Laudator Temporis Acti

Excerpts from the essay by Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) in The "How I Was Educated" Papers. From The Forum Magazine (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896), pp. 1-9.

P. 5:

I came home from this school at the end of the first month, with a report which showed that I was ninth in a class of fifteen. That is about the average rank which I generally had. I showed it to my mother, because I had to. I thought she would not like it. To my great surprise and relief, she said it was a very good report. I said I thought she would be displeased because I was so low in the class. "Oh," she said, "that is no matter. Probably the other boys are brighter than you. God made them so, and you cannot help that. But the report says you are among the boys who behave well. That you can see to, and that is all I care about."

P. 6:

I was at Harvard College from 1835 to 1839....A philologist did the Latin, and made us hate it, and we should have hated him too, had we not thought of the possibilities of human nature, and that, deep hid in him, there must be something divine. Among them all, I detested Greek and Latin, when we left them at the end of the junior year, and I should never have read a word of either since, if I could help it, but that I had to teach them. Then I regained the natural love of them; "of which," as my great Master says, "in its place."

P. 7:

The classical men made us hate Latin and Greek; but the mathematical men (such men! Pierce and Lovering) made us love mathematics, and we shall always be grateful to them.

P. 9:

After I left college I was an usher in the Latin School, then under the admirable lead of Mr. Dixwell. I was a teacher of Latin and Greek there for two years. As I have said, the natural fondness for language then came back on me, in teaching the two languages to amiable and bright boys. To some of those boys, therefore, I owe all the pleasure which I have ever since derived from Latin and Greek literature—not to my college teachers, who made me hate the languages.

T.E. Brown (1830-1897), Letters, ed. Sidney T. Irwin (Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1900), Vol. II, pp. 237-239 (undated letter to Irwin "On the proposal to have an English Literature School at Oxford"):

You ask me what I think of the new School. I don't care for it. If we are to set up a 'School' for every subject, which it is desirable to encourage and foster among young Englishmen, where are we to stop? Cookery? Independently of its classical associations, is not this an important subject? Though, whether it be advisable to encourage it beyond the limits which nature has established, and which seem sufficiently wide, I know not. Anything that takes off good men from the Classics is to be deprecated. And the twaddle of these English scholars is endless. Even the best of them—Skeat, for instance—can we trust them not to encroach?

And what is the end of this English? English language, English literature: 'On! on!' German, High German, Low German, Icelandic, Sanscrit, when will you stop?

Not a word about Language then, that is too large an order. Let us limit ourselves to the Literature. Yes, but when will you pull up the desire to approfondir?

It is a tremendous field. Divide it, take the poetry alone, probably the most likely to be chosen. I know the man, so do you, who will insist, almost as a preliminary, upon a complete course of the laws which govern English metre. Yes, and to the De re metrica Anglica will want to add a conspectus of English Phonetics (!!). Once let them in, and won't they go it?

And then the rise of a whole school of Hermeneutics, with its infernal appendage of coaches, handbooks, cramming-books.

Can you face this monster of the deep? Textual criticism would come last—felicitous conjectures! Bibliography, and all the paths, pleasant, no doubt, and profitable as hobbies for a man above thirty. But educational? Your book-hunter would cry from the distance; and the Quais of Paris would find their way into the illimitable cycle of what every man ought to know.

Meantime, as the Gods will, we go each his own way to cultivate what pleases us. Could anything be better? I mean after taking one's degree.

Does F. think he would have profited by any such compulsory, or quasi-compulsory, or seductively permitted course of study? Why does he not take it up now? There is nothing to prevent him. I know full well that such a man never applies the cloture to his education. And one may exaggerate the advantages of an early familiarity with a branch of learning, especially when it lies in the direction of that noxious humbug, Universality. As the years roll on, I doubt not many a hammer will ring at the fastness of the classics. Possibly an entire disruption may take place. But if ever there was a case of my favourite Virgilian—Antiquam exquirite—it will be that of England when it awakes from this dream which is only not lewd because it is fatuous. The awakening is sure to come. The study of Greek may for a while be confined to the epigraphists of our School at Athens; but it will revive with tremendous force. And a new generation will demand of us what we have done with so precious an inheritance. But I wax rhetorical and ridiculous.

Some books on the controversy (a note to myself):

• John Churton Collins, The Study of English Literature: A Plea for its Recognition and Organization at the Universities (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891)
• C.H. Firth, The School of English Language and Literature: A Contribution to the History of Oxford Studies (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1909)
• D.J. Palmer, The Rise of English Studies: An Account of the Study of English Language and Literature from its Origins to the Making of the Oxford English School (London: Oxford University Press, 1965)
• Jo McMurty, English Language, English Literature: The Creation of an Academic Discipline (London: Mansell, 1985)

T.E. Brown (1830-1897), Letters, ed. Sidney T. Irwin (Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1900), Vol. II, p. 15 (letter to Irwin, January 28, 1894):

Add that he is a scorner of contemporaries, totally incapable of discovering in this century or much later than the Conquest any being male or female that can interest him, or is worthy of his attention.

