there being nothing to attract the sight but this only figure, the visual rays will not be too much divided by the diversity of colours and draperies; but only take heed to put in nothing, which shall appear too sharp, or too hard; and be mindful of the 41st precept, which says, that two extremities are never to touch each other, either in colour, or in light; but that there must be a mean, partaking of the one and of the other.

“Let the draperies be nobly spread upon the body; let the folds be large,” &c. As Raphael practised, after he had forsaken the manner of Pietro Perugino, and principally in his latter works.

“And let them follow the order of the parts,” &c. As the fairest pieces of antiquity will shew us. And take heed, that the folds do not only follow the order of the parts, but that they also mark the most considerable muscles; because that those figures, where the drapery and the naked part are seen both together, are much more graceful than the other.

“Without sitting too straight upon them,” &c. Painters ought not to imitate the ancients in this circumstance. The ancient statuaries made their draperies of wet linen, on purpose to make them sit close and straight to the parts of their figures; for doing which they had great reason, and in following which the painters would be much in the wrong; and you shall see upon what grounds. Those great geniuses of antiquity, finding that it was impossible to imitate with marble the fineness of stuffs or garments which is not to be discerned but by the colours, the reflexes and more especially by the lights and shadows; finding it, I say, out of their power to dispose of those things, thought they could not do better, nor more prudentially, than to make use of such draperies, as hindered not from seeing, through their folds, the delicacy of the flesh, and the purity of the outlines; things which, truly speaking, they possessed in the last perfection, and which in all appearance were the subject of their chief study. But painters, on the contrary, who are to deceive the sight, quite otherwise than statuaries, are bound to imitate the different sorts of garments, such as they naturally seem; and such as colours, reflexes, lights, and shadows, (of all which they are masters,) can make them appear. Thus we see, that those who have made the nearest imitations of nature, have made use of such stuffs or garments which are familiar to our sight; and these they have imitated with so much art, that in beholding them we are pleased that they deceive us: such were Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, Rubens, Van Dyck, and the rest of the good colourists, who have come nearest to the truth of nature. Instead of which, others, who have scrupulously tied themselves to the practice of the ancients, in their draperies, have made their works crude and dry; and by this means have found out the lamentable secret, how to make their figures harder than even the marble itself; as Andrea Mantegna, and Pietro Perugino have done; and Raphael also had much of that way in his first works, in which we behold many small foldings often repleated, which look like so many whipcords. It is true these repetitions are seen in the ancient statues, and they are very proper there: because they who made use of wet linen, and close draperies, to make their figures look more tender, reasonably foresaw, that the members would be too naked, if they left not more than two or three folds, such as those sorts of draperies afford them, and therefore have used those repetitions of many folds; yet in such a manner, that the figures are always soft and tender, and thereby seem opposite to the hardness of marble. Add to this, that in sculpture, it is almost impossible, that a figure, clothed with coarse draperies, can make a good effect on all the sides; and that in painting, the draperies, of what kind soever they be, are of great advantage, either to unite the colours and the groupes, or to give such a ground, as one would wish to unite, or to separate; or farther to produce such reflections as set off; or for filling void spaces; or, in short, for many other advantages, which help to deceive the sight, and which are no ways necessary to sculptors, since their work is always of relievo.

Three things may be inferred from what I have said, concerning the rule of draperies. First, that the ancient sculptors had reason to clothe their figures as we see them. Secondly, that painters ought to imitate them in the order of their folds, but not in their quality, nor in their number. Thirdly, that sculptors are obliged to follow them as much as they can, without desiring to imitate unprofitably, or improperly, the manner of the painters, by making many ample folds, which are insufferable hardnesses, and look more like a rock, than a natural garment.—See the 211th remark, about the middle of it.

“And if the parts be too much distant from each other,” &c. It is with intent to hinder (as we have said in the rule of groupes) the visual rays from being too much divided; and that the eyes may not suffer, by looking on so many objects, which are separated. Guido was very exact in this observation. See in the text the end of the rule, which relates to draperies.

“And as those limbs and members which are expressed by few and large muscles,” &c. Raphael, in the beginning of his painting, has somewhat too much multiplied the folds; because, being with reason charmed with the graces of the ancients, he imitated their beauties somewhat too regularly; but having afterwards found, that this quantity of folds glittered too much upon the limbs, and took off that repose and silence, which in painting are so friendly to the eyes, he made use of a contrary conduct, in the works which he painted afterwards; which was at that time when he began to understand the effect of lights, of groupes, and the oppositions of the lights and shadows; so that he wholly changed his manner, (this was about eight years before his death,) and though he always gave a grace to whatsoever he painted, yet he made appear in his latter works, a greatness, a majesty, and a harmony, quite other than what we see in his first manner: and this he did by lessening the number of his folds, making them more large, and more opposing them, and by making the masses of the lights and shadows greater, and more disentangled. Take the pains to examine these his different manners in the prints which we see of that great man.

“As, supposing them to be magistrates, their draperies ought to be large,” &c. Yet make not your draperies so large, that they may be big enough to clothe four or five figures, as some there are who follow that method. And take heed, that the foldings be natural, and so disposed, that the eye may be directed to discover the folds, from the beginning of them to the end. By magistrates he means all great and grave persons, and such as are advanced in age.

“If ladies or damsels, light and soft,” &c. By this name of ladies, maids, or damsels, he means all young persons, slender, finely shaped, airy, and delicate. Such as are Nymphs and Naiades, and Fountains. Angels are also comprehended under this head, whose drapery should be of pleasing colours, and resembling those which are seen in the heavens, and chiefly when they are suspended in the air. They are only such sorts of light habits as are subject to be ruffled by the winds, which can bear many folds; yet so, that they may be freed from any hardnesses. It is easy for every one to judge, that betwixt the draperies of magistrates, and those of young maids, there must be some mediocrity of folds, such as are most commonly seen and observed; as in the draperies of a Christ, of a Madonna, of a King, a Queen, or a Duchess, and of other persons of consideration and majesty; and those also who are of a middle age; with this distinction, that the habits must be made more or less rich, according to the dignity of the persons; and that cloth garments may be distinguished from those of silk, sattin from velvets, brocard from embroidery, and that, in one word, the eye may be deceived by the truth, and the difference of the stuffs. Take notice, if you please, that the light and tender draperies having been only given to the female sex, the ancient sculptors have avoided, as much as they could, to clothe the figures of men, because they thought (as we have formerly said) that, in sculpture garments could not be well imitated, and that great folds made a very bad effect. There are almost as many examples of this truth, as amongst the ancients there are statues of naked men. I will name only that of Laocoon, which, according to all probability, ought to have been clothed. And in effect, what likelihood can there be, that the son of a king, and the priest of Apollo, should appear naked in the actual ceremony of sacrifice? for the serpents passed from the Isle of Tenedos to the Trojan shore, and surprised Laocoon, and his sons, while they were sacrificing to Neptune on the sea-shore, as Virgil witnesses in the second of his Æneids. Notwithstanding which, the sculptors,⁠[160] who were authors of this noble work, had well considered, that they could not give vestments suitable to the quality of the persons represented, without making as it were a heap of stones, whose mass would rather be like a rock, than those three admirable figures, which will ever be the admiration of all ages. And for this reason of two inconveniences, they judged that of draperies to be greater than that which was against the truth itself.

This observation well confirms what I have said in the 200th remark. It seems to me, that it deserves you should make some reflection on it; and to establish it the better in your mind, I will tell you, that Michael Angelo, following this maxim, has given the prophets which he painted in the chapel of the pope, such draperies, whose folds are large, and whose garments are coarse; instead of which, the Moses, which he has made in sculpture, is habited with a drapery much more close to the parts, and holding more of the ancients. Nevertheless, he is a prophet, as well as those in the chapel, a man of the same quality, and to whom Michael Angelo ought to have given the same draperies, if he had not been hindered by those very reasons, which have been given you.

“The marks or ensigns of virtues,” &c. That is to say, of the sciences and arts. The Italians call a man a virtuoso, who loves the noble arts, and is a critic in them. And amongst our French painters, the word vertueux is understood in the same signification.

“But let not the work be too much enriched with gold or jewels,” &c. Clemens Alexandrinus relates,⁠[161] “That Apelles having seen a Helena, which a young scholar of his had made, and adorned with a great quantity of golden ornaments and jewels, said to him, My good friend, though thou couldst not make her beautiful, at least thou hast made her rich.” Besides, that these glittering things in painting, as precious stones prodigally strewed over the habits, are destructive to each other, because they draw the sight to several places at the same time, and hinder round bodies from turning, and making their due effect; it is the very quantity which often makes us judge that they are false. And besides, it is to be presumed, that precious things are always rare. Corinna, that learned Theban lady, reproached Pindar, whom she had five times overcome in poetry, that he scattered through all his works the flowers of Parnassus too prodigally; saying to him, “That men sowed with the hand, and not with the sack;”⁠[162] for which reason, a painter ought to adorn his vestments with great discretion. And precious stones look exceedingly well, when they are set in those places which we would make to come out of the picture; as for example, on a shoulder, or an arm, to tie some drapery, which of itself is of no strong colouring. They do also perfectly well with white, and other light colours, which are used in bringing the parts or bodies forward; because jewels make a show, and glitter through the opposition of the great lights in the deep brown, which meet together.

“It is very expedient to make a model of those things which we have not in our sight, and whose nature is difficult to be retained in the memory,” &c. As, for example, the groupes of many figures, the postures difficult to be long kept, the figures in the air, in cielings, or much raised above the sight; and even of animals, which are not easily to be disposed.

By this rule we plainly see, how necessary it is for a painter to know how to model, and to have many models of soft wax. Paul Veronese had so good store of them, with so great a quantity of different sorts, that he would paint a whole historical composition on a perspective plan, how great and how diversified soever it were. Tintoret practised the same; and Michael Angelo (as Giovan. Bapt. Armenini relates) made use of it, for all the figures of his Day of Judgment. It is not that I would advise any one, who would make any very considerable work, to finish after these sorts of models; but they will be of vast use and advantage to see the masses of great lights, and great shadows, and the effect of the whole together. For what remains, you are to have a layman⁠[163] almost as big as the life, for every figure in particular, besides the natural figure before you, on which you must also look, and call it for a witness, which must first confirm the thing to you, and afterwards to the spectators as it is in reality.

You may make use of these models with delight, if you set them on a perspective plan, which will be in the manner of a table made on purpose. You may either raise, or let it down, according to your convenience; and if you look on your figures, through a hole, so contrived, that it may be moved up and down, it will serve you for a point of sight, and a point of distance, when you have once fixed it.

