66 would be ignoble in me; sometimes it may be otherwise, and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds, but it is by chance if it can be just, and therefore because it is not always right it cannot be ever necessary. In all things else, let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union, or that friends like the Molionidae1 be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Pyramis; no charity can be reproved; and such friendships which are more than shadows, are nothing else but the rayes of that glorious grace drawn into one centre, and made more active by the Union; and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick, by which the ancients depicted friendship: “In the beauties and strength "of a young man, bare-headed, rudely clothed, to signifie its activity, and lastingness, readiness of action, and aptnesses "to do service; Upon the fringes of his garment was written "Mors et vita, as signifying that in life and death the friend'ship was the same; on the forehead was written Summer "and Winter, that is, prosperous and adverse accidents and "states of life; the left arm and shoulder was bare and naked "down to the heart to which the finger pointed, and there "was written longè et propè :" by all which we know that friendship does good far and near in Summer and Winter, in life and death, and knows no difference of state or accident but by the variety of her services: and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship; for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent, useful and necessary. For this is all the allay of this Universality, we may do any thing or suffer any thing, that is wise or necessary, or greatly beneficial to my friend, and that in any thing, in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes. But I would not in bravery visit my friend when he is sick of the plague, unless I can do him good equal at least to my danger, but I will procure him Physicians and prayers, all the assistances that he can receive, and that he can desire, if they be in my power and when he is dead, I will not run into his grave and be stifled with his earth; but I will mourn for him, and perform his will, and take care of his relatives, and do for him as if he were alive, and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet." : *Ανθρωπ ̓ ἀλλήλοισιν ἀπόπροθεν ὦμεν ἑταῖροι To me though distant let thy friendship fly, Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty; and to see brothers hate each other, is not so rare as to see them love at this rate. The dead and the absent have but few friends, say the Spaniards; but they who are the same to their friend dwórрo@ev, when he is in another Countrey, or in another World, these are they who are fit to preserve the sacred fire for eternal sacrifices, and to perpetuate the memory of those exemplar friendships of the best men which have filled the World with history and wonder: for in no other sense but this, can it be true; that friendships are pure loves, regarding to do good more than to receive it: He that is a friend after death, hopes not for a recompense from his friend, and makes no bargain either for fame or love; but is rewarded with the conscience and satisfaction of doing bravely but then this is demonstration that they choose Friends best who take persons so worthy that can and will do so This is the profit and usefulness of friendship; and he that contracts such a noble Union, must take care that his friend be such who can and will; but hopes that himself : 1 The Molionide, Cteatus and Eurytus, twin sons of Molione by Neptune, slain by Hercules. The reference is from Plutarch on "Fraternal Friendship." 2 Theognis, 1. 595. shall be first used, and put to act it: I will not have such a friendship that is good for nothing, but I hope that I shall be on the giving and assisting part; and yet if both the friends be so noble, and hope and strive to do the benefit, I cannot well say which ought to yield; and whether that friendship were braver that could be content to be unprosperous so his friend might have the glory of assisting him; or that which desires to give assistances in the greatest measures of friendship but he that chooses a worthy friend that himself in the days of sorrow and need might receive the advantage, hath no excuse, no pardon, unless himself be as certain to do assistances when evil fortune shall require them. The sum of this answer to this enquiry I give you in a pair of Greek verses.3 ἴσον θεῷ σου τοὺς φίλους τιμᾷν θέλε. ἐν τοῖς κακοῖς δὲ τους φίλους ευεργέτει. Friends are to friends as lesser Gods, while they Honour and service to each other pay. But when a dark cloud comes, grudge not to lend Thy head, thy heart, thy fortune to thy friend. : 3. The last inquiry is, how friendships are to be conducted? That is, what are the duties in presence and in absence; whether the friend may not desire to enjoy his friend as