Martial 9.61 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):

There is a famous house in the land of Tartessus, where wealthy Corduba loves tranquil Baetis and yellow fleeces are pale with native ore and living foil coats the Hesperian flock. In the midst of the mansion, embracing the entire dwelling, stands a plane, Caesar's plane, with dense foliage, planted by the unconquered guest's auspicious hand; from that hand the shoot began to grow. The tree seems to feel its author and lord: so green is it, so it seeks the high stars with its branches. Often did tipsy Fauns play under this tree and a late pipe alarm the silent house; and by night fleeing Pan through the lonely fields, a rustic Dryad often hid below these leaves. And the dwelling was fragrant with reveling Lyaeus; the shade grew more luxuriant with wine's effusion, and the blushing grass was painted with yesternight's garlands: nobody could tell which roses were his own. O beloved of the gods, o great Caesar's tree, fear not steel or sacrilegious hearths. You may expect the glories of your foliage to last for ever: the hands that planted you were not Pompey's.

In Tartesiacis domus est notissima terris,
  qua dives placidum Corduba Baetin amat,
vellera nativo pallent ubi flava metallo
  et linit Hesperium brattea viva pecus.
aedibus in mediis totos amplexa penates        5
  stat platanus densis Caesariana comis,
hospitis invicti posuit quam dextera felix,
  coepit et ex illa crescere virga manu.
auctorem dominumque nemus sentire videtur:
  sic viret et ramis sidera celsa petit.        10
saepe sub hac madidi luserunt arbore Fauni
  terruit et tacitam fistula sera domum;
dumque fugit solos nocturnum Pana per agros,
  saepe sub hac latuit rustica fronde Dryas.
atque oluere lares comissatore Lyaeo        15
  crevit et effuso laetior umbra mero;
hesternisque rubens †delecta† est herba coronis
  atque suas potuit dicere nemo rosas.
o dilecta deis, o magni Caesaris arbor,
  ne metuas ferrum sacrilegosque focos.        20
perpetuos sperare licet tibi frondis honores:
  non Pompeianae te posuere manus.

17 delecta γ : del- vel dei- β : distincta Gilbert : depicta Shackleton Bailey, Classical Philology 73 (1978) 284 : detecta Eden, Classical Quarterly 51 (2001) 320

Some bibliography:

• Concepción Cabrillana Leal, "Es contenido como elemento definidor independiente: algunas composiciones de Estacio y Marcial," Cuadernos de Filologia Clasica. Estudios Latinos 8 (1995) 157-170 (at 166-168)
• Jaime B. Curbera and Miryam Galaz, "Platanus Caesariana," Habis 26 (1995) 153-158
• Christer Henriksén, A Commentary on Martial, Epigrams, Book 9 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 258-267
• Raymond Marks, "Julius Caesar in Domitianic Poetry," in Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier, edd. Norbert Kramer, Christiane Reitz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), pp. 13-39 (at 24-26)
• Marcel Meulder, "Le platane de Jules César (Martial, Épigrammes, IX, 61)," Euphrosyne 43 (2006) 313-324

James Hurnard (1808-1881), The Setting Sun, 3rd ed. (London: Saml. Harris & Co., 1878), pp. 321-322; rpt. in James Hurnard: A Victorian Character. Being Passages from The Setting Sun. Selected and Arranged by G. Rostrevor Hamilton (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1946), pp. 118-119:

The Tea-kettle, with its grand high-pressure power
Of irresistible yet submissive steam,
Has turned the old world wholly topsy turvy;
And so the Tea-pot, in a gentler way,
Wields at its will the modern moral world,
Warms and inspires and fashions it anew,
And elevates it into nobler forms.
Every good cause and every generous object
Gains strength, and fervour, and determination
When it is heated over a cup of tea!
Blest leaf! the product of the Flowery Land,
Invested with a fragrance, and a flavour,
A delicacy, a charm, an animation,
Caught from the sun and soil of far Cathay,
How are thy potent influences diffused
Through every rank of life! whether thou art sipped
From the gold burnished porcelain of proud halls.
Or the coarse earthen cups of the thatched cottage—
Whether by jewelled duchesses and nobles,
Or the lone, weary, widowed washerwoman—
All find in thee an innocent inspiration,
Which leaves behind no baneful Nemesis.
Thou art the small, cheap, luxury of millions!
Life is made up of trifles multiplied.
Moments compose the tissue of our years,
Small grains of wheat form the chief food of nations,
And tiny leaves, from the Celestial Empire,
Gladden the hearts of world-wide Christendom,
And help to civilise the human race.
Let us do honour to the immortal Teapot,
The true palladium of our happy country!
Talk of the Lion and the Unicorn—
They are the emblems only of the past;
The Tea-kettle and the Tea-pot are become
The symbols of our national strength and virtue!

