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The Copy of a Letter Writ to Mr. Izaak Walton, by Dr. King, Lord Bishop of Chichester 1 .

166518 min read

THOUGH a familiarity of more than forty years’1 continuance, and the constant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our friendship; yet I must confess my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to those very many that know and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public spirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection, of so many material passages as you have now afforded me in the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker; of which, since desired by such a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the testimony of what I know concerning him and his learned Books; but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you, that you have been happy in choosing to write the lives of three such persons, as posterity hath just cause to honour; which they will do the more for the true relation of them by your happy pen; of all which I shall give you my unfeigned censure.

I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend, Dr. Donne, late dean of St. Paul’s church, who not only trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death delivered into my hands those excellent sermons of his now made public; professing before Dr. Winniff2, Dr. Monford3, and, I think, yourself, then present at his bed-side, that it was by my restless importunity that he had prepared them for the press; together with which (as his best legacy) he gave me all his sermon-notes, and his other papers, containing an extract of near fifteen hundred authors. How these were got out of my hands, you, who were the messenger for them4, and how lost both to me and yourself, is not now seasonable to complain; but, since they did miscarry, I am glad that the general demonstration of his worth was so fairly preserved, and represented to the world by your pen in the history of his life; indeed so well, that, beside others, the best critic of our later time (Mr. John Hales, of Eton college) affirmed to me, “he had not seen a life written with more advantage to the subject, or more reputation to the writer, than that of Dr. Donne’s.”

After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne, you undertook the like office for our friend Sir Henry Wotton, betwixt which two there was a friendship begun in Oxford, continued in their various travels, and more confirmed in the religious friendship of age, and doubtless this excellent person had writ the life of Dr. Donne, if death had not prevented him: by which means, his and your precollections for that work fell to the happy menage of your pen: a work, which you would have declined, if imperious persuasions had not been stronger than your modest resolutions against it. And I am thus far glad, that the first life was so imposed upon you, because it gave an unavoidable cause of writing the second: if not, it is too probable we had wanted both, which had been a prejudice to all lovers of honour and ingenious learning. And let me not leave my friend Sir Henry without this testimony added to yours, that he was a man of as florid a wit, and as elegant a pen, as any former (or ours which in that kind is a most excellent) age, hath ever produced.

And now having made this voluntary observation of our two deceased friends, I proceed to satisfy your desire concerning what I know and believe of the ever-memorable Mr. Hooker, who was schismaticorum malleus5, so great a champion for the church of England’s rights, against the factious torrent of Separatists that then ran high against Church Discipline, and in his unanswerable Books continues still to be so against the unquiet disciples of their schism, which now under other names still carry on their design; and who (as the proper heirs of their irrational zeal) would again rake into the scarce-closed wounds of a newly bleeding state and church.

And first, though I dare not say that I knew Mr. Hooker, yet, as our6 ecclesiastical history reports to the honour of S. Ignatius, that he lived in the time of St. John, and had seen him in his childhood7; so, I also joy that in my minority I have often seen Mr. Hooker, with my father, who was after Lord Bishop of London8; from whom, and others, at that time, I have heard most of the material passages which you relate in the history of his life; and from my father received such a character of his learning, humility, and other virtues, that, like jewels of unvaluable price, they still cast such a lustre as envy or the rust of time shall never darken.

From my father I have also heard all the circumstances of the plot to defame him; and how Sir Edwin Sandys outwitted his accusers, and gained their confession; and I could give an account of each particular of that plot, but that I judge it fitter to be forgotten, and rot in the same grave with the malicious authors.

