“Whereupon I took the said Book before me, and many times began to
translate the same, but always I was hindered therein, being called
upon about other business; insomuch that by no possible means I could
remain by that work. Then about six weeks after I had received the
said Book, it fell out, that I being in bed with my Wife, one night
between twelve and one of the clock, she being asleep but myself yet
awake, there appeared unto me an Antient Man, standing at my bed-side,
arrayed all in white, having a long and broad white beard, hanging
down to his girdle-stead; who, taking me by my right ear, spake these
words following unto me. _Sirrah! Will not you take time to translate
that Book which is sent unto you out of Germany? I will shortly
provide for you both place and time to do it!_ And then he vanished
away out of my sight. Whereupon being much thereby affrighted, I fell
into an extreme sweat, insomuch that my Wife awaking, and finding me
all over wet, she asked me what I ailed, I told her what I had seen
and heard; but I never did heed nor regard visions, nor dreams. And so
the same fell soon out of my mind.
“Then, about a fortnight after I had seen that Vision, I went to
Whitehall to hear the Sermon; after which ended, I returned to my
lodging, which was then in King Street at Westminster, and sitting
down to dinner with my Wife, two Messengers were sent from the whole
Council-Board, with a warrant to carry me to the Keeper of the Gate
House, Westminster, there to be safely kept, until further order from
the Lords of the Council; which was done without showing me any cause
at all wherefore I was committed. Upon which said warrant I was kept
there ten whole years close prisoner; where I spent five years thereof
about the translating of the said Book: insomuch as I found the words
very true which the old man in the foresaid Vision did say unto me,
‘_I will shortly provide for you both place and time to translate
it._’”
CHAPTER CCXXXII.
THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY FEELING.
It behoves the high
For their own sakes to do things worthily.
BEN JONSON.
No son ever regarded the memory of his father with more reverential
affection than this last of the Doves. There never lived a man, he
said, to whom the lines of Marcus Antonius Flaminius, (the sweetest of
all Latin poets in modern times, or perhaps of any age,) could more
truly be applied.
_Vixisti, genitor, bene, ac beate,
Nec pauper, neque dives; eruditus
Satis, et satis eloquens; valente
Semper corpore, mente sanâ; amicis
Jucundus, pietate singulari._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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