A sonnet by Giovanni Della Casa (1503-1556), tr. Lorna de' Lucchi in An Anthology of Italian Poems: 13th-19th Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922), pp. 138-139:

O Sleep, of the quiet night of dusk and dew
The placid son, O thou who dost relieve
Man’s bitter load of suffering and endue
With merciful oblivion those who grieve,
Rescue this heart that faints yet cannot rest,
Uplift these frail, out-wearied limbs! O Sleep,
Spread wide thy sombre pinions o'er this breast,
And for a little while thy vigil keep!
    Where is the silence that puts day to flight?
Where the soft dreams that used to follow thee
With faltering footsteps? O unhappy plight!
In vain, in vain I call, in vain to me
Would lure these dim and gelid shades; O bed
Of misery, O cruel nights and dread!

O Sonno, o della quieta, umida, ombrosa
notte placido figlio; o de' mortali
egri conforto, oblio dolce de' mali
sì gravi, ond’ è la vita aspra e noiosa;
socorri al core omai, che langue e posa
non have; e queste membra stanche e frali
solleva: a me ten vola, o sonno, e l' ali
tue brune sovra me distendi e posa!
    Ov' è 'l silenzio, che 'l dì fugge e 'l lume?
E i lievi sogni, che con non secure
vestigia di seguirti han per costume?
Lasso! chè 'nvan te chiamo, e queste oscure
e gelide ombre invan lusingo. O piume
d' asprezze colme! o notti acerbe e dure!

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.

Related posts:

• Sleep
• More on Sleep
• Hymn to Sleep
• Paean to Sleep
• Prayer for an Insomniac
• Benedetto Accolti's Ode to Sleep
• Accolti's Ode to Sleep Revisited
• Fernando de Herrera's Ode to Sleep

Hugh Lloyd-Jones, "A Biographical Memoir," in Edgar Wind, The Eloquence of Symbols: Studies in Humanist Art, ed. Jaynie Anderson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. xiii-xxxvi (at xxiii):

A good classical library was also available in the college; and an old-fashioned town library allowed him to take home the precious volumes of Migne's Patrologia needed for the study of the Fathers which became his leisure reading.

Matthew Arnold, "Pagan and Mediaeval Religious Sentiment," in his Essays in Criticism (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1887), vol. II, pp. 7-45 (at 11):

People talk of this or that work which they would choose, if they were to pass their life with only one; for my part I think I would choose the Abbé Migne's collection.

Claude Raguet Hirst, Some Interesting Volumes
Hat tip: Ian Jackson.

Vita Meinwerci Episcopi Patherbrunnensis § 186, tr. S.R. Maitland in The Dark Ages: A Series of Essays Intended to Illustrate the State of Religion and Literature in the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries, 6th ed. (London: John Hodges, 1890), pp. 162-163:

The emperor knowing that the bishop, being occupied in a great variety of secular business, was now and then guilty of a barbarism, both in speaking and in reading Latin, with the help of his chaplain effaced the syllable fa from the words famulis and famulabus, which form part of a collect in the service for the defunct, in the missal; and then called on the bishop to say a mass for the souls of his father and mother. Meinwerc, therefore, being unexpectedly called on to perform the service, and hastening to do it, read on as he found written, mulis and mulabus, but, perceiving the mistake, he repeated the words correctly. After mass, the emperor said, in a sarcastic manner, to the bishop, 'I asked you to say mass for my father and mother, not for my male and female mules.' But he replied, 'By the mother of our Lord, you have been at your old tricks, and have made a fool of me again; and now, in no common way, but in the service of our God. This he who is my Judge has declared that he will avenge; for that which is done to him he will not pass by unpunished.' Thereupon, he immediately convened the canons in the chapter-house of the cathedral, ordered the emperor's chaplain, who had been a party to the trick, to be most severely flogged; and then, having dressed him in new clothes, sent him back to the emperor to tell him what had happened.

Sciens autem Imperator, episcopum saecularibus negotiis multipliciter occupatum, tam latinitatis locutione quam in lectione barbarismi vitia non semel incurrere, de missali in quadam collecta pro defunctis fa de famulis, et famulabus, cum capellano suo delevit, et episcopum pro requie animarum patris sui et matris missam celebrare rogavit. Episcopus igitur ex improviso missam celebrare accelerans, ut scriptum reperit mulis et mulabus dixit; sed errorem recognoscens, repetitis verbis, quod male dixerat, correxit. Post missam insultans Imperator Pontifici, 'Ego,' inquit, 'patri meo et matri, non mulis et mulabus meis, missam celebrari rogavi.' At ille, 'Per matrem,' ait, 'Domini, tu more solito iterum illusisti mihi, et non quoquo modo, verum in Dei nostri servitio. Cujus ero vindex, en promittit meus judex. Namque sibi factum non pertransibit inultum.' Illico canonicis in capitolium principalis ecclesiae convocatis, capellanum Imperatoris, hujus rei conscium, durissime verberibus castigari jussit, castigatumque novis vestibus indutum ad Imperatorem, nuntiaturum quae facta fuerant, remisit.