The same hole will farther serve you, to set your figures in the cieling, and disposed upon a grate of iron-wire, or supported in the air by little strings raised at discretion, or by both ways together.

You may join to your figures what you see fitting, provided, that the whole be proportioned to them; and, in short, what you yourself may judge to be of no greater bigness than theirs. Thus, in whatsoever you do, there will be more of truth seen, your work itself will give you infinite delight, and you will avoid many doubts and difficulties, which often hinder you; and chiefly for what relates to lineal perspective, which you will there infallibly find, provided that you remember to proportion all things to the greatness of your figures, and especially the points of sight and of distance; but for what belongs to aërial perspective, that not being found, the judgment must supply it. Tintoret (as Ridolphi tells us in his Life) had made chambers of board and pasteboard, proportioned to his models, with doors and windows, through which he distributed on his figures artificial lights, as much as he thought reasonable, and often passed some part of the night, to consider and observe the effect of his compositions. His models were two feet high.

“We are to consider the places where we lay the scene of the picture,” &c. This is what Monsieur de Chambray calls, to do things according to decorum. See what he says of it, in the interpretation of that word, in his book of the Perfection of Painting. It is not sufficient, that in the picture there be nothing found which is contrary to the place, where the action which is represented, passes; but we ought, besides, to mark out the place, and make it known to the spectator by some particular address, that his mind may not be put to the pains of discovering it; as whether it be Italy, or Spain, or Greece, or France; whether it be near the sea-shore, or the banks of some river; whether it be the Rhine, or the Loire; the Po, or the Tyber; and so of other things, if they are essential to the history. “Nealces, a man of wit, and an ingenious painter,” as Pliny tells us,⁠[164] “being to paint a naval fight betwixt the Egyptians and the Persians, and being willing to make it known that the battle was given upon the Nile, whose waters are of the same colour with the sea, drew an ass drinking on the banks of the river, and a crocodile endeavouring to surprise him.”

“Let a nobleness and grace,” &c. It is difficult enough to say what this grace of painting is; it is to be conceived and understood much more easily than to be explained by words. It proceeds from the illuminations of an excellent mind, (not to be acquired,) by which we give a certain turn to things, which makes them pleasing. A figure may be designed with all its proportions, and have all its parts regular; which, notwithstanding all this, shall not be pleasing, if all those parts are not put together in a certain manner, which attracts the eye to them, and holds it fixed upon them; for which reason, there is a difference to be made betwixt grace and beauty. And it seems that Ovid had a mind to distinguish them, when he said, speaking of Venus,

And Suetonius, speaking of Nero, says, he was rather beautiful than graceful: Vultu pulchro, magis quam venusto. How many fair women do we see, who please us much less than others, who have not such beautiful features? It is by this grace, that Raphael has made himself the most renowned of all the Italians, as Apelles by the same means carried it above all the Greeks.

“This is that in which the greatest difficulty consists,” &c. For two reasons; first, because great study is to be made, as well upon the ancient beauties, and noble pictures, as upon nature itself; and secondly, because that part depends entirely on the genius, and seems to be purely the gift of heaven, which we have received at our birth: upon which account our author adds, “Undoubtedly we see but few, whom in this particular Jupiter has regarded with a gracious eye; so that it belongs only to those elevated souls, who partake somewhat of divinity, to work such mighty wonders.” Though they, who have not altogether received from heaven this precious gift, cannot acquire it without great labour; nevertheless, it is needful, in my opinion, that both the one and the other should perfectly learn the character of every passion.

All the actions of the sensitive appetite are in painting called passions, because the soul is agitated by them, and because the body suffers through them, and is sensibly altered. They are those divers agitations and different motions of the body in general, and of every one of its parts in particular, that our excellent painter ought to understand; on which he ought to make his study, and to form to himself a perfect idea of them. But it will be proper for us to know, in the first place, that the philosophers admit eleven, love, hatred, desire, shunning, joy, sadness, hope, despair, boldness, fear, and anger. The painters have multiplied them not only by their different degrees, but also by their different species; for they will make, for example, six persons in the same degree of fear, who shall express that passion all of them differently. And it is that diversity of species which distinguishes those painters who are able artists, from those whom we may call mannerists, and who repeat five or six times over in the same picture the same airs of a head. There are a vast number of other passions, which are as the branches of those which we have named; we might, for example, under the notion of love, comprehend grace, gentleness, civility, caresses, embraces, kisses, tranquillity, sweetness, &c.; and without examining whether all these things which painters comprize under the name of passions, can be reduced to those of the philosophers, I am of opinion, that every one may use them at his pleasure, and that he may study them after his own manner; the name makes nothing. One may even make passions of majesty, fierceness, dissatisfaction, care, avarice, slothfulness, envy, and many other things like these. These passions (as I have said) ought to be learnt from the life itself, or to be studied on the ancient statues, and excellent pictures; we ought to see, for example, all things which belong to sadness, or serve to express it; to design them carefully, and to imprint them in our memories, after such a manner, as we may distinctly understand seven or eight kinds of them more or less, and immediately after, draw them upon paper, without any other original than the image which we have conceived of them. We must be perfect masters of them, but above all, we must make sure of possessing them throughly. We are to know, that it is such or such a stroke, or such a shadow, stronger or weaker, which makes such or such a passion, in this or that degree. And thus if any one should ask you, what makes, in painting, the majesty of a king, the gravity of a hero, the love of a Christ, the grief of a Madonna, the hope of the good thief, the despair of the bad one, the grace and beauty of a Venus, and, in fine, the character of any passion whatsoever; you may answer positively, on the spot, and with assurance, that it is such a posture, or such lines in the parts of the face, formed of such or such a passion, or even the one and the other both together; for the parts of the body, separately, make known the passions of the soul, or else conjointly one with the other. But of all the parts, the head is that which gives the most of life, and the most of grace to the passion, and which alone contributes more to it than all the rest together. The others separately can only express some certain passions, but the head expresses all of them. Nevertheless, there are some which are more particular to it; as, for example, humility, which it expresses by the stooping or bending of the head; arrogance, when it is lifted, or, as we say, tossed up; languishment, when we hang it on one side, or lean it upon one shoulder; obstinacy, (or, as the French call it, opiniâtretè,) with a certain stubborn, unruly, barbarous humour, when it is held upright, stiff, and poised betwixt the shoulders. And of the rest, there are many marks, more easily conceived than they can be expressed; as bashfulness, admiration, indignation, and doubt. It is by the head that we make known more visibly our supplications, our threatenings, our mildness, our haughtiness, our love, our hatred, our joy, our sadness, our humility; in fine, it is enough to see the face, and to understand the mind at half a word. Blushing and paleness speak to us, as also the mixture of them both.

The parts of the face do all of them contribute to expose the thoughts of our hearts; but above the rest, the eyes, which are as it were the two windows through which the soul looks out and shows itself. The passions which they more particularly express, are pleasure, languishment, disdain, severity, sweetness, admiration, and anger. Joy and sadness may bear their parts, if they did not more especially proceed from the eyebrows and the mouth. And the two parts last named agree more particularly in the expression of those two passions; nevertheless, if you join the eyes as a third, you will have the product of a wonderful harmony for all the passions of the soul.

The nose has no passion which is particular to it; it only lends its assistance to the other before-named, by the stretching of the nostrils, which is as much marked in joy, as it is in sadness. And yet it seems, that scorn makes us wrinkle up the nose, and stretch the nostrils also, at the same time drawing up the upper lip to the place which is near the corners of the mouth. The ancients made the nose the seat of derision; eum subdolæ irrisioni dicaverunt, says Pliny; that is, they dedicated the nose to a cunning sort of mockery. We read in the 3d satire of Persius,

Learn, but let your anger fall from your nose, and the sneering wrinkles be dismounted. And Philostratus in the picture of Pan, whom the Nymphs had bound, and scornfully insulted over, says of that god, “That, before this, he was accustomed to sleep with a peaceable nose, softening in his slumbers the wrinkles of it, and the anger which commonly mounted to that part; but now his nostrils were widened to the last degree of fury.” For my own part, I should rather believe, that the nose was the seat of wrath in beasts than in mankind; and that it was unbecoming of any god but only Pan, who had very much of the beast in him, to wrinkle up his nose in anger, like other animals. The moving of the lips ought to be but moderate, if it be in conversation, because we speak much more by the tongue than by the lips: and if you make the mouth very open, it is only when you are to express the violence of passion, and more properly of anger.

For what concerns the hands, they are the servants of the head, they are his weapons and his auxiliaries; without them the action is weak, languishing, and half dead. Their motions, which are almost infinite, make innumerable expressions. Is it not by them, that we desire, that we hope, that we promise, that we call towards us, and that we reject? Besides, they are the instruments of our threats, of our petitions, of the horror which we show for things, and of the praises which we give them. By them we fear, we ask questions, we approve, and we refuse, we show our joy and our sadness, our doubts and our lamentations, our concernments of pity, and our admirations. In short, it may be said, that they are the language of the dumb, that they contribute not a little to the speaking of the universal tongue common to all the world, which is that of painting.

Now, to tell you how these parts are to be disposed, so as to express the different passions, is impossible; no precise rules can be given of it, both because the task itself is infinite, and also because every one is left to the conduct of his own genius, and to the fruit of his former studies; only remember to be careful, that all the actions of your figures must be natural. “It seems to me,” says Quinctilian, speaking of the passions, “that this part, which is so noble, and so great, is not altogether inaccessible, and that an easy way may be found to it; it is to consider nature, and to copy her; for the spectators are satisfied, when in artificial things they can discern that nature, which they are accustomed to behold.” This passage of Quinctilian is perfectly explained by the words of an excellent master, which our author proposes to us for a rule. They are these which follow: “That the studied motions of the soul are never so natural, as those which we see in the transport of a true passion.” These motions will better be expressed, and be much more natural, if we enter into the same thoughts, become of the same piece, and imagine ourselves to be in the same circumstances with those whom we would represent. “For nature,” says Horace, in his Art of Poetry, “disposes the inside of mankind to all sorts of fortunes; sometimes she makes us contented, sometimes she drives us into choler, and sometimes she so oppresses us with grief, that she seems to tread us down, and plunge us into mortal anxieties; and on all these occasions, she drives outwards the motions of the heart by the tongue, which is her interpreter.” Now, instead of the tongue, let the painter say by the actions, which are her interpreters. “What means have we,” says Quinctilian, “to give a colour to a thing, if we have not the same colour? It is necessary that we ourselves should first be touched with a passion before we endeavour to move others with it. And how,” continues he, “can we be touched, since the passions are not in our power? This is the way, in my opinion; we must form to ourselves the visions and images of absent things, as if they were in reality before our eyes; and he who conceives these images with the greatest strength of imagination, shall possess that part of the passions with the most advantage, and the greatest ease.” But we must take care, (as I have already said,) that in these visions the motions may be natural; for there are some who imagine they have given abundance of light to their figures, when they have made them do violent and extravagant actions; which we may more reasonably call the convulsions, or contortions of the body, than the passions of the mind; and by this means they often put themselves to much pains, to find a strong passion, where no passion is required. Add to all that I have said concerning the passions, that we are to have a very serious regard to the quality of the persons who are to be expressed in passions. The joy of a king ought not to resemble that of a serving-man; and the fierceness of a private soldier must not be like that of an officer. In these differences consists all the fineness and delicacy of the passions. Paulo Lomazzo has written at large on every passion in particular, in his second book; but beware you dwell not too long upon it, and endeavour not to force your genius.

