he did all he could to oppose the persecuting spirit of the first
Conventicle Act and of the Five Mile Act.

Dr. Philip Bliss, who died in 1857, after a life marked by many services
to English Literature, chose Bishop Earle's "Characters" for one of his
earlier studies, published in 1811, when his own age was twenty-four.
His book[2] included an account of Bishop Earle himself, a list of his
writings, publication for the first time of some of his early verses,
his correspondence with Baxter, and a Chronological List of Books of
Characters from 1567 to 1700, which was the first contribution to a
study of this feature in our Seventeenth Century Literature. Bliss took
his text of Earle from the edition of 1732, collated with the first
impression in 1628. As the Characters which now follow are given with
Bliss's text and notes, I add what the editor himself says of his
method. The variations of the 1732 text from the first impressions in
1628 are thus distinguished: "Those words or passages which have been
added since the first edition are contained between brackets_ [and
printed in the common type]; _those which have received some alteration
are printed in italic; and the passages, as they stand in the first
edition, are always given in a note."_

MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;

OR,

A PIECE OF THE WORLD CHARACTERIZED.

A CHILD

Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted
of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world
can only write this character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn
in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet
a white paper[3] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith,
at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because
he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with
misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils
to come, by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the
smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents
alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of
wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not
come to his task of melancholy. [4][All the language he speaks yet is
tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His
hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an
organ; and he is best company with it when he can