A monumental henosis

This is the attractive wall monument in Romsey Abbey, Hampshire, to John St Barbe and his wife Grissell. (‘Griselda’, for here’s a 17^th century Englishwoman whose name testifies that the martyrdom in matrimony suffered by ‘Patient Griselda’ was still considered a suitable reference and example). Everyone looks somewhat alike on the monument: John is Grissell with a wispy Cavalier moustache and tuft, the boys below look like two pairs of twins – which they may have been, of course.

But the monument does so much with symmetry that whoever penned the epitaph attempted, with some success, a symmetrical poem for this symmetrical couple.

I have been puzzling over how best to read the interlaced verses on the monument. Read strictly left to right and then downwards, in the normal fashion of eye movement across a text, it is mainly a jumble that strongly suggests that you have to do something else:

Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust

Whom Nature Wedlock Grace did tie

And faithfull ones

Since in her Bowels rest these Just

In one fast Chain of unity

Whose silent bones

Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth

Because such Righteous & theire seed

In fame & state

But brought fower sonns to Perfect Birth

Shall Florish here and shall in Deed

Tryumph o’re fate

It goes a bit better if, after a long line on the left, you dip to the short central line beneath, and then rise to the long line on the right:

Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust

And faithfull ones

Whom Nature Wedlock Grace did tie

Since in her Bowels rest these Just

Whose silent bones

In one fast Chain of unity

Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth

In fame & state

Because such Righteous & theire seed

But brought fower sonns to Perfect Birth

Tryumph o’re fate

Shall Florish here and shall in Deed

If you think of the verses as corresponding to his left side of the monument, and her right side, then you can read just down the left and centre to produce the verses for John St Barbe (I editorialise a little):

Earth’s Rich in Mines of Precious Dust

And faithful ones

Since in her Bowels rest these Just

Whose silent bones

Dead here do Rest yet Left not Earth

In fame & state

But brought four sons to Perfect Birth:

Triumph o’re Fate!

It doesn’t work at all for a composite of centre lines and Grissell’s right hand side. One might say that is as you’d expect: that it makes sense from the man’s side, no sense at all from the woman’s.

I tried to produce an optimum text in which the reading eye jiggles up and down. I am now editing the verses more heavily still, and introducing a repetition for effect:

Earth’s rich in mines of precious dust

and faithful ones

Since in her bowels rest these Just

whom Nature, Wedlock, Grace did tie

in one fast chain of unity.

Whose silent bones

Dead here do rest, yet left not Earth

but brought four sons to perfect birth

shall flourish here and shall indeed

in fame & state

Triumph o’re Fate:

Because such righteous & their seed

Triumph o’re Fate!

I suppose that the poet wanted you to do something like this, and the point of the poem wasn’t so much sequential sense as an interlacing that paid tribute to two lives lived as one flesh, so we have two poems as one poem.

He (or she) then produced an interlacing of two into one in an anagram that is fairly strict by the generally loose 17^th century standards. Again, as a product from their two names, the poet produces an idea of unity, them both partaking equally of glory. I think there’s an A left over from the names, an E from the anagram.

All this reminded me of George Herbert’s poem, ‘The Watercourse’, in that it’s a poem you can’t actually read out loud, but which exists for the eye, as we take in visually those alternatives which can’t be simultaneously pronounced, but which are the rhyme, ‘life’ and ‘strife’, ‘salvation’ and ‘damnation’.

The St Barbe family were Hampshire gentry, perhaps originally from Somerset, but living at Broadlands. How the married couple came to be buried on the same day (2^nd Sept 1658) is a minor mystery. Smallpox might have done for them both.

'O, Mr Carter, what shall I do?' The worthy life of John Carter 1554-1635

After another term in which work made it impossible for me to add to my blog here, I finally return to ‘Early Modern Whale’.

Here’s a work of filial and religious piety to start off again with, THE TOMB-STONE, OR, A broken and imperfect Monument, of that Worthy Man (who was just and perfect in his Generations;) M^r. JOHN CARTER, Pastor first of Bramford, and last of Belsted in SUFFOLK.BY His unworthy Son JOHN CARTER, Preacher of the Gospell, and as yet sojourning in the City of NORWICH.

When I came across this one, I was actually thinking about a post on the centenarian puritan divine Laurence Chaderton (which will follow one day), an associate of Carter. But this memoir by the younger Carter struck me as so unusually intimate, giving us a real sense of what it might have been like to live with one who was genuinely ‘godly’. John Carter senior was a credit to his faith, egalitarian and charitable. His son’s effort to memorialize his father has such sense of godly community that at the end of his account he had this printed: “I leave these ensuing Pages vacant, that so as thou remembrest any of his holy sayings, and doings, not mentioned before, thou mayst write them down, for thine own benefit, and the good of others.” It would be fascinating to come across a copy with reader annotations, like a pious version of the descriptions Sterne invites of the reader’s ideal Widow Wadman.

Carter was born “about the year of our Lord 1554”, near Canterbury (one notices that even his son isn’t sure of the exact date – how often we partly confirm our identities to banks and the like with recital of a date of birth, and how little they cared!). A wealthy citizen funded his education in Cambridge, where he was a member of a very elite seminar (we’d call it): “all that while he continued a gremial in the bosom, and Lap of his Mother the University, he had constant meetings with divers of his famous contemporaries, and that weekly: Doctor Chaderton, Doctor Andrews (afterwards a Prelate) Master Culverwell, Master Knewstubs, &c. and divers others, whom God raised up, and fitted to send forth into his Harvest, to gather his Corn, then ripe for the Sickle, into his Barne. At their meetings they had constant exercises. They prayed together: they bent themselves to the study of the Scriptures: one was for the original Tongues, another’s task was the Grammatical interpretations; another for the Logical Analysis: another for the true sense, and meaning: another to gather Doctrines. Thus led they their several employments”.

A ‘gremial’ is a ‘resident member’. That’s quite clearly a hostile note about Lancelot Andrewes becoming a bishop. Carter’s son, preacher himself, evidently takes some pride that his father “was always a Nonconformist, one of the good old Puritans of England. He never swallowed any of the Praelatical Ceremonies against his Conscience. He was often in trouble by the Bishops; but God ever raised him up friends that brought him off.”