“Some relicts of it took sanctuary under ground,” &c. All the ancient painting that was in Italy perished in the invasion of the Huns and Goths, excepting those works which were hidden under ground, or there painted; which, by reason they had not been much exposed to view, were preserved from the insolence of those barbarians.

“The cromatic part, or colouring,” &c. The third and last part of painting, is called the cromatic, or colouring. Its object is colour; for which reason, lights and shadows are therein also comprehended, which are nothing else but white and brown, (or dark,) and by consequence have their place among the colours. Philostratus says, in his life of Apollonius, “That that may be truly called painting, which is made only with two colours, provided the lights and shadows be observed in it; for there we behold the true resemblance of things with their beauties; we also see the passions, though without other colours; so much of life may be also expressed in it, that we may perceive even the very blood; the colour of the hair, and of the beard, are likewise to be discerned; and we can distinguish, without confusion, the fair from the black, and the young from the old, the differences betwixt the white and the flaxen hair; we distinguish with ease betwixt the Moors and the Indians, not only by the Camus noses of the blacks, their woolly hair, and their high jaws, but also by that black colour which is natural to them.” We may add to what Philostratus has said, that with two colours only, (the light and the dark,) there is no sort of stuff, or habit, but may be imitated. We say then, that the colouring makes its observations on the masses or bodies of the colours, accompanied with lights and shadows, more or less evident by degrees of diminution, according to the accidents. First, of a luminous body; as, for example, the sun, or a torch. Secondly, of a diaphanous or transparent body, which is betwixt us and the object, as the air, either pure or thick, or a red glass, &c. Thirdly, of a solid body illuminated, as a statue of white marble, a green tree, a black horse, &c. Fourthly, from his part, who regards the body illuminated, as beholding it either near, or at a distance, directly in a right angle, or aside in an obtuse angle, from the top to the bottom, or from the bottom to the top. This part, in the knowledge which it has of the virtue of colours, and the friendship which they have with each other, and also their antipathies, comprehends the strength, the relievo, the briskness, and the delicacy which are observed in good pictures. The management of colours, and the labour, depend also on this last part.

“Her sister,” &c. That is to say, the design or drawing, which is the second part of painting; which, consisting only of lines, stands altogether in need of the colouring to appear. It is for this reason, that our author calls this part her sister’s procurer, that is, the colouring shows us the design, and makes us fall in love with it.

“The light produces all kinds of colours,” &c. Here are three theorems successively following, which our author proposes to us, that from thence we may draw some conclusions. You may likewise find others, which are in the nature of so many propositions, to which we ought to agree, that from thence we may draw the precepts contained in the following part of this treatise: they are all founded on the sense of seeing.

“Which should be the most,” &c. See the remark of number 152.

“That light bodies may have a sufficient mass, or breadth of shadow, to sustain them,” &c. That is properly to say, that after the great lights, there must be great shadows, which we call reposes; because, in reality, the sight would be tired, if it were attracted by a continuity of glittering objects. The lights may serve for a repose to the darks, and the darks to the lights. I have said in another place, that a groupe of figures ought to be considered as a choir of music, in which the basses support the trebles, and make them to be heard with greater pleasure. These reposes are made two several ways, one of which is natural, the other artificial. The natural is made by an extent of lights or of shadows, which naturally and necessarily follow solid bodies; or the masses of solid bodies aggrouped, when the light strikes upon them. And the artificial consists in the bodies of colours, which the painter gives to certain things, such as pleases him; and composes them in such a manner, that they do no injury to the objects which are near them. A drapery, for example, which is made yellow, or red, on some certain place, in another place may be brown and will be more suitable to it, to produce the effect required. We are to take occasion, as much as possibly we can, to make use of the first manner, and to find the repose of which we speak, by the light and by the shadow, which naturally accompany solid bodies. But since the subjects on which we work are not always favourable to dispose the bodies as we desire, a painter in such a case may take his advantage by the bodies of colours, and put into such places as ought to be darkened, draperies, or other things, which we may suppose to be naturally brown and sullied, which will produce the same effect, and give him the same reposes as the shadows would do, which could not be caused by the disposition of the objects.

Thus an understanding painter will make his advantages both of the one manner and the other. And if he makes a design to be graved, he is to remember, that the gravers dispose not their colours as the painters do; and that by consequence he must take occasion to find the reason of his design, in the natural shadows of the figures, which he has disposed to cause the effect. Rubens has given us a full information of this in those prints of his, which he caused to be engraved; and I believe that nothing was ever seen more beautiful in that kind; the whole knowledge of groupes, of the lights and shadows, and of those masses, which Titian calls a bunch of grapes, is there exposed so clearly to the sight, that the view of those prints, and the careful observation of them, might very much contribute to the forming of an able painter. The best and fairest of them are graven by Vosterman, Pontius, and Bolsvert, all of them admirable gravers, whose works Rubens himself took care to oversee; and which, without doubt, you will find to be excellent, if you examine them. But expect not there the elegance of design, nor the correctness of the outlines.

It is not but the gravers can, and ought to imitate the bodies of the colours by the degrees of the lights and shadows, as much as they shall judge that this imitation may produce a good effect. On the contrary, it is impossible, in my opinion, to give much strength to what they grave, after the works of the school of Venice, and of all those who have had the knowledge of colours, and of the contrast of the lights and shadows, without imitating in some sort the colour of the objects, according to the relation which they have to the degrees of white and black. We see certain prints of good gravers different in their kinds, where these things are observed, and which have a wonderful strength. And there appears in public, of late years, a gallery of archduke Leopold, which, though very ill graven, yet shows some part of the beauty of its originals, because the gravers who have executed it, though otherwise they were sufficiently ignorant, have observed, in almost the greatest parts of their prints, the bodies of colours, in the relation which they have to the degrees of the lights and shadows. I could wish the gravers would make some reflection upon this whole remark: it is of wonderful consequence to them; for when they have attained to the knowledge of these reposes, they will easily resolve those difficulties which many times perplex them; and then chiefly, when they are to engrave after a picture, where neither the lights and shadows, nor the bodies of the colours, are skilfully observed, though in its other parts the picture may be well performed.

“As in a convex mirror the collected rays strike stronger,” &c. A convex mirror alters the objects which are in the middle, so that it seems to make them come out from the superfices. The painter must do in the same manner, in respect of the lights and shadows of his figures, to give them more relievo, and more strength.

“While the goings off are more and more broken and faint, as they approach to the extremities,” &c. It is the duty of a painter, even in this also, to imitate the convex mirror, and to place nothing which glares either in colour or in light, at the borders of his picture: for which there are two reasons; the first is, that the eye at the first view directs itself to the midst of the object, which is presented to it, and by consequence must there necessarily find the principal object, in order to its satisfaction; and the other reason is, that the sides or borders being overcharged with a strong and glittering work, attract the eyes thither, which are in a kind of pain, not to behold a continuity of that work, which is on the sudden interrupted by the borders of the picture; instead of which, the borders being lightened, and eased of so much work, the eye continues fixed on the centre of the picture, and beholds it with greater pleasure. It is for the same reason, that, in a great composition of figures, those which, coming most forward, are cut off by the bottom of the picture, will always make an ill effect.

“A bunch of grapes,” &c. It is sufficiently manifest, that Titian, by this judicious and familiar comparison, means, that a painter ought to collect the objects, and to dispose them in such a manner, as to compose one whole; the several contiguous parts of which may be enlightened, many shadowed, and others of broken colours to be in the turnings; as on a bunch of grapes, many grapes, which are the parts of it, are in the light, many in the shadow, and the rest faintly coloured to make them go farther back. Titian once told Tintoret, that in his greatest works, a bunch of grapes had been his principal rule, and his surest guide.

“Pure, or unmixed white, either draws an object nearer, or carries it off to farther distance. It draws it nearer with black, and throws it backward without it,” &c. All agree, that white can subsist on the fore-ground of the picture, and there be used without mixture; the question therefore is to know, if it can equally subsist, and be placed in the same manner, upon that which is backward, the light being universal, and the figures supposed in a champaigne and open field.

Our author concludes affirmatively; and the reason on which he establishes his rule is this; that there being nothing which partakes more of the light than whiteness, and the light being capable of subsisting well in remoteness, or at a long distance, as we daily see in the rising and setting of the sun, it follows, that white may subsist in the same manner. In painting, the light and a white colour are but one and the same thing. Add to this, that we have no colour which more resembles the air than white, and by consequence no colour which is lighter; from whence it comes, that we commonly say, the air is heavy, when we see the heavens covered with black clouds, or when a thick fog takes from us that clearness, which makes the lightness or serenity of the air. Titian, Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and all those who best understood lights, have observed it in this manner, and no man can go against this precept, at least without renouncing any skill in landscape, which is an undoubted confirmation of this truth. And we see, that all the great masters of landscape have followed Titian in this, who has always employed brown and earthy colours upon the fore-part, and has reserved his greatest lights for remotenesses, and the back parts of his landscapes.

It may be objected against this opinion, that white cannot maintain itself in remotenesses, because it is ordinarily used to bring the objects nearer on the advanced part. It is true that so it is used, and that to very good purpose, to render the objects more sensible, by the opposition of the dark, which must accompany it, and which retains it, as it were, by force, whether the dark serves it for a ground, or whether it be combined to it. For example, if you would make a white horse on the fore-ground of your picture, it is of absolute necessity, that the ground must be of a mixed brown, and large enough, or that the furniture must be of very sensible colours; or lastly, that some figure must be set upon it, whose shadows and the colour may bring it forward.

But it seems, say you, that blue is the most flying or transient colour, because the heavens and mountains, which are at the greatest distance, are of that colour. It is very true that blue is one of the lightest and sweetest colours; but it is also true, that it possesses these qualities so much the more, because the white is mingled in it, as the example of the distances demonstrate to us. But if the light of your picture be not universal, and that you suppose your figures in a chamber, then recal to your memory that theorem which tells you, that the nearer a body is to the light, and the more directly it is opposed to us, so much the more it is enlightened, because the light grows languishing the farther it removes from its original.

