Cotton. I dare not decide either against my father or mine host.

Oldways. So, we are yet no friends.

Cotton. Under favor, then, I would say that we but acknowledge the power of rivers and runlets in bridging them; for without so doing we could not pass. We are obliged to offer them a crown or diadem as the price of their acquiescence.

Oldways. Rather do I think that we are feudatory to them much in the same manner as the dukes of Normandy were to the kings of France; pulling them out of their beds, or making them lie narrowly and uneasily therein.

Walton. Is that between thy fingers, Will, another piece of honest old Donne's poetry?

Oldways. Yes; these and one other are the only pieces I have kept: for we often throw away or neglect, in the lifetime of our friends, those things which in some following age are searched after through all the libraries in the world. What I am about to read he composed in the meridian heat of youth and genius.

"She was so beautiful, had God but died

For her, and none beside,

Reeling with holy joy from east to west
Earth would have sunk down blest;

And, burning with bright zeal, the buoyant Sun

6

Cried through his worlds, Well done!'"

He must have had an eye on the Psalmist; for I would not asseverate that he was inspired, Master Walton, in the theological sense of the word; but I do verily believe I discover here a thread of the mantle.

Cotton. And with enough of the nap on it to keep him hot as a muffin when one slips the butter in.

Oldways. True. Nobody would dare to speak thus but from authority. The Greeks and Romans, he remarked, had neat baskets, but scanty simples; and did not press them down so closely as they might have done, and were fonder of nosegays than of sweet-pots. He told me the rose of Paphos was of one species, the rose of Sharon of another. Whereat he burst forth to the purpose,

"Rather give me the lasting rose of Sharon : But dip it in the oil that oil'd thy beard, O Aaron !"

Nevertheless, I could perceive that he was of so equal a mind that he liked them equally in their due season. These majes

tical verses

Cotton. I am anxious to hear the last of 'em.

:

Oldways. No wonder and I will joyfully gratify so laudable a wish. He wrote this among the earliest :—

"Juno was proud, Minerva stern,

Venus would rather toy than learn :
What fault is there in Margaret Hayes ?
Her high disdain and pointed stays."

I do not know whether, it being near our dinner-time, I ought to enter so deeply as I could into a criticism on it, which the doctor himself, in a single evening, taught me how to do. Charley is rather of the youngest; but I will be circumspect. That Juno was proud may be learned from Virgil. The following passages in him and other Latin poets

Cotton. We will examine them all after dinner, my dear sir.

Oldways. The nights are not mighty long; but we shall find time, I trust.

"Minerva stern."

Excuse me a moment: my Homer is in the study, and my memory is less exact than it was formerly.

Cotton. Oh, my good Mr. Oldways! do not let us lose a single moment of your precious company. Doctor Donne could require no support from these heathens, when he had the dean and chapter on his side.

Oldways. A few parallel passages. write as other people have written. Cotton. We must sleep at Uttoxeter. Oldways. I hope not.

One would wish to

Walton. We must, indeed; and, if we once get into your learning, we shall be carried down the stream without the power even of wishing to mount it.

Oldways. Well, I will draw in, then.

"Venus would rather toy than learn."

Now, Master Izaak, does that evince a knowledge of the world, a knowledge of men and manners, or not?

In our

days we have nothing like it: exquisite wisdom! Reason and meditate as you ride along, and inform our young friend here how the beautiful trust in their beauty, and how little they learn from experience, and how they trifle and toy. Certainly the Venus here is Venus Urania; the doctor would dissertate upon none other; yet even she, being a Venus the sex is the sex- ay, Isaak!

"Her high disdain and pointed stays."

Volumes and volumes are under these words. Briefly, he could find no other faults in his beloved than the defences of her virgin chastity against his marital and portly ardor. What can be more delicately or more learnedly expressed!

Walton. This is the poetry to reason upon from morning to night.

Cotton. By my conscience is it! He wrongs it greatly who ventures to talk a word about it, unless after long reflection, or after the instruction of the profound author.

Oldways. Izaak, thou hast a son worthy of thee, or about to become so the son here of thy adoption - how grave and thoughtful!