As pastor of Bramford, “Every Lord’s day [Carter] preached twice very powerfully, and catechised the younger sort. He preached a Lecture every Thursday; to which multitudes from Ipswich and other adjacent places did resort.” When obliged to shift parish to Belsted, Carter carried on as though he was still serving the larger parish: “His Church at Belsted stood in a very solitary place: He always kept a Key of it, and would often resort thither all alone. A Gentleman once espying him going to the Church-ward on a private day, hid himself till my Father was past, and in the Church; then he came close up to the Church wall, desirous to peep in at some Window to see what he did, and to listen him, if he said any thing. And the Gentleman told me … that he prayed, then read a Chapter, and after that prayed largely, and very heavenly, as if he had been in his Family, or in the public Congregation.”

It is what the son tells us about his father’s daily life that is more striking. It was of course a very devout household: “his house was a Church. Twice a day he had Scripture read, and after the Psalm or Chapter were ended, he would ask of all his Children and Servants, what they remembered; and whatsoever sentences they rehearsed, he would speak something to them that tended to edification.”

Carter starts his account with a remark that his father’s “lively voice … cannot be recalled”. It was clearly a voice that dominated his upbringing. His father’s private prayers were deliberately loud, pour encourager les autres:

“Besides his Family prayers, and duties, he prayed constantly in his Closet, whensoever he went into his study, and before he came out to Dinner or Supper. He prayed very loud, and mostly very long. For the extension of his voice (I conjecture) he had a double reason; one, that by his earnest speech he might quicken up his own heart and devotion: the other, that he might be a pattern of secret prayer to his Children and Servants.”

John Carter senior gradually comes to life for us as we learn the little things: his clothes he wore, the even tenor of his married life, how he ate:

“For his habit, and my dear Mother’s apparrelling, it was very plain, and homely; of the old fashion, yet very cleanly and decent; insomuch that all that came to the house would say, they had seen Adam and Eve, or some of the old Patriarchs.

“He and my Mother were married together well-nigh sixty years; and I am confident in all that time, there never was a distasteful word between them. And indeed, how could there be? He lived with her as a man of knowledge; he was a wise, faithful, and tender guide; and she was humble and meek, did reverence, and highly esteem him: Every word he spake was an Oracle to her, and her will ever closed with his Judgment.”

“In all his House there was nothing but honest plainness … He never used Plate in his house, but Vessels of Wood, and Earth: Pewter and Brass were the highest Metals for his utensils. All the days of his housekeeping he used constantly at his Table a little wooden Salt, which with age was grown to be of a duskish black, which was much taken notice of by all comers.”

“He never feasted, but always had wholesome, full, and liberal diet in the house. And all fared alike: He, and my Mother, never thought his Children, and Servants, and poor folks, did eat enough.” (Carter adds later that his father in fact fasted regularly, just taking on those days toast and beer ‘to sustain nature.’)

Old Carter treated his servants as friends, and his son almost finds a fault in just how egalitarian his father was: “if he failed in any thing, it was in his carriage to his Servants; for truly he did not carry himself as a Master to Servants, but as a familiar friend to his friends. He would make them to sit down with him, and drink to them at meat … On the Sabbath day he never had any thing roast to Dinner, because he would have none detained at home from the public Ordinances. The Pot was hung on, and a piece of Beef and a Pudding in it; that was their constant Lords-day Dinner for well-nigh sixty years.”

Carter senior was charitable in ways that puritans are sometimes supposed not to be: “He never went to the house of a poor creature, but he left a Purse-Alms, as well as a spiritual Alms of good Heavenly advice, and Prayer.” Nor did he exercise a lordly dominion over the rest of creation: “The righteous man is merciful to his Beast: he was careful even for the brute Creatures, that they should be fed to the full. All his Cattle were like the first Kine that Pharoah saw feeding in the Meadow, they were fat-fleshed, and well-favoured; in so much that I have heard some godly people say merrily, If they would be a Cow, or a Horse, or a Hog, or a Dog, they would choose Mr. Carters house.”

The local people (besides their jocular wishes to be as well-treated as Old Carter’s livestock) knew that their pastor was a life-long specialist on the Book of Revelations (“His pains in the study of the Revelation were indefatigable”, says his son), and, assuming - as 17^th century protestants would do - that the book foretold their times, consulted him about what his studies led him to deduce:

“When others came to him, and pressed him with importunity, to tell them his judgement concerning the future state of the Church; saying to him, That he had traveled much in the Revelation, and they were persuaded, God had revealed something more then ordinary to him: What do you think? Shall we have Popery once again, or no? He answered, You shall not need to fear fire and faggot any more, but such dreadful divisions will be amongst Gods people, and professors, as will equalize the greatest persecutions.”

Carter junior gives other examples of the distressed coming to him for advice (“O Mr. Carter! what shall I do?”): it usually came down to him urging them to pray, and of course joining them in prayers.

The habit of prayer became obsessive with the old man. In his last days, as he became mentally confused at last, he would ask his daughter, who was by then his housekeeper, “shall we not go to Prayer? and when she should answer him, you have been at Prayer already, and you are weary; he would answer, I fear we have not done what we should do.” He had invested so much in prayer: there’s a tremor of anxiety there that his account nevertheless needed topping up. Old John Carter died on a Sunday morning, February 22^nd, 1635 (new style). He was unable to eat his usual frugal Sunday breakfast, an egg. He had written his sermon for the day, but realized that he could not manage to get to church. His daughter helped him into bed: laid his head down, then lifted one leg in, but discovered when she went to lift up the other leg up and into the bed, that her father had that instant passed away.

His son describes his own experiences after being summoned (it’s a very moving account):

“He had given order before he died, that his body should not be put in the Coffin till his Son John came. God carried me through the journey in hard weather: and through his good providence, I arrived at Belsted early on the Tuesday. And going to the house of mourning, I found the body of my deceased Father still lying upon the Bed. They uncovered his face: Sweetly he lay, and with a smiling countenance, and no difference to the eye between his countenance alive and dead, save only that he was wont to rejoice and bless me at my approach, now he was silent. I fell upon his face, I confess, and kissed him, and lift up my voice and wept, and so took my last leave of him, till we meet in a better World.”

The funeral was an occasion restrained by the dead man’s own scrupulousness: “Old Mr. Samuel Ward, that famous Divine, and the glory of Ipswich, came to the Funeral, brought a mourning Gown with him, and offered very respectively to Preach his funeral Sermon, now that such a Congregation were gathered together, and upon such an occasion. But my Sister and I durst not give way to it: For so our Father had often charged us in his life time, and upon his blessing, that no Sermon should be at his burial. ‘For’, said he, ‘it will give occasion to speak some good of me that I deserve not, and so false things will be uttered in the Pulpit’.