Here are eight paintings by Willem Claesz Heda (1584-1680), in which delicious-looking hams appear (one almost entirely eaten).

















Related post: Nulla Dies Sine Suilla.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 4.10-11 (tr. Richard M. Gummere):

But I must end my letter. Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty, brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." [Epicurus, fragment 477 Usener.] Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat,—the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

sed ut finem epistulae imponam, accipe, quod mihi hodierno die placuit. et hoc quoque ex alienis hortulis sumptum est. "magnae divitiae sunt lege naturae composita paupertas." lex autem illa naturae scis quos nobis terminos statuat? non esurire, non sitire, non algere. ut famem sitimque depellas, non est necesse superbis adsidere liminibus nec supercilium grave et contumeliosam etiam humanitatem pati, non est necesse maria temptare nec sequi castra; parabile est, quod natura desiderat, et adpositum. ad supervacua sudatur. illa sunt, quae togam conterunt, quae nos senescere sub tentorio cogunt, quae in aliena litora impingunt. ad manum est, quod sat est. cui cum paupertate bene convenit, dives est.

Vatican Collection 25, text from Hermann Usener, "Epikurische Spruchsammlung," in his Kleine Schriften I (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1912), pp. 297-325 (at 315), tr. Cyril Bailey in Whitney J. Oates, ed., The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers (New York: Random House, 1940), p. 41:

Poverty, when measured by the natural purpose of life, is great wealth, but unlimited wealth is great poverty.

ἡ πενία μετρουμένη τῷ τῆς φύσεως τέλει μέγας ἐστὶ πλοῦτος· πλοῦτος δὲ μὴ ὁριζόμενος μεγάλη ἐστὶ πενία.

Fernando de Herrera (1534-1597), Ode to Sleep (tr. Thomas Roscoe):

Sweet Sleep, that through the starry path of night,
With dewy poppies crowned, pursu'st thy flight!
Stiller of human woes,
That shedd'st o'er Nature's breast a soft repose!
Oh, to these distant climates of the West
Thy slowly-wandering pinions turn,
And with thy influence blest
Bathe these love-burdened eyes, that ever burn
And find no moment's rest,
While my unceasing grief
Refuses all relief!
Oh, hear my prayer! I ask it by thy love,
Whom Juno gave thee in the realms above.

Sweet Power, that dost impart
Gentle oblivion to the suffering heart,
Beloved Sleep, thou only canst bestow
A solace for my woe!
Thrice happy be the hour
My weary limbs shall feel thy sovereign power!
Why to these eyes alone deny
The calm thou pour'st on Nature's boundless reign?
Why let thy votary all neglected die,
Nor yield a respite to a lover's pain?
And must I ask thy balmy aid in vain?
Hear, gentle Power, oh, hear my humble prayer,
And let my soul thy heavenly banquet share!

In this extreme of grief, I own thy might.
Descend, and shed thy healing dew;
Descend, and put to flight
The intruding Dawn, that with her garish light
My sorrows would renew!
Thou hear'st my sad lament, and in my face
My many griefs may'st trace:
Turn, then, sweet wanderer of the night, and spread
Thy wings around my head!
Haste, for the unwelcome Morn
Is now on her return!
Let the soft rest the hours of night denied
Be by thy lenient hand supplied!

Fresh from my summer bowers
A crown of soothing flowers,
Such as thou lov'st, the fairest and the best,
I offer thee; won by their odors sweet,
The enamoured air shall greet
Thy advent: oh, then, let thy hand
Express their essence bland,
And o'er my eyelids pour delicious rest!
Enchanting Power, soft as the breath of Spring
Be the light gale that steers thy dewy wing!
Come, ere the sun ascends the purple east,—
Come, end my woes! So, crowned with heavenly charms,
May fair Pasithea take thee to her arms!

In Spanish:

Süave Sueño, tú, que en tardo vuelo
las alas perezosas blandamente
bates, de adormideras coronado,
por el puro, adormido y vago cielo,
ven a la última parte de Ocidente,
y de licor sagrado
baña mis ojos tristes, que cansado
y rendido al furor de mi tormento,
no admito algún sosiego,
y el dolor desconorta al sufrimiento;
ven a mi humilde ruego,
ven a mi ruego humilde, ¡oh amor de aquella,
que Juno te ofreció, tu ninfa bella!

Divino Sueño, gloria de mortales,
regalo dulce al mísero afligido,
Sueño amoroso, ven a quien espera
cesar del ejercicio de sus males,
y al descanso volver todo el sentido.
¿Cómo sufres que muera,
lejos de tu poder quien tuyo era?
¿No es dureza olvidar un solo pecho
en veladora pena,
que sin gozar del bien que al mundo has hecho,
de tu vigor se ajena?
Ven, Sueño alegre; Sueño, ven dichoso;
vuelve a mi alma ya, vuelve el reposo.

