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(Of) Agriculture
Introductory Note
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was educated at Westminster School and later
at Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he was ejected with most of the
Masters and Fellows for refusing to sign the Solemn League and Covenant in
1644. In the same year he crossed to France in the suite of Lord Jermyn, Queen
Henrietta Maria`s chief officer, and remained with the royal family in exile
for twelve years. After the Restoration he became a doctor of medicine, and
was one of the first members of the Royal Society. He is buried in Westminster
Abbey.
Cowley`s most popular work in his own day was the collection of love
poems called "The Mistress," and his so-called "Pindaric Odes" were also
highly esteemed. With the decline of the taste which produced the poetry of
the "Metaphysical School" to which he belonged, Cowley ceased to be read; nor
is it likely that the frigid ingenuity which marks his poetic style will ever
again come into favor. His "Essays," on the other hand, are written with great
simplicity and naturalness, and exhibit his temperament in a most pleasing
light. He is one of the earliest masters of a clear and easy English prose
style, and few writers of the familiar essay surpass Cowley in grace and
charm. His essay "Of Agriculture" is a delightful example of his quality. "We
may talk what we please," he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the
arts, "of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles, in fields d`or or
d`argent; but, if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable
would be the most noble and ancient arms."
The Essay
The first wish of Virgil (as you will find anon by his verses) was to be
a good philosopher, the second, a good husbandman: and God (whom he seem`d to
understand better than most of the most learned heathens) dealt with him just
as he did with Solomon; because he prayed for wisdom in the first place, he
added all things else, which were subordinately to be desir`d. He made him one
of the best philosophers and the best husbandmen; and, to adorn and
communicate both those faculties, the best poet. He made him, besides all
this, a rich man, and a man who desired to be no richer -
"O fortunatus nimium, et bona qui sua novit!"^1
[Footnote 1: "O fortunate exceedingly, who knew his own good fortune." -
Adapted from Virgil, "Georgics," II., 458.]
To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from
the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man`s, into the
world, as it is God`s.
But, since nature denies to most men the capacity or appetite, and
fortune allows but to a very few the opportunities or possibility of applying
themselves wholly to philosophy, the best mixture of humane^2 affairs that we
can make, are the employments of a country life. It is, as Columella calls it,
"Res sine dubitatione proxima, et quasi consanguinea sapientiae," the nearest
neighbour, or rather next in kindred, to philosophy. Varro says, the
principles of it are the same which Ennius made to be the principles of all
nature, Earth, Water, Air, and the Sun. It does certainly comprehend more
parts of philosophy, than any one profession, art, or science, in the world
besides: and therefore Cicero says, the pleasures of a husbandman, "mihi ad
sapientis vitam proxime videntur accedere," come very nigh to those of a
philosopher. There is no other sort of life that affords so many branches of
praise to a panegyrist: the utility of it, to a man`s self; the usefulness, or
rather necessity, of it to all the rest of mankind; the innocence, the
pleasure, the antiquity, the dignity.
[Footnote 2: Human.]
The utility (I mean plainly the lucre of it) is not so great, now in our
nation, as arises from merchandise and the trading of the city, from whence
many of the best estates and chief honours of the kingdom are derived: we have
no men now fetcht from the plow to be made lords, as they were in Rome to be
made consuls and dictators; the reason of which I conceive to be from an evil
custom, now grown as strong among us as if it were a law, which is, that no
men put their children to be bred up apprentices in agriculture, as in other
trades, but such who are so poor, that, when they come to be men, they have
not wherewithal to set up in it, and so can only farm some small parcel of
ground, the rent of which devours all but the bare subsistence of the tenant:
whilst they who are proprietors of the land are either too proud, or, for want
of that kind of education, too ignorant, to improve their estates, though the
means of doing it be as easy and certain in this, as in any other track of
commerce. If there were always two or three thousand youths, for seven or
eight years, bound to this profession, that they might learn the whole art of
it, and afterwards be enabled to be masters in it, by a moderate stock, I
cannot doubt but that we should see as many aldermen`s estates made in the
country, as now we do out of all kind of merchandizing in the city. There are
as many ways to be rich, and, which is better, there is no possibility to be
poor, without such negligence as can neither have excuse nor pity; for a
little ground will, without question, feed a little family, and the
superfluities of life (which are now in some cases by custom made almost
necessary) must be supplied out of the superabundance of art and industry, or
contemned by as great a degree of philosophy.
