history, but a piece of poetry; and it would sound to common ears like a
fable.' Now, as all Sir Thomas's readers must know, the most
extraordinary criticisms and comments have been made on those devout and
thankful words of his concerning himself. Dr. Samuel Johnson's were not
common ears, but even he comments on these beautiful words with a wooden-
headedness almost past belief. For, surely the thirty years of
schoolboy, and student, and opening professional life that resulted in
the production of such a masterpiece as the _Religio Medici_ was a
miracle both of God's providence and God's grace, enough to justify him
who had experienced all that in acknowledging it to God's glory and to
the unburdening of his own heart, so richly loaded with God's benefits.
And, how a man of Samuel Johnson's insight, good sense, and pious feeling
could have so missed the mark in this case, I cannot understand. All the
more that both the chapter so complained about, and the whole book to
which that chapter belongs, are full of the same thankful, devout, and
adoring sentiment. 'The world that I regard,' Sir Thomas proceeds, 'is
myself. Men that look upon my outside, and who peruse only my conditions
and my fortunes, do err in my altitude. There is surely a piece of
divinity in us all; something that was before the elements, and which
owes no homage unto the sun.' And again, 'We carry with us the wonders
we seek without us. There is all Africa and all its prodigies in us all.
We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies
wisely learns, in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece
and endless volume.' And again, 'There is another way of God's
providence full of meanders and labyrinths and obscure methods: that
serpentine and crooked line: that cryptic and involved method of His
providence which I have ever admired. Surely there are in every man's
life certain rubs, and doublings, and wrenches, which, well examined, do
prove the pure hand of God. And to be true, and to speak out my soul,
when I survey the occurrences of my own life, and call into account the