(after so long a time of its not being answered) that the more judicious amongst you might perhaps think it below them to make a reply to that, which had already by others been most fully and plainly refuted, did assume the boldness to re capitulate this ensuing treatise, which (together with myself) I prostrate at your feet."

J. H. M.

ART. X. Paradoxical assertions and philosophical problems. Full of delight and recreation for all ladies and youthful fancies. By R. H. London: Printed by R. W. and are to be sold by Charles Webb, at the Bores Head in St. Pauls Church yard. 1659. 12mo.

Mr. Dibdin, in his late edition of Sir Thomas More's. Utopia, page 62, calls this "an eccentric and rare little book," which it undoubtedly is; and some further extracts from it, in addition to those he has given, may not therefore be unacceptable.

At page 24 we find the following paradoxical assertion" that frequent fires in a metropolis to consume the dwelling houses are necessary."

"Although my discourse may seem Quixot-like, to overthrow cities, depopulate countries, and threaten al their ruines and though I appear at first aspect like him, terrible, in this doubtful notion, yet I doubt not but out of this flinty paradox, I shall strike fire enough to lighten any man to the truth of this bold assertion, though not enough to consume any the least city or town corporate, (although some of the latter might better be spared.)"

" Our

"Our law therefore in this particular I conceive too severe, which inhibits a man upon pain of death to set fire to his own house: as for example if my house be ill favored, old, rotten and decayed, and consequently dangerous either to be lived in or pulled down, should I not rather fire it quickly (if it stand alone especially) than endanger any man's life in the demolishment thereof; and build a better, fairer and more substantial one in the room thereof?

"Observe but where the greatest fires have raged in any countrey, town or city, if fairer structures, larger streets, and more stately and convenient edifices have not been raised phenix-like out of their ashes: whereas old mansions dawbed and patched up so long like Theseus ship (of which not a rib it had at first building was left) and repaired so much, that to make the house the more honourable, they must be propped up with supporters to keep the tenements from falling; look like the Augean stables, full of dirt and rottenness; or like my grandsire's old Grange, venerable for nothing but antiquity. Some streets in London are built so narrow, that neighbors at home may shake hands; as they are built in Spain, Italy, and France, to divert the sun's scalding rayes: but in our northern coasts, a fair, streight, broad, open street, as at Southhampton, best befits our clime."

"What matter were it then if some of our rotten, poor half thatched cities were burnt, and stately ones erected in their rooms with galleries as at Westchester; or arches and piatzas to the street, as at Damascus, Padua, Bologna and Berna in Switzerland. Did not Erostratus build himself up a name by burning down the temple of Diana? And doth not charity, grown

cold

cold now a dayes, however yet warm herself by these and the like frequent fires? whereas without such sudden and unexpected occasions she would even freeze and starve to death

"Besides, observe how every creature naturally desires to get out of his house of restraint, for our houses are but as our inns to lodge, not to dwell in. The snail as soon as it can creep leaves its shell; the chicken as soon as warmth does hatch it, quits its marble tenement: and even man himself is soon weary of the womb he hath lien a while enclosed in, and when able to walk, delights more in the open fields then in his closet."

"Thus I conclude then, where such horrid ruines are purposely made by malicious designs, the incendiaries, who are nigro carbone notandi, are worthy of greater and more lasting flames. But when God's immediate hand does it either by lightning to purge the infected air; or by other casual accidents permits it for our punishment; the judgement may enlighten us to behold the frailty of our earthly mansions, and God's justice, to whose providence we are to submit: and may be useful also to minde us of the day of judgement, when all shall be consumed in fire, except the bodies of the wicked, that must ever broil in everlasting flames-"

At page 36" that imprisonment is better than life."

"I have read of a Parisian that in sixty years stirred not out of the walls of that famous city, (a prison large and glorious enough I confess) but when the king had confined him within that circuit during life, then, and not before the old man most desired to expatiate, and thereupon

VOL. X

се

thereupon with grief dyed: so that it is not the confinement, but the imposed restraint that makes imprisonment so irksome. The voluntary sequestration of the anchoret sweetens his solitude and close immurement, and it may be onely the forced servitude and restraint of more volatile spirits that makes their lives seem tedious."

"'Tis true Robert Duke of Normandy, imprisoned by Henry the First, his younger brother pined away for grief: and Francis the French King taken by Charles the Fifth, was (as Guicciardine reports) melancholy even to death, and that in an instant. And Jugurth, that valiant commander, after a few days imprisonment at Rome, dyed. I grant that to such high flying souls that have lived abroad at the height of jovial exultation and sensuality, to be debarr'd on a sudden of their former career of pleasures, cannot but be irksome at first especially, perhaps mortal. No doubt but Valerian, Bajazet, our Edward and Richard the Second, felt the smart of such tyrannous confinements. You may sooner tame a lark or reclaim a swallow, then such high flying fancies. But to a stoical temper, to an austere, stay'd, and reserved person, imprisonment is liberty. Such a man being nunquam minus solus, quam cum solus, and never more at ease then when thus confin'd. To a scholar, that can sit and travel all the world over in a map, nothing so pleasant as retirement; his brains travel in contemplation though he be fixt in his cell: he can behold the chorographical and typographical delineations of the remotest parts and cities, turn over every stone, and build castles, &c. and never set foot over his studie's threshold."

"How

"How renowned is King Ptolomy for that learning he acquired whilst imprisoned by his disease? With what delight did our wise King James contemplate Bodley's fair library at Oxford, expressing his affection to learning in those expressive words, "if I were to be a prisoner, said he, and might have my wish, I would desire no other prison then that library, and to be chained together with so many brave authors and dead instructours."

"What shall I say of Caesar's retirement to Caprea? And of the Emperour Charles the Fifth, his quitting his imperial diadem to embrace the peaceable quiet of a monastick life? How are the Kings of China for state's sake cloistered up that they never come abroad? How are the Spanish, Turkish, Italian darnes lockt up in their closets by their jealous husbands? and our's scarce suffering themselves to see the sun, onely to preserve their beauties? With what content are they mewed up in stoves in Muscovia, and in caves in Greenland half the year together? You'l reply, their confinements are voluntary which sweetens and gilds the pill of bondage and servitude. But what unparallel'd calamities do the Indian and Turkey slaves in mines and gallies endure, condemned perpetually to drudgery hunger and blows, and chained to their misery sans hope of delivery?"

"All this I say is nothing to a chearful heart and patient. The ship the rich merchant sails in is no less a prison then the captive's gally. Set aside the Spanish inquisition, (which tyrannizes over the soul ast well as over the body) and is therefore more injurious; I see not, I say, that suggested misery in that or any other sort of imprisonment, which a wise, humble and patient

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