Complete Works of Matthew Prior

by Matthew Prior

  Lock, Well, Sir, have you done with my Man?

  Montaigne, Not quite, Mr. Lock, I am bringing him to a Conference with your Maid. Let us now imagine the door shut, and John safely arrived in the Kitchi[n], ‘Margaret the Cook maid sets the cold beef before him, Robin the Butler gives him a bottle of strong beer, and they proceed amicably to the News of the Day, if the Regent is at Madrid, or the King of Spain upon the Coast of Scotland. If Digwell the Gardiner stole two of Sir Thomas’s spoons, or the Match holds between My Lord True Madams Coachman and Prue the Dairy Maid, all this goes on the best in the World, from point to point, til John stroaking Tripp, the Greyhound, says to Margaret, Do you think Child, that a Dog the he can retain several combinations of simple Idea’s, can ever compound, enlarge, or make complex Idea’s? Truly John, says Margaret I neither know nor care. John Proceeds, and the you have stewed many a Barrel and quart of Oysters, you never examined if an Oyster was capable of thinking; and the you have seen many a hundred of Old Men, you never found out that an Old Man, who has lost his Senses is exceedingly like an Oyster; as like as he is to a rotten Apple says the Butler. John, Pittying the Butlers ignorance, continues his Discourse to the Maid; Do you believe Margaret that there are any original Characters impressed upon a Child in the Womb. Pry thee John, replyes She, let us talk of our own Concerns, what have You or I to do with Children in the Womb? Still John goes on; I would fain make you perceive, Margaret, that my body is a solid Substance endued with an Extension of parts; and that you have in your Body a Power of communicating Motion by impulse; that motion will produce an intense heat, and then again that heat — Look you John, says Margaret, I have often told you of this, when ever you get half Drunk, you run on in this filthy bawdy manner — Faith (says the Butler, who was a little Envious at Johns learning) thats e’en too true, John always was and will be a Pragmatical Puppy. Puppy? Says John in what Predicament do you Place the Human species P Sirrah, Robin answers in great anger, I scorn your words; I am neither Predicament, nor Species, any more than your self: But I wont stand by and see my Fellow Servant affronted. Here, Mr. Lock, you find Bella plus quant Civilia. John & Margaret form their different Alliances, the whole Family is set into a flame by three leaves of your own Book; and You may knock your heart out for your boyled Chicken, and your roasted Apples.

  Lock. Well, Sir, and what is the Result of all this P

  Montaigne. That probably neither, Robin, John, Margaret, yo[u] or I, or any other five Persons alive, have either the same Ideas of the same thing, or the same way of expressing them. The difference of Temperament in the body, Hot, cold, Flegmatic or hasty, create as manifest a variety in the operations of our hands, and the conduit of our Lives; and our Conceptions may be as various as our faces, Bodies, and Senses (or sensations as you call them). If I like Assafetida, I say it has a good smell: If you cant indure a Rose, you complain it stinks. In our Taste may not I nauseate the food which you Covet; and is it not even a Proverb, that what is meat to one Man is Poyson to another. If we consider even the fabrick of the Eye and the Rules of Optick, it can hardly be thought we see the same; and yet no words can express this Diversity. So that there may be as much difference between your Conceptions and mine, as there is between your Band, and my Ruff. If so, it may happen I say, that if no Mans Ideas be perfectly the same, Locks Human Understanding may be fit only for the Meditation of Lock himself. Nay further that those very Ideas changing, Lock may be led into a new Labyrinth, or sucked into another Vortex; and may write a Second Book in order to Disprove the first.

  Lock. Aye now Sir I like You, We are come to the very State of the Question.

  Montaigne. Are we so, my good Friend P why then ’tis just time to break off the Discourse.

  A Dialogue between The Vicar of Bray and Sir Thomas Moor.

  Vicar, Farewel then to the Dear Vicarage, tis gone at last. I held it bravely out however. Let me see, from the Twentieth of Henry the Eighth, and I dyed in the twenty ninth of Elizabeth, just seven and fifty Years; Attacked by Missals and Common Prayer, Acts of Parliament opposed to Decrees of the Church, Mortmains in the Legates Courts, and Premunires in Westminster-Hall, Canon Law and Statutes, Oaths of Obedience to the See of Rome, and of Supremacy to the King of England, Transubstantiation, real Presence, Bulls, and Premunires, and that intricate Question of Divorces. But is not that my good Patron, Sir Thomas who gave me the Living; and charged the Clerks in his Office to take no Fees for expediting the Seals because I was poor; indeed I was so then, but God be thanked I took care of my self after, as every Prudent Man should do. Aye, tis he indeed. O dear Sir Thomas, I was very sorry for your Misfortunes; I was upon Tower-Hill, when You saved your Beard, the you lost your Head, but by our Lady, I did not like such jesting. I saw you Executed. Oh! that ugly seam, Sir, that remains stil about your Neck. Oh Sir a head sewed on again never sits well. I pittyed You, Sir, I prayed for You.

  Moor, My old acquaintance in good Truth, the Vicar of Bray, very well Friend, I am obliged to you for your Pitty and your Prayers, but you would have heightned the obligation had you appeared with me on the Scaffold, your Spiritual Advice might have been of Service to me.

