ing of the stars, ever standing at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted. And in another place, "Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas, et interiora Austri;"

Or drag out Hesperus by his hair? The Vulgate is slightly different,

Canst thou join together the sparkling stars of the
Pleiades,

Or disturb the revolution of Arcturus?
Canst thou bring forth Lucifer in his time,

Or make Vesper to rise on the sons of the earth? Wemyss justly observes "if there be in the original terms any allusion whatever to clusters of stars, it is not to them as such, but as the harbingers of certain seasons that the allusion is made." He therefore translates the passage thus

Canst thou restrain the influence of the genial warmth,

Or relax the contractions of the frigid cold?

Canst thou bring forth the simoom in its season, And direct the blighting air with its insects? The editor ventures to offer the following translation: Canst thou bind to thee the sweet influences of the Pleiades,

Or loosen the bands of Orion?

Canst thou bring forth the planets in their season, Or comfort Oyish for her children?

Oyish is the constellation of the Great Bear, and her children are the three bright stars in the tail which never set. As the Greeks derived their astronomical notions from the East, Job may perhaps allude to the ancient fable by which the mythologists explained the cause of these stars never setting in northern latitudes. Oyish, or Ursa Major, was a nymph seduced by Jupiter, and changed into a bear by Juno. Jupiter raised his mistress and her sons to the rank of constellations, but Juno besought Ocean never to admit them into its waters :

Receive not in your waves their setting beams, Nor let the glaring strumpet taint your streams. 3 This passage, like the preceding, has been rendered almost at random in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the authorised version.

Who maketh Arcturus and Orion

And the Hyades, and the interior parts of the South.

The authorised version, which is adopted by Professor Lee

Who maketh Arcturus and Orion,

The Pleiades and the chambers of the south. Mr. Wemyss renders it

Who maketh the blight and the cold,

The genial heat and the thick clouds of the south. There is no doubt an antithesis between the hemistichs; the former alluding to the northern, the latter to the southern constellations. The Rev. Dr. Wall, of Dublin, has shown that the book of Job was originally written in hieroglyphics, and therefore it is more probable that the words translated into the

where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the southern pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern stars were in that climate unseen. Matter of generation; "Annon sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut caseum coagulasti me?" &c. Matter of minerals; "Habet argentum venarum suarum principia: et auro locus est in quo conflatur, ferrum de terra tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in æs vertitur:'2 and so forwards in that chapter.

So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon's petition, and in God's assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and temporal felicity. By virtue of which grant or donative of God, Solomon became enabled, not only to write those excellent parables, or aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy; but also to compile a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the mountain to the moss upon the wall, (which is but a rudiment between putrefaction and a herb,) and also of

names of constellations signify these sensible objects than the abstractions of Mr. Wemyss's version.

We have dwelt a little upon this subject, because its importance to the advancement of learning has received a very curious illustration in our own times. The late bishop of Cloyne (Dr. Brinkley), on the supposition that the stars here mentioned are those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in the time of Job, and calculating their places by the ratio of the precession of the equinoxes, derives the following dates for the age of Job:

818 years after the deluge:

2337 years B. C., or, according to the common
computation, 2130:

184 years before the birth of Abraham :
689 years before the Exodus.

It is curious that the same calculation had been previously made in France, unknown to the bishop, and that the difference in result was only forty-two years. Such a coincidence, if the data be taken as correct, amounts nearly to demonstration.

Hast thou not mingled me as milk,
And made me as solid as cheese?)

(Job x. 10.-Wemyss's Translation.

2 Truly there is a vein for the silver
And a place for gold which they refine,
Iron is dug up from the earth,
And the rock produceth copper.

Job xxvi. 1, 2.-Wemyss's Translation.) It may be remarked that from this statement it appears that though the art of smelting copper was known in Job's days, iron was only used when found in a pure state.

all things that breathe or move. Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly,

The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's play-fellows in that game; considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.

Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our Saviour came into the world; for our Saviour himself did first show his power to subdue ignorance, by his conference with the priests and doctors of the law, before he shewed his power to subdue nature by his miracles. And the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but "vehicula scientiæ." 1

So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use for the plantation of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first he did employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration, more evidently to declare his immediate working, and to abase all human wisdom or knowledge; yet, nevertheless, that counsel of his was no sooner performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession he did send his divine truth into the world, waited on with other learnings, as with servants or handmaids: for so we see St. Paul, who was the only learned amongst the apostles, had his pen most used in the Scriptures of the New Testament.