I may not omit to declare, that my father’s knowledge of Mr. Hooker was occasioned by the learned Dr. John Spencer, who after the death of Mr. Hooker was so careful to preserve his unvaluable sixth, seventh, and eighth Books of Ecclesiastical Polity, and his other writings, that he procured Henry Jackson9, then of Corpus Christi College, to transcribe for him all Mr. Hooker’s remaining written papers10; many of which were imperfect; for his study had been rifled, or worse used, by Mr. Chark, and another, of principles too like his: but these papers were endeavoured to be completed by his dear friend, Dr. Spencer, who bequeathed them as a precious legacy to my father; after whose death they rested in my hand, till Dr. Abbot, then Archbishop of Canterbury, commanded them out of my custody, by authorizing Dr. John Barkham11 to require and bring them to him to his palace in Lambeth12; at which time, I have heard, they were put into the bishop’s library, and that they remained there till the martyrdom of Archbishop Laud, and were then by the brethren of that faction given with all the library to Hugh Peters13, as a reward for his remarkable service in those sad times of the Church’s confusion: and though they could hardly fall into a fouler hand, yet there wanted not other endeavours to corrupt and make them speak that language, for which the faction then fought; which indeed was, “to subject the sovereign power to the people.”

But I need not strive to vindicate Mr. Hooker in this particular; his known loyalty to his prince whilst he lived, the sorrow expressed by King James at his death, the value our late Sovereign (of ever-blessed memory) put upon his works, and now the singular character of his worth by you given in the passages of his life, (especially in your Appendix to it,) do sufficiently clear him from that imputation: and I am glad you mention how much value Thomas Stapleton, Pope Clement the Eighth, and other eminent men of the Romish persuasion, have put upon his Books, having been told the same in my youth by persons of worth that have travelled Italy.

Lastly, I must again congratulate this undertaking of yours, as now more proper to you than any other person, by reason of your long knowledge and alliance to the worthy family of the Cranmers, (my old friends also,) who have been men of noted wisdom, especially Mr. George Cranmer, whose prudence, added to that of Sir Edwin Sandys, proved very useful in the completing of Mr. Hooker’s matchless Books; one of their letters I herewith send you, to make use of, if you think fit14. And let me say further, you merit much from many of Mr. Hooker’s best friends then living; namely, from the everrenowned Archbishop Whitgift, of whose incomparable worth, with the character of the times, you have given us a more short and significant account than I have received from any other pen. You have done much for the learned Sir Henry Savile, his contemporary and familiar friend; amongst the surviving monuments of whose learning (give me leave to tell you so) two are omitted; his edition of Euclid15; but especially his translation of King James his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, into elegant Latin16: which flying in that dress as far as Rome, was by the Pope and conclave sent to Salamanca unto Franciscus Suarez, (then residing there as President of that college,) with a command to answer it. And it is worth noting, that when he had perfected the work, (which he calls Defensio Fidei Catholicæ,) it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the inquisitors; who according to their custom blotted out what they pleased, and (as Mr. Hooker hath been used since his death) added whatsoever might advance the Pope’s supremacy, or carry on their own interest: commonly coupling together deponere et occidere, the deposing and then killing of princes17; which cruel and unchristian language Mr. John Saltkell, the amanuensis to Suarez, when he wrote that answer, (but since a convert, and living long in my father’s house,) often professed, the good old man (whose piety and charity Mr. Saltkell magnified much) not only disavowed, but detested. Not to trouble you further, your reader (if, according to your desire, my approbation of your work carries any weight) will here find many just reasons to thank you for it; and possibly for this circumstance here mentioned (not known to many) may happily apprehend one to thank him, who is,

[See before, p. 11, note 1.]

