168

me run faster from the place, till I get, as it were, out of fight-fhot. Democritus relates, and in fuch a manner as if he gloried in the good-fortune and commodity of it, that, when he came to Athens, nobody there did fo much as take notice of him; and Epicurus lived there very well, that is, lay hid many years in his gardens, fo famous fince that time, with his friend Metrodorus: after whofe death, making in one of his letters a kind commemoration of the happiness which they two had enjoyed together, he adds at laft, that he thought it no difparagement to thofe great felicities of their life, that, in the midst of the most talked-of and talking country in the world, they had lived fo long, not only without fame, but almost without being heard of. And yet, within a very few years afterward, there were no two names of men more known, or more generally celebrated. If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we fet open our gates to the invaders of moft of our time: we expofe our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which would make a wife man tremble to think of. Now, as for being known much by fight, and pointed at, I cannot comprehend the honour that lies in that: whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor, and the hangman more than the lord chief justice of a city. Every creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be any ways extraordinary. It was as often faid, "This is that Bucephalus," or, "This is that Incitatus," when they were led prancing through the streets, as, "This is that Alexander," or, is that Domitian ;" and truly, for the latter, I take Incitatus to have been a more ho"This nourable beast than his master, and more deferving the confulship, than he the empire.

I love and commend a true good-fame, because it is the fhadow of virtue: not that it doth any good to the body which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious fhadow, and like that of St. Peter cures the diseases of others. The best kind of glory, no doubt, is that which is reflected from honefty, fuch as was the glory of Cato and Ariftides; but it was harmful to them both, and is feldom beneficial to any man, whilft he lives; what it is to him after his death, I cannot fay, because I love not philofophy merely notional and conjectural, and no man who has made the experiment has been fo kind as to come back to inform us. Upon the whole matter, I account a per

fon who has a moderate mind and fortune, and lives in the converfation of two or three agreeable friends, with litttle commerce in the world befides, who is efteemed well enough by his few neighbours that know him, and is truly irreproachable by any body; and fo, after a healthful quiet life, before the great inconveniencies of old-age, goes more filently out of it than he came in (for I would not have him fo much as cry in the exit): this innocent deceiver of the world, as Horace calls him, this "muta perfona," I take to have been more happy in his part, than the greatest actors that fill the ftage with fhow and noise, nay, even than Auguftus himself, who asked, with his laft breath, whether he had not played his farce very well.

4

SENECA, EX THYESTE, ACT. II. CHOR.

"Stet, quicumque volet potens," &c.

UPON the flippery tops of human state,
The gilded pinnacles of fate,

Let others proudly ftand, and, for a while

The giddy danger to beguile,

With joy, and with difdain, look down on all,

Till their heads turn, and down they fall,

Me, O ye gods, on earth, or else so near
That I no fall to earth may fear,

And, O ye gods, at a good distance feat
From the long ruins of the great.

Here, wrapt in th' arms of quiet let me lie;
Quiet, companion of obfcurity!
Here let my life with as much filence flide,

As time, that measures it, does glide.
Nor let the breath of infamy, or fame,
From town to town echo about my name.
Nor let my homely.death embroider d be
With fcutcheon or with elegy.
An old plebeian let me die,
Alas! all then are fuch as well as L
To him, alas, to him, I fear,
The face of death will terrible appear;
Who, in his life flattering his fenfelefs pride,
By being known to all the world befide,
Does not himself, when he is dying, know,
Nor what he is, nor whither he's to go.

THE

IV.,

OF AGRICULTURE.

HE firft wish of Virgil (as you will find anon by his verfes) was to be a good philofopher; the fecond a good hufbandman: and God (whom he feemed to upderftand better than most of the moft learned heathens) dealt with him, juft as he did with Solomon; because he prayed for wifdom in the first place, he added all things elfe, which were fubordinately to be defired. He made him one of the best philofophers, and beft husbandmen; and, to adorn and communicate both thofe faculties, the beft poet: he made him, befides all this, a rich man, and a man who defired to be no richer

"O fortunatus fimium, & bona qui fua novit !"

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philofopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.

But, fince nature denies to moft men the capacity or appetite, and fortune allows but to a very few the opportunities or poffibility, of applying themfelves wholly to philofophy, the best mixture of human affairs that we can make, are the employments of a country life. It is, as Columella* calls it, "Res fine dubitatione proxima, & quafi "confanguinea fapientiæ," the nearest neighbour, or rather next in kindred, to philofophy. Varro fays, the principles of it are the fame which Ennius made to be the principles of all nature, Earth, Water, Air, and the Sun. It does certainly comprehend more parts of philofophy, than any one profeffion, art, or foience, in the world befides: and therefore Cicero fays t, the pleasures of a husbandman, "mihi ad fapientis vitam "proxime videntur accedere," come very nigh to thofe of a philofopher. There is no other fort of life that affords fo many branches of praise to a panegyrift: The utility of it to a man's felf; the usefulness, or rather neceffity, of it to all the reft of mankind; the innocence, the pleasure, the antiquity, the dignity.