You may also extinguish your white, if you suppose the air to be somewhat thicker, and if you foresee that this supposition will make a good effect in the economy of the whole work; but let not this proceed so far, as to make your figures so brown, that they may seem as it were in a filthy fog, or that they may appear to be part of the ground. See the following remark.

“But as for pure black, there is nothing that brings the object nearer to the sight,” &c. Because black is the heaviest of all colours, the most earthy, and the most sensible. This is clearly understood by the qualities of white, which is opposed to it, and which is, as we have said, the lightest of all colours. There are few who are not of this opinion; and yet I have known some, who have told me, that the black being on the advanced part, makes nothing but holes. To this there is little else to be answered, but that black always makes a good effect, being set forward, provided it be placed there with prudence. You are therefore so to dispose the bodies of your pictures which you intend to be on the fore-ground, that those sorts of holes may not be perceived, and that the blacks may be there by masses, and insensibly confused. See the 47th rule.

That which gives the relievo to a bowl, (may some say to me,) is the quick light, or the white, which appears to be on the side which is nearest to us, and the black, by consequence, distances the object. We are here to beware, not to confound the turnings with the distances: the question is only in respect of bodies, which are separated by some distance of a backward position; and not of round bodies, which are of the same continuity: the brown, which is mingled in the turnings of the bowl, makes them go off rather in confounding them (as we may say) than in blackening them. And do you not see, that the reflects are an artifice of the painter, to make the turnings seem more light, and that by this means the greatest blackness remains towards the middle of the bowl, to sustain the white, and make it deceive us with more pleasure?

This rule of white and black is of so great consequence, that unless it be exactly practised, it is impossible for a picture to make any great effect, that the masses can be disentangled, and the different distances may be observed at the first glance of the eye, without trouble.

It may be inferred from this precept, that the masses of other colours will be so much the more sensible, and approach so much the nearer to the sight, the more brown they bear; provided this be amongst other colours which are of the same species. For example, a yellow brown shall draw nearer to the sight than another which is less yellow. I said, provided it be amongst other colours, which are of the same species; because there are simple colours, which naturally are strong and sensible, though they are clear, as vermilion; there are others also, which, notwithstanding that they are brown, yet cease not to be soft and faint, as the blue of ultramarine. The effect of a picture comes not only therefore from the lights and shadows, but also from the nature of the colours. I thought it was not from the purpose in this place to give you the qualities of those colours which are most in use, and which are called capital, because they serve to make the composition of all the rest, whose number is almost infinite.

Red ochre is one of the most heavy colours.

Yellow ochre is not so heavy, because it is clearer.

And the masticot is very light, because it is a very clear yellow, and very near to white.

Ultramarine, or azure, is very light, and a very sweet colour.

Vermilion is wholly opposite to ultramarine.

Lake is a middle colour betwixt ultramarine and vermilion, yet it is rather more sweet than harsh.

Brown-red is one of the most earthy and most sensible colours.

Pink is in its nature an indifferent colour, that is very susceptible of the other colours by the mixture: if you mix brown-red with it, you will make it a very earthy colour; but, on the contrary, if you join it with white or blue, you shall have one of the most faint and tender colours.

Terra verte (or green earth) is light; it is a mean betwixt yellow ochre and ultramarine.

Umbre is very sensible and earthy; there is nothing but pure black which can dispute with it.

Of all blacks, that is the most earthy, which is most remote from blue. According to the principle which we have established of white and black, you will make every one of these colours before-named more earthy and more heavy, the more black you mingle with them; and they will be lighter, the more white you join with them.

For what concerns broken or compound colours, we are to make a judgment of their strength by the force of those colours which compose them. All who have thoroughly understood the agreement of colours, have not employed them wholly pure and simple in their draperies, unless in some figure upon the fore-ground of the picture; but they have used broken and compound colours, of which they made a harmony for the eyes, by mixing those which have some kind of sympathy with each other, to make a whole, which has an union with the colours which are neighbouring to it. The painter who perfectly understands the force and power of his colours, will use them most suitably to his present purpose, and according to his own discretion.

“But let this be done relatively,” &c. One body must make another body fly off in such a manner, that itself may be chased by those bodies which are advanced before it. “We are to take care, and use great attention,” says Quinctilian, “not only of one separate thing, but of many which follow each other, and by a certain relation which they have with each other, are as it were continued.” In the same manner, as if in a straight street, we cast our eyes from one end of it to the other, we discover at once those different things which are presented to the sight, so that we not only see the last, but whatsoever is relating to the last.

“Let two contrary extremities never touch each other,” &c. The sense of seeing has this in common with all the rest of the senses, that it abhors the contrary extremities. And in the same manner as our hands, when they are very cold, feel a grievous pain when on the sudden we hold them near the fire; so the eyes, which find an extreme white next to an extreme black, or a fair cool azure next to a hot vermilion, cannot behold these extremities without pain, though they are always attracted by the glaring of two contraries.

This rule obliges us to know those colours which have a friendship with each other, and those which are incompatible; which we may easily discover in mixing together those colours of which we would make trial.

And if by this mixture they make a gracious and sweet colour, which is pleasing to the sight, it is a sign that there is an union and a sympathy betwixt them; but if, on the contrary, that colour which is produced by the mixture of the two be harsh to the sight, we are to conclude, that there is a contrariety and antipathy betwixt these two colours. Green, for example, is a pleasing colour, which may come from a blue and a yellow mixed together; and, by consequence, blue and yellow are two colours which sympathise: and, on the contrary, the mixture of blue with vermilion, produces a sharp, harsh, and unpleasant colour; conclude then, that blue and vermilion are of a contrary nature. And the same may be said of other colours, of which you may make the experiment, and clear that matter once for all. (See the conclusion of the 332d remark, where I have taken occasion to speak of the force and quality of every capital colour.) Yet you may neglect this precept, when your piece consists but of one or two figures, and when amongst a great number you would make some one figure more remarkable than the rest; one, I say, which is one of the most considerable of the subject, and which otherwise you cannot distinguish from the rest. Titian, in his Triumph of Bacchus, having placed Ariadne on one of the borders of the picture, and not being able (for that reason) to make her remarkable by the brightness of light, which he was to keep in the middle of his picture, gave her a scarf of a vermilion colour, upon a blue drapery, as well to loosen her from his ground, which was a blue sea, as because she is one of the principal figures of his subject, upon which he desired to attract the eye. Paul Veronese, in his Marriage of Cana, because Christ, who is the principal figure of the subject, is carried somewhat into the depth of the picture, and that he could not make him distinguishable by the strength of the lights and shadows, has clothed him with vermilion and blue, thereby to conduct the sight to that figure.

The hostile colours may be so much the more allied to each other, the more you mix them with other colours which mutually sympathise, and which agree with those colours which you desire to reconcile.

“It is labour in vain to paint a high-noon,” &c. He said in another place, “endeavour after that which aids your art, and is suitable to it, and shun whatsoever is repugnant:” it is the 59th precept. If the painter would arrive to the end he has proposed, which is to deceive the sight, he must make choice of such a nature as agrees with the weakness of his colours; because his colours cannot accommodate themselves to every sort of nature. This rule is particularly to be observed, and well considered by those who paint landscapes.

“Let the field or ground of the picture,” &c. The reason of it is, that we are to avoid the meeting of those colours which have an antipathy to each other, because they offend the sight; so that this rule is proved sufficiently by the 41st, which tells us, that two contrary extremities are never to touch each other, whether it be in colour, or in light; but that there ought to be a mean betwixt them, which partakes of both.

“Let your colours be lively, and yet not look (according to the painters’ proverb) as if they had been rubbed, or sprinkled with meal,” &c. Donner dans la farine, is a phrase amongst painters, which perfectly expresses what it means; which is to paint with clear or bright colours, and dull colours together; for being so mingled, they give no more life to the figures, than if they had been rubbed with meal. They who make their flesh-colours very white, and their shadows grey, or inclining to green, fall into this inconvenience. Red colours in the shadows of the most delicate or finest flesh, contribute wonderfully to make them lively, shining, and natural; but they are to be used with the same discretion, that Titian, Paul Veronese, Rubens, and Van Dyck have taught us, by their example.

To preserve the colours fresh, we must paint by putting in more colours, and not by rubbing them in after they are once laid; and (if it could be done) they should be laid just in their proper places, and not be any more touched, when they are once so placed; because the freshness of the colours is tarnished and lost, by vexing them with the continual drudgery of daubing.

All they who have coloured well have had yet another maxim to maintain their colours fresh and flourishing, which was to make use of white grounds, upon which they painted, and oftentimes at the first stroke, without retouching any thing, and without employing new colours. Rubens always used this way; and I have seen pictures from the hand of that great person, painted up at once, which were of a wonderful vivacity.

The reason why they made use of those kinds of grounds is, because white as well preserves a brightness under the transparency of colours, which hinders the air from altering the whiteness of the ground, as that it likewise repairs the injuries which they receive from the air, so that the ground and the colours assist and preserve each other. It is for this reason, that glazed colours have a vivacity which can never be imitated by the most lively and most brilliant colours; because, according to the common way, the different tints are simply laid on, each in its place, one after another. So true it is, that white with other strong colours with which we paint at once that which we intend to glaze, are, as it were, the life, the spirit, and the lustre of it. The ancients most certainly have found, that white grounds were much the best, because, notwithstanding that inconvenience, which their eyes received from that colour, yet they did not forbear the use of it; as Galen testifies, in his Tenth Book of the Use of the Parts. “Painters,” says he, “when they work upon their white grounds, place before them dark colours, and others mixed with blue and green, to recreate their eyes; because white is a glaring colour, which wearies and pains the sight more than any other.” I know not the reason why the use of it is left off at present, if it be not that in our days there are few painters who are curious in their colouring, or that the first strokes which are begun upon white are not seen soon enough, and that a more than French patience is required to wait till it be accomplished; and the ground, which by its whiteness tarnishes the lustre of the other colours, must be entirely covered, to make the whole work appear pleasingly.

“Let the parts which are nearest to us, and most raised,” &c. The reason of this is, that upon a flat superficies, and as much united as a cloth can be, when it is strained, the least body is very appearing, and gives a heightening to the place which it possesses: do not therefore load those places with colours, which you would make to turn; but let those be well loaded, which you would have come out of the canvas.

