THE LORD BROOKE AND SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. BROOKE. I COME again unto the woods and unto the wilds of Penshurst, whither my heart and the friend of my heart have long invited me. SIDNEY. Welcome, welcome! And now, Greville, seat yourself under this oak; since, if you had hungered or thirsted from your journey, you would have renewed the alacrity of your old servants in the hall. BROOKE. In truth I did so; for no otherwise the good household would have it. The birds met me first, affrightened by the tossing up of caps, and I knew by these harbingers, who were coming. When my palfrey eyed them askance for their clamorousness, and shrank somewhat back, they quarreled with him almost before they saluted me, and asked him many pert questions. What a pleasant spot, Sidney, have you chosen here for meditation! a solitude is the audience-chamber of God... Few days, very few in our year, are like this: there is a fresh pleasure in every fresh posture of the limbs, in every turn the eye takes. Youth, credulous of happiness, throw down It sometimes requires a stout push, and sometimes a sudden resistence, in the wisest men, not to become for a moment the most foolish. What have I done! I have fairly challenged you, so much my master. SIDNEY. You have warmed me: I must cool a little and watch my opportunity. So now, Greville, return you to your invitations, and I will clear the ground for the company: Youth, Age, and whatever comes between, with all their kindred and dependencies. Verily we need few taunts or expostulations; for in the country we have few vices, and consequently few repinings. I take especial care that my young labourers and farmers shall never be idle, and supply them with bows and arrows, with bowls and ninepins, for their Sunday-evening, lest they should wench, drink, and quarrel. In church they are taught to love God; after church they are practised to love their neighbour; for business on workdays keeps them apart and scattered, and on market-days they are prone to a rivalry bordering on malice, as competitors for custom. Goodness does not more certainly make men happy, than happiness makes them good. We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity: for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment: the course is then over; the wheel turns round but once; while the re-action of goodness and happiness is perpetual. BROOKE. You reason justly and you act rightly. Piety, warm, soft, and passive, as the æther round the throne of Grace, is made callous and inactive by kneeling too much: her vitality faints under rigorous and wearisome observances. A forced match between a man and his religion sours his temper and leaves a barren bed. SIDNEY. Desire of lucre, the worst and most general country vice, arises here from the necessity of C |