William Habington
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PEOPLE ALMOST MENTIONED IN A WEEK AND WALDEN: WILLIAM HABINGTON “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY People of A Week and Walden: William Habington “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN A WEEK: I remember a few sentences which spring like the sward in PEOPLE OF its native pasture, where its roots were never disturbed, and not A WEEK as if spread over a sandy embankment; answering to the poet’s prayer, “Let us set so just A rate on knowledge, that the world may trust The poet’s sentence, and not still aver Each art is to itself a flatterer.” WILLIAM HABINGTON HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK WALDEN: Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious PEOPLE OF passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only WALDEN great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sort; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self.– “Direct your eye sight inward, and you’ll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography.” What does Africa, –what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a North-West Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes, –with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads. What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact, that there are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.– “Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos. Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.” Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians. I have more of God, they more of the road. It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. Yet do this even till you can do better, and you may perhaps find some “Symmes’ Hole” by which to get at the inside at last. England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India. If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travellers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve. Only the defeated and deserters go to the wars, cowards that run away and enlist. Start now on that farthest western way, which does not pause at the Mississippi or the Pacific, nor conduct toward a worn-out China or Japan, but leads on direct a tangent to this sphere, summer and winter, day and night, sun down, moon down, and at last earth down too. LEWIS AND CLARK HENRY GRINNELL SYMMES HOLE HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1605 November 4, Friday: William Habington was born at Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, in a well situated English family, publicly Protestant but actually Catholic. Sir Thomas Habington, his father, had been implicated in the plots on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots and had in consequence needed to spend six years at the Tower of London; an uncle, Sir Edward Habington, had in 1586 needed to be beheaded on account of a conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I in connection with Sir Anthony Babington. HEADCHOPPING Mary Habington, his mother, had it seems been the person who had while heavily pregnant with him just HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK dictated an anonymous letter of warning (actually penned, it seems, by Mrs. Ann Vaux, perhaps in order to disguise the handwriting) to her brother Lord Monteagle, which he had received by messenger on October 26, 1605, a few days before the Gunpowder Plotters were intending to detonate the 36 ninety-pound barrels of black powder they had secreted in the basements of the Parliament, in order to send their monarch King James I toward the heavens on November 5th while he was delivering his address to the Parliament.1 The lad William Habington would be educated at Paris and Saint-Omer. He would become a poet. 1. It seems that she had not intended to deter or expose the plot, but merely to safeguard her brother: Therefore, I would advise you as you value your life, to find some excuse not to attend this Parliament. For though there is no sign of any trouble, yet I say, they shall receive a terrible blow at this Parliament, yet they shall not see who hurts them. (Lord Monteagle however showed the letter to the chief minister to King James I, Robert Cecil, and this would lead to a search of the cellars beneath Westminster and the discovery there of the kegs of gunpowder, and Guy Fawkes.) HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT People of A Week and Walden: William Habington “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 1632 In about this year William Habington got married with Lucy Herbert, 2d daughter of Sir William Herbert, 1st Baron Powis. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. People of A Week and Walden: William Habington “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:WILLIAM HABINGTON PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1634 William Habington’s CASTARA: CARMINA NON PRIUS AUDITA: MUSARUM SACERDOS VIRGINIBUS (Printed by T. Cotes for Will. Cooke), an anonymous volume of lyrical poems addressed to his wife Lucy Herbert Habington. Seldom has a mere spouse been so celebrated. Henry Thoreau would copy material into his Literary Notebook, and place it in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS: TO MY [MOſT] HONOURED FRIEND AND KINſMAN, R. ST., EſQUIRE. IT ſhall not grieve me (friend) though what I write Be held no wit at Court. If I delight So farre my ſullen Genius, as to raiſe It pleaſure; I have money, wine, and bayes Enough to crowne me Poet.... Vaine oſtentation ! Let us ſet ſo juſt A rate on knowledge, that the world may truſt The Poets Sentence, and not ſtill aver Each Art is to it ſelfe a flatterer. I write to you Sir on this theame, becauſe Your ſoule is cleare, and you obſerve the lawes, Of Poeſie ſo juſtly, that I chuſe Yours onely the example to my muſe. And till my browner haire be mixt with gray Without a bluſh, Ile tread the ſportive way, My Muſe direct ; A Poet youth may be, But age doth dote without Phiſoſophie [sic]. A WEEK: I remember a few sentences which spring like the sward in PEOPLE OF its native pasture, where its roots were never disturbed, and not A WEEK as if spread over a sandy embankment; answering to the poet’s prayer, “Let us set so just A rate on knowledge, that the world may trust The poet’s sentence, and not still aver Each art is to itself a flatterer.” WILLIAM HABINGTON WM.