that there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of
solitariness to be embraced, which the fathers so highly commended, [1562]
Hierom, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch,
Erasmus, Stella, and others, so much magnify in their books; a paradise, a
heaven on earth, if it be used aright, good for the body, and better for
the soul: as many of those old monks used it, to divine contemplations, as
Simulus, a courtier in Adrian's time, Diocletian the emperor, retired
themselves, &c., in that sense, _Vatia solus scit vivere_, Vatia lives
alone, which the Romans were wont to say, when they commended a country
life. Or to the bettering of their knowledge, as Democritus, Cleanthes, and
those excellent philosophers have ever done, to sequester themselves from
the tumultuous world, or as in Pliny's villa Laurentana, Tully's Tusculan,
Jovius' study, that they might better _vacare studiis et Deo_, serve God,
and follow their studies. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators
were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious
houses, promiscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those
gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not
so far to have raved and raged against those fair buildings, and
everlasting monuments of our forefathers' devotion, consecrated to pious
uses; some monasteries and collegiate cells might have been well spared,
and their revenues otherwise employed, here and there one, in good towns or
cities at least, for men and women of all sorts and conditions to live in,
to sequester themselves from the cares and tumults of the world, that were
not desirous, or fit to marry; or otherwise willing to be troubled with
common affairs, and know not well where to bestow themselves, to live apart
in, for more conveniency, good education, better company sake, to follow
their studies (I say), to the perfection of arts and sciences, common good,
and as some truly devoted monks of old had done, freely and truly to serve
God. For these men are neither solitary, nor idle, as the poet made answer
to the husbandman in Aesop, that objected idleness to him; he was never so