So again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the church were excellently read, and studied in all the learning of the heathen; insomuch, that the edict of the emperor Julianus, whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises of learning,

1 Vehicles of knowledge.

was esteemed and accounted a more perni cious engine and machination against the Christian faith, than were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors; neither could the emulation and jealousy of Gregory the First of that name, bishop of Rome, ever obtain the opinion of piety or devotion; but contrariwise received the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even amongst holy men; in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish the memory of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise, it was the Christian church, which, amidst the inundations of the Scythians on the one side from the north-west, and the Saracens from the east, did preserve in the sacred lap and bosom thereof, the precious relics even of heathen learning, which otherwise had been extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.

And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our fathers, when it pleased God to call the church of Rome to account for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines obnoxious, and framed to uphold the same abuses; at one and the same time it was ordained by the Divine providence, that there should attend withal a renovation and new spring of all other knowledges: and, on the other side we see the Jesuits, (who partly in themselves, and partly by the emulation and provocation of their example, have much quickened and strengthened the state of learning,) we see, I say, what notable service and reparation they have done to the Roman see.

Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration, which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and religion. The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the exaltation of the glory of God: For as the Psalms and other Scriptures do often invite us to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God; so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them, as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the majesty of God, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, by that only which is set out toward the street in

his shop. The other because they minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error: for our Saviour saith, "You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God;" laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error; first, the Scriptures, revealing the will of God; and then the creatures expressing his power ; whereof the latter is a key unto the former : not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures by the general notions of reasons and rules of speech; by chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his works. Thus much therefore for divine testimony and evidence concerning the true dignity and value of learning.

As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as,in a discourse of this nature and brevity, it is fit rather to use choice of those things which we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First, therefore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the highest to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto the Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately of human testimony: according to which, that which the Grecians call "apotheosis," and the Latins, "relatio inter divos," was the supreme honour which man could attribute unto man: especially when it was given, not by a formal decree or act of state, as it was used among the Roman emperors, but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour, being so high, had also a degree or middle term: for there were reckoned, above human honours, honours heroical and divine: in the attribution and distribution of which honours, we see, antiquity made this difference: that whereas founders and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies or demi-gods; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, and the like: on the other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities towards man's life, were ever conse

1 Elevation to the rank of deities.

crated amongst the gods themselves; as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius, Apollo, and others and justly; for the merit of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a nation; and is like fruitful showers, which, though they be profitable and good, yet serve but for that season, and for a latitude of ground where they fall; but the other is indeed like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent and universal. The former, again, is mixed with strife and perturbation; but the latter hath the true character of divine presence, coming "in aura leni," without noise or agitation.

Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the inconveniencies which grow from man to man, much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature; which merit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus's theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled; and, forgetting their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all sociably together listening to the airs and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long is society and peace maintained; but if these instruments be silent, or that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve into anarchy and confusion.

But this appeareth more manifestly, when kings themselves, or persons of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths and popular estates, are endued with learning. For although he might be thought partial to his own profession, that said, “Then should people and estates be happy, when either kings were philosophers, or philosophers kings;" yet so much is verified by experience, that under learned princes and governors there have been ever the best times:

2 In a gentle breeze.

for howsoever kings may have their imperfections in their passions and customs; yet if they be illuminate by learning, they have those notions of religion, policy, and morality, which do preserve them, and refrain them from all ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses; whispering evermore in their ears, when counsellors and servants stand mute and silent. And senators or counsellors likewise, which be learned, do proceed upon more safe and substantial principles, than counsellors which are only men of experience; the one sort keeping dangers afar off, whereas the other discover them not till they come near hand, and then trust to the agility of their wit to ward off or avoid them.

Which felicity of times under learned princes (to keep still the law of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples), doth best appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitian the emperor until the reign of Commodus: comprehending a succession of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of learning; which age, for temporal respects, was the most happy and flourishing that ever the Roman empire (which then was a model of the world) enjoyed: a matter revealed and prefigured unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was slain; for he thought there was grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold: which came accordingly to pass in those golden times which succeeded: of which princes we will make some commemoration; wherein although the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter for a declamation than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet because it is pertinent to the point in hand,

neque semper arcum tendit Apollo," and to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit it altogether.