My image is a page from John Carter senior’s Winter-evenings communication with young novices in religion. Or Questions and answers about certaine chiefe grounds of Christian religion wherein every answer, rightly understood, hath the force of an oracle of God (1628). The title one imagines quite typical: when he cannot himself get out to talk to his younger parishioners, they can look at his little book. There's maybe a touch of the old man’s humour too: none of the answers are ‘his’ answers at all, every answer is in fact a bible text. My image is the section he gives to ‘Good Works’: he was clearly quite certain that they had to be performed. And, as we hear, his put his theory (supposedly uncharacteristic of a Puritan) continually into practice.

Adam's rib

Not much time in my weekly routine for blogging these days, now that teaching term has started. But I found this woodcut on EEBO, which says only this about it: “Illustration of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib Date: 1600-1699. Reel position: Tract Supplement E3:1[183]”.

I found it a quite remarkable version of the creation of Eve. It isn’t the usual unnatural obstetrics, where a full sized Eve rises upright from Adam’s side. God has extracted the rib, and is at work upon it, blessing it. Eve’s head has already taken shape, but has yet to fill out to full size, so it looks like a shrunken head, the rest of her is still rib. It’s a disconcerting image: even the elephant seems to be looking uneasy at these strange goings-on. No wonder this version of the moment is not the usual iconographic type.

But I have possibly found a passage in Sylvester’s du Bartas that it just might have been cut to illustrate. Below is the creation of Eve as given in the sixth day of creation. That du Bartas says that God works with Adam under anesthetic, like a surgeon performing an amputation, is the first surprise. One tended to think that they just sawed away with the poor patient strapped or held down. But then again, they did know about opiates – and strong liquor. Once the rib has been extracted, God refines and carves ‘on the living bone’:

Even as a Surgeon, minding off-to-cut
Some cure-less limb; before in ure he put
His violent Engins on the vicious member,
Bringeth his Patient in a sense-less slumber,
And grief-less then (guided by use and Art)
To save the whole, sawes off th' infected part:
So, God empal'd our Grandsires lively look,
Through all his bones a deadly chilness strook,
Seal'd-up his sparkling Eyes with Iron bands,
Led down his feet (almost) to Lethè Sands;
In brief, so numb'd his Soul's and Body's sense,
That (without pain) opening his side; from thence
He took a rib, which rarely he refin'd,
And thereof made the Mother of Mankinde:
Graving so lively on the living Bone
All Adams beauties; that, but hardly, one
Could have the Lover from his Love descry'd,
Or known the Bridegroom from his gentle Bride:
Saving that she had a more smiling Eye,
A smoother Chin, a Cheek of purer Dye

A fainter voice, a more enticing Face,
A Deeper Tress, a more delighting Grace,
And in her bosom (more then Lillie-white)
Two swelling Mounts of Ivory, panting light.

Du Bartas’ narration of life in Eden is obsessed with Adam, whose small activities the narrative follows around. Adam even seems to sleep alone (though the narrative may at that point have drifted back imaginatively to the time before Eve’s creation). Here, all Eve’s beauty is secondary to Adam’s, which primary male beauty God merely reproduces in softer form as he carves.

Continuing with Eve, I was looking with my students at the moment when Eve’s pregnancy is announced. Adam has just mastered fire: he was trying to bring down an animal by throwing:

A knobbie flint that hummeth as it goes;
Hence flies the beast, th' ill-aimed flint-shaft grounding
Against the Rock, and on it oft rebounding,
Shivers to cinders, whence there issued
Small sparks of fire no sooner born then dead.

Adam instantly knows what he has:

This happy chance made Adam leap for glee,
And quickly calling his cold company…

His ‘cold company’ is of course Eve, and it falls to her to tend the spark to a flame. The narrative then passes swiftly to the birth of her first offspring:

Eve, kneeling down, with hand her head sustaining,
And on the low ground with her elbow leaning,
Blows with her mouth: and with her gentle blowing
Stirs up the heat, that from the dry leaves glowing,
Kindles the Reed, and then that hollow kix
First fires the small, and they the greater sticks.

[Note: Beginning of Families. ]
And now, Mankind with fruitful Race began
A little corner of the World to man:
First Cain is born, to tillage all addicted …

It’s a very telling transition: Adam supplies the spark; she tends the fire. Adam has supplied the seed (imagined then as being, in small, the complete child-to-be, which Eve’s role is merely to nurture).

Interesting work, du Bartas, and at least I may be the first person to try teaching extracts from it to undergraduates – this is in my ‘Paradise in Early Modern Literature’ course …

The witch at Newbury, 1643

On or about this day 368 years ago, the woman purportedly depicted in this woodcut was summarily shot by parliamentary forces near Newbury. The picture gets reproduced in museum displays, etc: it was the title page of A most certain, strange, and true discovery of a witch being taken by some of the Parliament forces as she was standing on a small planck board and sayling on it over the river of Newbury: together with the strange and true manner of her death, with the propheticall words and speeches she used at the same time. Printed by John Hammond, 1643. George Thomason dated the publication more precisely to September 28^th, which was the day the Earl of Essex led his undefeated army back into London after getting rather the better of the first battle of Newbury (Sept 20^th). The image of course attempts no likeness, but makes the unknown, unnamed victim of the soldiers conform to a witch stereotype.

My main project here was to set off the pamphlet’s account against other references to this incident in the periodical press of the day. Having transcribed those accounts and passing mentions I have found made the newsletters, I then discovered that EEBO has not yet done a full text transcript of the 28^th September pamphlet. So I did one, and here it is; but between the two long paragraphs (and after them) I will insert some comments of my own.

A most certain, strange, and true discovery of a witch, etc, 1643

“Many are in a belief, that this silly sex of women by no means attaine to that so vile and damned a practice of sorcery and Witch-craft, in regard of their illiteratenesse and want of learning, which many men have by great learning done, Adam by temptation toucht and tasted the deceiving apple, so some high learnd & read by the same temptation that deceived him hath bin so insnared to contract with the Divel; as for example, in the instancing a few, as English Bacon of Oxford, Vandermast of Holland, Bungay of Germany, Fostus of the same, Franciscus the English Monke of Bury, Doctor Slackleach, and divers others which were too tedious to relate of, but how weake women should attain unto it many are incredible of the same, and many too are opposite in opinion against the same, that giving a possibility to their doubtings, that the malice, and inveterate malice of a woman entirely devoted to her revengefull wrath frequenting desolate and desart places, and giving way unto their wished temptation, may have converse with that world roaring lion, and covenant and contract upon condition, the like hath in sundry place, and divers times been tried at the Assises of Lancaster, Carlisle, Buckingham, and elsewhere, but to come to the intended relation of this Witch or Sorceresse, as is manifest and credibly related by the Gentlemen, Commanders, and Captains, of the Earl of Essex his Army.