Walton. These verses are testimonials of a fine fancy in Donne; and I like the man the better who admits Love into his study late and early: for which two reasons I seized the lines at first with some avidity. On second thoughts, however, I doubt whether I shall insert them in my biography, or indeed hint at the origin of them. In the whole story of his marriage with the daughter of Sir George More there is something so sacredly romantic, so full of that which bursts from the tenderest heart and from the purest, that I would admit no other light or landscape to the portraiture. For if there is aught, precedent or subsequent, that offends our view of an admirable character, or intercepts or lessens it, we may surely cast it down and suppress it, and neither be called injudicious nor disingenuous. I think it no more requisite to note every fit of anger or of love, than to chronicle the returns of a hiccup, or the times a man rubs between his fingers a sprig of sweet-brier to extract its smell. Let the character be taken in the complex; and let the more obvious and best peculiarities be marked plainly and distinctly, or (if those predominate) the worst. These latter I leave to others,

of whom the school is full, who like anatomy the better because the subject of their incisions was hanged. When I would sit upon a bank in my angling, I look for the even turf, and do not trust myself so willingly to a rotten stump or a sharp one. I am not among those who, speaking ill of the virtuous, say, "Truth obliges me to confess the interests of learning and of society demand from me " and such things; when this truth of theirs is the elder sister of malev olence, and teaches her half her tricks; and when the interests of learning and of society may be found in the printer's ledger, under the author's name, by the side of shillings and pennies.

Oldways. Friend Izaak, you are indeed exempt from all suspicion of malignity; and I never heard you intimate that you carry in your pocket the letters-patent of society for the management of her interests in this world below. Verily do I believe that both society and learning will pardon you, though you never talk of pursuing, or exposing, or laying bare, or cutting up; or employ any other term in their behalf drawn from the woods and forests, the chase and butchery. Donne fell into unhappiness by aiming at espousals with a person of higher condition than himself.

Walton. His affections happened to alight upon one who was; and in most cases I would recommend it rather than the contrary, for the advantage of the children in their manners and in their professions.

Light and worthless men, I have always observed, choose the society of those who are either much above or much below them; and, like dust and loose feathers, are rarely to be found in their places. Donne was none such he loved his equals, and would find them where he could; when he could not find them, he could sit alone. This seems an easy matter; and yet, masters, there are more people who could run along a rope from yonder spire to this grass-plot, than can do it.

Oldways. Come, gentles: the girl raps at the garden-gate. I hear the ladle against the lock: dinner waits for us.

XVII. MACHIAVELLI AND MICHEL-ANGELO BUONARROTI.

Michel-Angelo. Messer Niccolo ?

And how do you like my fortification,

Machiavelli. It will easily be taken, Messer MichelAngelo because there are other points - Bello-squardo, for instance, and the Poggio above Boboli — whence every street and edifice may be cannonaded.

Michel-Angelo. Surely you do not argue with your wonted precision, my good friend. Because the enemy may occupy those positions and cannonade the city, is that a reason why our fort of Samminiato should so easily be surrendered?

Machiavelli. There was indeed a time when such an argument would have been futile; but that time was when Florence was ruled by only her own citizens, and when the two factions that devoured her started up with equal alacrity from their prey, and fastened on the invader. But, it being known to Charles that we have neglected to lay in provisions more than sufficient for one year, he will allow our courageous citizens to pelt and scratch and bite his men occasionally for that short time; after which they must surrender. This policy will leave to him the houses and furniture in good condition, and whatsoever fines and taxes may be imposed will be paid the more easily; while the Florentines will be able to boast of their courage and perseverance, the French of their patience and clemency. It will be a good example for other people to follow, and many historians will praise both parties: all will praise one.

I have given my answer to your question; and I now approve and applaud the skill and solidity with which you construct the works, regretting only that we have neither time to erect the others that are necessary, nor to enroll the countrymen who are equally so for their defence. Charles is a prudent and a patient conqueror, and he knows the temper and the power of each adversary. He will not demolish nor greatly hurt the city. What he cannot effect by terror, he will effect by time, — that miner whom none can countermine. We have brave men among our citizens, men sensible of