D. Johannes Rainoldus Georgio Cranmero18.

*****tua paria19, quæ vocas, mi Georgi, non probavi quidem, fateor; neque tamen tam ingratus mihi fuit conspectus amborum, in altero pari, quam unius in altero. Nam quamvis ad notitiam earum rerum quas scire cupis, aliquantum in Ramo, permultum in Vive, plurimum in Scaligero, te putem opis habiturum; tamen in Scoto et Aquinate non esse nihil quod inservire possit tuo studio promovendo, libens agnosco. Illud inter meum et tuum judicium discriminis intercedit, quod tu de iis videris honorificentius sentire, quam ego. Nam ego minus tribuo Scoto quam Aquinati20, Aquinati quam Scaligero, immo vero pluris unum Scaligerum quam sexcentos Scotos et Aquinates facio. Verum tamen si speras te collecturum aurum ex Ennii sterquilino21, nihil impedio; præsertim cum promittas te daturum operam, ne maculeris luto. In altero vero pari, quo Campianum conjungis Ciceroni, τὸ ἐπὶ τῃ̑ ϕακῃ̑ μύρον22, multo magis a te dissentio, nec in eo tuum mihi vel affectum satis sobrium, vel judicium satis sanum esse visum, concedo. Nam qui te præ manibus habere semper eum scribis, et laudas tanquam novum Æsculpaii filium, et (quasi parum esset esse proximum Ciceroni) in verbis, in sententiis, in metaphoris, in figuris, denique in omni eloquentiæ munere perfectissimum23 esse prædicas: negare non possum quin et studiosius eum pervolutare, quam decuit, virulentissimum hostem pietatis, et admirari vehementius, quam calamistratum oportuit rhetorculum, mihi videare. Cæterum de judicio tuo non judico. Sit Isocrate concinnior, acutior Hyperide, nervosior Demosthene, subtilior Lysia, copiosior Platone. Sit repertus nostro seculo, cui cedat Lactantius, antiquitate judice, Christianus Cicero. Affectus mihi tuus non placet, Georgi: qui tam libenter eum lectitas, a quo veritas mendaciis, pietas convitiis, religio calumniis; veritatis, pietatis, religionis cultores maledictis et contumeliis acerbissimis proscinduntur. At enim, “Sit,” inquies, “in rebus impurior; exhauriam ego sentinam, et fæces, et inde purissima delibabo.” At ex sentina pestilens odor exhalat, infestissimus valetudini, præsertim corporis infirmi. Tune tuis viribus ita præfidis ut nihil metuas periculi? Avunculus quidem tuus, quum ei sciscitanti ut solet quid Georgius, literas ostenderem; ingemuit. Timuit fortasse plusquam necesse fuit, ut amor res solliciti plena est timoris; sed ingemuit. Faxit Deus, ut eventus illum potius nimis timidum, quam te parum prudentem fuisse coarguat. Sed meminisse debes prudenter dictum a Cicerone; “ut qui in sole ambulant, quamvis alia de causa ambulent;” nosti quid sequatur24. Ego vero Fabium existimo meritissimo interdixisse pueris poetas qui nocent moribus25. Quid ita M. Fabi? quia mihi potior bene vivendi, quam vel optime loquendi, ratio habetur. Illi tanta ratio bene vivendi; tibi minor recte credendi? Illi, “teneræ mentes, non solum quæ diserta, sed vel magis quæ honesta sunt, discant;” tibi, quamvis impia, tamen si diserta, teneris ediscenda mentibus placebunt? Quid? ne ipse quidem Campianus tuus persuadet tibi meliora? qui “bella sterquilinia spernenda” monet26? Spernito. Laudas ejus scripta, ut perdiserta; agnoscis res impuras, sentinam, fæces. Ergo bella sterquilinia, te ipso judice. Contemnito. Quanquam utinam essent tantummodo sterquilinia bella: sunt gladii liti melle, sunt venena mixta vino. Quare mihi prorsus displicet quod scribis: “Non res ab illo, sed voces postulo.” Perinde quasi diceres de poculo venenato, “non venenum sed vinum haurio.” Non res ab illo, sed voces postulas. Atque adeo Augustinus, cum esset Manichæus, ut de seipso confitetur, “verbis” Ambrosii suspendebatur intentus; verum autem incuriosus et contemptor astabat. “Cum autem,” inquit, “non satagerem discere quæ dicebat, sed tantum quemadmodum dicebat, audire, veniebant in animum meum simul cum verbis quæ diligebam, res etiam quas negligebam; neque enim ea dirimere poteram27.” Quod si Augustinus Manichæus cum audiret (non propter res sed propter voces) Ambrosium Catholicum, et rebus captus, et vocibus, evasit Catholicus; ignosce mihi si putem esse posse periculum, ne Cranmerus religiosus dum Campianum Pontificium (non propter res, sed propter voces) assidua versat manu, (avertat Deus omen; sed qui amant, metuunt,) ne quid contrahat contagionis. Nam sive te cogitas esse vel ingenio majore, vel judicio, quam fuit Augustinus, teipsum nimis amas; sive homines facilius a pravis ad recta flecti, quam a rectis ad prava, putas; laberis imprudentia. Quamobrem si me forsitan uti consultore, quam teipso, malis; nec in Græcis Julianum Apostatam cum Demosthene, nec in Latinis Campianum Papistam cum Cicerone, tanquam optimos magistros eloquentiæ conjunges. Vale, et tuum cole. Londini, ex ædibus D. Walsinghami, 15 Mart.