As for the necessity of this art, it is evident enough, since this can
live without all others, and no one other without this. This is like speech,
without which the society of men cannot be preserved; the others, like figures
and tropes of speech, which serve only to adorn it. Many nations have lived,
and some do still, without any art but this: not so elegantly, I confess, but
still they live; and almost all the other arts, which are here practised, are
beholding to this for most of their materials.
The innocence of this life is the next thing for which I commend it; and
if husbandmen preserve not that, they are much to blame, for no men are so
free from the temptations of iniquity. They live by what they can get by
industry from the earth; and others, by what they can catch by craft from men.
They live upon an estate given them by their mother; and others; upon an
estate cheated from their brethren. They live, like sheep and kine, by the
allowances of nature; and others; like wolves and foxes, by the acquisitions
of rapine. And, I hope, I may affirm (without any offence to the great) that
sheep and kine are very useful, and that wolves and foxes are pernicious
creatures. They are, without dispute, of all men, the most quiet and least apt
to be inflamed to the disturbance of the commonwealth: their manner of life
inclines them, and interest binds them, to love peace: in our late mad and
miserable civil wars, all other trades, even to the meanest, set forth whole
troops, and raised up some great commanders, who became famous and mighty for
the mischiefs they had done: but I do not remember the name of any one
husbandman, who had so considerable a share in the twenty years` ruine of his
country, as to deserve the curses of his countrymen.
And if great delights be joyn`d with so much innocence, I think it is ill
done of men not to take them here, where they are so tame, and ready at hand,
rather than hunt for them in courts and cities, where they are so wild, and
the chase so troublesome and dangerous.
We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature; we are there among
the pitiful shifts of policy: we walk here in the light and open ways of the
divine bounty; we grope there in the dark and confused labyrinths of humane^3
malice: our senses are here feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their
objects, which are all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed
with their contraries. Here, pleasure looks (methinks) like a beautiful,
constant, and modest wife; it is there an impudent, fickle, and painted
harlot. Here, is harmless and cheap plenty; there, guilty and expenceful
luxury.
[Footnote 3: Human.]
I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural and
best-natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman; and that
is, he satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing nothing but the
effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering
of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and
others budding: to see all his fields and gardens covered with the beauteous
creatures of his own industry; and to see, like God, that all his works are
good: -
- Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Orcades; ipsi Agricolae tacitum pertentant
gaudia pectus.^4 On his heart-string a secret joy does strike.
[Footnote 4: "On this side and on that gather the Orkneys; joys pervade the
silent breast of the farmer." - A parody of Virgil`s "Aeneid", I. 500, 503.]
The antiquity of his art is certainly not be contested by any other. The
three first men in the world, were a gardener, a plowman, and a grazier; and
if any man object, that the second of these was a murtherer. I desire he would
consider, that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession, and turn`d
builder. It is for this reason, I suppose, that Ecclesiasticus forbids us to
hate husbandry; `because (says he) the Most High has created it.` We were all
born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the same earth
out of which they were made, and to which they must return, and pay at last
for their sustenance.
Behold the original and primitive nobility of all those great persons,
who are too proud now, not only to till the ground, but almost to tread upon
it. We may talk what we please of lillies, and lions rampant, and
spread-eagles, in fields d`or or d`argent; but, if heraldry were guided by
reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.
All these considerations make me fall into the wonder and complaint of
Columella, how it should come to pass that all arts or sciences (for the
dispute, which is an art, and which a science, does not belong to the
curiosity of us husbandmen) metaphysic, physic, morality, mathematics, logic,
rhetoric, &c. which are all, I grant, good and useful faculties, (except only
metaphysic which I do not know whether it be anything or no;) but even
vaulting, fencing, dancing, attiring, cookery, carving, and such like
vanities, should all have public schools and masters, and yet that we should
never see or hear of any man, who took upon him the profession of teaching
this so pleasant, so virtuous, so profitable, so honourable, so necessary art.