“Let there be so much harmony, or consent in the masses of the picture, that all the shadowings may appear as if they were but one,” &c. He has said in another place, that after great lights, great shadows are necessary, which he calls reposes. What he means by the present rule is this, that whatsoever is found in those great shadows, should partake of the colours of one another; so that the different colours which are well distinguished in the lights, seem to be but one in the shadows, by their great union.

“Let the whole picture be of one piece,” &c. That is to say, of one and the same continuity of work, and as if the picture had been painted up all at once: the Latin says, all of one pallet.

“The looking-glass will instruct you,” &c. The painter must have a principal respect to the masses, and to the effect of the whole together. The looking-glass distances the objects, and, by consequence, gives us only to see the masses, in which all the little parts are confounded. The evening, when the night approaches, will make you better understand this observation, but not so commodiously; for the proper time to make it lasts but a quarter of an hour, and the looking-glass may be useful all the day.

Since the mirror is the rule and master of all painters, as showing them their faults by distancing the objects, we may conclude, that the picture which makes not a good effect at a distance, cannot be well done; and a painter must never finish his picture, before he has examined it at some reasonable distance, or with a looking-glass, whether the masses of the lights and shadows, and the bodies of the colours, be well distributed. Giorgione and Correggio have made use of this method.

“As for a portrait, or picture by the life,” &c. The end of portraits is not so precisely, as some have imagined, to give a smiling and pleasing air, together with the resemblance; this is indeed somewhat, but not enough. It consists in expressing the true temper of those persons which it represents, and to make known their physiognomy. If the person whom you draw, for example, be naturally sad, you are to beware of giving him any gaiety, which would always be a thing which is foreign to his countenance. If he or she be merry, you are to make that good humour appear, by the expressing of those parts where it acts, and where it shows itself. If the person be grave and majestical, the smiles, or laughing, which is too sensible, will take off from that majesty, and make it look childish and indecent. In short, the painter, who has a good genius, must make a true discernment of all these things; and if he understands physiognomy, it will be more easy to him, and he will succeed better than another. Pliny tells us, “That Apelles made his pictures so very like, that a certain physiognomist and fortune-teller (as it is related by Appion the grammarian) foretold, by looking on them, the very time of their deaths, whom those pictures represented; or at what time their death happened, if such persons were already dead.”

“You are to take the utmost care, that broad lights may be joined,” &c. This must be done tenderly, yet not so as to make your colours die, by force of tormenting them; but that you should mix them as hastily as you can, and not retouch the same place, if conveniently you can avoid it.

“Broad lights,” &c. It is in vain to take pains if you cannot preserve large lights; because without them your work will never make a good effect at a distance, and also because little lights are confused and effaced proportionably as you are at a distance from the picture. This was the perpetual maxim of Correggio.

“Ought to have somewhat of greatness in them, and their outlines to be noble,” &c. As the pieces of antiquity will evidently show us.

“There is nothing more pernicious to a youth,” &c. It is common to place ourselves under the discipline of a master, of whom we have a good opinion, and whose manner we are apt to embrace with ease; which takes root more deeply in us, and augments, the more we see him work, and the more we copy after him. This happens oftentimes to that degree, and makes so great an impression in the mind of the scholar, that he cannot give his approbation to any other manner whatsoever, and believes there is no man under the cope of heaven, who is so knowing as his master.

But what is most remarkable in this point, is, that nature appears to us always like that manner which we love, and in which we have been taught; which is just like a glass through which we behold objects, and which communicates its colour to them, without our perceiving it. After I have said this, you may see of what consequence is the choice of a good master, and of following in our beginning the manner of those who have come nearest to nature. And how much injury do you think have the ill manners which have been in France done to the painters of that nation, and what hindrance have they been to the knowledge of what is well done, or of arriving to what is so, when once we know it? The Italians say to those whom they see infected with an ill manner, which they are not able to forsake, “If you knew just nothing, you would soon learn something.”

“Search whatsoever is aiding to your art, and convenient; and avoid those things which are repugnant to it,” &c. This is an admirable rule; a painter ought to have it perpetually present in his mind and memory. It resolves those difficulties which the rules beget; it loosens his hands, and assists his understanding; in short, this is the rule which sets the painter at liberty; because it teaches him, that he ought not to subject himself servilely, and be bound, like an apprentice, to the rules of his art; but that the rules of his art ought to be subject to him, and not hinder him from following the dictates of his genius, which is superior to them.

“Bodies of diverse natures, which are aggrouped, or combined together, are agreeable and pleasant to the sight,” &c. As flowers, fruits, animals, skins, sattins, velvets, beautiful flesh, works of silver, armours, instruments of music, ornaments of ancient sacrifices, and many other pleasing diversities which may present themselves to the painter’s imagination. It is most certain, that the diversity of objects recreates the sight, when they are without confusion, and when they diminish nothing of the subject on which we work. Experience teaches us, that the eye grows weary with poring perpetually on the same thing; not only on pictures, but even on nature itself: for who is he, who would not be tired in the walks of a long forest, or with beholding a large plain which is naked of trees, or in the sight of a ridge of mountains, which, instead of pleasure, give us only the view of heights and bottoms? Thus to content and fill the eye of the understanding, the best authors have had the address to sprinkle their works with pleasing digressions, with which they recreate the minds of readers. Discretion in this, as in all other things, is the surest guide; and as tedious digressions, which wander from their subject, are impertinent; so the painter, who, under pretence of diverting the eyes, would fill his picture with such varieties as alter the truth of the history, would make a ridiculous piece of painting, and a mere gallimaufry of his work.

“As also those things which seem to be slightly touched, and performed with ease,” &c. This ease attracts our eyes and spirits so much the more, because it is to be presumed, that a noble work, which appears so easy to us, is the product of a skilful hand, which is master of its art. It was in this part, that Apelles found himself superior to Protogenes, when he blamed him for not knowing when to lay down his pencil, and, as I may almost say, to make an end of finishing his piece. And it was on this account he plainly said, “That nothing was more prejudicial to painters, than too much exactness; and that the greatest part of them knew not when they had done enough:” as we have likewise a proverb, which says, “An Englishman never knows when he is well.” It is true, that the word enough is very difficult to understand. What you have to do, is to consider your subject thoroughly, and in what manner you intend to treat it, according to your rules, and the force of your genius; after this, you are to work with all the ease, and all the speed you can, without breaking your head so very much, and being so very industrious in starting scruples to yourself, and creating difficulties in your work. But it is impossible to have this facility without possessing perfectly all the precepts of the art, and to have made it habitual to you: for ease consists in making precisely that work which you ought to make, and to set every thing in its proper place with speed and readiness, which cannot be done without the rules; for they are the assured means of conducting you, to the end that you design, with pleasure. It is then most certain, (though against the opinion of many,) that the rules give facility, quiet of mind, and readiness of hand to the slowest genius; and that the same rules increase and guide that ease in those who have already received it at their birth, from the happy influence of their stars.

From whence it follows, that we may consider facility two several ways; either simply, as diligence, and a readiness of mind, and of the hand; or, as a disposition in the mind to remove readily all those difficulties which can arise in the work. The first proceeds from an active temper full of fire; and the second from a true knowledge and full possession of infallible rules: the first is pleasing, but it is not always without anxiety, because it often leads us astray; and, on the contrary, the last makes us act with a repose of mind and wonderful tranquillity, because it ascertains us of the goodness of our work: it is a great advantage to possess the first; but it is the height of perfection to have both in that manner which Rubens and Van Dyck possessed them, excepting the part of design, or drawing, which both of them too much neglected.

Those who say, that the rules are so far from giving us this facility, that, on the contrary, they puzzle and perplex the mind, and tie the hand, are generally such people who have passed half their lives in an ill practice of painting, the habit of which is grown so inveterate in them, that to change it by the rules, is to take, as it were, their pencils out of their hands, and to put them out of condition of doing any thing; in the same manner as we make a countryman dumb, whom we will not allow to speak, but by the rules of grammar.

Observe, if you please, that the facility and diligence, of which I spoke, consists not in that which we call bold strokes, and a free handling of the pencil, if it makes not a great effect at a distance: that sort of freedom belongs rather to a writing-master than a painter. I say yet farther, that it is almost impossible, that things, which are painted, should appear true and natural, where we observe these sorts of bold strokes. And all those, who have come nearest to nature, have never used that manner of painting. Those tender hairs, and those hatching strokes of the pencil, which make a kind of minced meat in painting, are very fine, I must confess, but they are never able to deceive the sight.

“Nor till you have present in your mind a perfect idea of your work,” &c. If you will have pleasure in painting, you ought to have so well considered the economy of your work, that it may be entirely made and disposed in your head, before it be begun upon the cloth. You must, I say, foresee the effect of the groupes, the ground, and the lights and shadows of every thing, the harmony of the colours, and the intelligence of all the subject, in such a manner, that whatsoever you shall put upon the cloth, may be only a copy of what is in your mind. If you make use of this conduct, you will not be put to the trouble of so often changing and rechanging.

“Let the eye be satisfied, in the first place, even against and above all other reasons,” &c. This passage has a respect to some particular licences which a painter ought to take; and, as I despair not to treat this matter more at large, I adjourn the reader to the first opportunity which I can get for his farther satisfaction on this point, to the best of my ability. But in general, he may hold for certain, that those licences are good which contribute to deceive the sight, without corrupting the truth of the subject on which the painter is to work.

“Profit yourself by the counsels of the knowing,” &c. Parrhasius and Cliton thought themselves much obliged to Socrates for the knowledge which he gave them of the passions. (See their dialogue in Xenophon, towards the end of the third book of Memoirs.) “They, who the most willingly bear reproof,” says Pliny⁠[165] the Younger, “are the very men, in whom we find more to commend than in other people.” Lysippus was extremely pleased, when Apelles told him his opinion; and Apelles as much, when Lysippus told him his. That which Praxiteles said of Nicias, in Pliny,⁠[166] shews the soul of an accomplished and an humble man. “Praxiteles being asked, which of all his works he valued most?” “Those,” says he, “which Nicias has retouched.” So much account he made of his criticisms and his opinions. You know the common practice of Apelles; when he had finished any work, he exposed it to the sight of all passengers, and concealed himself to hear the censure of his faults, with the prospect of making his advantage of the informations which unknowingly they gave him; being sensible, that the people would examine his works more rigorously than himself, and would not forgive the least mistake.