Sienta yo en tal estrecho tu grandeza,
baja y esparce líquido el rocío,
huya la alba que en torno resplandece;
mira mi ardiente llanto y mi tristeza
y cuánta fuerza tiene el pesar mío,
y mi frente humedece,
que ya de fuegos juntos el sol crece.
Torna, sabroso Sueño, y tus hermosas
alas suenen ahora,
y huya con sus alas presurosas
la desabrida Aurora,
y lo que en mí faltó la noche fría
termine la cercana luz del día.

Una corona, ¡oh Sueño!, de tus flores
ofrezco; tú produce el blando efeto
en los desiertos cercos de mis ojos,
que el aire entretejido con olores
halaga, y ledo mueve en dulce afeto;
y destos mis enojos
destierra, manso Sueño, los despojos.
Ven, pues, amado Sueño, ven liviano,
que del rico Orïente
despunta el tierno Febo el rayo cano.
Ven ya, Sueño clemente,
y acabará el dolor. Así te vea
en brazos de tu cara Pasitea.

Another translation, by Mary Anna E. Charnock:

Oh, gentle Sleep! thou who in noiseless flight
Beatest so lazily thy downy wings,
Thy brow with blushing wreath of poppies crowned,
When the pure, fragrant, placid air of night
O'er all the earth its dreamy influence flings,
Come from the distant west's remotest bound,
    And with thy sacred balm,
Oh soothe my aching eyes, and gently calm
The anguish of my heart—assuage my grief—
    Grant me release from care—
Thou who alone canst bring desired relief,
    Come to my humble prayer—
Come to my humble prayer, oh gentle Sleep!
And in profound repose my senses steep.

Oh blessed Sleep, thou choicest boon of heaven!
Thou refuge sweet from misery, and pain!
Beloved Sleep, to whose entrancing power,
Forgetfulness of all our woes is given!
Who still'st the busy workings of the brain,
And giv'st severest pain one tranquil hour!
    How we suffer—even die—
Mysterious Sleep, when thou dost from us fly!
How hard it is to banish from the mind
    One grief when thou art gone!
What joy in earth's possessions can we find
    When thou hast from us flown?
Then come, oh gentle, and beloved Sleep!
And in profound repose my senses steep.

I know how swiftly thy benignant sway
Departs, when morning's pearly dew appears,
And the bright sunrise throws its radiant blaze
On all around.—How oft the early day
Has heard my sighs, and seen my burning tears,
And marked the overwhelming care that weighs,
    Upon my aching brow!
Then, gentle Sleep! thy blessed influence throw
Over my couch! oh wave thy downy wing,
    Upon soft zephyrs borne!
And come, before the hours, swift passing, bring
    The bright unwelcome morn!
Come, whilst the cool night breeze remains, oh Sleep!
And in profound repose my senses steep.

A wreath, oh Sleep! of thy most favourite flowers
I offer thee, that thou should'st o'er me fling
Thy soothing spell, and on my weary eyes
Let the soft breezes play, whose balmy powers
Are gathered from the sweetest blooms of spring,
And whilst they o'er me breathe their fragrant sighs,
    Banish the last remains
Of my worn spirits never ceasing pains.
Then come! come speedily—oh tranquil Sleep!
    Ere, from the east, the sun
Shall rise, in youthful splendour, o'er the deep.
    Then come, thou gentlest one!—
Oh heal my heart's deep wounds, beloved Sleep!
And in profound repose my senses steep.

Related posts:

• Sleep
• More on Sleep
• Hymn to Sleep
• Paean to Sleep
• Prayer for an Insomniac
• Benedetto Accolti's Ode to Sleep
• Accolti's Ode to Sleep Revisited

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667), The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying I.iv.7:

Man never hath one day to himself of entire peace from the things of the world, but either something troubles him, or nothing satisfies him, or his very fulness swells him and makes him breathe short upon his bed. Men's joys are troublesome; and besides that the fear of losing them takes away the present pleasure, (and a man hath need of another felicity to preserve this,) they are also wavering and full of trepidation, not only from their inconstant nature, but from their weak foundation: they arise from vanity, and they dwell upon ice, and they converse with the wind, and they have the wings of a bird, and are serious but as the resolutions of a child, commenced by chance, and managed by folly, and proceeded by inadvertency, and end in vanity and forgetfulness. So that, as Livius Drusus said^a of himself, he never had any play-days or days of quiet when he was a boy; for he was troublesome and busy, a restless and unquiet man—the same may every man observe to be true of himself; he is always restless and uneasy, he dwells upon the waters, and leans upon thorns, and lays his head upon a sharp stone.

^aUni sibi nec puero unquam ferias contigisse...Seditiosus et foro gravis. [Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae 6.1-2]

James Hurnard (1808-1881), A Memoir, Chiefly Autobiographical, with Selections from His Poems. Edited by His Widow (London: Samuel Harris & Co., 1883), p. 22:

Contrary to what would be the general opinion of my fellow-men, and what might suit some characters, I esteem it an advantage to me that circumstances prevented me from going again to school. If I had continued there, I should, probably, by tedious industry, have become technically correct in the usual branches of education, and then have been driven forward into the unfathomable bog of Latin and Greek, where my spirit would have been worn out, and where, eventually, I should have foundered. As it was, the world became my school, and in this school I selected my own teachers and my own studies. I might lose in point of rudimental accuracy, but acquired larger views, sounder opinions, and freer processes of thought, and my knowledge was less reflected from books than radiated from actual life.