A man would think, when he`s in serious humour, that it were but a vain,
irrational, and ridiculous thing for a great company of men and women to run
up and down in a room together, in a hundred several postures and figures, to
no purpose, and with no design; and therefore dancing was invented first, and
only practised antiently, in the ceremonies of the heathen religion, which
consisted all in mummery and madness; the latter being the chief glory of the
worship, and accounted divine inspiration: this, I say, a severe man would
think; though I dare not determine so far against so customary a part, now, of
good-breeding. And yet, who is there among our gentry, that does not
entertain a dancing-master for his children, as soon as they are able to
walk? But did ever any father provide a tutor for his son, to instruct him
betimes in the nature and improvements of that land which he intended to leave
him? That is at least a superfluity, and this a defect, in our manner of
education; and therefore I could wish (but cannot in these times much hope to
see it) that one college in each university were erected, and appropriated to
this study, as well as there are to medicine and the civil law: there would be
no need of making a body of scholars and fellows with certain endowments, as
in other colleges; it would suffice, if, after the manner of halls in Oxford,
there were only four professors constituted (for it would be too much work for
only one master, or principal, as they call him there) to teach these four
parts of it: First, Aration, and all things relating to it. Secondly,
Pasturage. Thirdly, Gardens, Orchards, Vineyards, and Woods. Fourthly, all
parts of Rural Economy, which would contain the government of Bees, Swine,
Poultry, Decoys, Ponds, &c. and all that which Varro calls villaticas
pastiones,^5 together with the sports of the field (which ought to be looked
upon not only as pleasures, but as parts of housekeeping), and the domestical
conservation and uses of all that is brought in by industry abroad. The
business of these professors should not be, as is commonly practised in other
arts, only to read pompous and superficial lectures, out of Virgil`s Georgics,
Pliny, Varro, or Columella; but to instruct their pupils in the whole method
and course of this study, which might be run through perhaps, with diligence,
in a year or two: and the continual succession of scholars, upon a moderate
taxation^6 for their diet, a lodging and learning, would be a sufficient
constant revenue for maintenance of the house and the professors, who should
be men not chosen for the ostentation of critical literature, but for solid
and experimental knowledge of the things they teach; such men, so industrious
and public-spirited, as I conceive Mr. Hartlib to be, if the gentleman be
yet alive: but it is needless to speak further of my thoughts of this design,
unless the present disposition of the age allowed more probability of bringing
it into execution. What I have further to say of the country life, shall be
borrowed from the poets, who were always the most faithful and affectionate
friends to it. Poetry was born among the shepherds.
[Footnote 5: The keeping of farm animals, etc.]
[Footnote 6: Charge]
Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine Musas
Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.
The Muses still love their own native place;
`T has secret charms, which nothing" can deface.
The truth is, no other place is proper for their work; one might as well
undertake to dance in a crowd, as to make good verses in the midst of noise
and tumult.
As well might corn, as verse, in cities grow;
In vain the thankless glebe we plow and sow;
Against th` unnatural soil in vain we strive;
`Tis not a ground, in which these plants will thrive.
It will bear nothing but the nettles and thorns of satire, which grow most
naturally in the worst earth; and therefore almost all poets, except those who
were not able to eat bread without the bounty of great men, that is, without
what they could get by flattering of them, have not only withdrawn themselves
from the vices and vanities of the grand world,
- pariter vitiisque jocisque
Attius humanis exeruere caput,^7
[Footnote 7: "They have raised their head above both human vices and
vanities." - Ovid, "Fasti," I. 300.]
into the innocent happiness of a retired life; but have commended and adorned
nothing so much by their ever-living poems. Hesiod was the first or second
poet in the world that remains yet extant (if Homer, as some think, preceded
him, but I rather believe they were contemporaries); and he is the first
writer too of the art of husbandry: "and he has contributed (says Columella)
not a little to our profession;" I suppose, he means not a little honour, for
the matter of his instructions is not very important: his great antiquity is
visible through the gravity and simplicity of his stile. The most acute of all
his sayings concerns our purpose very much, and is couched in the reverend
obscurity of an oracle.
The half is more than the whole^8. The occasion of the speech is this:
his brother Perses had, by corrupting some great men (great bribe-eaters he
calls them), gotten from him the half of his estate. It is no matter (says
he); they have not done me so much prejudice, as they imagine.
[Footnote 8: Hesiod, "Works and Days," 40.]
Unhappy they, to whom God ha`n`t reveal`d,
By a strong light which must their sense controul,
That half a great estate`s more than the whole.