The opinions and counsels of many together are always preferable to the advice of one single person. And Cicero wonders, that any are besotted on their own productions, and say to one another, “Very good, if your works please you, mine are not unpleasing to me.”⁠[167] In effect, there are many who, through presumption, or out of shame to be reprehended, never let their works be seen. But there is nothing can be of worse consequence; “for the disease is nourished and increases,” says Virgil,⁠[168] “while it is concealed.” “There are none but fools,” says Horace, “who, out of shamefacedness, hide their ulcers, which, if shewn, might easily be healed:

There are others, who have not altogether so much of this foolish bashfulness, and who ask every one’s opinion with prayers and earnestness; but if you freely and ingenuously give them notice of their faults, they never fail to make some pitiful excuse for them; or, which is worse, they take in ill part the service which you thought you did them, which they but seemingly desired of you, and out of an established custom amongst the greatest part of painters. If you desire to get yourself any honour, and acquire a reputation by your works, there is no surer way than to shew them to persons of good sense, and chiefly to those who are critics in the art; and to take their counsel with the same mildness, and the same sincerity, as you desired them to give it you. You must also be industrious to discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest; for you may be assured, that they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.

“But if you have no knowing friend,” &c. Quinctilian gives the reason of this, when he says, “that the best means to correct our faults, is doubtless this, to remove our designs out of sight, for some space of time, and not to look upon our pictures: to the end, that after this interval we may look on them as it were with other eyes, and as a new work, which was of another hand, and not our own”. Our own productions do but too much flatter us; they are always too pleasing, and it is impossible not to be fond of them at the moment of their conception. They are children of a tender age, which are not capable of drawing our hatred on them. It is said, that apes, as soon as they have brought their young into the world, keep their eyes continually fastened on them, and are never weary of admiring their beauty; so amorous is nature of whatsoever she produces.

“To the end that he may cultivate those talents which make his genius,” &c.

“That we may undertake nothing beyond our forces, we must endeavour to know them.” On this prudence our reputation depends. Cicero calls it “a good grace,” because it makes a man seen in his greatest lustre. “It is,” says he,⁠[170] “a becoming grace, which we shall easily make appear, if we are careful to cultivate that which nature has given us in propriety, and made our own; provided it be no vice, or imperfection. We ought to undertake nothing which is repugnant to nature in general; and when we have paid her this duty, we are bound so religiously to follow our own nature, that though many things which are more serious and more important, present themselves to us, yet we are always to conform our studies and our exercises to our natural inclinations. It avails nothing to dispute against nature, and think to obtain what she refuses; for then we eternally follow what we can never reach; for, as the proverb says, there is nothing can please, nothing can be graceful, which we enterprise in spite of Minerva; that is to say, in spite of nature. When we have considered all these things attentively, it will then be necessary that every man should regard that in particular which nature has made his portion, and that he should cultivate it with care. It is not his business to give himself the trouble of trying whether it will become him to put on the nature of another man, or, as one would say, to act the person of another; there is nothing which can more become us, than what is properly the gift of nature. Let every one therefore endeavour to understand his own talent, and, without flattering himself, let him make a true judgment of his own virtues, and his own defects and vices, that he may not appear to have less judgment than the comedians, who do not always chuse the best plays, but those which are best for them; that is, those which are most in the compass of their acting. Thus we are to fix on those things for which we have the strongest inclination. And if it sometimes happens, that we are forced, by necessity, to apply ourselves to such other things, to which we are no ways inclined, we must bring it so about, by our care and industry, that if we perform them not very well, at least we may not do them so very ill, as to be shamed by them: we are not so much to strain ourselves, to make those virtues appear in us, which really we have not, as to avoid those imperfections which may dishonour us.” These are the thoughts and the words of Cicero, which I have translated, retrenching only such things as were of no concernment to my subject: I was not of opinion to add any thing, and the reader, I doubt not, will find his satisfaction in them.

“While you meditate on these truths, and observe them diligently,” &c. There is a great connection betwixt this precept and that other, which tells you, “That you are to pass no day without a line.” It is impossible to become an able artist, without making your art habitual to you; and it is impossible to gain an exact habitude, without an infinite number of acts, and without perpetual practice. In all arts the rules of them are learned in little time; but the perfection is not acquired without a long practice, and a severe diligence. “We never saw, that laziness produced any thing which was excellent,” says Maximus Tyrius;⁠[171] and Quinctilian tells us, “That the arts draw their beginning from nature;” the want we often have of them causes us to search the means of becoming able in them, and exercise makes us entirely masters of them.

“The morning is the best and most proper part of the day,” &c. Because then the imagination is not clouded with the vapours of meat, nor distracted by visits, which are not usually made in the morning. And the mind, by the sleep of the foregoing night, is refreshed and recreated from the toils of former studies. Malherbe says well to this purpose,

“Let no day pass over you, without a line,” &c. That is to say, without working, without giving some strokes of the pencil or the crayon. This was the precept of Apelles; and it is of so much the more necessity, because painting is an art of much length and time, and is not to be learned without great practice. Michael Angelo, at the age of fourscore years, said, “That he learned something every day.”

“Be ready to put into your table-book,” &c. As it was the custom of Titian and the Carraches. There are yet remaining in the hands of some who are curious in painting, many thoughts and observations, which those great men have made on paper, and in their table-books, which they carried continually about them.

“Wine and good cheer are no great friends to painting; they serve only to recreate the mind, when it is opprest and spent with labour,” &c. “During the time,” says Pliny,⁠[172] “that Protogenes was drawing the picture of Jalysus, which was the best of all his works, he took no other nourishment than lupines, mixed with a little water, which served him both for meat and drink, for fear of clogging his imagination, by the luxury of his food;” Michael Angelo, while he was drawing his Day of Judgment, fed only on bread and wine at dinner; and Vasari observes in his life, that he was so sober, that he slept but little, and that he often rose in the night to work, as being not disturbed by the vapours of his thin repasts.

“But delights in the liberty which belongs to the bachelors estate,” &c. We never see large, beautiful, and well-tasted fruits, proceeding from a tree which is encompassed round, and choked with thorns and briars. Marriage draws a world of business on our hands, subjects us to law-suits, and loads us with multitudes of domestic cares, which are as so many thorns that encompass a painter, and hinder him from producing his works in that perfection of which otherwise he is capable. Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Hannibal Carrache, were never married: and amongst the ancient painters we find none recorded for being married, but only Apelles, to whom Alexander the Great made a present of his own mistress Campaspe; which yet I would have understood, without offence to the institution of marriage; for that calls down many blessings upon families, by the carefulness of a virtuous wife. If marriage be in general a remedy against concupiscence, it is doubly so in respect of painters, who are more frequently under the occasions of sin, than other men, because they are under a frequent necessity of seeing nature bare-faced. Let every one examine his own strength upon this point: but let him prefer the interest of his soul, to that of his art, and of his fortune.

“Painting naturally withdraws from noise and tumult,” &c. I have said at the end of the first remark, that both poetry and painting were upheld by the strength of imagination. Now there is nothing which warms it more than repose and solitude; because, in that estate, the mind being freed from all sorts of business, and in a kind of sanctuary, undisturbed by vexatious visits, is more capable of forming noble thoughts, and of application to its studies:

We may properly say the same of painting, by reason of its conformity with poetry, as I have shewn in the first remark.

“Let not the covetous design of growing rich,” &c. We read in Pliny, that Nicias refused sixty talents from king Attalus, and rather chose to make a free gift of his picture to his country. “I enquired of a prudent man,” says a grave author,⁠[173] “in what times those noble pictures were made, which now we see; and desired him to explain to me some of their subjects, which I did not well understand. I asked him likewise the reason of that great negligence, which is now visible amongst painters; and from whence it proceeded, that the most beautiful arts were now buried in oblivion; and principally painting, a faint shadow of which is at present remaining to us? To which he thus replied, that the immoderate desire of riches had produced this change: for of old, when naked virtue had her charms, the noble arts then flourished in their vigour; and if there was any contest amongst men, it was only who should be the first discoverer of what might be of advantage to posterity. Lysippus and Myron, those renowned sculptors, who could give a soul to brass, left no heirs, no inheritance, behind them; because they were more careful of acquiring fame than riches. But as for us of this present age, it seems, by the manner of our conduct, that we upbraid antiquity for being as covetous of virtue as we are of vice; wonder not so much, therefore, if painting has lost its strength and vigour, because many are now of opinion, that a heap of gold is much more beautiful than all the pictures and statues of Apelles and Phidias, and all the noble performances of Greece.”

I would not exact so great an act of abstinence from our modern painters; for I am not ignorant, that the hope of gain is a wonderful sharp spur in arts, and that it gives industry to the artist; from whence it was, that Juvenal said, even of the Greeks themselves, who were the inventors of painting, and who first understood all the graces of it, and its whole perfection,

But I could heartily wish, that the same hope which flatters them, did not also corrupt them; and did not snatch out of their hands a lame imperfect piece, rudely daubed over with too little reflection, and too much haste.

“The qualities requisite to form an excellent painter,” &c. It is to be confessed, that very few painters have those qualities which are required by our author, because there are very few who are able painters. There was a time, when only they who were of noble blood were permitted to exercise this art; because it is to be presumed, that all these ingredients of a good painter are not ordinarily found in men of vulgar birth. And, in all appearance, we may hope, that though there be no edict in France, which takes away the liberty of painting, from those to whom nature has refused the honour of being born gentlemen, yet at least that the Royal Academy will admit henceforward only such, who being endued with all the good qualities, and the talents which are required for painting, those endowments may be to them instead of an honourable birth. It is certain, that which debases painting, and makes it descend to the vilest and most despicable kind of trade, is the great multitude of painters, who have neither noble souls, nor any talent for the art, nor even so much as common sense. The origin of this great evil is, that there have always been admitted into the schools of painting, all sorts of children promiscuously, without examination of them, and without observing (for some convenient space of time) if they were conducted to this art by their inward disposition, and all necessary talents, rather than by a foolish inclination of their own, or by the avarice of their relations, who put them to painting, as a trade which they believe to be somewhat more gainful than another. The qualities properly required are these following:—

A good judgment, that they may do nothing against reason and verisimility.

A docile mind, that they may profit by instructions, and receive, without arrogance, the opinion of every one, and principally of knowing men.

A noble heart, that they may propose glory to themselves, and reputation rather than riches.

A sublimity and reach of thought, to conceive readily, to produce beautiful ideas, and to work on their subjects nobly, and after a lofty manner, wherein we may observe somewhat that is delicate, ingenious, and uncommon.

A warm and vigorous fancy, to arrive at least to some degree of perfection, without being tired with the pains and study which are required in painting.

Health, to resist the dissipation of spirits, which are apt to be consumed by pains-taking.

Youth, because painting requires a great experience, and a long practice.

Beauty, or handsomeness, because a painter paints himself in all his pictures; and nature loves to produce her own likeness.

A convenient fortune, that he may give his whole time to study, and may work cheerfully, without being haunted with the dreadful image of poverty, ever present to his mind.