(RB: like many of these pamphlets, the recital of the incidents is offered as a proof that witchcraft exists, and in this case that sorcery can be practised by women, even if illiteracy prevents them from making a written contract. A female civilian had been executed without trial. Newbury was town which generally favoured the parliamentarian cause, so there needed to be a good reason for this atrocity. At the start of the following paragraph, we will see confusion as to exactly where this fatal encounter took place. If the army really was marching through Newbury, then it happened after the battle. But at the end, the ‘witch’ finally breaks down into speech, and makes prophecy of Essex’s forthcoming victory. The straggling march with troops foraging in the hedgerows sounds like conditions in Essex’s half-starved force as it moved east from Hungerford towards Newbury on Sept. 19^th. Royalist forces moving from Wantage got to Newbury before Essex’s advance party, and were withdrawn towards Oxford after the battle, leaving Essex free to march through Newbury and on towards London.)

“A part of the Army marching through Newbury some of the Souldiers being scattered by the reason of their loitering by the way, in gathering Nuts, Apples, Plummes, Blackberries, and the like, one of them by chance in clambering up a tree, being pursued by his fellow or Comrade in waggish merriment, jesting one with another, espied on the river being there adjacent, a tall, lean, slender woman, as he supposed, to his amazement, and great terreur treading of the water with her feet, with as much ease and firmnesses as if one could walk or trample on the earth, wherewith his softly calls, and beckened to his fellows to behold it, and with all possible speed that could be to obscure them from her sight, who as conveniently as they could they did observe, this could be no little amazement unto them you may think to see a woman dance upon the water, nor could all their sights be deluded, though perhaps one might but coming nearer to the shore, they could perceive there was a plank or deale overshadowed with a little shallow water that she stood upon, the which did beare her up, anon rode by some of the Commanders who were eye witnesses, as well as they, and were as much astonished as they could be, still too and fro she fleeted on the water, the boord standing firm bout upright, indeed I have both heard and read of many that in tempests and on rivers by casualty have been shipwracked, or cast over board, where catching empty barrels, rudders, boards, or planks have made good shift by the assisting providence of God to get on shore, but not in this womans kind to stand upon the board, turning and winding it which way she pleased, making it pastime to her, as little thinking who perceived her tricks, or that she did imagine that they were the last she ever should show, as we have heard the swan sing before her death, so did this divellish woman, as after plainly it appeared make sport before her death, at last having sufficiently been upon the water, he that deceived her always did so then, blinding her that she could not at her landing see the ambush that was laid for her, coming upon the shore she gave the board a push, which they plainly perceived, and crossed the river, they searched after her but could not find her she being landed the Commanders beholding her, gave order to lay hold on her and bring her to them straight, the which some were fearfull, but some being more venturous then other some, boldly went to her and seized on her by the arme, demanding what she was? But the woman no whit replying any words unto them, they brought her unto the Commanders, to whom though mightily she was urged she did reply as little: so consulting with themselves what should be done with her, being it so apparently appeared she was a Witch, being loth to let her goe, and as loth to carry her with them, they so resolved with themselves, to make a shot at her, and gave order to a couple of their Souldiers that were approved good marks-men, to charge and shoot her straight, which they prepared to doe: so setting her boult upright against a mud banke or wall; two of the Souldiers according to their command made themselves ready, where having taken aime gave fire and shot at her as thinking sure they had sped her, but with a deriding and loud laughter at them she caught the bullets in her hands and chew’d them, which was a stronger testimony then the water, that she was the same that their imagination thought her so to be, so resolving with themselves if either fire or sword or halter were sufficient for to make an end of her, one set his carbin close unto her brest: where discharging the bullet back rebounded like a ball, and narrowly he mist it in his face that was the shooter: this so enraged the Gentleman, that one drew out his sword & manfully run at her with all the force his strength had power to make, but it prevailed no more than did the shot, the woman still though speechlesse, yet in a most contemptible way of scorn, still laughing at them, which did the more exhaust their furie against her life, yet one amongst the rest had heard that piercing or drawing bloud from forth the veines that cross the temples of the head, it would prevail against the strongest sorcery, and quell the force of Witchcraft, which was allowed for triall: the woman hearing this, knew that the Devill had left her and her power was gone, whereupon she began alowd to cry, and roare, tearing her haire, and making piteous moan, which in these words expressed were; and is this come to passe, that I must dye indeed? Why then his Excellency the Earl of Essex shall be fortunate and win the field, after which no more words could be got from her; wherewith they immediately discharged a pistol underneath her eare, at which she straight sunk down and dyed, leaving her legacy of a detested carcase to the wormes, her soul were ought not to judge of, though the evils of her wicked life and death can scape no censure.

(The writer makes the desperate foraging sound like schoolboy fun, exactly like the boy Robinson looking for ‘bullaces’ at the start of The Late Lancashire Witches. In the imputed mood of levity, the ‘witch’ is sighted. I imagine that people who lived by lakes and rivers got very good at balancing on the slightest of craft: the woman’s apparent enjoyment of her skill brought to the mind of her assailants the kind of images of sorcerers floating on mere planks that we see in Olaus Magnus' Historia de gentibus Septentrionalibus, and hear about in tales of witches sailing in eggshells, sieves, etc.

It seems possible that the woman did scoff at or ridicule the soldiers. The Parliamentary cause had not gone well up to this point of the war, the Royalists were winning. Rather than larking about up trees, the soldiers were more likely to be very much on edge. A confused passage in the narrative seems to indicate that the woman thought she could cross the river to safety, but they seem to have gone to the trouble of rounding her up. She had said too much, they decided to finish her off. The initial impression that she was walking on the water itself, rejected by the very baptismal element itself, remains more potent in their jumpy response than any rational attention to her body board. Notice that they ask ‘what’, not ‘who’ she was: they seem at no point to have been interested in her name; her personal individuality was simply swallowed up in this new one, ‘witch’. Their attempts to shoot her are in effect her trial: that she is seemingly impervious to shot proves that she actually is what she is being shot for being, a pacted witch (and it says nothing about their potentially worrisome inability to shoot straight). After ‘scratching’, her power of ‘charmed life’ is broken, like Macbeth’s finally was, and she succumbs to a pistol shot beneath her ear. Had she been reported to have died after the first shots, this might have looked more like the murder it was, but she was by then safely incriminated to men who had no inclination to take her with them for trial (they all faced a battle, after all).

