Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 438, April 1852Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 438, April 1852
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
"Bestowed the utmost pains to train up his only grandchild in the
most solid and serious, as well as the most elegant, branches of
learning in which, during the greater part of the sixteenth century,
no inconsiderable proportion of ladies of rank in England attained
high proficiency. Dr Goad's enumeration of the female
accomplishments in which she was nurtured includes languages and
other liberal arts; but, above all, that pious discipline of the
mind, which is both the beginning and the consummation of the wisdom
which is from above."[N]
[N] Introduction, p. 6.
The Dr Goad here mentioned was Dr Thomas Goad, of whom Fuller, in his
_Worthies_ of England, makes mention as "a great and general scholar,
exact critic, historian, schoolman, divine." He was chaplain to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity possessed the power of
licensing books. He knew both Bishop Chaderton and his granddaughter;
and we shall now let him speak for himself in the matter; for he it was
whose official _imprimatur_ is impressed on this little book, which he
introduces to the reader in the following quaint but beautiful
"_Approbation_:"--
"Ovr lawes disable those that are vnder _Couertbaron_, from
disposing by Will and Testament any temporall estate. But no law
prohibiteth any possessor of morall and spirituall riches, to impart
them vnto others, either in life by communicating, or in death by
bequeathing. The reason is, for that corruptible riches, euen to
those who haue capacity of alienating them, bring onely a ciuil
propriety, but no morall and vertuous influence for the wel
dispensing, or bestowing them: whereas vertue and grace haue power
beyond al empeachment of sex or other debility, to enable and
instruct the possessor to employ the same vnquestionably for the
inward inriching of others.
"This truly rich bequeather, taking that care for the prouiding an
euerlasting portion for her hoped issue, which too many parents bend
wholly vpon earthly inheritance, by her death already hath giuen
vnto her Testament that life and strength, whereof the Scripture
speaketh, _A Testament is of force after death_--[Heb. ix. 17]--Now
remained the other validitie & priuilege of a Testament, that it bee
enacted in perpetual and inuiolable Record. Which in this was
necessary not so much for the security of the chiefe and immediate
Legatary, as for the benefit of all those, who, by the common
kindred of Christianity, may claime their portion in this Legacy,
left _in pios vsus_; whereout, whosoeuer taketh, yet leaueth no whit
the lesse for others in remainder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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