The Utility (I mean plainly the lucre of it) is not fo great, now in our nation, as arifes from merchandise and the trading of the city, from whence many of the best eftates and chief honours of the kingdom are derived: we have no men now fetched from the plough to be made lords, as they were in Rome to be made confuls and dictators; the reafon of which I conceive to be from an evil custom, now grown as ftrong + De Sence. Ꮓ

VOL. II.

Lib. I. c. i.

among us as if it were a law, which is, that no men put their children to be bred-up apprentices in agriculture, as in other trades, but fuch who are so poor, that when they come to be men, they have not wherewithal to fet up in it, and fo can only farm some fmall parcel of ground, the rent of which devours all but the bare fubliftence of the tenant: whilst they who are proprietors of the land are either too proud, or, for want of that kind of education, too ignorant, to improve their eftates, though the means of doing it be as eafy and certain in this, as in any other track of commerce. If there were always two or three thousand youths, for seven or eight years, bound to this profeffion, that they might learn the whole art of it, and afterwards be enabled to be mafters in it, by a moderate ftock; I cannot doubt but that we should fee as many aldermen's eftates made in the country, as now we do out of all kind of merchandizing in the city. There are as many ways to be rich, and, which is better, there is no poffibility to be poor, without fuch negligence as can neither have excufe nor pity; for a little ground will without queftion feed a little family, and the fuperfluities of life (which are now in fome cafes by custom made aloft neceffary) must be fupplied out of the superabundance of art and induftry, or contemned by as great a degree of philofophy.

As for the Neceflity of this art, it is evident enough, fince this can live without all others; and no one other without this. This is like fpeech, without which the fociety of men cannot be preferved: the others like figures and tropes of speech, which serve only to adorn it. Many nations have lived, and fome do itill, without any art but this: not fo elegantly, I confess, but still they live; and almost all the other arts, which are here practifed, are beholden to this for most of their materials.

The Innocence of this life is the next thing for which I commend it; and if husbandmen preferve not that, they are much to blame, for no men are fo free from the temptations of iniquity. They live by what they can get by industry from the earth; and others, by what they can catch by craft from men. They live upon an estate given them by their mother; and others, upon an eftate cheated from their brethren. They live, like sheep and kine, by the allowances of nature; and others, like wolves and foxes, by the acquisitions of rapine. And, I hope, I may affirm (without any offence to the great) that theep and kine are very useful, and that wolves and foxes are pernicious creatures. They are, without difpute, of all men the moft quiet, and leaft apt to be inflamed to the disturbance of the commonwealth: their manner of life inclines them, and intereft binds them, to love peace: in our late mad and miferable civil wars, all other trades, even to the meaneft, fet forth whole troops, and raised up fome great commanders, who became famous and mighty for the mischiefs they had done: but I do not remember the name of any one husbandman, who had fo confiderable a share in the twenty years ruin of his country, as to deferve the curfes of his countrymen.

And if great delights be joined with fo much innocence, I think it is ill done of men, not to take them here, where they are to tame, and ready at hand, rather than hunt for them in courts and cities, where they are fo wild, and the chace fo troublesome and dangerous

We are here among the vaft and noble scenes of nature; we are there among the pitiful fhifts of policy: we walk here in the light and open ways of the divine bounty; we grope there in the dark and confufed labyrinths of human malice: our fenfes are here feafted with the clear and genuine tafte of their objects; which are all fophifticated there, and for the moft part overwhelmed with their contraries. Here pleasure looks, methinks, like a beautiful, conftant, and modeft wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted harlot. Here is harmlefs and cheap plenty; there guilty and expenceful luxury.

I fhall only inftance in one delight more, the most natural and best-natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman; and that is, the fatisfaction of looking round about him, and feeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering of fome fruits of it, and at the fame time to behold others ripening, and others budding to fee all his fields and gardens

covered with the beauteous creatures of his own industry; and to fee, like God, that all his works are good:

"Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades; ipfi

Agricolæ tacitum pertentant gaudia pectus."

On his heart-ftrings a fecret joy does ftrike.

The Antiquity of his art is certainly not to be contefted by any other. The three first men in the world, were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murtherer, I defire he would confider, that as soon as he was fo, he quitted our profeffion, and turned builder. It is for this reafon, I fuppofe, that Ecclefiafticus forbids us to hate husbandry; becaufe," fays he, "the Moft High "has created it." We are all born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the fame earth out of which they were made, and to which they must return, and pay at laft for their fuftenance.

*

Behold the original and primitive nobility of all thofe great perfons, who are too proud now, not only to till the ground, but almost to tread upon it. We may talk what we please of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread-cagles, in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if heraldry were guided by reafon, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.

All these confiderations make me fall into the wonder and complaint of Columella, how it fhould come to pafs that all arts or fciences (for the difpute, which is an art, and which a science, does not belong to the curiofity of us hufbandmen) metaphyfic, phyfic, morality, mathematics, logic, rhetoric, &c. which are all, I grant, good and useful faculties (except only metaphyfic, which I do not know whether it be any thing or no) but even vaulting, fencing, dancing, attiring, cookery, carving, and fuchlike vanities, should all have public schools and masters; and yet that we fhould never fee or hear of any man, who took upon him the profeffion of teaching this so pleasant, fo virtuous, fo profitable, fo honourable, fo neceffary art.