In his poem The Setting Sun, 3rd ed. (London: Saml. Harris & Co., 1878), pp. 310-311, Hurnard tells how he was brought up reading the works of Quakers such as John Roberts (1623-1684), George Fox (1624-1681), Thomas Elwood (1639–1714), William Penn (1644-1718), Thomas Story (1670–1742), John Woolman (1720-1772), and Job Scott (1751-1793). He continues (p. 311):

What infinitely better pabulum
For youthful minds than heathen Greek and Latin
And knowledge unavailable in life!

Martial 7.18.9-10 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey):

I had rather you farted; Symmachus says that is healthy, and besides it makes one laugh.

pedere te mallem: namque hoc nec inutile dicit
    Symmachus, et risum res movet ista simul.

Guillermo Galán Vioque, Martial, Book VII. A Commentary, tr. J.J. Zoltowski (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p. 150, ad loc.:

Symmachus: a Greek name (Σύμμαχος), probably that of a doctor who wrote an Ars amatoria or book of advice on how to achieve greater pleasure from sex....The same name for a doctor is found in 5.9.2 and 3, 6.70.6.

Symmachus the physician is unknown except for these references in Martial. There is no evidence whatsoever that he wrote a sex manual. Rather, Martial 7.18.9-10 should be interpreted in the light of other passages from the 1st century A.D. which suggest that it is unhealthy, possibly even fatal, to hold back farts.

Suetonius, Life of Claudius 32 (tr. J.C. Rolfe):

He is even said to have thought of an edict allowing the privilege of breaking wind quietly or noisily at table, having learned of a man who ran some risk by restraining himself through modesty.

dicitur etiam meditatus edictum, quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi, cum periclitatum quendam prae pudore ex continentia repperisset.

Petronius, Satyricon 47 (tr. Michael Heseltine):

Gossip of this kind was in the air, when Trimalchio came in mopping his brow, and washed his hands in scent. After a short pause, he said, "You will excuse me, gentlemen? My bowels have not been working for several days. All the doctors are puzzled. Still, I found pomegranate rind useful, and pinewood boiled in vinegar. I hope now my stomach will learn to observe its old decencies. Besides, I have such rumblings inside me you would think there was a bull there. So if any of you gentlemen wishes to retire there is no need to be shy about it. We were none of us born quite solid. I cannot imagine any torture like holding oneself in. The one thing Jupiter himself cannot forbid is that we should have relief. Why do you laugh, Fortunata; it is you who are always keeping me awake all night. Of course, as far as I am concerned, anyone may relieve himself in the dining-room. The doctors forbid retention. But if the matter is serious, everything is ready outside: water, towels, and all the other little comforts. Take my word for it, vapours go to the brain and make a disturbance throughout the body. I know many people have died this way, by refusing to admit the truth to themselves." We thanked him for his generosity and kindness, and then tried to suppress our laughter by drinking hard and fast.

eiusmodi tabulae vibrabant cum Trimalchio intravit et detersa fronte unguento manus lavit spatioque minimo interposito "ignoscite mihi," inquit, "amici, multis iam diebus venter mihi non respondit. nec medici se inveniunt. profuit mihi tamen maleicorium et taeda ex aceto. spero tamen, iam veterem pudorem sibi imponet. alioquin circa stomachum mihi sonat, putes taurum. itaque si quis vestrum voluerit sua re causa facere, non est quod illum pudeatur. nemo nostrum solide natus est. ego nullum puto tam magnum tormentum esse quam continere. hoc solum vetare ne Iovis potest. rides, Fortunata, quae soles me nocte desomnem facere? nec tamen in triclinio ullum vetuo facere quod se iuvet, et medici vetant continere. vel si quid plus venit, omnia foras parata sunt: aqua, lasani et cetera minutalia. credite mihi, anathymiasis si in cerebrum it, et in toto corpore fluctum facit. multos scio periisse, dum nolunt sibi verum dicere." gratias agimus liberalitati indulgentiaeque eius et subinde castigamus crebris potiunculis risum.

D.R. Shackleton Bailey, "On Petronius," American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 458-464 (at 459-460) conjectured that magno cum crepitu pepedit vel sim. should be supplied before Trimalchio's ignoscite, i.e.

eiusmodi tabulae vibrabant cum Trimalchio intravit et detersa fronte unguento manus lavit spatioque minimo interposito <magno cum crepitu pepedit>. "ignoscite mihi," inquit, "amici, multis iam diebus venter mihi non respondit..."

