Study Edition · Essay 8
An Antiquary
Source: Microcosmographie (1628), in Henry Morley (ed.), Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century (1891). Text from Project Gutenberg #10699. Words in [square brackets] were added after the first edition. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Earle's Microcosmographie (“a description of the little world”) is the best-loved book of characters. Here he gently mocks the antiquary, a collector of old coins, manuscripts and ruins who loves anything the more for being decayed. Nearly every sentence is a joke built on the idea that age equals value.
14 sentences: 1 simple, 10 moderate, 3 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- antiquarya collector or student of ancient objects and history
- thriftycareful to save; not wasteful
- mawthe stomach or throat of an animal
- enamouredin love with
- idolatera worshipper of idols or images
- charactersletters or inscriptions carved in stone
- abbeya monastery or its church
- shekelan ancient Hebrew coin
- cozento cheat; to trick
- relican object revered because it belonged to a saint
- contemnto despise; treat with contempt
- manuscripta handwritten book or document
- pore (on)to study closely and at length
- TullyCicero, the Roman orator (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
- charnel-housea vault where bones of the dead are stored
- discoursea long talk or lecture
- attireclothing
- breechesshort trousers fastened below the knee
- sepulchrea tomb
The Essay
He is a man strangely thrifty of time past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and stinking.1 He is one that has that unnatural disease to be enamoured of old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese), the better for being mouldy and worm-eaten.2 He is of our religion, because we say it is most ancient; and yet a broken statue would almost make him an idolater.3 A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads only those characters, where time has eaten out the letters.4 He will go you forty miles to see a saint's well or a ruined abbey; if there is but a cross or stone foot-stool in the way, he'll be considering it so long, till he forgets his journey.5 His estate consists much in shekels, and Roman coins; and he has more pictures of Cæsar, than James or Elizabeth.6 Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dung-hills, and he preserves their rags for precious relics.7 He loves no library, but where there are more spiders' volumes than authors', and looks with great admiration on the antique work of cobwebs.8 Printed books he contemns, as a novelty of this latter age, but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover is all moth-eaten, and the dust makes a parenthesis between every syllable.9 He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all), for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand.10 His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts' skins, and is a kind of charnel-house of bones extraordinary; and his discourse upon them, if you will hear him, shall last longer.11 His very attire is that which is the eldest out of fashion, [and you may pick a criticism out of his breeches.]12 He never looks upon himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity.13 His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers.14
Sentence Notes
In plain English: He is a man who hoards the past with strange care, and he treats his own stomach badly, because he brings things back up from it when they've gone completely rotten and smelly.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Being “thrifty of time past” is a brilliant way to describe someone who saves up history the way a miser saves money.
Reference & context: The metaphor: his memory is like a stomach where he stores old things, and he “regurgitates” them, like a cow chewing the cud, long after they've gone bad.
In plain English: He suffers from the unnatural condition of being in love with old age and wrinkles, and he loves everything (the way the Dutch love cheese) more the mouldier and more worm-eaten it is.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A funny, concrete comparison that sums up the whole character in one image.
Reference & context: The Dutch were famous in England for their cheese and its strong, aged varieties.
Modernized: hath → has
In plain English: He belongs to the Church of England only because we claim it is the most ancient church; yet a broken old statue would almost tempt him to worship idols.
Reference & context: History: the Church of England claimed to be a return to the original, ancient Christian church. Protestants condemned the Catholic veneration of statues as idolatry. (“Antient” is an old spelling, modernized here.)
Modernized: antient → ancient
In plain English: He greatly admires the rust and wear of old monuments, and only bothers to read inscriptions that time has half worn away.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A sharp paradox: he only values writing once it has become unreadable.
Modernized: hath → has
In plain English: He'll travel forty miles to see a holy well or a ruined abbey; and if there's so much as an old cross or stone step along the way, he'll study it so long that he forgets where he was going.
Reference & context: History: England was full of ruined abbeys after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541). Grammar: “go you forty miles” uses an old construction (the “ethical dative”) that adds a chatty tone, like “he'll go, mark you, forty miles.”
Modernized: an there be → if there is; forget → forgets
In plain English: His fortune is mostly ancient Hebrew and Roman coins, and he owns more portraits of Caesar (stamped on coins) than of King James or Queen Elizabeth (on current money).
Reference & context: The joke: his money is worthless as currency. James I (reigned 1603–1625) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603) appeared on English coins.
Modernized: hath → has
In plain English: Beggars con him by selling him mouldy junk dug out of rubbish heaps, and he keeps their old rags as if they were precious saints' relics.
In plain English: He only likes libraries where spiders have produced more than authors, and he gazes admiringly at the ancient handiwork of the cobwebs.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A compact, witty image of a neglected library.
Reference & context: Pun: “volumes” means both books and quantities of web.
In plain English: He scorns printed books as a modern novelty, but he'll study a handwritten manuscript forever, especially if its cover is moth-eaten and there's dust between every syllable.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A delightful image: the dust inserted between syllables like punctuation.
Reference & context: History: printing had reached England only about 150 years earlier (Caxton, 1476), so print still seemed “new” to a lover of the ancient.
Modernized: be → is; make → makes
In plain English: He would trade his entire collection of rare books for a single book in an original Roman binding, or six lines in Cicero's own handwriting.
Reference & context: Historical: Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), Rome's greatest orator, was known in English as “Tully.” No autograph manuscript of his survives, which is part of the joke.
In plain English: His room is usually hung with the skins of exotic animals and is a sort of storehouse of rare bones; and if you let him talk about them, his lecture will outlast the bones themselves.
Reference & context: Collectors of the time kept “cabinets of curiosities” full of natural oddities, ancestors of the modern museum.
In plain English: Even his clothes are the oldest-fashioned possible, and you could find material for a scholarly debate in his trousers.
Reference & context: The bracketed words were added in a later edition. “Criticism” here means textual scholarship: his breeches are so old they could be studied like an ancient text.
In plain English: He never takes any interest in himself until his hair goes grey, and then he's delighted to find that he himself has become an antique.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The collector finally becomes his own favourite object.
In plain English: He isn't afraid of his grave, because he is used to old tombs, and he even likes death better because it will reunite him with his ancestors, the most ancient things of all.
Reference & context: Biblical: “gathered unto his fathers” is a phrase used for death in the Old Testament, e.g. Judges 2:10.
Fun Fact
Earle's antiquary had real-life models. His contemporary Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631) built the greatest manuscript collection in England and shelved it in bookcases topped with busts of Roman emperors. That is why the only surviving manuscript of Beowulf is still catalogued as “Cotton Vitellius A.xv”: it sat on the shelf under the emperor Vitellius. In 1731 a fire swept the collection, and Beowulf survived with scorched edges, a truly “moth-eaten” manuscript any antiquary would love.