And, serving Ceres, tills with his own team, Never pale Envy's poisony heads do hiss To gnaw his heart: nor Vulture Avarice: His fields' bounds, bound his thoughts: he never sups For nectar, poison mixed in silver cups; Neither in golden platters doth he lick For sweet ambrosia deadly arsenic : His hand's his bowl (better than plate or glass) The silver brook his sweetest hippocrass : Milk cheese and fruit, (fruits of his own endeavour) Drest without dressing, hath he ready ever. False counsellors (concealers of the law) With feigned-chiding, and foul jarring noise, Break not his brain, nor interrupt his joys; His wandering vessel, reeling to and fro No other seas he knows, no other torrent, To summon timely sleep, he doth not need Luxurious Villains-(Viols I should have said); But on green carpets thrum'd with mossy bever, Fringing the round skirts of his winding river, The streams mild murmur, as it gently gushes, His healthy limbs in quiet slumber hushes. Drum fife and trumpet, with their loud alarms, Make him not start out of his sleep, to arms; Nor dear respect of some great General, Him from his bed unto the block doth call. The crested cock sings " Hunt-is up" to him, Limits his rest, and makes him stir betime, To walk the mountains and the flow'ry meads Impearl'd with tears which great Aurora sheds. Never gross air poisoned in stinking streets, To choke his spirit, his tender nostril meets; But th' open sky where at full breath he lives, Still keeps him sound, and still new stomach gives. And Death, dread Serjeant of the Eternal Judge, Comes very late to his sole-seated lodge. CHAPTER VII. P. I. RUSTIC PHILOSOPHY, AN EXPERIMENT UPON MOONSHINE. Quien comienza en juventud A bien obrar, Señal es de no errar En senetud. PROVERBIOS DEL MARQUES DE SANTILLANA. IT is not however for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion. Having nothing to desire for himself, Daniel's ambition had taken a natural direction and fixed upon his son. He was resolved that the boy should be made a scholar; not with the prospect of advancing him in the world, but in the hope that he might become a philosopher, and take as much delight in the books which he would inherit as his father had done before him. Riches and rank and power appeared in his judgement to be nothing when compared to philosophy; and herein he was as true a philosopher as if he had studied in the Porch, or walked the groves of Academus. It was not however for this, for he was as little given to talk of his opinions as to display his reading, but for his retired habits, and general character, and some odd practices into which his books had led him, that he was commonly called Flossofer Daniel by his neighbours. The appellation was not affixed in derision, but respectfully and as his due; for he bore his faculties too meekly ever to excite an envious or an ill-natured feeling in any one. Rural Flossofers were not uncommon in those days, though in the progress of society they have disappeared like Crokers, Bowyers, Lorimers, Armourers, Running Footmen and other descriptions of men whose occupations are gone by. But they were of a different order from our Daniel. They were usually Philomaths, Students in Astrology, or the Coelestial Science, and not unfrequently Empirics or downright Quacks. Between twenty and thirty almanacs used to be published every year by men of this description, some of them versed enough in mathematics to have done honor to Cambridge, had the fates allowed; and others such proficients in roguery, that they would have done equal honor to the whipping-post. A man of a different stamp from either came in declining life to settle at Ingleton in the humble capacity of schoolmaster, a little before young Daniel was capable of more instruction than could be given him at home. Richard Guy was his name; he is the person to whom the lovers of old rhyme are indebted for the preservation of the old poem of Flodden Field, which he transcribed from an ancient manuscript, and which was printed from his transcript by Thomas Gent of York. In his way through the world, which had not been along the King's high Dunstable road, Guy had picked up a competent share of Latin, a little Greek, some practical knowledge of physic, and more of its theory; astrology |