Renaissance views of history (in the sense both of the course of events and the recording of those events) were formed by three traditions of historiography, classical, Christian and British. Although the assumptions of classical and Christian historians about the meaning and shape of history in the first sense, and about its function in the second, were largely contradictory, Renaissance historians and poets drew on both.
There are important differences in the methods and aims of Greek and Roman historiography, yet we can define broadly the classical attitude to history. Classical history is concerned with political life, as lived in the Greek city states and the Roman republic and empire, and classical historians take as their subject the conflict between great political powers, for example, Greece and Persia (Herodotus), Athens and Sparta (Thucydides), Rome and Carthage (Livy), Rome and Greece (Polybius), or the struggle for power within a particular state, for example, Athens (Thucydides), republican Rome (Sallust), imperial Rome (Tacitus). Within this framework their narratives tend to concentrate on the ambitions and careers of politicians and generals, and on the analysis of character and motive. There is thus a strong biographical emphasis, some histories (such as Plutarch’s Lives) taking the form of biography. The object of these narratives is moral; the assumed reader of classical history is a citizen, who will profit from the mistakes and victories of the past and apply the lessons learned to his own political life (3, 4). The reading of history serves as practical training. This view of the function of history (recorded narrative) arises from the classical interpretation of history (the course of events): human nature is constant, events are cyclical, men and empires rise and fall, Fortune presides over the inevitable change in human affairs. The patterns of the past will repeat themselves in the future (1); men can learn to accommodate themselves to the cycle of events and steel themselves against Fortune.
Some distinctions need to be borne in mind. There were two separate approaches to the writing of history in antiquity. One saw history as a science based on the accumulation of empirical evidence, the other as an art form, associating it with epic, tragedy, oratory and myth. ‘Scientific’ historians like Thucydides and Polybius dissociated themselves from poets and tragedians; both experienced politicians, they thought such experience was necessary for the historian. At the other extreme, some Roman historians drew heavily on myth in their account of Rome’s fulfilment of its destiny as mistress of the world: Livy’s idea of Rome is close to that of Virgil in the Aeneid. In Roman history the cyclical view of events conflicts with a linear view: on the one hand Roman historians lament the degeneration of Rome from the heroic and mythical early republic (4); on the other they see the world domination of Rome as the culmination of the historical process (2). In this respect the Roman view of history differs from the Greek but shares aspects of the Christian view.
With Christian history we find a radical alteration of perspective. Classical history is narrated from the point of view of man as citizen of a secular state, Christian history from the point of view of God. The course of events is not directed by capricious Fortune, but by beneficent Providence. The pattern is linear: God’s promises are fulfilled. Events will not recur endlessly; history has a beginning, the Creation, a central point, the Incarnation, and an end, the Last Judgement (9). Time will give place to eternity. It is the task of the Christian historian to bring man’s perspective, that of time, into harmony with God’s, that of eternity. Hence, as R.G.Collingwood puts it, ‘any history written on Christian principles will be of necessity universal, providential, apocalyptic, and periodized’.
Like the Romans, the Jews had a sense of national destiny, but a destiny ordained by God. The Christian view of history, drawing heavily on the prophetic books of the Old Testament, particularly Daniel (7), made this national destiny universal. The Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse), the other chief source for the Christian view of history, incorporated and transformed the Jewish apocalyptic tradition. Revelation predicts the thousand-year reign of Christ and the saints on earth after the destruction of Babylon and the beast, and the binding of Satan (10). Literal belief in this prediction (known as millenarianism) was widespread among the Christians of the first two centuries, but with the allegorical interpretation of Revelation it became a heresy. However, Christian history remained apocalyptic in that, unlike classical history, it was less concerned with the past than with the future, less with men’s actions than with their final goal.