Gossip of this kind was in the air, when Trimalchio came in mopping his brow, and washed his hands in scent, and after a short pause, <he farted loudly>. He said, "You will excuse me, gentlemen? My bowels have not been working for several days..."

Nicarchus, Greek Anthology 11.395 (tr. W.R. Paton):

A fart which cannot find an outlet kills many a man; a fart also saves, sending forth its lisping music. Therefore if a fart saves, and on the other hand kills, a fart has the same power as kings.

Πορδὴ ἀποκτέννει πολλοὺς ἀδιέξοδος οὖσα·
  πορδὴ καὶ σώζει τραυλὸν ἱεῖσα µέλος.
οὐκοῦν εἰ σώζει, καὶ ἀποκτέννει πάλι πορδή,
  τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν ἴσην πορδὴ ἔχει δύναµιν.

Labels: noctes scatologicae

Cioran (1911-1995), De l'inconvénient d'être né (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), p. 199 (ellipsis in original):

L'Empire craquait, les Barbares se déplaçaient...Que faire, sinon s’évader du siècle? Heureux temps où l’on avait où fuir, où les espaces solitaires étaient accessibles et accueillants! Nous avons été dépossédés de tout, même du désert.

Translation by Richard Howard, The Trouble With Being Born (New York: Seaver Books, 1976):

The Empire was falling, the Barbarians were on the move...What was to be done, except to escape the age? Happy moment, when there was still somewhere to go, when the empty places were accessible and welcoming! We have been dispossessed of everything, even the desert.

Related post: Escape.

James Hurnard (1808-1881), The Setting Sun, 3rd ed. (London: Saml. Harris & Co., 1878), pp. 152-153:

I have no unity with gifted men,
However learned or however clever,
Who set aside the truths of revelation
As often as they clash with their opinions,
Bringing the doctrines of the Holy Bible
Unto the fallible bar of their vain minds,
And setting up a standard of the truth
That even Lucifer himself must laugh at.
As blowflies busily hum about a carcase,
Seeking for crevices to lay their eggs in,
So do these learned transcendental sceptics—
Biblical blowflies—with persistent zeal,
Not to discover truth, but seeming error,
Believing naught save their own unbelief,
Buzz round the Bible to find out its faults,
And so insinuate into every part,
Their little, loathsome, mischievous, infidel eggs,
Which, when they hatch, become devouring maggots.
These daring sceptics kick away our stools,
And give us nothing else to stand upon;
They rob us of our faith, our hope, our comfort,
And offer us dry husks that swine should eat.
Pu£fed up with notions and with spiritual pride,
They vainly think that they are rich and full
Increased with goods—yea, and have need of nothing,
And know not all the time that they are wretched
And miserable and poor and blind and naked,
Having no hope, and without God in the world.

Dear Mike,

Eric Thomson's note on Axemanship prompts me to send you this footnote from Chris Stray's Mushri Dictionary:

The curiously neglected history of recreative lumberjacking surely demands a small book of its own and perhaps even a Wellcome symposium. In the prolegomena might figure such forerunners as Andrew Willett (1562-1621); to the clerical renaissance of the early 19th century belong such woodsmen as the Rev. Joseph Buckminster (1751-1812), H.F.R. de Lamennais (1782-1854) and Lyman Beecher (1755-1863), father of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But it is not until woodcutting and tree-felling becomes the occupation of presidents and prime-ministers that its heyday arrives. The spectacle of a statesman splitting rails in youth, or a scholar, late in life, over-burdened by grave affairs, forsaking the desk for the woodpile and the copse must have seemed as piquant to the Victorian mind as to a later generation might appear a Hollywood starlet quoting Kant or Kierkegaard. In Lincoln and Gladstone woodcutting reached its zenith, although only for the latter was it a true recreation. To Gladstone’s example, one may surely attribute the tree-felling of a host of minor Victorian diplomatists, mayors, colonial officials, and ordinary citizens, including the Australian governor-general Sir R.C.Mungo-Ferguson (1860-1934); the Unitarian Dantist Philip Henry Wicksteed (1844-1927); F.W. Hirst (1873-1953), official biographer of Gladstone’s official biographer; the Irish astronomer Sir William Parsons, third Earl of Rosse (1800-1867); the second Duke of Wellington (1797-1884); the sixth Lord Vernon (1829-1883); and even the Oxford antiquary H.E. Salter (1863-1951).

Christopher Stray (editor), The Mushri-English Pronouncing Dictionary, a chapter in 19th-century public school lexicography: the text of the 'Seventh' Edition (1901) with an introduction and notes (Berkeley, Swansea and Wellington, 1996), p. 70. n. 2.

Was the vogue among the God-fearing, I wonder, inspired by Psalm 74:5: 'A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees'? Lewis Carroll's anagram on William Ewart Gladstone was "A Wild Man Will Go At Trees."