[These two letters, also preserved by Fulman, IX. 208, 210, are conjectured to be Hooker’s on the following account. They were evidently written by a Hebrew scholar, a married man, having a residence in London, intimate with Reynolds and under obligations to him, and thoroughly entering into his character. All this, added to the initials R. H., may perhaps justify the insertion of the letters here. To the Editor they appear strongly marked by Hooker’s peculiar vein of humour.]

← An Appendix to the Life of Mr. Richard Hooke · Contents · To the Worshipfull My Verie Loving Frend Mr. →

Footnotes

  1. [On comparing this with note 1, p. 4 on the Introduction to the Life, it will appear that Walton’s intimacy with the writer of this letter began about the time of his (Walton’s) first marriage: Bishop King’s family being most intimate with that of Mrs. Spencer, whose niece Walton married.] ↩

  2. [“Dr. Winniff, Bp. of Lincoln 1641, died 1654: see some account of him in Clarendon, Hist. of Reb. b. iv. p. 423, ed. 1819.” From Dr. Zouch in loc.] ↩

  3. [“Dr. Thomas Mountfort, a residentiary of St. Paul’s, died Feb. 27, 1632.” Dr. Zouch.] ↩

  4. [The word “know” seems to have dropped out of the copy.] ↩

  5. [“Petrus de Alliaco, circ. ad 1400, Malleus a veritate aberrantium indefessus appellari solitus.” Wharton, App. ad Hist. Lif. p. 84.] ↩

  6. [“our,” spoken as by a churchman to a layman.] ↩

  7. [Martyr. S. Ignat. in Coteler. Patr. Apost. II. 163, 169.] ↩

  8. [Dr. John King was student of Ch. Ch. 1576, had the living of St. Anne and St. Agnes, London, 1580: of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, 1597: was Dean of Ch. Ch. 1605: Bishop of London, 1611: died 1621. Wood’s Ath. Oxon. II. 294. He was charged, after his death, with papistry: which charge his son, the writer of this letter, refuted in a sermon at St. Paul’s Cross, which was published, and is extant.] ↩

  9. [“Henry Jackson, scholar of C. C. C. Dec. 1, 1602, aged 16, having for two years before been clerk of the said house.” Wood, A. O. III. 577. He was successively rector of Trent in Somersetshire, and of Meysey Hampton in Gloucestershire, where he died, June 4, and was buried, June 9, 1662. He was much employed in translating the treatises of the English reformers into Latin. Fulm. 10. 78. Wood says, “being a studious and cynical person he never expected or desired more preferment. He was a great admirer of R. Hooker and J. Reynolds, whose memories being most dear to him, he did for the sake of the first industriously collect and publish some of his small treatises, and of the latter, several of his epistles and orations.”] ↩

  10. [“… . si totus non essem in poliendo libro octavo D. Richardi Hookeri de Ecclesiastica Politeia, quem Præses Collegii nostri mihi commendavit, aliquid ad te misissem, ut tuum expiscarer judicum an lucem necne mereatur.” 1612. H. Jackson, in a letter preserved by Fulman, X. 86. “. . Jam occupatus sum in conficiendo D. Hookeri libri 8vo de Ecclesiastica Politeia, qui est de regis dominio.” Id. Septr. 1612. “Puto Præsidem nostrum emissurum sub suo nomine D. Hookeri librum octavum, a me plane vitæ restitutum. ‘Tulit alter honores.’ ” Id. 1612, D. Thomæ Festo.] ↩

  11. [Fuller, Worthies of England, p. 276, tit. Exeter. “John Barkham, born in this city, was bred in Corpus Christi College in Oxford, whereof he was fellow, chaplain afterwards to Archbishop Bancroft, and parson of Bocking in Essex. Much his modesty and no less his learning; who, though never the public parent of any, was the careful nurse of many books, which had otherwise expired in their infancy had not his care preserved them… . A greater lover of coins than money… . That excellent collection in Oxford library was his gift to the archbishop, before the archbishop gave it to the university. He died March 25, 1641.”] ↩

