5 retained; others, it may be, fitter to be abrogated; since there ought to be a law as well as a liberty in this particular. And in this choyce there would be some reguard had to the well sounding and more harmonious words, and such as are numerous and apt to fall gracefully into their cadences and periods, and so recommend themselves at the very first sight, as it were; others, which (like false stones) will never shine, in whatever light they be placed, but embase the rest. And here I note that such as have lived long in Universities doe greately affect words and expressions 10 no where in use besides, as may be observed in Cleaveland's Poems for Cambridg; and there are also some Oxford words us'd by others, as I might instance in severall. 8. Previous to this it would be enquir'd what particular 15 dialects, idiomes, and proverbs were in use in every several county of England; for the words of ye present age being properly the vernacula, or classic rather, special reguard is to be had of them, and this consideration admits of infinite improvements. 20 9. And happly it were not amisse that we had a collection of ye most quaint and courtly expressions, by way of florilegium, or phrases distinct from the proverbs; for we are infinitely defective as to civil addresses, excuses, & formes upon suddaine and unpremeditated though 25 ordinary encounters: in which the French, Italians, & Spanyards have a kind of natural grace & talent, which furnishes the conversation, and renders it very agreeable : here may come in synonimes, homoinymes, &c. 10. And since there is likewise a manifest rotation and 30 circling of words, which goe in & out like the mode & fashion, bookes would be consulted for the reduction of some of the old layd-aside words and expressions had formerly in delicijs; for our language is in some places sterile and barren by reason of this depopulation, as I may 35 call it; and therefore such places should be new cultivated, and enrich'd either wth the former (if significant) or some other; for example, we have hardly any words that do so fully expresse the French clinquant, naïvete, ennuy, bizarre, concert, façoniere, chicaneries, consumme, emotion, 40 defer, effort, chocq, entours, débouche, or the Italian vaghezze, garbato, svelto, &c. Let us therefore (as ye Romans did the Greeke) make as many of these do homage as are like to prove good citizens. 11. Something might likewise be well translated out of the best orators & poets, Greek and Latin, and even out 5 of ye moderne languages, that so some judgement might be made concerning the elegancy of ye style, and so a laudable & unaffected imitation of the best reco'mended to writers. 12. Finaly, there must be a stock of reputation gain'd by some public writings and compositions of ye Members 10 of this Assembly, and so others may not thinke it dishonor to come under the test, or accept them for judges and approbators; and if ye designe were ariv'd thus far, I conceive a very small matter would dispatch the art of rhetoric, which the French propos'd as one of the first 15 things they reco'mended to their late academitians. I am, Sr, 20 I was on Wednesday last (afternoone) to kisse your hands; but finding you abroad, and my selfe obliged to returne that evening, that I might receive the Countess of Sunderland, who sent me word she would call at my house the next morning early, before her embarkment for Holland, 25 I do now write what I should have said to you, if time had permitted; and that is to let you know that, upon your late communicating to me your desire of adorning your choice library with the pictures of men illustrious for their parts and erudition, I did not in the least suspect your intention 30 of placing my shallow head amongst those heroes, who, knowing my unworthynesse of that honour, will in spight of your good opinion of Mr. Kneller for his skill of drawing to the life, either condemne his colouring, that he made me not blush, or me for impudence that I did not. But this is not all; for men will question your judgment or suspect you of flattery, if you take it not downe; for, in good earnest, when I seriously consider how unfit I am to appeare in the classe of those learned gentlemen, I am perfectly asham'd, & should say with much more reason 5 than Marullus (after a recension of the famous poets) Nos, si quis inter cæteros locat Vates, -Onerat, quam honorat verius. 'Tis pitty, and a diminution, so elegant a place & precious collection should have any thing in it of vulgar, but such 10 as Paulus Jovius has celebrated, and such as you told me you were procuring, the Boyles, the Gales, & the Newtons of our nation: what, in God's name, should a planter of colewort do amongst such worthies? Setting him aside, I confesse to you I was not displeas'd with the 15 fancy of the late Lord Chancellor Hyde, when to adorne his stately palace (since demolished) he collected the pictures of as many of our famous countrymen as he could purchase or procure, instead of the heads and busts of forreiners, whose names, thro' the unpardonable mistake or 20 (shall I call it?) pride of painters, they scorne to put to their pieces, imagining it would dishonour their art, should they transmit every thing valuable to posterity besides faces, which signifie nothing to the possessor (vnlesse their relations were to live for ever, & allways in being), 25 so as one cannot tell whether they were drawn from any of their friends or ancestors, or the picture of some porter or squalid chimney sweeper, whose prolix beard and