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would in his journey.

The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the more openly; and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a riding coat, the more it is worn, is the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in. An innocent man needs no eloquence; his innocence is instead of it ; else I had never come off so many times from these precipices, whither men's malice hath pursued me. It is true, I have been accused to the lords, to the king, and by great ones: but it happened my accusers had not thought of the accusation with themselves; and so were driven, for want of crimes, to use invention, which was found slander: or too late (being entered so far) to seek starting holes for their rashness, which were not given them. And then they may think what accusation that was like to prove, when they that were the engineers feared to be the authors. Nor were they content to feign things against me, but to urge things feigned by the ignorant against my profession; which though, from their hired and mercenary impudence, I might have passed by, as granted to a nation of barkers, that let out their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not leave myself undefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or have those things said of me, which I could truly prove of them. They objected making of verses to me, when I could object to most of them, their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they would offer to urge mine own writings against me, but by pieces (which was an excellent way of malice): as if any man's context might not seem dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit to what went before were defrauded of his beginning; or that things by themselves uttered might not seem subject to calumny, which read entire, would appear most free. At last they upbraided my poverty: I confess she is my domestic; sober of diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good counsellor to me, that keeps me from cruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which are the nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great and monstrous wickednesses, they shall never find those in poor families. They are the issue of the wealthy giants, and the mighty hunters: whereas no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles. It was the ancient poverty that founded commonweals, built cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against vices, rewarded them with their own virtues,

and preserved the honour and state of nations, till they betrayed themselves to riches.

(From the Same.)

NOTÆ DOMINI S. ALBANI DE DOCTRINÆ

INTEMPERANTIA

IT was well noted by the late lord St. Alban, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of truth; imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish, or foolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish, or deface; we may improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood, truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise; but calmly study the separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties with the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is monte potiri, to get the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.

(From the Same.).

SAMUEL PURCHAS

"

[Samuel Purchas (1577-1626) of St. John's College, Cambridge, some time "minister at Estwood in Essex," afterwards 'parson of St. Martins, near Ludgate," wrote (1) Purchas, his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages (1613), a careful abstract of histories of travel; (2) Purchas, his Pilgrim: Microcosmus, or the Historie of Man, relating the Wonders of his Generation, Vanities in his Degeneration, Necessity of His Regeneration (1619), a treatise the scope of which is sufficiently indicated by its title; (3) Purchas his Pilgrims (1625), a collection of voyages, including those left unprinted by Hakluyt.]

THE most important original work of Purchas is his Pilgrimage. In the Pilgrims, as in Hakluyt's voyages, the editor is editor and not author. Microcosmus is a discourse on the infirmities of the human estate, written with some liveliness, yet hardly escaping from the commonplaces of the subject. Purchas his Pilgrimage is a digest of all the accessible information about the inhabitants of different countries and their religions, a successful attempt to bring together and arrange in one large volume the most important observations of voyagers. As an original author, Purchas is more copious than Hakluyt; his style has little of Hakluyt's eloquence, but it is generally adequate to the matter. His industry was well bestowed in his History of Religions, and his desultory learning is not unworthy of the approval given by Selden in his preliminary Greek and Latin verses. Four lines of the book stand out from the rest :

"In Xaindu did Cublai Can build a stately pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile meddowes, pleasant springs, delightful streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure."

The description of the Mount Amara of the "Abassin Kings " has also an accidental value, from the honour rendered to that mountain by the poets.

W. P. KER.

OF THE HILL AMARA AND THE RARITIES

THEREIN

THE hill Amara hath already been often mentioned, and nothing indeed in all Ethiopia more deserveth mention, whether we respect the natural site, or the employment thereof. Somewhat is written thereof by geographers, and historians, especially by Aluarez, whom we have chiefly followed in the former relations of this country, as an eye-witness of the most things reported; but neither they, nor he, have anything but by relation, seeing that he passed two days' journey along by the said hill, and that also had almost cost him his life. But John de Baltasar (saith our Friar) lived in the same a long time, and therein served Alexander which was afterwards emperor, and was often by commandment of the same man, when he was emperor, sent thither out of his relations, Friar a Luys saith he hath borrowed that which here we offer you. And here we offer you no small favour to conduct you into, and about this place, where none may come but an Ethiopian, and that by express licence, under pain of leaving his hands, feet, and eyes behind, in price for his curiosity, and not much less is the danger of such as offer to escape from thence : Aluarez himself being an eye-witness of some such cruel exècutions inflicted for that offence. This hill is situate as the navel of that Ethiopian body, and centre of their empire, under the equinoctial line, where the sun may take his best view thereof, as not encountring in all his long journey with the like theatre, wherein the graces and muses are actors, no place more graced with nature's store, or furnished with such a storehouse of books, the sun himself so in love with the sight, that the first and last thing he vieweth in all those parts is this hill; and where antiquitie consecrated unto him a stately temple: the gods (if ye believe Homer, that they feasted in Ethiopia) could not there, nor in the world find a fitter place for entertainment, all of them

contributing their best store (if I may so speak) to the banquet, Bacchus, Juno, Venus, Pomona, Ceres, and the rest, with store of fruits, wholesome air, pleasant aspect and prospect; secured by Mars, lest any sinister accident should interrupt their delights; if his garrisons of soldiers were needful where nature had so strongly fortified before; only Neptune with his ruder sea-deities and Pluto with his black-guard of barking Cerberus, and the rest of that dreadful train (whose unwelcome presence would trouble all that are present) are all, save Charon, who attends on every feast, yea now hath ferried away those supposed deities with himself, perpetually exiled from this place. Once, heaven and earth, nature and industry, have all been corrivals to it, all presenting their best presents, to make it of this so lovely presence, some taking this for the place of our forefathers' paradise. And yet though thus admired of others, as a paradise, it is made a prison to some, on whom nature had bestowed the greatest freedom, if their freedom had not been eclipsed with greatness, and though goodly stars, yet by the sun's brightness are forced to hide their light, when gross and earthly bodies are seen, their nobleness making them prisoners, that one sun only may shine in that Ethiopian throne.

It is situate in a great plain largely extending itself every way without other hill in the same for the space of thirty leagues, the form thereof round and circular, the height such, that it is a day's work to ascend from the foot to the top; round about, the rock is cut so smooth and even, without any unequal swellings, that it seemeth to him that stands beneath, like a high wall, whereon the heaven is as it were propped; and at the top it is over-hanged with rocks, jutting forth of the sides the space of a mile, bearing out like mushrooms, so that it is impossible to ascend it, or by ramming with earth, battering with cannon, scaling or otherwise to win it. It is above twenty leagues in circuit, compassed with a wall on the top, well wrought, that neither man nor beast in chase may fall down. The top is a plain field, only towards the south is a rising hill, beautifying this plain, as it were with a watchtower, not serving alone to the eye, but yielding also a pleasant spring which passeth through all that plain, paying his tributes to every garden that will exact it, and making a lake, whence issueth a river, which having from these tops espied Nilus, never leaves seeking to find him, whom he cannot leave both to seek and find, that by his direction and conveyance he may together with him

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