well as his friendship? The answer to which in a great measure depends upon what I have said already: and if friendship be a charity in society, and is not for contemplation and noise, but for material comforts and noble treatments and usages, this is no peradventure, but that if I buy land, I may eat the fruits, and if I take a house I may dwell in it; and if I love a worthy person, I may please my self in his society and in this there is no exception, unless the friendship be between persons of a different sex: for then not only the interest of their religion, and the care of their honour, but the worthiness of their friendship requires that their entercourse be prudent and free from suspicion and reproach: and if a friend is obliged to bear a calamity, so he secure the honour of his friend, it will concern him to conduct his entercourse in the lines of a vertuous prudence, so that he shall rather lose much of his own comfort, than she any thing of her honour; and in this case the noises of people are so to be regarded, that next to innocence they are the principal. But when by caution and prudence and severe conduct, a friend hath done all that he or she can to secure fame and honourable reports; after this, their noises are to be despised; they must not fright us from our friendship, nor from her fairest entercourses; I may lawfully pluck the clusters from my own Vine, though he that walks by, calls me thief. But by the way (Madam) you may see how much I differ from the morosity of those Cynicks who would not admit your sex into the communities of a noble friendship. I believe some Wives have been the best friends in the World; and few stories can out do the nobleness and piety of that Lady that suck'd the poysonous, purulent matter from the wound of our brave Prince in the holy Land, when an Assasine had pierc'd him with a venom'd arrow; and if it be told that Women cannot retain counsel, and therefore can be no brave friends; I can best confute them by the story of Porcia, who being fearful of the weakness of her sex, stabb'd her self into the thigh to try how she could bear pain; and finding herself constant enough to that sufferance, gently chid her Brutus for not daring to trust her, since now she perceived that no torment could wrest that secret from her, which she hoped might be intrusted to her. If there were not more things to be said for your satisfaction, I could have made it disputable whether have been more illustrious in their friendships Men or Women? I cannot say that Womer. 3 Anon, from Grotius, "Excerpt. ex Trag. et Com.," p. 945. are capable of all those excellencies by which Men can oblige | possible for him ever after to hate, for though the society may the World; and therefore a female friend in some cases is not so good a counsellor as a wise man, and cannot so well defend my honour; nor dispose of reliefs and assistances if she be under the power of another: but a woman can love as passionately, and converse as pleasantly, and retain a secret as faithfully, and be useful in her proper ministeries; and she can die for her friend as well as the bravest Roman Knight; and we find that some persons have engag'd themselves as far as death upon a less interest than all this amounts to such were the euxwλipaloi,' as the Greeks call them, the Devoti of a Prince or General, the Assasines amongst the Saracens, the Zoxidovvoi amongst the old Galatians they did as much as a friend could do; and if the greatest services of a friend can be paid for by an ignoble price, we cannot grudge to vertuous and brave women that they be partners in a noble friendship, since their conversation and returns can add so many moments to the felicity of our lives: and therefore, though a Knife cannot enter as far as a Sword, yet a Knife may be more useful to some purposes; and in every thing, except it be against an enemy. A man is the best friend in trouble, but a woman may be equal to him in the days of joy: a woman can as well increase our comforts, but cannot so well lessen our sorrows: and therefore we do not carry women with us when we go to fight; but in peaceful Cities and times, vertuous women are the beauties of society and the prettinesses of friendship. And when we consider that few persons in the world have all those excellencies by which friendship can be useful and illustrious, we may as well allow women as men to be friends; since they can have all that which can be necessary and essential to friendships, and these cannot have all by which friendships can be accidentally improved; in all some abatements will be made; and we shall do too much honour to women if we reject them from friendships because they are not perfect for if to friendships we admit imperfect men, because no man is perfect: he that rejects women does find fault with them because they are not more perfect than men, which either does secretly affirm that they ought and can be