The Amaranth Or, religious poems; consisting of fables, visions, emblems, etc. Adorned with copper-plates from the best masters [by Walter Harte] |
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MACARIUS:
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 | The Amaranth |  |
MACARIUS:
215
OR, THE CONFESSOR.
An EPISTLE to the Rev. Dr. Robert Hort, Canon of Windsor.
Who sung, “That truth was truest poetry.”—
O Hort, to these my pious strains attend.
Thou knew'st the Man; and thy Good Sense is such,
I dare not say too little, or too much.—
Under his eye the self-same views combin'd
Our studies, and one horoscope conjoin'd.
He check'd th'impatient wand'rings of our youth,
And grafted on our fancy facts and truth.
Together we amus'd our youthful prime,
Days seem'd but hours, and time improv'd on time:
Mindless of cares, [and how they pass'd or came]
Our sports, our labours, and our rest the same .
For tears, and grief, and melancholy shade;
Wide o'er the church they spread an awful light,
Than day more serious, half-compos'd as night,
Britannia's Lombardy with silver waves;]
There sleeps Macarius, foe to pomp and pride;
Who liv'd contented, and contented dy'd.
Burn twice sev'n ages, and be un-consum'd?
And not one verse be sacred to a name
Endear'd by virtuous deeds and silent fame?
True Fame demands not panegyric aid;
The fun'ral torch burns brightest in the shade;
Too fast it blazes, fann'd by public air;—
Thus blossoms fall, before their tree can bear.
True Fame, like porc'lain earth, for years must lay
Bury'd, and mix'd with elemental clay .
For pious Hall a kind inspection lent:
He shew'd him what to seek and what to shun:—
Harcourt with him the thorny journey run,
Companion of his studies; and a friend
Sincere in youth, and stedfast to the end.
He travell'd thro' them wisely, and retir'd:
Giving to solitude and heav'nly care
Those moments which the worldling cannot spare.
Thus, half a century, his course he run
Of pray'r and praises, daily, like the sun:
Happy! Who Truth invariably pursues,
And well-earn'd fame by better fame renews !
Constantly us'd and truly understood.
The Sacred Scriptures were his chief delight ;
Talk of the day, and vision of the night:
Truth's second sources he with care survey'd,
And walk'd with Hermas in the rural shade .
Cyprian with awful gravity he sought;
And true simplicity Ignatius brought;
Lively Minucius did his hours beguile;
Lactantius charm'd with elegance of style:
But mostly Chrysostom engag'd his mind:
Great without labour, without art refin'd!
Now see his gentle elocution flows,
Soft as the flakes of heav'n-descending snows;
Pure in his diction, purer in his soul:
By few men equall'd, and surpass'd by none;
A Tully and Demosthenes in One !
To Roman classics, and Athenian too.
Plato with raptures did his soul inspire;
Plotinus fann'd the Academic fire.
Then came the Stagyrite;—whose excellence
Beams forth in clearness, brevity, and sense!
To Them, whom we despoil, and then despise:
With Hooker, Raleigh, Chillingworth, and Sands ;—
[For in those days “were Giants in our lands!”]
Thus, like the bee, he suck'd from ev'ry flow'r,
And hour surpass'd the predecessor-hour.
Latimer's father was his type of yore;
Little he had, but something for the poor:
With wholesome meat and hospitable bread.
Poor in himself, men poorer he reliev'd,
And gave the charities he had receiv'd.
Beams bright; nor is to winds nor rains expos'd:
A watch-tow'r to the wand'rers of mankind;
Forlorn, belated, and with passions blind ,
Who tread the foolish round their fathers trod,
And, 'midst life's errors, hit on death's by-road .
Patience and chearfulness to him were giv'n;
Patience! the choicest gift on this side Heav'n!
And then, like northern fruits, left off to bear;
Nought but a Vestal fire such heat contains;
Age seldom boasts so prodigal remains .
Some few beyond life's usual date are cast:
Prime clusters of the grape till winter last.
To these a sacred preference is giv'n:
Each shaft is polish'd, and th'Employer Heav'n .
His fury, when you mournfully complain'd .
And Kirk's Barbarians, hard as harden'd steel,
Forgot their Lybia, and vouchsaf'd to feel.
