The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1859-02-03

whole "squadron5 Of authorities the
very expression he uses at the commence
ment of chapter beginning ON p. Cos of
the Histrio- -Kastir. The FOURTH squad
ron Of authorities" he says, " is the ven
cradle troope Of 70 several renowned an
cient fathers," DC Even on such a
barren subject as the unloveliness of
love-locks" he makes his margins speck-
led with more than hundred authori-
ties, all cited volume and page, as is the
case throughout the work. Milton, who
was his compeer, and did not like him,
because though reformer and republi-
can at first, he apostalized afterwards,
speaks of him, in his treatise entitled
/ TIE LihelteSt means to rcnaore UircliRgs
! out Of tie Charch, as ca late hot querist
for tythes, whom We may know by his
wits lying ever beside him in the mar
gin, to be ever beside his wits in the
| text-a fierce rc(ormer once now rank
led with contrary heat" His authori-
ties are drawn from every quarter under
heaven-sacred and proIane--legal and
theological-medcal aud metaphysical
! Cicero and ST. John, Moses and JUSTIN
an, Seneca and Isaiah, Petrarch and Sol
ONION, Mnutius Felix, Origen, Plutarch,
Lactantius, Chrysostom, Homer, Hesiod,
/ Ovid, Demoslhenes, Pindar, Virgil, and
ten thousand others all meet, cheek by
jowl, in his oddly erulite margins. Lord
Cottington would not believe one man
could write such bulky volume, and
said Prynne Z" either assisted the devil or
was assisted by him.
Though stage plays are the particular
enormity which induced him to com
mence the treatise, yet when once be-
gun he included in it every thing against
which he had an animosity. He leveled
his wrath not only against the Ubiquitous
plays, but against masks, dancing, hunt
ing, public festivals, keeping christmas,
may poles, dressing up houses with ivy,
music in general, new years gifts,
church ceremonies, affairs, images, the
the hair of men and women, perukes,
bishops, bonires, cards, all similar
games, coaches, TOBACCO, and, as the
handbills say, many other things too
numerous to mention
We had selected several passages for
publication, in order to exhibit the pecu-
liarity of his style and his arguments T.;
but as our article gives evidence Of great
er length than we at first intended, we
are compelled to omit them. He, like
the Quasqueton correspondent of the
Eagle, dislikes dancing, and the latter
probably thinks, with PRYNNE, that
/" The miserable dancer knowes not, that as
many PAGES us hce makes in dancing, 50 many
lcares he makes to hell"
With music in churches he has no
manner of patience, and besides demol-
ishing it with squadron after squadron
of authorities, he slifiiy maintains it is
not the noise of men, but rather a bleat-
ing Of brute beasts; choristers below
the tenor as it were oxen; bark coun-
I terpoint as it we're a kennel of DOGS (;
roar out Il treble like lot of bulls grunt
out base as it were a number of hogs.
He calls christmas the DEVILS christmas,
and contends Christ was Puritan. Bish-
ops he styles silk and satin divnes. and
the regular Episcopal clergy he likens TO
dumb dogs.
At the time the Wstrio- NasHr was
written, no book could be published with :
out the royal license, and Prynne found
great difficulty in getting this permit for
his. He met with number of retusals.
but finally succeeded, by gaining access
TO licenser by the name of Buckner,
chaplain TO the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. This man was puritanically in
clincd, and gave his sanction to the pam
Phtet which WAS exhibited to him. The
work, however, was seven years getting
though the press, and from pigmy pro-
portions increased TO gigantic, and from
simple brochure waxed to ponderous
quarto. Great was Prynne's JOY to see
his full grown child make its debut, but
It's appearance was signal Of persecu
ton and prosecution for himself Arch
bishop Laud, whom he had satyrized in
the work, employed one Peter Heylin TO
take excerpts from the book, and he him
self carried it to Henrietta Maria, the
wife Of Charles l., the next day after she
lad acted Ia a Pastoral, that was perform
ed at Somerset House. The consequences
may be easily surmised. Poor PRIME
was cited before the inquitous and abom-
Unable Star Chamber, and tried for libel.
The book involved the author. The nub