My eye, descending from the Hill, surveys 5 Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity; Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, 15 Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. No unexpected inundations spoil The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil; 20 First loves to do, then loves the good he does. Nor are his blessings to his banks confin'd, 1. Surveys, fr. O. Fr. surveoir (Lat. super, videre); as purvey, fr. pourvoir. 10. Shore shore, shire, share, shard, shred, scar (a jagged, divided rock) all come from the same root, O. E. scyran, sceran, which signifies to split, divide, separate. The shore divides sea and land; a shire is a division of the kingdom; &c.; and the plough-share is that part of the plough which divides the soil. 14. Which see note 1, extract 44. Overlay, "smother with too much covering." (Johnson.) When he, to boast or to disperse his stores, 25 Visits the world, and in his flying tow'rs Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours; So that to us no thing, no place, is strange, Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull; 25. Tow'rs, tours, turns, fr. Fr. tour, a turn. 27. Wants, is wanting. So in Paradise Lost, iv. 338 "Nor gentle purpose [conversation, Fr. propos], nor endearing smiles Wanted"-i. e. were wanting. Abraham Cowley. 1618-1667. (History, p. 108.) Hail! active Nature's watchful life and health! Hail to thy husband, Heat, and thee! Thou the world's beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom he! 5 Say, from what golden quivers of the sky Do all thy winged arrows fly? Swiftness and Power by birth are thine; From thy great Sire they come, thy Sire, the Word Divine. Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay, 10 Dost thy bright wood of stars survey, And all the year dost with thee bring Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring. 3. Husband: this word is generally taken to signify the band, or bond, of the house; but there is reason to believe that the latter syllable comes from O. N. bua, to till, cultivate-which is also the source of boor, neigh-bour. 8. Sire: sire, sieur, seigneur form the various stages in the passage of sir from Lat. senior-its ultimate origin, age, in primitive times constituting the chief claim to superiority. The original meaning of O. E. ealdor, a ruler, was so completely lost sight of, that it was given to the very youngest of our early kings. Compare the modern elder (sb.), alderman; and even earl according to some. Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above The Sun's gilt tent for ever move, 15 And still, as thou in pomp dost go, The shining pageants of the world attend thy show. 83. CHARACTER OF CROMWELL. What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness' to succeed in, so improbable a design as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? That he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages 2 of a parliament; to trample upon them too as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for a while, and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be humbly and daily petitioned that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a year, to be the master of those who had hired 1. Happiness, good fortune. The root of this word (hap), which Mr. Davies pronounces of Celtic, others of Norse, origin, seems, like success, to have once expressed a neutral notion, as indeed happen and perhaps do still, good-luck being not necessarily suggested. Thus haply was often used in the sense of perchance. 2. Wages: It. gaggio, Fr. gages, E. wages are all the same word, g or gu in the Romance interchanging with English w, as in wile, guile; ward, guard; wise, guise; guerdon, re-ward, &c. The common origin of all three is L. L. vadium; which, however, has no immediate connection with vas vadis, but comes from the Goth. vadi (Diez). him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity; to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad; to be buried 3 among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and to leave a name behind him, not to be extinguished, but with the whole world; which, as it is now too little for his praises, so might have been too for his conquests, if the short line of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs? 3. Buried: bury, to inter, and bury, a town, burgh, borough, are of the same origin, O. E. beorgan, Ger. bergen, to cover, conceal. Thus a burgh, O. E. burh, is the covered-in, protected place; to bury, is to cover up in the earth. 4. Conquests: In medieval law con quests meant nothing more than acquisitions, as distinguished from hereditary estates; a notion expressed in later English law by the word purchase. Thus Conqueror had a comparatively innocent meaning once, and meant simply Acquirer or Purchaser. CHAPTER VI. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THE 84. John Hales. 1584-1656. (History, p. 110.) He that shall look into the acts of Christians as they are recorded by more indifferent1 writers, shall easily perceive that all that were Christians were not saints. But this is the testimony of an enemy. Yea, but have not our friends taken up the same complaint? Doubtless, if it had been the voice and approbation of the bridegroom,2 that secular state and authority had belonged to the church, either of due or of necessity, the friends of the bridegroom hearing it would have rejoiced at it; but it is found they have much sorrowed at it. St. Hilary, much offended with the opinion, that even orthodox bishops of his time had taken up that it was a thing very necessary for the church to lay hold on the temporal sword, in a tract of his against Auxentius the Arian bishop of Milan, thus plainly bespeaks3 them :-" And first of all, I must needs pity the labour of our age, and bewail the fond opinions of the present times, by which men suppose the arm of flesh can much advantage God, and strive to defend by secular ambition the church of Christ. I beseech you, bishops, you that take yourselves so to be, whose authority in preaching of the Gospel did the apostles use? By the help of what powers preached they Christ, and turned almost all nations from idols to God? Took they unto themselves any honour out of princes' palaces, who, after their stripes, amidst their chains in prison, sung 1. Indifferent, impartial. 2. Bridegroom, O. E. bryd-guma, a bride-man; guma, a man, is still found in yeoman, groom, and, according to some, in goodman. 3. Bespeaks, addresses. 4. Fond, foolish. 5. Bishops: O. E. bisceop, fr. Gk. éπíσкожOя, an overseer, is one of the words which we owe to the first Roman missionaries. |