Here’s the account of the incident in Certaine Informations from Severall Parts of the Kingdome, September 25, 1643 - October 2, 1643; Issue 37.

“The general vote of the souldiers that are returned from the fight at Newbery is, that a Witch was sent by the Cavaliers into their Army to do mischiefe, who being shot at, was so impenetrable, that no bullets would pierce her, whereupon a Captaine bid shoot her with a button, and one of the souldiers pulled a brasse button from his doublet, and therewith charging his pistoll, fired it upon her head, and slew her. If it be true that she were a witch, and sent by the Cavaliers, as the common voice it, [illeg.] will verify the old verse, viz. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo

But it will be thought ridiculous that any man should be shot free. Whereunto we answer, that we have heard some English Commanders that have been in the Swedes wars, credibly affirme, that it is an ordinary thing in those parts.”

In this other parliamentary account, the witch was a royalist agent. The forces of hell are deployed against the trained bands. The 1645 pamphlet, Signs and wonders from heaven shows the persistence of this belief that eliminating witches would nullify Prince Rupert’s preternatural invulnerability: “It is likewise certified by many of good quality and worth that at the last Assises in Norfolke there were 40 witches araigned for their lives, and 20. executed: and that they have done very much harme in that Countrey, and have prophesied of the downfall of the King and his Army, and that Prince Robert (sic) shall be no longer shot-free: with many strange and unheard of things that shall come to passe.” Curious, then, that the September 28^th pamphleteer made so little of the ‘witch’ as a spell-casting antagonist, or as an associate of Prince Rupert: she is surprised (in his account) while intent on her own recreations, like Acrasia being caught unawares in her Bower of Bliss. I had not come across buttons as efficacious against supernatural things – a silver coat button would have been more familiar. But a brass one worked (as it would).

For the royalist side Mercurius Britanicus Communicating the Affaires of Great Britaine, October 10, 1643 - October 17, 1643; Issue 8, offered this derisive account of what was claimed. It in turn shows no compassion for the dead woman, but does insinuate something of the injustice: the witch was killed ‘before she was born’ (where I think the intended sense is, before she became one):

“And that the Citie may have plenty of strange things together, the Faction made a fine new Witch, borne and brought forth at Newbury, which (you must know) was the true cause why so many trained bands lost their lives, and this Witch (for certaine) they saw walke upon the water, being as light-heeld as any of the She-Committee, and had an impenetrable skin till a faithful Shoomaker scratched her on the arme, by which meanes they put a Pistoll to her eare, and so discovered her to be a Malignant woman, that is (said master Peard) a Witch or Sorceresse. So this Witch being killed (before she was borne) their victory went on bravely.

And for the Witch, since you have so much faith in her as we heare, we will sell ye her grissels and bones, you may make spels and charmes of them to keep you Shot-free and Scot-free: I am persuaded you are so superstitious, you thinke one tooth of such a grave, old woman may be the preservation of Prince Rupert himselfe, and His majesties whole Army.”

Mercurius Aulicus (1643: Oxford) (Oxford, England), Sunday, October 15, 1643 reports on the contents of some intercepted letters. The incident appears (for this writer) among the other follies the parliamentarian forces entertained: prejudices, lies, hopeful rumours, and absurdities, the wild words of a defeated rabble:

“Though their forces are not many their lyes are, which since they prosper so ill in print, they convey them confidently in writing (though sometimes they expresse a sensible sigh for the unluckinesse of their cause) many of which were this weeke were intercepted. One writes to his sister Mistresse Mary Greene, that he saw the French Ambassador come into London, but Oh sister (said he) his very horses head had all Crosses on. (sure they were not horses) Another, one Broughton, writes to Alderman Basnet at Coventree, that his unkle George Gresley saw an old Witch at Newbury with his very eyes (nay with his very eares). Another writes to his friend at Coventry that he received a wound at Auburne by one of my Lord Jermyn’s Souldiers nine inches deepe. Another writes that, Prince Rupert is mortally wounded…”

Whoever she was, perhaps an eel-catcher, trout fisher or reed-bed cutter on the Kennet, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had the folly to laugh at tired, hungry and nervous soldiers, men who were capable of believing anything of their enemy. She was, after a bit of shooting and missing, killed, and then posthumously incriminated according to that dictates of that convenient excuse, witchcraft.

Losing hope on the Hope-well: two more supernatural sea stories

I have a lecture to give during the coming term on ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. After the witch on the ship ‘Recovery’, this inclined me to find more supernatural goings-on at sea. Two more follow: immediately below, I have transcribed a full text of a brief pamphlet from the very end of the 17^th century. Then follows the EEBO transcript (slightly edited) of another. I make brief comment on both.

First, Strange and wonderful news being a true, tho' sad relation of six sea-men (Belonging to the Margaret of Boston,) who sold themselves to the devil, and were invisibly carry’d away. Like the 1691 story of Elizabeth Masters, we are looking at ready-made substance for coffee house chat: the pamphlet is really aimed at getting the curious to go and see the fuller evidence on display in Lloyd’s coffee house.

The pamphlet has a brief preamble:

“Though this following Relation contains matter of very great Wonder and Amazement; nevertheless it comes to our Hands, confirm’d by that sufficient testimony, that we offer it to the Reader as a Narrative of unquestion’d Truth and Reputation.

By a Letter from Barbadoes, of the 23 of July last, written by a Person of Worth and Credit, in that island, we have this relation, viz., That the Margaret from Boston, the [illeg.], of December 95 bound to Berbadoes, in their Passage one of the saylers at the Helm call’d to the Master of the Vessel, and told him, That he could steer no longer. The Master asking the reason, he replyed, That he was not well; and for that cause quitted his Post; the Master taking the Helm, the said sailor further declared, That there stood a Spirit by the Binnacle, that accus’d him of killing a Woman; a fault which the Spirit had falsly charg’d him with; for he had never committed any such unmanly Crime in his Life. The Spirit, he said, further told him, that all the Ships Company had sign’d an Agreement with the Divel, which was us’d as an argument for him to do the same.

The next day the Fellow fell into strange Deleriums, and talk’d of wonderful Accidents that would befall the Ship; which were look’d upon as nothing but the wild Notions of his craz’d senses, the Chimera’s of Frenzy. Particularly he said, That the Spirit had brought a boat to fetch him away; with other ridiculous idle discourse of the same Nature.

Upon the 17^th of January in the Latitude of 19 about 9 at Night, a small white Cloud arose, without any rain, or extraordinary Wind, which presently falling upon the ship pressed her down with that strange and supernatural Weight and force that the hatches flew out, and the whole Ship was under Water, by which unhappy Accident, the Boy was wash’d off and drowned.