Labour, because the speculation is nothing without the practice.

A love for his art, we suffer nothing in the labour which is pleasing to us; or if it happen that we suffer, we are pleased with the pain.

And to be under the discipline of a knowing master, &c. Because all depends on the beginnings; and because commonly they take the manner of their master, and are formed according to his gusto. See verse 422, and the remark upon it. All these good qualities are insignificant, and unprofitable to the painter, if some outward dispositions are wanting to him. By which I mean favourable times, such as are times of peace, which is the nurse of all noble arts: there must also some fair occasion offer to make their skill manifest, by the performance of some considerable work within their power; and a protector, who must be a person of authority, one who takes upon himself the care of their fortune, at least in some measure, and knows how to speak well of them in time and place convenient. “It is of much importance,” says the younger Pliny, “in what times virtue appears. And there is no wit, howsoever excellent it may be, which can make itself immediately known; time and opportunity are necessary to it, and a person who can assist us with his favour, and be a Mæcenas to us.”

“And life is so short, that it is not sufficient for so long an art,” &c. Not only painting but all other arts, considered in themselves, require almost an infinite time to possess them perfectly. It is in this sense, that Hippocrates begins his Aphorisms with this saying, “That art is long, and life is short.” But if we consider arts as they are in us, and according to a certain degree of perfection, sufficient enough to make it known, that we possess them above the common sort, and are comparatively better than most others, we shall not find that life is too short on that account, provided our time be well employed. It is true, that painting is an art which is difficult, and a great undertaking; but they who are endued with the qualities that are necessary to it, have no reason to be discouraged by that apprehension. “Labour always appears difficult before it is tried.”⁠[174] The passages by sea, and the knowledge of the stars, have been thought impossible, which notwithstanding have been found and compassed, and that with ease, by those who endeavoured after them. “It is a shameful thing,” says Cicero,⁠[175] “to be weary of enquiry, when what we search is excellent.” That which causes us to lose most of our time, is the repugnance which we naturally have to labour, and the ignorance, the malice, and the negligence of our masters: we waste much of our time in walking, and talking to no manner of purpose, in making and receiving idle visits; in play, and other pleasures which we indulge; without reckoning those hours which we lose in the too great care of our bodies; and in sleep, which we often lengthen out till the day is far advanced; and thus we pass that life which we reckon to be short, because we count by the years which we have lived rather than by those which we have employed in study. It is evident, that they who lived before us, have passed through all those difficulties, to arrive at that perfection which we discover in their works; though they wanted some of the advantages which we possess, and none had laboured for them as they have done for us. For it is certain, that those ancient masters, and those of the last preceding ages, have left such beautiful patterns to us, that a better and more happy age can never be than ours; and chiefly under the reign of our present king, who encourages all the noble arts, and spares nothing, to give them the share of that felicity, of which he is so bountiful to his kingdom; and to conduct them with all manner of advantages to that supreme degree of excellence, which may be worthy of such a master, and of that sovereign love which he has for them. Let us therefore put our hands to the work, without being discouraged by the length of time, which is requisite for our studies; but let us seriously contrive how to proceed with the best order, and to follow a ready, diligent, and well understood method.

“Take courage, therefore, O ye noble youths! ye legitimate offspring of Minerva, who are born under the influence of a happy planet,” &c. Our author intends not here to sow in a barren, ungrateful ground, where his precepts can bear no fruit: he speaks to young painters, but to such only who are born under the influence of a happy star; that is to say, those who have received from nature the necessary dispositions of becoming great in the art of painting; and not to those who follow that study through caprice, or by a sottish inclination; or for lucre, who are either incapable of receiving the precepts, or will make a bad use of them when received.

“You will do well,” &c. Our author speaks not here of the first rudiments of design; as, for example, the management of the pencil, the just relation which the copy ought to have to the original, &c. He supposes, that before he begins his studies, one ought to have a facility of hand, to imitate the best designs, and the noblest pictures and statues; that, in few words, he should have made himself a key, wherewith to open the closet of Minerva, and to enter into that sacred place, where those fair treasures are to be found in all abundance, and even offer themselves to us, to make our advantage of them, by our care and genius.

“To begin with geometry,” &c. Because that is the ground of perspective, without which nothing is to be done in painting. Besides, geometry is of great use in architecture, and in all things which are of its dependence; it is particularly necessary for sculptors.

“Set yourself on designing after the antient Greeks,” &c. Because they are the rule of beauty, and give us a good gusto; for which reason it is very proper to tie ourselves to them, I mean generally speaking; but the particular fruit which we gather from them, is what follows: To learn by heart four several airs of heads; of a man, a woman, a child, and an old man. I mean those which have the most general approbation; for example, those of the Apollo, of the Venus de Medecis, of the little Nero, (that is, when he was a child,) and of the god Tiber. It would be a good means of learning them, if when you have designed one after the statue itself, you design it immediately after from your own imagination, without seeing it; and afterwards examine, if your own work be conformable to the first design; thus exercising yourself on the same head, and turning it on ten or twelve sides. You must do the same to the feet, to the hands, to the whole figure. But to understand the beauty of these figures, and the justness of their outlines, it will be necessary to learn anatomy. When I speak of four heads, and four figures, I pretend not to hinder any one from designing many others, after this first study; but my meaning is, only to show by this, that a great variety of things undertaken at the same time, dissipates the imagination, and hinders all the profit; in the same manner, as too many sorts of meat are not easily digested, but corrupt in the stomach, instead of nourishing the parts.

“And cease not day or night from labour, till by your continual practice,” &c. In the first principles, the students have not so much need of precepts as of practice; and the antique statues being the rule of beauty, you may exercise yourselves in imitating them, without apprehending any consequence of ill habits and bad ideas, which can be formed in the soul of a young beginner. It is not as in the school of a master, whose manner and whose gusto are ill, and under whose discipline the scholar spoils himself the more he exercises.

“And when afterwards your judgment shall grow stronger,” &c. It is necessary to have the soul well formed, and to have a right judgment to make the application of his rules upon good pictures, and to take nothing but the good. For there are some who imagine, that whatsoever they find in the picture of a master who has acquired reputation, must of necessity be excellent: and these kind of people never fail, when they copy, to follow the bad, as well as the good things, and to observe them so much the more, because they seem to be extraordinary, and out of the common road of others, so that at last they come to make a law and precept of them. You ought not also to imitate what is truly good in a crude and gross manner, so that it may be found out in your works, that whatsoever beauties there are in them, come from such or such a master. But, in this, imitate the bees, who pick from every flower that which they find most proper in it to make honey. In the same manner, a young painter should collect from many pictures what he finds to be the most beautiful; and from his several collections form that manner which thereby he makes his own.

“A certain grace, which was wholly natural and peculiar to him,” &c. Raphael in this may be compared to Apelles, who, in praising the works of other painters, said, “That gracefulness was wanting to them;” and that, without vanity, he might say, it was his own peculiar portion. See the Remark on the 218th verse.

“Julio Romano, educated from his childhood in the country of the Muses,” &c. He means in the studies of the belle lettre, and above all in poesy, which he infinitely loved. It appears, that he formed his ideas, and made his gusto, from reading Homer; and in that imitated Zeuxis and Polygnotus, who, as Maximus Tyrius relates, treated their subjects in their pictures as Homer did in his poetry.

To these remarks I have annexed the opinions of our author, upon the best and chiefest painters of the two foregoing ages. He tells you candidly, and briefly, what were their excellencies, and what their failings.

“I pass in silence many things which will be more amply treated in the ensuing Commentary.” It is evident by this, how much we lose, and what damage we have sustained by our author’s death, since those commentaries had undoubtedly contained things of high value and of great instruction.

“To intrust with the Muses,” &c. That is to say, to write in verse; poetry being under their protection, and consecrated to them.

Painting was in its perfection amongst the Greeks. The principal schools were at Sycion, afterwards at Rhodes, at Athens, and at Corinth, and at last in Rome. Wars and luxury having overthrown the Roman empire, it was totally extinguished, together with all the noble arts, the studies of humanity, and the other sciences.

It began to appear again, in the year 1450, amongst some painters of Florence, of which Domenico Chirlandaio was one, who was master to Michael Angelo, and had some kind of reputation, though his manner was Gothic, and very dry.

Michael Angelo, his disciple, flourished in the times of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and of seven successive popes. He was a painter, a sculptor, and an architect, both civil and military. The choice which he made of his attitudes was not always beautiful or pleasing; his gusto of design was not the finest, nor his outlines the most elegant; the folds of his draperies, and the ornaments of his habits, were neither noble nor graceful. He was not a little fantastical and extravagant in his compositions; he was bold, even to rashness, in taking liberties against the rules of perspective. His colouring is not over true, or very pleasant. He knew not the artifice of the lights and shadows; but he designed more learnedly, and better understood all the knittings of the bones, with the office and situation of the muscles, than any of the modern painters. There appears a certain air of greatness and severity in his figures; in both which he has oftentimes succeeded. But above the rest of his excellencies, was his wonderful skill in architecture, wherein he has not only surpassed all the moderns, but even the ancients also. The St Peters of Rome, the St Johns of Florence, the Capitol, the Palazzo Farnese, and his own house, are sufficient testimonies of it. His disciples were Marcello Venusti, Il Rosso, Georgio Vasari, Fra. Bastiano, who commonly painted for him, and many other Florentines.

Pietro Perugino designed with sufficient knowledge of nature; but he is dry, and his manner little. His disciple was,

Raphael Santio, who was born on Good Friday, in the year 1483, and died on Good Friday, in the year 1520, so that he lived only thirty-seven years complete. He surpassed all modern painters, because he possessed more of the excellent parts of painting than any other: and it is believed that he equalled the ancients, excepting only that he designed not naked bodies with so much learning as Michael Angelo; but his gusto of design is purer, and much better. He painted not with so good, so full, and so graceful a manner as Correggio; nor has he any thing of the contrast of the lights and shadows, or so strong and free a colouring as Titian; but he had a better disposition in his pieces, without comparison, than either Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, or all the rest of the succeeding painters to our days. His choice of attitudes, of heads, of ornaments; the suitableness of his drapery, his manner of designing, his varieties, his contrasts, his expressions, were beautiful in perfection; but above all, he possessed the graces in so advantageous a manner, that he has never since been equalled by any other. There are portraits, or single figures, of his, which are finished pieces. He was an admirable architect. He was handsome, well made, and tall of stature, civil and well-natured, never refusing to teach another what he knew himself. He had many scholars, amongst others, Julio Romano, Polydore, Gaudenzio, Giovanni d’Udine, and Michael Coxis. His graver was Marc Antonio, whose prints are admirable for the correctness of their outlines.