Although the patterns of Christian history were biblical in origin, it was not until the fourth century, when the Roman empire became officially Christian, that a tradition of Christian historiography was properly established. Eusebius, the author of the first Ecclesiastical History, described the sufferings of the early Church and its victory under Constantine, and in his Chronology (made available to the Latin West in Jerome’s translation, and drawn on by the seventh-century encyclopedist Isidore) provided synchronised tables of classical, Jewish and Christian history that remained in use until the sixteenth century. In The City of God Augustine narrated the history of the world from the Creation to the Last Judgement. In arguing the superiority of Christian to classical religion, philosophy and culture Augustine attacked both the cyclical theory of history (11) and the pagan belief in Rome’s special destiny. He took over three traditional Christian schemes for dividing history into periods and for interpreting its meaning: the Four World Monarchies, the Six Ages (13), and the Three Eras. He also created a new scheme, that of the Two Cities (12). The Scheme of the Four Monarchies derives from Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and his own vision (2:31–45; 7:17–27) (7). The Four Monarchies were traditionally identified as Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome; the fall of one marks the rise of the next, until the last one, Rome, is finally overcome by Christ’s kingdom (the Fifth Monarchy). The related but more worldly idea of translatio imperii (translation of empire) was extremely influential in the Middle Ages, when the Roman empire was ‘translated’ first to the Franks under Charlemagne and subsequently to the Germans as the Holy Roman Empire, and in a rather different form in the Renaissance, when Spain, France and England all saw themselves as heirs to Rome.
The scheme of the Six Ages is based on the divisions of Old Testament history; each age was supposed to last for a thousand years, though Augustine repudiated this rigidity (13). The Ages are: (1) Adam to Noah (2) Noah to Abraham (3) Abraham to David (4) David to the Babylonian Captivity (5) the Babylonian Captivity to the Incarnation (6) the Incarnation to the Last Judgement. The Seventh Age is eternity. This scheme tended to be absorbed into the simpler one of the Three Eras (Augustine, On The Trinity IV iv): ante legem (the state of nature, before the giving of the Law to Moses), sub lege (under the Law, the old dispensation of Moses), sub gratia (under grace, the new dispensation of Christ).
Augustine’s own scheme of the Two Cities was the most striking (12). Two cities coexist in history, Babylon and Jerusalem, the earthly and the heavenly; every man is a member of one of them. Historically, Babylon takes a different form in different ages; in Augustine’s time, it was Rome. The citizen of Babylon is a secular political being; the citizen of Jerusalem is only a pilgrim (peregrinus or resident alien) in Babylon, waiting for his true home. The temporal Babylon will finally give place to the eternal Jerusalem. Through this scheme of the Two Cities Augustine repudiated what he considered the narrow concern of classical historians with political events. The sack of Rome in 410, a disaster for the pagans, was, Augustine tried to show, relatively insignificant when seen from the true perspective.
This Christian view of history with its accompanying schemes of periodisation was dominant until the fourteenth century. With the humanist rediscovery of classical historiography there was a return to classical views of history (see Chapter 9). For the humanists, beginning with Petrarch, the fall of Rome was not to be explained away as part of the divine plan; it was a political and cultural disaster, and the ensuing period of a thousand years was the dark age from which the humanists believed themselves to be emerging into the light. Humanist historians abandoned the schemes of universal Christian history and concentrated on military and political narratives. The Florentine Machiavelli in The Prince and Discourses on Livy revived Polybius’ theory of political cycles and the role of Fortune; the French Jean Bodin in Method for the Easy Comprehension of History attacked Christian schemes like that of the Four Monarchies. The humanist concern with the political obligations of the man of letters entailed a return to the pragmatic and moral interpretation of the function of history: history both teaches men the art of political survival and, by rewarding