But to begin the more miraculous part of my Narrative, the Ship continued under water for eleven Weeks; a thing that struck (as may be well imagin’d) an extraordinary Consternation and Confusion through the Marriners, from several strange Arguments of their Astonishment. First, that the ship should be wholly immerged under water, and yet not sunk downright to the bottom. Secondly, that tho’ they were apparently thus intirely under water, yet the Ship was not wholly filled with Water, but that they had Air enough to breath in, by which means they continued alive; feeding all this while, upon raw meat, and fresh Fish which came swimming over the Vessel, and several of which they Caught and Eat. Their lodging was on Boards placed athwart the Rail near the Taffrel covered with a Sail. The Men were always wet which, in so long a time, made an impression upon them that their flesh on their bodies was galled and raw.

But what was the most dismal part of all, Six of the Ship’s Crew upon the sinking of the Vessel under water, were frighted with Infernal Spirits; and about 12 the first Night were carried away invisibly, leaving no more then 4 persons alive behind them; which indeed gave some little Credit to what the afore mentioned Sailor at the helm had declared in his Deleriums.

After this 11 weeks Immurement these wondrous watry Walls, for so I may justly call it, the Ship recovered itself above the Water again, and the first Land they could discover was the Island Dissiado, which, with so few hands left, they could not fetch up, by reason of a strong Northern Current that bore against’em. The next was Grand-Terra, where they met with the same Disapointment: but on the 5^th of April they run themselves on Shore upon Guardelupo; where the French treated them very kindly, not as prisoners, but as Men in Distress.

The names of the three Seamen left alive are William Davis Master (a Man very well known in London among the Berbadoes Merchants), William Cadner, and William Bywater. Not only the Original Letter, and the whole Relation, at large; is to be seen at Mr Lloyd’s coffee-house in Lumbard-Street, but likewise several Persons are to be heard of, and spoken withal upon the Exchange, in Attestation of the whole Truth herein declared.

The reverend Mr Baxter, in his Treatise of Spirits, says, That tho’ Hurricanes and tempests have natural causes, yet there is great reason to think they are managed by Spirits. In confirmation whereof, he relates some notable instances of his own particular Deliverances from the Fury of most boisterous Whirlewinds; namely, when the Reapers in Evesham Vale were Hurt, Writhen, and One killed, some friendly Power (for so he expresses it) restrain’d the course of Gravelly Sand, rais’d by a whirlwind, as it met him in a narrow lane.”

We will never know what happened on the Margaret (of Boston). That some men might survive for a while below decks on a semi-submerged vessel is not impossible (though the narrative does also seem to say that they were lodged on boards placed across the taffrail, apparently sheltered under a sail). But trapped below decks for eleven weeks? Living off raw meat and fish that swam past? What did they drink? And finally the vessel just pumped itself out and re-surfaced? Some terrible story is concealed under these events, and the supernatural story is just a ruse, to distract attention away from normal likelihoods, and what they did to survive.

Like the case of the witch on the ‘Recovery’, we have a story that starts with a seaman losing his nerve, making wild accusations against both himself and others, and feeling the diabolic temptation of a Satanic delivery from the sea: “Particularly he said, That the Spirit had brought a boat to fetch him away.”

The concluding reference to Richard Baxter is interesting. The agèd Baxter, writing earlier in the same decade, still believed in a spirit-haunted, witch-and-devil-filled world. When the anonymous writer thought of this parallel, he connects the mariners’ yarn of six seamen having made a pact with the devil (and disappearing invisibly, quickly and totally at midnight, rather than disappearing piecemeal) with a mindset in which it can be believed that the devil directs hurricanes and whirlwinds, that these somehow only strike churches, while the just enjoy ‘particular Deliverances’ (though Baxter has to concede that the personal linen of the just doesn’t enjoy quite such protection from that ‘friendly power’).

Baxter had said this: “Though Hurricanes and Whirlwinds have Natural Causes, yet I have great cause to think, that they are managed by some Spirits (as I said before of Storms). Gunpowder worketh in Guns according to its nature; but if some Rational Agent did not invent, make, and manage it, all its Power, would be of little use. I have marvelled to see my own small Linnen spred out by Servants to dry, to be suddenly catcht up, and carried over the Town and Steeple away, and never more heard of. Near the time when some Reapers in the Vale of Evesham were hurt, writhen, and one killed with a Whirlwind, I was walking in a Gravelly Way in a Corn-field, there being a Lane besides me, between two Hedges; suddenly a Whirlwind came up the Cart-way, casting up the Gravelly Sand directly to meet me; when it came within Ten or Twelve Yards of me, I was about stepping out of the way into the Corn, to escape it, but it suddenly turned out of the way to the Right-hand, into the Lane from me, so as perswaded me, that it was a voluntary Motion, directed by a friendly Power; for it went straight on up the Lane, and tore the Hedges and Branches of the Trees on the side of the Lane. But these are small effects to what other see, especially of the great Hurricanes at Sea in the West-Indies. The Spirits that Rule in the Air have great Power of the Airy Motions.

Many and many Churches have been thus torn, proportionably so much beyond all other Buildings, especially of Stone, that I cannot but think there is some knowing Agent that maketh the Choice, though I know not who, nor why. Except a few Hay-Ricks, I remember not that till this Seventy sixth Year of my Age, I have known Lightenings to have had Hurting Power on any Buildings but Churches, save very rarely, and small, as this last Year, at Islington, it entred a House, and kil’'d a Woman and Child:) Nor to have torn any Wood but Oak, (which in Trees and Buildings I have seen torn where I dwelt.) But divers persons have been killed and scorch’d by it. An Eminent Knight, that I knew, is commonly said to have been struck dead by it in his Garden.”

[Extracts from: The certainty of the worlds of spirits … Richard Baxter (1691).]

EEBO also offers this cleverly self-exculpatory supernatural narrative (for such I take it to be) attested to by a ship’s master. Having lost his collier off Spurn Head on its way back from Newcastle, he has concocted a stirring tale of the evil spirit on board that sank the ship. It manifested to him (and only him) frequently, but he shapes his story so that we can see that he reacted with professional skill and courage. But all to no avail: on board his ship, nothing would work properly, candles burned blue, the ship’s boat launched itself, the explosive departure of the spirit as the ship went down burned his face...

A True and Perfect Relation of the Strange and Dreadful Apparition which lately Infested and Sunk a Ship bound for New-castle, called, The Hope-well of London.