  12. [The same thing was done in the case of Dr. Reynolds. Fulman (IX. 225.) has “A note of such MSS. &c. as it pleased my L. grace to retayne, of those which we were enjoyned to bring unto him out of D. Rainolds’ studie. June 4, 1607… … Item, Travers to the Lords in fol. Item, Divers other papers, the titles whereof we could not take.” Reynolds died May 21.] ↩

  13. [“Whereas formerly books, to the value of an hundred pounds, were bestowed upon Mr. Peters, out of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s particular private study: and whereas the said study is appraised at a matter of forty pounds more than the said hundred pounds: it is this day ordered, that Mr. Peters shall have the whole study of books freely bestowed upon him.” Commons’ Journals, June 27, 1644.] ↩

  14. [Bishop King could not mean Cranmer’s Letter on the new Church Discipline, for that had been printed in 1642. He might mean the Notes by Cranmer and Sandys, on the sixth Book of Eccl. Polity; which notes Fulman received from Walton, and they are now preserved in the library of Corpus Christi college.] ↩

  15. [“Prælectiones tresdecim in principium Elementorum Euclidis Oxoniæ habitæ, an. 1620. Oxon. 1621, 4to.” Wood, A. O. II. 314.] ↩

  16. [The original is in K. James’s Works, p. 247, &c. The date of the translation is 1609.] ↩

  17. [Lib. VI. c. 4. § 12—18. Dicendum est, post sententiam condemnatoriam regis de regni privatione, latam per legitimam potestatem; vel quod perinde est, post sententiam declaratoriam criminis habentis talem pœnam ipso jure impositam; posse quidem eum, qui sententiam tulerit, vel cui ipse commiserit, regem privare regno, etiam illum interficiendo, si aliter non potuerit, vel si justa sententia ad hanc etiam pœnam extendatur.”] ↩

  18. [This letter, transcribed from Fulman, IX. 154—156, is inserted here, as furnishing some information concerning the literary and theological opinions of two of Hooker’s most intimate friends.] ↩

  19. [It should seem that Cranmer had written to his tutor, by way of rhetorical exercise, a pair of parallels: one between Scotus and Aquinas, another (which may be conjectured to have been more or less playful) between Cicero and the Jesuit Campion.] ↩

  20. [Hooker did not quite agree with his tutor. For he calls Scotus “the wittiest of the school divines.” E. P. I. 11, 5.] ↩

  21. [“Cum is (Virgilius) aliquando Ennium in manu haberet, rogareturque quidnam faceret, respondit, se aurum colligere de stercore Ennii.” Donat. in vit. Virgil. c. 18.] ↩

  22. [Cic. ad Att. I. 19.] ↩

  23. [“Edmund Campion, formerly a scholar of Oxford, about 1581 set forth a book consisting of ten reasons, written in a terse, elegant Latin style, and dedicated to the scholars of both Universities, in vindication of what he had done in returning to Rome, and exhortatory to them to follow him, slandering the Protestant religion with false and unworthy imputations. Care was taken privily to disperse this book in the universities.” Strype, Aylmer, 31.“A book written by Campion, of the History of Ireland. The Archbp. [Parker, 1572.] liked the wit of the writer.” P. II. 164.] ↩

  24. [De Orat. II. 14.] ↩

  25. [Quintil. I. 14.] ↩

  26. [“Sunt quædam illecebræ Lutheranæ, quibus suum ille (Diabolus) regnum amplificat, quibus ille tendiculis hamatus multos jam vestri ordinis inescavit. Quænam? Aurum, gloria, deliciæ, veneres. Contemnite. Quid enim aliud ista sunt, nisi terrarum ilia, canorus aer, popina vermium, bella sterquilinia? Spernite.” Campion. sub fine Ration. xmæ. vid. “Doctrinæ Jesuiticæ præcipua Capita. Rupellæ, 1585.” p. 207.] ↩

  27. [Confess. V. 13, 14.] ↩

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