Читать книгу Reflections upon some Persons and Things in Ireland - William Petty - Страница 7

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SIR,

ALthough I have a long while wanted the happiness of your Society and Assistance, (such as I enjoyed at Paris) yet I have several times heard from you by Mr J.C. whose newes of your thriving condition hath been very gratefull to mee, because (as the world reports) such a condition is very gratefull to your self; though otherwise, and as to my own apprehensions of you, I am not much tickled with it: For Disturbances (the inseparable counterpoises of such a State) are (if I have not forgotten you) not very suitable to your nature.

I must needs confesse, I could have heartily wished you had never wandered out of those waies, whereunto God and Nature seemed to have set and directed you, having advanced you in them by as many Signal Successes as any other person within my knowledge. For how many of all those, about sixty ingenious persons (who were in the year 1644. Students with us in ​the Netherlands) did within nine years study (like your self) worthily take the highest degrees in our Faculty? even at home in Oxford, (an University seldom prodigal of those Honors) purchasing them (and much credit besides) with extraordinary Exercises both in the Theory and Practice of our Art; and such, whereby you approved the sufficiency of your Head, Hand, and Tongue unto the world: and all this, notwithstanding the many Excursions you made within that small space unto Studies of other natures, even so farr as to have given the world some demonstration of your good proficiency in them likewise.

Moreover, which of all those our Fellow-students did withall, within the same space, arrive to be chosen Publick Professor in one of the most troublesom pieces of our whole Faculty? (as you were of Anatomy in Oxford) not by favor or interest, but as best deserving it, and as having been the first Planter of that Practice in that place, and was afterwards with so much ease and concurrence entertained Chief Physician to three Chief Governors of a Nation, in continual ​succession, as you were, to the Lord Lambert, Lord Fleetwood, and Lord Henry Cromwell; never falling from that dignity, till the whole Government fell with you. I say, I could wish you had not turned aside into those by Pathes, which you have since found so exceeding thorny; and this I wish not only for your own sake, but for my own also: for I must declare to the whole world, That your dexterity in making Experiments, and that other your more happy and particular genius for designing what Experiments to make, in order to maintain or refute any Proposition, as also your way of making good use and benefit even by all miscarriages with your handsom coherent reasonings and inferences upon them all, were to mee more pleasant than if you had found out^[1]Mines of Silver, richer then those of Potosi, and had made mee your Partner in them.

Besides, although you have gotten as much justly, as many say you have done injuriously, all of it will not make the Commonwealth of Learning a gainer by that your devious traffick; nor, I fear, your self, when you shall please to compute and cast up every thing by no better than your own ​Arithmetick. This I say perhaps by randome and by guesse; but why may not I by these Speculations and at a distance, measure your affairs as well as the Sea? which (I remember) you taught mee to do in the deepest place without a Line, and as well as Astronomers do the remotest Orbs and Stars, themselves standing here below upon the earth.

Really (Sir) it is not altogether for want of other Employment, that I busie my self about you, and about calculating the event of your troubles, but out of my dear respects and care for you; for if

Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt,^[2]

why should I think you (whom I knew in three several Countries of a gentle and pleasant temper, and of an inoffensive carriage) to be now become savage, barbarous, and an enemy of Mankinde? for such some say you are, and that by the Air of a Countrey which indureth no venome: They say that

—Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.^[3]

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I am sure you had learned many such civillizing Arts, wherefore your memory has been very leaky, if you have so unlearned them again, as to be turned bruitish. I say, I cannot yet think you unworthy of my care; wherefore I conjure you, to let mee know the nature of your Accusation, and of those troubles which I hear one

Sankey (

I judge the same that I knew a Foot-ball-Player in

Cambridge)

hath engaged you in, that so I may reckon my own happiness in casting up yours.

I have hitherto esteemed you of such integrity, as hath made mee cry out with the Poet,

Musa mihi causas memora quo milite Læso

Insignem probitate virum tot adire labores.^[4]

And pray let mee know what you have gotten by all those Frauds and Rapines for which you are esteemed a Beast of Prey, and for which your Adversaries avow the denying you of Law, the knocking you on the head, coming behinde you, or taking you asleep, to be all very fair? Who thought that when you and I studied ​Metamorphoses and the several species of Madness, that your self should become the Example of a Lycanthropia? and that you should be transformed from a Man into such a Wolf, which not only a whole Parish or Hundred, but a whole Nation and Army make their business to destroy; insomuch as that men should shut up their Shops till they had dispatch't you, as the Londoners did till Glocester was relieved? What sowre humor hath made you so ravenous? that whole Countries will not now feed you, whom I have seen sumptuously treated with a piece of Pain de la Reine, a Bunch of Grapes and a Draught of St. Geniveuse's Well: You once cryed up Mathematicks, and Bread for rich Cheer, and you were frugal in your Food to be prodigal in your expence upon Projects. I reminde you perhaps too freely of these old Transactions: if your Land-Lordship be offended with it, I shall begin to suspect you of Pride; whereof, if you be considerably guilty, I shall the lesse wonder, that you take injurious courses to foment and uphold it: if things be so,

—Quantum mutaris ab illo?^[5]

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I say, if you are grown so uncivil and savage, so covetous and proud, as some say you are, I think that the venome which in other Countries is disposed of by nature into the Bodies of the viler Animals, and so put out of the way of doing harm, is in

Ireland

let loose and disperst into the Mindes of Men only; and that your Soul being more porous and susceptible of spirituous impregnations then other mens, is corrupted with more then an ordinary share of the Infection; I shall hope the best till I hear from you. For as when a Wheel moves very swiftly, it seems not to move at all: (swift motion and absolute rest being herein alike) so when men are transcendently just, they will appear equally injurious; according to that saying,

Summum jus est summa injuria.

^[6]

Those who are very wise, or learned, appear very mad, and irregular; for of such madness was St.

Paul

taxed: Those who scorning and loathing the expensive Sensualities of the world, (though Liberal enough, as to those best Ends, which the Vulgar understand not) may be deemed covetous: Those who out of modesty are not importunate in their visits and solicitations, may

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seem uncivil or to scorn all friendship and assistance: (as thinking themselves above the help of others) Those who are very innocent, may by too much neglecting to satisfie mistakes or mis-informations, incurr an evil Fame, how clear soever their consciences be. These may be the reasons of your Sufferings, and till I know further, I shall esteem them such.

Moreover, as great and massy Fabricks may be ruined by their own weight; for

Suis & ipsa Roma viribus ruit.^[7]

So you also may be by the too much scrupulous impartiality, and not sufficient respect of persons you have used; or perhaps the brightness of your too much vertue and merit (for there is a certain too-muchness, which made the Prudent Monk say, Praesto Officium taliter qualiter) may have dazled your Spectators blinde, so as to see none of it: Your clearness from Crimes, may make the guilty Vulgus hate you for a Monster, because much unlike themselves; For when the Rabble see or hear of any wonderfull piece of Art, or other Excellency, they say it was by the help of the Divel. And Christ ​himself was to be killed, because hee did the works that no man did; I say I will have a Charity for you as long as I can. Nevertheless, if some have turned all gray-haired in a night, and, (if as wee have seen) sudden, often, and great Changes have been made in a State, why not in you? And if Angels fell from Heaven, why may not you warp from that most desirable frame and temper wherein you were once known by?

Your very affectionate

Servant and old Friend

M. H.

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