Unhappy, from whom still conceal`d does lye,
Of roots and herbs, the wholesome luxury.
This I conceive to be honest Hesiod`s meaning. From Homer, we must not
expect much concerning our affairs. He was blind, and could neither work in
the country nor enjoy the pleasures of it; his helpless poverty was likeliest
to be sustained in the richest places; he was to delight the Grecians with
fine tales of the wars and adventures of their ancestors; his subject removed
him from all commerce with us, and yet, methinks, he made a shift to shew his
goodwill a little. For, though he could do us no honour in the person of his
hero Ulysses (much less of Achilles), because his whole time was consumed in
wars and voyages; yet he makes his father Laertes a gardener all that while,
and seeking his consolation for the absence of his son in the pleasure of
planting, and even during his own grounds. Ye see, he did not contemn us
peasants; nay, so far was he from the insolence, that he always stiles
Eumaeus, who kept the hogs, with wonderful respect, ulov upoPBov, the divine
swine herd; he could ha` done no more for Menelaus or Agamemnon. And
Theocritus (a very antient poet, but he was one of our own tribe, for he wrote
nothing but pastorals) gave the same epithete to an husbandman. The divine
husbandman replied to Hercules, who was but ulos himself. These were civil
Greeks, and who understood the dignity of our calling!
Among the Romans we have, in the first place, our truly divine Virgil,
who, though, by the favour of Maecenas and Augustus, he might have been one of
the chief men of Rome, yet chose rather to employ much of his time in the
exercise, and much of his immortal wit in the praise and instructions, of a
rustique life; who, though he had written, before, whole books of pastorals
and georgics, could not abstain, in his great and imperial poem, from
describing Evander, one of his best princes, as living just after the homely
manner of an ordinary countryman. He seats him in a throne of maple, and lays
him but upon a bear`s skin; the kine and oxen are lowing in his court-yard;
the birds under the eves of his window call him up in the morning, and when he
goes aboard, only two dogs go along with him for his guard: at last, when he
brings Aeneas into his royal cottage, he makes him say this memorable
complement, greater than even yet was spoken at the Escurial, the Louvre, or
our Whitehal:
- Haec (inquit) limina victor
Alcides subiit, haec illum regia cepit:
Aude, hospes, contemnere opes: et te quoque dignum
Finge Deo, rebusque veni non asper agenis.
This humble roof, this rustic court, (said he)
Receiv`d Alcides, crown`d with victory:
Scorn not, great guest, the steps where he has trod;
But contemn wealth, and imitate a God.
The next man, whom we are much obliged to, both for his doctrine and
example, is the next best poet in the world to Virgil, his dear friend Horace;
who, when Augustus had desired Maecenas to persuade him to come and live
domestically and at the same table with him, and to be secretary of state of
the whole world under him, or rather jointly with him, for he says, "ut nos in
epistolis scribendis adjuvet,^9 could not be tempted to forsake his Sabin, or
Tiburtin mannor, for so rich and so glorious a trouble. There was never, I
think, such an example as this in the world, that he should have so much
moderation and courage as to refuse an offer of such greatness, and the
emperor so much generosity and good-nature as not to be at all offended with
his refusal, but to retain still the same kindness, and express it often to
him in most friendly and familiar letters, part of which are still extant. If
I should produce all the passages of this excellent author upon the several
subjects which I treat of in this book, I must be obliged to translate half
his works; of which I may say more truly than, in my opinion, he did of Homer.
[Footnote 9: "That he may assist us in writing letters."]
Qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Planius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit.^10
[Footnote 10: "Who says, more plainly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor,
what is beautiful, what base, what useful, what the opposite of these." -
Horace, "Epist." I. 2. 4. Chrysippus and Crantor were noted philosophers.]
I shall content myself upon this particular theme with three only, one
out of his Odes, the other out of his Satires, the third out of his Epistles;
and shall forbear to collect the suffrages of all other poets, which may be
found scattered up and down through all their writings, and especially in
Martial`s. But I must not omit to make some excuse for the bold-undertaking
of my own unskillful pencil upon the beauties of a face that has been drawn
before by so many great masters; especially, that I should dare to do it in
Latine verses, (though of another kind), and have the confidence to translate
them. I can only say that I love the matter, and that ought to cover many
faults; and that I run not to contend with those before me, but follow to
applaud them.
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