perfect, or else it openly accuses men of injustice and partiality. I hope you will pardon me that I am a little gone from my undertaking, I went aside to wait upon the women and to do countenance to their tender vertues: I am now return'd, and, if I were to do the office of a guide to uninstructed friends, would add the particulars following: Madam, you need not read them now, but when any friends come to be taught by your precept and example how to converse in the noblest conjurations, you may put these into better words and tell them. 1. That the first law of friendship is, they must neither ask of their friend what is Undecent; nor grant it if themselves be askt. For it is no good office to make my friend more vicious or more a fool; I will restrain his folly, but not nurse it; I will not make my groom the officer of my lust and vanity. There are Villains who sell their souls for bread, that offer sin and vanity at a price: I should be unwilling my friend should know I am vicious; but if he could be brought to minister to it, he is not worthy to be my friend : and if I could offer it to him, I do not deserve to clasp hands with a vertuous person. 2. Let no Man chuse him for his friend whom it shall be 1 Eucholimaioi, bound by, euxwn, a vow; devoted, in the strict sense of the word. From Herodotus," Euterpe," lxiii. 2 Solidounoi. Silidouroi, Athen. vi. 12. Soldurii, Cæsar, "De Bell. Gall.," iii. 22. justly be interrupted, yet love is an immortal thing, and I will never despise him whom I could once think worthy of my love. A friend that proves not good is rather to be suffered, than any enmities be entertained: and there are some outer offices of friendship and little drudgeries in which the less worthy are to be imployed, and it is better that he be below stairs than quite thrown out of doors. 3. There are two things which a friend can never pardon, a treacherous blow and the revealing of a secret, because these are against the Nature of friendship; they are the adulteries of it, and dissolve the Union; and in the matters of friendship which is the marriage of souls; these are the proper causes of divorce: and therefore I shall add this only, that secrecy is the chastity of friendship, and the publication of it is a prostitution and direct debauchery; but a secret, treacherous wound is a perfect and unpardonable Apostasie. I remember a pretty apologue that Bromiard3 tells, A Fowler in a sharp frosty morning having taken many little birds for which he had long watched, began to take up his Nets; and nipping the birds on the head laid them down. A young Thrush espying the tears trickling down his cheeks by reason of the extreme cold, said to her Mother, that certainly the man was very merciful and compassionate that wept so bitterly over the calamity of the poor Birds. But her Mother told her more wisely, that she might better judge of the man's disposition by his hand than by his eye; and if the hands do strike treacherously, he can never be admitted to friendship, who speaks fairly and weeps pitifully. Friendship is the greatest honesty and ingenuity in the World. 4. Never accuse thy friend, nor believe him that does; if thou dost, thou hast broken the skin; but he that is angry with every little fault breaks the bones of friendship; and when we consider that in society and the accidents of every day, in which no man is constantly pleased or displeased with the same things; we shall find reason to impute the change unto ourselves; and the emanations of the Sun are still glorious, when our eyes are sore: and we have no reason to be angry with an eternal light, because we have a changeable and a mortal faculty. But however do not think thou didst contract alliance with an Angel, when thou didst take thy friend into thy bosom; he may be weak as well as thou art, and thou mayest need pardon as well as he, and μήποτ' ἐπὶ σμικρᾷ προφάσει φίλον ἀνδρ ̓ ἀπολέσσης Ειτις ἁμαρτωλῆσι φίλον ἐπὶ πάντὶ χολώτο Theog. that man loves flattery more than friendship, who would not only have his friend, but all the contingencies of his friend to humour him. 5. Give thy friend counsel wisely and charitably, but leave him to his liberty whether he will follow thee or no and be not angry if thy counsel be rejected: for, advice is no Empire, and he is not my friend that will be my Judge whether I will or no. Neoptolemus had never been honoured with the victory and spoils of Troy if he had attended to the tears and counsel of Lycomedes, who being afraid to venture the young man, fain would have had him sleep at home safe in his little Island. He that gives advice to his friend and exacts obedience to it, does not the kindness and ingenuity of a friend, but the office and pertness of a School-master. 3 John of Bromyard (in Herefordshire) in his "Summa Predicantium." John of Bromyard, a Dominican and famous Cambridge teacher of Theology, who opposed Wiclif, died in 1419. The first edition of his "Summa" was among the earliest books printed abroad. It is undated; the second was a folio printed at Nuremberg in 1485. 