As honour prompted, or self-int'rest veer'd;
[Times! when the wisest of mankind might err,
And, lost in shadows, wrong or right, prefer;]
The Tempter, in a vapour's form , arose,
And o'er his eyes a dubious twilight throws,
To lead him, puzzling, o'er fallacious ground,
Suborn his passions, and his sense confound:
Pomp to foretaste, and mitres pre-descry;
[For mists at once enlarge and multiply:]
Our Hero paus'd—and, weighing either side,
Took poverty; and conscience for his guide:
For he, who thinks he suffers for his God,
Deserves a pardon, tho' he feels the rod.
Yet blam'd he none; [Himself in honour clear;]
That were a crime had cost his virtue dear!
Except with charity, and Heav'n alone.
In his own friends some frailties he allow'd;
These were too singular, and Those too proud.
Rare spirit! In the midst of party-flame,
To think well-meaning men are half the same!
An artful enemy, but seeming friend:
Conscious of having plann'd thy worldly fate ,
He could not love thee, and he durst not hate.
But then seraphic Ken was all thy own;
And He , who long declin'd Ken's vacant throne,
By worldlings laught at, and by fools decry'd:
Dodwell was thine, the humble and resign'd;
Nelson, with Christian elegance of mind;
And He , whose tranquil mildness from afar
Spoke him a distant, but a brilliant star.
These all forsook their homes—Nor sigh'd nor wept;—
Mammon they freely gave, but God they kept.
Ah, look on honours with Macarius' eyes,
Snares to the good, and dangers to the wise!
He wander'd o'er the Desart FORTY years.
The cloud and pillar [or by night or day]
Reviv'd his heart, and ascertain'd the way .
Escap'd the bramble and entangling thorn .
Heav'n purify'd for him th'embitter'd well ,
And Manna from aërial regions fell .
At length near peaceful Pisgah he retir'd,
And found that rest his pilgrimage requir'd:
Where, as from toils he silently withdrew,
Half Palestina open'd on his view;
Go, pious hermit, groves and mountains cry'd;
Enter, thou faithful Servant, Heav'n reply'd.
And smiling sleeps upon the mother's breast,
Tranquil, and with a patriarch's hopes, he gave
His soul to Heav'n, his body to the grave;
That 'twas a soft extinction, and not death.
Happy! who thus, by unperceiv'd decay,
Absént themselves from life, and steal away .
Lamented Shade!—'Tis all thy Son can give.
Better to own the debt we cannot pay,
Than with false gold thy fun'ral rites defray.
Vainly my Muse is anxious to procure
Gifts unavailing, empty sepulture ;
As vainly she expands her flutt'ring wings:
She is no Swan, nor, as she dies, she sings.
He, that would brighten antient di'monds, must
Clear and re-polish them with di'mond-dust:
Is lost;—For Pope and Dryden are no more!
[Whom envy sinks not, nor encomium raise;]
Forgive this grateful tribute of my lays.
Milton alone could Eden lost re-gain;
And only Thou portray Messiah's reign.
O Early lost! with ev'ry grace adorn'd!
By me [so Heav'ns ordain it] always mourn'd.
By Thee the good Macarius was approv'd:
Whom Fenton honour'd, and Philotheüs lov'd .
Thou, and thy Friends, preserv'd my Muse and me.
By proxy, from a gen'rous Kindred spread,
Thy Craggs's bounty fell upon my head :
And thy own Chesterfield protects my age.
These eight lines are imitated from a famous passage in Persius, Sat. V, too well known to be reprinted. It begins—
“Geminos horoscope”—&c.It is reported that the Chinese beat and mix thoroughly together the composition that makes porcelain, and then bury it in a deep bed of clay for an hundred years. See Dr. Donne's Letters. See also the Discovery of Hidden Treasure, 4to, London 1656, p. 89; (a very scarce and curious Work, by the famous Gabriel Plattes.)
Mr. John Hall, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1667, and Rector of St. Aldate's in the same university. Created D.D. in 1669; elected Margaret Professor in 1676; and consecrated Bishop of Bristol the 12th of June, 1691. All which preferments he enjoyed together.
Mr. Simon Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor Harcourt, offered him a Bishoprick from Queen Anne many years after the Revolution; but the favour was declined with grateful Acknowledgements.
“Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God; and could not, out of the good things that are seen, know him. That is, neither, by considering the works did they acknowledge the work-master” Wisd. of Sol. Ch. xiii, v 1.
He employed ten or twelve hours a day in study, without any interruption, [but that of casual sickness] for fifty years successively. His principal business was in referring every difficult part of Scripture to those particular passages in the Fathers, and eminent modern Divines, who had explained them expressly or occasionally.
Alluding to a Work entituled the Shepherd of Hermas. Hermas was contemporary with some of the Apostles.
In order to judge a little of these two assertions, be pleased only to read St. Chrysostom's Homily on the Ten Talents, or His Commentary on St. Matthew; and his Orations to the People of Antioch ΠΕΡΙ ΑΝΔΡΙΑΝΤΩΝ.
See also Ferrarius De Concione Veterum, and the Eloquence Crétienne of M. Gisbert: The last of which Works was a favourite Book with the late Lord Somers, and wrought a great effect on his future way of thinking.
This anecdote was imparted to me by the late Mr. Elijah Fenton, as matter of fact on his own knowledge.
Edwyn Sandys, Archbishop of York, was one of the first eminent Reformers, not only of our holy religion, [which almost every person knows] but of our language [which circumstance few persons are apprized of.] His sermons [the time when he preached them being duly considered] may be looked upon as a master-piece of eloquence and fine writing. They were chiefly preached between the years 1550 and 1576.
His son George [and here let me be understood to refer chiefly to his Paraphrase on Job] knew the true harmony of the English Heroic Couplet long before Denbam and Waller took up the pen; and preserved that harmony more uniformly. Variety perhaps was wanting; which Dryden afterwards supplied, but not till he came to the forty-fifth year of his age; namely, till the time he published Aurengzebe.
Bishop Hugh Latimer [whom I quote only by memory, not having the original at hand] says, in one of his Sermons preached at St. Paul's Cross, about the year ------, “that tho' his father possessed no more than 40 acres of free land, or thereabouts, yet he had always something to give to the poor, and now and then entertained his friends;—that he portioned out three daughters, at 5 l. a-piece, and bred up a son at the university; ‘otherwise, adds he, “I should not have had the honour of appearing in this pulpit before the King's majesty.”
Note, The original Edition says 4 acres, which must be an error of the Press, instead of 40 acres. Old Latimer lived in good repute about the year 1470, in which year his son Hugh was born.
Despectare procul.
Ovid. Met. Sed nil dulcius est, bene quàm munita tenere
Edita doctrinâ Sapientûm templa serena,
Despicere unde queas alios, passimq; videre
Errare, atq; viam palantes quærere vitæ.
Lucret. L. II, v 6.
When Judge Jeffr---s came to Taunton-assizes, in the year 1685, to execute his commission upon the unfortunate people concerned in Monmouth's rebellion, the Person here spoken of, being Minister of St. Mary Magdalen's Church at Taunton, waited on him in private, and remonstrated much against his severities. The Judge listened to him calmly, and with some attention; and, tho' he had never seen him before, advanced him in a few months to a Prebendal Stall in the Cathedral church of Bristol.
Bishop Ken used to say, that King William and Queen Mary would gladly have permitted the Non-juring Bishops and Clergy [who had just before signalized themselves in a steady opposition to Popery] to have enjoyed their preferments till death, upon their parole of honour given, that they would never disturb the government; which favour would have been thankfully accepted of, and complyed with, by the aforesaid Bishops, &c.; but somebody here alluded to [at least as Macarius thought] traversed their Majesties gracious intentions. In proof of this, Bishop Ken performed the funeral service over Mr. Kettlewell in the year 1695, and prayed for King William and Queen Mary.
Dr. George Hooper. N. B. It must here also be remembered, that Dr. Beveridge refused to succeed Bishop Ken in 1691, and then the offer was made to R. Kidder, D. D.
Macarius (who was born the 28th of October, 1650) was dispossessed of his preferments in 1691, and remained deprived till the time of his death, which happened in February 1735; and (which is remarkable enough) the Bishops Kidder, Hooper, and Wynne all contrived that Macarius should receive the little profits from his prebend of Wells as long as he lived. A circumstance to their honour, as well as his.
| The Amaranth | |