men with good and bad fame according to their deserts, provides an incitement to virtue. The classical works which embodied these views were widely read in the Renaissance; between the 1530s and the 1630s the major Greek and Roman historians were translated into English (notable examples being Philemon Holland’s Livy, Sir Thomas North’s Plutarch, Sir Henry Savile’s Tacitus (17), and Thomas Hobbes’s Thucydides). Tacitus, an author scarcely known in late antiquity or the Middle Ages, achieved a new popularity in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The humanist revival of classical history did not, however, imply an eclipse of the Christian view of history; on the contrary, the Reformation gave it fresh impetus (see Chapter 7). The break with the Church of Rome involved a new interpretation of the Book of Revelation and a revival of millenarianism. Whereas for the early Christians Babylon represented pagan Rome and Antichrist persecuting emperors such as Nero and Domitian, for the Protestants Babylon represented Catholic Rome, and Antichrist the Pope. The most influential work of Protestant historiography in England in the sixteenth century, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (usually known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs), recasts Augustine’s scheme of the Two Cities as the Two Churches (14). The providential view of history, with events from Creation to Last Judgement guided by God, was still widely held. Of the many universal histories written during the period the most popular was Ralegh’s History of the World. Ralegh’s frontispiece shows the all-seeing eye of Providence surveying the globe, which is supported by Magistra Vitae (the Instructress of Life, Cicero’s phrase for history), who in turn tramples on Mors and Oblivio (Death and Oblivion) (18). In the Preface Ralegh gives a prudential reason for not writing modern political history: ‘Whosoever in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out his teeth.’ Yet he also seems pessimistic about the moralistic claim of humanist historians that men can learn from history.
Renaissance historians drew on a third extremely popular historical tradition, now regarded largely as fiction: British history, or the Matter of Britain. The chief figure in the disseminating of this tradition is the twelfth-century monk Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose History of Britain narrates how the Trojan Brutus conquered Albion, renamed it Britain, and founded the city of New Troy. Britain achieved its greatest glory under Arthur, whose army swept across Europe and finally defeated the Romans in Gaul. Arthur is known to modern readers largely through medieval romance, but the chronicle tradition is more relevant to the Renaissance. We find two divergent treatments of the Matter of Britain in the sixteenth century: it is questioned as history while it flourishes as propaganda and myth. The Italian humanist historian Polydore Vergil, whose English History was dedicated to Henry VIII, denied the authenticity of the Trojan and Arthurian stories. Because of the uproar this criticism occasioned, the antiquarian William Camden was more cautious in his questioning of the material in Britannia. Yet by the time Milton wrote his History of Britain in the 1640s antiquarian research into Anglo-Saxon England had demolished the Matter of Britain as history (Milton consequently found himself unable to use Arthur as the subject of an epic). However, the Tudors consciously manipulated the material as myth. One useful British legend was the prophecy of Arthur’s second coming: he was rex quondam rexque futurus (the once and future king). The Welsh (i.e. British) Henry VII drew on this legend to support his claim to the English throne, even naming his elder son Arthur. We can see here a deliberate imitation of Virgil’s use of the legend of the Trojan Aeneas to support the political position of Augustus. Just as empire had passed from Troy to Rome, so now it passed to New Troy, London. It is important to realise that a number of possible and contradictory meanings for Rome was available in Renaissance historical thought. There was the Rome of Virgil and Augustus, whose power, so the imperialist propagandists of Spain, France and England contended, had passed to their own monarchs; there was the Rome of Augustine’s Two Cities, representing ultimately insignificant earthly government; there was the Rome seen by the Protestants, presided over by Antichrist, whose defeat would, in millenarian thought, herald the Fifth Monarchy of Christ.