6. Never be a Judge between thy friends in any matter where both set their hearts upon the victory: If strangers or enemies be litigants, what ever side thou favourest, thou gettest a friend, but when friends are the parties thou losest one. 7. Never comport thy self so, as that thy friend can be afraid of thee: for then the state of the relation alters when a new and troublesome passion supervenes. ODERUNT quos METUUNT Perfect love casteth out fear, and no man is friend to a Tyrant; but that friendship is Tyranny where the love is changed into fear, equality into empire, society into obedience; for then all my kindness to him also will be no better than flattery. CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE LATER STUARTS.-A.D. 1660 To Initial from the Earl of Orrery's HE love of Nature in the reign of Charles II. chiefly took the form of study of her secrets. The impulse given to scientific inquiry by the writings of Francis Bacon, is to be felt in the speculations of ingenious men who clubbed their wits together, in Oxford, or in London at Gresham College, and escaped from the storms of the Civil War and Commonwealth, into a harbour of quiet thought where their chief care was to secure what Bacon called the merchandise of light. When Robert Boyle settled at Oxford in 1654, for love of the companionship of men of science there, Dr. John Wilkins was warden of Wadham College. Dr. Wilkins, son of Walter Wilkins, citizen and goldsmith, was then forty years old. He had been of the Parliament's side in the Civil War, and in 1656 he married Oliver Cromwell's sister Robina, widow of Peter French, 8. When you admonish your friend, let it be without bitterness; when you chide him, let it be without reproach; when you praise him, let it be with worthy purposes and for just causes, and in friendly measures; too much of that is flattery, too little is envy; if you do it justly, you teach him true measures: but when others praise him, rejoyce, though they praise not thee, and remember that if thou esteemest his praise to be thy disparagement, thou art envious, but neither just nor kind. 9. When all things else are equal prefer an old friend before a new. If thou meanest to spend thy friend, and make a gain of him till he be weary, thou wilt esteem him as a beast of burden, the worse for his age; But if thou esteemest him by noble measures, he will be better to thee by thy being used to him, by trial and experience, by reciprocation of indearments, and an habitual worthiness. An old friend is like old wine, which when a man hath drunk, he doth not desire new, because he saith the old is better. But every old friend was new once; and if he be worthy keep formerly Canon of Christchurch. In 1659, Richard the new one till he become old. 10. After all this, treat thy friend nobly, love to be with him, do to him all the worthinesses of love and fair endearment, according to thy capacity and his; Bear with his infirmities till they approach towards being criminal; but never dissemble with him, never despise him, never leave him. Give him gifts and upbraid him not, 3 and refuse not his kindnesses, and be sure never to despise the smallness or the impropriety of them. Confirmatur amor beneficio accepto: A gift (saith Solomon) fasteneth friendships; for as an eye that dwells long upon a star must be refreshed with lesser beauties and strengthened with greens and looking-glasses, lest the sight become amazed with too great a splendor; so must the love of friends sometimes be refreshed with material and low Caresses; lest by striving to be too divine it become less humane: It must be allowed its share of both : It is humane in giving pardon and fair construction, and openness and ingenuity, and keeping secrets; it hath something that is divine, because it is beneficent; but much because it is eternal. 1 They will Hate those whom they Fear. Words of an unknown author quoted by Seneca, "De Ira" ("Oderint dum metuant"), and more than once by Cicero. 2 Extra fortunam est quicquid donatur amicis; Quis largitur opes veteri fidoque sodali ?-Ep. 19. 8 Non belle quædam faciunt duo: sufficit unus Huic operi: si vis ut loquar, ipse tace. Crede mihi, quamvis ingentia, Posthume, dones, Authoris pereunt garrulitate sui.