wrinkled forehead might passe him for a philosopher. I am in perfect indignation at this folly, as oft as I consider what extravagant sums are given for a dry scalp of some (forsooth) Italian painting, be it of Raphael or Titian himselfe, which would be infinitely more estimable, were we assured it was the picture of the learned Count of Mirandula, Politian, Guicciardini, Machiavel, Petrarch, Ariosto, or 35 Tasso; or some famous pope, prince, poet, or other hero of those times. Give me Carolus Magnus, a Tamerlaine, a Scanderbeg, Solyman the Magnificent, Matt. Corvinus, Lorenzo, Cosimo Medicis, Andrea Doria, Ferdinando Cortez, Columbus, Americus Vesputius, Castracani Castruccio, and 40 a Sforza; the effigies of Cardan, and both the Scaligers, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Galileo. I say, give me the portraits of an Isabella of Arragon or Castile, and her foure daughters; Lucretia d'Este (to whom our Queene is related), Victoria Colonna, Hippolita Strozzi, Petrarch's 5 Laura, Anna Maria Schurman, and above all Hellen Cornaro, daughter of a procurator of St. Marco (one of the most illustrious families of Venice), who received the degree of Doctoresse at Padua for her universal knowledge & erudition, upon the importunity of that famous University 10 prevailing on her modesty. She had ben often sought in honorable marriage by many greate persons; but, preferring the Muses before all other considerations, she preserved herselfe a virgin, and being not long since deceased, had her obsequies celebrated at Rome by 15 a solemn procession, & elogie of all the witts of that renowned citty. Nor may I forget the illustrious of our owne nation of both sexes: the Westons, Moores, Seymours, Sir J. Cheke, Ann Countess of Oxon (whose monu. ment is in Westminster Abbey), the late Mrs. Philips, & 20 Princesse Elizabeth, eldest daughter to the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, to whom the greate Des Cartes dedicates his bookes, with a world of more renowned characters, famous for armes & arts; rather than the most beautiful courtezan or prostitute of them all, who has 25 nothing to commend her but her impudence & that she was a painted strumpet. Did it ever prejudice the glory of the inimitable Holbein, for putting the names of our greate Duke of Norfolk, Henry the Eighth, when lesse corpulent, Edward the Sixth, & Treasurer Cromwell, Jane 30 Seymour, Anne Bulleyn, Charles Brandon, Althea Talbot, Countesse of Arundel, Card. Wolsey, Sr Thomas More & his learned daughters, Sr Brian Tuke, Dr. Nowel, Erasmus, Melancthon, and even honest Frobenius, among innumerable other illustrious of that age for learning & other vertues? I aske if this were the least diminution to the fame of one who realy painted to the life beyond any man this day living? But, in truth, they seeme from the beginning jealous of their owne honour, & afraid of being forgotten; hence we find ΓΛΥΚΩΝ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ insculpt on the Farnesian Hercules, and Michael Angelo fecit, P. P. Rubens pinxit, Marc. Antonio cælavit, &c. There is not that wretched print but weares the name of no-artist, whilst 35 40 our painters take no care to transmitt to posterity the names of the persons whom they represent; through which negligence so many excellent pieces come after a while to be dispers'd amongst brokers and up-holsters, who expose them to the streetes in every dirty and infamous corner. ; 'Tis amongst their dusty lumber we frequently meete with Queene Elizabeth, Mary Q. of Scots, the Countesse of Pembroke, Earles of Leycester and Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sr Philip Sidney, Cecil, Buckhurst, Walsingham, Sir Francis Bacon, King James and his favourite Bucking- 10 ham, and others who made the greate figure in this nation, of John Husse, Zisca, Luther, Calvine, Beza, Socinus, William & Maurice, Princes of Orange, Charles the Fifth, Philip the Second, Francis the First, the Dukes of Alba, Parma, Don John of Austria, and Count Egmont, authors 15 of sects, great captaines and politicians (famous in our historie in other countries), flung many times behind the hangings, covered with dust and cobwebs. Upon this account it is, men curious of books & antiquities have ever had medals in such estimation, & rendered them a most 10 necessary furniture to their libraries, because by them we are not onely inform'd whose real image & superscription they beare, but have discovered to us, in their reverses, what heroical exploits they perform'd;- their famous temples, bazilica, thermæ, amphitheaters, aquæducts, 25 circuses, naumachias, bridges, triumphal arches, columns, historical & other pompous structures & erections by them, and which have ben greately assistant to ye recovery of the antient & magnificent architecture, whose real monuments had ben so barbarously defac'd by the Goths & other 30 truculent invaders, that without this light (& some few ruines yet extant justifie those types) that so vsefull order and ornament of columns & their concomitant members were hardly to be known by the text of Vitruvius and all his learned Commentators, and till Daniel Barbaro, Leon 35 Alberto, Raphael, M. Angelo, & others raised it out of the dust & restor'd that noble art, by their owne and other learned men consulting & comparing the reverses of medals and medalions: besides what they farther contribute to the elucidation of many passages in historie, 40 chronologie, and geography. So as I do not see how Mr. Pepys's library can be long without this necessary |