Mitchell on Adams 03

See pp 218ff of W Fraser Mitchell on English Pulpit Oratory

The Epicure

“I would faine speake (not only of him, but) with him. Can you tend it, Belly-god? The first question of my Catechism shall be, What is your name? Epicure. Epicure? What’s that? speake not so philosophically; but tell vs in plaine dealing what are you? A louer of pleasure, more than of God. One that makes much of my selfe; borne to hue, and lining to take mine ease. ... I beleeue that delicacies, junkets, quotidian feasts, suckets and marmulads are very delectable. I beleeue that sweet wine and strong drinkes; the best blood of the grape, or sweate of the come is fittest for the belly. I beleeue that midnight reuels, perfumed chambers, soft beds, close curtaines, and a Dalilah in mine armes, are very comfortable. I beleeue that glistring silkes, and sparkling Iewels, a purse full of golden charmes, a house neatly decked, Gardens, Orchards, Fish ponds, Parkes, Warrens, and whatsouer may yeeld pleasurable stuffing to the corpse, is a very heauen upon earth. I beleeue that to sleepe till dinner, and play till supper, and quaffe till midnight, and to daily till morning; except there be some intermission to toss some paynted papers, or to whine about squared bones ... this is the most absolute and perfect end of man’s life... (The 'Workes’ 1630, pp 498-9).

The Epicure dismissed (after a decidedly fine passage on the insecurity of all human tenures), the Proud is led in. First the proud man and then the proud woman is passed in review, and once more the passage is brought to an end by a reflection on human folly in the face of death. Here,as is also the case with Smith, we find the Puritan preacher joining hands with the Elizabethan pamphleteer in a highly-coloured portrayal of sin consumed by a loathsome and vividly realised mortality. Adams’ words might come straight from ‘Christs Tears Ouer Ierusalem’ and Nashe might be the writer:

“There is mortality in the flesh, thou so deckest: and that skin which is so bepainted with artificial complexion, shall lose the beauty and it selfe. Detrahetur novissimum velamentum cutis. You that sayle betwixt heauen and earth in your foure-sail'd vessels, as if the ground were not good enough to be pavements to the soles of your feet: know that the earth shall shall one day set her foote on your neckes, and the slime of it shall defile your sulphured beauties: dust shall fill up the wrinckled furrowes, which age makes, and paint supplies. Your bodies were not made of the substance whereof the Angels; nor of the nature of the starres, nor of the matter, wherof the fire, ayre, water, and inferiour creatures. Remember your Tribe, and your fathers poore house, and the pit whereout you were hewen: Hannibal is at the gates, death stands at your dores: be not proud, be not madde: you must die.” (The 'Workes’ 1630, p 500).

Sufficient has been quoted to show that Adams’ characters shared the tendency of all English characters to be “wits descant on any plaine song,” which is precisely Overbury’s definition of this kind of writing. In 1616 Adams again produced a gallery of characters, this time following a traditional framework for such sermons, and choosing a succession of diseases paralleled by moral distempers. Each form of illness is dealt with under ‘Cause,’ ‘Signes and Symptoms,’ and ‘Curation,’ and as many ‘witty’ parallels as possible are drawn between the physical and the spiritual complaint. This series, entitled The Soules Sicknesse: A Discovrse Divine, Morall, and Physicall, closely resembled in plan ‘A Christian Heavenly Treatise, containing Physic for the Soul,’ published just then by John Abernethy, minister at Jedburgh (and afterwards Bishop of Caithness), that Adams was at pains in his Epistle to the Reader to protest that his production had been “committed to the stationers hands, passed and allowed by authority; yea ... and, perhaps, an impression sold, before that of Mr John Abernethy’s came out.” This time nineteen characters appeared - some of them the same types treated afresh - and a considerable advance is perceptible in the power of ‘witty’ delineation. Of the vain-glorious man, whose condition is compared to ‘windinesse in the stomacke’ (disease 16), we are told

“... When he rides his masters great horse out of ken, he vaunts of him as his owne, and brags how much he cost him. He feeds vpon others curtesie, others meat: and (whether more?) either fats him. At his Inne he cals for chickens at spring, and such things as cannot be had whereat angry, he sups according to his purse with a red Herring. Farre enough from knowledge, he talkes of his castle, (which is either in the ayre or inchanted). .... In his hail, you shall see an old rusty sword hung vp, which he sweares killed Glendower in the hands of his Grandsire. He fathers vpon himselfe some villanies because they are in fashion; and so vilifies his credit to aduance it. ... He is indeed admirations creature, and a circumstantiall Mountebank.” (The 'Workes’ 1630, pp 470, 471).

The other characters are drawn with equal liveliness, and it is evident that the preacher, whatever the ostensible object of his portraits, has been carried away by his own device and become the character-writer. Perhaps Adams became conscious of this, or, what is more likely, he had exhausted the range of characters which he felt equal to presenting. ...