The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, 1636?-1674, from the original manuscripts — John Shaqi
The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, 1636?-1674, from the original manuscriptsTraherne, Thomas
General
The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, 1636?-1674, from the original manuscripts
Traherne, Thomas
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
Surius, Severinus Binius Labbè, Cossartius, and the Collectio Regia,
books of vast bulk and price, as well as of great majesty and
magnificence: you met me this evening at the Library door; if you
please to meet me there to-morrow morning at eight of the clock,
I will take you in; and we will go from class to class, from book
to book, and there I will first shew in your own authors, that you
publish such instruments for good _Records_: and then prove, that
those instruments are downright frauds and forgeries? "What hurt is
that to the Church of Rome?" said he. No! (cried I, amazed) Is it no
hurt to the Church of Rome, to be found guilty of _forging Canons_
in the _Apostles_ names, and _Epistles_ in the _Fathers'_ names,
which they never made? Is it nothing in _Rome_ to be guilty of
counterfeiting _Decrees_ and _Councils_, and _Records of Antiquity_?
_I have done with you!_ whereupon I turned from him as an obdurate
person. And with this I thought it meet to acquaint the Reader.
No other particulars of Traherne's University career are now available,
but those which I have related are sufficient to show that it was not
an unsuccessful one. It is plain that he made his way entirely by his
own ability, for he could have had no other means of advancing himself.
It appears from a passage in our author's "Centuries of Meditations"
that there was at one time a conflict in his mind as to his future
course in life. He debated with himself as to whether he should
pursue the path that might lead to worldly prosperity, at the cost
of sacrificing or suppressing his higher aspirations, or whether he
should, at the risk of poverty and obscurity, follow out the promptings
of his better self. Such a conflict, in his case, could have only one
result:
When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees
and woods and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved
to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in the search of Happiness,
and to satiate the burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me
from my youth. In which I was so resolute that I chose rather to
live upon ten pounds a year, and to go in leather clothes and to
feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all my time clearly
to myself, than to keep many thousands per annum in an estate of
life where my time would be devoured in care and labour. And God was
so pleased to accept of that desire that from that time to this I
have had all things plentifully provided for me without any care at
all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper than all
the care in the whole world. So that through His blessing I live a
free and a kingly life, as if the world were turned again into Eden,
or, much more, as it is at this day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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