  Vicar. O Lord, Sir, I would have been there with all my heart, but You remember the times were so ticklish, and that point of the Supremecy so dangerous.

  Moor. More proper therefore for a Divine to have Assisted a Lay-Man in so nice a Conjuncture.

  Vicar. O Lord help You, Sir, I thought you had known better than that (at least since your Death) no Sir, more proper therefore for a Layman to have left the Nicety of such a matter to Divines.

  Moor. Well, and did not some of the Clergy suffer upon the same account with me?

  Vicar. And were they the Wiser for so doing? the greatest part of Us were against your Suffering Doctrines, and in good Faith we of the Low-Church thought it very strange that with all your Law and Learning you should not have had wit enough to keep your head upon your Shoulders.

  Moor. It was that very Law and Learning that made me lay my head down patiently on the block. My knowledge in Divine and Human Law gave me to understand I was born a Subject to both: That I was placed upon a Bench not only to expound those Laws to others, but obliged to observe them my self with an Inviolable Sanction; That in some Cases the King himself could not change them, that I was commanded to render to God the things that were of God, before I gave to Cæsar the things that are Caesars, And when I was Accused upon a point, wch thought strictly just, my Philosophy taught be to dispise my Sufferings, and furnished me upon the Scaffold with the same Serenity of mind and Pleasantness of Speech with which I was used to decide Causes at Westminster-Hall, or converse with my Friends in my Gardens at Chelsea.

  Vicar. Aye, Sir Thomas, but it is a sad thing to Dye.

  Moor. For ought Men know (I speak to Thee in the Language of People yet alive) it was an Uneasy thing to be born; and for ought they may know, it will be no great pain to Dye: The Friend that stands by in full health, may probably Suffer more real anguish, than the dying Man, who raises his Compassion.

  Vicar. Aye, Sir Thomas; but (to Answer you in the same language) to dye as you did, to see the Heads-man with the Axe, after the Law had passed your Sentence stand and Demand the Execution of it; This sure is terrible.

  Moor. No more than for the Patient to see the Apothecary bring the Quieting draught after the Physitian has given him over.

  Vicar. But that Pomp and Apparatus of Death, the black Cloth and Coffin prepared, your Relations and Friends surrounding You. You cannot but remember, Sir, your Dear Daughter Roper following that Father, who always —

  Moor. Hold good Vicar; Aye, there indeed you did touch me to the quick, that beloved Daughter, beautiful, innocent, learned, Pious, that pride of my life, that Idol of my thought; But yet Reason and Religion soon got the better, and armed me as well against the softness of human Nature as against the apprehension of Death. You see neither of these could as much as change or Debase even my good Humour.

  Vicar. But yet,
Sir.

  Moor. But again, but yet what?

  Vicar. Why methinks there is a great deal of difference between Dying and being put to Death. A Man must yeild to the call of Nature.

  Moor. And can he resist the Decrees of Fate. A Man must do his Duty whatsoever may be the Event of it: In the high Station wherein I was placed I was keeper of the Kings Conscience, how could I then possibly Dispence with the Dictates of my Own.

  Vicar. That was a pleasant employment indeed, Keeper of a Mans Conscience who never knew his own mind half an hour. What could the Chancellour think shou’d become of him, if he contradicted his Highness, who beheaded one of his best beloved Wives upon meer Suspition of her being false to him, and had like to have Plaid the same trick upon another only for Attempting to instruit him. You that used to puzzle Us with your Greek and Latin should have minded what your Friend Cicero said in otio cum dignitate, but to be sure in sine periculo.

  Moor. And yet Vicar, Cicero himself was beheaded as well as I.

  Vicar. Why that is just the thing I have often taken into my consideration, he lost his life when he forsook his Maxim, to say the truth out his Case in some respect was not unlike yours. He had his head cutt off because he would be running it

  [too] far into Affairs, from which he had better to have receeded. He spoke so violently against Anthony that he could never hope in Prudence to be forgiven by Him, the Anthony had good Nature enough, and you contradicted Henry, who as to his temper was inflexible, and in his Anger never forgave any Man.

  Moor. But did not Anthony deserve that and more from Cicero. And as to my Case, if the King —

  Vicar, Alas, Sir, let People deserve or not deserve, that is not six pence matter. Have they power or have they not? Theres the Question. If they have, never provoke them; let me tell you, my late Lord Chancellor, as there are an Hundred old Womens Receipts of more real use than any that the Physitians can prescribe; by which the Vulgar live, while the Learned laugh at them: there are as many common rules by which we Ordinary People are directed, which you wise Men (as you think your selves) either do not know, or at least never Practice; if You did it would be better for You.

  Moor, Prethée good Vicar, if thou hast any of these Rules to spare let us hear them.

  Vicar, Attend then, never strive against the Stream, always drive the Nail that will go, eat your Pudding and hold your tongue, dont pretend to be Wiser than your Master, or his Eldest Son.

  Noli contradicere Priori,

  Fungere officium taliter qualiter.