In determining the use made of the various historiographical traditions in poetry, we should distinguish between historical poems which give a narrative account of specific historical events, such as the Mirror for Magistrates, Daniel’s The Civil Wars, or Drayton’s The Barons’ Wars, and poems which explore and define certain views of history, such as The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost. Spenser’s sense of the shape and meaning of history is the most complex. In making the hinge of his story Arthur’s search for Gloriana and presumably his eventual union with her, Spenser was alluding to the idea of the return of Arthur in the form of Elizabeth. The idea is reinforced by the superimposed settings of Britain and Faeryland. Spenser sets out the British and Elvish genealogies in detail in Books II x, III iii, and III ix. By his use of Tudor Arthurian propaganda with its Virgilian emphasis on prophecy and fulfilment Spenser achieves a deliberate fusion of past and present, history and myth. Yet the perspective is not simply that of the idealised Arthurian past against which the present is measured. Spenser uses the scheme of the Two Cities, but with what we might call a Roman orientation. His cities are the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly city representing Elizabeth’s London, which appears in two guises: Cleopolis, the city of glory, Gloriana’s capital, and the British Troynovant. In I x Red Cross Knight is shown the heavenly city, but taught that his present obligations are to the earthly one (15). The perspective of eternity is thus briefly introduced and then withdrawn, a reminder of what lies beyond the temporal action of the poem. This perspective is again introduced in the Mutability Cantos, when Nature defeats Mutability with two arguments: first, change means not permanent alteration but repetition and continuity; second, change will one day have an end and time will be overtaken by eternity (16).
Milton’s use of Christian history is much more confident and assertive than Spenser’s; he rejects the imperial Roman and the cyclical theories which play a large part in The Faerie Queene. Michael’s prophecy to Adam (Paradise Lost XI and XII) constitutes a universal history, leading to the Last Judgement, ‘the race of time,/Till time stand fixed’. Though human life is arduous, it is the certain knowledge of God’s eventual fulfilment of his promises that enables man to endure with patience and to make the right choices. However, it is worth noting that Milton’s sense of man’s ability to foresee the stages of God’s plan altered considerably. In the early 1640s he was strongly attracted to millenarianism, and appeared to regard the Long Parliament as precipitating the Second Coming; but the failure of the Puritan cause destroyed this view. In Paradise Regained the emphasis shifts to the inscrutability of God’s purposes (20).
Some poets explored the problem of history in a much more detached and experimental manner. Marvell in his poems on Cromwell appears to be testing views of history and their relevance to immediate situations. In ‘An Horatian Ode’ Cromwell’s rise is explained in terms that Polybius would have understood, while in The First Anniversary cyclical and millenarian views of history, with their appropriate terminology, are set against each other (19). Marvell is comparing two traditions, as Spenser does in the Mutability Cantos, but the effect is very different: Marvell is paradoxically using the Christian perspective of history for immediate political ends.
1 It may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.
Thucydides The Peloponnesian War I i
2 Fortune having guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and having forced them to incline towards one and the same end, a historian should bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose… I therefore thought it quite necessary not to leave unnoticed or allow to pass into oblivion this the finest and most beneficent of the performances of Fortune. For though she is ever producing something new and ever playing a part in the lives of men, she has not in a single instance ever accomplished such a work, ever achieved such a triumph, as in our own times [i.e. the rise of Rome].
Polybius The Histories I iv
3 There are two ways by which all men can reform themselves, the one through their own mischances, the other through those of others, and of these the former is the more impressive, but the latter the less hurtful. Therefore we should never choose the first method if we can help it, as it corrects by means of great pain and peril, but ever pursue the other, since by it we can discern what is best without suffering hurt. Reflecting on this we should regard as the best discipline for actual life the experience that accrues from serious history; for this alone makes us, without inflicting any harm on us, the most competent judges of what is best at every time and in every circumstance.
Polybius I xxxv
4 I invite the reader’s attention to the much more serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived, of who were the men, and what the means both in politics and war by which Rome’s power was first acquired and subsequently expanded; I would then have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them. The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.
Livy The History of Rome i
5 It seems to me a historian’s foremost duty to ensure that merit is recorded, and to confront evil deeds and words with the fear of posterity’s denunciations.
Tacitus Annals III lxv
6 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
……
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Psalm 90:1–2, 4
7 The interpretation of Daniel’s vision: These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.
But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.
……
…The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.
And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
But the judgement shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.
