Chapter 10

348. _Cistertian Monastery_. [Sonnet III.]

'Here man more purely lives,' &c.

'Bonum est nos hic esse, quia homo vivit purius, cadit rarius, surgit velocius, incedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur felicius, purgatur utius, praemiatur copiosius.'--Bernard. 'This sentence,' says Dr. Whitaker, 'is usually inscribed in some conspicuous part of the Cistertian houses.'

349. _Waldenses_.

'Whom obloquy pursues with hideous bark.' [Sonnet XIV. l. 8.]

The list of foul names bestowed upon those poor creatures is long and curious;--and, as is, alas! too natural, most of the opprobrious appellations are drawn from circumstances into which they were forced by their persecutors, who even consolidated their miseries into one reproachful term, calling them Patarenians, or Paturins, from _pati_, to suffer.

Dwellers with wolves, she names them, for the pine And green oak are their covert; as the gloom Of night oft foils their enemy's design, She calls them Riders on the flying broom; Sorcerers, whose frame and aspect have become One and the same through practices malign.

350. _Borrowed Lines_.

'And the green lizard and the gilded newt Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.' [Sonnet XXI. ll. 7-8.]

These two lines are adopted from a MS., written about 1770, which accidentally fell into my possession. The close of the preceding Sonnet 'On Monastic Voluptuousness' is taken from the same source, as is the verse, 'Where Venus sits,' &c., and the line, 'Once ye were holy, ye are holy still,' in a subsequent Sonnet.

851. _Transfiguration_.

'One (like those prophets whom God sent of old) Transfigured,' &c. [Sonnet XXXIV. ll. 4-5.]

'M. Latimer suffered his keeper very quietly to pull off his hose, and his other array, which to looke unto was very simple: and being stripped unto his shrowd, he seemed as comely a person to them that were present, as one should lightly see: and whereas in his clothes hee appeared a withered and crooked sillie (weak) olde man, he now stood bolt upright, as comely a father as one might lightly behold.... Then they brought a faggotte, kindled with fire, and laid the same downe at doctor Ridley's feete. To whome M. Latimer spake in this manner, "Bee of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never bee put out."'--_Fox's Acts, &c._

Similar alterations in the outward figure and deportment of persons brought to like trial were not uncommon. See note to the above passage in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, for an example in an humble Welsh fisherman.

352. _Craft_.

----'craftily incites The overweening, personates the mad.' [Sonnet XLI. l. 11.]

A common device in religious and political conflicts. See Strype in support of this instance.

353. _The Virgin Mountain_. [Sonnet XLIII.]

Jung-frau.

354. _Laud_. [Sonnet XLV.]

In this age a word cannot be said in praise of Laud, or even in compassion for his fate, without incurring a charge of bigotry; but fearless of such imputation, I concur with Hume, 'that it is sufficient for his vindication to observe that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed during that zealous period.' A key to the right understanding of those parts of his conduct that brought the most odium upon him in his own time, may be found in the following passage of his speech before the bar of the House of Peers:--'Ever since I came in place, I have laboured nothing more than that the external publick worship of God, so much slighted in divers parts of this kingdom, might be preserved, and that with as much decency and uniformity as might be. For I evidently saw that the publick neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, _had almost cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God, which while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little enough to keep it in any vigour_.'

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