-Ep 53. (These references to Martial are Jeremy Taylor's notes.) Cromwell made Dr. Wilkins Master of Trinity, but he was ejected at the Restoration, and then came to London, where he was at first made preacher to the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn and minister of St. Laurence Jewry. Dr. Wilkins was one of the most ingenious men of his time. He was well skilled in mathematics, and had endeavoured to apply his knowledge to the well-being of society by stimulating men's minds with suggestions of possible mechanical inventions, and of future conquests of nature. He had written in his youth one book to show that the earth is a planet, another (in 1638) to argue that the moon is an inhabited world, and to suggest that intercourse between inhabitants of the earth and the moon is among the future possibilities of life. Into speculations of this kind he entered with manifest enjoyment, pouring out good and bad or half humorous suggestions and arguments together. For instance, when he had finished his argument upon the conceivable possibility of a man's getting to the moon, he added this : Having thus finished this discourse, I chanced upon a late fancy to this purpose, under the feigned name of Domingo Gonsales, written by a late reverend and learned bishop: in which (besides sundry particulars wherein this latter chapter did unwittingly agree with it) there is delivered a very pleasant and well-contrived fancy concerning a voyage to this other world. He supposeth that there is a natural and usual passage for many creatures betwixt our earth and this planet. Thus he says, those great multitudes of locusts, wherewith divers countries have been destroyed, do proceed from thence. And if we peruse the authors who treat of them, we shall find that many times they fly in numberless trooŅA, I MITTA And here, one that had a strong fancy, were better able to set forth the great benefit and pleasure to be had by such a journey. And that whether you consider the strangeness of the persons, language, arts, policy, religion of those inhabitants, together with the new traffic that might be brought thence. In brief, do but consider the pleasure and profit of those later discoveries in America, and we must needs conclude this to be inconceivably beyond it. Another of Dr. Wilkins's books is a series of amusing exercises in what he calls Mixed Mathematics, first printed while he was at Oxford, and republished in 1680. He entitled it "Mathematical Magick," or the wonders that may be performed by mechanical geometry. Its first part, called "Archimedes," illustrates powers of the lever, wheel, pulley, wedge, and screw, and one chapter in it is said in its title to be "concerning the infinite strength of wheels, pulleys, and screws; that it is possible by the multitude of these, to pull up any oak by the roots with a hair, lift it up with a straw, or blow it up with one's breath; or to perform the greatest labour with the least power." The second part, called "Dædalus," abounds in suggestion of mechanical motions. Here are two: Of a Sailing Chariot, that may without Horses be driven on the The force of wind in the motion of sails may be applied also to the driving of a chariot, by which a man may sail on the land, as well as by a ship on the water. The labour of horses or other beasts, which are usually applied to this purpose, being artificially supplied by the strength of winds. That such chariots are commonly used in the champion plains of China, is frequently affirmed by divers credible authors. Boterus mentions that they have been tried also in Spain, though with what success he doth not specify. But above all other experiments to this purpose, that sailing chariot at Sceveling in Holland, is more eminently remarkable. It was made by the direction of Stephinus, and "De incremento Urbium," 1. 1. c. 10. (The references are given in the margin of his book by Dr. Wilkins.) a mielmoed by many archies Walchius affirms it to be fw gas a vizes for its motion, and yet of so great a sapacity for its burden: “U: in medio freto secundis ventis DATES, Telocitate multis parasangis post se relinquat, et pescarum birarum spatio, viginti aut triginta mmmaria Urermanica continuo cursu emetiatur, concreditosque sit plus minus rectores sex aut decem, in petitum locum tradent, billimo ilims ad clavum qui sedet nutu, quaqua versum mining labore velis commissum, mirabile hoc oratinenti carrus navigium dirigentis." That it did far exceed the speed of any ship, though we should suppose it to be carried in the open sea with never so prosperous wind: and that in some few hours' space it would convey six or seven persons, twenty or thirty German miles, and all this with very little labour of him that sitteth at the stern, who may easily guide the course of it as he pleaseth. That eminent inquisitive man Peireskius, having travelled to Sceveling for the sight and experience of this chariot, would frequently after with much wonder mention the extreme swiftness of its motion. 