CANTO VI.

[The Heroine meets the Sylvan Deities.]

IX.

The wyld wood-gods, arrivéd in the place,
There find the virgin, doolfull, desolate,
With ruffled rayments, and fayre blubbred face,
As her outrageous foe had left her late;

And trembling yet through feare of former hate:
All stand amazed at so un'couth sight,
And gin to pittie her unhappie state;
All stand astonied at her beauty bright,

In their rude eyes unworthy of so wofull plight.

XIII.

Their harts she ghesseth by their humble guise,
And yieldes her to extremitie of time:

So from the ground she fearlesse doth arise,
And walketh forth without suspect of crime:
They, all as glad as birdes of ioyous pryme,
Thence led her forth, about her dauncing round,
Shouting, and singing all a shepheards ryme;
And with greene braunches strowing all the ground,
Do worship her as queene with olive girlond cround.

XIV.

And all the way their merry pipes they sound,
That all the woods with double echo ring;
And with their hornéd feet doe weare the ground,
Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant spring.
So towards old Sylvanus they her bring;
Who, with the noyse awakéd, commeth out
To weet the cause, his weake steps governing
And aged limbs on cypresse stadle' stout;
And with an yvie twyne his waste is girt about.

XVI.

The wood-borne people fall before her flat,
And worship her as goddesse of the wood;
And old Sylvanus selfe bethinkes not, what
To thinke of wight so fayre; but gazing stood
In doubt to deeme her borne of earthly brood:

1 A support.

Sometimes dame Venus selfe he seemes to see;

But Venus never had so sober mood:

Sometimes Diana he her takes to be;

But misseth bow and shaftes, and buskins to her knee.

BOOK II. CANTO XII.

[The Harmony of Nature.]

LXX.

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,
Such as attonce might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,
To read what manner musicke that mote bee;
For all that pleasing is to living eare

Was there consorted in one harmonee;

Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

LXXI.

The ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

RICHARD HOOKER.

Richard Hooker, an eminent divine, was born near Exeter, in 1553, and died in 1600. His life was marked by no striking incidents. His chief work on "Ecclesiastical Polity" is a work of great erudition and eloquence. In the words of Hallam, "So stately and graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrase, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity."

CHURCH MUSIC.

TOUCHING musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing

effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent, being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing, rising and falling, the very steps and inflections every way, the turns and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that, whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other. In harmony, the very image and character even of virtue and vice is perceived, the mind delighted with their resemblances, and brought, by having them often iterated, into a love of the things themselves. For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent than some kinds of harmony; than some, nothing more strong and potent unto good. And that there is such a difference of one kind from another, we need no proof but our own experience, inasmuch as we are at the hearing of some more inclined unto sorrow and heaviness, of some more mollified and softened in mind; one kind apter to stay and settle us, another to move and stir our affections; there is that draweth to a marvellous grave and sober mediocrity; there is also that carrieth, as it were, into ecstasies, filling the mind with a heavenly joy, and for the time in a manner severing it from the body; so that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort, and carried from the ear to the spiritual faculties of our souls, is, by a native puissance and efficacy, greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled; apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager; sovereign against melancholy and despair; forcible to draw forth tears of devotion, if the mind be such as can yield them; able both to move and to moderate all affections. The prophet David having, therefore, singular knowledge, not in poetry alone, but in music also, judged them both to be things most necessary for the house of God, left behind him to that purpose a number of divinely indited poems, and was further the author of adding unto poetry melody in public prayer; melody, both vocal and instrumental, for the raising up of

men's hearts, and the sweetening of the affections towards God. In which considerations the church of Christ doth likewise at this present day retain it as an ornament to God's service, and a help to our own devotion. They which, under pretence of the law ceremonial abrogated, require the abrogation of instrumental music, approving, nevertheless, the use of vocal melody to remain, must shew some reason wherefore the one should be thought a legal ceremony, and not the other. In church music, curiosity or ostentation of art, wanton, or light, or unsuitable harmony, such as only pleaseth the ear, and doth not naturally serve to the very kind and degree of those impressions which the matter that goeth with it leaveth, or is apt to leave, in men's minds, doth rather blemish and disgrace that we do, than add either beauty or furtherance unto it. On the other side, the faults prevented, the force and efficacy of the thing itself, when it drowneth not utterly, but fitly suiteth with matter altogether sounding to the praise of God, is in truth most admirable, and doth much edify, if not the understanding, because it teacheth not, yet surely the affection, because therein it worketh much. They must have hearts very dry and tough, from whom the melody of the psalms doth not sometime draw that wherein a mind religiously affected delighteth.

FRANCIS BACON.

Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, an eminent philosopher and jurist, was born in London, in 1561, and died in 1626. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper; and his uncle, Lord Burleigh, and his cousin, Sir Robert Cecil, were ministers of Queen Elizabeth, so that from early youth he was intimate with the most eminent persons of his time. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His intellect in scope and power has, prob ably, never been excelled, certainly not by any of our English race. Besides the Essays, which are wonderful specimens of crystallized thought, his principal works are "On the Advancement of Learning," and the "Novum Organon," a refutation, or rather substitute, for the philosophy of Aristotle. The later years of this illustrious man were passed in disgrace on account of his corrupt practices as judge. The lines of Pope will be remembered,

"If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."

A very thorough and interesting summary of his life and works may be read in the Essaya of Macaulay. A more favorable view of his character, not wholly successful as a defence, but not without plausibility, is presented in W. Hepworth Dixon's "Personal History of Lord Bacon."

OF CUNNING.

WE take cunning for a sinister, or crooked wisdom; and certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise

man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men. Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to understand matters; for many are perfect in men's humors, that are not greatly capable of the real part of business, which is the constitution of one that hath studied men more than books. Such men are fitter for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in their own alley: turn them to new men, and they have lost their aim; so as the old rule, to know a fool from a wise man, "Mitte ambos nudos ad ignotos, et videbis," doth scarce hold for them. And because these cunning men are like haberdashers of small wares, it is not amiss to set forth their shop.

1

Another is, that when you have anything to obtain of present despatch, you entertain and amuse the party with whom you deal with some other discourse, that he be not too much awake to make objections. I knew a counsellor and secretary, that never came to Queen Elizabeth of England with bills to sign, but he would always first put her into some discourse of state, that she might the less mind the bills.

The like surprise may be made by moving things when the party is in haste, and cannot stay to consider advisedly of that is moved. If a man would cross a business that he doubts some other would handsomely and effectually move, let him pretend to wish it well, and move it himself in such sort as may foil it.

The breaking off in the midst of that one was about to say, as if he took himself up, breeds a greater appetite in him with whom you confer to know more.

And because it works better when anything seemeth to be gotten from you by question, than if you offer it of yourself, you may lay a bait for a question, by showing another visage and countenance than you are wont; to the end, to give occasion for the party to ask what the matter is of the change, as Nehemiah did, "And I had not before that time been sad before the king."

In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance, so that he may be asked the question upon the other's speech; as Narcissus did, in relating to Claudius the marriage of Messalina and Silius."

1 "Send both naked to strangers, and thou shalt know."

2 Tacit. Ann. xi. 29, seq.