And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
Daniel 7:17–18, 23–7
8 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
Acts 1:6–7 (compare 13, 20)
9 …There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens out of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. [compare 6]
……
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
……
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
II Peter 3:3–8, 10, 13
10 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Revelation 20:1–4
11 [Advocates of the cyclical view of history] asserted that by those cycles all things in the universe have been continually renewed and repeated, in the same form, and thus there will be hereafter an unceasing sequence of ages, passing away and coming again in revolution. These cycles may take place in one continuing world, or it may be that at certain periods the world disappears and reappears, showing the same features, which appear as new, but which in fact have been in the past and will return in the future. And they are utterly unable to rescue the immortal soul from this merry-go-round, even when it has attained wisdom; it must proceed on an unremitting alternation between false bliss and genuine misery. For how can there be true bliss, without any certainty of its eternal continuance, when the soul in its ignorance does not know of the misery to come, or else unhappily fears its coming in the midst of its blessedness? But if the soul goes from misery to happiness, nevermore to return, then there is some new state of affairs in time, which will never have an end in time. If so, why cannot the same be true of the world? And of man, created in the world? And so we may escape from these false circuitous courses…
Augustine The City of God XII xiv
12 We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God, the witness of a good conscience. The earthly lifts up its head in its own glory, the Heavenly City says to its God: ‘My glory, and the lifter up of mine head’ [Psalm 3:3]. In the former, the lust for domination lords it over its princes as over the nations it subjugates; in the other both those put in authority and those subject to them serve one another in love, the rulers by their counsel, the subjects by obedience. The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God, ‘I will love thee, O Lord, my strength’ [Psalm 18: 1].
…Scripture tells us that Cain founded a city, whereas Abel, as a pilgrim, did not found one. For the City of the saints is up above, although it produces citizens here below, and in their persons the City is on pilgrimage until the time of its kingdom comes. At that time it will assemble all those citizens as they rise again in their bodies; and then they will be given the promised kingdom, where with their Prince, the king of ages, they will reign, world without end.
City of God XIV xxviii, XV i
13 Now if the epochs of history are reckoned as ‘days’, following the apparent temporal scheme of Scripture, this Sabbath period will emerge more clearly as the seventh of those epochs. The first ‘day’ is the first period, from Adam to the Flood; the second from the Flood to Abraham. Those correspond not by equality in the passage of time, but in respect of the number of generations, for there are found to be ten generations in each of those periods. From that time, in the scheme of the evangelist Matthew, there are three epochs, which take us down to the coming of Christ; one from Abraham to David, a second from David to the Exile in Babylon, and the third extending to the coming of Christ in the flesh. Thus we have a total of five periods. We are now in the sixth epoch, but that cannot be measured by the number of generations, because it is said, ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power’ [Acts 1:7; see [8]. After this present age God will rest, as it were, on the seventh day, and he will cause us, who are the seventh day, to find our rest in him.
City of God XXII xxx
14 For first to see the simple flock of Christ, especially the unlearned sort, so miserably abused, and all for ignorance of history, not knowing the course of times, and true descent of the Church, it pitied me, that part of diligence so long to have been unsupplied in this my country Church of England… Which therefore I have here taken in hand, that as other storywriters heretofore have employed their travail to magnify the Church of Rome: so in this history might appear to all Christian readers the image of both churches, as well of the one as of the other: especially of the poor oppressed and persecuted Church of Christ. Which persecuted Church though it hath been of long season trodden underfoot by enemies, neglected in the world, nor regarded in histories, and almost scarce visible or known to worldly eyes, yet hath it been the true Church only of God.
Foxe Acts and Monuments ‘A Protestation to the whole Church of England’
15 The hermit Contemplation shows Red Cross Knight the new Jerusalem and foretells his earthly and heavenly glory as St George:
‘Fair knight,’ quoth he, ‘Hierusalem that is,
The new Hierusalem, that God has built
For those to dwell in that are chosen his,
His chosen people, purged from sinful guilt
With precious blood, which cruelly was spilt
On cursed tree, of that unspotted lamb,
That for the sins of all the world was kilt:
Now are they saints all in that City sam, [i.e. together]
More dear unto their God than younglings to their dam.’