Let me add a couple of classical references. Harriet Lewin, wife of George Grote, wrote (from Burnham Beeches) to her brother William Lewin in India on 27th January 1845:

We have purchased a pretty property hard by, in which we spend a good deal of time, planting and cutting down timber. It does George a power of good to use the axe and saw for a couple of hours, and enables him to resume Greek history with fresh zeal. George's history waxes steadily, and two volumes will appear in the course of the coming summer at latest. I will send you a copy.

Text from The Lewin Letters ... 1756-1885, edited by Thomas Herbert Lewin, London, Archibald Constable, printed for private circulation, 1909, 2 volumes. Vol.2, p. 34.

And according to the Classical Association News no. 38 (June 2008), one of their members was "arrested by four policemen in a train at Carlisle station, while carrying an axe. 'It's what I use to chop wood.' 'It's a dangerous weapon.' 'But there is no room in a carriage to get a decent swing.' (Facetious comment — very dangerous) 'What else do you have in your bag?' 'Just a small axe for chopping kindling.' (Worse and worse). 'What is your occupation?' 'Retired Professor of Latin at Newcastle University.' (Ah, all is explained.) And so David West, for it was he, was released, minus his axes."

As ever,
Ian Jackson

Labels: arboricide

James Hurnard (1808-1881), The Setting Sun, 3rd ed. (London: Saml. Harris & Co., 1878), pp. 59-60; rpt. in James Hurnard: A Victorian Character. Being Passages from The Setting Sun. Selected and Arranged by G. Rostrevor Hamilton (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1946), pp. 23-24:

To die, and have an end of all one's troubles,
And find admittance to a better world,
May soothe the pillow of a sinking man;
But to have eager, prying relatives
Ransack out all one's precious drawers and boxes,
Read one's most valued, sacred, secret letters,
Laugh at one's little tear be-sprinkled keepsakes,
Disarrange all one's chosen books and papers,
And have one's treasures cast aside as rubbish;
To have one's old apartments desecrated
By an unfeeling, prying auction-crowd—
To have a flippant, callous auctioneer
Make jokes upon one's dear familiar chairs,
Selling one's loved inanimate old friends,
The furniture that we have used from childhood,
Fondly associated with our daily life;
To have one's very garments chaffered for,
By our relations, with a clothes'-dealer—
This seems to me one of the saddest pictures
A poor old dying bachelor can ponder.

James Hurnard (1808-1881), The Setting Sun, 3rd ed. (London: Saml. Harris & Co., 1878), p. 88; rpt. in James Hurnard: A Victorian Character. Being Passages from The Setting Sun. Selected and Arranged by G. Rostrevor Hamilton (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1946), pp. 92-93:

I see a man looking most grave and sensible,
Day after day, and oftener than the day,
With something ugly sticking from his mouth,
A little, crooked, perforated tube,
Six inches long, black and repulsive-looking,
And having a protuberance at the end,
From which a curling quackling fume arises,
Indicative of latent fire within.
He sucks the sombre perforated tube,
And draws into his mouth the nauseous fume,
Fed by combustion of a foreign weed,
And puffs it slowly out into the air;
Perhaps he watches its return to nothing,
And finds a moral in its evanescence;
And this to this grave man is happiness!
More precious to him than his daily food!
But adding something to his natural thirst,
And leading him direct to drinking-habits!
Thus he imbibes a deleterious poison;—
If he should swallow it, it poisons him,
And if he spits it out, the waste of spittle
Spoils his digestive powers, and slowly kills him;
While wise and thoughtful men act so unwisely
No wonder boys, that would be men, do likewise,
Although it makes them puke and have the headache:—
One comfort is, the tax upon tobacco
Fills nicely full the coffers of the state,
And wise it seems that fools should pay the taxes,
If the majority of men are fools.

Dear Mike,

Your post 'George Washington and the Cherry Tree' brought another statesman to mind. Nothing fabricated about Gladstone's exploits with the axe.

Richard Aldous, The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli (London: Pimlico, 2007) pp. 128-9:

Felling trees was a form of relaxation that Gladstone practiced with zealous passion. In 1858 he began taking lessons in axemanship. By the time he became chancellor again in 1859, chopping down trees had already become his favourite leisure pursuit. During the long parliamentary recesses at Hawarden, he would venture into the woods on most afternoons with his son, Willy, to work up a sweat in attacking more trees. It was an interest he would pursue well into his eighties, when (as he noted with characteristic precision in his diary) mere 'axe-work' replaced 'tree-felling'. Gladstone perhaps had more enthusiasm than real skill. One Christmas, he almost blinded himself when a large splinter lodged in his eye. A few days later he almost killed another son, Harry, when 'a tree we were cutting fell with [him] in it'. Gladstone's suspect ability did not matter to his many admirers who saw in his woodland activities a rousing example of manly vitality and protean strength. Others were less impressed. 'The forest laments,' remarked Lord Randolph Churchill mordantly, 'in order that Mr. Gladstone may perspire.'

Lesser men might have been content to be photographed holding a walking stick or an umbrella. Not so Gladstone:






Best regards,
Eric Thomson

Labels: arboricide