Microcosmography or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters

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  MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;

  OR,

  A Piece of the World discovered;

  IN

  ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS.




  MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;

  OR,

  A PIECE OF THE WORLD
  DISCOVERED;

  IN

  ESSAYS AND CHARACTERS

  By JOHN EARLE, D.D.


  _A Reprint of Dr. Bliss's Edition of 1811._

  WITH A PREFACE AND SUPPLEMENTARY
  APPENDIX
  By S. T. IRWIN.

  Bristol:
  PUBLISHED BY W. CROFTON HEMMONS.
  London:
  SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.




                  TO THE MEMORY
          OF THE REVEREND DAVID WRIGHT,
        "THE GRAVE DIVINE" OF THESE PAGES,
          WHOSE NAME WILL LIVE IN BRISTOL
   AS LONG AS MEN CARE FOR BEAUTY OF CHARACTER,
  RICHNESS OF THOUGHT, OR DISTINCTION OF SPEECH,
        THIS BRISTOL REPRINT IS INSCRIBED.

  "From the contagion of the world's slow stain
  He was secure."




PREFACE.


It may be reasonably asked why Dr. Bliss's[A] edition of the
Microcosmography should require a preface, and the answer is that it does
not require one. It would be difficult to have a more scholarly, more
adequate, more self-sufficing edition of a favourite book. Almost
everything that helps the elucidation of the text, almost everything about
Bishop Earle that could heighten our affection for him (there is nothing
known to his disparagement) is to be found here.[B] And affection for the
editor is conciliated by the way. It is not only his standard of
equipment that secures this--a standard that might have satisfied Mark
Pattison[C]--but also the painstaking love revealed in it, which, like
every other true love, whether of men or books, will not give of that
which costs it nothing. And, as a further title to our regard, Dr. Bliss
is amusing at his own expense, and compares himself to Earle's "critic,"
who swells books into folios with his comments. Not that this humorous
self-depreciation is to be pressed; for, unlike that critic, he is no
"troublesome vexer of the dead."

But though there is no need of a preface, I have two excuses for writing
one.

The first is that I was asked to do it by my friend Mr. Frank George, of
Bristol, who wished to see the book reprinted; and the second is the old
_professio pietatis_, which seemed to Tacitus a sufficient defence of the
Agricola, and may perhaps be allowed to serve humbler people as well. What
Earle says of men is no less true of books: "Acquaintance is the first
draught of a friend. Men take a degree in our respect till at last they
wholly possess us;" and the history of this possession must, in every
case, have a sort of interest, as long as it is not carried to the point
of demanding from others the superlatives we permit to ourselves. It is
sufficiently common for people to like the same book for different
reasons; and where an author has a secure place in English literature, his
shade, like the deity of Utopia, may be best pleased with a manifold and
various worship.[D]

The character of Earle, as drawn by Clarendon, is itself a guarantee for
his studies of character; and the fact that Lord Falkland was his chosen
friend is evidence of his possessing something of that sweet
reasonableness of temper for which his host was so remarkable. "He was
very dear" (we are told) "to the Lord Falkland, with whom he spent as much
time as he could make his own." Indeed, "Mr. Earles would frequently
profess that he had got more useful learning by his conversation at Tew
than he had at Oxford." Of Earle's conversation Clarendon says that it was
"so pleasant and delightful, so very innocent and so very facetious, that
no man's company was more desired and more loved." Walton, too, tells us
of his "innocent wisdom and sanctified learning"; and another witness
speaks of his "charitable heart," an epithet which is nobly borne out by
the correspondence between himself and Baxter printed in this volume.

This is no superfluous citation of testimony. Without it we might,
perhaps, have suspected, though not, I think, legitimately, something
almost of a cynical spirit in the severity of the punishment which he
deals out to the various disguises of vice and imposture, and in the
pitiless nakedness in which he leaves them. But there are even stronger
reasons for recalling contemporary verdicts pronounced on Earle as a man.
Hallam, in the "Literature of Europe,"[E] has a short notice of him, and
though it shews some appreciation of his ability, it contains a very
unworthy aspersion on his character. "The chapter on the sceptic," he
says, "is witty, but an insult to the honest searcher after truth, which
could only have come from one that was content to take up his own opinions
for ease or profit." If we accept all that is said of Earle's piety and
devotion, and give its proper weight to the very significant epithet
"innocent," used both by Walton and Clarendon, we shall, I think, be slow
to suspect his motive in attacking the sceptic.