The 22. of February, 1672 we sailed from Gravesend; and the 26. by Gods Providence we sailed over the Bar of Newcastle, and there Loaded the 2. of March. About Nine or Ten of the Clock in the Night following, we having made all clear and ready for the furtherance of our Voyage, some time after Supper I went to rest, when about Twelve of the Clock in the Night, to the best of my remembrance, I was awaked out of my sleep by a great noise, (but saw nothing) which to the best of my capacity, bid me Be gone, and that I had nothing to do there. But being so hastily disturbed, and not certain what might be the cause, I gave it over for a Dream, and past that accident as uncertain of the truth. Now after the first Day was past, about Eight or Nine of the Clock at Night I went to rest; and about twelve, my Mate was striking a Light to take a Pipe of Tobacco, (as I suppose) and expecting the Wherry to go up to the Town, being the Tide fell out about Two in the Morning, I desired the Candle might not be put out; and being as well awake as now I am, to the best of my judgement, I was then pulled by the Hair of my Head off from my Pillow, and the same words declared to me as before; and then I saw the perfect face and proportion of a Man, in a black Hat, stuff Coat, and striped Neck-cloth, with hanging down Hair, and a sower-down-looking Countenance, and his Teeth being set in his Head, I had then time to say, Lord have mercy upon me· What art? at which he vanished: Yet the Candle burned very blew, and almost went out: Hereupon being much discontented, I did by the following Post give my Owners a just account of what had befallen me.

The Fifth of that instant, we set sail: about four of the Clock in the day, the Wind at W. S. W. fair Weather, and a brave Gale off the shore, which continued until half an hour after a Eleven on Wednesday Night; at which time the man at the Helm called out that he could not stir the Helm: but after I had pulled off the Whip-staff, the Ship steered as before, being still fair Weather, the Wind then coming to the N. W. and Snowing Weather, but very fair and clear. I was yet doubtful of more Wind, and therefore caused the Men to furl the fore Top-sail, and lower down the main Top-sail upon the back of the main Sail, but could not with all the strength we had hale in; the Weather brake off the fore Top-sail, when this was still in my judgement, that our Ship did hale as much, as when our Sails were out. Then we haled up our main Sail, and still the Ship had the same list as with a large Wind, which to my judgment might be half a streak or thereabout.

By this time it was Two of the Clock, then our Men tried the Pump, and found little or no water in her: the Man at the Helm called out, That the Candle burned so blew in the Lanthorn, That it gave little or no light, and three several times went out, so that I held the Candle to the Look-out, which Candle did burn very well, and showed a good light; but of a sudden our Ship would not feel her Helm so kindly as before, and brought all our Sails aback. Then our Ship heeled as much to Windward as before to Leeward: the Glass being out, we went to the Pump, and found no water in the Ship, but she did not steer well, neither could I find the reason, being still so fair weather: This unkind steerage, made me urgent to try the Pump yet more, but I could not get the upper box to work, nor stir; but having taken that up, and trying with the Pump-hook, we could not come near the lower box by a foot and a half, which to my judgement was hindered by something like a Bull-fish, or Woolsack, that as we forced down, gave up again with the hook: Whereupon Mistrusting that all was not well, I caused our men to keep the Coat of our pump up, and my self loosened the tack; in the mean time I ordered two men to loose the Boat, which they did, being lashed in three places: Yet they do not remember to this hour, that they loosened any of them but the middlemost; and with three men in her, the Boat went over the top of the Fore-sheet, which lay above the stem, without touching it, with such violence, as even amazed us that saw it: And they that were in the Boat gave such loud cries, as frighted him at the Helm who came running out unknown to me. But then finding the ship coming nearer the wind then formerly, I ran to the stair-case, to bid him put the Helm over, but could not: And hearing one jump down at the hatch, which was open at the half Deck, did suppose that the Helms man came down again; and calling him by his name to come and help me, the word was no sooner out of my mouth, but I perceived the same person that I had formerly seen before we came out of the Harbour; who came violently to me, saying, Be gone, you have no more to do here; throwing me in at the Cabin door, clear upon the top of the table; when I crying out, In the name of God what art, he vanished away in a flash of fire: thinking withal, that the ship had split in a thousand pieces, it giving such a crack. The men thereupon calling out, Master if ye be a man come away, did something revive me; and striving to have got to my chest, being I had some money in it, I found that something hindered me, but what it was I could not tell. Then perceiving the main Sea coming in so fast, that I was up to the waste, before I could get out of the Cabin; and finding all our men in the Boat but only one, I desired him to get a compass; which he did, yet could never after know what became of it. We were no sooner in the Boat, but the Ship sank down, and yet having a great Sea Fur Gown, which lay upon the dicker upon the ships going down, the very upset of the water brought it to the Boats side, and one of our men took it in. We reckoned our selves to be ten or twelve Leagues E. S. E. from the Spurn, I perceived the Fane at the Main-top-mast head, when the ship was sunk: We continued in the Boat from three in the morning, till ten or eleven that day, when we were taken up by a Whitby Ketch, who used us very kindly, and towed our Boat at his stern with two ends of a hawser, till she brake away: She being bound for Newcastle, and the wind being contrary, did on the Saturday following, set us a shore at Grimsby in Hull River, where the Mayor gave us a Pass for London.

This is a true and perfect relation to the best of my knowledge in every respect,

John Pye Master. And attested by nine men more, all belonging to my Ship.

Postscript. I had forgot to express, that one side of my face is burnt and blasted sorely, which I felt within half an hour after I was gone out of the Ship; but how it came upon me in the Ship I could not tell, being then in a great horror and amazement. John Pye.

The little pamphlet was published in both Edinburgh and London.

The slimy burgers of this earthly ball: Edward Browne and his troubles.

This image is of Edward Browne, a compulsive self-publisher and brooder upon his own wrongs, who busily published his recantations for ever publishing, and generally repeated offence he had already given in the course of his many denials of ever having meant to cause offence. He rushed into print with manic frequency between 1640 and 1642, and, in his self-absorption, was unable to see that 1641 was probably not the best time to put out a long prose meditation on the Virgin Mary. His magnum opus, conceived as a product of his own experience of that ‘soul ravishing and heavenly Muse’, du Bartas’s Urania, was A description of an annuall world, or, Briefe meditiations upon all the holy-daies in the yeere. But it was ‘not approved but greatly disliked contrary to my expectation’. He had based his work on the Church Liturgy and its holy days, but woke up late to how some would anyway term the Book of Common Prayer ‘The English Masse-booke’. His ‘Pharisaicall’ detractors said ‘It is papisticall and to be cast away as an Idoll’.