Julio Romano was the most excellent of all Raphael’s disciples. He had conceptions which were more extraordinary, more profound, and more elevated, than even his master himself. He was also a great architect; his gusto was pure and exquisite. He was a great imitator of the ancients; giving a clear testimony in all his productions, that he was desirous to restore to practice the same forms and fabrics which were ancient. He had the good fortune to find great persons, who committed to him the care of edifices, vestibules, and porticos, all tetrastyles, xistes, theatres, and such other places as are not now in use. He was wonderful in his choice of attitudes. His manner was drier and harder than any of Raphael’s school. He did not exactly understand the lights and shadows, or the colours. He is frequently harsh and ungraceful. The folds of his draperies are neither beautiful nor great, easy nor natural; but all extravagant, and too like the habits of fantastical comedians. He was very knowing in human learning. His disciples were Pirro Ligorio, (who was admirable for ancient buildings, as for towns, temples, tombs, and trophies, and the situation of ancient edifices,) Æneas Vico, Bonasone, Georgio Mantuano, and others.

Polydore, a disciple of Raphael, designed admirably well, as to the practical part, having a particular genius for freezes, as we may see by those of white and black which he has painted at Rome. He imitated the ancients; but his manner was greater than that of Julio Romano; nevertheless, Julio seems to be the truer. Some admirable groupes are seen in his works, and such as are not elsewhere to be found. He coloured very seldom, and made landscapes of a reasonable good gusto.

Gio. Bellino, one of the first who was of any consideration at Venice, painted very drily, according to the manner of his time. He was very knowing, both in architecture and perspective. He was Titian’s first master, which may easily be observed in the first painting of that noble disciple; in which we may remark, that propriety of colours which his master has observed.

About this time, Georgione, the contemporary of Titian, came to excel in portraits, or face-painting, and also in great works. He first began to make choice of glowing and agreeable colours, the perfection and entire harmony of which were afterwards to be found in Titian’s pictures. He dressed his figures wonderfully well; and it may be truly said, that, but for him, Titian had never arrived to that height of perfection, which proceeded from the rivalship and jealousy of honour betwixt those two.

Titian was one of the greatest colourists who was ever known. He designed with much more ease and practice than Georgione. There are to be seen women and children of his hand, which are admirable, both for the design and colouring. The gusto of them is delicate, charming, and noble, with a certain pleasing negligence of the head dresses, the draperies, and ornaments of habits, which are wholly peculiar to him. As for the figures of men, he has designed them but moderately well. There are even some of his draperies which are mean, and savour of a little gusto. His painting is wonderfully glowing, sweet, and delicate. He made portraits, which were extremely noble; the attitudes of them being very graceful, grave, diversified, and adorned after a very becoming fashion. No man ever painted landscape with so great a manner, so good a colouring, and with such a resemblance of nature. For eight or ten years space, he copied with great labour and exactness whatsoever he undertook; thereby to make himself an easy way, and to establish some general maxims for his future conduct. Besides the excellent gusto which he had of colours, in which he excelled all mortal men, he perfectly understood how to give every thing the touches which were most suitable and proper to them; such as distinguished them from each other, and which gave the greatest spirit, and the most of truth. The pictures, which he made in his beginning and in the declension of his age, are of a dry and mean manner. He lived ninety-nine years. His disciples were Paulo Veronese, Giacomo Tintoret, Giacomo da Ponte Bassano, and his sons.

Paulo Veronese was wonderfully graceful in his airs of women, with great variety of shining draperies, and incredible vivacity and ease. Nevertheless, his composition is sometimes improper, and his design is incorrect; but his colouring, and whatsoever depends on it, is so very charming in his pictures, that it surprises at the first sight, and makes us totally forget those other qualities which are wanting in him.

Tintoret was the disciple of Titian, great in the practical part of design, but sometimes also sufficiently extravagant. He had an admirable genius for painting, if he had had as great an affection to his art, and as much patience in undergoing the difficulties of it, as he had fire and vivacity of nature. He has made pictures not inferior in beauty to those of Titian. His composition, and his dresses, are, for the most part, improper, and his outlines are not correct; but his colouring, and the dependencies of it, like that of his master, are most admirable.

The Bassans had a more mean and poor gusto in painting than Tintoret, and their designs were also less correct than his: they had, indeed, an excellent gusto of colours, and have touched all kinds of animals with an admirable manner, but were notoriously imperfect in the composition and design.

Correggio painted at Parma two large cupolas in fresco, and some altar-pieces. This artist found out certain natural and unaffected graces, for his Madonnas, his Saints, and Little Children, which were peculiar to him. His manner is exceeding great, both for the design and for the work, but withal is very incorrect. His pencil was both easy and delightful; and, it is to be acknowledged, that he painted with great strength, great heightning, great sweetness, and liveliness of colours, in which none surpassed him.

He understood how to distribute his lights in such a manner as was wholly peculiar to himself; which gave a great force and great roundness to his figures. This manner consists in extending a large light, and then making it lose itself insensibly in the dark shadowings which he placed out of the masses; and those give them this great roundness, without our being able to perceive from whence proceeds so much of force, and so vast a pleasure to the sight. It is probable, that, in this part, the rest of the Lombard school copied him. He had no great choice of graceful attitudes, nor of distribution for beautiful groupes; his design oftentimes appears lame, and the positions are not much observed in them. The aspects of his figures are many times unpleasing; but his manner of designing heads, hands, feet, and other parts, is very great, and well deserves our imitation. In the conduct and finishing of a picture, he has done wonders; for he painted with so much union, that his greatest works seemed to have been finished in the compass of one day, and appear as if we saw them from a looking-glass. His landscape is equally beautiful with his figures.

At the same time with Correggio, lived and flourished Parmegiano; who, besides his great manner of well colouring, excelled also both in invention and design, with a genius full of gentleness and of spirit, having nothing that was ungraceful in his choice of attitudes, and in the dresses of his figures, which we cannot say of Correggio. There are pieces of his to be seen, which are both beautiful and correct.

These two painters last mentioned had very good disciples, but they are known only to those of their own province; and besides, there is little to be credited of what his countrymen say; for painting is wholly extinguished amongst them.

I say nothing of Leonardo da Vinci, because I have seen but little of his, though he restored the arts at Milan, and had many disciples there.

Ludovico Carrache, cousin of Hannibal and Augustine, studied at Parma after Correggio; and excelled in design and colouring with such a gracefulness, and so much candour, that Guido, the scholar of Hannibal, did afterwards imitate him with great success. There are some of his pictures to be seen, which are very beautiful and well understood. He made his ordinary residence at Bologna; and it was he who put the pencil into the hands of Hannibal his cousin.

Hannibal, in a little time, excelled his master in all parts of painting. He imitated Correggio, Titian, and Raphael, in their different manners as he pleased; excepting only, that you see not in his pictures the nobleness, the graces, and the charms of Raphael; and his outlines are neither so pure nor so elegant as his. In all other things he is wonderfully accomplished, and of an universal genius.

Augustine, brother to Hannibal, was also a very good painter, and an admirable graver. He had a natural son, called Antonio, who died at the age of thirty-five, and who (according to the general opinion) would have surpassed his uncle Hannibal; for by what he left behind him, it appears that he was of a more lofty genius.

Guido chiefly imitated Ludovico Carrache, yet retained always somewhat of the manner which his master, Denis Calvert, the Fleming, taught him. This Calvert lived at Bologna, and was competitor and rival to Ludovico Carrache. Guido made the same use of Albert Durer as Virgil did of old Ennius; borrowed what pleased him, and made it afterwards his own; that is, he accommodated what was good in Albert to his own manner; which he executed with so much gracefulness and beauty, that he alone got more money and more reputation in his time than his own masters and all the scholars of the Carraches, though they were of greater capacity than himself. His heads yield no manner of precedence to those of Raphael.

Sisto Badolocchi designed the best of all his disciples, but he died young.

Domenichino was a very knowing painter, and very laborious, but otherwise of no great natural endowments. It is true, he was profoundly skilled in all the parts of painting, but wanting genius, (as I said,) he had less of nobleness in his works than all the rest who studied in the school of the Carraches.

Albani was excellent in all that belonged to painting, and adorned with variety of learning.

Lanfranc, a man of a great and sprightly wit, supported his reputation for a long time with an extraordinary gusto of design and colouring. But his foundation being only on the practical part, he at length lost ground in point of correctness; so that many of his pieces appear extravagant and fantastical. And after his decease the school of the Carraches went daily to decay in all the parts of painting.

Gio. Viola was very old before he learned landscape; the knowledge of which was imparted to him by Hannibal Carrache, who took pleasure to instruct him, so that he painted many of that kind, which are wonderfully fine, and well coloured.

If we cast our eyes towards Germany and the Low Countries, we may there behold Albert Durer, Lucas Van Leyden, Holbein, Aldegrave, &c. who were all contemporaries. Amongst these, Albert Durer and Holbein were both of them wonderfully knowing, and had certainly been of the first form of painters, had they travelled into Italy; for nothing can be laid to their charge, but only that they had a Gothic gusto. As for Holbein, he performed yet better than Raphael; and I have seen a portrait of his painting, with which one of Titian’s could not come in competition.

Amongst the Flemings, we had Rubens, who derived from his birth, a lively, free, noble, and universal genius: a genius which was capable not only of raising him to the rank of the ancient painters, but also to the highest employment in the service of his country; so that he was chosen for one of the most important embassies of our age. His gusto of design savours somewhat more of the Fleming than of the beauty of the antique, because he staid not long at Rome. And though we cannot but observe in all his paintings somewhat of great and noble, yet, it must be confessed, that, generally speaking, he designed not correctly; but, for all the other parts of painting, he was as absolute a master of them, and possessed them all as thoroughly as any of his predecessors in that noble art. His principal studies were made in Lombardy, after the works of Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoret; whose cream he has skimmed, (if you will allow the phrase,) and extracted from their several beauties many general maxims and infallible rules, which he always followed, and by which he has acquired in his works a greater facility than that of Titian; more of purity, truth, and science, than Paul Veronese; and more of majesty, repose, and moderation, than Tintoret. To conclude: his manner is so solid, so knowing, and so ready, that it may seem this rare accomplished genius was sent from heaven to instruct mankind in the art of painting.

His school was full of admirable disciples, amongst whom, Van Dyck was he who best comprehended all the rules and general maxims of his master; and who has even excelled him in the delicacy of his colouring, and in his cabinet-pieces; but his gusto, in the designing part, was nothing better than that of Rubens.

END OF THE SEVENTEENTH VOLUME.

Edinburgh:
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