The first was Nerva; the excellent temper of whose government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: "Postquam divus Nerva res olim insociabiles miscuisset, imperium et libertatem." And in token of his learning, the last act of his short

reign, left to memory, was a missive to his adopted son Trojan, proceeding upon some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse of Homer's: "Telis, Phœbe, tuis lacrymas ulciscere nostras."3

Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned: but if we will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall have a prophet's reward," he deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes: for there was not a greater admirer of learning, or benefactor of learning; a founder of famous libraries, a perpetual advancer of learned men to office, and a familiar converser with learned professors and preceptors, who were noted to have then most credit in court. On the other side, how much Trajan's virtue and government was admired and renowned, surely no testimony of grave and faithful history doth more livelily set forth, than that legend tale of Gregorius Magnus, bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy he bore towards all heathen excellency: and yet he is reported, out of the love and estimation of Trajan's moral virtues, to have made unto God passionate and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul out of hell: and to have obtained it, with a caveat that he should make no more such petitions. In this prince's time also, the persecutions against the Christians received intermission, upon the certificate of Plinius Secundus, a man of excellent learning and by Trajan advanced.

Adrian, his successor, was the most curious man that lived, and the most universal inquirer; insomuch as it was noted for an error in his mind, that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve himself for the worthiest things: falling into the like humour that was long before noted in Philip of Macedon; who, when he would needs over-rule and put down an excellent musician in an argument touching music, was well answered by him again, "God forbid, Sir," saith he, "that your fortune should be so bad, as to know these things better than I." It pleased God likewise to use the curiosity

3" Phoebus, with thy darts avenge our tears."

of this emperor as an inducement to the peace of his church in those days. For having Christ in veneration, not as a God or Saviour,, but as a wonder or novelty; and having his picture in his gallery, matched with Apollonius, with whom, in his vain imagination, he thought he had some conformity; yet it served the turn to allay the bitter hatred of those times against the Christian name, so as the church had peace during his time. And for his government civil, although he did not attain to that of Trajan's in glory of arms, or perfection of justice, yet in deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him. For Trajan erected many famous monuments and buildings; insomuch as Constantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him "Parietaria" (wall flower), because his name was upon so many walls: but his buildings and works were more of glory and triumph than use and necessity. But Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a perambulation or survey of the Roman empire; giving order, and making assignation where he went, for re-edifying of cities, towns, and forts decayed; and for cutting of rivers and streams, and for making bridges and passages, and for policying of cities and commonalties with new ordinances and constitutions, and granting new franchises and incorporations; so that his whole time was a very restoration of all the lapses and decays of former times.

Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently learned; and had the patient and subtile wit of a schoolman; insomuch as in common speech, which leaves no virtue untaxed, he was called "cymini sector," (a carver or divider of cummin,) which is one of the least seeds; such a patience he had and settled spirit, to enter into the least and most exact differences of causes; a fruit no doubt of the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind; which being no ways charged or incumbered, either with fears, remorses, or scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness, without all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made his mind continually present and entire. He likewise approached a degree nearer unto Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto

St. Paul, "half a Christian;" holding their religion and law in good opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of Christians.

There succeeded him the first "divi fratres," the two adoptive brethren, Lucius Commodus Verus, (son to Ælius Verus, who delighted much in the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the poet Martial his Virgil,) and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; whereof the latter, who obscured his colleague and survived him long, was named the philosopher: who as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he excelled, them likewise in perfection of all royal virtues insomuch as Julianus the emperor, in his book entitled 'Cæsares,' being as a pasquin or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned that they were all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the Jester set at the nether end of the table, and bestowed a scoff on every one as they came in; but when Marcus Philosophus came in, Silenus was gravelled, and out of countenance, not knowing where to carp at him; save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards his wife. And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his predecessor, made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that though it were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bore the name, yet when Alexander Severus refused the name, because he was a stranger to the family, the senate with one acclamation said, "Quomodo Augustus, sic et Antoninus." 2 In such renown and veneration was the name of these two princes, in those days, that they would have it as a perpetual addition in all the emperor's styles. In this emperor's times also the church for the most part was in peace; so as in this sequence of six princes we do see the blessed effects of learning in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.

But for a tablet, or picture of smaller volume, (not presuming to speak of your majesty that liveth,) in my judgment the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth,

1 The divine brothers.

2 Such as Augustus was Antoninus is.

I