The woodcut Browne had made of himself is him creating his own image: a scholarly young gentleman, well dressed, at ease with his two pious children. He’s just writing ‘Finis’ to one of his works. Some of his problems, though, are exposed in the accompanying poem about himself, ‘A Phantastick Lover’. For writing was, in Browne’s case, Renaissance Un-self-fashioning, advised against by his employers, destructive to his fortunes, catastrophic to the marriage he had wanted to make, and putting him at odds with his time.

His story is told throughout his publications and re-publications. Sent out into the world to make his own fortunes, he became clerk to Sir James Cambel, who was senior alderman of London, had oversight of the French merchants in London, and was in charge at the ‘Staple’ in the wool and cloth trade. Browne was not able to go to university. He read widely in the Bible, largely for purposes of self-identification, and saw Sylvester’s translation of du Bartas as the best thing in poetry.

Now, clearly, Browne was at times difficult employee. He seems to have left and then resumed his service, he occupied himself with writing his books, against his employer’s advice, and he seems (this is me reading between the lines) to have attempted a socially ambitious marriage to one Rachel Bright. He never names her but broadly hints at her identity. This marriage may have been prevented; Browne blames his own writings: “I confesse it was not wisely done in me, to seeke the favour and good will of a young Damsell to be my wife, by making good Books.”

In February 1641 Sir James died aged 72, and he left a most spectacular will, one which fissured Browne entirely: for it was extraordinarily pious, but it did nothing substantial for his servant of sixteen or eighteen years. Despite his very mixed feelings, Browne launched into A rare paterne of iustice and mercy; exemplified in the many notable, and charitable legacies of Sr. Iames Cambel, Knight, and alderman of London, deceased: worthy imitation.

The details of the will are worth repeating: Cambel left 1,000 marks to start a free school in Barking, £2,000 to the Bridewell prison ‘for a stock to keep such at labour and work in Bridewell’, £1,300 to poor freemen of the Ironmongers company, £500 to Christ’s Hospital, £1,500 to St Thomas’s Hospital, £300 to the ‘poor, blind, lame, diseased and lunatic’ in three London hospitals, £1,000 to redeem captives from the Turks, £1,000 to redeem hopeless debtors from debtors’ prisons, £500 to poor ministers, £250 for a new bridge at the ford in Wanstead, £500 worth of coals to warm the poor, £1,000 towards the repair of St Paul’s Cathedral, and, rather revealingly, £200 to beggars ‘to avoid trouble on the day of his Funeral dinner’. The estimated £10,00 more of ‘overplus’ Cambel which thought might be realised in the winding up of his estate (bad debts allowing) were to go to other charitable works as his executors thought fit.

Oh, and he left £20 to Edward Browne his clerk, among £300 to be given out among his former servants.

The executors must have drawn a deep breath when they saw this will, which conspicuously fails to make provision for his wife of 24 years, Dame Rachel, who was his ‘relict executrix’ (with two others). Then they must also have been taken aback when Browne, torn between admiration and being aggrieved, rushed all this into print as a rare example of charity. I imagine there might have been some thought about challenging the will: Browne had publicised it in all its munificence, alerting all kinds of interested parties.

Browne, making the best of his own situation, makes it far worse:

If Sir James ‘had given me a large portion of wealth, I should have been proud and idle, but being due so small a portion for my long service, it hath made me humble and industrious to publish his charitable Legacies’.

He describes, with apparent enthusiasm, Sir James’s monument for St Olaves Church in Old Jewry (in my other composite image, with the portrait): Sir James to ‘lie there is stately sort / Clad all in armour like a Martiall man’ (with his aldermanic robes over the armour), Justice at his feet, Mercy at his head, ‘Close by him kneels his lady’, pleurans, while an angel descends from heaven.

But Browne seeks through the Bible for a precedent for his situation, and meditates obsessively on himself as Jacob, Sir James as Laban: that account in Genesis of long service and being cheated. ‘I will write of Laban, as a Serpent. I will divide him into three parts: first his head, secondly his skinne, and last of all his Sting’. In an autobiographical poem, he says he was ‘still employed to rub, to scrape, and sweepe’. We keep getting a subversive image of his posthumously munificent employer as tight fisted in his lifetime. After eighteen years of service, ‘eleven pounds is paid my due’. His sexual disappointment is mixed in with all this, of course: ‘Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful’ says the Bible, but Browne felt himself defrauded of Rachel Bright, and that Laban in his case ‘cheated him with blear-ey’d Leah’. This unwanted other partner must have borne the two children in the woodcut of the poet: Browne does not mention her, and maybe she died early, for he continues to say ‘I only want a wife’.

This double-edged tribute to his late master caused Browne no end of trouble. In his Potent Vindication for Book-making, prequel to his A compendious and patheticall retractation for book-making very usefull for these distracted times (1642, 1643), he has gathered nineteen signatories to a testimonial that ‘he did not these Bookes with any intent to dishonour his said Master’, and bitterly declaims against those who ‘say [now] as they did to my late Master, that I seeke his and their dishonour by bookmaking, and therefore not worthy to be harboured in an obscure chamber upon my owne bedding, as I have been this eight yeares, and upwards’. You see, even as he denies, he confirms his real feelings.

Browne’s untroubled capacity for being in utrumque partem about himself is also apparent in his long self-conflict over his publishing. In writing his works, he ‘lost Pretious time … I lost my Love who is lately married to another’, and, what grieves him most, he lost money. It cost him £20 to put his Annual World, his Sacred Poems, his Star, Meteor and the pattern of Justice and Mercy into print, and ‘I believe if I had surceased from printing books my Master would have bequeathed me £200’ (this is from his Sir James Cambels Clarks Disaster by Making Books, Nov 15^th 1642).

Browne couldn’t help loving his own works. He planned a complete edition: ‘I did lately joyne all my labours of love together in the volume with marginall note and annotations, and offered them to the press. But no executioner, I mean a Stationer or Printer had the heart to undertake the work’. If he had got his legacy, he’d probably have blown it all on vanity printing.

I will end with some of his verse, in his manner after du Bartas. He’s writing about the creation of the fish in Genesis I 20-22:

“Th’Almighty Father, as of watery matter

It pleased him make the people of the water,

So of an earthly substance made he all

The slimy Burgers of this earthly ball.”

As poor Browne says in self-vindication, Francis Quarles, George Wither and John Taylor the Water Poet encouraged him in his writing. Yes, that makes sense.