3" Commemorare solebat stuporem quo correptus fuerat cum vento translatus | citatissimo non persentiscere tamen, nempe tam citus erat quam ventus." Though the wind were in itself very swift and strong, yet to passengers in this chariot it would not be at all discernible, because they did go with an equal swiftness to the wind itself: men that ran before it seeming to go backwards, things which seem at a great distance being presently overtaken and left behind. In two hours' space it would pass from Sceveling to Putten, which are distant from one another above fourteen horaria milliaria, (saith the same author,, that is, more than two and forty miles. Grotius is very copious and elegant in the celebration of this invention, and the author of it in divers epigrams. "Ventivolam Tiphys deduxit in æquora navim, Jupiter in stellas, æthereamque domum. In terrestre solum virtus Stevnia, nam nec Tiphy tuum fuerat, nec Jovis istud opus." • And in another place "Imposuit plaustro vectantem carbasa malum These relations did at the first seem unto me, (and perhaps they will so to others) somewhat strange and incredible. But upon farther enquiry, I have heard them frequently attested from the particular eyesight and experience of such eminent persons, whose names I dare not cite in a business of this nature, which in those parts is so very common and little observed. I have not met with any author who doth treat particularly concerning the manner of framing this chariot, though 2 "Fabularum Decas," Fab. 9. 3 "Pet. Gassendus vita Peireskii," 1. 2. "Grotii Poemata," Ep. 19. This quotation and the next are from the second book of Epigrams in the collected poems of Grotins, the book consisting entirely of twenty-two epigrams on the sailing chariot made for Prince Maurice of Nassau, Captain-General of the Unite States of Holland, by Simon Stevin of Bruges, who had been l teacher in mathematics, and who was made by him superintendent the dykes. He died in 1635, and was the inventor of the saili chariots, used afterwards for some time upon the Dutch plains a frozen canals. This epigram says: Tiphys brought down the sail: ship into the seas, Jove placed it in the skies, Stevin on earth; th was not your work, Tiphys, nor Jove's. 5 Ep. 5. Here two lines at the close of the epigram are added two from the middle: Did he put on a chariot a mast bearing sa or add wheels to a ship? The ship climbs the water, the chariot ru swiftly with air, and you may rightly say this flies, that swims. A SAILING CHARIOT. four wheels of an equal bigness, with two sails like those in a ship; there being some contrivance to turn and steer it, by moving a rudder which is placed beyond the two hindmost wheels; and for the stopping of it, this must be done, either by letting down the sail, or turning it from the wind. Of this kind they have frequently in Holland other little vessels for one or two persons to go upon the ice, having sledges instead of wheels, being driven with a sail; the bodies of them like little boats, that if the ice should break, they might yet safely carry a man upon the water, where the sail would be still useful for the motion of it. I have often thought that it would be worth the experiment to enquire, whether or no such a sailing chariot might not be more conveniently framed with moveable sails, whose force may be impressed from their motion, equivalent to those in a wind-mill. Their foremost wheels (as in other chariots) for the greater facility, being somewhat lower than the other, answerable to this figure. In which the sails are so contrived, that the wind from any coast will have a force upon them to turn them about; and the motion of these sails must needs turn the wheels, and consequently carry on the chariot itself to any place (though fully against the wind) whither it shall be directed. The chief doubt will be, whether in such a contrivance, every little ruggedness or unevenness of the ground, will not 1 Epig. 20, 21. A CHARIOT ON THE WINDMILL PRINCIPLE. delightful, or better husbandry, than to make use of the wind (which costs nothing, and eats nothing) instead of horses? This being very easy to be effected by those, the convenience of whose habitations doth accommodate them for such experiments. Concerning the Possibility of Framing an Ark for Submarine Navigations. The Difficulties and Conveniences of such a Contrivance. It will not be altogether impertinent unto the discourse of these gradient Automata,2 to mention what Mersennus doth so largely and pleasantly descant upon, concerning the making of a ship, wherein men may safely swim under the water. That such a contrivance is feasible, and may be effected, is beyond all question, because it hath been already experimented here in England by Cornelius Drebel; 3 but how to improve it unto public use and advantage, so as to be serviceable for remote voyages, the carrying of any considerable number of men, with provisions and commodities, would be of such excellent use, as may deserve some further enquiry. 2 "Tract. de Magnetis Proprietatibus." 3 Cornelius van Drebbel, born at Alcmaer, in 1572, died in London 1634. He improved telescopes and microscopes, invented a thermometer, speculated on the possibility of producing rain and cold by machines. He is said to have invented scarlet dyeing, and given the secret to his daughter, whose husband, Cuffler, first practised the art. |