‘Till now,’ said then the knight, ‘I weenèd well,
That great Cleopolis, where I have been,
In which that fairest Faery Queene doth dwell
The fairest city was that might be seen;
And that bright tower, all built of crystal clean,
Panthea, seemed the brightest thing that was;
But now by proof all otherwise I ween,
For this great City that does far surpass,
And this bright angels’ tower quite dims that tower of glass.’
‘Most true,’ then said the holy agèd man;
‘Yet is Cleopolis, for earthly frame,
The fairest piece that eye beholden can;
And well beseems all knights of noble name,
That covet in the immortal book of fame
To be eternisèd, that same to haunt,
And doen their service to that sovereign Dame,
That glory does to them for guerdon grant;
For she is heavenly born, and heaven may justly vaunt.’
Spenser The Faerie Queene 1 x stanzas 57–9
16 Nature has over-ruled Mutability’ s arguments:
When I bethink me on that speech whilere
Of Mutability, and well it way!
Me seems, that though she all unworthy were
Of the heavens’ rule; yet, very sooth to say,
In all things else she bears the greatest sway:
Which makes me loathe this state of life so tickle,
And love of things so vain to cast away;
Whose flowering pride, so fading and so fickle,
Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.
Then gin I think on that which Nature said,
Of that same time when no more change shall be,
But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayed
Upon the pillars of Eternity,
That is contrair to Mutability;
For all that moveth doth in change delight:
But thenceforth all shall rest eternally
With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight:
O! that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth’s sight.
The Faerie Queene VII viii stanzas 1–2 (see Ch. 6.16)
17 Although to write be lesser than to do,
It is the next deed, and a great one too.
We need a man that knows the several graces
Of history, and how to apt their places;
Where brevity, where splendour, and where height,
Where sweetness is required, and where weight;
We need a man, can speak of the intents,
The counsels, actions, orders, and events
Of state, and censure them: we need his pen
Can write the things, the causes, and the men.
But most we need his faith (and all have you)
That dares nor write things false, nor hide things true.
Jonson ‘To Sir Henry Savile’ (the translator of Tacitus) Epigrams 95 ll. 25–36
18 From death and dark oblivion (near the same)
The mistress of man’s life, grave history,
Raising the world to good, or evil fame,
Doth vindicate it to eternity.
High Providence would so: that nor the good
Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways are understood
And the reward and punishment assured.
This makes, that lighted by the beamy hand
Of truth, which searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by experience, whose straight wand
Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears:
Assisted by no strengths, but are her own.
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
By which, as proper titles, she is known,
Time’s witness, herald of antiquity,
The light of truth, and life of memory.
Jonson ‘The Mind of the Front’ [ispiece] (to Ralegh’s History of the World.
The last two lines are a translation from Cicero On the Orator II ix 36)
19 Marvell tentatively casts Cromwell in a millenarian role:
Hence oft I think if in some happy hour
High grace should meet in one with highest power,
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to heaven’s will,
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a hand:
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day.
But a thick cloud about that morning lies,
And intercepts the beams of mortal eyes,
That ‘tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man.
Marvell The First Anniversary of the Government ll. 131–44
20 The Son rejects Satan’s millenarian temptation:
If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal,
And duty; zeal and duty are not slow;
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify
The prophets old, who sung thy endless reign,
The happier reign the sooner it begins,
Reign then; what canst thou better do the while?
To whom our Saviour answer thus returned.
All things are best fulfilled in their due time,
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said:
If of my reign prophetic writ hath told,
That it shall never end, so when begin
The Father in his purpose hath decreed,
He in whose hand all times and seasons roll.
Milton Paradise Regained III ll. 171–2,177–87 (compare 8)