Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/605

] self, and steering bis own course through life by the mere calculations of an enlightened selfishness, one half of the broad mass of humanity was to him nothing better than a blank."

That is precisely the secret of the whole of his philosophy—the evidence of an intense selfishness and pride of intellect, and the absence of the finer faculties of the soul. As if Providence would give a proof of it, Hobbes set himself to a labour which required all these faculties. He translated Homer, both "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" and a more meagre, soulless, miserable failure never appeared. As a far greater psychologist than Hobbes has said, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Hobbes was as thorough an advocate of political despotism as of spiritual negation, as is testified by his "De Corpore Politico," his "Leviathan," and "Behemoth," which last is an absurd name for a history of the civil wars from 1640 to 1660. Hobbes lived to a great age, praised by his admirers as a specimen of independence, yet living the greater part of his life in a state of dependence in other men's houses, and at other men's cost. In fact, he appears to have been of a crabbed and overbearing temper. His arguments were ably answered by Cudworth, by Clarendon, bishops Cumberland, Bramhall, and Tenison, by Dr. Henry More—just mentioned—in his "History of Philosophy;" by Eachard, and others; yet the late Sir William Molesworth thought it wort while to rake up Hobbes's forgotten putrefactions, and to publish an expensive edition of his works.

A writer whose works have had a far different and more salutary influence was Richard Baxter. Baxter held the same position in the religious world as Halifax in the political one. Halifax gloried in the name of a "Trimmer."

He was constantly occupying the middle post in the world of party. Sometimes one party congratulated itself that it had him, but anon it found him defending measures of the opposite one. In fact, he was an independent thinker, and extending one hand to either party as he thought it right at the moment, he turned the balance of conflicting opinions. Exactly so with Richard Baxter; a clergyman of the church of England, he was yet a decided nonconformist. He was a monarchist in theory, but was so disgusted with the royalists for their licentiousness and notions of absolutism, that he went over to the camp of Cromwell and preached in it. But when Cromwell assumed the supreme power, again Baxter was on the other side, condemning to his face his usurpation. Baxter's mediating views led him to hope, on the return of Charles II., that nonconformity and the church might shake hands. He believed in Charles's "Healing Declaration," and drew an accommodating liturgy, but found himself deceived; the hierarchy rejected all such amalgamations. He became a sufferer from nonconformity, and yet remained an advocate of conformity to a certain extent. Just the same in his theological views, with one hand he embraced Calvin, with the other Arminius. He rejected Calvin's doctrine of reprobation, yet accepted his theory of election—that is, that certain persons are pre-ordained from all eternity as instruments for certain work by God; but yet agreed with Arminius's assertion that all men whatever are capable of salvation, for that Christ distinctly declared that he died for all, and that whoever believed should be saved. The views of Baxter were adopted by large numbers, who became a sect under the name of "Baxterians;" but they gradually became absorbed into the different denominations of the independents, baptists, &c., who may now be considered as generally holding Baxter's mild and amiable opinions. Drs. Watts and Doddridge were eminent professors of Baxter's creed. The chief works of Baxter are his "Methodus Theologise," his "Catholic Theology," and his "Saints' Everlasting Rest." The last is by far the most popular. It has been circulated by tens of thousands into all quarters where the English language reaches, and, like the "Pilgrim" of Bunyan, is to be found on the shelves of the cottage and the farm in the remotest nooks. Perhaps no book ever gave so much consolation to the spirits of so many simple and earnest seekers after religious rest as this work of the venerable Richard Baxter.

Bunyan was a contemporary of Baxter, but a man of a more robust and sturdy temper. Lying twelve years in Bedford gaol for his religious faith, he there produced his immortal "Pilgrim's Progress," a work which, as the production of an illiterate tinker, was contemptuously ignored by the critics and the learned of the time, till it had spread like a flood over the whole land, was become the delight of the whole nation, except their erudite selves, and at last forced even them to wonder and admire. Yet even now, whilst praising, they qualify the praise by its being "a wonderful work for a tinker," and place Bunyan amid the minor lights of the time. The "Pilgrim" is a wonderful work for any man, and Bunyan was undoubtedly a genius of the very first class. As an allegorist there is not another fit to carry his shoes after him—not even Spenser or Mrs. Tyghe.

With Baxter and Bunyan the gentle angler, Izaak Walton, claims a place for his "Lives of Religious Worthies," and not less for his "Complete Angler," one of the first works, along with "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," which awoke the love of nature which now prevails, and where it does not prevail is affected.

Side by side with these worthies stands John Evelyn, a man who mixed with the court and higher circles in Charles II. 's reign without defiling himself by its filth. He was the model of a true English gentleman—pious, honourable, and exerting himself at once to maintain sound morals and to promote science. His memoirs present a lively picture of the dissolute age in which he lived; and he sought to draw men away from the sink of corruption by encouraging them to plant and cultivate their estates. For this he Wrote his "Sylva; or, a Discourse of Forest Trees," still a standard and most delightful work. He was one of the first members and promoters of the Royal Society, and wrote "Numismata, a Discourse upon Medals;" a "Parallel of Ancient and Modern Architecture;" a work on Theology, only recently published; and the first "Gardener's Almanac."

As a memoir writer of the same period Samuel Pepys is, however, much more popular than Evelyn. Pepys was secretary to the admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; and his inimitably-gossipping volumes of whatever he saw during those times have been of late reprinted and read everywhere with great unction. Pepys, besides this, continued a most invaluable collection of old ballads began by Selden,