Gryll Grange | Page 7

Oliver Cromwell.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. A very good dramatis personae. With these,
and the help of one or two Athenians and Romans, we may arrive at a
tolerable judgment on our own immeasurable superiority to everything
that has gone before us.
Before we proceed further, we will give some account of our
interlocutors.
CHAPTER II
THE SQUIRE AND HIS NIECE
FORTUNA . SPONDET . MULTA . MULTIS . PRAESTAT .
NEM1NI . VIVE . IN . DIES . ET . HORAS . NAM . PROPRIUM .
EST . NIHIL.{1} Marmor vetus apud Feam, ad Hor. Epist. i. ii, 23.
Fortune makes many promises to many, Keeps them to none. Live to
the days and hours, For nothing is your own.
Gregory Gryll, Esq., of Gryll Grange in Hampshire, on the borders of

the New Forest, in the midst of a park which was a little forest in itself,
reaching nearly to the sea, and well stocked with deer, having a large
outer tract, where a numerous light-rented and well-conditioned
tenantry fattened innumerable pigs, considering himself well located
for what he professed to be, Epicuri de grege porcus,{2} and held,
though he found it difficult to trace the pedigree, that he was lineally
descended from the ancient and illustrious Gryllus, who maintained
against Ulysses the superior happiness of the life of other animals to
that of the life of man.{3}
1 This inscription appears to consist of comic senarii, slightly
dislocated for the inscriptional purpose.
Spondet Fortuna multa multis, praestat nemini. Vive in dies et horas:
nam proprium est nihil.
2 A pig from the herd of Epicurus. The old philosophers accepted
good-humouredly the disparaging terms attached to them by their
enemies or rivals. The Epicureans acquiesced in the pig, the Cynics in
the dog, and Cleanthes was content to be called the Ass of Zeno, as
being alone capable of bearing the burthen of the Stoic philosophy.
3 Plutarch. Bruta animalia raiione uti. Gryllus in this dialogue seems to
have the best of the argument. Spenser, however, did not think.... so,
when he introduced his Gryll, in the Paradise of Acrasia, reviling Sir
Guyon's Palmer for having restored him to the human form.
Streightway he with his virtuous staff them strooke, And streight of
beasts they comely men became: Yet being men they did unmanly
looke, And stared ghastly, some for inward shame, And some for wrath
to see their captive dame: But one above the rest in speciall, That had
an hog been late, hight Grylle by name, Repyned greatly, and did him
miscall, That had from hoggish forme him brought to naturall.
Said Guyon: 'See the mind of beastly man, That hath so soon forgot the
excellence Of his creation when he life began, That now he chooseth,
with vile difference, To be a beast, and lacke intelligence.'

Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12.
In Plutarch's dialogue, Ulysses, after his own companions have been
restored to the human form, solicits Circe to restore in the same manner
any other Greeks who may be under her enchantments. Circe consents,
provided they desire it. Gryllus, endowed with speech for the purpose,
answers for all, that they had rather remain as they are; and supports the
decision by showing the greater comfort of their condition as it is, to
what it would probably be if they were again sent forth to share the
common lot of mankind. We have unfortunately only the beginning of
the dialogue, of which the greater portion has perished.
It might be seen that, to a man who traced his ancestry from the palace
of Circe, the first care would be the continuance of his ancient race; but
a wife presented to him the forethought of a perturbation of his
equanimity, which he never could bring himself to encounter. He liked
to dine well, and withal to dine quietly, and to have quiet friends at his
table, with whom he could discuss questions which might afford ample
room for pleasant conversation, and none for acrimonious dispute. He
feared that a wife would interfere with his dinner, his company, and his
after-dinner bottle of port. For the perpetuation of his name, he relied
on an orphan niece, whom he had brought up from a child, who
superintended his household, and sate at the head of his table. She was
to be his heiress, and her husband was to take his name. He left the
choice to her, but reserved to himself a veto, if he should think the
aspirant unworthy of the honourable appellation.
The young lady had too much taste, feeling, and sense to be likely to
make a choice which her uncle would not approve; but time, as it rolled
on, foreshadowed a result which the squire had not anticipated. Miss
Gryll did not seem likely to