  Sine Mundum vadere sicut and the never foiling reason of that most Excellent Precept

  Nam mundus vult vadere sicut vult.

  You see I have not forgot all my Latin, will you have any more of them?

  Moor, No Vicar, if the whole Hundred be such as these they will make but one great Tautologie, which signifies no more than take care of your Self, or keep out of Harms way, A Maxim which I presume, you did most particularly observe.

  Vicar. You are in the right out, else I should have made a Pretty Business of it, i faith. I might have been deprived of my Living by old Harry, and perhaps not restored by his Son Edward for want of a Friend to the Protestor. I might again have Chanced to be burned by Queen Mary, and if I had escaped that Storm I had been sure of Starving in the Reign of her Sister Elizabeth.

  Moor. But what did you think was your Business in the World, for what Cause did You live?

  Vicar. Why to teach my Parish and to receive my Tythes.

  Moor. Oh, as to receiving your Tythes I have no Scruple, but what did you teach your Parish?

  Vicar. What a Question is That, Why Religion.

  Moor. What Religion?

  Vicar. Again, sometimes the Antient Roman Catholick, some times that of the Reformed Church of England.

  Moor. How came you to teach them the first?

  Vicar. Why my Canonical Obedience, the order of my Diocessan Bishop, the Missal and Breviary all enjoyned it.

  Moor. How happened it then you taught the t’other.

  Vicar. Why New Acts of Parliament were made for the Reformation of Popery. My Bishop was put into the Tower for Disobeying them, and our Missals and Breviarys were burnt. You are not going to Catachise me, Are you?

  Moor. And You continued stil in your Vicarage of Bray?

  Vicar. Where would you have had me been? in Foxes Book of Martyrs?

  Moor. Soft and fair, Vicar, only one word more. Did you make all those leaps and Changes without any previous Examination, as to the Essential good or ill of them?

  Vicar. Why, what should I have done? The King had a mind to fall out with the Pope. Would you have a single Man oppose either of these mighty Potentates? His Highness upon the Quarrel bids me read the Mass in English, and I do so. His Son Edward enjoins the same thing, and I continue my Obedience. Queen Mary is [in] Communion with the Church of Rome, and She commands me to turn my English Mass again into Latin. Why then things are just as they were when first I took Orders. Elizabeth will have it Translated back into English. Why then matters stand as they did when I first reformed. You see, Sir, it was the Opinion of the Church of which I was a Member, that Changed, but the Vicar of Bray remained always the same Man.

  Moor. What Colours do we put on our Errors and our fears? And you Discharged your Duty all this while?

  Vicar. Exactly: I never missed my Church, was civil to my Parishoners and gave something to the Poor.

  Moor. And You Preached boldly and bravely without respect to Persons; You made Foelix tremble?

  Vicar. By Fœlix I suppose You mean Old Hall; No, by our Lady, He made us all tremble. To tell you the Truth out, Sir Thomas, I always preached in general at the Vices of the Times, but took care not to be too particular upon those of any great Men. Sometimes indeed I ventured a little against Pluralities or Non residence because if any Man was touched he durst not openly show his resentment, and neither of these Cases affected my self, but I always took care to find Texts and Deduce Doctrines from them a Propos enough. When Harry went to the Siege of Bologne it was David that went out against the Jebusites, or the Moabites. When he would be Divorced from Old Kate, and had a mind to Nanny Bullen; why Vas[ht]i was put away, and Esther was taken unto Ahasuerus into the House Royal. Little Edward was Josiah, who destroyed the high Places. Then Mary again was Deborah or Judith, who restored the antient Laws and Customes of the People of Israel. Elizabeth as she succeeded to the Crown, had right to the same Texts, only with new Applications and with this difference that to Exalt her Praise I always clapt a little of the Jesabel or Athalia upon her Predecessor.

  Moor. So that all this time you told no body their Faults; Put the case now that you had been a Surgeon, you would never have applyed Medicaments to the proper wound. If you had been a Mariner you would not have stopped that part of the Ship where the Leak was sprung.

  Vicar. But I was neither a Surgeon, nor a Mariner, what signifies putting cases? I was a Parson and Preached —

  Moor. Rather Panegyrics I perceive than Sermons.

  Vicar. No, not quite so, but they were rather Sermons indeed than Satyrs.

  Moor. How Sedulously do we endeavor to shun the Exercise of Virtue, and what excuses do we make to cover Vice. You never Preached therefore against Ambition or Luxury before Cardinal Wolsey.

  Vicar. No more than before You, I would have preached against Levity of Speech and vain Jesting.

  Moor. But You ought to have done so, and we should Both have been bound to thank You.

  Vicar. Aye, Sir Thomas, but would either of You have prefer’d Me?

  Moor. That indeed is the main Question. Alas how we squander away our Days without doing our Duty. Desirous stil to lengthen life, while we lose the very Causes for which it was given to Us; and thus you trifled Fourscore Years without doing any good or intending it.

  Vicar. Indeed, Sir, I thought that it was very well that I did not do much harm. Trifled away fourscore Years said You, Aye, that I did indeed, and was very sorry when they were passed.
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