A man would think, when he is in serious humour, that it were but a vain, irrational, and ridiculous thing for a great company of men and women to run up and down in a room together, in a hundred feveral poftures and figures, to no purpofe, and with no defign; and therefore dancing was invented firit, and only practifed anciently, in the ceremonies of the heathen religion, which confifted all in mommery and maduefs; the latter being the chief glory of the worship, and accounted divine infpiration: this, I fay, a fevere man would think; though I dare not determine fo far against so customary a part, now, of good-breeding. And yet, who is there among our gentry, that does not entertain a dancing-mafter for his children, as foon as they are able to walk? But, did ever any father provide a tutor for his fon, to inftruct him betimes in the nature and improvements of that land which he intended to leave him? That is at leaft a superfluity, and this a defect, in our manner of education; and therefore I could wish (but cannot in these times much hope to fee it) that one college in each univerfity were erected, and appropriated to this ftudy, as well as there are to medicine and the civil law: there would be no need of making a body of fcholars and fellows, with certain endowments, as in other colleges; it would fuffice, if, after the manner of halls in Oxford, there were only four profeffors conftituted (for it would be too much work for only one mafter, or principal, as they call him there) to teach thefe four parts of it: First, Aration, and all things relating to it. Secondly, Pafturage. Thirdly, Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, and Woods. Fourthly, all parts of Rural Oeconomy; which would contain the government of Bees, Swine, Poultry, Decoys, Ponds, &c. and all that which Varro calls "villaticas paftiones," together with the fports of the field (which ought to be looked upon not only as pleasures, but as parts of houfe-keeping), and the domeftical confervation and ufes of all that is brought in by industry abroad. The bufinefs of these profeffors should not be, as is commonly practifed in other arts, only to read pompous and

1

1

fuperficial lectures, out of Virgil's Georgics, Pliny, Varro, or Ĉolumella; but to inftruct their pupils in the whole method and courfe of this ftudy, which might be run through perhaps with diligence in a year or two; and the continual fucceffion of scholars, upon a moderate taxation for their diet, lodging, and learning, would be a fufficient conftant revenue for maintenance of the houfe and the profeffors, who fhould be men not chofen for the oftentation of critical literature, but for folid and experimental knowledge of the things they teach fach men, fo induftrious and public-fpirited, as I conceive Mr. Hartlib * to be, if the gentleman be yet alive: but it is needlefs to fpeak further of my thoughts of this defign, unless the prefent difpofition of the age allowed more probability of bringing it into execution. What I have further to fay of the country life, fhall be borrowed from the poets, who were always the most faithful and affectionate friends to Poetry was born among the fhepherds.

it

"Nefcio quâ natale folum dulcedine Mufas

"Ducit, & immemores non finit effe sui †.”
The Mufes ftill love their own native place;
'T has fecret charms, which nothing can deface.

The truth is, no other place is proper for their work; one might as well undertake to dance in a crowd, as to make good verses in the midst of noise and tumult.

As well might corn, as verfe, in cities grow;
In vain the thankless glebe we plow and fow:
Against th' unnatural foil in vain we strive;

'Tis not a ground, in which these plants will thrive.

It will bear nothing but the nettles or thorns of fatire, which grow most naturally in the worst earth; and therefore almost all poets, except thofe who were not able to eat bread without the bounty of great men, that is, without what they could get by flattering of them, have not only withdrawn themselves from the vices and vanities of the grand world,

pariter vitiifque jocífque Altius humanis exeruere caput ‡,

into the innocent happiness of a retired life; but have commended and adorned nothing fo much by their ever-living poems. Hefiod was the firft or fecond poet in the world that remains yet extant (if Homer, as fome think, preceded him, but I rather believe they were contemporaries); and he is the firft writer too of the art of husbandry: "he "has contributed (fays Columella), not a little to our profeffion;" I fuppofe, he means not a little honour, for the matter of his inftructions is not very important; his great antiquity is vifible through the gravity and fimplicity of his ftyle. The moft acute of all his fayings concerns our purpose very much, and is couched in the reverend obfcurity of an oracle. Io o alos, The half is more than the whole. The occafion of the fpeech is this; his brother Perfeus had, by corrupting fome great men, (Badihias weopáy, great bribe-eaters he calls them, gotten from him the half of his eftate. It is no matter (fays he); they have not done me fo much prejudice as they imagine:

Νήπιοι, ἐδ ̓ ἴσασιν, κ. το λο

Unhappy they, to whom God has not reveal'd,
By a ftrong light which muft'their fenfe controle,
That half a great eltate's more than the whole:
Unhappy, from whom ftill conceal'd does lie
Of roots and herbs the wholesome luxury.

A gentleman, of whom it may be enough to fay, that he had the honour to live in the friendship of Mede and Milton. The former of thefe great men addreffed fome letters to him, and the latter, his "Tractate on Education." HURD.

† Ovid. 1 Ep. ex Pont. iii. 35.

Ovid. Faft. i. 300.